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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30336-0.txt b/30336-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..617d616 --- /dev/null +++ b/30336-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10576 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30336 *** + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | + | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | + | this document. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + +VOL. II. + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + +BY + +LESLIE STEPHEN + +_NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS_ + +IN THREE VOLUMES + +VOL. II. + +LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1892 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONTENTS + +OF + +THE SECOND VOLUME + + + PAGE + +DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS 1 + +CRABBE 33 + +WILLIAM HAZLITT 67 + +DISRAELI'S NOVELS 106 + +MASSINGER 141 + +FIELDING'S NOVELS 177 + +COWPER AND ROUSSEAU 208 + +THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS 241 + +WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS 270 + +LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 308 + +MACAULAY 343 + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + + + + +_DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS_ + + +A book appeared not long ago of which it was the professed object to +give to the modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell's +immortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain from +discussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may be +made in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcome +must, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, to +say the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always mangle +some people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they may +display, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of the +great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an +intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic, +retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon +those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original, +the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There +remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but +not extinct, can be titillated by the promise that they shall not have +the trouble of making their own selection. Let us wish them good +digestions, and, in spite of modern changes of fashion, more robust +taste for the future. I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell. A man, indeed, may +be a good Christian, and an excellent father of a family, without loving +Johnson or Boswell, for a sense of humour is not one of the primary +virtues. But Boswell's is one of the very few books which, after many +years of familiarity, will still provoke a hearty laugh even in the +solitude of a study; and the laughter is of that kind which does one +good. + +I do not wish, however, to pronounce one more eulogy upon an old friend, +but to say a few words on a question which he sometimes suggests. +Macaulay's well-known but provoking essay is more than usually lavish in +overstrained paradoxes. He has explicitly declared that Boswell wrote +one of the most charming of books because he was one of the greatest of +fools. And his remarks suggest, if they do not implicitly assert, that +Johnson wrote some of the most unreadable of books, although, if not +because, he possessed one of the most vigorous intellects of the time. +Carlyle has given a sufficient explanation of the first paradox; but the +second may justify a little further inquiry. As a general rule, the talk +of a great man is the reflection of his books. Nothing is so false as +the common saying that the presence of a distinguished writer is +generally disappointing. It exemplifies a very common delusion. People +are so impressed by the disparity which sometimes occurs, that they +take the exception for the rule. It is, of course, true that a man's +verbal utterances may differ materially from his written utterances. He +may, like Addison, be shy in company; he may, like many retired +students, be slow in collecting his thoughts; or he may, like Goldsmith, +be over-anxious to shine at all hazards. But a patient observer will +even then detect the essential identity under superficial differences; +and in the majority of cases, as in that of Macaulay himself, the +talking and the writing are palpably and almost absurdly similar. The +whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who +is partially revealed to us in his spoken or his written words. Whatever +the means of communication, the problem is the same. The two methods of +inquiry may supplement each other; but their substantial agreement is +the test of their accuracy. If Johnson, as a writer, appears to us to be +a mere windbag and manufacturer of sesquipedalian verbiage, whilst, as a +talker, he appears to be one of the most genuine and deeply feeling of +men, we may be sure that our analysis has been somewhere defective. The +discrepancy is, of course, partly explained by the faults of Johnson's +style; but the explanation only removes the difficulty a degree further. +'The style is the man' is a very excellent aphorism, though some eminent +writers have lately pointed out that Buffon's original remark was_ le +style c'est de l'homme_. That only proves that, like many other good +sayings, it has been polished and brought to perfection by the process +of attrition in numerous minds, instead of being struck out at a blow by +a solitary thinker. From a purely logical point of view, Buffon may be +correct; but the very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration +which makes it more biting whilst less rigidly accurate. According to +Buffon, the style might belong to a man as an acquisition rather than to +natural growth. There are parasitical writers who, in the old phrase, +have 'formed their style,' by the imitation of accepted models, and who +have, therefore, possessed it only by right of appropriation. Boswell +has a discussion as to the writers who may have served Johnson in this +capacity. But, in fact, Johnson, like all other men of strong +idiosyncrasy, formed his style as he formed his legs. The peculiarities +of his limbs were in some degree the result of conscious efforts in +walking, swimming, and 'buffeting with his books.' This development was +doubtless more fully determined by the constitution which he brought +into the world, and the circumstances under which he was brought up. And +even that queer Johnsonese, which Macaulay supposes him to have adopted +in accordance with a more definite literary theory, will probably appear +to be the natural expression of certain innate tendencies, and of the +mental atmosphere which he breathed from youth. To appreciate fairly the +strangely cumbrous form of his written speech, we must penetrate more +deeply than may at first sight seem necessary beneath the outer rind of +this literary Behemoth. The difficulty of such spiritual dissection is, +indeed, very great; but some little light may be thrown upon the subject +by following out such indications as we possess. + +The talking Johnson is sufficiently familiar to us. So far as Boswell +needs an interpreter, Carlyle has done all that can be done. He has +concentrated and explained what is diffused, and often unconsciously +indicated in Boswell's pages. When reading Boswell, we are half ashamed +of his power over our sympathies. It is like turning over a portfolio +of sketches, caricatured, inadequate, and each giving only some +imperfect aspect of the original. Macaulay's smart paradoxes only +increase our perplexity by throwing the superficial contrasts into +stronger relief. Carlyle, with true imaginative insight, gives us at +once the essence of Johnson; he brings before our eyes the luminous body +of which we had previously been conscious only by a series of imperfect +images refracted through a number of distorting media. To render such a +service effectually is the highest triumph of criticism; and it would be +impertinent to say again in feebler language what Carlyle has expressed +so forcibly. We may, however, recall certain general conclusions by way +of preface to the problem which he has not expressly considered, how far +Johnson succeeded in expressing himself through his writings. + +The world, as Carlyle sees it, is composed, we all know, of two classes: +there are 'the dull millions, who, as a dull flock, roll hither and +thither, whithersoever they are led,' and there are a few superior +natures who can see and can will. There are, in other words, the heroes, +and those whose highest wisdom is to be hero-worshippers. Johnson's +glory is that he belonged to the sacred band, though he could not claim +within it the highest, or even a very high, rank. In the current +dialect, therefore, he was 'nowise a clothes-horse or patent digester, +but a genuine man.' Whatever the accuracy of the general doctrine, or of +certain corollaries which are drawn from it, the application to Johnson +explains one main condition of his power. Persons of colourless +imagination may hold--nor will we dispute their verdict--that Carlyle +overcharges his lights and shades, and brings his heroes into too +startling a contrast with the vulgar herd. Yet it is undeniable that +the great bulk of mankind are transmitters rather than originators of +spiritual force. Most of us are necessarily condemned to express our +thoughts in formulas which we have learnt from others and can but +slightly tinge with our feeble personality. Nor, as a rule, are we even +consistent disciples of any one school of thought. What we call our +opinions are mere bundles of incoherent formulæ, arbitrarily stitched +together because our reasoning faculties are too dull to make +inconsistency painful. Of the vast piles of books which load our +libraries, ninety-nine hundredths and more are but printed echoes: and +it is the rarest of pleasures to say, Here is a distinct record of +impressions at first hand. We commonplace beings are hurried along in +the crowd, living from hand to mouth on such slices of material and +spiritual food as happen to drift in our direction, with little more +power of taking an independent course, or of forming any general theory, +than the polyps which are carried along by an oceanic current. Ask any +man what he thinks of the world in which he is placed: whether, for +example, it is on the whole a scene of happiness or misery, and he will +either answer by some cut-and-dried fragments of what was once wisdom, +or he will confine himself to a few incoherent details. He had a good +dinner to-day and a bad toothache yesterday, and a family affliction or +blessing the day before. But he is as incapable of summing up his +impressions as an infant of performing an operation in the differential +calculus. It is as rare as it is refreshing to find a man who can stand +on his own legs and be conscious of his own feelings, who is sturdy +enough to react as well as to transmit action, and lofty enough to raise +himself above the hurrying crowd and have some distinct belief as to +whence it is coming and whither it is going. Now Johnson, as one of the +sturdiest of mankind, had the power due to a very distinct sentiment, if +not to a very clear theory, about the world in which he lived. It had +buffeted him severely enough, and he had formed a decisive estimate of +its value. He was no man to be put off with mere phrases in place of +opinions, or to accept doctrines which were not capable of expressing +genuine emotion. To this it must be added that his emotions were as deep +and tender as they were genuine. How sacred was his love for his old and +ugly wife; how warm his sympathy wherever it could be effective; how +manly the self-respect with which he guarded his dignity through all the +temptations of Grub Street, need not be once more pointed out. Perhaps, +however, it is worth while to notice the extreme rarity of such +qualities. Many people, we think, love their fathers. Fortunately, that +is true; but in how many people is filial affection strong enough to +overpower the dread of eccentricity? How many men would have been +capable of doing penance in Uttoxeter market years after their father's +death for a long-passed act of disobedience? Most of us, again, would +have a temporary emotion of pity for an outcast lying helplessly in the +street. We should call the police, or send her in a cab to the +workhouse, or, at least, write to the _Times_ to denounce the defective +arrangements of public charity. But it is perhaps better not to ask how +many good Samaritans would take her on their shoulders to their own +homes, care for her wants, and put her into a better way of life. + +In the lives of most eminent men we find much good feeling and +honourable conduct; but it is an exception, even in the case of good +men, when we find that a life has been shaped by other than the ordinary +conventions, or that emotions have dared to overflow the well-worn +channels of respectability. The love which we feel for Johnson is due +to the fact that the pivots upon which his life turned are invariably +noble motives, and not mere obedience to custom. More than one modern +writer has expressed a fraternal affection for Addison, and it is +justified by the kindly humour which breathes through his 'Essays.' But +what anecdote of that most decorous and successful person touches our +hearts or has the heroic ring of Johnson's wrestlings with adverse +fortune? Addison showed how a Christian could die--when his life has run +smoothly through pleasant places, secretaryships of state, and marriages +with countesses, and when nothing--except a few overdoses of port +wine--has shaken his nerves or ruffled his temper. A far deeper emotion +rises at the deathbed of the rugged old pilgrim, who has fought his way +to peace in spite of troubles within and without, who has been jeered in +Vanity Fair and has descended into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, +and escaped with pain and difficulty from the clutches of Giant Despair. +When the last feelings of such a man are tender, solemn, and simple, we +feel ourselves in a higher presence than that of an amiable gentleman +who simply died, as he lived, with consummate decorum. + +On turning, however, from Johnson's life to his writings, from Boswell +to the 'Rambler,' it must be admitted that the shock is trying to our +nerves. The 'Rambler' has, indeed, high merits. The impression which it +made upon his own generation proves the fact; for the reputation, +however temporary, was not won by a concession to the fashions of the +day, but to the influence of a strong judgment uttering itself through +uncouth forms. The melancholy which colours its pages is the melancholy +of a noble nature. The tone of thought reminds us of Bishop Butler, +whose writings, defaced by a style even more tiresome, though less +pompous than Johnson's, have owed their enduring reputation to a +philosophical acuteness in which Johnson was certainly very deficient. +Both of these great men, however, impress us by their deep sense of the +evils under which humanity suffers, and their rejection of the +superficial optimism of the day. Butler's sadness, undoubtedly, is that +of a recluse, and Johnson's that of a man of the world; but the +sentiment is fundamentally the same. It may be added, too, that here, as +elsewhere, Johnson speaks with the sincerity of a man drawing upon his +own experience. He announces himself as a scholar thrust out upon the +world rather by necessity than choice; and a large proportion of the +papers dwell upon the various sufferings of the literary class. Nobody +could speak more feelingly of those sufferings, as no one had a closer +personal acquaintance with them. But allowing to Johnson whatever credit +is due to the man who performs one more variation on the old theme, +_Vanitas vanitatum_, we must in candour admit that the 'Rambler' has the +one unpardonable fault: it is unreadable. + +What an amazing turn it shows for commonplaces! That life is short, that +marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men +are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, +that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from +detraction;--these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon +which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. +Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an +unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no man from this time,' is the comment in +one of his stories, 'suffer his felicity to depend on the death of his +aunt.' Every actor, of course, uses the same dialect. A gay young +gentleman tells us that he used to amuse his companions by giving them +notice of his friends' oddities. 'Every man,' he says, 'has some +habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which +never fails to excite mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By +premonition of these particularities, I secured our pleasantry.' The +feminine characters, Flirtillas, and Cleoras, and Euphelias, and +Penthesileas, are, if possible, still more grotesque. Macaulay remarks +that he wears the petticoat with as ill a grace as Falstaff himself. The +reader, he thinks, will cry out with Sir Hugh, 'I like not when a 'oman +has a great peard! I spy a great peard under her muffler.' Oddly enough +Johnson gives the very same quotation; and goes on to warn his supposed +correspondents that Phyllis must send no more letters from the Horse +Guards; and that Belinda must 'resign her pretensions to female elegance +till she has lived three weeks without hearing the politics of Button's +Coffee House.' The Doctor was probably sensible enough of his own +defects. And yet there is a still more wearisome set of articles. In +emulation of the precedent set by Addison, Johnson indulges in the +dreariest of allegories. Criticism, we are told, was the eldest daughter +of Labour and Truth, but at last resigned in favour of Time, and left +Prejudice and False Taste to reign in company with Fraud and Mischief. +Then we have the genealogy of Wit and Learning, and of Satire, the Son +of Wit and Malice, and an account of their various quarrels, and the +decision of Jupiter. Neither are the histories of such semi-allegorical +personages as Almamoulin, the son of Nouradin, or of Anningait and Ayut, +the Greenland lovers, much more refreshing to modern readers. That +Johnson possessed humour of no mean order, we know from Boswell; but no +critic could have divined his power from the clumsy gambols in which he +occasionally recreates himself. Perhaps his happiest effort is a +dissertation upon the advantage of living in garrets; but the humour +struggles and gasps dreadfully under the weight of words. 'There are,' +he says, 'some who would continue blockheads' (the Alpine Club was not +yet founded), 'even on the summit of the Andes or the Peak of Teneriffe. +But let not any man be considered as unimprovable till this potent +remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was found to be great only in a +garret, as the joiner of Aretæus was rational in no other place but his +own shop.' + +How could a man of real power write such unendurable stuff? Or how, +indeed, could any man come to embody his thoughts in the style of which +one other sentence will be a sufficient example? As it is afterwards +nearly repeated, it may be supposed to have struck his fancy. The +remarks of the philosophers who denounce temerity are, he says, 'too +just to be disputed and too salutary to be rejected; but there is +likewise some danger lest timorous prudence should be inculcated till +courage and enterprise are wholly repressed and the mind congested in +perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.' Is +there not some danger, we ask, that the mind will be benumbed into +perpetual torpidity by the influence of this soporific sapience? It is +still true, however, that this Johnsonese, so often burlesqued and +ridiculed, was, as far as we can judge, a genuine product. Macaulay says +that it is more offensive than the mannerism of Milton or Burke, because +it is a mannerism adopted on principle and sustained by constant effort. +Facts do not confirm the theory. Milton's prose style seems to be the +result of a conscious effort to run English into classical moulds. +Burke's mannerism does not appear in his early writings, and we can +trace its development from the imitation of Bolingbroke to the last +declamation against the Revolution. But Johnson seems to have written +Johnsonese from his cradle. In his first original composition, the +preface to Father Lobo's 'Abyssinia,' the style is as distinctive as in +the 'Rambler.' The Parliamentary reports in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' +make Pitt and Fox[1] express sentiments which are probably their own in +language which is as unmistakably Johnson's. It is clear that his style, +good or bad, was the same from his earliest efforts. It is only in his +last book, the 'Lives of the Poets,' that the mannerism, though equally +marked, is so far subdued as to be tolerable. What he himself called his +habit of using 'too big words and too many of them' was no affectation, +but as much the result of his special idiosyncrasy as his queer +gruntings and twitchings. Sir Joshua Reynolds indeed maintained, and we +may believe so attentive an observer, that his strange physical +contortions were the result of bad habit, not of actual disease. +Johnson, he said, could sit as still as other people when his attention +was called to it. And possibly, if he had tried, he might have avoided +the fault of making 'little fishes talk like whales.' But how did the +bad habits arise? According to Boswell, Johnson professed to have +'formed his style' partly upon Sir W. Temple, and on 'Chambers's +Proposal for his Dictionary.' The statement was obviously +misinterpreted: but there is a glimmering of truth in the theory that +the 'style was formed'--so far as those words have any meaning--on the +'giants of the seventeenth century,' and especially upon Sir Thomas +Browne. Johnson's taste, in fact, had led him to the study of writers +in many ways congenial to him. His favourite book, as we know, was +Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' The pedantry of the older school did +not repel him; the weighty thought rightly attracted him; and the more +complex structure of sentence was perhaps a pleasant contrast to an ear +saturated with the Gallicised neatness of Addison and Pope. Unluckily, +the secret of the old majestic cadence was hopelessly lost. Johnson, +though spiritually akin to the giants, was the firmest ally and subject +of the dwarfish dynasty which supplanted them. The very faculty of +hearing seems to change in obedience to some mysterious law at different +stages of intellectual development; and that which to one generation is +delicious music is to another a mere droning of bagpipes or the grinding +of monotonous barrel-organs. + +Assuming that a man can find perfect satisfaction in the versification +of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that +'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in +blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout +the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid +satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of +alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more +or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work +with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's +harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was +'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for +'lavishing much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.' Moreover, +the poor man did his best by introducing sounding proper names, even +when they 'added little music to his poem:' an example of this feeble, +though well-meant expedient, being the passage about the moon, which-- + + The Tuscan artist views, + At evening, from the top of Fiesole + Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, &c. + +This profanity passed at the time for orthodoxy. But the misfortune was, +that Johnson, unhesitatingly subscribing to the rules of Queen Anne's +critics, is always instinctively feeling after the grander effects of +the old school. Nature prompts him to the stateliness of Milton, whilst +Art orders him to deal out long and short syllables alternately, and to +make them up in parcels of ten, and then tie the parcels together in +pairs by the help of a rhyme. The natural utterance of a man of strong +perceptions, but of unwieldy intellect, of a melancholy temperament, and +capable of very deep, but not vivacious emotions, would be in stately +and elaborate phrases. His style was not more distinctly a work of art +than the style of Browne or Milton, but, unluckily, it was a work of bad +art. He had the misfortune, not so rare as it may sound, to be born in +the wrong century; and is, therefore, a giant in fetters; the amplitude +of stride is still there, but it is checked into mechanical regularity. +A similar phenomenon is observable in other writers of the time. The +blank verse of Young, for example, is generally set to Pope's tune with +the omission of the rhymes, whilst Thomson, revolting more or less +consciously against the canons of his time, too often falls into mere +pompous mouthing. Shaftesbury, in the previous generation, trying to +write poetical prose, becomes as pedantic as Johnson, though in a +different style; and Gibbon's mannerism is a familiar example of a +similar escape from a monotonous simplicity into awkward complexity. +Such writers are like men who have been chilled by what Johnson would +call the 'frigorifick' influence of the classicism of their fathers, and +whose numbed limbs move stiffly and awkwardly in a first attempt to +regain the old liberty. The form, too, of the 'Rambler' is unfortunate. +Johnson has always Addison before his eyes; to whom it was formerly the +fashion to compare him for the same excellent reason which has recently +suggested comparisons between Dickens and Thackeray--namely, that their +works were published in the same external shape. Unluckily, Johnson gave +too much excuse for the comparison by really imitating Addison. He has +to make allegories, and to give lively sketches of feminine +peculiarities, and to ridicule social foibles of which he was, at most, +a distant observer. The inevitable consequence is, that though here and +there we catch a glimpse of the genuine man, we are, generally, too much +provoked by the awkwardness of his costume to be capable of enjoying, or +even reading him. + +In many of his writings, however, Johnson manages, almost entirely, to +throw off these impediments. In his deep capacity for sympathy and +reverence, we recognise some of the elements that go to the making of a +poet. He is always a man of intuitions rather than of discursive +intellect; often keen of vision, though wanting in analytical power. For +poetry, indeed, as it is often understood now, or even as it was +understood by Pope, he had little enough qualification. He had not the +intellectual vivacity implied in the marvellously neat workmanship of +Pope, and still less the delight in all natural and artistic beauty +which we generally take to be essential to poetic excellence. His +contempt for 'Lycidas' is sufficiently significant upon that head. Still +more characteristic is the incapacity to understand Spenser, which +comes out incidentally in his remarks upon some of those imitations, +which even in the middle of the eighteenth century showed that +sensibility to the purest form of poetry was not by any means extinct +amongst us. But there is a poetry, though we sometimes seem to forget +it, which is the natural expression of deep moral sentiment; and of this +Johnson has written enough to reveal very genuine power. The touching +verses upon the death of Levett are almost as pathetic as Cowper; and +fragments of the two imitations of Juvenal have struck deep enough to be +not quite forgotten. We still quote the lines about pointing a moral and +adorning a tale, which conclude a really noble passage. We are too often +reminded of his melancholy musings over the + + Fears of the brave and follies of the wise, + +and a few of the concluding lines of the 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' in +which he answers the question whether man must of necessity + + Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate, + +in helplessness and ignorance, may have something of a familiar ring. We +are to give thanks, he says, + + For love, which scarce collective man can fill; + For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill; + For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, + Counts death kind nature's signal for retreat; + These goods for man, the laws of heaven ordain, + These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain, + With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, + And makes the happiness she does not find. + +These lines, and many others which might be quoted, are noble in +expression, as well as lofty and tender in feeling. Johnson, like +Wordsworth, or even more deeply than Wordsworth, had felt all the +'heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world;' and, +though he stumbles a little in the narrow limits of his versification, +he bears himself nobly, and manages to put his heart into his poetry. +Coleridge's paraphrase of the well-known lines, 'Let observation with +extensive observation, observe mankind from China to Peru,' would +prevent us from saying that he had thrown off his verbiage. He has not +the felicity of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' though he wrote one of the best +couplets in that admirable poem; but his ponderous lines show genuine +vigour, and can be excluded from poetry only by the help of an arbitrary +classification. + +The fullest expression, however, of Johnson's feeling is undoubtedly to +be found in 'Rasselas.' The inevitable comparison with Voltaire's +'Candide,' which, by an odd coincidence, appeared almost simultaneously, +suggests some curious reflections. The resemblance between the moral of +the two books is so strong that, as Johnson remarked, it would have been +difficult not to suppose that one had given a hint to the other but for +the chronological difficulty. The contrast, indeed, is as marked as the +likeness. 'Candide' is not adapted for family reading, whereas +'Rasselas' might be a textbook for young ladies studying English in a +convent. 'Candide' is a marvel of clearness and vivacity; whereas to +read 'Rasselas' is about as exhilarating as to wade knee-deep through a +sandy desert. Voltaire and Johnson, however, the great sceptic and the +last of the true old Tories, coincide pretty well in their view of the +world, and in the remedy which they suggest. The world is, they agree, +full of misery, and the optimism which would deny the reality of the +misery is childish. _Il faut cultiver notre jardin_ is the last word of +'Candide,' and Johnson's teaching, both here and elsewhere, may be +summed up in the words 'Work, and don't whine.' It need not be +considered here, nor, perhaps, is it quite plain, what speculative +conclusions Voltaire meant to be drawn from his teaching. The +peculiarity of Johnson is, that he is apparently indifferent to any such +conclusion. A dogmatic assertion, that the world is on the whole a scene +of misery, may be pressed into the service of different philosophies. +Johnson asserted the opinion resolutely, both in writing and in +conversation, but apparently never troubled himself with any inferences +but such as have a directly practical tendency. He was no +'speculatist'--a word which now strikes us as having an American twang, +but which was familiar to the lexicographer. His only excursion to the +borders of such regions was in the very forcible review of Soane Jenyns, +who had made a jaunty attempt to explain the origin of evil by the help +of a few of Pope's epigrams. Johnson's sledge-hammer smashes his flimsy +platitudes to pieces with an energy too good for such a foe. For +speculation, properly so called, there was no need. The review, like +'Rasselas,' is simply a vigorous protest against the popular attempt to +make things pleasant by a feeble dilution of the most watery kind of +popular teaching. He has no trouble in remarking that the evils of +poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that +there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered +consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country +gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it +was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks +facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he +tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in +denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the +papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue to a +comedy with the words-- + + Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind + Surveys the general toil of human kind. + +In the 'Life of Savage' he makes the common remark that the lives of +many of the greatest teachers of mankind have been miserable. The +explanation to which he inclines is that they have not been more +miserable than their neighbours, but that their misery has been more +conspicuous. His melancholy view of life may have been caused simply by +his unfortunate constitution; for everybody sees in the disease of his +own liver a disorder of the universe; but it was also intensified by the +natural reaction of a powerful nature against the fluent optimism of the +time, which expressed itself in Pope's aphorism, Whatever is, is right. +The strongest men of the time revolted against that attempt to cure a +deep-seated disease by a few fine speeches. The form taken by Johnson's +revolt is characteristic. His nature was too tender and too manly to +incline to Swift's misanthropy. Men might be wretched, but he would not +therefore revile them as filthy Yahoos. He was too reverent and cared +too little for abstract thought to share the scepticism of Voltaire. In +this miserable world the one worthy object of ambition is to do one's +duty, and the one consolation deserving the name is to be found in +religion. That Johnson's religious opinions sometimes took the form of +rather grotesque superstition may be true; and it is easy enough to +ridicule some of its manifestations. He took the creed of his day +without much examination of the evidence upon which its dogmas rested; +but a writer must be thoughtless indeed who should be more inclined to +laugh at his superficial oddities, than to admire the reverent spirit +and the brave self-respect with which he struggled through a painful +life. The protest of 'Rasselas' against optimism is therefore widely +different from the protest of Voltaire. The deep and genuine feeling of +the Frenchman is concealed under smart assaults upon the dogmas of +popular theology; the Englishman desires to impress upon us the futility +of all human enjoyments, with a view to deepen the solemnity of our +habitual tone of thought. It is true, indeed, that the evil is dwelt +upon more forcibly than the remedy. The book is all the more impressive. +We are almost appalled by the gloomy strength which sees so forcibly the +misery of the world and rejects so unequivocally all the palliatives of +sentiment and philosophy. The melancholy is intensified by the ponderous +style, which suggests a man weary of a heavy burden. The air seems to be +filled with what Johnson once called 'inspissated gloom.' 'Rasselas,' +one may say, has a narrow escape of being a great book, though it is ill +calculated for the hasty readers of to-day. Indeed, the defects are +serious enough. The class of writing to which it belongs demands a +certain dramatic picturesqueness to point the moral effectively. Not +only the long-winded sentences, but the slow evolution of thought and +the deliberation with which he works out his pictures of misery, make +the general effect dull beside such books as 'Candide' or 'Gulliver's +Travels.' A touch of epigrammatic exaggeration is very much needed; and +yet anybody who has the courage to read it through will admit that +Johnson is not an unworthy guide into those gloomy regions of +imagination which we all visit sometimes, and which it is as well to +visit in good company. + +After his fashion, Johnson is a fair representative of Greatheart. His +melancholy is distinguished from that of feebler men by the strength of +the conviction that 'it will do no good to whine.' We know his view of +the great prophet of the Revolutionary school. 'Rousseau,' he said, to +Boswell's astonishment, 'is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a +sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from +the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in +the plantations.' That is a fine specimen of the good Johnsonese +prejudices of which we hear so much; and, of course, it is easy to infer +that Johnson was an ignorant bigot, who had not in any degree taken the +measure of the great moving forces of his time. Nothing, indeed, can be +truer than that Johnson cared very little for the new gospel of the +rights of man. His truly British contempt for all such fancies ('for +anything I see,' he once said, 'foreigners are fools') is one of his +strongest characteristics. Now, Rousseau and his like took a view of the +world as it was quite as melancholy as Johnson's. They inferred that it +ought to be turned upside down, assured that the millennium would begin +as soon as a few revolutionary dogmas were accepted. All their remedies +appeared to the excellent Doctor as so much of that cant of which it was +a man's first duty to clear his mind. The evils of life were far too +deeply seated to be caused or cured by kings or demagogues. One of the +most popular commonplaces of the day was the mischief of luxury. That we +were all on the high road to ruin on account of our wealth, our +corruption, and the growth of the national debt, was the text of any +number of political agitators. The whole of this talk was, to his mind, +so much whining and cant. Luxury did no harm, and the mass of the +people, as indeed was in one sense obvious enough, had only too little +of it. The pet 'state of nature' of theorists was a silly figment. The +genuine savage was little better than an animal; and a savage woman, +whose contempt for civilised life had prompted her to escape to the +forest, was simply a 'speaking cat.' The natural equality of mankind was +mere moonshine. So far is it from being true, he says, that no two +people can be together for half an hour without one acquiring an evident +superiority over the other. Subordination is an essential element of +human happiness. A Whig stinks in his nostrils because to his eye modern +Whiggism is 'a negation of all principles.' As he said of Priestley's +writings, it unsettles everything and settles nothing. 'He is a cursed +Whig, a _bottomless_ Whig as they all are now,' was his description +apparently of Burke. Order, in fact, is a vital necessity; what +particular form it may take matters comparatively little; and therefore +all revolutionary dogmas were chimerical as an attack upon the +inevitable conditions of life, and mischievous so far as productive of +useless discontent. We need not ask what mixture of truth and falsehood +there may be in these principles. Of course, a Radical, or even a +respectable Whig, like Macaulay, who believed in the magical efficacy of +the British Constitution, might shriek or laugh at such doctrine. +Johnson's political pamphlets, besides the defects natural to a writer +who was only a politician by accident, advocate the most retrograde +doctrines. Nobody at the present day thinks that the Stamp Act was an +admirable or justifiable measure; or would approve of telling the +Americans that they ought to have been grateful for their long exemption +instead of indignant at the imposition. 'We do not put a calf into the +plough; we wait till he is an ox'--was not a judicious taunt. He was +utterly wrong; and, if everybody who is utterly wrong in a political +controversy deserves unmixed contempt, there is no more to be said for +him. We might indeed argue that Johnson was in some ways entitled to the +sympathy of enlightened people. His hatred of the Americans was +complicated by his hatred of slave-owners. He anticipated Lincoln in +proposing the emancipation of the negroes as a military measure. His +uniform hatred for the slave trade scandalised poor Boswell, who held +that its abolition would be equivalent to 'shutting the gates of mercy +on mankind.' His language about the blundering tyranny of the English +rule in Ireland would satisfy Mr. Froude, though he would hardly have +loved a Home Ruler. He denounces the frequency of capital punishment and +the harshness of imprisonment for debt, and he invokes a compassionate +treatment of the outcasts of our streets as warmly as the more +sentimental Goldsmith. His conservatism may be at times obtuse, but it +is never of the cynical variety. He hates cruelty and injustice as +righteously as he hates anarchy. Indeed, Johnson's contempt for mouthing +agitators of the Wilkes and Junius variety is one which may be shared by +most thinkers who would not accept his principles. There is a vigorous +passage in the 'False Alarm' which is scarcely unjust to the patriots of +the day. He describes the mode in which petitions are generally got up. +They are sent from town to town, and the people flock to see what is to +be sent to the king. 'One man signs because he hates the Papists; +another because he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes; one because +it will vex the parson; another because he owes his landlord nothing; +one because he is rich; another because he is poor; one to show that he +is not afraid, and another to show that he can write.' The people, he +thinks, are as well off as they are likely to be under any form of +government; and grievances about general warrants or the rights of +juries in libel cases are not really felt so long as they have enough to +eat and drink and wear. The error, we may probably say, was less in the +contempt for a very shallow agitation than in the want of perception +that deeper causes of discontent were accumulating in the background. +Wilkes in himself was a worthless demagogue; but Wilkes was the straw +carried by the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment, to which Johnson +was entirely blind. Yet whatever we may think of his political +philosophy, the value of these solid sturdy prejudices is undeniable. To +the fact that Johnson was the typical representative of a large class of +Englishmen, we owe it that the Society of Rights did not develop into a +Jacobin Club. The fine phrases on which Frenchmen became intoxicated +never turned the heads of men impervious to abstract theories and +incapable of dropping substances for shadows. There are evils in each +temperament; but it is as well that some men should carry into politics +that rooted contempt for whining which lay so deep in Johnson's nature. +He scorned the sickliness of the Rousseau school as, in spite of his +constitutional melancholy, he scorned valetudinarianism whether of the +bodily or the spiritual order. He saw evil enough in the world to be +heartily, at times too roughly, impatient of all fine ladies who made a +luxury of grief or of demagogues who shrieked about theoretical +grievances which did not sensibly affect the happiness of one man in a +thousand. The lady would not have time to nurse her sorrows if she had +been a washerwoman; the grievances with which the demagogues yelled +themselves hoarse could hardly be distinguished amidst the sorrows of +the vast majority condemned to keep starvation at bay by unceasing +labour. His incapacity for speculation makes his pamphlets worthless +beside Burke's philosophical discourses; but the treatment, if wrong and +defective on the theoretical side, is never contemptible. Here, as +elsewhere, he judges by his intuitive aversions. He rejects too hastily +whatever seems insipid or ill-flavoured to his spiritual appetite. Like +all the shrewd and sensible part of mankind he condemns as mere +moonshine what may be really the first faint dawn of a new daylight. But +then his intuitions are noble, and his fundamental belief is the vital +importance of order, of religion, and of morality, coupled with a +profound conviction, surely not erroneous, that the chief sources of +human suffering lie far deeper than any of the remedies proposed by +constitution-mongers and fluent theorists. The literary version of these +prejudices or principles is given most explicitly in the 'Lives of the +Poets'--the book which is now the most readable of Johnson's +performances, and which most frequently recalls his conversational +style. Indeed, it is a thoroughly admirable book, and but for one or two +defects might enjoy a much more decided popularity. It is full of shrewd +sense and righteous as well as keen estimates of men and things. The +'Life of Savage,' written in earlier times, is the best existing +portrait of that large class of authors who, in Johnson's phrase, 'hung +loose upon society' in the days of the Georges. The Lives of Pope, +Dryden, and others have scarcely been superseded, though much fuller +information has since come to light; and they are all well worth +reading. But the criticism, like the politics, is woefully out of date. +Johnson's division between the shams and the realities deserves all +respect in both cases, but in both cases he puts many things on the +wrong side of the dividing line. His hearty contempt for sham pastorals +and sham love-poetry will be probably shared by modern readers. 'Who +will hear of sheep and goats and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets +through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of +literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be for the most +part thrown away as men grow wise and nations grow learned.' But +elsewhere he blunders into terrible misapprehensions. Where he errs by +simply repeating the accepted rules of the Pope school, he for once +talks mere second-hand nonsense. But his independent judgments are +interesting even when erroneous. His unlucky assault upon 'Lycidas,' +already noticed, is generally dismissed with a pitying shrug of the +shoulders. 'Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and Æolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can +less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a +shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone; how +one god asks another god what has become of Lycidas, and how neither god +can tell. He who thus grieves can excite no sympathy; he who thus +praises will confer no honour.' + +Of course every tyro in criticism has his answer ready; he can discourse +about the æsthetic tendencies of the _Renaissance_ period, and explain +the necessity of placing one's self at a writer's point of view, and +entering into the spirit of the time. He will add, perhaps, that +'Lycidas' is a test of poetical feeling, and that he who does not +appreciate its exquisite melody has no music in his soul. The same +writer who will tell us all this, and doubtless with perfect truth, +would probably have adopted Pope or Johnson's theory with equal +confidence if he had lived in the last century. 'Lycidas' repelled +Johnson by incongruities, which, from his point of view, were certainly +offensive. Most modern readers, I will venture to suggest, feel the same +annoyances, though they have not the courage to avow them freely. If +poetry is to be judged exclusively by the simplicity and force with +which it expresses sincere emotion, 'Lycidas' would hardly convince us +of Milton's profound sorrow for the death of King, and must be condemned +accordingly. To the purely pictorial or musical effects of a poem +Johnson was nearly blind; but that need not suggest a doubt as to the +sincerity of his love for the poetry which came within the range of his +own sympathies. Every critic is in effect criticising himself as well as +his author; and I confess that to my mind an obviously sincere record of +impressions, however one-sided they may be, is infinitely refreshing, as +revealing at least the honesty of the writer. The ordinary run of +criticism generally implies nothing but the extreme desire of the author +to show that he is open to the very last new literary fashion. I should +welcome a good assault upon Shakespeare which was not prompted by a love +of singularity; and there are half-a-dozen popular idols--I have not the +courage to name them--a genuine attack upon whom I could witness with +entire equanimity, not to say some complacency. If Johnson's blunder in +this case implied sheer stupidity, one can only say that honest +stupidity is a much better thing than clever insincerity or fluent +repetition of second-hand dogmas. But, in fact, this dislike of +'Lycidas,' and a good many instances of critical incapacity might be +added, is merely a misapplication of a very sound principle. The hatred +of cant and humbug and affectation of all vanity is a most salutary +ingredient even in poetical criticism. Johnson, with his natural +ignorance of that historical method, the exaltation of which threatens +to become a part of our contemporary cant, made the pardonable blunder +of supposing that what would have been gross affectation in Gray must +have been affectation in Milton. His ear had been too much corrupted by +the contemporary school to enable him to recognise beauties which would +even have shone through some conscious affectation. He had the rare +courage--for, even then, Milton was one of the tabooed poets--to say +what he thought as forcibly as he could say it; and he has suffered the +natural punishment of plain speaking. It must, of course, be admitted +that a book embodying such principles is doomed to become more or less +obsolete, like his political pamphlets. And yet, as significant of the +writer's own character, as containing many passages of sound judgment, +expressed in forcible language, it is still, if not a great book, really +impressive within the limits of its capacity. + +After this imperfect survey of Johnson's writings, it only remains to be +noticed that all the most prominent peculiarities are the very same +which give interest to his spoken utterances. The doctrine is the same, +though the preacher's manner has changed. His melancholy is not so +heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of +excitement; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and +unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts +into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. His hearty love of +truth, and uncompromising hatred of cant in all its innumerable +transmutations, prompt half his most characteristic sayings. His queer +prejudices take a humorous form, and give a delightful zest to his +conversation. His contempt for abstract speculation comes out when he +vanquishes Berkeley, not with a grin, but by 'striking his foot with +mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem +to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous +thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down +with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they +compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions +of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous +rather than witty. He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that +all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. As +Boswell says, he is through your body in an instant without any +preliminary parade; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill +of fence. 'We know we are free and there's an end of it,' is his +characteristic summary of a perplexed bit of metaphysics; and he would +evidently have no patience to wander through the labyrinths in which men +like Jonathan Edwards delighted to perplex themselves. We should have +been glad to see a fuller report of one of those conversations in which +Burke 'wound into a subject like a serpent,' and contrast his method +with Johnson's downright hitting. Boswell had not the power, even if he +had the will, to give an adequate account of such a 'wit combat.' + +That such a mind should express itself most forcibly in speech is +intelligible enough. Conversation was to him not merely a contest, but a +means of escape from himself. 'I may be cracking my joke,' he said to +Boswell,'and cursing the sun: Sun, how I hate thy beams!' The phrase +sounds exaggerated, but it was apparently his settled conviction that +the only remedy for melancholy, except indeed the religious remedy, was +in hard work or in the rapture of conversational strife. His little +circle of friends called forth his humour as the House of Commons +excited Chatham's eloquence; and both of them were inclined to mouth too +much when deprived of the necessary stimulus. Chatham's set speeches +were as pompous as Johnson's deliberate writing. Johnson and Chatham +resemble the chemical bodies which acquire entirely new properties when +raised beyond a certain degree of temperature. Indeed, we frequently +meet touches of the conversational Johnson in his controversial writing. +'Taxation no Tyranny' is at moments almost as pithy as Swift, though the +style is never so simple. The celebrated Letter to Chesterfield, and the +letter in which he tells MacPherson that he will not be 'deterred from +detecting what he thinks a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian,' are as +good specimens of the smashing repartee as anything in Boswell's +reports. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often +as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous +phrases into simple words without losing some of their meaning. The +structure of the sentences is compact, though they are too elaborately +balanced and stuffed with superfluous antitheses. The language might be +simpler, but it is not a mere sham aggregation of words. His written +style, however faulty in other respects, is neither slipshod nor +ambiguous, and passes into his conversational style by imperceptible +degrees. The radical identity is intelligible, though the superficial +contrast is certainly curious. We may perhaps say that his century, +unfavourable to him as a writer, gave just what he required for talking. +If, as is sometimes said, the art of conversation is disappearing, it is +because society has become too large and diffuse. The good talker, as +indeed the good artist of every kind, depends upon the tacit +co-operation of the social medium. The chorus, as Johnson has himself +shown very well in one of the 'Ramblers,' is quite as essential as the +main performer. Nobody talks well in London, because everybody has +constantly to meet a fresh set of interlocutors, and is as much put out +as a musician who has to be always learning a new instrument. A literary +dictator has ceased to be a possibility, so far as direct personal +influence is concerned. In the club, Johnson knew how every blow would +tell, and in the rapid thrust and parry dropped the heavy style which +muffled his utterances in print. He had to deal with concrete +illustrations, instead of expanding into platitudinous generalities. The +obsolete theories which impair the value of his criticism and his +politics, become amusing in the form of pithy sayings, though they weary +us when asserted in formal expositions. His greatest literary effort, +the 'Dictionary,' has of necessity become antiquated in use, and, in +spite of the intellectual vigour indicated, can hardly be commended for +popular reading. And thus but for the inimitable Boswell, it must be +admitted that Johnson would probably have sunk very deeply into +oblivion. A few good sayings would have been preserved by Mrs. Thrale +and others, or have been handed down by tradition, and doubtless +assigned in process of time to Sydney Smith and other conversational +celebrities. A few couplets from the 'Vanity of Human Wishes' would not +yet have been submerged, and curious readers would have recognised the +power of 'Rasselas,' and been delighted with some shrewd touches in the +'Lives of the Poets.' But with all desire to magnify critical insight, +it must be admitted that that man would have shown singular penetration, +and been regarded as an eccentric commentator, who had divined the +humour and the fervour of mind which lay hid in the remains of the huge +lexicographer. And yet when we have once recognised his power, we can +see it everywhere indicated in his writings, though by an unfortunate +fatality the style or the substance was always so deeply affected by the +faults of the time, that the product is never thoroughly sound. His +tenacious conservatism caused him to cling to decaying materials for the +want of anything better, and he has suffered the natural penalty. He was +a great force half wasted, so far as literature was concerned, because +the fashionable costume of the day hampered the free exercises of his +powers, and because the only creeds to which he could attach himself +were in the phase of decline and inanition. A century earlier or later +he might have succeeded in expressing himself through books as well as +through his talk; but it is not given to us to choose the time of our +birth, and some very awkward consequences follow. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] See, for example, the great debate on February 13, 1741. + + + + +_CRABBE_ + + +It is nearly a century since George Crabbe, then a young man of +five-and-twenty, put three pounds in his pocket and started from his +native town of Aldborough, with a box of clothes and a case of surgical +instruments, to make his fortune in London. Few men have attempted that +adventure with less promising prospects. Any sensible adviser would have +told him to prefer starvation in his native village to starvation in the +back lanes of London. The adviser would, perhaps, have been vexed, but +would not have been confuted, by Crabbe's good fortune. We should still +recommend a youth not to jump into a river, though, of a thousand who +try the experiment, one may happen to be rescued by a benevolent +millionaire, and be put in the road to fortune. The chances against +Crabbe were enormous. Literature, considered as a trade, is a good deal +better at the present day than it was towards the end of the last +century, and yet anyone who has an opportunity of comparing the failures +with the successes, would be more apt to quote Chatterton than Crabbe as +a precedent for youthful aspirants. Crabbe, indeed, might say for +himself that literature was the only path open to him. His father was +collector of salt duties at Aldborough, a position, as one may imagine, +of no very great emolument. He had, however, given his son the chance of +acquiring a smattering of 'scholarship,' in the sense in which that +word is used by the less educated lower classes. To the slender store of +learning acquired in a cheap country school, the lad managed to add such +medical training as could be picked up during an apprenticeship in an +apothecary's shop. With this provision of knowledge he tried to obtain +practice in his native town. He failed to get any patients of the paying +variety. Crabbe was clumsy and absent-minded to the end of his life. He +had, moreover, a taste for botany, and the shrewd inhabitants of +Aldborough, with that perverse tendency to draw inferences which is +characteristic of people who cannot reason, argued that as he picked up +his samples in the ditches, he ought to sell the medicines presumably +compounded from them for nothing. In one way or other, poor Crabbe had +sunk to the verge of distress. Of course, under these circumstances, he +had fallen in love and engaged himself at the age of eighteen to a young +lady, apparently as poor as himself. Of course, too, he called Miss Elmy +'Mira,' and addressed her in verses which occasionally appeared in the +poet's corner of a certain 'Wheble's Magazine.' My Mira, said the young +surgeon, in a style which must have been rather antiquated even in +Aldborough-- + + My Mira, shepherds, is as fair + As sylvan nymphs who haunt the vale; + As sylphs who dwell in purest air, + As fays who skim the dusky dale. + +Moreover, he won a prize for a poem on Hope, and composed an +'Allegorical Fable' and a piece called 'The Atheist reclaimed;' and, in +short, added plentifully to the vast rubbish-heap of old-world verses, +now decayed beyond the industry of the most persevering of Dryasdusts. +Nay, he even succeeded by some mysterious means in getting one of his +poems published separately. It was called 'Inebriety,' and was an +unblushing imitation of Pope. Here is a couplet by way of sample:-- + + Champagne the courtier drinks the spleen to chase, + The colonel Burgundy, and Port his Grace. + +From the satirical the poet diverges into the mock heroic:-- + + See Inebriety! her wand she waves, + And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves. + +The interstices of the box of clothing which went with him from +Aldborough to London were doubtless crammed with much waste paper +scribbled over with these feeble echoes of Pope's Satires, and with +appeals to nymphs, muses, and shepherds. Crabbe was one of those men who +are born a generation after their natural epoch, and was as little +accessible to the change of fashion in poetry as in costume. When, +therefore, he finally resolved to hazard his own fate and Mira's upon +the results of his London adventure, the literary goods at his disposal +were already somewhat musty in character. The year 1780, in which he +reached London, marks the very nadir of English poetry. From the days of +Elizabeth to our own there has never been so absolutely barren a period. +People had become fairly tired of the jingle of Pope's imitators, and +the new era had not dawned. Goldsmith and Gray, both recently dead, +serve to illustrate the condition in which the most exquisite polish and +refinement of language has been developed until there is a danger of +sterility. The 'Elegy' and the 'Deserted Village' are in their way +inimitable poems: but we feel that the intellectual fibre of the poets +has become dangerously delicate. The critical faculty could not be +stimulated further without destroying all spontaneous impulse. The +reaction to a more masculine and passionate school was imminent; and if +the excellent Crabbe could have put into his box a few of Burns's +lyrics, or even a copy of Cowper's 'Task,' one might have augured better +for his prospects. But what chance was there for a man who could still +be contentedly invoking the muse and stringing together mechanic echoes +of Pope's couplets? How could he expect to charm the jaded faculties of +a generation which was already beginning to heave and stir with a +longing for some fresh excitement? For a year the fate which has +overtaken so many rash literary adventurers seemed to be approaching +steadily. One temporary gleam of good fortune cheered him for a time. He +persuaded an enterprising publisher to bring out a poem called 'The +Candidate,' which had some faint success, though ridiculed by the +reviewers. Unluckily the publisher became bankrupt and Crabbe was thrown +upon his resources--the poor three pounds and box of surgical +instruments aforesaid. How he managed to hold out for a year is a +mystery. It was lucky for him, as he intimates, that he had never heard +of the fate of Chatterton, who had poisoned himself just ten years +before. A Journal which he wrote for Mira is published in his Life, and +gives an account of his feelings during three months of his cruel +probation. He applies for a situation as amanuensis offered in an +advertisement, and comforts himself on failing with the reflection that +the advertiser was probably a sharper. He writes piteous letters to +publishers, and gets, of course, the stereotyped reply with which the +most amiable of publishers must damp the ardour of aspiring genius. The +disappointment is not much softened by the publisher's statement that +'he does not mean by this to insinuate any want of merit in the poem, +but rather a want of attention in the public.' Bit by bit his surgical +instruments go to the pawnbroker. When one publisher sends his polite +refusal poor Crabbe has only sixpence-farthing in the world, which, by +the purchase of a pint of porter, is reduced to fourpence-halfpenny. The +exchequer fills again by the disappearance of his wardrobe and his +watch; but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of +Dryden for three-and-sixpence, and on coming home tears his only coat, +which he manages to patch tolerably with a borrowed needle and thread, +pretending, with a pathetic shift, that they are required to stitch +together manuscripts instead of broadcloth. And so for a year the wolf +creeps nearer the door, whilst Crabbe gallantly keeps up appearances and +spirits, and yet he tries to preserve a show of good spirits in the +Journal to Mira, and continues to labour at his versemaking. Perhaps, +indeed, it may be regarded as a bad symptom that he is reduced to +distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is +nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he +thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of +deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the +desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and +comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather +commonplace in expression, but when read by the light of the distresses +he was enduring, show a brave unembittered spirit, not to be easily +respected too highly. Starvation seemed to be approaching; or, at least, +the only alternative was the abandonment of his ambition, and +acceptance, if he could get it, of the post of druggist's assistant. He +had but one resource left; and that not of the most promising kind. +Crabbe, amongst his other old-fashioned notions, had a strong belief in +the traditional patron. Johnson might have given him some hints upon the +subject; but luckily, as it turned out, he pursued what Chesterfield's +correspondent would have thought the most hopeless of all courses. He +wrote to Lord North, who was at that moment occupied in contemplating +the final results of the ingenious policy by which America was lost to +England, and probably consigned Crabbe's letter to the waste-paper +basket. Then he tried the effect of a copy of verses, beginning:-- + + Ah! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great, + T' adorn a rich or save a sinking State. + +He added a letter saying that, as Lord North had not answered him, Lord +Shelburne would probably be glad to supply the needs of a starving +apothecary turned poet. Another copy of verses was enclosed, pointing +out that Shelburne's reputed liberality would be repaid in the usual +coin: + + Then shall my grateful strains his ear rejoice, + His name harmonious thrilled on Mira's voice; + Round the reviving bays new sweets shall spring, + And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring! + +Nobody can blame North and Shelburne for not acting the part of Good +Samaritans. He, at least, may throw the first stone who has always taken +the trouble to sift the grain from the chaff amidst all the begging +letters which he has received, and who has never lamented that his +benevolence outran his discretion. But there was one man in England at +the time who had the rare union of qualities necessary for Crabbe's +purpose. Burke is a name never to be mentioned without reverence; not +only because Burke was incomparably the greatest of all English +political writers, and a standing refutation of the theory which couples +rhetorical excellence with intellectual emptiness, but also because he +was a man whose glowing hatred of all injustice and sympathy for all +suffering never evaporated in empty words. His fine literary perception +enabled him to detect the genuine excellence which underlay the +superficial triviality of Crabbe's verses. He discovered the genius +where men like North and Shelburne might excusably see nothing but the +mendicant versifier; and a benevolence still rarer than his critical +ability forbade him to satisfy his conscience by the sacrifice of a +five-pound note. When, by the one happy thought of his life, Crabbe +appealed to Burke's sympathy, the poet was desperately endeavouring to +get a poem through the press. But he owed fourteen pounds, and every +application to friends as poor as himself, and to patrons upon whom he +had no claims, had been unsuccessful. Nothing but ruin was before him. +After writing to Burke he spent the night in pacing Westminster Bridge. +The letter on which his fate hung is the more pathetic because it is +free from those questionable poetical flourishes which had failed to +conciliate his former patrons. It tells his story frankly and forcibly. +Burke, however, was not a rich man, and was at one of the most exciting +periods of his political career. His party was at last fighting its way +to power by means of the general resentment against the gross +mismanagement of their antagonists. A perfunctory discharge of the duty +of charity would have been pardonable; but from the moment when Crabbe +addressed Burke the poor man's fortune was made. Burke's glory rests +upon services of much more importance to the world at large than even +the preservation to the country of a man of genuine power. Yet there +are few actions on which he could reflect with more unalloyed +satisfaction; and the case is not a solitary one in Burke's history. A +political triumph may often be only hastened a year or two by the +efforts of even a great leader; but the salvage of a genius which would +otherwise have been hopelessly wrecked in the deep waters of poverty is +so much clear gain to mankind. One circumstance may be added as oddly +characteristic of Crabbe. He always spoke of his benefactor with +becoming gratitude: and many years afterwards Moore and Rogers thought +that they might extract some interesting anecdotes of the great author +from the now celebrated poet. Burke, as we know, was a man whom you +would discover to be remarkable if you stood with him for five minutes +under a haystack in a shower. Crabbe stayed in his house for months +under circumstances most calculated to be impressive. Burke was at the +height of his power and reputation; he was the first man of any +distinction whom the poet had ever seen; the two men had long and +intimate conversations, and Crabbe, it may be added, was a very keen +observer of character. And yet all that Rogers and Moore could extract +from him was a few 'vague generalities.' Moore suggests some +explanation; but the fact seems to be that Crabbe was one of those +simple, homespun characters, whose interests are strictly limited to +their own peculiar sphere. Burke, when he pleased, could talk of oxen as +well as politics, and doubtless adapted his conversation to the taste of +the young poet. Probably, much more was said about the state of Burke's +farm than about the prospects of the Whig party. Crabbe's powers of +vision were as limited as they were keen, and the great qualities to +which Burke owed his reputation could only exhibit themselves in a +sphere to which Crabbe never rose. His attempt to draw a likeness of +Burke under the name of 'Eugenius,' in the 'Borough,' is open to the +objection that it would be nearly as applicable to Wilberforce, Howard, +or Dr. Johnson. It is a mere complimentary daub, in which every +remarkable feature of the original is blurred or altogether omitted. + +The inward Crabbe remained to the end of his days what nature and +education had already made him; the outward Crabbe, by the help of +Burke, rapidly put on a more prosperous appearance. His poems were +published and achieved success. He took orders and found patrons. +Thurlow gave him ÂŁ100, and afterwards presented him to two small +livings, growling out with an oath that he was 'as like Parson Adams as +twelve to a dozen.' The Duke of Rutland appointed him chaplain, a +position in which he seems to have been singularly out of his element. +Further patronage, however, made him independent, and he married his +Mira and lived very happily ever afterwards. Perhaps, with his +old-fashioned ideas, he would not quite have satisfied some clerical +critics of the present day. His views about non-residence and +pluralities seem to have been lax for the time; and his hearty dislike +for dissent was coupled with a general dislike for enthusiasm of all +kinds. He liked to ramble about after flowers and fossils, and to hammer +away at his poems in a study where chaos reigned supreme. For twenty-two +years after his first success as an author, he never managed to get a +poem into a state fit for publication, though periodical conflagrations +of masses of manuscript--too vast to be burnt in the chimney--testified +to his continuous industry. His reappearance seems to have been caused +chiefly by his desire to send a son to the University. His success was +repeated, though a new school had arisen which knew not Pope. The youth +who had been kindly received by Burke, Reynolds, and Johnson, came back +from his country retreat to be lionised at Holland House, and be petted +by Brougham and Moore, and Rogers and Campbell, and all the rising +luminaries. He paid a visit to Scott contemporaneously with George IV., +and pottered about the queer old wynds and closes of Edinburgh, which he +preferred to the New Town, and apparently to Arthur's Seat, with a +judicious _caddie_ following to keep him out of mischief. A more +tangible kind of homage was the receipt of ÂŁ3,000 from Murray for his +'Tales of the Hall,' which so delighted him that he insisted on carrying +the bills loose in his pocket till he could show them 'to his son John' +in the country.[2] There, no doubt, he was most at home; and his +parishioners gradually became attached to their 'Parson Adams,' in spite +of his quaintnesses and some manful defiance of their prejudices. All +women and children loved him, and he died at a good old age in 1832, +having lived into a new order in many things, and been as little +affected by the change as most men. The words with which he concludes +the sketch of the Vicar in his 'Borough' are not inappropriate to +himself:-- + + Nor one so old has left this world of sin + More like the being that he entered in. + +The peculiar homeliness of Crabbe's character and poetry is excellently +hit off in the 'Rejected Addresses,' and the lines beginning + + John Richard William Alexander Dwyer + Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire, + +are probably more familiar to the present generation than any of the +originals. 'Pope in the worsted stockings' is the title hit off for him +by Horace Smith, and has about the same degree of truth as most smart +sayings of the kind. The 'worsted stockings' at least are +characteristic. Crabbe's son and biographer indicates some of the +surroundings of his father's early life in a description of the uncle, a +Mr. Tovell, with whom the poet's wife, the Mira of his Journal, passed +her youth. He was a sturdy yeoman, living in an old house with a moat, a +rookery, and fishponds. The hall was paved with black and white marble, +and the staircase was of black oak, slippery as ice, with a chiming +clock and a barrel-organ on the landing-places. The handsome +drawing-room and dining-rooms were only used on grand occasions, such as +the visit of a neighbouring peer. Mrs. Tovell jealously reserved for +herself the duty of scrubbing these state apartments, and sent any +servant to the right-about who dared to lay unhallowed hands upon them. +The family sat habitually in the old-fashioned kitchen, by a huge open +chimney, where the blaze of a whole pollard sometimes eclipsed the +feeble glimmer of the single candle in an iron candlestick, intended to +illuminate Mrs. Tovell's labours with the needle. Masters and servants, +with any travelling tinker or ratcatcher, all dined together, and the +nature of their meals has been described by Crabbe himself:-- + + But when the men beside their station took, + The maidens with them, and with these the cook; + When one huge wooden bowl before them stood, + Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food; + With bacon, mass saline, where never lean + Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen; + When from a single horn the party drew + Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new; + +then, the poet goes on to intimate, squeamish persons might feel a +little uncomfortable. After dinner followed a nap of precisely one hour. +Then bottles appeared on the table, and neighbouring farmers, with faces +rosy with brandy, drifted in for a chat. One of these heroes never went +to bed sober, but scandalised all teetotallers by retaining all his +powers and coursing after he was ninety. Bowl after bowl of punch was +emptied, and the conversation took so convivial a character that Crabbe +generally found it expedient to withdraw, though his son, who records +these performances, was held to be too young to be injured, and the +servants were too familiar for their presence to be a restraint. + +It was in this household that the poet found his Mira. Crabbe's own +father was apparently at a lower point of the social scale; and during +his later years took to drinking and to flinging dishes about the room +whenever he was out of temper. Crabbe always drew from the life; most of +his characters might have joined in his father's drinking bouts, or told +stories over Mr. Tovell's punchbowls. Doubtless a social order of the +same kind survived till a later period in various corners of the island. +The Tovells of to-day get their fashions from London, and their +labourers, instead of dining with them in their kitchen, have taken to +forming unions and making speeches about their rights. If, here and +there, in some remote nooks we find an approximation to the coarse, +hearty patriarchal mode of life, we regard it as a naturalist regards a +puny modern reptile, the representative of gigantic lizards of old +geological epochs. A sketch or two of its peculiarities, sufficiently +softened and idealised to suit modern tastes, forms a picturesque +background to a modern picture. Some of Miss BrontĂ«'s rough +Yorkshiremen would have drunk punch with Mr. Tovell; and the farmers in +the 'Mill on the Floss' are representatives of the same race, slightly +degenerate, in so far as they are just conscious that a new cause of +disturbance is setting into the quiet rural districts. Dandie Dinmont +again is a relation of Crabbe's heroes, though the fresh air of the +Cheviots and the stirring traditions of the old border life have +conferred upon him a more poetical colouring. To get a realistic picture +of country life as Crabbe saw it, we must go back to Squire Western, or +to some of the roughly-hewn masses of flesh who sat to Hogarth. Perhaps +it may be said that Miss Austen's delicate portrait of the more polished +society, which took the waters at Bath, and occasionally paid a visit to +London, implies a background of coarser manners and more brutal +passions, which lay outside her peculiar province. The question +naturally occurs to social philosophers, whether the improvement in the +external decencies of life and the wider intellectual horizon of modern +days prove a genuine advance over the rude and homely plenty of an +earlier generation. I refer to such problems only to remark that Crabbe +must be consulted by those who wish to look upon the seamy side of the +time which he describes. He very soon dropped his nymphs and shepherds, +and ceased to invoke the idyllic muse. In his long portrait gallery +there are plenty of virtuous people, and some people intended to be +refined; but features indicative of coarse animal passions, brutality, +selfishness, and sensuality are drawn to the life, and the development +of his stories is generally determined by some of the baser elements of +human nature. 'Jesse and Colin' are described in one of the Tales; but +they are not the Jesse and Colin of Dresden china. They are such rustics +as ate fat bacon and drank 'heavy ale and new;' not the imaginary +personages who exchanged amatory civilities in the old-fashioned +pastorals ridiculed by Pope and Gay. + +Crabbe's rough style is indicative of his general temper. It is in +places at least the most slovenly and slipshod that was ever adopted by +any true poet. The authors of the 'Rejected Addresses' had simply to +copy, without attempting the impossible task of caricaturing. One of +their familiar couplets, for example, runs thus:-- + + Emmanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy + Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ! + +And here is the original Crabbe:-- + + Swallow, a poor attorney, brought his boy + Up at his desk, and gave him his employ. + +When boy cannot be made to rhyme with employ, Crabbe is very fond of +dragging in a hoy. In the 'Parish Register' he introduces a narrative +about a village grocer and his friend in these lines:-- + + Aged were both, that Dawkins, Ditchem this, + Who much of marriage thought and much amiss. + +Or to quote one more opening of a story:-- + + Counter and Clubb were men in trade, whose pains, + Credit, and prudence, brought them constant gains; + Partners and punctual, every friend agreed + Counter and Clubb were men who must succeed. + +But of such gems anyone may gather as many as he pleases by simply +turning over Crabbe's pages. In one sense, they are rather pleasant than +otherwise. They are so characteristic and put forward with such absolute +simplicity that they have the same effect as a good old provincialism in +the mouth of a genuine countryman. It must, however, be admitted that +Crabbe's careful study of Pope had not initiated him in some of his +master's secrets. The worsted stockings were uncommonly thick. If Pope's +brilliance of style savours too much of affectation, Crabbe never +manages to hit off an epigram in the whole of his poetry. The language +seldom soars above the style which would be intelligible to the merest +clodhopper; and we can understand how, when in his later years Crabbe +was introduced to wits and men of the world, he generally held his +peace, or, at most, let fall some bit of dry quiet humour. At rare +intervals he remembers that a poet ought to indulge in a figure of +speech, and laboriously compounds a simile which appears in his poetry +like a bit of gold lace on a farmer's homespun coat. He confessed as +much in answer to a shrewd criticism of Jeffrey's, saying that he +generally thought of such illustrations and inserted them after he had +finished his tale. Here is one of these deliberately-concocted +ornaments, intended to explain the remark that the difference between +the character of two brothers came out when they were living together +quietly:-- + + As various colours in a painted ball, + While it has rest are seen distinctly all; + Till, whirl'd around by some exterior force, + They all are blended in the rapid course; + So in repose and not by passion swayed + We saw the difference by their habits made; + But, tried by strong emotions, they became + Filled with one love, and were in heart the same. + +The conceit is ingenious enough in one sense, but painfully ingenious. +It requires some thought to catch the likeness suggested, and then it +turns out to be purely superficial. The resemblance of such a writer to +Pope obviously does not go deep. Crabbe imitates Pope because everybody +imitated him at that day. He adopted Pope's metre because it had come to +be almost the only recognised means of poetical expression. He stuck to +it after his contemporaries had introduced new versification, partly +because he was old-fashioned to the backbone and partly because he had +none of those lofty inspirations which naturally generate new forms of +melody. He seldom trusts himself to be lyrical, and when he does his +versification is nearly as monotonous as it is in his narrative poetry. +We must not expect to soar with Crabbe into any of the loftier regions; +to see the world 'apparelled in celestial light,' or to descry + + Such forms as glitter in the muses' ray, + With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun. + +We shall find no vehement outbursts of passion, breaking loose from the +fetters of sacred convention. Crabbe is perfectly content with the +British Constitution, with the Thirty-nine Articles, and all +respectabilities in Church and State, and therefore he is quite content +also with the good old jogtrot of the recognised metres; his language, +halting invariably, and for the most part clumsy enough, is sufficiently +differentiated from prose by the mould into which it is run, and he +never wants to kick over the traces with his more excitable +contemporaries. + + The good old rule + Sufficeth him, the simple plan + +that each verse should consist of ten syllables, with an occasional +Alexandrine to accommodate a refractory epithet, and should rhyme +peaceably with its neighbour. + +From all which it may be too harshly inferred that Crabbe is merely a +writer in rhyming prose, and deserving of no attention from the more +enlightened adherents of a later school. The inference, I say, would be +hasty, for it is impossible to read Crabbe patiently without receiving a +very distinct and original impression. If some pedants of æsthetic +philosophy should declare that we ought not to be impressed because +Crabbe breaks all their rules, we can only reply they are mistaking +their trade. The true business of the critic is to discover from +observation what are the conditions under which a book appeals to our +sympathies, and, if he finds an apparent exception to his rules, to +admit that he has made an oversight, and not to condemn the facts which +persist in contradicting his theories. It may, indeed, be freely granted +that Crabbe has suffered seriously by his slovenly methods and his +insensibility to the more exquisite and ethereal forms of poetical +excellence. But however he may be classified, he possesses the essential +mark of genius, namely, that his pictures, however coarse the +workmanship, stamp themselves on our minds indelibly and +instantaneously. His pathos is here and there clumsy, but it goes +straight to the mark. His characteristic qualities were first distinctly +shown in the 'Village,' which was partly composed under Burke's eye, and +was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after +Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective, +to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank +facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two +is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then +listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too +exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities about +agricultural bliss. If his 'Auburn' is rather idealised, the most +prosaic of critics cannot object to the glow thrown by the memory of the +poet over the scene of now ruined happiness, and, moreover, Goldsmith's +delicate humour guards him instinctively from laying on his rose-colour +too thickly. Crabbe, however, will have nothing to do with rose-colour, +thick or thin. There is one explicit reference in the poem to his +predecessor's work, and it is significant. Everybody remembers, or ought +to remember, Goldsmith's charming pastor, to whom it can only be +objected that he has not the fear of political economists before his +eyes. This is Crabbe's retort after describing a dying pauper in need of +spiritual consolation:-- + + And does not he, the pious man, appear, + He, 'passing rich with forty pounds a year?' + Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock, + And far unlike him, feeds this little flock: + A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task + As much as God or man can fairly ask; + The rest he gives to loves and labours light, + To fields the morning, and to feasts the night. + None better skilled the noisy pack to guide, + To urge their chase, to cheer them, or to chide; + A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day, + And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play. + +This fox-hunting parson (of whom Cowper has described a duplicate) lets +the pauper die as he pleases; and afterwards allows him to be buried +without attending, performing the funerals, it seems, in a lump upon +Sundays. Crabbe admits in a note that such negligence was uncommon, but +adds that it is not unknown. The flock is, on the whole, worthy of the +shepherd. The old village sports have died out in favour of smuggling +and wrecking. The poor are not, as rich men fancy, healthy and well fed. +Their work makes them premature victims to ague and rheumatism; their +food is + + Homely, not wholesome, plain, not plenteous, such + As you who praise would never deign to touch. + +The ultimate fate of the worn-out labourer is the poorhouse, described +in lines of which it is enough to say that Scott and Wordsworth learnt +them by heart, and the melancholy deathbed already noticed. Are we +reading a poem or a Blue Book done into rhyme? may possibly be the +question of some readers. The answer should perhaps be that a good many +Blue Books contain an essence which only requires to be properly +extracted and refined to become genuine poetry. If Crabbe's verses +retain rather too much of the earthly elements, he is capable of +transmuting his minerals into genuine gold, as well as of simply +collecting them. Nothing, for example, is more characteristic than the +mode in which the occasional descriptions of nature are harmoniously +blended with the human life in his poetry. Crabbe is an ardent lover of +a certain type of scenery, to which justice has not often been done. We +are told how, after a long absence from Suffolk, he rode sixty miles +from his house to have a dip in the sea. Some of his poems appear to be +positively impregnated with a briny, or rather perhaps a tarry, odour. +The sea which he loved was by no means a Byronic sea. It has no grandeur +of storm, and still less has it the Mediterranean blue. It is the +sluggish muddy element which washes the flat shores of his beloved +Suffolk. He likes even the shelving beach, with fishermen's boats and +decaying nets and remnants of stale fish. He loves the dreary estuary, +where the slow tide sways backwards and forwards, and whence + + High o'er the restless deep, above the reach + Of gunner's hope, vast flocks of wildfowl stretch. + +The coming generation of poets took to the mountains; but Crabbe +remained faithful to the dismal and yet, in his hands, the impressive +scenery of his native salt-marshes. His method of description suits the +country. His verses never become melodramatic, nor does he ever seem to +invest nature with the mystic life of Wordsworth's poetry. He gives the +plain prosaic facts which impress us because they are in such perfect +harmony with the sentiment. Here, for example, is a fragment from the +'Village,' which is simply a description of the neighbourhood of +Aldborough:-- + + Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, + Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor; + From thence a length of burning sand appears, + Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; + Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, + Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye; + There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, + And to the ragged infant threaten war; + There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; + There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil; + Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, + The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; + O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, + And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade. + +The writer is too obviously a botanist; but the picture always remains +with us as the only conceivable background for the poverty-stricken +population whom he is about to describe. The actors in the 'Borough' are +presented to us in a similar setting; and it may be well to put a +sea-piece beside this bit of barren common. Crabbe's range of +descriptive power is pretty well confined within the limits so defined. +He is scarcely at home beyond the tide-marks:-- + + Be it the summer noon; a sandy space + The ebbing tide has left upon its place; + Then just the hot and stony beach above, + Light twinkling streams in bright confusion move; + + * * * * * + + There the broad bosom of the ocean keeps + An equal motion; swelling as it sleeps, + Then slowly sinking; curling to the strand, + Faint lazy waves o'ercreep the ridgy sand, + Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow, + And back return in silence, smooth and slow. + Ships in the calm seem anchored: for they glide + On the still sea, urged slowly by the tide: + Art thou not present, this calm scene before + Where all beside is pebbly length of shore, + And far as eye can reach, it can discern no more? + +I have omitted a couplet which verges on the scientific; for Crabbe is +unpleasantly anxious to leave nothing unexplained. The effect is, in its +way, perfect. Anyone who pleases may compare it with Wordsworth's calm +in the verses upon Peele Castle, where the sentiment is given without +the minute statement of facts, and where, too, we have the inevitable +quotation about the 'light that never was on sea or land,' and is pretty +nearly as rare in Crabbe's poetry. What he sees we can all see, though +not so intensely, and his art consists in selecting the precise elements +that tell most forcibly towards bringing us into the required frame of +mind. To enjoy Crabbe fully, we ought perhaps to be acclimatised on the +coast of the Eastern Counties; we should become sensitive to the +plaintive music of the scenery, which is now generally drowned by the +discordant sounds of modern watering-places, and would seem insipid to a +generation which values excitement in scenery as in fiction. Readers, +who measure the beauty of a district by its average height above the +sea-level, and who cannot appreciate the charm of a 'waste enormous +marsh,' may find Crabbe uncongenial. + +The human character is determined, as Mr. Buckle and other philosophers +have assured us, by the climate and the soil. A little ingenuity, such +as those philosophers display in accommodating facts to theory, might +discover a parallel between the type of Crabbe's personages and the +fauna and flora of his native district. Declining a task which might +lead to fanciful conclusions, I may assume that the East Anglian +character is sufficiently familiar, whatever the causes by which it has +been determined. To define Crabbe's poetry we have simply to imagine +ourselves listening to the stories of his parishioners, told by a +clergyman brought up amongst the lower rank of the middle classes, +scarcely elevated above their prejudices, and not willingly leaving +their circle of ideas. We must endow him with that simplicity of +character which gives us frequent cause to smile at its proprietor, but +which does not disqualify him from seeing a great deal further into his +neighbours than they are apt to give him credit for doing. Such insight, +in fact, is due not to any great subtlety of intellect, but to the +possession of deep feeling and sympathy. Crabbe saw little more of Burke +than would have been visible to an ordinary Suffolk farmer. When +transplanted to a ducal mansion, he only drew the pretty obvious +inference, embodied in a vigorous poem, that a patron is a very +disagreeable and at times a very mischievous personage. The joys and +griefs which really interest him are of the very tangible and solid kind +which affect men and women to whom the struggle for existence is a stern +reality. Here and there his good-humoured but rather clumsy ridicule may +strike some lady to whom some demon has whispered 'have a taste;' and +who turns up her nose at the fat bacon on Mr. Tovell's table. He pities +her squeamishness, but thinks it rather unreasonable. He satirises too +the heads of the rustic aristocracy; the brutal squire who bullies his +nephew the clergyman for preaching against his vices, and corrupts the +whole neighbourhood; or the speculative banker who cheats old maids +under pretence of looking after their investments. If the squire does +not generally appear in Crabbe in the familiar dramatic character of a +rural Lovelace, it is chiefly because Crabbe has no great belief in the +general purity of the inferior ranks of rural life. But his most +powerful stories deal with the tragedies--only too life-like--of the +shop and the farm. He describes the temptations which lead the small +tradesman to adulterate his goods, or the parish clerk to embezzle the +money subscribed in the village church, and the evil influence of +dissenting families in fostering a spiritual pride which leads to more +unctuous hypocrisy; for, though he says of the wicked squire that + + His worship ever was a Churchman true, + And held in scorn the Methodistic crew, + +the scorn is only objectionable to him in so far as it is a cynical +cloak for scorn of good morals. He tells how boys run away to sea, or +join strolling players, and have in consequence to beg their bread at +the end of their days. The almshouse or the county gaol is the natural +end of his villains, and he paints to the life the evil courses which +generally lead to such a climax. Nobody describes better the process of +going to the dogs. And most of all, he sympathises with the village +maiden who has listened too easily to the voice of the charmer, in the +shape of a gay sailor or a smart London footman, and has to reap the +bitter consequences of her too easy faith. Most of his stories might be +paralleled by the experience of any country clergyman who has entered +into the life of his parishioners. They are as commonplace and as +pathetic as the things which are happening round us every day, and which +fill a neglected paragraph in a country newspaper. The treatment varies +from the purely humorous to the most deep and genuine pathos; though it +never takes us into the regions of the loftier imagination. + +The more humorous of these performances may be briefly dismissed. Crabbe +possesses the faculty, but not in any eminent degree; his hand is a +little heavy, and one must remember that Mr. Tovell and his like were of +the race who require to have a joke driven into their heads with a +sledge-hammer. Once or twice we come upon a sketch which may help to +explain Miss Austen's admiration. There is an old maid devoted to Mira, +and rejoicing in stuffed puppies and parrots, who might have been +ridiculed by Emma Woodhouse, and a parson who would have suited the +Eltons admirably:-- + + Fiddling and fishing were his arts; at times + He altered sermons and he aimed at rhymes; + And his fair friends, not yet intent on cards, + Oft he amused with riddles and charades. + +Such sketches are a pleasant relief to his more sombre portraiture; but +it is in the tragic elements that his true power comes out. The motives +of his stories may be trivial, but never the sentiment. The deep manly +emotion makes us forget not only the frequent clumsiness of his style +but the pettiness of the incident, and what is more difficult, the +rather bread-and-butter tone of morality. If he is a little too fond of +bringing his villains to the gallows, he is preoccupied less by the +external consequences than by the natural working of evil passions. With +him sin is not punished by being found out, but by disintegrating the +character and blunting the higher sensibilities. He shows--and the +moral, if not new, is that which possesses the really intellectual +interest--how evil-doers are tortured by the cravings of desires that +cannot be satisfied, and the lacerations inflicted by ruined +self-respect. And therefore there is a truth in Crabbe's delineations +which is quite independent of his more or less rigid administration of +poetical justice. His critics used to accuse him of having a low opinion +of human nature. It is quite true that he assigns to selfishness and +brutal passion a very large part in carrying on the machinery of the +world. Some readers may infer that he was unlucky in his experience, and +others that he loved facts too unflinchingly. His stories sometimes +remind one of Balzac's in the descriptions of selfishness triumphant +over virtue. One, for example, of his deeply pathetic poems is called +'The Brothers;' and repeats the old contrast given in Fielding's Tom +Jones and Blifil. The shrewd sly hypocrite has received all manner of +kindnesses from the generous and simple sailor, and when, at last, the +poor sailor is ruined in health and fortune, he comes home expecting to +be supported by the gratitude of the brother, who has by this time made +money and is living at his ease. Nothing can be more pathetic or more in +the spirit of some of Balzac's stories than the way in which the rich +man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal +feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; +till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the +kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his +only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into +hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is not to be corrupted by +the coarse language of his poor old uncle. The rich brother suspects +that the sailor has broken this rule, and is reviling him for his +ingratitude, when suddenly he discovers that he is abusing a corpse. +The old sailor's heart is broken at last; and his brother repents too +late. He tries to comfort his remorse by cross-examining the boy, who +was the cause of the last quarrel:-- + + 'Did he not curse me, child?' 'He never cursed, + But could not breathe, and said his heart would burst.' + 'And so will mine'----'But, father, you must pray; + My uncle said it took his pains away.' + +Praying, however, cannot bring back the dead; and the fratricide, for +such he feels himself to be, is a melancholy man to the end of his days. +In Balzac's hands repentance would have had no place, and selfishness +have been finally triumphant and unabashed. We need not ask which would +be the most effective or the truest treatment; though I must put in a +word for the superior healthiness of Crabbe's mind. There is nothing +morbid about him. Still it would be absurd to push such a comparison +far. Crabbe's portraits are only spirited vignettes compared with the +elaborate full-lengths drawn by the intense imagination of the French +novelist; and Crabbe's whole range of thought is incomparably narrower. +The two writers have a real resemblance only in so far as in each case a +powerful accumulation of life-like details enables them to produce a +pathos, powerful by its vivid reality. + +The singular power of Crabbe is in some sense more conspicuous in the +stories where the incidents are almost audaciously trifling. One of them +begins with this not very impressive and very ungrammatical couplet:-- + + With our late Vicar, and his age the same, + His clerk, hight Jachin, to his office came. + +Jachin is a man of oppressive respectability; so oppressive, indeed, +that some of the scamps of the borough try to get him into scrapes by +temptations of a very inartificial kind, which he is strong enough to +resist. At last, however, it occurs to Jachin that he can easily +embezzle part of the usual monthly offerings while saving his character +in his own eyes by some obvious sophistry. He is detected and dismissed, +and dies after coming upon the parish. These materials for a tragic poem +are not very promising; and I do not mean to say that the sorrows of +poor Jachin affect us as deeply as those of Gretchen or Desdemona. The +parish clerk is perhaps a fit type of all that was least poetical in the +old social order of the country, and virtue which succumbs to the +temptation of taking two shillings out of a plate scarcely wants a +Mephistopheles to overcome it. We may perhaps think that the apologetic +note which the excellent Crabbe inserts at the end of his poem, to the +effect that he did not mean by it to represent mankind as 'puppets of an +overpowering destiny,' or 'to deny the doctrine of seducing spirits,' is +a little superfluous. The fact that a parish-clerk has taken to petty +pilfering can scarcely justify those heterodox conclusions. But when we +have smiled at Crabbe's philosophy, we begin to wonder at the force of +his sentiment. A blighted human soul is a pathetic object, however +paltry the temptation to which it has succumbed. Jachin has the dignity +of despair, though he is not quite a fallen archangel; and Crabbe's +favourite scenery harmonises with his agony. + + In each lone place, dejected and dismayed, + Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid, + Or to the restless sea and roaring wind + Gave the strong yearnings of a ruined mind; + On the broad beach, the silent summer day, + Stretched on some wreck, he wore his life away; + Or where the river mingles with the sea, + Or on the mud-bank by the elder tree, + Or by the bounding marsh-dyke, there was he. + +Nor would he have been a more pitiable object if he had betrayed a +nation or sold his soul for a Garter instead of the pillage of a +subscription plate. Poor old Jachin's story may seem to be borrowed from +a commonplace tract; but the detected pilferer, though he has only lost +the respect of the parson, the overseer, and the beadle, touches us as +deeply as the Byronic hero who has fallen out with the whole system of +the world. + +If we refuse to sympathise with the pang due to so petty a +catastrophe--though our sympathy should surely be proportioned to the +keenness of the suffering rather than the absolute height of the +fall--we may turn to tragedy of a deeper dye. Peter Grimes, as his name +indicates, was a ruffian from his infancy. He once knocked down his poor +old father, who warned him of the consequences of his brutality:-- + + On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief, + This he revolved, and drank for his relief. + +Adopting such a remedy, he sank from bad to worse, and gradually became +a thief, a smuggler, and a social outlaw. In those days, however, as is +proved by the history of Mrs. Brownrigg, parish authorities practised +the 'boarding-out system' after a reckless fashion. Peter was allowed to +take two or three apprentices in succession, whom he bullied, starved, +and maltreated, and who finally died under suspicious circumstances. The +last was found dead in Peter's fishing-boat after a rough voyage: and +though nothing could be proved, the Mayor told him that he should have +no more slaves to belabour. Peter, pursuing his trade in solitude, +gradually became morbid and depressed. The melancholy estuary became +haunted by ghostly visions. He had to groan and sweat with no vent for +his passion:-- + + Thus by himself compelled to live each day, + To wait for certain hours the tide's delay; + At the same time the same dull views to see, + The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree; + The water only, when the tides were high, + When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry; + The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks, + And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks; + Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float, + As the tide rolls by the impeded boat. + +Peter grew more sullen, and the scenery became more weird and +depressing. The few who watched him remarked that there were three +places where Peter seemed to be more than usually moved. For a time he +hurried past them, whistling as he rowed; but gradually he seemed to be +fascinated. The idle loungers in the summer saw a man and boat lingering +in the tideway, apparently watching the gliding waves without casting a +net or looking at the wildfowl. At last his delirium becoming stronger, +he is carried to the poorhouse, and tells his story to the clergyman. +Nobody has painted with greater vigour that kind of externalised +conscience which may still survive in a brutalised mind. Peter Grimes, +of course, sees his victims' spirits and hates them. He fancies that his +father torments him out of spite, characteristically forgetting that the +ghost had some excuse for his anger:-- + + 'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene, + No living being had I lately seen; + I paddled up and down and dipped my net, + But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get-- + A father's pleasure, when his toil was done, + To plague and torture thus an only son! + And so I sat and looked upon the stream, + How it ran on, and felt as in a dream; + But dream it was not; no!--I fixed my eyes + On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise; + I saw my father on the water stand, + And hold a thin pale boy in either hand; + And there they glided ghastly on the top + Of the salt flood, and never touched a drop; + I would have struck them, but they knew the intent, + And smiled upon the oar, and down they went. + +Remorse in Peter's mind takes the shape of bitter hatred for his +victims; and with another characteristic confusion, he partly attributes +his sufferings to some evil influence intrinsic in the locality:-- + + There were three places, where they ever rose-- + The whole long river has not such as those-- + Places accursed, where, if a man remain, + He'll see the things which strike him to the brain. + +And then the malevolent ghosts forced poor Peter to lean on his oars, +and showed him visions of coming horrors. Grimes dies impenitent, and +fancying that his tormentors are about to seize him. Of all haunted men +in fiction, it is not easy to think of a case where the horror is more +terribly realised. The blood-boulter'd Banquo tortured a noble victim, +but scarcely tortured him more effectually. Peter Grimes was doubtless a +close relation of Peter Bell. Bell having the advantage of Wordsworth's +interpretation, leads us to many thoughts which lie altogether beyond +Crabbe's reach; but, looking simply at the sheer tragic force of the two +characters, Grimes is to Bell what brandy is to small beer. He would +never have shown the white feather like his successor, who, + + After ten months' melancholy, + Became a good and honest man. + +If, in some sense, Peter Grimes is the most effective of Crabbe's +heroes, he would, if taken alone, give a very distorted impression of +the general spirit of the poetry. It is only at intervals that he +introduces us to downright criminals. There is, indeed, a description of +a convicted felon, which, according to Macaulay, has made 'many a rough +and cynical reader cry like a child,' and which, if space were +unlimited, would make a striking pendant to the agony of the burdened +Grimes. But, as a rule, Crabbe can find motives enough for tenderness in +sufferings which have nothing to do with the criminal law, and of which +the mere framework of the story is often interesting enough. His +peculiar power is best displayed in so presenting to us the sorrows of +commonplace characters as to make us feel that a shabby coat and a +narrow education, and the most unromantic of characters, need not cut +off our sympathies with a fellow-creature; and that the dullest +tradesman who treads on our toes in an omnibus may want only a power of +articulate expression to bring before us some of the deepest of all +problems. The parish clerk and the grocer--or whatever may be the +proverbial epitome of human dulness--may swell the chorus of lamentation +over the barrenness and the hardships and the wasted energies and the +harsh discords of life which is always 'steaming up' from the world, and +to which it is one, though perhaps not the highest, of the poet's +functions to make us duly sensible. Crabbe, like all realistic writers, +must be studied at full length, and therefore quotations are necessarily +unjust. It will be sufficient if I refer--pretty much at random--to the +short story of 'Phoebe Dawson' in the 'Parish Register,' to the more +elaborate stories of 'Edward Shore' and the 'Parting Hour' in the +'Tales,' or to the story of 'Ruth' in the 'Tales of the Hall,' where +again the dreary pathos is strangely heightened by Crabbe's favourite +seaport scenery, to prove that he might be called as truly as Goldsmith +_affectuum potens_, though scarcely _lenis, dominator_. + +It is time, however, to conclude with a word or two as to Crabbe's +peculiar place in the history of English literature. I said that, unlike +his contemporaries, Cowper and Burns, he adhered rigidly to the form of +the earlier eighteenth-century school, and partly for this reason +excited the wayward admiration of Byron, who always chose to abuse the +bridge which carried him to fame. But Crabbe's clumsiness of expression +makes him a very inadequate successor of Pope or of Goldsmith, and his +claims are really founded on the qualities which led Byron to call him +'nature's sternest painter, yet her best.' On this side he is connected +with some tendencies of the school which supplanted his early models. So +far as Wordsworth and his followers represented the reaction from the +artificial to a love of unsophisticated nature, Crabbe is entirely at +one with them. He did not share that unlucky taste for the namby-pamby +by which Wordsworth annoyed his contemporaries, and spoilt some of his +earlier poems. Its place was filled in Crabbe's mind by an even more +unfortunate disposition for the simply humdrum and commonplace, which, +it must be confessed, makes it almost as hard to read a good many of his +verses as to consume large quantities of suet pudding, and has probably +destroyed his popularity with the present generation. Still, Crabbe's +influence was powerful as against the old conventionality. He did not, +like his predecessors, write upon the topics which interested 'persons +of quality,' and never gives us the impression of having composed his +rhymes in a full-bottomed wig or even in a Grub Street garret. He has +gone out into country fields and village lanes, and paints directly from +man and nature, with almost a cynical disregard of the accepted code of +propriety. But the points on which he parts company with his more +distinguished contemporaries is equally obvious. Mr. Stopford Brooke has +lately been telling us with great eloquence what is the theology which +underlies the poetical tendencies of the last generation of poets. Of +that creed, a sufficiently vague one, it must be admitted, Crabbe was by +no means an apostle. Rather one would say he was as indifferent as a +good old-fashioned clergyman could very well be to the existence of any +new order of ideas in the world. The infidels, whom he sometimes +attacks, read Bolingbroke, and Chubb, and Mandeville, and have only +heard by report even of the existence of Voltaire. The Dissenters, whom +he so heartily detests, have listened to Whitefield and Wesley, or +perhaps to Huntington, S.S.--that is, as it may now be necessary to +explain, Sinner Saved. Every newer development of thought was still far +away from the quiet pews of Aldborough, and the only form of Church +restoration of which he has heard is the objectionable practice of +painting a new wall to represent a growth of lichens. Crabbe appreciates +the charm of the picturesque, but has never yet heard of our elaborate +methods of creating modern antiques. Lapped in such ignorance, and with +a mind little given to speculation, it is only in character that Crabbe +should be totally insensible to the various moods of thought represented +by Wordsworth's pantheistic conceptions of nature, or by Shelley's +dreamy idealism, or Byron's fierce revolutionary impulses. Still less, +if possible, could he sympathise with that love of beauty, pure and +simple, of which Keats was the first prophet. He might, indeed, be +briefly described by saying that he is at the very opposite pole from +Keats. The more bigoted admirers of Keats--for there are bigots in +matters of taste or poetry as well as in science or theology or +politics--would refuse the title of poet to Crabbe altogether on the +strength of the absence of this element from his verses. Like his most +obvious parallels in painting, he is too fond of boors and pothouses to +be allowed the quality of artistic perception. I will not argue the +point, which is, perhaps, rather a question of classification than of +intrinsic merit; but I will venture to suggest a test which will, I +think, give Crabbe a very firm, though, it may be, not a very lofty +place. Though I should be unwilling to be reckoned as one of Macaulay's +'rough and cynical readers,' I admit that I can read the story of the +convicted felon, or of Peter Grimes, without indulging in downright +blubbering. Most readers, I fear, can in these days get through pathetic +poems and novels without absolutely using their pocket-handkerchiefs. +But though Crabbe may not prompt such outward and visible signs of +emotion, I think that he produces a more distinct tendency to tears than +almost any poet of his time. True, he does not appeal to emotions, +accessible only through the finer intellectual perceptions, or to the +thoughts which 'lie too deep for tears.' That prerogative belongs to men +of more intense character, greater philosophical power, and more +delicate instincts. But the power of touching readers by downright +pictures of homespun griefs and sufferings is one which, to my mind, +implies some poetical capacity, and which clearly belongs to Crabbe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] It seems, one is sorry to add, that Murray made a very bad bargain +in this case. + + + + +_WILLIAM HAZLITT_ + + +There are few great books or great men that do not sadden us by a sense +of incompleteness. The writer, we feel, is better than his work. His +full power only reveals itself by flashes. There are blemishes in his +design, due to mere oversight or indolence; his energy has flagged, or +he has alloyed his pure gold to please the mob; or some burst of wayward +passion has disturbed the fair proportions of his work, and the man +himself is a half-finished or half-ruined fragment. The rough usage of +the world leaves its mark on the spiritual constitution of even the +strongest and best amongst us; and perhaps the finest natures suffer +more than others in virtue of their finer sympathies. 'Hamlet' is a +pretty good performance, if we make allowances; but what would it have +been if Shakespeare could have been at his highest level all through, +and if every element of strength in him had been purified from every +weakness? What would it have been, shall we say, if he could have had +the advantage of reading a few modern lectures on æsthetics? We may, +perhaps, be content with Shakespeare as circumstances left him; but in +reading our modern poets, the sentiment of regret is stronger. If Byron +had not been driven into his wild revolt against the world; if Shelley +had been judiciously treated from his youth; if Keats had had healthier +lungs; if Wordsworth had not grown rusty in his solitude; if Scott had +not been tempted into publisher's speculations; if Coleridge had never +taken to opium--what great poems might not have opened the new era of +literature, where now we have but incomplete designs, and listen to +harmonies half destroyed by internal discord? The regret, however, is +less when a man has succeeded in uttering the thought that was in him, +though it may never have found a worthy expression. Wordsworth could +have told us little more, though the 'Excursion' had been as complete a +work as 'Paradise Lost;' and if Scott might have written more +'Waverleys' and 'Antiquaries' and 'Old Mortalities,' he could hardly +have written better ones. But the works of some other writers suggest +possibilities which never even approached fulfilment. If the opinion +formed by his contemporaries of Coleridge be anywhere near the truth, we +lost in him a potential philosopher of a very high order, as we more +clearly lost a poet of singular fascination. Coleridge naturally +suggests the name of De Quincey, whose works are as often tantalising as +satisfying. And to make, it is true, a considerable drop from the +greatest of these names, we often feel when we take up one of Hazlitt's +glowing Essays, that here, too, was a man who might have made a far more +enduring mark as a writer of English prose. At their best, his writings +are admirable; they have the true stamp; the thought is masculine and +the expression masterly; phrases engrave themselves on the memory; and +we catch glimpses of a genuine thinker and no mere manufacturer of +literary commonplace. On a more prolonged study, it is true, we become +conscious of many shortcomings, and the general effect is somehow rather +cloying, though hardly from an excess of sweetness. And yet he deserves +the study both of the critic and the student of character. + +The story of Hazlitt's life has been told by his grandson; but there is +a rather curious defect of materials for so recent a biography. He kept, +it seems, no letters,--a weakness, if it be a weakness, for which one is +rather apt to applaud him in these days: but, on the other hand, nobody +ever indulged more persistently in the habit of washing his dirty linen +in public. Not even his idol Rousseau could be more demonstrative of his +feelings and recollections. His Essays are autobiographical, sometimes +even offensively; and after reading them we are even more familiar than +his contemporaries with many points of his character. He loved to pour +himself out in his Essays + + as plain + As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne. + +He has laid bare for the most careless reader the main elements of his +singular composition. Like some others of his revolutionary friends, +Godwin, for example, Leigh Hunt, and Tom Paine, he represents the old +dissenting spirit in a new incarnation. The grandfather a stern +Calvinist, the father a Unitarian, the son a freethinker; those were the +gradations through which more than one family passed during the closing +years of the last century and the opening of this. One generation still +clung to the old Puritan traditions and Jonathan Edwards; the next +followed Priestley; and the third joined the little band of radicals who +read Cobbett, scorned Southey as a deserter, and refused to be +frightened by the French Revolution. The outside crust of opinion may be +shed with little change to the inner man. Hazlitt was a dissenter to his +backbone. He was born to be in a minority; to be a living protest +against the dominant creed and constitution. He recognised and +denounced, but he never shook off, the faults characteristic of small +sects. A want of wide intellectual culture, and a certain sourness of +temper, cramped his powers and sometimes marred his writing. But from +his dissenting forefathers Hazlitt inherited something better. Beside +the huge tomes of controversial divinity on his father's shelves, the +'Patres Poloni,' Pripscovius, Crellius and Cracovius, Lardner and +Doddridge, and Baxter and Bates, and Howe, were the legends of the +Puritan hagiology. The old dissenters, he tells us, had Neale's 'History +of the Puritans' by heart, and made their children read Calamy's account +of the 2,000 ejected ministers along with the stories of Daniel in the +Lion's Den and Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Sympathy for the +persecuted, unbending resistance to the oppressor, was the creed which +had passed into their blood. 'This covenant they kept as the stars keep +their courses; this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better, +as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it does not +wither in their decay.... It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, +smiles in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to +the grave. This'--for in Hazlitt lies a personal application in all his +moralising--'This is better than the whirligig life of a court +poet'--such, for example, as Robert Southey. + +But Hazlitt's descent was not pure. If we could trace back the line of +his ancestry we should expect to find that by some freak of fortune, one +of the rigid old Puritans had married a descendant of some great Flemish +or Italian painter. Love of graceful forms and bright colouring and +voluptuous sensations had been transmitted to their descendants, though +hitherto repressed by the stern discipline of British nonconformity. As +the discipline relaxed, the Hazlitts reverted to the ancestral type. +Hazlitt himself, his brother and his sister, were painters by instinct. +The brother became a painter of miniatures by profession; and Hazlitt to +the end of his days revered Titian almost as much as he revered his +great idol Napoleon. An odd pair of idols, one thinks, for a youth +brought up upon Pripscovius and his brethren! A keen delight in all +artistic and natural beauty was an awkward endowment for a youth +intended for the ministry. Keats was scarcely more out of place in a +surgery than Hazlitt would have been in a Unitarian pulpit of those +days, and yet from that pulpit, oddly enough, came the greatest impulse +to Hazlitt. It came from a man who, like Hazlitt himself, though in a +higher degree than Hazlitt, combined the artistic and the philosophic +temperament. Coleridge, as Hazlitt somewhere says, threw a great stone +into the standing pool of contemporary thought; and it was in January +1798--one of the many dates in his personal history to which he recurs +with unceasing fondness--that Hazlitt rose before daylight and walked +ten miles in the mud to hear Coleridge preach. He has told, in his +graphic manner, how the voice of the preacher 'rose like a stream of +rich distilled perfumes;' how he launched into his subject, after giving +out the text, 'like an eagle dallying with the wind;' and how his young +hearer seemed to be listening to the music of the spheres, to see the +union of poetry and philosophy; and behold truth and genius embracing +under the eye of religion. His description of the youthful Coleridge has +a fit pendant in the wonderful description of the full-blown philosopher +in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling;' where, indeed, one or two touches are +taken from Hazlitt's Essays. It is Hazlitt who remarked, even at this +early meeting, that the dreamy poet philosopher could never decide on +which side of the footpath he should walk; and Hazlitt, who struck out +the epigram that Coleridge was an excellent talker if allowed to start +from no premisses and come to no conclusion. The glamour of Coleridge's +theosophy never seems to have fascinated Hazlitt's stubborn intellect. +At this time, indeed, Coleridge had not yet been inoculated with German +mysticism. In after years, the disciple, according to his custom, +renounced his master and assailed him with half-regretful anger. But the +intercourse and kindly encouragement of so eminent a man seem to have +roused Hazlitt's ambition. His poetical and his speculative intellect +were equally stirred. The youth was already longing to write a +philosophical treatise. The two elements of his nature thus roused to +action led him along a 'strange diagonal.' He would be at once a painter +and a metaphysician. Some eight years of artistic labour convinced him +that he could not be a Titian or a Raphael, and he declined to be a mere +Hazlitt junior. His metaphysical studies, on the contrary, convinced him +that he might be a Hume or a Berkeley; but unluckily they convinced +himself alone. The tiny volume which contained their results was +neglected by everybody but the author, who, to the end of his days, +loved it with the love of a mother for a deformed child. It is written, +to say the truth, in a painful and obscure style; it is the work of a +man who has brooded over his own thoughts in solitude till he cannot +appreciate the need of a clear exposition. The narrowness of his reading +had left him in ignorance of the new aspects under which the eternal +problems were presenting themselves to the new generation; and a +metaphysical discussion in antiquated phraseology is as useless as a +lady's dress in the last year's fashion. Hazlitt, in spite of this +double failure, does not seem to have been much disturbed by +impecuniosity; but the most determined Bohemian has to live. For some +years he strayed about the purlieus of literature, drudging, +translating, and doing other cobbler's work. Two of his performances, +however, were characteristic; he wrote an attack upon Malthus, and he +made an imprudent marriage. Even Malthusians must admit that imprudent +marriages may have some accidental good consequences. When a man has +fairly got his back to the wall, he is forced to fight; and Hazlitt, at +the age of thirty-four, with a wife and a son, at last discovered the +great secret of the literary profession, that a clever man can write +when he has to write or starve. To compose had been labour and grief to +him, so long as he could potter round a thought indefinitely; but with +the printer's devil on one side and the demands of a family on the +other, his ink began to flow freely, and during the last fifteen or +seventeen years of his life he became a voluminous though fragmentary +author. Several volumes of essays, lectures, and criticisms, besides his +more ambitious 'Life of Napoleon,' and a great deal of anonymous +writing, attest his industry. He died in 1830, at the age of fifty-two; +leaving enough to show that he could have done more and a good deal of a +rare, if not of the highest kind of excellence. + +Hazlitt, as I have said, is everywhere autobiographical. Besides that +secret, that a man can write if he must, he had discovered the further +secret that the easiest of all topics is his own feelings. It is an +apparent paradox, though the explanation is not far to seek, that +Hazlitt, though shy with his friends, was the most unreserved of +writers. Indeed he takes the public into his confidence with a facility +which we cannot easily forgive. Biographers of late have been guilty of +flagrant violations of the unwritten code which should protect the +privacies of social life from the intrusions of public curiosity. But +the most unscrupulous of biographers would hardly have dared to tear +aside the veil so audaciously as Hazlitt, in one conspicuous instance at +least, chose to do for himself. His idol Rousseau had indeed gone +further; but when Rousseau told the story of his youth, it was at least +seen through a long perspective of years, and his own personality might +seem to be scarcely interested. Hazlitt chose, in the strange book +called the 'New Pygmalion,' or 'Liber Amoris,' to invite the British +public at large to look on at a strange tragi-comedy, of which the last +scene was scarcely finished. Hazlitt had long been unhappy in his family +life. His wife appears to have been a masculine woman, with no talent +for domesticity; completely indifferent to her husband's pursuits, and +inclined to despise him for so fruitless an employment of his energies. +They had already separated, it seems, when Hazlitt fell desperately in +love with Miss Sarah Walker, the daughter of his lodging-house keeper. +The husband and wife agreed to obtain a divorce under the Scotch law, +after which they might follow their own paths, and Sarah Walker become +the second Mrs. Hazlitt. Some months had to be spent by Mr. and Mrs. +Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's +journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly +resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and +imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all +pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, +takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some +picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has +made a fool of himself, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a +troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved +pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his +friends letters which seem to be throbbing with unrestrainable passion. +He is raving as Romeo at Mantua might have raved about Juliet. To hear +Miss Walker called his wife will be music to his ears, such as they +never heard. But it seems doubtful whether, after all, his Juliet will +have him. He shrieks mere despair and suicide. Nothing is left in the +world to give him a drop of comfort. The breeze does not cool him nor +the blue sky delight him. He will never lie down at night nor rise up of +a morning in peace, nor even behold his little boy's face with pleasure, +unless he is restored to her favour. And Mrs. Hazlitt reports, after +acknowledging the receipt of ÂŁ10, that Mr. Hazlitt was so much +'enamoured' of one of these letters that he pulled it out of his pocket +twenty times a day, wanted to read it to his companions, and ranted and +gesticulated till people took him for a madman. The 'Liber Amoris' is +made out of these letters--more or less altered and disguised, with some +reports of conversations with the lovely Sarah. 'It was an explosion of +frenzy,' says De Quincey; his reckless mode of relieving his bosom of +certain perilous stuff, with little care whether it produced scorn or +sympathy. A passion which urges its victim to such improprieties should +be, at least, deep and genuine. One would have liked him better if he +had not taken his frenzy to market. The 'Liber Amoris' tells us +accordingly that the author, Hazlitt's imaginary double, died abroad, +'of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of mind.' +The hero, in short, breaks his heart when the lady marries somebody +else. Hazlitt's heart was more elastic. Miss Sarah Walker married, and +Hazlitt next year married a widow lady 'of some property,' made a tour +with her on the Continent, and then--quarrelled with her also. It is not +a pretty story. Hazlitt's biographer informs us, by way of excuse, that +his grandfather was 'physically incapable'--whatever that may mean--'of +fixing his affection upon a single object.' He 'comprehended,' indeed, +'the worth of constancy' and other virtues as well as most men, and +could have written about them better than most men; but somehow 'a +sinister influence or agency,' a periphrasis for a sensuous temperament, +was perpetually present, which confined his virtues to the sphere of +theory. An apology sometimes is worse than a satire. The case, however, +seems to be sufficiently plain. We need not suspect that Hazlitt was +consciously acting a part and nursing his 'frenzy' because he thought +that it would make a startling book. He was an egotist and a man of +impulse. His impressions were for the time overpowering; but they were +transient. His temper was often stronger than his passions. A gust of +anger would make him quarrel with his oldest friends. Every emotion +justified itself for the time, because it was his. He always did well, +whether it pleased him for the moment to be angry, to be in love, to be +cynical, or to be furiously indignant. The end, therefore, of his life +exhibits a series of short impetuous fits of passionate endeavour, +rather than devotion to a single overruling purpose; and all his +writings are brief outbursts of eloquent feeling, where neither the +separate fragments nor the works considered as a whole obey any law of +logical development. And yet, in some ways, Hazlitt boasted, and boasted +plausibly enough, of his constancy. He has the same ideas to the end of +his life that he had at fourteen. He would, he remarks, be an excellent +man on a jury; he would say little, but would starve the eleven other +obstinate fellows out. Amongst politicians he was a faithful Abdiel, +when all others had deserted the cause. He loved the books of his +boyhood, the fields where he had walked, the gardens where he had drunk +tea, and, to a rather provoking extent, the old quotations and old +stories which he had used from his first days of authorship. The +explanation of the apparent paradox gives the clue to Hazlitt's singular +character. + +What I have called Hazlitt's egotism is more euphemistically and perhaps +more accurately described by Talfourd,[3] 'an intense consciousness of +his own individual being.' The word egotism in our rough estimates of +character is too easily confounded with selfishness. Hazlitt might have +been the person who, as one making a strange confession, assured a +friend that he took a deep interest in his own concerns. He was, one +would say, decidedly unselfish, if by selfishness is meant a disposition +to feather one's own nest without regard for other people's wants. Still +less was he selfish in the sense of preferring solid bread and butter to +the higher needs of mind and spirit. His sentiments are always generous, +and if scorn is too familiar a mood, it is scorn of the base and +servile. But his peculiarity is that these generous feelings are always +associated with some special case. He sees every abstract principle by +the concrete instance. He hates insolence in the abstract, but his +hatred flames into passion when it is insolence to Hazlitt. He resembles +that good old lady who wrote on the margin of her 'Complete Duty of Man' +the name of that neighbour who most conspicuously sinned against the +precept in the opposite text. Tyranny with Hazlitt is named Pitt, party +spite is Gifford, apostasy is Southey, and fidelity may be called +Cobbett or Godwin; though he finds names for the vices much more easily +than for the virtues. And thus, if he cannot be condemned for +selfishness, one must be charitable not to put down a good many of his +offences to its sister jealousy. The personal and the public sentiments +are so invariably blended in his mind that neither he nor anybody else +could have analysed their composition. He was apt to be the more moody +and irritable because his resentments clothed themselves spontaneously +in the language of some nobler emotion. If his friends are cold, he +bewails the fickleness of humanity; if they are successful, it is not +envy that prompts his irritation, but the rarity of the correspondence +between merit and reward. Such a man is more faithful to his dead than +to his living friends. The dead cannot change; they always come back to +his memory in their old colours; their names recall the old tender +emotion placed above all change and chance. But who can tell that our +dearest living friend may not come into awkward collision with us before +he has left the room? It is as well to be on our guard! It is curious +how the two feelings alternate in Hazlitt's mind in regard to the +friends who are at once dead and living; how fondly he dwells upon the +Coleridge of Wem and Nether Stowey where he first listened to the +enchanter's voice, and with what bitterness, which is yet but soured +affection, he turns upon the Coleridge who defended war-taxes in the +'Friend.' He hacks and hews at Southey through several furious Essays, +and ends with a groan. 'We met him unexpectedly the other day in St. +Giles's,' he says, 'were sorry we had passed him without speaking to an +old friend, turned and looked after him for some time as to a tale of +other days--sighing, as we walked on, Alas, poor Southey!' He fancies +himself to be in the mood of Brutus murdering Cæsar. It is patriotism +struggling with old associations of friendship; if there is any personal +element in the hostility, no one is less conscious of it than the +possessor. To the whole Lake school his attitude is always the +same--justice done grudgingly in spite of anger, or satire tempered by +remorse. No one could say nastier things of that very different egotist, +Wordsworth; nor could anyone, outside the sacred clique, pay him +heartier compliments. Nobody, indeed, can dislike egotism like an +egotist. 'Wordsworth,' says Hazlitt, 'sees nothing but himself and the +universe; he hates all greatness and all pretensions to it but his own. +His egotism is in this respect a madness, for he scorns even the +admiration of himself, thinking it a presumption in anyone to suppose +that he has taste or sense enough to understand him. He hates all +science and all art: he hates chemistry, he hates conchology, he hates +Sir Isaac Newton, he hates logic, he hates metaphysics,' and so on +through a long list of hatreds, ending with the inimitable Napoleon, +whom Wordsworth hates, it seems, 'to get rid of the idea of anything +greater, or thought to be greater, than himself.' Hazlitt might have +made out a tolerable list of his own antipathies; though, to do him +justice, of antipathies balanced by ardent enthusiasm, especially for +the dead or the distant. + +Hazlitt, indeed, was incapable of the superlative self-esteem here +attributed to Wordsworth. His egotism is a curious variety of that +Protean passion, compounded as skilfully as the melancholy of Jaques. It +is not the fascinating and humorous egotism of Lamb, who disarms us +beforehand by a smile at his own crotchets. Hazlitt is too serious to be +playful. Nor is it like the amusing egotism of Boswell, combined with a +vanity which evades our contempt, because it asks so frankly for +sympathy. Hazlitt is too proud and too bitter. Neither is it the +misanthropic egotism of Byron, which, through all its affectation, +implies a certain aristocratic contempt of the world and its laws. +Hazlitt has not the sweep and continuity of Byron's passion. His +egotism--be it said without offence--is dashed with something of the +feeling common amongst his dissenting friends. He feels the awkwardness +which prevails amongst a clique branded by a certain social stigma, and +despises himself for his awkwardness. He resents neglect and scorns to +ask for patronage. His egotism is a touchy and wayward feeling which +takes the mask of misanthropy. He is always meditating upon his own +qualities, but not in the spirit of the conceited man who plumes himself +upon his virtues, nor of the ascetic who broods over his vices. He +prefers the apparently self-contradictory attitude (but human nature is +illogical) of meditating with remorse upon his own virtues. What in +others is complacency, becomes with him, ostensibly at least, +self-reproach. He affects--but it is hard to say where the affectation +begins--to be annoyed by the contemplation of his own merits. He is +angry with the world for preferring commonplace to genius, and rewarding +stupidity by success; but in form at least, he mocks at his own folly +for expecting better things. If he is vain at bottom, his vanity shows +itself indirectly by depreciating his neighbours. He is too proud to +dwell upon his own virtues, but he has been convinced by impartial +observation that the world at large is in a conspiracy against merit. +Thus he manages to transform his self-consciousness into the semblance +of proud humility, and extracts a bitter and rather morbid pleasure from +dwelling upon his disappointments and failures. Half-a-dozen of his best +Essays give expression to this mood, which is rather bitter than +querulous. He enlarges cordially on the 'disadvantages of intellectual +superiority.' An author--Hazlitt, to wit--is not allowed to relax into +dulness; if he is brilliant he is not understood, and if he professes an +interest in common things it is assumed that then he must be a fool. And +yet in the midst of these grumblings he is forced to admit a touch of +weakness, and tells us how it pleases him to hear a man ask in the Fives +Court, 'Which is Mr. Hazlitt?' He, the most idiosyncratic of men, and +most proud of it at bottom, declares how 'he hates his style to be +known, as he hates all idiosyncrasy.' At the next moment he purrs with +complacency at the recollection of having been forced into an avowal of +his authorship of an article in the 'Edinburgh Review.' Most generally +he eschews these naĂŻve lapses into vanity. He dilates on the old text of +the 'shyness of scholars.' The learned are out of place in competition +with the world. They are not and ought not to fancy themselves fitted +for the vulgar arena. They can never enjoy their old privileges. 'Fool +that it (learning) was, ever to forego its privileges and loosen the +strong hold it had on opinion in bigotry and superstition!' The same +tone of disgust pronounces itself more cynically in an Essay 'on the +pleasure of hating.' Hatred is, he admits, a poisonous ingredient in all +our passions, but it is that which gives reality to them. Patriotism +means hatred of the French, and virtue is a hatred of other people's +faults to atone for our own vices. All things turn to hatred. 'We hate +old friends, we hate old books, we hate old opinions, and at last we +come to hate ourselves.' Summing up all his disappointments, the broken +friendships, and disappointed ambitions, and vanished illusions, he +asks, in conclusion, whether he has not come to hate and despise +himself? 'Indeed, I do,' he answers, 'and chiefly for not having hated +and despised the world enough.' + +This is an outbreak of temporary spleen. Nobody loved his old books and +old opinions better. Hazlitt is speaking in the character of Timon, +which indeed fits him rather too easily. But elsewhere the same strain +of cynicism comes out in more natural and less extravagant form. Take, +for example, the Essay on the 'Conduct of Life.' It is a piece of _bonâ +fide_ advice addressed to his boy at school, and gives in a sufficiently +edifying form the commonplaces which elders are accustomed to address to +their juniors. Honesty, independence, diligence, and temperance are +commended in good set terms, though with an earnestness which, as is +often the case with Hazlitt, imparts some reality to outworn formulæ. +When, however, he comes to the question of marriage, the true man breaks +out. Don't trust, he says, to fine sentiments: they will make no more +impression on these delicate creatures than on a piece of marble. Love +in women is vanity, interest, or fancy. Women care nothing about talents +or virtue--about poets or philosophers or politicians. They judge by the +eye. 'No true woman ever regarded anything but her lover's person and +address.' The author has no chance; for he lives in a dream, he feels +nothing spontaneously, his metaphysical refinements are all thrown away. +'Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the +fire in your eye; adorn your person; maintain your health, your beauty, +and your animal spirits; for if you once lapse into poetry and +philosophy you will want an eye to show you, a hand to guide you, a +bosom to love--and will stagger into your grave old before your time, +unloved and unlovely.' 'A spider,' he adds, 'the meanest creature that +crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow, but a scholar has no mate or +fellow.' Mrs. Hazlitt, Miss Sarah Walker, and several other ladies, +thought Hazlitt surly and cared nothing for his treatise on human +nature. Therefore (it is true Hazlittian logic) no woman cares for +sentiment. The sex which despised him must be despicable. Equally +characteristic is his profound belief that his failure in another line +is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most +characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. +He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, +and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does +not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, +with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not +being a Government tool. He wrote a charming character of Congreve's +Millamant, but it was unnoticed because he was not a Government tool. +Gifford would not relish his account of Dekkar's Orlando +Friscobaldo--because he was not a Government tool. He wrote admirable +table-talks--for once, as they are nearly finished, he will venture to +praise himself. He could swear (were they not his) that the thoughts in +them were 'founded as the rock, free as the air, the hue like an Italian +picture.' But, had the style been like polished steel, as firm and as +bright, it would have availed him nothing, for he was not a Government +tool. The world hated him, we see, for his merits. It is a bad world, he +says; but don't think that it is my vanity which has taken offence, for +I am remarkable for modesty, and therefore I know that my virtues are +faults of which I ought to be ashamed. Is this pride or vanity, or +humility, or cynicism, or self-reproach for wasted talents, or an +intimate blending of passions for which there is no precise name? Who +can unravel the masks within masks of a cunning egotism? + +To one virtue, however, that of political constancy, Hazlitt lays claim +in the most emphatic terms. If he quarrels with all his friends--'most +of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or +cold, uncomfortable acquaintance'--it is, of course, their fault. A +thoroughgoing egotist must think himself the centre of gravity of the +world, and all change of relations must mean that others have moved away +from him. Politically, too, all who have given up his opinions are +deserters, and generally from the worst of motives. He accuses Burke of +turning against the Revolution from--of all motives in the +world!--jealousy of Rousseau; a theory still more impossible than Mr. +Buckle's hypothesis of madness. Court favour supplies in most cases a +simpler explanation of the general demoralisation. Hazlitt could not +give credit to men like Southey and Coleridge for sincere alarm at the +French Revolution. Such a sentiment would be too unreasonable, for he +had not been alarmed himself. His constancy, indeed, would be admirable +if it did not suggest doubts of his wisdom. A man whose opinions at +fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If +his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by +experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. +To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write +yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what +Hazlitt called his opinions were really his feelings. He could argue +very ingeniously, as appears from his remarks on Coleridge and Malthus, +but his logic was the slave, not the ruler, of his emotions. His +politics were simply the expression, in a generalised form, of his +intense feeling of personality. They are a projection upon the modern +political world of that heroic spirit of individual self-respect which +animated his Puritan forefathers. One question, and only one question, +he frequently tells us, is of real importance. All the rest is mere +verbiage. The single dogma worth attacking or defending is the divine +right of kings. Are men, in the old phrase, born saddled and bridled, +and other men ready booted and spurred, or are they not? That is the +single shibboleth which distinguishes true men from false. Others, he +says, bowed their heads to the image of the beast. 'I spit upon it, and +buffeted it, and pointed at it, and drew aside the veil that then half +concealed it.' This passionate denial of the absolute right of men over +their fellows is but vicarious pride, if you please to call it so, or a +generous recognition of the dignity of human nature translated into +political terms. Hazlitt's character did not change, however much his +judgment of individuals might change; and therefore the principles which +merely reflected his character remained rooted and unshaken. And yet his +politics changed curiously enough in another sense. The abstract truth, +in Hazlitt's mind, must always have a concrete symbol. He chose to +regard Napoleon as the antithesis to the divine right of kings. That was +the vital formula of Napoleon, his essence, and the true meaning of his +policy. The one question in abstract politics was typified for Hazlitt +by the contrast between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance. To prove that +Napoleon could trample on human rights as roughly as any legitimate +sovereign was for him mere waste of time. Napoleon's tyranny meant a +fair war against the evil principle. Had Hazlitt lived in France, and +come into collision with press laws, it is likely enough that his +sentiments would have changed. But Napoleon was far enough off to serve +as a mere poetical symbol; his memory had got itself entwined in those +youthful associations on which Hazlitt always dwelt so fondly; and, +moreover, to defend 'Boney' was to quarrel with most of his countrymen, +and even of his own party. What more was wanted to make him one of +Hazlitt's superstitions? No more ardent devotee of the Napoleonic legend +ever existed, and Hazlitt's last years were employed in writing a book +which is a political pamphlet as much as a history. He worships the +eldest Napoleon with the fervour of a corporal of the Old Guard, and +denounces the great conspiracy of kings and nobles with the energy of +Cobbett; but he had none of the special knowledge which alone could give +permanent value to such a performance. He seems to have consulted only +the French authorities; and it is refreshing for once to find an +Englishman telling the story of Waterloo entirely from the French side, +and speaking, for example, of left and right as if he had been--as in +imagination he was--by the side of Napoleon instead of Wellington. Even +M. Victor Hugo can see more merit in the English army and its commander. +A radical, who takes Napoleon for his polar star, must change some of +his theories, though he disguises the change from himself; but a change +of a different kind came over Hazlitt as he grew older. + +The enthusiasm of the Southeys and Wordsworths for the French Revolution +changed--whatever their motives--into enthusiasm for the established +order. Hazlitt's enthusiasm remained, but became the enthusiasm of +regret instead of hope. As one by one the former zealots dropped off he +despised them as renegades, and clasped his old creed the more firmly to +his bosom. But the change did not draw him nearer to the few who +remained faithful. They perversely loved the wrong side of the right +cause, or loved it for the wrong reason. He liked the Whigs no better +than the Tories; the 'Edinburgh' and the 'Quarterly' were opposition +coaches, making a great dust and spattering each other with mud, but +travelling by the same road to the same end. A Whig, he said, was a +trimmer who dared neither to be a rogue nor an honest man, but was 'a +sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning +negation of the two.' And the true genuine radical reformers? To them, +as represented by the school of Bentham, Hazlitt entertained an aversion +quite as hearty as his aversion for Whigs and Tories. If, he says, the +Whigs are too finical to join heartily with the popular advocates, the +Reformers are too cold. They hated literature, poetry, and romance; +nothing gives them pleasure that does not give others pain; +utilitarianism means prosaic, hard-hearted, narrow-minded dogmatism. +Indeed, his pet essay on the principles of human nature was simply an +assault on what he took to be their fundamental position. He fancied +that the school of Bentham regarded man as a purely selfish and +calculating animal; and his whole philosophy was an attempt to prove the +natural disinterestedness of man, and to indicate for the imagination +and the emotions their proper place beside the calculating faculty. Few +were those who did not come under one or other clause of this sweeping +denunciation. He assailed Shelley, who was neither Whig, Tory, nor +Utilitarian, so cuttingly as to provoke a dispute with Leigh Hunt, and +had some of his sharp criticisms for his friend Godwin. His general +moral, indeed, is the old congenial one. The reformer is as unfit for +this world as the scholar. He is the only wise man, but, as things go, +wisdom is the worst of follies. The reformer, he says, is necessarily a +marplot; he does not know what he would be at; if he did, he does not +much care for it; and, moreover, he is 'governed habitually by a spirit +of contradiction, and is always wise beyond what is practicable.' Upon +this text Hazlitt dilates with immense spirit, satirising the crotchety +and impracticable race, and contrasting them with the disciplined +phalanx of Toryism, brilliantly and bitterly enough to delight Gifford; +and yet he is writing a preface to a volume of radical Essays. He is +consoling himself for being in a minority of one by proving that two +virtuous men must always disagree. Hazlitt is no genuine democrat. He +hates 'both mobs,' or, in other words, the great mass of the human race. +He would sympathise with Coriolanus more easily than with the Tribunes. +He laughs at the perfectibility of the species, and holds that 'all +things move, not in progress but in a ceaseless round.' The glorious +dream is fled: + + The radiance which was once so bright + Is now for ever taken from our sight; + +and his only consolation is to live over in memory the sanguine times of +his youth, before Napoleon had fallen and the Holy Alliance restored the +divine right of kings; to cherish eternal regret for the hopes that have +departed, and hatred and scorn equally enduring for those who blasted +them. 'Give me back,' he exclaims, 'one single evening at Boxhill, after +a stroll in the deep empurpled woods, before Bonaparte was yet beaten, +with "wine of Attic taste," when wit, beauty, friendship presided at +the board.' The personal blends with the political regret. + +Hazlitt, the politician, was soured. He fed his morbid egotism by +indignantly chewing the cud of disappointment, and scornfully rejecting +comfort. He quarrelled with his wife and with most of his friends, even +with the gentle Lamb, till Lamb regained his affections by the brief +quarrel with Southey. Certainly, he might call himself, with some +plausibility, 'the king of good haters.' But, after all, Hazlitt's +cynicism is the souring of a generous nature; and when we turn from the +politician to the critic and the essayist, our admiration for his powers +is less frequently jarred by annoyance at their wayward misuse. His +egotism--for he is still an egotist--here takes a different shape. His +criticism is not of the kind which is now most popular. He lived before +the days of philosophers who talk about the organism and its +environment, and of the connoisseurs who boast of an eclectic taste for +all the delicate essences of art. He never thought of showing that a +great writer was only the product of his time, race, and climate; and he +had not learnt to use such terms of art as 'supreme,' 'gracious,' +'tender,' 'bitter,' and 'subtle,' in which a good deal of criticism now +consists. Lamb, says Hazlitt, tried old authors 'on his palate as +epicures taste olives;' and the delicacy of discrimination which makes +the process enjoyable is perhaps the highest qualification of a good +critic. Hazlitt's point of view was rather different, nor can we ascribe +to him without qualification that exquisite appreciation of purely +literary charm which is so rare and so often affected. Nobody, indeed, +loved some authors more heartily or understood them better; his love is +so hearty that he cannot preserve the true critical attitude. Instead of +trying them on his palate, he swallows them greedily. His judgment of +an author seems to depend upon two circumstances. He is determined in +great measure by his private associations, and in part by his sympathy +for the character of the writer. His interest in this last sense is, one +may say, rather psychological than purely critical. He thinks of an +author not as the exponent of a particular vein of thought or emotion, +nor as an artistic performer on the instrument of language, but as a +human being to be loved or hated, or both, like Napoleon or Gifford or +Southey. + +Hazlitt's favourite authors were, for the most part, the friends of his +youth. He had pored over their pages till he knew them by heart; their +phrases were as familiar to his lips as texts of Scripture to preachers +who know but one book; the places where he had read them became sacred +to him, and a glory of his early enthusiasm was still reflected from the +old pages. Rousseau was his beloved above all writers. They had a +natural affinity. What Hazlitt says of Rousseau may be partly applied to +himself. Of Hazlitt it might be said almost as truly as of Rousseau, +that 'he had the most intense consciousness of his own existence. No +object that had once made an impression upon him was ever after +effaced.' In Rousseau's 'Confessions' and 'Nouvelle HĂ©loĂŻse,' Hazlitt +saw the reflections of his own passions. He spent, he declares, two +whole years in reading these two books; and they were the happiest years +of his life. He marks with a white stone the days on which he read +particular passages. It was on April 10, 1798--as he tells us some +twenty years later--that he sat down to a volume of the 'New HĂ©loĂŻse,' +at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. He +tells us which passage he read and what was the view before his bodily +eyes. His first reading of 'Paul and Virginia' is associated with an inn +at Bridgewater; and at another old-fashioned inn he tells how the rustic +fare and the quaint architecture gave additional piquancy to Congreve's +wit. He remembers, too, the spot at which he first read Mrs. Inchbald's +'Simple Story;' how he walked out to escape from one of the tenderest +parts, in order to return again with double relish. + +'An old crazy hand-organ,' he adds, 'was playing "Robin Adair," a summer +shower dropped manna on my head, and slaked my feverish thirst of +happiness.' He looks back to his first familiarity with his favourites +as an old man may think of his honeymoon. The memories of his own +feelings, of his author's poetry, and of the surrounding scenery, are +inextricably fused together. The sight of an old volume, he says, +sometimes shakes twenty years off his life; he sees his old friends +alive again, the place where he read the book, the day when he got it, +the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky. To these old favourites he +remained faithful, except that he seems to have tired of the glitter of +Junius. Burke's politics gave him some severe twinges. He says, in one +place, that he always tests the sense and candour of a Liberal by his +willingness to admit the greatness of Burke. He adds, as a note to the +Essay in which this occurs, that it was written in a 'fit of extravagant +candour,' when he thought that he could be more than just to an enemy +without betraying a cause. He oscillates between these views as his +humour changes. He is absurdly unjust to Burke the politician; but he +does not waver in his just recognition of the marvellous power of the +greatest--I should almost say the only great--political writer in the +language. The first time he read a passage from Burke, he said, This is +true eloquence. Johnson immediately became shelved, and Junius 'shrunk +up into little antithetic points and well-tuned sentences. But Burke's +style was forked and playful like the lightning, crested like the +serpent.' He is never weary of Burke, as he elsewhere says; and, in +fact, he is man enough to recognise genuine power when he meets it. To +another great master he yields with a reluctance which is an involuntary +compliment. The one author whom he admitted into his Pantheon after his +youthful enthusiasm had cooled was unluckily the most consistent of +Tories. Who is there, he asks, that admires the author of 'Waverley' +more than I do? Who is there that despises Sir Walter Scott more? The +Scotch novels, as they were then called, fairly overpowered him. The +imaginative force, the geniality and the wealth of picturesque incident +of the greatest of novelists, disarmed his antipathy. It is curious to +see how he struggles with himself. He blesses and curses in a breath. He +applies to Scott Pope's description of Bacon, 'the greatest, wisest, +meanest of mankind,' and asks-- + + Who would not laugh if such a man there be? + Who would not weep if "Waverley" were he? + +He crowns a torrent of abuse by declaring that Scott has encouraged the +lowest panders of a venal press, 'deluging and nauseating the public +mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang;' +and presently he calls Scott--by way, it is true, of lowering +Byron--'one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived.' He +invents a theory, to which he returns more than once, to justify the +contrast. Scott, he says, is much such a writer as the Duke of +Wellington (the hated antithesis of Napoleon, whose 'foolish face' he +specially detests) is a general. The one gets 100,000 men together, and +'leaves it to them to fight out the battle, for if he meddled with it +he might spoil sport; the other gets an innumerable quantity of facts +together, and lets them tell their story as they may. The facts are +stubborn in the last instance as the men are in the first, and in +neither case is the broth spoiled by the cook.' Both heroes show modesty +and self-knowledge, but 'little boldness or inventiveness of genius.' On +the strength of this doctrine he even compares Scott disadvantageously +with Godwin and Mrs. Inchbald, who had, it seems, more invention though +fewer facts. Hazlitt was not bound to understand strategy, and devoutly +held that Wellington's armies succeeded because their general only +looked on. But he should have understood his own trade a little better. +Putting aside this grotesque theory, he feels Scott's greatness truly, +and admits it generously. He enjoys the broth, to use his own phrase, +though he is determined to believe that it somehow made itself. + +Lamb said that Hazlitt was a greater authority when he praised than when +he abused, a doctrine which may be true of others than Hazlitt. The true +distinction is rather that Hazlitt, though always unsafe as a judge, is +admirable as an advocate in his own cause, and poor when merely speaking +from his brief. Of Mrs. Inchbald I must say what Hazlitt shocked his +audience by saying of Hannah More; that she has written a good deal +which I have not read, and I therefore cannot deny that her novels might +have been written by Venus; but I cannot admit that Wycherley's brutal +'Plain-dealer' is as good as ten volumes of sermons. 'It is curious to +see,' says Hazlitt, rather naĂŻvely, 'how the same subject is treated by +two such different authors as Shakespeare and Wycherley.' Macaulay's +remark about the same coincidence is more to the point. 'Wycherley +borrows Viola,' says that vigorous moralist, 'and Viola forthwith +becomes a pander of the basest sort.' That is literally true. Indeed, +Hazlitt's love for the dramatists of the Restoration is something of a +puzzle, except so far as it is explained by early associations. Even +then it is hard to explain the sympathy which Hazlitt, the lover of +Rousseau and sentiment, feels for Congreve, whose speciality it is that +a touch of sentiment is as rare in his painfully-witty dialogues as a +drop of water in the desert. Perhaps a contempt for the prejudices of +respectable people gave zest to Hazlitt's enjoyment of a literature, +representative of a social atmosphere, most propitious to his best +feelings. And yet, though I cannot take Hazlitt's judgment, I would +frankly admit that Hazlitt's enthusiasm brings out Congreve's real +merits with a force of which a calmer judge would be incapable. His warm +praises of 'The Beggar's Opera,' his assault upon Sidney's 'Arcadia,' +his sarcasms against Tom Moore, are all excellent in their way, whether +we do or do not agree with his final result. Whenever Hazlitt writes +from his own mind, in short, he writes what is well worth reading. +Hazlitt learnt something in his later years from Lamb. He prefers, he +says, those papers of Elia in which there is the least infusion of +antiquated language; and, in fact, Lamb never inoculated him with his +taste for the old English literature. Hazlitt gave a series of lectures +upon the Elizabethan dramatists, and carelessly remarks some time +afterwards that he has only read about a quarter of Beaumont and +Fletcher's plays, and intends to read the rest when he has a chance. It +is plain, indeed, that the lectures, though written at times with great +spirit, are the work of a man who has got them up for the occasion. And +in his more ambitious and successful essays upon Shakespeare the same +want of reading appears in another way. He is more familiar with +Shakespeare's text than many better scholars. His familiarity is proved +by a habit of quotation of which it has been disputed whether it is a +merit or a defect. What phrenologists would call the adhesiveness of +Hazlitt's mind, its extreme retentiveness for any impression which has +once been received, tempts him to a constant repetition of familiar +phrases and illustrations. He has, too, a trick of working in patches of +his old essays, which he expressly defends on the ground that a book +which has not reached a second edition may be considered by its author +as manuscript. This self-plagiarism sometimes worries us, as we are +worried by a man whose conversation runs in ruts. But his quotations +from other authors, where used in moderation, often give a pleasant +richness to his style. Shakespeare, in particular, seems to be a +storehouse into which he can always dip for an appropriate turn of +phrase, and his love of Shakespeare is of a characteristic kind. He has +not counted syllables nor weighed various readings. He does not throw a +new light upon delicate indications of thought and sentiment, nor +philosophise after the manner of Coleridge and the Germans, nor regard +Shakespeare as the representative of his age according to the sweeping +method of M. Taine. Neither does he seem to love Shakespeare himself as +he loves Rousseau or Richardson. He speaks contemptuously of the Sonnets +and Poems, and, though I respect his sincerity, I think that such a +verdict necessarily indicates indifference to the most Shakespearian +parts of Shakespeare. The calm assertion that the qualities of the Poems +are the reverse of the qualities of the plays is unworthy of Hazlitt's +general acuteness. That which really attracts Hazlitt is sufficiently +indicated by the title of his book; he describes the characters of +Shakespeare's plays. It is Iago, and Timon, and Coriolanus, and Anthony, +and Cleopatra, who really interest him. He loves and hates them as if +they were his own contemporaries; he gives the main outlines of their +character with a spirited touch. And yet one somehow feels that Hazlitt +is not at his best in Shakespearian criticism; his eulogies savour of +commonplace, and are wanting in spontaneity. There is not that warm glow +of personal feeling which gives light and warmth to his style whenever +he touches upon his early favourites. Perhaps he is a little daunted by +the greatness of his task, and perhaps there is something in the +Shakespearian width of sympathy and in the Shakespearian humour which +lies beyond Hazlitt's sphere. His criticism of Hamlet is feeble; he does +not do justice to Mercutio or to Jaques; but he sympathises more +heartily with the tremendous passion of Lear and Othello, and finds +something congenial to his taste in Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. It +is characteristic, too, that he evidently understands Shakespeare better +on the stage than in the closet. When he can associate Iago and Shylock +with the visible presence of Kean, he can introduce that personal +element which is so necessary to his best writing. + +The best, indeed, of Hazlitt's criticisms--if the word may be so far +extended--are his criticisms of living men. The criticism of +contemporary portraits called the 'Spirit of the Age' is one of the +first of those series which have now become popular, as it is certainly +one of the very best. The descriptions of Bentham, and Godwin, and +Coleridge, and Horne Tooke are masterpieces in their way. They are, of +course, unfair; but that is part of their charm. One would no more take +for granted Hazlitt's valuation of Wordsworth than Timon's judgment of +Alcibiades. Hazlitt sees through coloured glasses, but his vision is not +the less penetrating. The vulgar satirist is such a one as Hazlitt +somewhere mentioned who called Wordsworth a dunce. Hazlitt was quite +incapable of such a solecism. He knew, nobody better, that a telling +caricature must be a good likeness. If he darkens the shades, and here +and there exaggerates an ungainly feature, we still know that the shade +exists and that the feature is not symmetrical. De Quincey reports the +saying of some admiring friend of Hazlitt, who confessed to a shudder +whenever Hazlitt used his habitual gesture of placing his hand within +his waistcoat. The hand might emerge armed with a dagger. Whenever, said +the same friend (Heaven preserve us from our friends!), Hazlitt had been +distracted for a moment from the general conversation, he looked round +with a mingled air of suspicion and defiance, as though some +objectionable phrase might have evaded his censure in the interval. The +traits recur to us when we read Hazlitt's descriptions of the men he had +known. We seem to see the dark sardonic man, watching the faces and +gestures of his friends, ready to take sudden offence at any affront to +his cherished prejudices, and yet hampered by a kind of nervous timidity +which makes him unpleasantly conscious of his own awkwardness. He +remains silent, till somebody unwittingly contradicts his unspoken +thoughts--the most irritating kind of contradiction to some people!--and +perhaps heaps indiscriminating praise on an old friend, a term nearly +synonymous with an old enemy. Then the dagger suddenly flashes out, and +Hazlitt strikes two or three rapid blows, aimed with unerring accuracy +at the weak points of the armour which he knows so well. And then, as he +strikes, a relenting comes over him; he remembers old days with a +sudden gush of fondness, and puts in a touch of scorn for his allies or +himself. Coleridge may deserve a blow, but the applause of Coleridge's +enemies awakes his self-reproach. His invective turns into panegyric, +and he warms for a time into hearty admiration, which proves that his +irritation arises from an excess, not from a defect, of sensibility; but +finding that he has gone a little too far, he lets his praise slide into +equivocal description, and, with some parting epigram, he relapses into +silence. The portraits thus drawn are never wanting in piquancy nor in +fidelity. Brooding over his injuries and his desertions, Hazlitt has +pondered almost with the eagerness of a lover upon the qualities of his +intimates. Suspicion, unjust it may be, has given keenness to his +investigation. He has interpreted in his own fashion every mood and +gesture. He has watched his friends as a courtier watches a royal +favourite. He has stored in his memory, as we fancy, the good retorts +which his shyness or unreadiness smothered at the propitious moment, and +brings them out in the shape of a personal description. When such a man +sits at our tables, silent and apparently self-absorbed, and yet shrewd +and sensitive, we may well be afraid of the dagger, though it may not be +drawn till after our death, and may write memoirs instead of piercing +flesh. And yet Hazlitt is no mean assassin of reputations; nor is his +enmity as a rule more than the seamy side of friendship. Gifford, +indeed, and Croker, 'the talking potato,' are treated as outside the +pale of human rights. + +Excellent as Hazlitt can be as a dispenser of praise and blame, he seems +to me to be at his best in a different capacity. The first of his +performances which attracted much attention was the Round Table, +designed by Leigh Hunt (who contributed a few papers), on the old +'Spectator' model. In the essays afterwards collected in the volumes +called 'Table Talk' and the 'Plain Speaker,' he is still better, because +more certain of his position. It would, indeed, be difficult to name any +writer, from the days of Addison to those of Lamb, who has equalled +Hazlitt's best performances of this kind. Addison is too unlike to +justify a comparison; and, to say the truth, though he has rather more +in common with Lamb, the contrast is much more obvious than the +resemblance. Each wants the other's most characteristic vein; Hazlitt +has hardly a touch of humour, and Lamb is incapable of Hazlitt's caustic +scorn for the world and himself. They have indeed in common, besides +certain superficial tastes, a love of pathetic brooding over the past. +But the sentiment exerted is radically different. Lamb forgets himself +when brooding over an old author or summing up the 'old familiar faces.' +His melancholy and his mirth cast delightful cross-lights upon the +topics of which he converses, and we do not know, until we pause to +reflect, that it is not the intrinsic merit of the objects, but Lamb's +own character, which has caused our pleasure. They would be dull, that +is, in other hands; but the feeling is embodied in the object described, +and not made itself the source of our interest. With Hazlitt, it is the +opposite. He is never more present than when he is dwelling upon the +past. Even in criticising a book or a man, his favourite mode is to tell +us how he came to love or to hate him; and in the non-critical Essays he +is always appealing to us, directly or indirectly, for sympathy with his +own personal emotions. He tells us how passionately he is yearning for +the days of his youth; he is trying to escape from his pressing +annoyances; wrapping himself in sacred associations against the fret +and worry of surrounding cares; repaying himself for the scorn of women +or Quarterly Reviewers by retreating into some imaginary hermitage; and +it is the delight of dreaming upon which he dwells more than upon the +beauty of the visions revealed to his inward eye. The force with which +this sentiment is presented gives a curious fascination to some of his +essays. Take, for example, the essay in 'Table Talk,' 'On Living to +One's self,'--an essay written, as he is careful to tell us, on a mild +January day in the country, whilst the fire is blazing on the hearth and +a partridge getting ready for his supper. There he expatiates in happy +isolation on the enjoyments of living as 'a silent spectator of the +mighty scheme of things;' as being in the world, and not of it; watching +the clouds and the stars, poring over a book, or gazing at a picture +without a thought of becoming an author or an artist. He has drifted +into a quiet little backwater, and congratulates himself in all +sincerity on his escape from the turbulent stream outside. He drinks in +the delight of rest at every pore; reduces himself for the time to the +state of a polyp drifting on the warm ocean stream, and becomes a +voluptuous hermit. He calls up the old days when he acted up to his +principles, and found pleasure enough in endless meditation and quiet +observation of nature. He preaches most edifyingly on the +disappointments, the excitements, the rough impacts of hard facts upon +sensitive natures, which haunt the world outside, and declares, in all +sincerity, 'this sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it +to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets.' He is sincere, and therefore +eloquent; and we need not, unless we please, add the remark that he +enjoys rest because it is a relief from toil; and that he will curse the +country as heartily as any man if doomed to entire rest. This meditation +on the phenomena of his own sensations leads him often into interesting +reflections of a psychological kind. He analyses his own feelings with +constant eagerness, as he analyses the character of his enemies. A good +specimen is the essay 'On Antiquity' in the 'Plain Speaker,' which +begins with some striking remarks on the apparently arbitrary mode in +which some objects and periods seem older to us than others, in defiance +of chronology. The monuments of the Middle Ages seem more antique than +the Greek statues and temples with their immortal youth. 'It is not the +full-grown, articulated, thoroughly accomplished periods of the world +that we regard with the pity or reverence due to age, so much as those +imperfect, unformed, uncertain periods which seem to totter on the verge +of non-existence, to shrink from the grasp of our feeble imagination, as +they crawl out of, or retire into the womb of time, of which our utmost +assurance is to doubt whether they ever were or not.' And then, as +usual, he passes to his own experience, and meditates on the changed +aspect of the world in youth and maturer life. The petty, personal +emotions pass away, whilst the grand and ideal 'remains with us +unimpaired in its lofty abstraction from age to age.' Therefore, though +the inference is not quite clear, he can never forget the first time he +saw Mrs. Siddons act, or the appearance of Burke's 'Letter to a Noble +Lord.' And then, in a passage worthy of Sir Thomas Browne, he describes +the change produced as our minds are stereotyped, as our most striking +thoughts become truisms, and we lose the faculty of admiration. In our +youth 'art woos us; science tempts us with her intricate labyrinths; +each step presents unlooked-for vistas, and closes upon us our backward +path. Our onward road is strange, obscure, and infinite. We are +bewildered in a shadow, lost in a dream. Our perceptions have the +brightness and indistinctness of a trance. Our continuity of +consciousness is broken, crumbles, and falls to pieces. We go on +learning and forgetting every hour. Our feelings are chaotic, confused, +strange to each other and ourselves.' But in time we learn by rote the +lessons which we had to spell out in our youth. 'A very short period +(from 15 to 25 or 30) includes the whole map and table of contents of +human life. From that time we may be said to live our lives over again, +repeat ourselves--the same thoughts return at stated intervals, like the +tunes of a barrel-organ; and the volume of the universe is no more than +a form of words, a book of reference.' + +From such musings Hazlitt can turn to describe any fresh impression +which has interested him, in spite of his occasional weariness, with a +freshness and vivacity which proves that his eye had not grown dim, nor +his temperament incapable of enjoyment. He fell in love with Miss Sarah +Wilson at the tolerably ripe age of 43; and his desire to live in the +past is not to be taken more seriously than his contempt for his +literary reputation. It lasts only till some vivid sensation occurs in +the present. In congenial company he could take a lively share in +conversation, as is proved not only by external evidence, but by his +very amusing book of conversations with Northcote--an old cynic out of +whom it does not seem that anybody else could strike many sparks,--or +from the essay, partly historical, it is to be supposed, in which he +records his celebrated discussion with Lamb, on persons whom one would +wish to have seen. But perhaps some of his most characteristic +performances in this line are those in which he anticipates the modern +taste for muscularity. His wayward disposition to depreciate ostensibly +his own department of action, leads him to write upon the 'disadvantages +of intellectual superiority,' and to maintain the thesis that the glory +of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And +perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the +physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives--in +which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his +last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau--and +still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill +Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, and we +are pretty well ashamed of the last flicker of enthusiasm created by +Sayers and Heenan. We may therefore enjoy without remorse the prose-poem +in which Hazlitt kindles with genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful +glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising +of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We +condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the +old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way +home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle HĂ©loĂŻse,' admit +for a moment that 'Love of the Fancy is,' as the historian assures us, +'compatible with a cultivation of sentiment.' If Hazlitt had thrown as +much into his description of the Battle of Waterloo, and had taken the +English side, he would have been a popular writer. But even Hazlitt +cannot quite embalm the memories of Cribb, Belcher, and Gully. + +It is time, however, to stop. More might be said by a qualified writer +of Hazlitt's merits as a judge of pictures or of the stage. The same +literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, +condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man +can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, +capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow +that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and +Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; +nor, on the other hand, has he the plain homespun force of Swift and +Cobbett. And yet readers who do not insist upon measuring all prose by +the same standard, will probably agree that if Hazlitt is not a great +rhetorician, if he aims at no gorgeous effects of complex harmony, he +has yet an eloquence of his own. It is indeed an eloquence which does +not imply quick sympathy with many moods of feeling, or an intellectual +vision at once penetrating and comprehensive. It is the eloquence +characteristic of a proud and sensitive nature, which expresses a very +keen if narrow range of feeling, and implies a powerful grasp of one, if +only one side of the truth. Hazlitt harps a good deal upon one string; +but that string vibrates forcibly. His best passages are generally an +accumulation of short, pithy sentences, shaped in strong feeling, and +coloured by picturesque association; but repeating, rather than +corroborating, each other. The last blow goes home, but each falls on +the same place. He varies the phrase more than the thought; and +sometimes he becomes obscure, because he is so absorbed in his own +feelings that he forgets the very existence of strangers who require +explanation. Read through Hazlitt, and this monotony becomes a little +tiresome; but dip into him at intervals, and you will often be +astonished that so vigorous a writer has not left some more enduring +monument of his remarkable powers. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] In the excellent Essay prefixed to 'Hazlitt's Literary Remains.' + + + + +_DISRAELI'S NOVELS_[4] + + +It is a commonplace with men of literary eminence to extol the man of +deeds above the man of words. Scott was half ashamed of scribbling +novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true +prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the +shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in +masters of the art to depreciate their own peculiar function. People who +have less personal interest in the matter need not be so modest. I will +confess, at any rate, to preferring the men who have sown some new seed +of thought above the heroes whose names mark epochs in history. I would +rather make the nation's ballads than give its laws, dictate principles +than carry them into execution, and leaven a country with new ideas than +translate them into facts, inevitably mangling and distorting them in +the process. And therefore I would rather have written 'Hamlet' than +defeated the Spanish Armada; or 'Paradise Lost,' than have turned out +the Long Parliament; or 'Gray's Elegy,' than have stormed the heights of +Abram; or the Waverley Novels, than have won Waterloo or even Trafalgar. +I would rather have been Voltaire or Goethe than Frederick or Napoleon; +and I suspect that when the poor historian of the nineteenth century +begins his superhuman work, he will, as a thorough philosopher, +attribute more importance to two or three recent English writers than to +all the English statesmen who have been strutting and fretting their +little hour at Westminster. And therefore, too, I wish that Disraeli +could have stuck to his novels instead of rising to be Prime Minister of +England. This opinion is, of course, entirely independent of any +judgment which may be passed upon Disraeli's political career. Granting +that his cause has always been the right one, granting that he has +rendered it essential services, I should still wish that his brilliant +literary ability had been allowed to ripen undisturbed by all the +worries and distractions of parliamentary existence. Persons who think +the creation of a majority in the House of Commons a worthy reward for +the labours of a lifetime will, of course, differ from this conclusion. +Disraeli, at any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck +off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more +alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have +gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby +and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they +embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little +propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still +survives, must have lost many illusions; he must have herded with the +Tapers and Tadpoles, and prompted Rigby to write slashing articles on +his behalf in the quarterlies. He must have felt that his intellect was +cruelly wasted in talking claptrap and platitude to suit the thick +comprehensions of his party; and the huge dead weight of the invincible +impenetrability to ideas of ordinary mankind must have lain heavy upon +his soul. How many Tadpoles, one would like to know, still haunt the +Carlton Club, or throng the ministerial benches, and how many Rigbys +have forced their way into the Cabinet? That is one of the state secrets +which will hardly be divulged by the only competent observer. But at any +rate it is sad that the critic, who applied the lash so skilfully, +should have been so unequally yoked with the objects of his contempt. +Disraeli's talents for entertaining fiction may not indeed have been +altogether wasted in his official career; but he at least may pardon +admirers of his writing, who regret that he should have squandered +powers of imagination, capable of true creative work, upon that +alternation of truckling and blustering which is called governing the +country. + +The qualities which are of rather equivocal value in a minister of state +may be admirable in the domain of literature. It is hardly desirable +that the followers of a political leader should be haunted by an +ever-recurring doubt as to whether his philosophical utterances express +deep convictions, or the extemporised combinations of a fertile fancy, +and be uncertain whether he is really putting their clumsy thoughts into +clearer phrases, or foisting showy nonsense upon them for his own +purposes, or simply laughing at them in his sleeve. But, in a purely +literary sense, this ambiguous hovering between two meanings, this +oscillation between the ironical and the serious, is always amusing, and +sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in +literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air +of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in +earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a +standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that +the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments +of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright +sarcasm, as unmistakable in its meaning as the cut of a whip across your +face; and elsewhere we have passages which aim unmistakably, and +sometimes with unmistakable success, at rhetorical excellence. But, +between the two, there is a wide field where we may interpret his +meaning as we please. The philosophical theory may imply a genuine +belief, or may be a mere bit of conventional filling in, or perhaps a +parody of his friends or himself. The gorgeous passages may be +intentionally over-coloured, or may really represent his most sincere +taste. His homage may be genuine or a biting mockery. His extravagances +are kept precisely at such a pitch that it is equally fair to argue that +a satirist must have meant them to be absurd, or to argue only that he +would have seen their absurdity in anybody else. The unfortunate critic +feels himself in a position analogous to that of the suitors in the +'Merchant of Venice.' He may blunder grievously, whatever alternative he +selects. If he pronounces a passage to be pure gold, it may turn out to +be merely the mask of a bitter sneer; or he may declare it to be +ingenious burlesque when put forward in the most serious earnest; or may +ridicule it as overstrained bombast, and find that it was never meant to +be anything else. It is wiser to admit that perhaps the author was not +very clear himself, or possibly enjoyed that ambiguous attitude which +might be interpreted according to the taste of his readers and the +development of events. A man who deals in oracular utterances acquires +instinctively a mode of speech which may shift its colour with every +change of light. The texture of Disraeli's writings is so ingeniously +shot with irony and serious sentiment that each tint may predominate by +turns. It is impossible to suppose that the weaver of so cunning a web +should never have intended the effects which he produces; but +frequently, too, they must be the spontaneous and partly unconscious +results of a peculiar intellectual temperament. Delight in blending the +pathetic with the ludicrous is the characteristic of the true humorist. +Disraeli is not exactly a humorist, but something for which the rough +nomenclature of critics has not yet provided a distinctive name. His +pathos is not sufficiently tender, nor his laughter quite genial enough. +The quality which results is homologous to, though not identical with, +genuine humour: for the smile we must substitute a sneer, and the +element which enters into combination with the satire is something more +distantly allied to poetical unction than to glittering rhetoric. The +Disraelian irony thus compounded is hitherto a unique product of +intellectual chemistry. + +Most of Disraeli's novels are intended to set forth what, for want of a +better name, must be called a religious or political creed. To grasp its +precise meaning, or to determine the precise amount of earnestness with +which it is set forth, is of course hopeless. Its essence is to be +mysterious, and half the preacher's delight is in tantalising his +disciples. At moments he cannot quite suppress the amusement with which +he mocks their hopeless bewilderment. When Coningsby is on the point of +entering public life, he reads a speech of one of the initiated, +'denouncing the Venetian constitution, to the amazement of several +thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown +danger, now first introduced to their notice.' What more amusing than +suddenly to reveal to good easy citizens that what they took for +wholesome food is deadly poison, and to watch their hopeless incapacity +to understand whether you are really announcing a truth or launching an +epigram! + +Disraeli, undoubtedly, has certain fixed beliefs which underlie and +which, indeed, explain the superficial versatility of his teaching. +Amongst the various doctrines with which he plays more or less +seriously, two at least are deeply rooted in his mind. He holds, with a +fervour in every way honourable, a belief in the marvellous endowments +of his race, and connected with this belief is an almost romantic +admiration for every manifestation of intellectual power. Vivian Grey, +in a bit of characteristic bombast, describes himself as 'one who has +worshipped the empire of the intellect;' and his career is simply an +attempt to act out the principle that the world belongs of right to the +cleverest. Of Sidonia, after every superlative in the language has been +lavished upon his marvellous acquirements, we are told that 'the only +human quality that interested him was intellect.' Intellect is equally, +if not quite as exclusively, interesting to the creator of Sidonia. He +admires it in all its forms--in a Jesuit or a leader of the +International, in a charlatan or a statesman, or perhaps even more in +one who combines the two characters; but the most interesting of all +objects to Disraeli, if one may judge from his books, is a precocious +youth, whose delight in the sudden consciousness of great abilities has +not yet been dashed by experience. In some other writers we may learn +the age of the author by the age of his hero. A novelist who adopts the +common practice of painting from himself naturally finds out the merits +of middle age in his later works. But in every one of Disraeli's works, +from 'Vivian Grey' to 'Lothair,' the central figure is a youth, who is +frequently a statesman at school, and astonishes the world before he has +reached his majority. The change in the author's position is, indeed, +equally marked in a different way. The youthful heroes of Disraeli's +early novels are creative; in his later they become chiefly receptive. +Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming show their genius by insubordination; +Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of Sidonia; +and Lothair reduces himself so completely to a mere 'passive bucket' to +be pumped into by every variety of teacher, that he is unpleasantly like +a fool. Disraeli still loves ingenuous youth; but he has gained quite a +new perception of the value of docility. Here and there, of course, +there is a gentle gibe at juvenile vanity. 'My opinions are already +formed on every subject,' says Lothair; 'that is, on every subject of +importance; and, what is more, they will never change.' But such vanity +has nothing offensive. The audacity with which a lad of twenty solves +all the problems of the universe, excites in Disraeli genuine and really +generous sympathy. Sidonia converts the sentiment into a theory. +Experience, he says, is less than nothing to a creative mind. 'Almost +everything that is great has been done by youth.' The greatest captains, +the greatest poets, artists, statesmen, and religious reformers of the +world, have done their best work by middle life. All theories upon all +subjects can be proved from history; and the great Sidonia is not to be +pinned down by too literal an interpretation. But at least he is +expressing Disraeli's admiration for intellect which has the fervour, +rapidity, and reckless audacity of youth, which trusts its intuitions +instead of its calculations, and takes its crudest guesses for flashes +of inspiration. The exuberant buoyancy of his youthful heroes gives a +certain contagious charm to Disraeli's pages, which is attractive even +when verging upon extravagance. Our popular novelists have learned to +associate high spirits with muscularity; their youthful heroes are +either athletes destined to put on flesh in later days, or premature +prigs with serious convictions and a tendency to sermons and blue-books. +After a course of such books, Disraeli's genuine love of talent is +refreshing. He dwells fondly upon the effervescence of genius which +drives men to kick over the traces of respectability and strike out +short cuts to fame. If at bottom his heroes are rather eccentric than +original, they have at least a righteous hatred of all bores and +Philistines, and despise orthodoxy, political economy, and sound +information generally. They can provide you with new theories of +politics and history, as easily as Mercutio could pour out a string of +similes; and we have scarcely the heart to ask whether this vivacious +ebullition implies the process of fermentation by which a powerful mind +clears its crude ideas, or only an imitation of the process by which +superlative cleverness apes true genius. Intellect, as it becomes +sobered by middle age and by scholastic training, is no longer so +charming. When its guesses ossify into fixed opinions, and its arrogance +takes the airs of scientific dogmatism, it is always a tiresome and may +be a dangerous quality. Some indication of what Disraeli means by +intellect may be found in the preface to 'Lothair.' Speaking of the +conflict between science and the old religions, he says that it is a +most flagrant fallacy to suppose that modern ages have a monopoly of +scientific discovery. The greatest discoveries are not those of modern +ages. 'No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a +discovery as writing, or algebra, or language. What are the most +brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of +fire and the metals?' Hipparchus ranks with the Keplers and Newtons; and +Copernicus was but the champion of Pythagoras. To say nothing of the +characteristic assumption that somebody 'discovered' language and fire +in the same sense as modern chemists discovered spectrum analysis, the +argument is substantially that, because Hipparchus was as great a genius +as Newton, the views of the ancients upon religious or historical +questions deserve just as much respect as those of the moderns. In other +words, the accumulated knowledge of ages has taught us nothing. 'What is +conveniently called progress' is merely a polite name for change; and +one clever man's guess is as good as another, whatever the period at +which he lived. This theory is the correlative of Sidonia's assertion, +that experience is useless to the man of genius. The experience of the +race is just as valueless. Modern criticism is nothing but an +intellectual revolt of the Teutonic races against the Semitic +revelation, as the French revolution was a political revolt of the +Celtic races. The disturbance will pass away; and we shall find that +Abraham and Moses knew more about the universe than Hegel or Comte. The +prophets of the sacred race were divinely endowed with an esoteric +knowledge concealed from the vulgar behind mystic symbols and +ceremonies. If the old oracles are dumb, some gleams of the same power +still remain, and in the language of mere mortals are called genius. We +find it in perfection only amongst the Semites, whose finer +organisation, indicated by their musical supremacy, enables them to +catch the still small voice inaudible to our grosser ears. The Aryans, +indeed, have some touches of a cognate power, but it is dulled by a more +sensuous temperament. They can enter the court of the Gentiles; but +their mortal vesture is too muddy for admission into the holy of holies. +If ever they catch a glimpse of the truth, it is in their brilliant +youth, when, still uncorrupted by worldly politics, they can induce some +Sidonia partly to draw aside the veil. + +The intellect, then, as Disraeli conceives it, is not the faculty +denounced by theologians, which delights in systematic logical inquiry, +and hopes to attain truth by the unrestricted conflict of innumerable +minds. It is an abnormal power of piercing mysteries granted only to a +few distinguished seers. It does not lead to an earthly science, +expressible in definite formulas, and capable of being taught in Sunday +schools. The knowledge cannot be fully communicated to the profane, and +is at most to be shadowed forth in dim oracular utterances. Disraeli's +instinctive affinity for some kind of mystic teaching is indicated by +Vivian Grey's first request to his father. 'I wish,' he exclaims, 'to +make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want Plotinus and +Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrianus, and Mosanius Tyrius, and +Pericles, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damasenis!' But Vivian +Grey, as we know, wanted also to conquer the Marquis of Carabas; and the +odd combination between a mystic philosopher and a mere political +charlatan displays Disraeli's peculiar irony. Intellect with him is a +double-edged weapon: it is at once the faculty which reads the dark +riddle of the universe, and the faculty which makes use of Tapers and +Tadpoles. Our modern Daniel is also a shrewd electioneering agent. +Cynics, indeed, have learned in these later days to regard mystery as +too often synonymous with nonsense. The difficulty of interpreting +esoteric doctrines to the vulgar generally consists in this--that the +doctrines are mere collections of big words which collapse, instead of +becoming lucid, when put into plain English. The mystagogue is but too +closely allied to the charlatan. He may be straining to utter some +secret too deep for human utterance, or he is looking wise to conceal +absolute vacuity of thought. And at other times he must surely be +laughing at the youthful audacity which fancies that speculation is to +be carried on by a series of sudden inspirations, instead of laborious +accumulation of rigorously-tested reasonings. + +The three novels, 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' published from +1844 to 1847, form, as their author has told us, a trilogy intended to +set forth his views of political, social, and religious problems. Each +of them exhibits, in one form or other, this peculiar train of thought. +'Coningsby,' if I am not mistaken, is by far the ablest, and probably +owes its pre-eminence to the simple fact that it deals with the topics +in which its author felt the keenest interest. The social speculations +of 'Sybil' savour too much of the politician getting up a telling case; +and the religious speculations of 'Tancred' are pushed to the extreme +verge of the grotesque. But 'Coningsby' wants little but a greater +absence of purpose to be a first-rate novel. If Disraeli had confined +himself to the merely artistic point of view, he might have drawn a +picture of political society worthy of comparison with 'Vanity Fair.' +Lord Monmouth is evidently related to the Marquis of Steyne; and Rigby +is a masterpiece, though perhaps rather too suggestive of a direct study +from nature. Lord Monmouth is the ideal type of the 'Venetian' +aristocracy; and Rigby, like his historical namesake, of the corrupt +wire-pullers who flourished under their shade. The consistent +Epicureanism of the noble, in whom a sense of duty is only represented +by a vague instinct that he ought to preserve his political influence as +part of his personal splendour, and as an insurance against possible +incendiarism, is admirably contrasted by the coarser selfishness of +Rigby, who relieves his patron of all dirty work on consideration of +feathering his own nest, and fancying himself to be a statesman. The +whole background, in short, is painted with inimitable spirit and +fidelity. The one decided failure amongst the subsidiary characters is +Lucian Grey, the professional parasite, who earns his dinners by his +witty buffoonery. Somehow, his fun is terribly dreary on paper; perhaps +because, as a parasite, he is not allowed to indulge in the cutting +irony which animates all Disraeli's best sayings. The simple buffoonery +of exuberant animal spirits is not in Disraeli's line. When he can +neither be bitter nor rhetorical, he is apt to drop into mere mechanical +flatness. But nobody has described more vigorously all the meaner forms +of selfishness, stupidity, and sycophancy engendered under 'that fatal +drollery,' as Tancred describes it, 'called a parliamentary government.' +The pompous dulness which affects philosophical gravity, the appetite +for the mere dry husks and bran of musty constitutional platitude which +takes the airs of political wisdom, the pettifogging cunning which +supposes the gossips of lobbies and smoking-rooms to be the embodiment +of statesmanship, the selfishness which degrades political warfare into +a branch of stock-jobbing, and takes a great principle to be useful in +suggesting electioneering cries, as Telford thought that navigable +rivers were created to feed canals,--these and other tendencies favoured +by party government are hit off to the life. 'The man they called Dizzy' +can despise a miserable creature having the honour to be as heartily as +Carlyle himself, and, if his theories are serious, sometimes took our +blessed Constitution to be a mere shelter for such vermin as the Tapers +and Tadpoles. Two centuries of a parliamentary monarchy and a +parliamentary Church, says Coningsby, have made government detested, and +religion disbelieved. 'Political compromises,' says the omniscient +Sidonia, 'are not to be tolerated except at periods of rude transition. +An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariat of what is called +representative government. Your House of Commons, that has absorbed all +other powers in the State, will in all probability fall more rapidly +than it rose.' In short, the press will take its place. This is one of +those impromptu theories of history which are not to be taken too +literally. Indeed, the satirical background is intended to throw into +clearer relief a band of men of genius to whom has been granted some +insight into the great political mystery. Who, then, are the true +antithesis to the Tapers and Tadpoles? Should we compare them with a +Cromwell, who has a creed as well as a political platform; and contrast +'our young Queen and our old institutions' with some new version of the +old war cry, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon'? Or may we at least +have a glimpse of a Chatham, wakening the national spirit to sweep aside +the Newcastles and Bubb Dodingtons of the present day? Or, if Cromwells +and Chathams be too old-fashioned, and translate the Semitic principle +into a narrow English Protestantism, may we not have some genuine +revolutionary fanatic, a Cimourdain or a Gauvain, to burn up all this +dry chaff of mouldy politics with the fire of a genuine human passion? +Such a contrast, however effective, would have been a little awkward in +the year 1844. Young England had an ideal standard of its own, and +Disraeli must be the high priest of its peculiar hero-worship. Whether, +in this case, political trammels injured his artistic sense, or whether +his peculiar artistic tendencies injured his political career, is a +question rather for the historian than the critic. + +Certain it is, at any rate, that the _cĂ©nacle_ of politicians, whose +interests are to be thrown in relief against this mass of grovelling +corruption, forms but a feeble contrast, even in the purely artistic +sense. We have no right to doubt that Disraeli thought that Coningsby +and his friends represented the true solution of the difficulty; yet if +anybody had wished to demonstrate that a genuine belief might sometimes +make a man more contemptible than hypocritical selfishness, he could +scarcely have defended the paradox more ingeniously. 'Unconscious +cerebration' has become a popular explanation of many phenomena; and it +would hardly be fanciful to assume that one lobe of Disraeli's brain is +in the habit of secreting bitter satire unknown to himself, and +cunningly inserting it behind the thin veil of sentiment unconsciously +elaborated by the other. We are prepared, indeed, to accept the new +doctrine, as cleverly as Balzac could have inoculated us with a +provisional belief in animal magnetism, to heighten our interest in a +thrilling story of wonder. We have judicious hints of esoteric political +doctrine, which has been partially understood by great men at various +periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the +opening pages of 'Sybil.' The most remarkable thing about our popular +history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is 'a complete +mystification;' many of the principal characters never appear, as, for +example, Major Wildman, who was 'the soul of English politics from 1640 +to 1688.' It is not surprising, therefore, that two of our three chief +statesmen in later times should be systematically depreciated. The +younger Pitt, indeed, has been extolled, though on wrong grounds. But +Bolingbroke and Shelburne, our two finest political geniuses, are passed +over with contempt by ordinary historians. A historian might amuse +himself by tracing the curious analogy between the most showy +representatives of the old race of statesmen and the modern successor +who delights to sing his praises. The Patriot King is really to some +extent an anticipation of Disraeli's peculiar democratic Toryism. But +the chief merit of Shelburne would seem to be that the qualities which +earned for him the nickname of Malagrida made him convenient as a +hypothetical depository of some esoteric scheme of politics. For the +purposes of fiction, at any rate, we may believe that English politics +are a riddle of which only three men have guessed the true solution +since the 'financial' revolution of 1688. Pitt was only sound so far as +he was the pupil of Shelburne; but Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Disraeli +possessed the true key, and fully understood, for example, that Charles +I. was the 'holocaust of direct taxation.' But frankly to expound this +theory would be to destroy its charm, and to cast pearls before +political economists. And, therefore, its existence is dimly adumbrated +rather than its meaning revealed; and we have hints that there are +wheels within wheels, and that in the lowest deep of mystery there is a +yet deeper mystery. Coningsby and his associates, the brilliant +Buckhurst and the rich Catholic country gentleman, Eustace Lyle, are but +unripe neophytes, feeling after the true doctrine, but not yet fully +initiated. The superlative Sidonia, the man who by thirty has exhausted +all the sources of human knowledge, become master of the learning of +every nation, of all tongues, dead or living, and of every literature, +western and oriental; who has pursued all the speculations of science to +their last term; who has lived in all orders of society, and observed +man in every phase of civilisation; who has a penetrative intellect +which enables him to follow as by intuition the most profound of all +questions, and a power of communicating with precision the most abstruse +ideas; whose wealth would make Monte Cristo seem a pauper; who is so far +above his race that woman seems to him a toy, and man a machine,--this +thrice miraculous Sidonia, who can yet stoop from his elevation to win a +steeplechase from the Gentiles, or return their hospitality by an +exquisite dinner, is the fitting depository of the precious secret. No +one can ever accuse Disraeli of a want of audacity. He does not, like +weaker men, shrink from introducing men of genius because he is afraid +that he will not be able to make them talk in character; and when, in +'Venetia,' he introduces Byron and Shelley, he is kind enough to write +poetry for them, which produces as great an effect as the original. + +And now having a true prophet, having surrounded him with a band of +disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our +mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery. +Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle +the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be +satisfied. There is not any secret doctrine in politics. Bolingbroke may +have been a very clever man, but he could not see through a stone wall. +The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright +prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the +imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be +pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as +we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some +magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give +us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to +be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to +believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical +efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the +inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something +to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It +was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might +have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into +that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might +possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with +his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which +are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against +politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a +newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical +millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal +skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer +air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by +slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of +burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the +ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain +_aplomb_; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the +spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His +last book of 'Coningsby' opens with a Christmas scene worthy of an +illustrated keepsake. We have buttery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and +red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar's head +with a canticle. + + Caput apri defero, + Reddens laudes Domino, + +sing the noble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli +blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise +the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament. +He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a +passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that +the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert +hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be +trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to +this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, +and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies, +'The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?' It would, indeed, +be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of +Manchester. After dilating, in 'Tancred,' upon the vitality of Damascus, +he observes, 'As yet the disciples of progress have not been able +exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great +faith in the future of Birkenhead.' Perhaps the true sentiment is that +the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles, +look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan +civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but +admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the +moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant. +The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes of +Sidonia. The world--at least the Gentile world--is a farce. Ninety-nine +men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and +make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and +imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly. +As for the hundredth man--the youthful Coningsby or Tancred--his +enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his +game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is +almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success. +Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need +not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may +heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a +serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in +solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite +forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a +real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a +latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from +becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however +misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a +genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a +subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition +would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh, +but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the +consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest +degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite +utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical +colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, +but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant and +perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms +melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain +twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, +if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of +'Coningsby.' + +The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in +different proportions. 'Sybil' is chiefly devoted to what its author +calls 'an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period +in our social history.' We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is +enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself +capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists +who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into +sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer +purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand +impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to +tabulate in blue-books,--if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense +in which Miss BrontĂ« knew them, and still less in the sense in which +Scott knew the Borderers--he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the +effects of trades' unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might +excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in 'Tancred' we again come +upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli's special +idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in +'Coningsby.' Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led +into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the +mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer +satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager +to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all +theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He +is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural +machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet, +intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the +satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words +and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous +air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be +solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous +picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must +be admitted that Tancred's own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even +more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that +'inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality,' and that God can +only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine--a theory which has +afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, God +can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this +belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great +Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us. +He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he +himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo +Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the +later learning--a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew, +and still retains some of the 'magnetic influence'--this great man, in +whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And +thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find +ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great +revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there +is 'absolutely no sport of any kind' near Jerusalem; and follow Tancred +where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before +the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into +ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration. +Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful +young woman comes straight out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and asks the +insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews +had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised +by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, +indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary +pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or +Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible +propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is +introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those +of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely +satirical one of interpreting Tancred's lofty dreams into political +intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are +convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the +strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion. +Can they be the guardians of the 'Asian mystery'? To our amazement it +turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phoebus of 'Lothair.' They +have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely +cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall +prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or +Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most +solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which +appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was +still untouched by time; a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet +lustrous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke +from the pensive passion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead +glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his +majestic forehead.' After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia, +this person told Tancred to 'announce the sublime and solacing doctrine +of Theocratic Equality.' But when Tancred, after his startling +adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the +Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of +bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after +him--Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the +novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. 'Out laughs the stern +philosopher,' or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, 'What, +ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth.' +Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering +cry. + +Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amusement? +Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the +passages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a +genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was +he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to +apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his +satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies. +Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear +in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept +the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only +solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution, +by accepting the theory of a double consciousness, and resolving to +pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes +us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either +aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of +fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener +enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed +lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we +had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are +blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria +of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew +doctors and classical artists, mediæval monks and Anglican bishops, +perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from +Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws +dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley +actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as +arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking +cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and +original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest +realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere +mystification. + +But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to +observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge +into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was +composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic +tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian +Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in +which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the +'Wondrous Tale of Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited +attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels--except +Scott's and Kingsley's--are a weariness to the flesh, and when the +history is so remote from any association with modern feeling, even Mr. +Disraeli's vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An +opposite error disturbs one's appreciation of 'Venetia.' Byron and +Shelley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of +fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord +Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their +prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. 'Henrietta Temple' +and 'Contarini Fleming' may count as Mr. Disraeli's most satisfactory +performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and +has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, +but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of +a poetic nature--a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative +literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of +Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple' +professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are +certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli's art be not +the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The +same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this +different field it does not produce quite the same results. One +prominent tendency connects all his stories. When 'Lothair' made its +appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the +seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter. +Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates, +distributed with such reckless profusion amongst the characters, +intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth, +or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would +apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every +ducal millionaire, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven.' Vast landed +estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go +together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter +of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. 'If the youth who bears this +requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the +right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king; +and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that +is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat.' The +theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or +less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though +no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is +most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in +simple splendour, in 'ropes of pearls,' in priceless diamonds, gorgeous +clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not +uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an +infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience +of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early +admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour +insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar, +as to call his admiration for dukes snobbish; but the passion is too +sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for +the society of dukes, or take a child's pleasure in bright colours for +their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a +dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is +thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy +concessions, it ought not to be offensive. + +Disraeli's pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in +their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a +frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the +ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said +parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific +type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely +fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are +members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet, +Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a +Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet +incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped +by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to +such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli's modes of +representing passion. He has frankly explained his theory. The +peasant-noble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love 'in huts where poor +men lie,' and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in +support of the principle. That is not Disraeli's view. 'Love,' he says, +'that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a +ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount +with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as +its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is +placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate +the passion that is breathed in palaces, amid the ennobling creations +of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst +perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods'--woods, +that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All +Disraeli's passionate lovers--and they are very passionate--are provided +with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of +exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of +a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can +detect at once the stamp of noble blood in every gesture, and a coronet +is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make +love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced +gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the +background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled +with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery +state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence +by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is +suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5] +says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such +beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as +wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural +needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; +or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable +beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of +genii. The passion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to +stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash +and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects. + +In the 'Arabian Nights' the lover repeats a passage of poetry and then +faints from emotion, and Disraeli's lovers are apt to be as +demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity +makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example, +the model love-story in 'Henrietta Temple.' Told by a cold and +unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:--Ferdinand +Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army, +he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength +of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich nobleman. The +grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine's cousin, Katherine +Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the +property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement. +Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first +sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his +engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She +fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels +are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though +Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough +to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not +ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the +strength of it--a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on +false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at +last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured +of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the +greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from +Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover's +misfortunes. And then a 'happy thought' occurs to the two pairs of +lovers. If Miss Temple's wealth had come earlier, she might have married +Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an +exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom +marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand +Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The +moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at +the sponging-house. 'It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and +their hundreds that are ever done up,' says this keen observer. 'A nob +was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall. +Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing.' + +This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives +Disraeli's secret. His 'nobs' are so splendid in their surroundings, +such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown +upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be +hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be +questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues? +The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling +complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her +dark and lustrous locks. Love for such a being is the 'transcendent and +surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy.' It is a rapture +and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what +sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine, +'pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming +spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious +and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a +big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam played upon his lip.' +But 'the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories, +the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild +order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity +succeeded--a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circumambient +happiness.' In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love +which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some +warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the +domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms +of passion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as +plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to +gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is +that, while other men assume that the commonest things will take a +splendid colour as seen through a lover's eyes, Disraeli takes care that +whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring. + +Once more, if we consent for the time to take our author's view--and +that is the necessary condition for enjoying most literature--we must +admit the vivacity and, at times, the real eloquence of Disraeli's +rhetoric. In 'Contarini Fleming' he takes a still more ambitious flight, +and with considerable success. Fleming, the embodiment of the poetic +character, is, we might almost say, to other poets what Armine is to +other lovers. He has the same love of brilliant effects, and the same +absence of genuine tenderness. But one other qualification must be made. +We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that +amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, +and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But +his genius is so versatile that we doubt its true destination. His +first literary performance is to write a version of 'Vivian Grey,' a +reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put +himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by +Schiller's Robbers to emulate the career of Moor; his greatest feat is a +sudden stroke of diplomacy which enables him to defeat the plans of more +veteran statesmen. And when he has gone through his initiation, wooed +and won his marvellous beauty, and lost her in an ideal island, the +final shape of his aspirations is curiously characteristic. Having +become rich quite unexpectedly--for he did not know that he was to be +the hero of one of Disraeli's novels--he resolved to 'create a +paradise.' He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful +gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace +full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes +to 'create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in +extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most +accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity.' He has already laid +the foundation of a tower which is to rise to a height of at least a +hundred and fifty feet, and is to equal in solidity and design the most +celebrated works of antiquity. Certainly the scheme is magnificent; but +it is scarcely the ambition which one might have expected from a poet. +Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic +temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible +memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with +profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary +complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the +splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a +cultivated imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a +series of brilliant travellers' sketches, is no mean master of what may +be called poetical prose. His pictures of life and scenery are +vivacious, rapid, and decisive. In later years, the habit of +parliamentary oratory seems to have injured Disraeli's style. In +'Lothair' there is a good deal of slipshod verbiage. But in these +earlier stories the style is generally excellent till it becomes too +ambitious. It has a kind of metallic glitter, brilliant, sparkling with +numerous flashes of wit and fancy, and never wanting in sharpness of +effect, though it may be deficient in delicacy. Yet the author, who is +of necessity to be partly identified with the hero of 'Contarini +Fleming,' is distinctly not a poet; and the incapacity is most evident +when he endeavours to pass the inexorable limits. The distinction +between poetry and rhetoric is as profound as it is undefinable. A true +poet, as possessing an exquisite sensibility to the capacities of his +instrument, does not try to get the effects of metre when he is writing +without its restrictions and its advantages. Disraeli shows occasionally +a want of this delicacy of perception by breaking into a kind of +compromise between the two which can only be called Ossianesque. The +effect, for example, of such a passage as the following is, to my taste +at least, simply grotesque:-- + +'Still the courser onward rushes; still his mighty heart supports him. +Season and space, the glowing soil, the burning ray, yield to the +tempest of his frame, the thunder of his nerves, and lightning of his +veins. + +'Food or water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise +with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that +hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the +jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with +snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful +snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This is +their sole society.' + +And so on. Some great writers have made prose as melodious as verse; and +Disraeli can at times follow their example successfully. But one likes +to know what one is reading; and the effect of this queer expression is +as if, in the centre of a solemn march, were incorporated a few +dancing-steps, _Ă propos_ to nothing, and then subsiding into a regular +pace. Milton wrote grand prose and grand verse; but you are never +uncertain whether a fragment of 'Paradise Lost' may or may not have been +inserted by mere accident in the 'Areopagitica.' + +Not to dwell upon such minor defects, nobody can read 'Contarini +Fleming' or 'Henrietta Temple' without recognising the admirable talent +and exuberant vitality of the author. They have the faults of juvenile +performances; they are too gaudy; the author has been tempted to turn +aside too frequently in search of some brilliant epigram; he has +mistaken bombast for eloquence, and mere flowery brilliance for warmth +of emotion. But we might hope that longer experience and more earnest +purpose might correct such defects. Alas! in the year of their +publication, Disraeli first entered Parliament. His next works comprised +the trilogy, where the artistic aim has become subordinate to the +political or biological; and some thirty years of parliamentary labours +led to 'Lothair,' of which it is easiest to assume that it is a +practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon +Disraeli's own youthful performances. May one not lament the degradation +of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] Perhaps I ought to substitute 'Lord Beaconsfield' for Disraeli; but +I am writing of the author of 'Coningsby,' rather than of the author of +'Endymion:' and I will therefore venture to preserve the older name. + +[5] 'He never loved that loved not at first sight,' says Marlowe, and +Shakespeare after him. I cannot say whether this be an undesigned +literary coincidence or an appropriation. Disraeli, we know, was skilful +in the art of annexation. One or two instances may be added. Here is a +clear case of borrowing. Fuller says in the character of the good +sea-captain in the 'Holy State'--'Who first taught the water to imitate +the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, +the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the +sea is the ape of the land?' Essper George, in 'Vivian Grey,' says to +the sea: 'O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, +but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of +hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more +doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents +as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought +to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but +here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The +writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were +made of the ----government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain +of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, "call it _blunderment_ or +_plunderment_ or what you like--only not a _government_!"'--Coleridge's +'Essays on his own Times,' p. 893. Disraeli is sometimes credited with +the epigram in 'Lothair' about critics being authors who have failed. I +know not who said this first; but it was certainly not Disraeli. Landor +makes Porson tell Southey: 'Those who have failed as writers turn +reviewers.' The classical passage is in Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, he says, +said somewhere of a sculptor who had become discouraged: 'Redevenu +artiste _in partibus_, il avait beaucoup de succès dans les salons, il +Ă©tait consultĂ© par beaucoup d'amateurs; _il passa critique comme tous +les impuissants qui mentent Ă leurs dĂ©buts_.' Sainte-Beuve, naturally +indignant at a phrase aimed against his craft, if not against himself, +says that this may be true of a sculptor or painter who deserts his art +in order to talk; 'mais, dans l'ordre de la pensĂ©e, cette parole de M. +de Balzac qui revient souvent sous la plume de toute une Ă©cole de jeunes +littĂ©rateurs, est Ă la fois (je leur en demande pardon) une injustice et +une erreur.'--'Causeries du Lundi,' vol. ii. p. 455. A very similar +phrase is to be found in a book where one would hardly look for such +epigrams, Marryat's 'King's Own.' But to trace such witticisms to their +first source is a task for 'Notes and Queries.' + + + + +_MASSINGER_ + + +In one of the best of his occasional essays, Kingsley held a brief for +the plaintiffs in the old case of Puritans _versus_ Playwrights. The +litigation in which this case represents a minor issue has lasted for a +period far exceeding that of the most pertinacious lawsuit, and is not +likely to come to an end within any assignable limits of time. When the +discussion is pressed home, it is seen to involve fundamentally +different conceptions of human life and its purposes; and it can only +cease when we have discovered the grounds of a permanent conciliation +between the ethical and the æsthetic elements of human nature. The +narrower controversy between the stage and the Church has itself a long +history. It has left some curious marks upon English literature. The +prejudice which uttered itself through the Puritan Prynne was inherited, +in a later generation, by the High-Churchmen Collier and William Law. +The attack, it is true, may be ostensibly directed--as in Kingsley's +essay--against the abuse of the stage rather than against the stage +itself. Kingsley pays the usual tribute to Shakespeare whilst denouncing +the whole literature of which Shakespeare's dramas are the most +conspicuous product. But then, everybody always distinguishes in terms +between the use and the abuse; and the line of demarcation generally +turns out to be singularly fluctuating and uncertain. You can hardly +demolish Beaumont and Fletcher without bringing down some of the +outlying pinnacles, if not shaking the very foundations, of the temple +sacred to Shakespeare. + +It would be regrettable, could one stop to regret the one-sided and +illogical construction of the human mind, that a fair judgment in such +matters seems to require incompatible qualities. Your impartial critic +or historian is generally a man who leaves out of account nothing but +the essential. His impartiality means sympathy with the commonplace, and +incapacity for understanding heroic faith and overpowering enthusiasm. +He fancies that a man or a book can be judged by balancing a list of +virtues and vices as if they were separate entities lying side by side +in a box, instead of different aspects of a vital force. On the other +hand, the vivid imagination which restores dead bones to life makes its +possessor a partisan in extinct quarrels, and as short-sighted and +unfair a partisan as the original actors. Roundheads and Cavaliers have +been dead these two centuries. + + Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; + Dreamfooted as the shadow of a cloud, + They flit across the ear. + +Yet few even amongst modern writers are capable of doing justice to both +sides without first making both sides colourless. Hallam judges men in +the throes of a revolution as though they were parties in a lawsuit to +be decided by precedents and parchments, and Carlyle cannot appreciate +Cromwell's magnificent force of character without making him all but +infallible and impeccable. Critics of the early drama are equally +one-sided. The exquisite literary faculty of Charles Lamb revelled in +detecting beauties which had been covered with the dust of oblivion +during the reign of Pope. His appreciation was intensified by that charm +of discovery which finds its typical utterance in Keats's famous sonnet. +He was scarcely a more impartial judge of Fletcher or Ford than 'Stout +Cortes' of the new world revealed by his enterprise. We may willingly +defer to his judgment of the relative value of the writers whom he +discusses, but we must qualify his judgment of their intrinsic +excellence by the recollection that he speaks as a lover. To him and +other thoroughgoing admirers of the old drama the Puritanical onslaught +upon the stage presented itself as the advent of a gloomy superstition, +ruthlessly stamping out all that was beautiful in art and literature. +Kingsley, an admirable hater, could perceive only the opposite aspect of +the phenomena. To him the Puritan protest appears as the voice of the +enlightened conscience; the revolution means the troubling of the turbid +waters at the descent of the angel; Prynne's 'Histriomastix' is the +blast of the trumpet at which the rotten and polluted walls of Jericho +are to crumble into dust. The stage, which represented the tone of +aristocratic society, rightfully perished with the order which it +flattered. Courtiers had learnt to indulge in a cynical mockery of +virtue, or to find an unholy attraction in the accumulation of +extravagant horrors. The English drama, in short, was one of those evil +growths which are fostered by deeply-seated social corruption, and are +killed off by the breath of a purer air. That such phenomena occur at +times is undeniable. Mr. Symonds has recently shown us, in his history +of the Renaissance, how the Italian literature to which our English +dramatists owed so many suggestions was the natural fruit of a society +poisoned at the roots. Nor, when we have shaken off that spirit of +slavish adulation in which modern antiquarians and critics have regarded +the so-called Elizabethan dramatists, can we deny that there are +symptoms of a similar mischief in their writings. Some of the most +authoritative testimonials have a suspicious element. Praise has been +lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama. +Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human +passion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible +for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the +straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the +author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of +revolting motives. Such adulation ought to have disappeared with the +first fervour of rehabilitation. Much that has been praised in the old +drama is rubbish, and some of it disgusting rubbish. + +The question, however, remains, how far we ought to adopt either view of +the situation? Are we bound to cast aside the later dramas of the school +as simply products of corruption? It may be of interest to consider the +light thrown upon this question by the works of Massinger, nearly the +last of the writers who can really claim a permanent position in +literature. Massinger, born in 1584, died in 1639. His surviving works +were composed, with one exception, after 1620. They represent, +therefore, the tastes of the playgoing classes during the rapid +development of the great struggle which culminated in the rebellion. In +a literary sense it is the period when the imaginative impulse +represented by the great dramatists was running low. It is curious to +reflect that, if Shakespeare had lived out his legitimate allowance of +threescore years and ten, he might have witnessed the production, not +only of the first, but of nearly all the best works of his school; had +his life been prolonged for ten years more, he would have witnessed its +final extinction. Within these narrow limits of time the drama had +undergone a change corresponding to the change in the national mood. The +difference, for example, between Marlowe and Massinger at the opening +and the close of the period--though their births were separated by only +twenty years--corresponds to the difference between the temper of the +generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation +which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of +Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit +perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse +which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great +Queen. But it has led also to writers being too summarily classed +together who really represent very different phases in a remarkable +evolution. After making all allowances for personal idiosyncrasies, we +can still see how profoundly the work of Massinger is coloured by the +predominant sentiment of the later epoch. + +As little is known of Massinger's life as of the lives of most of the +contemporary dramatists who had the good or ill fortune to be born +before the days of the modern biographical mania. It is known that he, +like most of his brethren, suffered grievously from impecuniosity; and +he records in one of his dedications his obligations to a patron without +whose bounty he would for many years have 'but faintly subsisted.' His +father had been employed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke; but Massinger, +though acknowledging a certain debt of gratitude to the Herbert family, +can hardly have received from them any effective patronage. Whatever +their relations may have been, it has been pointed out by Professor +Gardiner[6] that Massinger probably sympathised with the political views +represented by the two sons of his father's patron, who were +successively Earls of Pembroke during the reigns of the first James and +Charles. On two occasions he got into trouble with the licenser for +attacks, real or supposed, upon the policy of the Government. More than +one of his plays contain, according to Professor Gardiner, references to +the politics of the day as distinct as those conveyed by a cartoon in +'Punch.' The general result of his argument is to show that Massinger +sympathised with the views of an aristocratic party who looked with +suspicion upon the despotic tendencies of Charles's Government, and +thought that they could manage refractory parliaments by adopting a more +spirited foreign policy. Though in reality weak and selfish enough, they +affected to protest against the materialising and oppressive policy of +the extreme Royalists. How far these views represented any genuine +convictions, and how far Massinger's adhesion implied a complete +sympathy with them, or might indicate that kind of delusion which often +leads a mere literary observer to see a lofty intention in the schemes +of a selfish politician, are questions which I am incompetent to +discuss, and which obviously do not admit of a decided answer. They +confirm, as far as they go, the general impression as to Massinger's +point of view which we should derive from his writings without special +interpretation. 'Shakespeare,' says Coleridge, 'gives the permanent +politics of human nature' (whatever they may be!), 'and the only +predilection which appears shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the +populace. Massinger is a decided Whig; Beaumont and Fletcher +high-flying, passive-obedience Tories.' The author of 'Coriolanus,' one +would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, +though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to +systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the +sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not +explicitly pronounced upon issues hardly revealed even to + + The prophetic soul + Of the wide world dreaming of things to come. + +The sense of national unity evolved in the great struggle with Spain had +not yet been lost in the discord of the rising generation. The other +classifications may be accepted with less reserve. The dramatists +represented the views of their patrons. The drama reflected in the main +the sentiments of an aristocratic class alarmed by the growing vigour of +the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a +thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in 'Valentinian' are, to follow the +same guidance, so 'very slavish and reptile' that it is a trial of +charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge's rather needless +surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the +duty to God should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days +was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a +bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right +may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The +difference between Fletcher and Massinger, who were occasional +collaborators and apparently close friends (Massinger, it is said, was +buried in Fletcher's grave), was probably due to difference of +temperament as much as to the character of Massinger's family +connection. Massinger's melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of +his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must +have beset the more thoughtful members of his party, as Fletcher +represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Massinger is +given to expatiating upon the text that + + Subjects' lives + Are not their prince's tennis-balls, to be bandied + In sport away. + +The high-minded Pulcheria, in the 'Emperor of the East,' administers a +bitter reproof to a slavish 'projector' who + + Roars out + All is the King's, his will above the laws; + +who whispers in his ear that nobody should bring a salad from his garden +without paying 'gabel,' or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that, +if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a +city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance. + + Is this the way + To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans + Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds + Be wash'd with widows' and wrong'd orphans' tears, + Or his power grow contemptible? + +Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were +written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the +vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of +Massinger's view of the political situation of the time. We see what +were the topics that were beginning to occupy men's minds. + +Dryden made the remark, often quoted for purposes of indignant +reprobation by modern critics, that Beaumont and Fletcher 'understood +and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better' (than +Shakespeare); 'whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartees +no poet can ever paint as they did.' It is, of course, easy enough to +reply that in the true sense of the word 'gentleman' Shakespeare's +heroes are incomparably superior to those of his successors; but then +this is just the sense in which Dryden did not use the word. His real +meaning indicates a very sound piece of historical criticism. Fletcher +describes a new social type; the 'King's Young Courtier' who is +deserting the good old ways of his father, the 'old courtier of the +Queen.' The change is but one step in that continuous process which has +substituted the modern gentleman for the old feudal noble; but the step +taken at that period was great and significant. The chivalrous type, +represented in Sidney's life and Spenser's poetry, is beginning to be +old-fashioned and out of place as the industrial elements of society +become more prominent. The aristocrat in the rising generation finds +that his occupation is going. He takes to those 'wild debaucheries' +which Dryden oddly reckons among the attributes of a true gentleman; and +learns the art of 'quick repartee' in the courtly society which has time +enough on its hands to make a business of amusement. The euphuism and +allied affectations of the earlier generation had a certain grace, as +the external clothing of a serious chivalrous sentiment; but it is +rapidly passing into a silly coxcombry to be crushed by Puritanism or +snuffed out by the worldly cynicism of the new generation. Shakespeare's +Henry or Romeo may indulge in wild freaks or abandon themselves to the +intense passions of vigorous youth; but they will settle down into good +statesmen and warriors as they grow older. Their love-making is a phase +in their development, not the business of their lives. Fletcher's heroes +seem to be not only occupied for the moment, but to make a permanent +profession of what with their predecessors was a passing phase of +youthful ebullience. It is true that we have still a long step to make +before we sink to the mere _rouĂ©_, the shameless scapegrace and cynical +man about town of the Restoration. To make a Wycherley you must distil +all the poetry out of a Fletcher. Fletcher is a true poet; and the +graceful sentiment, though mixed with a coarse alloy, still repels that +unmitigated grossness which, according to Burke's famous aphorism, is +responsible for half the evil of vice. He is still alive to generous and +tender emotions, though it can scarcely be said that his morality has +much substance in it. It is a sentiment, not a conviction, and covers +without quenching many ugly and brutal emotions. + +In Fletcher's wild gallants, still adorned by a touch of the chivalrous; +reckless, immoral, but scarcely cynical; not sceptical as to the +existence of virtue, but only admitting morality by way of parenthesis +to the habitual current of their thoughts, we recognise the kind of +stuff from which to frame the Cavaliers who will follow Rupert and be +crushed by Cromwell. A characteristic sentiment which occurs constantly +in the drama of the period represents the soldier out of work. We are +incessantly treated to lamentations upon the ingratitude of the +comfortable citizens who care nothing for the men to whom they owed +their security. The political history of the times explains the +popularity of such complaints. Englishmen were fretting under their +enforced abstinence from the exciting struggles on the Continent. There +was no want of Dugald Dalgettys returning from the wars to afford models +for the military braggart or the bluff honest soldier, both of whom go +swaggering through so many of the plays of the time. Clarendon in his +Life speaks of the temptations which beset him from mixing with the +military society of the time. There was a large and increasing class, +no longer finding occupation in fighting Spaniards and searching for +Eldorado, and consequently, in the Yankee phrase, 'spoiling for a +fight.' When the time comes, they will be ready enough to fight +gallantly, and to show an utter incapacity for serious discipline. They +will meet the citizens, whom they have mocked so merrily, and find that +reckless courage and spasmodic chivalry do not exhaust the +qualifications for military success. + +Massinger represents a different turn of sentiment which would be +encouraged in some minds by the same social conditions. Instead of +abandoning himself frankly to the stream of youthful sentiment, he feels +that it has a dangerous aspect. The shadow of coming evils was already +dark enough to suggest various forebodings. But he is also a moraliser +by temperament. Mr. Ward says that his strength is owing in a great +degree to his appreciation of the great moral forces; and the remark is +only a confirmation of the judgment of most of his critics. It is, of +course, not merely that he is fond of adding little moral tags of +questionable applicability to the end of his plays. 'We are taught,' he +says in the 'Fatal Dowry,' + + By this sad precedent, how just soever + Our reasons are to remedy our wrongs, + We are yet to leave them to their will and power + That to that purpose have authority. + +But it is, to say the least, doubtful whether anybody would have that +judicious doctrine much impressed upon him by seeing the play itself. +Nor can one rely much upon the elaborate and very eloquent defence of +his art in the 'Roman Actor.' Paris, the actor, sets forth very +vigorously that the stage tends to lay bare the snares to which youth is +exposed and to inflame a noble ambition by example. If the discharge of +such a function deserves reward from the Commonwealth-- + + Actors may put in for as large a share + As all the sects of the philosophers;-- + They with cold precepts--perhaps seldom read-- + Deliver what an honourable thing + The active virtue is; but does that fire + The blood, or swell the veins with emulation + To be both good and great, equal to that + Which is presented in our theatres? + +Massinger goes on to show, after the fashion of Jaques in 'As You Like +It,' that the man who chooses to put on the cap is responsible for the +application of the satire. He had good reasons, as we have seen, for +feeling sensitive as to misunderstandings--or, rather, too thorough +understandings--of this kind. + +To some dramatists of the time, who should put forward such a plea, one +would be inclined to answer in the sensible words of old Fuller. 'Two +things,' he says, 'are set forth to us in stage plays; some grave +sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vicious examples: and +with these desperate oaths, lustful talk, and riotous acts, are so +personated to the life, that wantons are tickled with delight, and feed +their palates upon them. It seems the goodness is not portrayed with +equal accents of liveliness as the wicked things are; otherwise men +would be deterred from vicious courses, with seeing the woful success +which follows them'--a result scarcely to be claimed by the actors of +the day. Massinger, however, shows more moral feeling than is expended +in providing sentiments to be tacked on as an external appendage, or +satisfied by an obedience to the demands of poetic justice. He is not +content with knocking his villains on the head--a practice in which he, +like his contemporaries, indulges with only too much complacency. The +idea which underlies most of his plays is a struggle of virtue assailed +by external or inward temptations. He is interested by the ethical +problems introduced in the play of conflicting passions, and never more +eloquent than in uttering the emotions of militant or triumphant virtue. +His view of life, indeed, is not only grave, but has a distinct +religious colouring. From various indications, it is probable that he +was a Roman Catholic. Some of these are grotesque enough. The +'Renegado,' for example, not only shows that Massinger was, for dramatic +purposes at least, an ardent believer in baptismal regeneration, but +includes--what one would scarcely have sought in such a place--a +discussion as to the validity of lay-baptism. The first of his surviving +plays, the 'Virgin Martyr' (in which he was assisted by Dekker), is +simply a dramatic version of an ecclesiastical legend. Though it seems +to have been popular at the time, the modern reader will probably think +that, in this case at least, the religious element is a little out of +place. An angel and a devil take an active part in the performance; +miracles are worked on the stage; the unbelievers are so shockingly +wicked, and the Christians so obtrusively good, that we--the +worldly-minded--are sensible of a little recalcitration, unless we are +disarmed by the simplicity of the whole performance. Religious tracts of +all ages and in all forms are apt to produce this ambiguous effect. +Unless we are quite in harmony with their assumptions, we feel that they +deal too much in conventional rose-colour. The angelic and diabolic +elements are not so clearly discriminated in this world, and should show +themselves less unequivocally on the stage, which ought to be its +mirror. Such art was not congenial to the English atmosphere; it might +be suitable in Madrid; but when forcibly transplanted to the London +stage, we feel that the performance has not the simple earnestness by +which alone it can be justified. The sentiment has a certain unreality, +and the _naĂŻvetĂ©_ suggests affectation. The implied belief is got up for +the moment and has a hollow ring. And therefore, the whole work, in +spite of some eloquence, is nothing better than a curiosity, as an +attempt at the assimilation of a heterogeneous form of art. + +A similar vein of sentiment, though not showing itself in so undiluted a +form, runs through most of Massinger's plays. He is throughout a +sentimentalist and a rhetorician. He is not, like the greatest men, +dominated by thoughts and emotions which force him to give them external +embodiment in life-like symbols. He is rather a man of much real feeling +and extraordinary facility of utterance, who finds in his stories +convenient occasions for indulging in elaborate didactic utterances upon +moral topics. It is probably this comparative weakness of the higher +imaginative faculty which makes Lamb speak of him rather disparagingly. +He is too self-conscious and too anxious to enforce downright moral +sentiments to satisfy a critic by whom spontaneous force and direct +insight were rightly regarded as the highest poetic qualities. A single +touch in Shakespeare, or even in Webster or Ford, often reveals more +depth of feeling than a whole scene of Massinger's facile and often +deliberately forensic eloquence. His temperament is indicated by the +peculiarities of his style. It is, as Coleridge says, poetry +differentiated by the smallest possible degree from prose. The greatest +artists of blank verse have so complete a mastery of their language that +it is felt as a fibre which runs through and everywhere strengthens the +harmony, and is yet in complete subordination to the sentiment. With a +writer of the second order, such as Fletcher, the metre becomes more +prominent, and at times produces a kind of monotonous sing-song, which +begins to remind us unpleasantly of the still more artificial tone +characteristic of the rhymed tragedies of the next generation. Massinger +diverges in the opposite direction. The metre is felt enough and only +just enough to give a more stately step to rather florid prose. It is +one of his marks that a line frequently ends by some insignificant 'of' +or 'from,' so as to exclude the briefest possible pause in reading. +Thus, to take an example pretty much at random, the following instance +might be easily read without observing that it was blank verse at all:-- + +'Your brave achievements in the war, and what you did for me, unspoken, +because I would not force the sweetness of your modesty to a blush, are +written here; and that there might be nothing wanting to sum up my +numerous engagements (never in my hopes to be cancelled), the great +duke, our mortal enemy, when my father's country lay open to his fury +and the spoil of the victorious army, and I brought into his power, hath +shown himself so noble, so full of honour, temperance, and all virtues +that can set off a prince; that, though I cannot render him that respect +I would, I am bound in thankfulness to admire him.' + +Such a style is suitable to a man whose moods do not often hurry him +into impetuous, or vivacious, or epigrammatic utterance. As the Persian +poet says of his country: his warmth is not heat, and his coolness is +not cold. He flows on in a quiet current, never breaking into foam or +fury, but vigorous, and invariably lucid. As a pleader before a +law-court--the character in which, as Mr. Ward observes, he has a +peculiar fondness for presenting himself--he would carry his audience +along with him, but scarcely hold them in spell-bound astonishment or +hurry them into fits of excitement. Melancholy resignation or dignified +dissatisfaction will find in him a powerful exponent, but scarcely +despair, or love, or hatred, or any social phase of pure unqualified +passion. + +The natural field for the display of such qualities is the romantic +drama, which Massinger took from the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher, and +endowed with greater dignity and less poetic fervour. For the vigorous +comedy of real life, as Jonson understood it, he has simply no capacity; +and in his rare attempts at humour, succeeds only in being at once dull +and dirty. His stage is generally occupied with dignified lords and +ladies, professing the most chivalrous sentiments, which are +occasionally too high-flown and overstrained to be thoroughly effective, +but which are yet uttered with sufficient sincerity. They are not mere +hollow pretences, consciously adopted to conceal base motives; but one +feels the want of an occasional infusion of the bracing air of common +sense. It is the voice of a society still inspired with the traditional +sentiments of honour and self-respect, but a little afraid of contact +with the rough realities of life. Its chivalry is a survival from a past +epoch, not a spontaneous outgrowth of the most vital elements of +contemporary development. In another generation, such a tone will be +adopted by a conscious and deliberate artifice, and be reflected in mere +theatrical rant. In the past, it was the natural expression of a +high-spirited race, full of self-confidence and pride in its own +vigorous audacity. In this transitional period it has a certain hectic +flush, symptomatic of approaching decay; anxious to give a wide berth +to realities, and most at home in the border land where dreams are only +half dispelled by the light of common day. 'Don Quixote' had sounded the +knell of the old romance, but something of the old spirit still lingers, +and can tinge with an interest, not yet wholly artificial, the lives and +passions of beings who are thus hovering on the outskirts of the living +world. The situations most characteristic of Massinger's tendency are in +harmony with this tone of sentiment. They are romances taken from a +considerable variety of sources, developed in a clearly connected series +of scenes. They are wanting in the imaginative unity of the great plays, +which show that a true poet has been profoundly moved by some profound +thought embodied in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare, +seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his +imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity +of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and +wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English +plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in +order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's +plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following +intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many +eloquent observations, though not developments of one master-thought. We +often feel that, if external circumstances had been propitious, he would +have expressed himself more naturally in the form of a prose romance +than in a drama. Nor, again, does he often indulge in those exciting and +horrible situations which possess such charms for his contemporaries. +There are occasions, it is true, in which this element is not wanting. +In the 'Unnatural Combat,' for example, we have a father killing his son +in a duel, by the end of the second act; and when, after a succession +of horrors of the worst kind, we are treated to a ghost, 'full of +wounds, leading in the shadow of a lady, her face leprous,' and the +worst criminal is killed by a flash of lightning, we feel that we were +fully entitled to such a catastrophe. We can only say, in Massinger's +words,-- + + May we make use of + This great example, and learn from it that + There cannot be a want of power above + To punish murder and unlawful love! + +The 'Duke of Milan' again culminates with a horrible scene, rivalling, +though with less power, the grotesque horrors of Webster's 'Duchess of +Malfi.' Other instances might be given of concessions to that +blood-and-thunder style of dramatic writing for which our ancestors had +a never-failing appetite. But, as a rule, Massinger inclines, as far as +contemporary writers will allow him, to the side of mercy. Instead of +using slaughter so freely that a new set of actors has to be introduced +to bury the old--a misfortune which sometimes occurs in the plays of the +time--he generally tends to a happy solution, and is disposed not only +to dismiss his virtuous characters to felicity, but even to make his +villains virtuous. We have not been excited to that pitch at which our +passions can only be harmonised by an effusion of blood, and a mild +solution is sufficient for the calmer feelings which have been aroused. + +This tendency illustrates Massinger's conception of life in another +sense. Nothing is more striking in the early stage than the vigour of +character of most of these heroes. Individual character, as it is said, +takes the place in the modern of fate in the ancient drama. Every man is +run in a mould of iron, and may break, but cannot bend. The fitting +prologue to the whole literature is provided by Marlowe's Tamburlaine, +with his superhuman audacity and vast bombastic rants, the incarnation +of a towering ambition which scorns all laws but its own devouring +passion. Faustus, braving all penalties, human and divine, is another +variety of the same type: and when we have to do with a weak character +like Edward II., we feel that it is his natural destiny to be confined +in a loathsome dungeon, with mouldy bread to eat and ditch-water to +drink. The world is for the daring; and though daring may be pushed to +excess, weakness is the one unpardonable offence. A thoroughgoing +villain is better than a trembling saint. If Shakespeare's instinctive +taste revealed the absurdity of the bombastic exaggeration of such +tendencies, his characters are equally unbending. His villains die, like +Macbeth and Iago, with their teeth set, and scorn even a deathbed +repentance. Hamlet exhibits the unfitness for a world of action of the +man who is foolish enough to see two sides to every question. So again, +Chapman, the writer who in fulness and fire of thought approaches most +nearly to Shakespeare, is an ardent worshipper of pure energy of +character. His Bussy d'Ambois cannot be turned from his purpose even by +the warnings of the ghost of his accomplice, and a mysterious spirit +summoned expressly to give advice. An admirably vigorous phrase from one +of the many declamations of his hero Byron--another representative of +the same haughty strength of will--gives his theory of character:-- + + Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea + Loves t' have his sail filled with a lusty wind, + Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack, + And his rapt ship run on her side so low + That she drinks water, and her keel plows air. + +Pure, undiluted energy, stern force of will, delight in danger for its +own sake, contempt for all laws but the self-imposed, those are the +cardinal virtues, and challenge our sympathy even when they lead their +possessor to destruction. The psychology implied in Jonson's treating of +'humour' is another phase of the same sentiment. The side by which +energetic characters lend themselves to comedy is the exaggeration of +some special trait which determines their course as tyrannically as +ambition governs the character suited for tragedy. + +When we turn to Massinger, this boundless vigour has disappeared. The +blood has grown cool. The tyrant no longer forces us to admiration by +the fulness of his vitality, and the magnificence of his contempt for +law. Whether for good or bad, he is comparatively a poor creature. He +has developed an uneasy conscience, and even whilst affecting to defy +the law, trembles at the thought of an approaching retribution. His +boasts have a shrill, querulous note in them. His creator does not fully +sympathise with his passion. Massinger cannot throw himself into the +situation; and is anxious to dwell upon the obvious moral considerations +which prove such characters to be decidedly inconvenient members of +society for their tamer neighbours. He is of course the more in +accordance with a correct code of morality, but fails correspondingly in +dramatic force and brilliance of colour. To exhibit a villain truly, +even to enable us to realise the true depth of his villainy, one must be +able for a moment to share his point of view, and therefore to +understand the true law of his being. It is a very sound rule in the +conduct of life, that we should not sympathise with scoundrels. But the +morality of the poet, as of the scientific psychologist, is founded upon +the unflinching veracity which sets forth all motives with absolute +impartiality. Some sort of provisional sympathy with the wicked there +must be, or they become mere impossible monsters or the conventional +scarecrows of improving tracts. + +This is Massinger's weakest side. His villains want backbone, and his +heroes are deficient in simple overmastering passion, or supplement +their motives by some overstrained and unnatural crotchet. Impulsiveness +takes the place of vigour, and indicates the want of a vigorous grasp of +the situation. Thus, for example, the 'Duke of Milan,' which is +certainly amongst the more impressive of Massinger's plays, may be +described as a variation upon the theme of 'Othello.' To measure the +work of any other writer by its relation to that masterpiece is, of +course, to apply a test of undue severity. Of comparison, properly +speaking, there can be no question. The similarity of the situation, +however, may bring out Massinger's characteristics. The Duke, who takes +the place of Othello, is, like his prototype, a brave soldier. The most +spirited and effective passage in the play is the scene in which he is +brought as a prisoner before Charles V., and not only extorts the +admiration of his conqueror, but wins his liberty by a dignified avowal +of his previous hostility, and avoidance of any base compliance. The +Duke shows himself to be a high-minded gentleman, and we are so far +prepared to sympathise with him when exposed to the wiles of +Francisco--the Iago of the piece. But, unfortunately, the scene is not +merely a digression in a constructive sense, but involves a +psychological inconsistency. The gallant soldier contrives to make +himself thoroughly contemptible. He is represented as excessively +uxorious, and his passion takes the very disagreeable turn of posthumous +jealousy. He has instructed Francisco to murder the wife whom he adores, +in case of his own death during the war, and thus to make sure that she +could not marry anybody else. On his return, the wife, who has been +informed by the treachery of Francisco of this pleasant arrangement, is +naturally rather cool to him; whereupon he flies into a rage and swears +that he will + + Never think of curs'd Marcelia more. + +His affection returns in another scene, but only in order to increase +his jealousy, and on hearing Francisco's slander he proceeds to stab his +wife out of hand. It is the action of a weak man in a passion, not of a +noble nature tortured to madness. Finding out his mistake, he of course +repents again, and expresses himself with a good deal of eloquence which +would be more effective if we could forget the overpowering pathos of +the parallel scene in 'Othello.' Much sympathy, however, is impossible +for a man whose whole conduct is so flighty, and so obviously determined +by the immediate demands of successive situations of the play, and not +the varying manifestation of a powerfully conceived character. Francisco +is a more coherent villain, and an objection made by Hazlitt to his +apparent want of motive is at least equally valid against Iago; but he +is of course but a diluted version of that superlative villain, as +Marcelia is a rather priggish and infinitely less tender Desdemona. The +failure, however, of the central figure to exhibit any fixity of +character is the real weakness of the play; and the horrors of the last +scene fail to atone for the want of the vivid style which reveals an +'intense and gloomy mind.' + +This kind of versatility and impulsiveness of character is revealed by +the curious convertibility--if one may use the word--of his characters. +They are the very reverse of the men of iron of the previous generation. +They change their state of mind as easily as the characters of the +contemporary drama put on disguises. We are often amazed at the +simplicity which enables a whole family to suppose the brother and +father to whom they have been speaking ten minutes before to be an +entire stranger, because he has changed his coat or talks broken +English. The audience must have been easily satisfied in such cases; but +it requires almost equal simplicity to accept some of Massinger's +transformations. In such a play as the 'Virgin Martyr,' a religious +conversion is a natural part of the scheme. Nor need we be surprised at +the amazing facility with which a fair Mohammedan is converted in the +'Renegado' by the summary assertion that the 'juggling Prophet' is a +cheat, and taught a pigeon to feed in his ear. Can there be strength, it +is added, in that religion which allows us to fear death? 'This is +unanswerable,' exclaims the lady, 'and there is something tells me I err +in my opinion.' This is almost as good as the sudden thought of swearing +eternal friendship in the 'Anti-Jacobin.' The hardened villain of the +first act in the same play falls into despair in the third, and, with +the help of an admirable Jesuit, becomes a most useful and exemplary +convert by the fifth. But such catastrophes may be regarded as more or +less miraculous. The versatility of character is more singular when +religious conversions are not in question. 'I am certain,' says Philanax +in the 'Emperor of the East,' + + 'A prince so soon in his disposition altered + Was never heard nor read of.' + +That proves that Philanax was not familiar with Massinger's plays. The +disposition of princes and of subjects is there constantly altered with +the most satisfactory result. It is not merely that, as often happens +elsewhere, the villains are summarily forced to repent at the end of a +play, like Angelo in 'Measure for Measure,' in order to allow the +curtain to fall upon a prospect of happiness. Such forced catastrophes +are common, if clumsy enough. But there is something malleable in the +very constitution of Massinger's characters. They repent half-way +through the performance, and see the error of their ways with a facility +which we could wish to be imitated in common life. The truth seems to be +that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is +more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be +irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal +to the feelings for a change of character. Thus, for example, in the +'Picture'--a characteristic, though not a very successful play--we have +a story founded upon the temptations of a separated husband and wife. +The husband carries with him a magical picture, which grows dark or +bright according to the behaviour of the wife, whom it represents. The +husband is tempted to infidelity by a queen, herself spoilt by the +flatteries of an uxorious husband; and the wife by a couple of +courtiers, who have all the vices of Fletcher's worst heroes without any +of their attractions. The interest of the play, such as it is, depends +upon the varying moods of the chief actors, who become so eloquent under +a sense of wrong or a reflection upon the charms of virtue, that they +approach the bounds of vice, and then gravitate back to respectability. +Everybody becomes perfectly respectable before the end of the play is +reached, and we are to suppose that they will remain respectable ever +afterwards. They avoid tragic results by their want of the overmastering +passions which lead to great crimes or noble actions. They are really +eloquent, but even more moved by their eloquence than the spectators can +be. They form the kind of audience which would be most flattering to an +able preacher, but in which a wise preacher would put little confidence. +And, therefore, besides the fanciful incident of the picture, they give +us an impression of unreality. They have no rich blood in their veins; +and are little better than lay figures taking up positions as it may +happen, in order to form an effective tableau illustrative of an +unexceptionable moral. + +There is, it is true, one remarkable exception to the general weakness +of Massinger's characters. The vigour with which Sir Giles Overreach is +set forth has made him the one well-known figure in Massinger's gallery, +and the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts' showed, in consequence, more vitality +than any of his other plays. Much praise has been given, and not more +than enough, to the originality and force of the conception. The +conventional miser is elevated into a great man by a kind of inverse +heroism, and made terrible instead of contemptible. But it is equally +plain that here, too, Massinger fails to project himself fairly into his +villain. His rants are singularly forcible, but they are clearly what +other people would think about him, not what he would really think, +still less what he would say, of himself. Take, for example, the very +fine speech in which he replies to the question of the virtuous +nobleman, whether he is not frightened by the imprecations of his +victims:-- + + Yes, as rocks are + When foaming billows split themselves against + Their flinty sides; or as the moon is moved + When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness. + I am of a solid temper, and, like these, + Steer on a constant course; with mine own sword, + If called into the field, I can make that right + Which fearful enemies murmur at as wrong. + Now, for those other piddling complaints + Breath'd out in bitterness, as when they call me + Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder + On my poor neighbour's rights or grand incloser + Of what was common to my private use, + Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries, + And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold, + I only think what 'tis to have my daughter + Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm + Makes me insensible to remorse or pity, + Or the least sting of conscience. + +Put this into the third person; read 'he' for 'I,' and 'his' for 'my,' +and it is an admirable bit of denunciation of a character probably +intended as a copy from life. It is a description of a wicked man from +outside; and wickedness seen from outside is generally unreasonable and +preposterous. When it is converted, by simple alteration of pronouns, +into the villain's own account of himself, the internal logic which +serves as a pretext disappears, and he becomes a mere monster. It is for +this reason that, as Hazlitt says, Massinger's villains--and he was +probably thinking especially of Overreach and Luke in 'A City +Madam'--appear like drunkards or madmen. His plays are apt to be a +continuous declamation, cut up into fragments, and assigned to the +different actors; and the essential unfitness of such a method to +dramatic requirements needs no elaborate demonstration. The villains +will have to denounce themselves, and will be ready to undergo +conversion at a moment's notice, in order to spout openly on behalf of +virtue as vigorously as they have spouted in transparent disguise on +behalf of vice. + +There is another consequence of Massinger's romantic tendency, which is +more pleasing. The chivalrous ideal of morality involves a reverence for +women, which may be exaggerated or affected, but which has at least a +genuine element in it. The women on the earlier stage have comparatively +a bad time of it amongst their energetic companions. Shakespeare's women +are undoubtedly most admirable and lovable creatures; but they are +content to take a subordinate part, and their highest virtue generally +includes entire submission to the will of their lords and masters. Some, +indeed, have an abundant share of the masculine temperament, like +Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth; but then they are by no means model +characters. Iago's description of the model woman is a cynical version +of the true Shakespearian theory. Women's true sphere, according to him, +or according to the modern slang, is domestic life; and if circumstances +force a Cordelia, an Imogen, a Rosalind, or a Viola, to take a more +active share in life, they take good care to let us know that they have +a woman's heart under their man's doublet. The weaker characters in +Massinger give a higher place to women, and justify it by a sentiment of +chivalrous devotion. The excess, indeed, of such submissiveness is often +satirised. In the 'Roman Actor,' the 'Emperor of the East,' the 'Duke of +Milan,' the 'Picture,' and elsewhere, we have various phases of uxorious +weakness, which suggest a possible application to the Court of Charles +I. Elsewhere, as in the 'Maid of Honour' and the 'Bashful Lover,' we are +called upon to sympathise with manifestations of a highflown devotion to +feminine excellence. Thus, the bashful lover, who is the hero of one of +his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself +scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her +he exclaims-- + + As Moors salute + The rising sun with joyful superstition, + I could fall down and worship.--O my heart! + Like Phoebe breaking through an envious cloud, + Or something which no simile can express, + She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended + With wonder and astonishment, does possess me. + +When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is +liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to +any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her +through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of +this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow +himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two +lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky +enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her +interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright +cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the +offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He +resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of +Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this +catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds +that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world +as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would +involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better +provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by +Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the +advantage of poor Mariana, whose reunion with her hypocritical husband +certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to +intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded +as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate, +in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who +has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot, +consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature +of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not +look out for others. She may permit herself for once to return the +affection of a worthy lover; but, when he fails, she must not condescend +again to love. That would be to admit that love was a necessity of her +life, not a special act of favour for some exceptional proofs of +worthiness. Given the general tone of sentiment, I confess that, to my +taste, Massinger's solution has the merit, not only of originality, but +of harmony. It may, of course, be held that a jilted lady should, in a +perfectly healthy state of society, have some other alternative besides +a convent or an unworthy marriage. Some people, for example, may hold +that she should be able to take to active life as a lawyer or a +professor of medicine; or they may hold that love ought not to hold so +prominent a part even in a woman's life that disappointed passion should +involve, as a necessary consequence, the entire abandonment of the +world. But, taking the romantic point of view, of which it is the very +essence to set an extravagant value upon love, and remembering that +Massinger had not heard of modern doctrines of woman's rights, one must +admit, I think, that he really shows, by the best means in his power, a +strong sense of the dignity of womanhood, and that his catastrophe is +more satisfactory than the violent death or the consignment to an +inferior lover which would have commended themselves to most Elizabethan +dramatists. + +The same vein of chivalrous sentiment gives a fine tone to some of +Massinger's other plays; to the 'Bondman,' for example, and the 'Great +Duke of Florence,' in both of which the treatment of lover's devotion +shows a higher sense of the virtue of feminine dignity and purity than +is common in the contemporary stage. There is, of course, a want of +reality, an admission of extravagant motives, and an absence of dramatic +concentration, which indicate an absence of high imaginative power. +Chivalry, at its best, is not very reconcilable with common-sense; and +the ideal hero is divided, as Cervantes shows, by very narrow +distinctions from the downright madman. What was absurd in the more +vigorous manifestations of the spirit does not vanish when its energy is +lowered, and the rhetorician takes the place of the poet. But the +sentiment is still genuine, and often gives real dignity to Massinger's +eloquent speeches. It is true that, in apparent inconsistency with this +excellence, passages of Massinger are even more deeply stained than +usual with revolting impurities. Not only are his bad men and women apt +to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed +out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the +indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy +explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity, +nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong +religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with +considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch, +according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he +suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with +the most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the +centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once +dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst +ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be +accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two +Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected. +But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are +superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the +structure of his plays. + +I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which +would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all +doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple +product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or +overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as +an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The +dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his +moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes +in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most +willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a +certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration. +But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say +honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays? +Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company, +say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is +clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt +to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic +affection? Is there not rather a sense that we have been all the time +in an unnatural region, where, it is true, a sense of honour and other +good qualities come in for much eloquent praise, but where, above +everything, there is a marked absence of downright wholesome +common-sense? Of course the effect is partly due to the region in which +the old dramatists generally sought for their tragic situations. We are +never quite at home in this fictitious cloudland, where the springs of +action are strange, unaccountable, and altogether different from those +with which we have to do in the workaday world. A great poet, indeed, +weaves a magic mirror out of these dream-like materials, in which he +shows us the great passions, love, and jealousy, and ambition, reflected +upon a gigantic scale. But, in weaker hands, the characters become +eccentric instead of typical: his vision simply distorts instead of +magnifying the fundamental truths of human nature. The liberty which +could be used by Shakespeare becomes dangerous for his successors. +Instead of a legitimate idealisation, we have simply an abandonment of +any basis in reality. + +The admission that Massinger is moral must therefore be qualified by the +statement that he is unnatural; or, in other words, that his morality is +morbid. The groundwork of all the virtues, we are sometimes told, is +strength. A strong nature may be wicked, but a weak one cannot attain +any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that +the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid +perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has +that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see +illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly +that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be plausible, +or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist +admits that vice is often pleasant, and that wicked men flourish like a +green bay-tree. He cannot be over-anxious to preach, for he feels that +the intrinsic charm of high qualities can dispense with any artificial +attempts to bolster them up by sham rhetoric, or to slur over the hard +facts of life. He will describe Iago as impartially as Desdemona, and, +having given us the facts, leave us to make what we please of them. It +is the mark of a more sickly type of morality, that it must always be +distorting the plain truth. It becomes sentimental, because it wishes to +believe that what is pleasant must be true. It makes villains condemn +themselves, because such a practice would save so much trouble to judges +and moralists. Not appreciating the full force of passions, it allows +the existence of grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a +little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and +represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial +examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes +necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest +position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is +possible is a very different one from our own. + +The decline of the great poetic impulse does not yet reveal itself by +sheer blindness to moral distinctions, or downright subservience to +vice. A lowered vitality does not necessarily imply disease, though it +is favourable to the development of vicious germs. The morality which +flourishes in an exhausted soil is not a plant of hardy growth and tough +fibre, nourished by rough common-sense, flourishing amongst the fierce +contests of vigorous passions, and delighting in the open air and the +broad daylight. It loves the twilight of romance, and creates heroes +impulsive, eccentric, extravagant in their resolves, servile in their +devotion, and whose very natures are more or less allied to weakness and +luxurious self-indulgence. Massinger, indeed, depicts with much sympathy +the virtues of the martyr and the penitent; he can illustrate the +paradox that strength can be conquered by weakness, and violence by +resignation. His good women triumph by softening the hearts of their +persecutors. Their purity is more attractive than the passions of their +rivals. His deserted King shows himself worthy of more loyalty than his +triumphant persecutors. His Roman actor atones for his weakness by +voluntarily taking part in his own punishment. + +Such passive virtues are undoubtedly most praiseworthy; but they may +border upon qualities not quite so praiseworthy. It is a melancholy +truth that your martyr is apt to be a little sanctimonious, and that a +penitent is generally a bit of a sneak. Resignation and self-restraint +are admirable qualities, but admirable in proportion to the force of the +opposing temptation. The strong man curbing his passions, the weak woman +finding strength in patient suffering, are deserving of our deepest +admiration; but in Massinger we feel that the triumph of virtue implies +rather a want of passion than a power of commanding it, and that +resignation is comparatively easy when it connotes an absence of active +force. The general lowering of vitality, the want of rigid dramatic +colouring, deprive his martyrs of that background of vigorous reality +against which their virtues would be forcibly revealed. His pathos is +not vivid and penetrating. Truly pathetic power is produced only when we +see that it is a sentiment wrung from a powerful intellect by keen +sympathy with the wrongs of life. We are affected by the tears of a +strong man; but the popular preacher who enjoys weeping produces in us +nothing but contempt. Massinger's heroes and heroines have not, we may +say, backbone enough in them to make us care very deeply for their +sorrows. And they moralise rather too freely. We do not want sermons, +but sympathy, when we are in our deepest grief; and we do not feel that +anyone feels very keenly who can take his sorrows for a text, and preach +in his agony upon the vanity of human wishes or the excellence of +resignation. + +Massinger's remarkable flow of genuine eloquence, his real dignity of +sentiment, his sympathy for virtuous motive, entitle him to respect; but +we cannot be blind to the defect which keeps his work below the level of +his greatest contemporaries. It is, in one word, a want of vital force. +His writing is pitched in too low a key. He is not invigorating, +stimulating, capable of fascinating us by the intensity of his +conceptions. His highest range is a dignified melancholy or a certain +chivalrous recognition of the noble side of human nature. The art which +he represents is still a genuine and spontaneous growth instead of an +artificial manufacture. He is not a mere professor of deportment, or +maker of fine phrases. The days of mere affection have not yet arrived; +but, on the other hand, there is an absence of that grand vehemence of +soul which breathes in the spontaneous, if too lawless, vigour of the +older race. There is something hollow under all this stately rhetoric; +there are none of those vivid phrases which reveal minds moved by strong +passions and excited by new aspects of the world. The sails of his verse +are not, in Chapman's phrase, 'filled with a lusty wind,' but moving at +best before a steady breath of romantic sentiment, and sometimes +flapping rather ominously for want of true impulse. High thinking may +still be there, but it is a little self-conscious, and in need of +artificial stimulant. The old strenuous spirit has disappeared, or gone +elsewhere--perhaps to excite a Puritan imagination, and create another +incarnation of the old type of masculine vigour in the hero of 'Paradise +Lost.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] _Contemporary Review_ for August 1876. + + + + +_FIELDING'S NOVELS_ + + +A double parallel has often been pointed out between the two pairs of +novelists who were most popular in the middle of our own and of the +preceding century. The intellectual affinity which made Smollett the +favourite author of Dickens is scarcely so close as that which commended +Fielding to Thackeray. The resemblance between 'Pickwick' and 'Humphrey +Clinker,' or between 'David Copperfield' and 'Roderick Random,' consists +chiefly in the exuberance of animal spirits, the keen eye for external +oddity, the consequent tendency to substitute caricature for portrait, +and the vivid transformation of autobiography into ostensible fiction, +which are characteristic of both authors. Between Fielding and Thackeray +the resemblance is closer. The peculiar irony of 'Jonathan Wild' has its +closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' +of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's +burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong +to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent since the days +of Lady Bellaston, but the costume of the actors has changed more than +their nature. Rawdon Crawley would not have been surprised to meet +Captain Booth in a spunging-house; Shandon and his friends preserved the +old traditions of Fielding's Grub Street; Lord Steyne and Major +Pendennis were survivals from the more congenial period of Lord Fellamar +and Colonel James; and the two Amelias represent cognate ideals of +female excellence. Or, to take an instance of similarity in detail, +might not this anecdote from 'The Covent Garden Journal' have rounded +off a paragraph in the 'Snob Papers?' A friend of Fielding saw a dirty +fellow in a mud-cart lash another with his whip, saying, with an oath, +'I will teach you manners to your betters.' Fielding's friend wondered +what could be the condition of this social inferior of a mud-cart +driver, till he found him to be the owner of a dust-cart driven by +asses. The great butt of Fielding's satire is, as he tells us, +affectation; the affectation which he specially hates is that of +straitlaced morality; Thackeray's satire is more generally directed +against the particular affectation called snobbishness; but the evil +principle attacked by either writer is merely one avatar of the demon +assailed by the other. + +The resemblance, which extends in some degree to style, might perhaps be +shown to imply a very close intellectual affinity. I am content, +however, to notice the literary genealogy as illustrative of the fact +that Fielding was the ancestor of one great race of novelists. 'I am,' +he says expressly in 'Tom Jones,' 'the founder of a new province of +writing.' Richardson's 'Clarissa'[7] and Smollett's 'Roderick Random' +were indeed published before 'Tom Jones;' but the provinces over which +Richardson and Smollett reigned were distinct from the contiguous +province of which Fielding claimed to be the first legislator. Smollett +(who comes nearest) professed to imitate 'Gil Blas' as Fielding +professed to imitate Cervantes. Smollett's story inherits from its +ancestry a reckless looseness of construction. It is a series of +anecdotes strung together by the accident that they all happen to the +same person. 'Tom Jones,' on the contrary, has a carefully constructed +plot, if not, as Coleridge asserts, one of the three best plots in +existence (its rivals being 'Oedipus Tyrannus' and 'The Alchemist'). Its +excellence depends upon the skill with which it is made subservient to +the development of character and the thoroughness with which the working +motives of the persons involved have been thought out. Fielding +claims--even ostentatiously--that he is writing a history, not a +romance; a history not the less true because all the facts are +imaginary, for the fictitious incidents serve to exhibit the most +general truths of human character. It is by this seriousness of purpose +that his work is distinguished from the old type of novel, developed by +Smollett, which is but a collection of amusing anecdotes; or from such +work as De Foe's, in which the external facts are given with an almost +provoking indifference to display of character and passion. Fielding's +great novels have a true organic unity as well as a consecutive story, +and are intended in our modern jargon as genuine studies in +psychological analysis.[8] + +Johnson, no mean authority when in his own sphere and free from personal +bias, expressly traversed this claim; he declared that there was more +knowledge of the human heart in a letter of 'Clarissa' than in the whole +of 'Tom Jones;' and said more picturesquely, that Fielding could tell +the hour by looking at the dial-plate, whilst Richardson knew how the +clock was made.[9] It is tempting to set this down as a Johnsonian +prejudice, and to deny or retort the comparison. Fielding, we might say, +paints flesh and blood; whereas Richardson consciously constructs his +puppets out of frigid abstractions. Lovelace is a bit of mechanism; Tom +Jones a human being. In fact, however, such comparisons are misleading. +Nothing is easier than to find an appropriate ticket for the objects of +our criticism, and summarily pigeon-hole Richardson as an idealist and +Fielding as a realist; Richardson as subjective and morbid, Fielding as +objective and full of coarse health; or to attribute to either of them +the deepest knowledge of the human heart. These are the mere banalities +of criticism; and I can never hear them without a suspicion that a +professor of æsthetics is trying to hoodwink me by a bit of technical +platitude. The cant phrases which have been used so often by panegyrists +too lazy to define their terms, have become almost as meaningless as the +complimentary formulæ of society. + +Knowledge of the human heart in particular is a phrase which covers very +different states of mind. It may mean that power by which the novelist +or dramatist identifies himself with his characters; sees through their +eyes and feels with their senses; it is the product of a rich nature, a +vivid imagination, and great powers of sympathy, and draws a +comparatively small part of its resources from external experience. The +novelist knows how his characters would feel under given conditions, +because he feels it himself; he sees from within, not from without; and +is almost undergoing an actual experience instead of condensing his +observations on life. This is the power in which Shakespeare is supreme; +which Richardson proved himself, in his most powerful passages, to +possess in no small degree; and which in Balzac seems to have generated +fits of absolute hallucination. + +Fielding's novels are not without proof of this power, as no great +imaginative work can be possible without it; but the knowledge for which +he is specially conspicuous differs almost in kind. This knowledge is +drawn from observation rather than intuitive sympathy. It consists in +great part of those weighty maxims which a man of keen powers of +observation stores up in his passage through a varied experience. It is +the knowledge of Ulysses, who has known + + Cities of men + And manners, climates, councils, governments; + +the knowledge of a Machiavelli, who has looked behind the screen of +political hypocrisies; the knowledge of which the essence is distilled +in Bacon's 'Essays;' or the knowledge of which Polonius seems to have +retained many shrewd scraps even when he had fallen into his dotage. +In reading 'Clarissa' or 'EugĂ©nie Grandet' we are aware that the soul +of Richardson or Balzac has transmigrated into another shape; that the +author is projected into his character, and is really giving us one +phase of his own sentiments. In reading Fielding we are listening to +remarks made by a spectator instead of an actor; we are receiving the +pithy recollections of the man about town; the prodigal who has been +with scamps in gambling-houses, and drunk beer in pothouses and punch +with country squires; the keen observer who has judged all characters, +from Sir Robert Walpole down to Betsy Canning;[10] who has fought the +hard battle of life with unflagging spirit, though with many falls; +and who, in spite of serious stains, has preserved the goodness of his +heart and the soundness of his head. The experience is generally given +in the shape of typical anecdotes rather than in explicit maxims; but +it is not the less distinctly the concentrated essence of observation, +rather than the spontaneous play of a vivid imagination. Like Balzac, +Fielding has portrayed the 'ComĂ©die Humaine;' but his imagination has +never overpowered the coolness of his judgment. He shows a superiority +to his successor in fidelity almost as marked as his inferiority in +vividness. And, therefore, it may be said in passing, it is refreshing +to read Fielding at a time when this element of masculine observation +is the one thing most clearly wanting in modern literature. Our novels +give us the emotions of young ladies, which, in their way, are very +good things; they reflect the sentimental view of life, and the +sensational view, and the commonplace view, and the high philosophical +view. One thing they do not tell us. What does the world look like to +a shrewd police-magistrate, with a keen eye in his head and a sound +heart in his bosom? It might be worth knowing. Perhaps (who can tell?) +it would still look rather like Fielding's world. + +The peculiarity is indicated by Fielding's method. Scott, who, like +Fielding, generally describes from the outside, is content to keep +himself in the background. 'Here,' he says to his readers, 'are the +facts; make what you can of them.' Fielding will not efface himself; he +is always present as chorus; he tells us what moral we ought to draw; he +overflows with shrewd remarks, given in their most downright shape, +instead of obliquely suggested through the medium of anecdotes; he likes +to stop us as we pass through his portrait gallery; to take us by the +button-hole and expound his views of life and his criticisms on things +in general. His remarks are often so admirable that we prefer the +interpolations to the main current of narrative. Whether this plan is +the best must depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the author; but it goes +some way to explain one problem, over which Scott puzzles +himself--namely, why Fielding's plays are so inferior to his novels. +There are other reasons, external and internal; but it is at least clear +that a man who can never retire behind his puppets is not in the +dramatic frame of mind. He is always lecturing where a dramatist must be +content to pull the wires. Shakespeare is really as much present in his +plays as Fielding in his novels; but he does not let us know it; whereas +the excellent Fielding seems to be quite incapable of hiding his broad +shoulders and lofty stature behind his little puppet-show. + +There are, of course, actors in Fielding's world who can be trusted to +speak for themselves. Tom Jones, at any rate, who is Fielding in his +youth, or Captain Booth, who is the Fielding of later years, are drawn +from within. Their creator's sympathy is so close and spontaneous that +he has no need of his formulæ and precedents. But elsewhere he betrays +his method by his desire to produce his authority. You will find the +explanation of a certain line of conduct, he says, in 'human nature, +page almost the last.' He is a little too fond of taking down that +volume with a flourish; of exhibiting his familiarity with its pages, +and referring to the passages which justify his assertions. Fielding has +an odd touch of the pedant. He is fond of airing his classical +knowledge; and he is equally fond of quoting this imaginary code which +he has had to study so thoroughly and painfully. The effect, however, is +to give an air of artificiality to some of his minor characters. They +show the traces of deliberate composition too distinctly, though the +blemish may be forgiven in consideration of the genuine force and +freshness of his thinking. If manufactured articles, they are not +second-hand manufactures. His knowledge, unlike that of the good Parson +Adams, comes from life, not books. + +The worldly wisdom for which Fielding is so conspicuous had indeed been +gathered in doubtful places, and shows traces of its origin. He had been +forced, as he said, to choose between the positions of a hackney +coachman and of a hackney writer. 'His genius,' said Lady M. W. Montagu, +who records the saying, 'deserves a better fate.' Whether it would have +been equally fertile, if favoured by more propitious surroundings, is +one of those fruitless questions which belong to the boundless history +of the might-have-beens. But one fact requires to be emphasised. +Fielding's critics and biographers have dwelt far too exclusively upon +the uglier side of his Bohemian life. They have presented him as +yielding to all the temptations which can mislead keen powers of +enjoyment, when the purse is one day at the lowest ebb and the next +overflowing with the profits of some lucky hit at the theatre. Those +unfortunate yellow liveries which contributed to dissipate his little +fortune have scandalised posterity as they scandalised his country +neighbours.[11] But it is essential to remember that the history of the +Fielding of later years, of the Fielding to whom we owe the novels, is +the record of a manful and persistent struggle to escape from the mire +of Grub Street. During that period he was studying the law with the +energy of a young student; redeeming the office of magistrate from the +discredit into which it had fallen in the hands of fee-hunting +predecessors; considering seriously, and making practical proposals to +remedy, the evils which then made the lowest social strata a hell upon +earth; sacrificing his last chances of health and life to put down with +a strong hand the robbers who infested the streets of London; and +clinging with affection to his wife and children. He never got fairly +clear of that lamentable slough of despond into which his follies had +plunged him. His moral tone lost what delicacy it had once possessed; he +had not the strength which enabled Johnson to gain elevation even from +the temptations which then beset the unlucky 'author by profession.' +Some literary hacks of the day escaped only by selling themselves, body +and soul; others sank into misery and vice, like poor Boyce, a fragment +of whose poem has been preserved by Fielding, and who appears in +literary history scribbling for pay in a sack arranged to represent a +shirt. Fielding never let go his hold of the firm land, though he must +have felt through life like one whose feet are always plunging into a +hopeless quagmire. To describe him as a mere reckless Bohemian, is to +overlook the main facts of his story. He was manly to the last, not in +the sense in which man means animal; but with the manliness of one who +struggles bravely to redeem early errors, and who knows the value of +independence, purity, and domestic affection. The scanty anecdotes which +do duty for his biography reveal little of his true life. We know, +indeed, from a spiteful and obviously exaggerated story of Horace +Walpole's, that he once had a very poor supper in doubtful company; and +from another anecdote, of slightly apocryphal flavour, that he once gave +to 'friendship' the money which ought to have been given to the +collector of rates. But really to know the man, we must go to his books. + +What did Fielding learn of the world which had treated him so roughly? +That the world must be composed of fools because it did not bow before +his genius, or of knaves because it did not reward his honesty? Men of +equal ability have drawn both those and the contradictory conclusions +from experience. Human nature, as philosophers assure us, varies little +from age to age; but the pictures drawn by the best observers vary so +strangely as to convince us that a portrait depends as much upon the +artist as upon the sitter. One can see nothing but the baser, and +another nothing but the nobler, passions. To one the world is like a +masque representing the triumph of vice; and another placidly assures us +that virtue is always rewarded by peace of mind, and that even the +temporary prosperity of the wicked is an illusion. On one canvas we see +a few great heroes stand out from a multitude of pygmies; on its rival, +giants and dwarfs appear to have pretty much the same stature. The world +is a scene of unrestrained passions impelling their puppets into +collision or alliance without intelligible design; or a scene of +domestic order, where an occasional catastrophe interferes as little +with ordinary lives as a comet with the solar system. Blind fate governs +one world of the imagination, and beneficent Providence another. The +theories embodied in poetry vary as widely as the philosophies on which +they are founded; and to philosophise is to declare the fundamental +assumptions of half the wise men of the world to be transparent +fallacies. + +We need not here attempt to reconcile these apparent contradictions. As +little need we attempt to settle Fielding's philosophy, for it resembles +the snakes in Iceland. It seems to have been his opinion that philosophy +is, as a rule, a fine word for humbug. That was a common conviction of +his day; but his acceptance of it doubtless indicates the limits of his +power. In his pages we have the shrewdest observation of man in his +domestic relations; but we scarcely come into contact with man as he +appears in presence of the infinite, and therefore with the deepest +thoughts and loftiest imaginings of the great poets and philosophers. +Fielding remains inflexibly in the regions of common-sense and everyday +experience. But he has given an emphatic opinion of that part of the +world which was visible to him, and it is one worth knowing. In a +remarkable conversation, reported in Boswell, Burke and Johnson, two of +the greatest of Fielding's contemporaries, seem to have agreed that they +had found men less just and more generous than they could have imagined. +People begin by judging the world from themselves, and it is therefore +natural that two men of great intellectual power should have expected +from their fellows a more than average adherence to settled principles. +Thus Johnson and Burke discovered that reason, upon which justice +depends, has less influence than a young reasoner is apt to fancy. On +the other hand, they discovered that the blind instincts by which the +mass is necessarily guided are not so bad as they are represented by the +cynics. The Rochefoucauld or Mandeville who passes off his smart +sayings upon the public as serious, knows better than anybody that a man +must be a fool to take them literally. The wisdom which he affects is +very easily learnt, and is more often the product of the premature +sagacity dear to youth than of a ripened judgment. Good-hearted men, at +least, like Johnson and Burke, shake off cynicism whilst others are +acquiring it. + +Fielding's verdict seems to differ at first sight. He undoubtedly lays +great stress upon the selfishness of mankind. He seldom admits of an +apparently generous action without showing its alloy of selfish motive, +and sometimes showing that it is a mere cloak for selfish motives. In a +characteristic passage of his 'Voyage to Lisbon' he applies his theory +to his own case. When the captain falls on his knees, he will not suffer +a brave man and an old man to remain for a moment in that posture, but +forgives him at once. He hastens, however, utterly to disclaim all +praise, on the ground that his true motive was simply the convenience of +forgiveness. 'If men were wiser,' he adds, 'they would be oftener +influenced by that motive.' This kind of inverted hypocrisy, which may +be graceful in a man's own case (for nobody will doubt that Fielding was +less guided by calculation than he asserts), is not so graceful when +applied to his neighbours. And perhaps some readers may hold that +Fielding pitches the average strain of human motive too low. I should +rather surmise that he substantially agrees with Johnson and Burke. The +fact that most men attend a good deal to their own interests is one of +the primary data of life. It is a thing at which we have no more right +to be astonished than at the fact that even saints and martyrs have to +eat and drink like other persons, or that a sound digestion is the +foundation of much moral excellence. It is one of those facts which +people of a romantic turn of mind may choose to overlook, but which no +honest observer of life can seriously deny. Our conduct is determined +through some thirty points of the compass by our own interest; and, +happily, through at least nine-and-twenty of those points is rightfully +so determined. Each man is forced, by an unavoidable necessity, to look +after his own and his children's bread and butter, and to spend most of +his efforts on that innocent end. So long as he does not pursue his +interests wrongfully, nor remain dead to other calls when they happen, +there is little cause for complaint, and certainly there is none for +surprise. + +Fielding recognises, but never exaggerates, this homely truth. He has a +hearty and generous belief in the reality of good impulses, and the +existence of thoroughly unselfish men. The main actors in his world are +not, as in Balzac's, mere hideous incarnations of selfishness. The +superior sanity of his mind keeps him from nightmares, if its calmness +is unfavourable to lofty visions. With Balzac, women like Lady Bellaston +become the rule instead of the exception, and their evil passions are +the dominant forces in society. Fielding, though he recognises their +existence, tells us plainly that they are exceptional. Society, he says, +is as moral as ever it was, and given more to frivolity than to +vice[12]--a statement judiciously overlooked by some of the critics who +want to make graphic history out of his novels. Fielding's mind had +gathered coarseness, but it had not been poisoned. He sees how many ugly +things are covered by the superficial gloss of fashion, but he does not +condescend to travesty the facts in order to gratify a morbid taste for +the horrible. When he wants a good man or woman he knows where to find +them, and paints from Allen or his own wife with obvious sincerity and +hearty sympathy. He is less anxious to exhibit human selfishness than to +show us that an alloy of generosity is to be found even amidst base +motives. Some of his happiest touches are illustrations of this +doctrine. His villains (with a significant exception) are never +monsters. They have some touch of human emotion. No desert, according to +him, is so bare but that some sweet spring blends with its brackish +waters. His grasping landladies have genuine movements of sympathy; and +even the scoundrelly Black George, the game-keeper, is anxious to do Tom +Jones a good turn, without risk, of course, to his own comfort, by way +of compensation for previous injuries. It is this impartial insight into +the ordinary texture of human motive that gives a certain solidity and +veracity to Fielding's work. We are always made to feel that the actions +spring fairly and naturally from the character of his persons, not from +the exigencies of his story or the desire to be effective. The one great +difficulty in 'Tom Jones' is the assumption that the excellent Allworthy +should have been deceived for years by the hypocrite Blifil, and blind +to the substantial kindliness of his ward. Here we may fancy that +Fielding has been forced to be unnatural by his plot. Yet he suggests a +satisfactory solution with admirable skill. Allworthy is prejudiced in +favour of Blifil by the apparently unjust prejudice of Blifil's mother +in favour of the jovial Tom. A generous man may easily become blind to +the faults of a supposed victim of maternal injustice; and even here +Fielding fairly escapes from the blame due to ordinary novelists, who +invent impossible misunderstandings in order to bring about intricate +perplexities. + +Blifil is perhaps the one case (for 'Jonathan Wild' is a satire, not a +history, or, as M. Taine fancies, a tract) in which Fielding seems to +lose his unvarying coolness of judgment; and the explanation is obvious. +The one fault to which he is, so to speak, unjust, is hypocrisy. +Hypocrisy, indeed, cannot well be painted too black, but it should not +be made impossible. When Fielding has to deal with such a character, he +for once loses his self-command, and, like inferior writers, begins to +be angry with his creatures. Instead of analysing and explaining, he +simply reviles and leaves us in presence of a moral anomaly. Blifil is +not more wicked than Iago, but we seem to understand the psychical +chemistry by which an Iago is compounded; whereas Blifil can only be +regarded as a devil (if the word be not too dignified) who does not +really belong to this world at all. The error, though characteristic of +a man whose great intellectual merit is his firm grasp of realities, and +whose favourite virtue is his downright sincerity, is not the less a +blemish. Hatred of pedantry too easily leads to hatred of culture, and +hatred of hypocrisy to distrust of the more exalted virtues. Fielding +cannot be just to motives lying rather outside his ordinary sphere of +thought. He can mock heartily and pleasantly enough at the affectation +of philosophy, as in the case where Parson Adams, urging poor Joseph +Andrews, by considerations drawn from the Bible and from Seneca, to be +ready to resign his Fanny 'peaceably, quietly, and contentedly,' +suddenly hears of the supposed loss of his own little child, and is +called upon to act instead of preaching. But his satire upon all +characters and creeds which embody the more exalted strains of feeling +is apt to be indiscriminate. A High Churchman, according to him, is a +Pharisee who prefers orthodoxy to virtue; a Methodist a mere +mountebank, who counterfeits spiritual raptures to impose upon dupes; a +Freethinker is a man who weaves a mask of fine phrases, under which to +cover his aversion to the restraints of religion. Fielding's religion +consists chiefly of a solid homespun morality, and he is more suspicious +of an excessive than of a defective zeal. Similarly he is a hearty Whig, +but no revolutionist. He has as hearty a contempt for the cant about +liberty[13] as Dr. Johnson himself, and has very stringent remedies to +propose for regulating the mob. The bailiff in 'Amelia,' who, whilst he +brutally maltreats the unlucky prisoners for debt, swaggers about the +British Constitution, and swears that he is 'all for liberty,' recalls +the boatman who ridiculed French slavery to Voltaire, and was carried +off next day by a pressgang. Fielding, indeed, is no fanatical adherent +of our blessed Constitution, which, as he says, has been pronounced by +some of our wisest men to be too perfect to be altered in any +particular, and which a number of the said wisest men have been mending +ever since. He hates cant on all sides impartially, though, as a sound +Whig, he specially hates Papists and Jacobites as the most offensive of +all Pharisees, marked for detestation by their taste for frogs and +French wine in preference to punch and roast beef. He is a patriotic +Briton, whose patriotism takes the genuine shape of a hearty growl at +English abuses, with a tacit assumption that things are worse elsewhere. + +The reflection of this quality of solid good sense, absolutely scorning +any ailment except that of solid facts, is the so-called realism of +Fielding's novels. He is, indeed, as hearty a realist as Hogarth, whose +congenial art he is never tired of praising with all the cordiality of +his nature, and to whom he refers his readers for portraits of several +characters in 'Tom Jones.' His scenery is as realistic as a photograph. +Tavern kitchens, spunging-house parlours, the back-slums of London +streets, are drawn from the realities with unflinching vigour. We see +the stains of beer-pots and smell the fumes of stale tobacco as +distinctly as in Hogarth's engravings. He shrinks neither from the +coarse nor the absolutely disgusting. It is enough to recall the female +boxing or scratching matches which are so frequent in his pages. On one +such occasion his language seems to imply that he had watched such +battles in the spirit of a connoisseur in our own day watching less +inexpressibly disgusting prize-fights. Certainly we could wish that, if +such scenes were to be depicted, there might have been a clearer proof +that the artist had a nose and eyes capable of feeling offence. + +But the nickname 'realist' slides easily into another sense. The realist +is sometimes supposed to be more shallow as well as more prosaic than +the idealist; to be content with the outside where the idealist pierces +to the heart. He gives the bare fact, where his rival gives the idea +symbolised by the fact, and therefore rendering it attractive to the +higher intellect. Fielding's view of his own art is instructive in this +as in other matters. Poetic invention, he says, is generally taken to be +a creative faculty; and if so, it is the peculiar property of the +romance-writers, who frankly take leave of the actual and possible. +Fielding disavows all claim to this faculty; he writes histories, not +romances. But, in his sense, poetic invention means, not creation, but +'discovery;' that is, 'a quick, sagacious penetration into the true +essence of all objects of our contemplation.' Perhaps we may say that it +is chiefly a question of method whether a writer should portray men or +angels--the beings, that is, of everyday life--or beings placed under a +totally different set of circumstances. The more vital question is +whether, by one method or the other, he shows us a man's heart or only +his clothes; whether he appeals to our intellects or imaginations, or +amuses us by images which do not sink below the eye. In scientific +writings a man may give us the true law of a phenomenon, whether he +exemplifies it in extreme or average cases, in the orbit of a comet or +the fall of an apple. The romance-writer should show us what real men +would be in dreamland, the writer of 'histories' what they are on the +knifeboard of an omnibus. True insight may be shown in either case, or +may be absent in either, according as the artist deals with the deepest +organic laws or the more external accidents. The 'Ancient Mariner' is an +embodiment of certain simple emotional phases and moral laws amidst the +phantasmagoric incidents of a dream, and De Foe does not interpret them +better because he confines himself to the most prosaic incidents. When +romance becomes really arbitrary, and is parted from all basis of +observation, it loses its true interest and deserves Fielding's +condemnation. Fielding conscientiously aims at discharging the highest +function. He describes, as he says in 'Joseph Andrews,' 'not men, but +manners; not an individual, but a species.' His lawyer, he tells us, has +been alive for the last four thousand years, and will probably survive +four thousand more. Mrs. Tow-wouse lives wherever turbulent temper, +avarice, and insensibility are united; and her sneaking husband wherever +a good inclination has glimmered forth, eclipsed by poverty of spirit +and understanding. But the type which shows best the force and the +limits of Fielding's genius is Parson Adams. He belongs to a +distinguished family, whose members have been portrayed by the greatest +historians. He is a collateral descendant of Don Quixote, for whose +creation Fielding felt a reverence exceeded only by his reverence for +Shakespeare.[14] The resemblance is, of course, distant, and consists +chiefly in this, that the parson, like the knight, lives in an ideal +world, and is constantly shocked by harsh collision with facts. He +believes in his sermons instead of his sword, and his imagination is +tenanted by virtuous squires and model parsons instead of Arcadian +shepherds, or knight-errants and fair ladies. His imagination is not +exalted beyond the limits of sanity, but only colours the prosaic +realities in accordance with the impulses of a tranquil benevolence. If +the theme be fundamentally similar, it is treated with a far less daring +hand. + +Adams is much more closely related to Sir Roger de Coverley, the Vicar +of Wakefield, or Uncle Toby. Each of these lovable beings invites us at +once to sympathise with and to smile at the unaffected simplicity which, +seeing no evil, becomes half ludicrous and half pathetic in this corrupt +world. Adams stands out from his brethren by his intense reality. If he +smells too distinctly of beer and tobacco, we believe in him more firmly +than in the less full-blooded creations of Sterne and Goldsmith. Parson +Adams, indeed, has a startling vigour of organisation. Not merely the +hero of a modern ritualist novel, but Amyas Leigh or Guy Livingstone +himself, might have been amazed at his athletic prowess. He stalks ahead +of the stage-coach (favoured doubtless by the bad roads of the period) +as though he had accepted the modern principle about fearing God and +walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours. His mutton fist and the +crabtree cudgel which swings so freely round his clerical head would +have daunted the contemporary gladiators, Slack and Broughton. He shows +his Christian humility not merely by familiarity with his poorest +parishioners, but in sitting up whole nights in tavern kitchens, +drinking unlimited beer, smoking inextinguishable pipes, and revelling +in a ceaseless flow of gossip. We smile at the good man's intense +delight in a love-story, at the simplicity which makes him see a good +Samaritan in Parson Trulliber, at the absence of mind which makes him +pitch his Æschylus into the fire, or walk a dozen miles in profound +oblivion of the animal which should have been between his knees; but his +contemporaries were provoked to a horse-laugh, and when we remark the +tremendous practical jokes which his innocence suggests to them, we +admit that he requires his whole athletic vigour to bring so tender a +heart safely through so rough a world. + +If the ideal hero is always to live in fancy-land and talk in blank +verse, Adams has clearly no right to the title; nor, indeed, has Don +Quixote. But the masculine portraiture of the coarse realities is not +only indicative of intellectual vigour, but artistically appropriate. +The contrast between the world and its simple-minded inhabitant is the +more forcible in proportion to the firmness and solidity of Fielding's +touch. Uncle Toby proves that Sterne had preserved enough tenderness to +make an exquisite plaything of his emotions. The Vicar of Wakefield +proves that Goldsmith had preserved a childlike innocence of +imagination, and could retire from duns and publishers to an idyllic +world of his own. Joseph Andrews proves that Fielding was neither a +child nor a sentimentalist, but that he had learnt to face facts as they +are, and set a true value on the best elements of human life. In the +midst of vanity and vexation of spirit he could find some comfort in +pure and strong domestic affection. He can indulge his feelings without +introducing the false note of sentimentalism, or condescending to tone +his pictures with rose-colour. He wants no illusions. The exemplary Dr. +Harrison in 'Amelia' held no action unworthy of him which could protect +an innocent person or 'bring a rogue to the gallows.' Good Parson Adams +could lay his cudgel on the back of a villain with hearty goodwill. He +believes too easily in human goodness, but there is not a maudlin fibre +in his whole body. He would not be the man to cry over a dead donkey +whilst children are in want of bread. He would be slower than the +excellent Dr. Primrose to believe in the reformation of a villain by +fine phrases, and if he fell into such a weakness, his biographer would +not, like Goldsmith, be inclined to sanction the error. A villain is +induced to reform, indeed, by the sight of Amelia's excellence, but +Fielding is careful to tell us that the change was illusory, and that +the villain ended on a gallows. We are made sensible that if Adams had +his fancies they were foibles, and therefore sources of misfortune. We +are to admire the childlike character, but not to share its illusions. +The world is not made of moonshine. Hypocrisy, cruelty, avarice, and +lust have to be stamped out by hard blows, not cured by delicate +infusion of graceful sentimentalisms. + +So far Fielding's portrait of an ideal character is all the better for +his masculine grasp of fact. It must, however, be admitted that he fails +a little on the other side of the contrast. He believes in a good heart, +but scarcely in very lofty motive. He tells us in 'Tom Jones'[15] that +he has painted no perfect character, because he never happened to meet +one. His stories, like 'Vanity Fair,' may be described as novels without +a hero. It is not merely that his characters are imperfect, but that +they are deficient in the finer ingredients which go to make up the +nearest approximations of our imperfect natures to heroism. Colonel +Newcome was not perhaps so good a man as Parson Adams, but he had a +certain delicacy of sentiment which led him, as we may remember, to be +rather hard upon Tom Jones, and which Fielding (as may be gathered from +Bath in 'Amelia') would have been inclined to ridicule. Parson Adams is +simple enough to become a laughing-stock to the brutal, but he never +consciously rebels against the dictates of the plainest common-sense. +His theology comes from Tillotson and Hoadly; he has no eye for the +romantic side of his creed, and would be apt to condemn a mystic as +simply a fool. His loftiest aspiration is not to reform the world or any +part of it, but to get a modest bit of preferment (he actually receives +it, we are happy to think, in 'Amelia'), enough to pay for his tobacco +and his children's schooling. Fielding's dislike to the romantic makes +him rather blind to the elevated. He will not only start from the +actual, but does not conceive the possibility of an infusion of loftier +principles. The existing standard of sound sense prescribes an +impassable limit to his imagination. Parson Adams is an admirable +incarnation of certain excellent and honest impulses. He sets forth the +wisdom of the heart and the beauty of the simple instincts of an +affectionate nature. But we are forced to admit that he is not the +highest type conceivable, and might, for example, learn something from +his less robust colleague Dr. Primrose. + +This remark suggests the common criticism, expounded with his usual +brilliancy by M. Taine. Fielding, he tells us, loves nature, but he does +not love it 'like the great impartial artists, Shakespeare and Goethe.' +He moralises incessantly--which is wrong. Moreover, his morality appears +to be very questionable. It consists in preferring instinct to reason. +The hero is the man who is born generous as a dog is born affectionate. +And this, says M. Taine, might be all very well were it not for a great +omission. Fielding has painted nature, but nature without refinement, +poetry and chivalry. He can only describe the impetuosity of the senses, +not the nervous exaltation and the poetic rapture. Man is with him 'a +good buffalo; and perhaps he is the hero required by a people which is +itself called John Bull.' In all which there is an undoubted vein of +truth. Fielding's want of refinement, for example, is one of those +undeniable facts which must be taken for granted. But, without seeking +to set right some other statements implied in M. Taine's judgment, it is +worth while to consider a little more fully the moral aspect of +Fielding's work. Much has been said upon this point by some who, with M. +Taine, take Fielding for a mere 'buffalo,' and by others who, like +Coleridge--a safer and more sympathetic critic--hold 'Tom Jones' to be, +on the whole, a sound exposition of healthy morality. + +Fielding, on the 'buffalo' view, is supposed to be simply taking one +side in one of those perpetual controversies which has occupied many +generations and never approaches a settlement. He prefers nature to law, +instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against +Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee +without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and +despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such +a doctrine--so absolutely stated--is rather a negation of all morality +than a lax morality. If it implies a love of generous instincts, it +denies that a man should have any regard for moral rules, which are +needed precisely in order to control our spontaneous instincts. Virtue +is amiable, but ceases to be meritorious. Nothing would be easier than +to quote passages in which Fielding expressly repudiates such a theory; +but, of course, a writer's morality must be judged by the conceptions +embodied in his work, not by the maxims scattered through it. Nor, for +the same reason, can we pay much attention to Fielding's express +assertion that he is writing in the interests of virtue; for Smollett, +and less scrupulous writers than Smollett, have found their account in +similar protestations. Yet anybody, I think, who will compare 'Joseph +Andrews' with that intentionally most moral work, 'Pamela,' will admit +that Fielding's morality goes deeper than this. Fielding at least makes +us love virtue, and is incapable of the solecism which Richardson +commits in substantially preaching that virtue means standing out for a +higher price. That Fielding's reckless heroes have a genuine sensibility +to the claims of virtue, appears still more unmistakably when we compare +them with the heartless fine gentlemen of the Congreve school and of his +own early plays, or put the faulty Captain Booth beside such an +unredeemed scamp as Peregrine Pickle. + +It is clear, in short, that the aim of Fielding (whether he succeeds or +not) is the very reverse of that attributed to him by M. Taine. 'Tom +Jones' and 'Amelia' have, ostensibly at least, a most emphatic moral +attached to them; and not only attached to them, but borne in mind and +even too elaborately preached throughout. That moral is the one which +Fielding had learnt in the school of his own experience. It is the moral +that dissipation bears fruit in misery. The remorse, it is true, which +was generated in Fielding and in his heroes was not the remorse which +drives a man to a cloister, or which even seriously poisons his +happiness. The offences against morality are condoned too easily, and +the line between vice and virtue drawn in accordance with certain +distinctions which even Parson Adams could scarcely have approved. Vice, +he seems to say, is altogether objectionable only when complicated by +cruelty or hypocrisy. But if Fielding's moral sense is not very +delicate, it is vigorous. He hates most heartily what he sees to be +wrong, though his sight might easily be improved in delicacy of +discrimination. The truth is simply that Fielding accepted that moral +code which the better men of the world in his time really acknowledged, +as distinguished from that by which they affected to be bound. That so +wide a distinction should generally exist between these codes is a +matter for deep regret. That Fielding in his hatred for humbug should +have condemned purity as puritanical is clearly lamentable. The +confusion, however, was part of the man, and, as already noticed, shows +itself in one shape or other throughout his work. But it would be unjust +to condemn him upon that ground as antagonistic or indifferent to +reasonable morality. His morality is at the superior antipodes from the +cynicism of a Wycherley; and far superior to the prurient sentimentalism +of Sterne or the hot-pressed priggishness of Richardson, or even the +reckless Bohemianism of Smollett. + +There is a deeper question, however, beneath this discussion. The +morality of those 'great impartial artists' of whom M. Taine speaks +differs from Fielding's in a more serious sense. The highest morality of +a great work of art depends upon the power with which the essential +beauty and ugliness of virtue and vice are exhibited by an impartial +observer. The morality, for example, of Goethe and Shakespeare appears +in the presentation of such characters as Iago and Mephistopheles. The +insight of true genius shows us by such examples what is the true +physiology of vice; what is the nature of the man who has lost all faith +in virtue and all sympathy with purity and nobility of character. The +artist of inferior rank tries to make us hate vice by showing that it +comes to a bad end precisely because he has an adequate perception of +its true nature. He can see that a drunkard generally gets into debt or +incurs an attack of _delirium tremens_, but he does not exhibit the +moral disintegration which is the underlying cause of the misfortune, +and which may be equally fatal, even if it happens to evade the penalty. +The distinction depends upon the power of the artist to fulfil +Fielding's requirement of penetrating to the essence of the objects of +his contemplation. It corresponds to the distinction in philosophy +between a merely prudential system of ethics--the system of the gallows +and the gaol--and the system which recognises the deeper issues +perceptible to a fine moral sense. + +Now, in certain matters, Fielding's morality is of the merely prudential +kind. It resembles Hogarth's simple doctrine that the good apprentice +will be Lord Mayor and the bad apprentice get into Newgate. So shrewd an +observer was indeed well aware, and could say very forcibly,[16] that +virtue in this world might sometimes lead to poverty, contempt, and +imprisonment. He does not, like some novelists, assume the character of +a temporal Providence, and knock his evildoers on the head at the end of +the story. He shows very forcibly that the difficulties which beset poor +Jones and Booth are not to be fairly called accidents, but are the +difficulties to which bad conduct generally leads a man, and which are +all the harder when not counterbalanced by a clear conscience. He can +even describe with sympathy such a character as poor Atkinson in +'Amelia,' whose unselfish love brings him more blows than favours of +fortune. But it is true that he is a good deal more sensible to what are +called the prudential sanctions of virtue, at least of a certain +category of virtues, than to its essential beauty. So far the want of +refinement of which M. Taine speaks does, in fact, lower, and lower very +materially, his moral perception. A man of true delicacy could never +have dragged Tom Jones into his lowest degradation without showing more +forcibly his abhorrence of his loose conduct. This is, as Colonel +Newcome properly points out, the great and obvious blot upon the story, +which no critics have missed, and we cannot even follow the leniency of +Coleridge, who thinks that a single passage introduced to express +Fielding's real judgment would have remedied the mischief. It is too +obvious to be denied without sophistry that Tom, though he has many good +feelings, and can preach very edifying sermons to his less scrupulous +friend Nightingale, requires to be cast in a different mould. His whole +character should have been strung to a higher pitch to make us feel that +such degradation would not merely have required punishment to restore +his self-complacency, but have left a craving for some thorough moral +ablution. + +Granting unreservedly all that may be urged upon this point, we may +still agree with the judgment pronounced by the most congenial critics. +Fielding's pages reek too strongly of tobacco; they are apt to turn +delicate stomachs; but the atmosphere is, on the whole, healthy and +bracing. No man can read them without prejudice and fail to recognise +the fact that he has been in contact with something much higher than a +'good buffalo.' He has learnt to know a man, not merely full of animal +vigour, not merely stored with various experience of men and manners, +but also in the main sound and unpoisoned by the mephitic vapours which +poisoned the atmosphere of his police-office. If the scorn of hypocrisy +is too fully emphasised, and the sensitiveness to ugly and revolting +objects too much deadened by a rough life, yet nobody could be more +heartily convinced of the beauty and value of those solid domestic +instincts on which human happiness must chiefly depend. Put Fielding +beside the modern would-be satirists who make society--especially French +society[17]--a mere sink of nastiness, or beside the more virtuous +persons whose favourite affectation is simplicity, and who labour most +spasmodically to be masculine, and his native vigour, his massive +common-sense, his wholesome views of men and manners, stand out in solid +relief. Certainly he was limited in perception, and not so elevated in +tone as might be desired; but he is a fitting representative of the +stalwart vigour and the intellectual shrewdness evident in the best men +of his time. The English domestic life of the period was certainly far +from blameless, and anything but refined; but if we have gained in some +ways, we are hardly entitled to look with unqualified disdain upon the +rough vigour of our beer-drinking, beef-eating ancestors. + +We have felt, indeed, the limitations of Fielding's art more clearly +since English fiction found a new starting-point in Scott. Scott made us +sensible of many sources of interest to which Fielding was naturally +blind. He showed us especially that a human being belonged to a society +going through a long course of historical development, and renewed the +bonds with the past which had been rudely snapped in Fielding's period. +Fielding only deals, it may be roughly said, with men as members of a +little family circle, whereas Scott shows them as members of a nation +rich in old historical traditions, related to the past and the future, +and to the external nature in which it has been developed. A wider set +of forces is introduced into our conception of humanity, and the +romantic element, which Fielding ignored, comes again to life. Scott, +too, was a greater man than Fielding, of wider sympathy, loftier +character, and, not the least, with an incomparably keener ear for the +voices of the mountains, the sea, and the sky. The more Scott is +studied, the higher, I believe, the opinion that we shall form of some +of his powers. But in one respect Fielding is his superior. It is a kind +of misnomer which classifies all Scott's books as novels. They are +embodied legends and traditions, descriptions of men, and races, and +epochs of history; but many of them are novels, as it were, by accident, +and modern readers are often disappointed because the name suggests +misleading associations. They expect to sympathise with Scott's heroes, +whereas the heroes are generally dropped in from without, just to give +ostensible continuity to the narrative. The apparent accessories are +really the main substance. The Jacobites and not Waverley, the +Borderers, not Mr. Van Beest Brown, the Covenanters, not Morton or Lord +Evandale, are the real subject of Scott's best romances. Now Fielding is +really a novelist in the more natural sense. We are interested, that is, +by the main characters, though they are not always the most attractive +in themselves. We are really absorbed by the play of their passions and +the conflict of their motives, and not merely taking advantage of the +company to see the surrounding scenery or phases of social life. In this +sense Fielding's art is admirable, and surpassed that of all his English +predecessors as of most of his successors. If the light is concentrated +in a narrow focus, it is still healthy daylight. So long as we do not +wish to leave his circle of ideas, we see little fault in the vigour +with which he fulfils his intention. And therefore, whatever Fielding's +other faults, he is beyond comparison the most faithful and profound +mouthpiece of the passions and failings of a society which seems at once +strangely remote and yet strangely near to us. When seeking to solve +that curious problem which is discussed in one of Hazlitt's best +essays--what characters one would most like to have met?--and running +over the various claims of a meeting at the Mermaid with Shakespeare and +Jonson, a 'neat repast of Attic taste' with Milton, a gossip at Button's +with Addison and Steele, a club-dinner with Johnson and Burke, a supper +with Lamb, or (certainly the least attractive) an evening at Holland +House, I sometimes fancy that, after all, few things would be pleasanter +than a pipe and a bowl of punch with Fielding and Hogarth. It is true +that for such a purpose I provide myself in imagination with a new set +of sturdy nerves, and with a digestion such as that which was once equal +to the horrors of an undergraduates' 'wine party.' But, having made that +trifling assumption, I fancy that there would be few places where one +would hear more good motherwit, shrewder judgments of men and things, or +a sounder appreciation of those homely elements of which human life is +in fact chiefly composed. Common-sense in the highest degree--whether we +choose to identify it or contrast it with genius--is at least one of the +most enduring and valuable of qualities in literature as everywhere +else; and Fielding is one of its best representatives. But perhaps one +is unduly biassed by the charm of a complete escape in imagination from +the thousand and one affectations which have grown up since Fielding +died and we have all become so much wiser and more learned than all +previous generations. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Richardson wrote the first part of 'Pamela' between November 10, +1739, and January 10, 1740. 'Joseph Andrews' appeared in 1742. The first +four volumes of 'Clarissa Harlowe' and 'Roderick Random' appeared in the +beginning of 1748; 'Tom Jones' in 1749. + +[8] See some appreciative remarks upon this in Scott's preface to the +_Monastery_. + +[9] It is rather curious that Richardson uses the same comparison to +Miss Fielding. He assures her that her brother only knew the outside of +a clock, whilst she knew all the finer springs and movements of its +inside. See _Richardson's Correspondence_, ii. 105. + +[10] Fielding blundered rather strangely in the celebrated Betsy Canning +case, as Balzac did in the 'Affaire Peytel'; but the story is too long +for repetition in this place. The trials of Miss Canning and her +supposed kidnappers are amongst the most amusing in the great collection +of State Trials. See vol. xix. of the 8vo edition. Fielding's defence of +his own conduct in the matter is reprinted in his 'Miscellanies and +Poems,' being the supplementary volume of the last collected edition of +his works. + +[11] They were really the property not of Fielding but of the once +famous '_beau_ Fielding.' See _Dictionary of National Biography_. + +[12] See _Tom Jones_, book xiv. chap. i. + +[13] See _Voyage to Lisbon_ (July 21) for some very good remarks upon +this word, which, as he says, no two men understand in the same sense. + +[14] In his interesting Life of Godwin, Mr. Paul claims for his hero (I +dare say rightly) that he was the first English writer to give a +'lengthy and appreciative notice' of 'Don Quixote.' But when he infers +that Godwin was also the first English writer who recognised in +Cervantes a great humourist, satirist, moralist, and artist, he seems to +me to overlook Fielding and others. So Warton in his essay on 'Pope' +calls 'Don Quixote' the 'most original and unrivalled work of modern +times.' The book must have been popular in England from its publication, +as we know from the preface to Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the +Burning Castle'; and numerous translations and imitations show that +Cervantes was always enjoyed, if not criticised. Fielding's frequent +references to 'Don Quixote' (to say nothing of his play, 'Don Quixote in +England') imply an admiration fully as warm as that of Godwin. 'Don +Quixote,' says Fielding, is more worthy the name of history than +Mariana, and he always speaks of Cervantes in the tone of an +affectionate disciple. Fielding, I will add, seems to me to have admired +Shakespeare more heartily and intelligently than ninety-nine out of a +hundred modern supporters of Shakespeare societies; though these +gentlemen are never happier than when depreciating English +eighteenth-century critics to exalt vapid German philosophising. +Fielding's favourite play seems from his quotations to have been +'Othello.' + +[15] Book x. chap. i. + +[16] _Tom Jones_, book xv. chap. i. + +[17] For Fielding's view of the French novels of his day see _Tom +Jones_, book xiii. chap. ix. + + + + +_COWPER AND ROUSSEAU_ + + +Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Cowper--considered as the type of domestic +poets--has recently been translated for the benefit of English readers. +It is interesting to know on the highest authority what are the +qualities which may recommend a writer, so strongly tinged by local +prejudices, to the admiration of a different race and generation. The +gulf which separates the Olney of a century back from modern Paris is +wide enough to give additional value to the generous appreciation of the +critic. I have not the presumption to supplement or correct any part of +his judgment. It is enough to remark briefly that Cowper's immediate +popularity was, as is usually the case, due in part to qualities which +have little to do with his more enduring reputation. Sainte-Beuve dwells +with special fondness upon his pictures of domestic and rural life. He +notices, of course, the marvellous keenness of his pathetic poems; and +he touches, though with some hint that national affinity is necessary to +its full appreciation, upon the playful humour which immortalised John +Gilpin, and lights up the poet's most charming letters. Something, +perhaps, might still be said by a competent critic upon the singular +charm of Cowper's best style. A poet, for example, might perhaps tell +us, though a prosaic person cannot, what is the secret of the impression +made by such a poem as the 'Wreck of the Royal George.' Given an +ordinary newspaper paragraph about wreck or battle, turn it into the +simplest possible language, do not introduce a single metaphor or figure +of speech, indulge in none but the most obvious of all reflections--as, +for example, that when a man is once drowned he won't win any more +battles--and produce as the result a copy of verses which nobody can +ever read without instantly knowing them by heart. How Cowper managed to +perform such a feat, and why not one poet even in a hundred can perform +it, are questions which might lead to some curious critical speculation. + +The qualities, however, which charm the purely literary critic do not +account for the whole of Cowper's influence. A great part of his +immediate, and some part of his more enduring success, have been clearly +owing to a different cause. On reading Johnson's 'Lives,' Cowper +remarked, rather uncharitably, that there was scarcely one good man +amongst the poets. Few poets, indeed, shared those religious views which +commended him more than any literary excellence to a large class of +readers. Religious poetry is generally popular out of all proportion to +its æsthetic merits. Young was but a second-rate Pope in point of +talent; but probably the 'Night Thoughts' have been studied by a dozen +people for one who has read the 'Essay on Man' or the 'Imitations of +Horace.' In our own day, nobody, I suppose, would hold that the +popularity of the 'Christian Year' has been strictly proportioned to its +poetical excellence; and Cowper's vein of religious meditation has +recommended him to thousands who, if biassed at all, were quite +unconsciously biassed by the admirable qualities which endeared him to +such a critic as Sainte-Beuve. His own view was frequently and +unequivocally expressed. He says over and over again--and his entire +sincerity lifts him above all suspicion of the affected +self-depreciation of other writers--that he looked upon his poetical +work as at best innocent trifling, except so far as his poems were +versified sermons. His intention was everywhere didactic--sometimes +annoyingly didactic--and his highest ambition was to be a useful +auxiliary to the prosaic exhortations of Doddridge, Watts, or his friend +Newton. His religion, said some people, drove him mad. Even a generous +critic like Mr. Stopford Brooke cannot refrain from hinting that his +madness was in some part due to the detested influence of Calvinism. In +fact, it may be admitted that Newton--who is half inclined to boast that +he has a name for driving people mad--scarcely showed his judgment in +setting a man who had already been in confinement to write hymns which +at times are the embodiment of despair. But it is obviously contrary to +the plainest facts to say that Cowper was driven mad by his creed. His +first attack preceded his religious enthusiasm; and a gentleman who +tries to hang himself because he has received a comfortable appointment +for life, is in a state of mind which may be explained without reference +to his theological views. It would be truer to say that when Cowper's +intellect was once unhinged, he found a congenial expression for the +tortures of his soul in the imagery provided by the sternest of +Christian sects. But neither can this circumstance be alleged as in +itself disparaging to the doctrines thus misapplied. A religious belief +which does not provide language for the darkest moods of the human mind, +for profound melancholy, torturing remorse and gloomy foreboding, is a +religion not calculated to lay a powerful grasp upon the imaginations of +mankind. Had Cowper been a Roman Catholic, the same anguish of mind +might have driven him to seek relief in the recesses of some austere +monastery. Had he, like Rousseau, been a theoretical optimist, he would, +like Rousseau, have tortured himself with the conflict between theory +and fact--between the world as it might be and the corrupt and tyrannous +world as it is--and have held that all men were in a conspiracy to rob +him of his peace. The chief article of Rousseau's rather hazy creed was +the duty of universal philanthropy, and Rousseau fancied himself to be +the object of all men's hatred. Similarly, Cowper, who held that the +first duty of man was the love of God, fancied that some mysterious +cause had made him the object of the irrevocable hatred of his Creator. +With such fancies, reason and creeds which embody reason have nothing to +do except to give shape to the instruments of self-torture. The cause of +the misery is the mind diseased. You can no more raze out its rooted +troubles by arguing against the reality of the phantoms which it +generates than cure any other delirium by the most irrefragable logic. + +Sainte-Beuve makes some remarks upon this analogy between Rousseau and +Cowper. The comparison suggests some curious considerations as to the +contrast and likeness of the two cases represented. Some personal +differences are, of course, profound and obvious. Cowper was as +indisputably the most virtuous man, as Rousseau the greatest +intellectual power. Cowper's domestic life was as beautiful as +Rousseau's was repulsive. Rousseau, moreover, was more decidedly a +sentimentalist than Cowper, if by sentimentalism we mean that +disposition which makes a luxury of grief, and delights in poring over +its own morbid emotions. Cowper's tears are always wrung from him by +intense anguish of soul, and never, as is occasionally the case with +Rousseau, suggests that the weeper is proud of his excessive tenderness. +Nevertheless, it is probably true, as Mr. Lowell says, that Cowper is +the nearest congener of Rousseau in our language. The two men, of +course, occupy in one respect an analogous literary position. We +habitually assign to Cowper an important place--though of course a +subordinate place to Rousseau--in bringing about the reaction against +the eighteenth-century code of taste and morality. In each case it would +generally be said that the change indicated was a return to nature and +passion from the artificial coldness of the dominant school. That +reaction, whatever its precise nature, took characteristically different +forms in England and in France; and it is as illustrating one of the +most important distinctions that I propose to say a few words upon the +contrast thus exhibited. + +Return to Nature! That was the war-cry which animated the Lake school in +their assault upon the then established authority. Pope, as they held, +had tied the hands of English poets by his jingling metres and frigid +conventionalities. The muse--to make use of the old-fashioned +phrase--had been rouged and bewigged, and put into high-heeled boots, +till she had lost the old majestic freedom of gait and energy of action. +Let us go back to our ancient school, to Milton and Shakespeare and +Spenser and Chaucer, and break the ignoble fetters imported from the +pseudo-classicists of France. These and similar phrases, repeated and +varied in a thousand forms, have become part of the stock-in-trade of +literary historians, and are put forward so fluently that we sometimes +forget to ask what it is precisely that they mean. Down to Milton, it is +assumed, we were natural; then we became artificial; and with the +Revolution we became natural again. That a theory so generally received +and so consciously adopted by the leaders of the new movement must have +in it a considerable amount of truth, is not to be disputed. But it is +sometimes not easy to interpret it into very plain language. The method +of explaining great intellectual and social movements by the phrase +'reaction' is a very tempting one, for the simple reason that it enables +us to effect a great saving of thought. The change is made to explain +itself. History becomes a record of oscillations; we are always swinging +backwards and forwards, pendulum fashion, from one extreme to another. +The courtiers of Charles II. were too dissolute because the Puritans +were too strict; Addison and Steele were respectable because Congreve +and Wycherley were licentious; Wesley was zealous because the Church had +become indifferent; the Revolution of 1789 was a reaction against the +manners of the last century, and the Revolution in running its course +set up a reaction against itself. Now it is easy enough to admit that +there is some truth in this theory. Every great man who moves his race +profoundly is of necessity protesting against the worst evils of the +time, and it is as true as a copy-book that zeal leads to extremes, and +one extreme to its opposite. A river flowing through a nearly level +plain turns its concavity alternately to the east and west, and we may +fairly explain each bend by the fact that the previous bend was in the +opposite direction. But that does not explain why the river flows +down-hill, nor show which direction tends downwards. We may account for +trifling oscillations, not for the main current. Nor does it seem at +first a self-evident proposition that vice, for example, necessarily +generates over-strictness. A man is not always a Pharisee because his +father has been a sinner. In fact, the people who talk so fluently about +reaction fall back whenever it suits them upon the inverse theory. If a +process happens to be continuous, the reason is as simple and +satisfactory as in the opposite case. A man is dissolute, they will tell +us, because his father was dissolute; just as they will tell us, in the +opposite case, that he was dissolute because his father was strict. +Obviously, the mere statement of a reaction is not by itself +satisfactory. We want to know why there should have been a reaction; why +the code of morals which satisfied one generation did not satisfy its +successors; why the coming man was repelled rather than attracted; what +it was that made Pope array himself in a wig instead of appreciating the +noble freedom of his predecessors; and why, again, at a given period men +became tired of the old wig business. When we have solved, or +approximated to a solution of, that problem, we shall generally find, I +suspect, that the action and reaction are generally more superficial +phenomena than we suppose, and that the great processes of evolution are +going on beneath the surface comparatively undisturbed by the changes +which first attract our notice. Every man naturally exaggerates the +share of his education due to himself. He fancies that he has made a +wonderful improvement upon his father's views, perhaps by reversing the +improvement made by the father on the grandfather's. He does not see, +what is plain enough to a more distant generation, that in reality each +generation is most closely bound to its nearest predecessors. + +There is, too, a special source of ambiguity in the catchword used by +the revolutionary school. They spoke of a return to nature. What, to ask +once more a very troublesome question, is meant by nature? Does it mean +inanimate nature? If so, is a love of nature clearly good or 'natural?' +Was Wordsworth justifiable _primâ facie_ for telling us to study +mountains rather than Pope for announcing that + + The proper study of mankind is man? + +Is it not more natural to be interested in men than in mountains? Does +nature include man in his natural state? If so, what is the natural +state of man? Is the savage the man of nature, or the unsophisticated +peasant, or the man whose natural powers are developed to the highest +pitch? Is a native of the Andaman Islands the superior of Socrates? If +you admit that Socrates is superior to the savage, where do you draw the +line between the natural and the artificial? If a coral reef is natural +and beautiful because it is the work of insects, and a town artificial +and ugly because made by man, we must reject as unnatural all the best +products of the human race. If you distinguish between different works +of man, the distinction becomes irrelevant, for the products to which we +most object are just as natural, in any assignable sense of the word, as +those which we most admire. The word natural may indeed be used as +equivalent simply to beneficial or healthy; but then it loses all value +as an implicit test of what is and what is not beneficial. Probably, +indeed, some such sense was floating before the minds of most who have +used the term. We shall generally find a vague recognition of the fact +that there is a continuous series of integrating and disintegrating +processes; that some charges imply a normal development of the social or +individual organism leading to increased health and strength, whilst +others are significant of disease and ultimate obliteration or decay of +structure. Thus the artificial style of the Pope school, the appeals to +the muse, the pastoral affectation, and so forth, may be called +unnatural, because the philosophy of that style is the retention of +obsolete symbols after all vitality has departed, and when they +consequently become mere obstructions, embarrassing the free flow of +emotion which they once stimulated. + +But, however this may be, it is plain that the very different senses +given to the word nature by different schools of thought were +characteristic of profoundly different conceptions of the world and its +order. There is a sense in which it may be said with perfect accuracy +that the worship of nature, so far from being a fresh doctrine of the +new school, was the most characteristic tenet of the school from which +it dissented. All the speculative part of the English literature in the +first half of the eighteenth century is a prolonged discussion as to the +meaning and value of the law of nature, the religion of nature, and the +state of nature. The deist controversy, which occupied every one of the +keenest thinkers of the time, turned essentially upon this problem: +granting that there is an ascertainable and absolutely true religion of +nature, what is its relation to revealed religion? That, for example, is +the question explicitly discussed in Butler's typical book, which gives +the pith of the whole orthodox argument, and the same speculation +suggested the theme of Pope's 'Essay on Man,' which, in its occasional +strength and its many weaknesses, is perhaps the most characteristic, +though far from the most valuable product of the time. The religion of +nature undoubtedly meant something very different with Butler or Pope +from what it would have meant with Wordsworth or Coleridge--something so +different, indeed, that we might at first say that the two creeds had +nothing in common but the name. But we may see from Rousseau that there +was a real and intimate connection. Rousseau's philosophy, in fact, is +taken bodily from the teaching of his English predecessors. His +celebrated profession of faith through the lips of the Vicaire Savoyard, +which delighted Voltaire and profoundly influenced the leaders of the +French Revolution, is in fact the expression of a deism identical with +that of Pope's essay.[18] The political theories of the Social Contract +are founded upon the same base which served Locke and the English +political theorists of 1688; and are applied to sanction the attempt to +remodel existing societies in accordance with what they would have +called the law of nature. It is again perfectly true that Rousseau drew +from his theory consequences which inspired Robespierre, and would have +made Locke's hair stand on end; and that Pope would have been +scandalised at the too open revelation of his religious tendencies. It +is also true that Rousseau's passion was of infinitely greater +importance than his philosophy. But it remains true that the logical +framework into which his theories were fitted came to him straight from +the same school of thought which was dominant in England during the +preceding period. The real change effected by Rousseau was that he +breathed life into the dead bones. The English theorists, as has been +admirably shown by Mr. Morley in his 'Rousseau,' acted after their +national method. They accepted doctrines which, if logically developed, +would have led to a radical revolution, and therefore refused to develop +them logically. They remained in their favourite attitude of compromise, +and declined altogether to accommodate practice to theory. Locke's +political principles fairly carried out implied universal suffrage, the +absolute supremacy of the popular will, and the abolition of class +privileges. And yet it never seems to have occurred to him that he was +even indirectly attacking that complex structure of the British +Constitution, rooted in history, marked in every detail by special +conditions of growth, and therefore anomalous to the last degree when +tried by _Ă priori_ reasoning, of which Burke's philosophical eloquence +gives the best explanation and apology. Similarly, Clarke's theology is +pure deism, embodied in a series of propositions worked out on the model +of a mathematical text-book, and yet in his eyes perfectly consistent +with an acceptance of the orthodox dogmas which repose upon traditional +authority. This attitude of mind, so intelligible on this side of the +Channel, was utterly abhorrent to Rousseau's logical instincts. +Englishmen were content to keep their abstract theories for the closet +or the lecture-room, and dropped them as soon as they were in the pulpit +or in Parliament. Rousseau could give no quarter to any doctrine which +could not be fitted into a symmetrical edifice of abstract reasoning. He +carried into actual warfare the weapons which his English teachers had +kept for purposes of mere scholastic disputation. A monarchy, an order +of privileged nobility, a hierarchy claiming supernatural authority, +were not logically justifiable on the accepted principles. Never mind, +was the English answer, they work very well in practice; let us leave +them alone. Down with them to the ground! was Rousseau's passionate +retort. Realise the ideal; force practice into conformity with theory; +the voice of the poor and the oppressed is crying aloud for vengeance; +the divergence of the actual from the theoretical is no mere trifle to +be left to the slow action of time; it means the misery of millions and +the corruption of their rulers. The doctrine which had amused +philosophers was to become the war-cry of the masses; the men of '89 +were at no loss to translate into precepts suited for the immediate +wants of the day the doctrines which found their first utterance in the +glow of his voluminous eloquence; and the fall of the Bastille showed +the first vibrations of the earthquake which is still shaking the soil +of Europe. + +It is easy, then, to give a logical meaning to Rousseau's return to +nature. The whole inanimate world, so ran his philosophy, is perfect, +and shows plainly the marks of the Divine workmanship. All evil really +comes from man's abuse of freewill. Mountains, and forests, and seas, +all objects which have not suffered from his polluting touch, are +perfect and admirable. Let us fall down and worship. Man, too, himself, +as he came from his Creator's hands, is perfect. His 'natural'--that is, +original--impulses are all good; and in all men, in all races and +regions of the earth, we find a conscience which unerringly +distinguishes good from evil, and a love of his fellows which causes man +to obey the dictates of his conscience. And yet the world, as we see it, +is a prison or a lazar-house. Disease and starvation make life a burden, +and poison the health of the coming generations; those whom fortune has +placed above the masses make use of their advantages to harden their +hearts, and extract means of selfish enjoyment from the sufferings of +their fellow-creatures. What is the source of this heartrending discord? +The abuse of men's freewill; that is, of the mysterious power which +enables us to act contrary to the dictates of nature. What is the best +name for the disease which it generates? Luxury and corruption--the two +cant objects of denunciations which were as popular in the +pre-revolutionary generation as attacks upon sensationalism and +over-excitement at the present day. And what, then, is the mode of +cure? The return to nature. We are to make history run backwards, to +raze to its foundations the whole social and intellectual structure that +has been erected by generations of corrupt and selfish men. Everything +by which the civilised man differs from some theoretical pretension is +tainted with a kind of original sin. Political institutions, as they +exist, are conveniences for enabling the rich to rob the poor, and +churches contrivances by which priests make ignorance and superstition +play into the hands of selfish authority. Level all the existing order, +and build up a new one on principles of pure reason; give up all the +philosophical and theological dogmas, which have been the work of +designing priests and bewildered speculators, and revert to that pure +and simple religion which is divinely implanted in the heart of every +uncorrupted human being. The Savoyard vicar, if you have any doubts, +will tell you what is the true creed; and if you don't believe it, is +Rousseau's rather startling corollary, you ought to be put to death. + +That final touch shows the arbitrary and despotic spirit characteristic +of the relentless theorist. I need not here inquire what relation may be +borne by Rousseau's theories to any which could now be accepted by +intelligent thinkers. It is enough to say that there would be, to put it +gently, some slight difficulty in settling the details of this pure +creed common to all unsophisticated minds, and in seeing what would be +left when we had destroyed all institutions alloyed by sin and +selfishness. The meaning, however, in this connection of his love of +nature, taking the words in their mere common-sense, is in harmony with +his system. The mountains, whose worship he was the first to adumbrate, +if not actually to institute, were the symbols of the great natural +forces free from any stain of human interference. Greed and cruelty had +not stained the pure waters of his lovely lake, or dimmed the light to +which his vicar points as in the early morning it grazes the edges of +the mighty mountain buttresses. Whatever symbolism may be found in the +Alps, suggesting emotions of awe, wonder, and softened melancholy, came +unstained by the association with the vices of a complex civilisation. +If poets and critics have not quite analysed the precise nature of our +modern love of mountain scenery, the sentiment may at least be +illustrated by a modern parallel. The most eloquent writer who, in our +day, has transferred to his pages the charm of Alpine beauties, shares +in many ways Rousseau's antipathy for the social order. Mr. Ruskin would +explain better than anyone why the love of the sublimest scenery should +be associated with a profound conviction that all things are out of +joint, and that society can only be regenerated by rejecting all the +achievements upon which the ordinary optimist plumes himself. After all, +it is not surprising that those who are most sick of man as he is should +love the regions where man seems smallest. When Swift wished to express +his disgust for his race, he showed how absurd our passions appear in a +creature six inches high; and the mountains make us all Liliputians. In +other mouths Rousseau's sentiment, more fully interpreted, became +unequivocally misanthropical. Byron, if any definite logical theory were +to be fixed upon him, excluded the human race at large from his +conception of nature. He loved, or talked as though he loved, the +wilderness precisely because it was a wilderness; the sea because it +sent men 'shivering to their gods,' and the mountains because their +avalanches crush the petty works of human industry. Rousseau was less +anti-social than his disciple. The mountains with him were the great +barriers which kept civilisation and all its horrors at bay. They were +the asylums for liberty and simplicity. There the peasant, unspoilt as +yet by _trinkgelds_, not oppressed by the great, nor corrupted by the +rich, could lead that idyllic life upon which his fancy delighted. In a +passage quoted, as Sainte-Beuve notices, by Cowper, Rousseau describes, +with his usual warmth of sentiment, the delightful _matinĂ©e anglaise_ +passed in sight of the Alps by the family which had learnt the charms of +simplicity, and regulated its manners and the education of its children +by the unsophisticated laws of nature. It is doubtless a charming +picture, though the virtuous persons concerned are a little +over-conscious of their virtue, and it indicates a point of coincidence +between the two men. Rousseau, as Mr. Morley says, could appreciate as +well as Cowper the charms of a simple and natural life. Nobody could be +more eloquent on the beauty of domesticity; no one could paint better +the happiness of family life, where the main occupation was the +primitive labour of cultivating the ground, where no breath of +unhallowed excitement penetrated from the restless turmoil of the +outside world, where the mother knew her place, and kept to her placid +round of womanly duties, and where the children were taught with a +gentle firmness which developed every germ of reason and affection, +without undue stimulus or undue repression. And yet one must doubt +whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of +the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to +listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with +cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'[19] would have been a little +scandalised by some of the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, +and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. Cowper +and Mrs. Unwin, and even their more fashionable friend, Lady Austen, +would have felt their respectable prejudices shocked by contact with the +new HĂ©loĂŻse; and the views of life taken by their teacher, the converted +slaveholder, John Newton, were as opposite as possible to those of +Rousseau's imaginary vicar. Indeed, Rousseau's ideal families have that +stain of affectation from which Cowper is so conspicuously free. The +rose-colour is laid on too thickly. They are too fond of taking credit +for universal admiration of the fine feelings which invariably animate +their breasts; their charitable sentiments are apt to take the form of +very easy condonation of vice; and if they repudiate the world, we +cannot believe that they are really unconscious of its existence. +Perhaps this dash of self-consciousness was useful in recommending them +to the taste of the jaded and weary society, sickening of a strange +disease which it could not interpret to itself, and finding for the +moment a new excitement in the charms of ancient simplicity. The real +thing might have palled upon it. But Rousseau's artificial and +self-conscious simplicity expressed that vague yearning and spirit of +unrest which could generate a half-sensual sentimentalism, but could be +repelled by genuine sentiment. Perhaps it not uncommonly happens that +those who are more or less tainted with a morbid tendency can denounce +it most effectually. The most effective satirist is the man who has +escaped with labour and pains, and not without some grievous stains, +from the slough in which others are still mired. The perfectly pure has +sometimes too little sympathy with his weaker brethren to place himself +at their point of view. Indeed, as we shall have occasion to remark, +Cowper is an instance of a thinker too far apart from the great world to +apply the lash effectually. + +Rousseau's view of the world and its evils was thus coherent enough, +however unsatisfactory in its basis, and was a development of, not a +reaction against, the previously dominant philosophy; and, though using +a different dialect and confined by different conditions, Cowper's +attack upon the existing order harmonises with much of Rousseau's +language. The first volume of poems, in which he had not yet discovered +the secret of his own strength, is in form a continuation of the satires +of the Pope school, and in substance a religious version of Rousseau's +denunciations of luxury. Amongst the first symptoms of the growing +feeling of uneasy discontent had been the popularity of Brown's +now-forgotten 'Estimate.' + + The inestimable estimate of Brown + Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town, + +says Cowper; and he proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious +administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the +country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and +lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' +'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all +turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or +simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of +meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the +coarse-fibred friend of his youth, we have a sad strain of lamentation +over the growing luxury and effeminacy of the age. It is a continued +anticipation of the lines in the 'Task,' which seem to express his most +serious and sincere conviction. + + The course of human ills, from good to ill, + From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. + Increase of power begets increase of wealth, + Wealth luxury, and luxury excess: + Excess the scrofulous and itchy plague, + That seizes first the opulent, descends + To the next rank contagious, and in time + Taints downwards all the graduated scale + Of order, from the chariot to the plough. + +That is his one unvariable lesson, set in different lights, but +associated more or less closely with every observation. The world is +ripening or rotting; and, as with Rousseau, luxury is the most +significant name of the absorbing evil. That such a view should commend +itself to a mind so clouded with melancholy would not be at any time +surprising, but it fell in with a widely spread conviction. Cowper had +not, indeed, learnt the most effective mode of touching men's hearts. +Separated by a retirement of twenty years from the world, with which he +had never been very familiar, and at which he only 'peeped through the +loopholes of retreat,' his satire wanted the brilliance, the quickness +of illustration from actual life, which alone makes satire readable. His +tone of feeling too frequently suggests that the critic represents the +querulous comments of old ladies gossiping about the outside world over +their tea-cups, easily scandalised by very simple things. Mrs. Unwin was +an excellent old lady, and Newton a most zealous country clergyman. +Probably they were intrinsically superior to the fine ladies and +gentlemen who laughed at them. But a mind acclimatised to the atmosphere +which they breathed inevitably lost its nervous tone. There was true +masculine vigour underlying Cowper's jeremiads; but it was natural that +many people should only see in him an amiable valetudinarian, not +qualified for a censorship of statesmen and men of the world. The man +who fights his way through London streets can't stop to lament over +every splash and puddle which might shock poor Cowper's nervous +sensibility. + +The last poem of the series, however, 'Retirement,' showed that Cowper +had a more characteristic and solacing message to mankind than a mere +rehearsal of the threadbare denunciations of luxury. The 'Task' revealed +his genuine power. There appeared those admirable delineations of +country scenery and country thoughts which Sainte-Beuve detaches so +lovingly from the mass of serious speculation in which they are +embedded. What he, as a purely literary critic, passed over as +comparatively uninteresting, gives the exposition of Cowper's +intellectual position. The poem is in fact a political, moral, and +religious disquisition interspersed with charming vignettes, which, +though not obtrusively moralised, illustrate the general thesis. The +poetical connoisseur may separate them from their environment, as a +collector of engravings might cut out the illustrations from the now +worthless letterpress. The poor author might complain that the most +important moral was thus eliminated from his book. But the author is +dead, and his opinions don't much matter. To understand Cowper's mind, +however, we must take the now obsolete meditation with the permanently +attractive pictures. To know why he so tenderly loved the slow windings +of the sinuous Ouse, we must see what he thought of the great Babel +beyond. It is the distant murmur of the great city that makes his little +refuge so attractive. The general vein of thought which appears in every +book of the poem is most characteristically expressed in the fifth, +called 'A Winter Morning Walk.' Cowper strolls out at sunrise in his +usual mood of tender playfulness, smiles at the vast shadow cast by the +low winter sun, as he sees upon the cottage wall the + + Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. + +He remarks, with a passing recollection of his last sermon, that we are +all shadows; but turns to note the cattle cowering behind the fences; +the labourer carving the haystack; the woodman going to work, followed +by his half-bred cur, and cheered by the fragrance of his short pipe. He +watches the marauding sparrows, and thinks with tenderness of the fate +of less audacious birds; and then pauses to examine the strange fretwork +erected at the mill-dam by the capricious freaks of the frost. Art, it +suggests to him, is often beaten by Nature; and his fancy goes off to +the winter palace of ice erected by the Russian empress. His friend +Newton makes use of the same easily allegorised object in one of his +religious writings; though I know not whether the poet or the divine +first turned it to account. Cowper, at any rate, is immediately diverted +into a meditation on 'human grandeur and the courts of kings.' The +selfishness and folly of the great give him an obvious theme for a +dissertation in the true Rousseau style. He tells us how 'kings were +first invented'--the ordinary theory of the time being that +political--deists added religious--institutions were all somehow +'invented' by knaves to impose upon fools. 'War is a game,' he says, in +the familiar phrase, + + 'Which were their subjects wise + Kings would not play at.' + +But, unluckily, their subjects are fools. In England indeed--for Cowper, +by virtue of his family traditions, was in theory a sound Whig--we know +how far to trust our kings; and he rises into a warmth on behalf of +liberty for which he thinks it right to make a simple-minded apology in +a note. The sentiment suggests a vigorous and indeed prophetic +denunciation of the terrors of the Bastille, and its 'horrid towers and +dungeons.' + + There's not an English heart that would not leap + To hear that ye were fallen at last! + +Within five or six years English hearts were indeed welcoming the event +thus foretold as the prospect of a new era of liberty. Liberty, says +Cowper, is the one thing which makes England dear. Were that boon lost, + + I would at least bewail it under skies + Milder, amongst a people less austere; + In scenes which, having never known me free, + Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.[20] + +So far Cowper was but expressing the sentiments of Rousseau, omitting, +of course, Rousseau's hearty dislike for England. But liberty suggests +to Cowper a different and more solemn vein of thought. There are worse +dungeons, he remembers, than the Bastille, and a slavery compared with +which that of the victims of French tyranny is a trifle-- + + There is yet a liberty unsung + By poets, and by senators unpraised, + Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power + Of earth and hell confederate take away. + +The patriot is lower than the martyr, though more highly prized by the +world; and Cowper changes his strain of patriotic fervour into a +prolonged devotional comment upon the text, + + He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, + And all are slaves besides. + +Who would have thought that we could glide so easily into so solemn a +topic from looking at the quaint freaks of morning shadows? But the +charm of the 'Task' is its sincerity; and in Cowper's mind the most +trivial objects really are connected by subtle threads of association +with the most solemn thoughts. He begins with mock heroics on the sofa, +and ends with a glowing vision of the millennium. No dream of human +perfectibility, but the expected advent of the true Ruler of the earth, +is the relief to the palpable darkness of the existing world. The +'Winter Walk' traces the circle of thought through which his mind +invariably revolves. + +It would be a waste of labour to draw out in definite formula the +systems adopted, from emotional sympathy, rather than from any logical +speculation, by Cowper and Rousseau. Each in some degree owed his +power--though Rousseau in a far higher degree than Cowper--to his +profound sensitiveness to the heavy burden of the time. Each of them +felt like a personal grief, and exaggerated in a distempered +imagination, the weariness and the forebodings more dimly present to +contemporaries. In an age when old forms of government had grown rigid +and obsolete, when the stiffened crust of society was beginning to heave +with new throes, when ancient faiths had left mere husks of dead formulæ +to cramp the minds of men, when even superficial observers were startled +by vague omens of a coming crash, or expected some melodramatic +regeneration of the world, it was perhaps not strange that two men, +tottering on the verge of madness, should be amongst the most +impressive prophets. The truth of Butler's speculation, that nations, +like individuals, might go mad, was about to receive an apparent +confirmation. Cowper, like Rousseau, might see the world through the +distorting haze of a disordered fancy, but the world at large was itself +strangely disordered, and the smouldering discontent of the inarticulate +masses found an echo in their passionate utterances. Their voices were +like the moan of a coming earthquake. + +The difference, however, so characteristic of the two countries, is +reflected by the national representatives. Nobody could be less of a +revolutionist than Cowper. His whiggism was little more than a +tradition. Though he felt bound to denounce kings, to talk about Hampden +and Sidney, and to sympathise with Mrs. Macaulay's old-fashioned +republicanism, there was not a more loyal subject of George III., or one +more disposed, when he could turn his mind from his pet hares to the +concerns of the empire, to lament the revolt of the American colonies. +The awakening of England from the pleasant slumbers of the eighteenth +century--for it seems pleasant in these more restless times--took place +in a curiously sporadic and heterogeneous fashion. In France the +spiritual and temporal were so intricately welded together, the +interests of the State were so deeply involved in maintaining the faith +of the Church, that conservatism and orthodoxy naturally went together. +Philosophers rejected with equal fervour the established religious and +the political creed. The new volume of passionate feeling, no longer +satisfied with the ancient barriers, poured itself in both cases into +the revolutionary channel. In England no such plain and simple issue +existed. We had our usual system of compromises in practice, and hybrid +combinations of theory. There were infidel conservatives and radical +believers. The man who more than any other influenced English history +during that century was John Wesley. Wesley was to the full as deeply +impressed as Rousseau with the moral and social evils of the time. We +may doubt whether Cowper's denunciations of luxury owed most to +Rousseau's sentimental eloquence or to the matter-of-fact vigour of +Wesley's 'Appeals.' Cowper's portrait of Whitefield--'Leuconomus,' as he +calls him, to evade the sneers of the cultivated--and his frequent +references to the despised sect of Methodists reveal the immediate +source of much of his indignation. So far as those evils were caused by +the intellectual and moral conditions common to Europe at large, Wesley +and Rousseau might be called allies. Both of them gave satisfaction to +the need for a free play of unsatisfied emotions. Their solutions of the +problem were of course radically different; and Cowper only speaks the +familiar language of his sect when he taunts the philosopher with his +incapacity to free man from his bondage: + + Spend all the powers + Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise, + Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, + And with poetic trappings grace thy prose + Till it outmantle all the pride of verse; + +where he was possibly, as Sainte-Beuve suggests, thinking of Rousseau, +though Shaftesbury was the more frequent butt of such denunciations. The +difference in the solution of the great problem of moral regeneration +was facilitated by the difference of the environment. Rousseau, though +he shows a sentimental tenderness for Christianity, could not be +orthodox without putting himself on the side of the oppressors. Wesley, +though feeling profoundly the social discords of the time, could take +the side of the poor without the need of breaking in pieces a rigid +system of class-privilege. The evil which he had to encounter did not +present itself as tyranny oppressing helplessness, but as a general +neglect of reciprocal duties verging upon license. On the whole, +therefore, he took the conservative side of political questions. When +the American war gave the first signal of coming troubles, the +combinations of opinion were significant of the general state of mind. +Wesley and Johnson denounced the rebels from the orthodox point of view +with curious coincidence of language. The only man of equal intellectual +calibre who took the same side unequivocally was the arch-infidel +Gibbon. The then sleepy Established Church was too tolerant or too +indifferent to trouble him: why should he ally himself with Puritans and +enthusiasts to attack the Government which at once supported and tied +its hands? On the other side, we find such lovers of the established +religious order as Burke associated with free-thinkers like Tom Paine +and Horne Tooke. Tooke might agree with Voltaire in private, but he +could not air his opinions to a party which relied in no small measure +on the political zeal of sound dissenters. Dissent, in fact, meant +something like atheism combined with radicalism in France; in England it +meant desire for the traditional liberties of Englishmen, combined with +an often fanatical theological creed. + +Cowper, brought up amidst such surroundings, had no temptation to adopt +Rousseau's sweeping revolutionary fervour. His nominal whiggism was not +warmed into any subversive tendency. The labourers with whose sorrows he +sympathised might be ignorant, coarse, and drunken; he saw their faults +too clearly to believe in Rousseau's idyllic conventionalities, and +painted the truth as realistically as Crabbe: they required to be kept +out of the public-house, not to be liberated from obsolete feudal +disqualifications; a poacher, such as he described, was not the victim +of a brutal aristocracy, but simply a commonplace variety of thief. And, +on the other hand, when he denounces the laziness and selfishness of the +Establishment, the luxurious bishops, the sycophantic curates, the +sporting and the fiddling and the card-playing parson, he has no thought +of the enmity to Christianity which such satire would have suggested to +a French reformer, but is mentally contrasting the sleepiness of the +bishops with the virtues of Newton or Whitefield. + + 'Where dwell these matchless saints?' old Curio cries. + 'Even at your side, sir, and before your eyes, + The favour'd few, the enthusiasts you despise.' + +And whatever be thought of Cowper's general estimate of the needs of his +race, it must be granted that in one respect his philosophy was more +consequent than Rousseau's. Rousseau, though a deist in theory, rejected +the deist conclusion, that whatever is, is right; and consequently the +problem of how it can be that men, who are naturally so good, are in +fact so vile, remained a difficulty, only slurred over by his fluent +metaphysics about freewill. Cowper's belief in the profound corruption +of human nature supplied him with a doctrine less at variance with his +view of facts. He has no illusions about the man of nature. The savage, +he tells us, was a drunken beast till rescued from his bondage by the +zeal of the Moravian missionaries; and the poor are to be envied, not +because their lives are actually much better, but because they escape +the temptations and sophistries of the rich and learned. + +But how should this sentiment fit in with Cowper's love of nature? In +the language of his sect, nature is generally opposed to grace. It is +applied to a world in which not only the human inhabitants, but the +whole creation, is tainted with a mysterious evil. Why should Cowper +find relief in contemplating a system in which waste and carnage play so +conspicuous a part? Why, when he rescued his pet hares from the general +fate of their race, did he not think of the innumerable hares who +suffered not only from guns and greyhounds, but from the general +annoyances incident to the struggle for existence? Would it not have +been more logical if he had placed his happiness altogether in another +world, where the struggles and torments of our everyday life are +unknown? Indeed, though Cowper, as an orthodox Protestant, held that +ascetic practices ministered simply to spiritual conceit, was he not +bound to a sufficiently galling form of asceticism? His friends +habitually looked askance upon all those pleasures of the intellect and +the imagination which are not directly subservient to the religious +emotions. They had grave doubts of the expediency of his studies of the +pagan Homer. They looked with suspicion upon the slightest indulgence in +social amusements. And Cowper fully shared their sentiments. A taste for +music, for example, generally suggests to him a parson fiddling when he +ought to be praying; and following once more the lead of Newton, he +remarks upon the Handel celebration as a piece of grotesque profanity. +The name of science calls up to him a pert geologist, declaring after an +examination of the earth + + That He who made it, and revealed its date + To Moses, was mistaken in its age. + +Not only is the great bulk of his poetry directly religious or +devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has +admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to +Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, _Vive la +bagatelle!_ as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have +said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because +he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very +different. Nothing is more melancholy than Swift's elaborate triflings, +because they represent the efforts of a powerful intellect passing into +madness under enforced inaction, to kill time by childish occupation. +And the diagnosis of Cowper's case is similar. He trifles, he says, +because he is reduced to it by necessity. His most ludicrous verses have +been written in his saddest mood. It would be, he adds, 'but a shocking +vagary' if the sailors on a ship in danger relieved themselves 'by +fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such a part act I.' His love of +country sights and pleasures is so intense because it is the most +effectual relief. 'Oh!' he exclaims, 'I could spend whole days and +nights in gazing upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as +they flow.' And he adds, in his characteristic vein of thought, 'if +every human being upon earth could feel as I have done for many years, +there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an +unawakened one could be found from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle.' +The earth and the sun itself are, he says, but 'baubles;' but they are +the baubles which alone can distract his attention from more awful +prospects. His little garden and greenhouse are playthings lent to him +for a time, and soon to be left. He 'never framed a wish or formed a +plan,' as he says in the 'Task,' of which the scene was not laid in the +country; and when the gloomiest forebodings unhinged his mind, his love +became a passion. He is like his own prisoner in the Bastille playing +with spiders. All other avenues of delight are closed to him; he +believes, whenever his dark hour of serious thought returns, that he is +soon to be carried off to unspeakable torments; all ordinary methods of +human pleasure seem to be tainted with some corrupting influence; but +whilst playing with his spaniel, or watching his cucumbers, or walking +with Mrs. Unwin in the fields, he can for a moment distract his mind +with purely innocent pleasures. The awful background of his visions, +never quite absent, though often, we may hope, far removed from actual +consciousness, throws out these hours of delight into more prominent +relief. The sternest of his monitors, John Newton himself, could hardly +grudge this cup of cold water presented, as it were, to the lips of a +man in a self-made purgatory. + +This is the peculiar turn which gives so characteristic a tone to +Cowper's loving portraits of scenery. He is like the Judas seen by St. +Brandan on the iceberg; he is enjoying a momentary relaxation between +the past of misery and the future of anticipated torment. Such a +sentiment must, fortunately, be in some sense exceptional and +idiosyncratic. And yet, once more, it fell in with the prevailing +current of thought. Cowper agrees with Rousseau in finding that the +contemplation of scenery, unpolluted by human passion, and the enjoyment +of a calm domestic life is the best anodyne for a spirit wearied with +the perpetual disorders of a corrupt social order. He differs from him, +as we have seen, in the conviction that a deeper remedy is wanting than +any mere political change; in a more profound sense of human wickedness, +and, on the other hand, in a narrower estimate of the conditions of +human life. His definition of Nature, to put it logically, would exclude +that natural man in whose potential existence Rousseau more or less +believed. The passionate love of scenery was enough to distinguish him +from the poets of the preceding school, whose supposed hatred of Nature +meant simply that they were thoroughly immersed in the pleasures of a +society then first developed in its modern form, and not yet undermined +by the approach of a new revolution. The men of Pope and Addison's time +looked upon country squires as bores incapable of intellectual pleasure, +and, therefore, upon country life as a topic for gentle ridicule, or +more frequently as an unmitigated nuisance. Probably their estimate was +a very sound one. When a true poet like Thomson really enjoyed the fresh +air, his taste did not become a passion, and the scenery appeared to him +as a pleasant background to his Castle of Indolence. Cowper's peculiar +religious views prevented him again from anticipating the wider and more +philosophical sentiment of Wordsworth. Like Pope and Wordsworth, indeed, +he occasionally uses language which has a pantheistic sound. He +expresses his belief that + + There lives and works + A soul in all things, and that soul is God. + +But when Pope uses a similar phrase, it is the expression of a decaying +philosophy which never had much vitality, or passed from the sphere of +intellectual speculation to affect the imagination and the emotions. It +is a dogma which he holds sincerely, it may be, but not firmly enough to +colour his habitual sentiments. With Wordsworth, whatever its precise +meaning, it is an expression of an habitual and abiding sentiment, which +rises naturally to his lips whenever he abandons himself to his +spontaneous impulses. With Cowper, as is the case with all Cowper's +utterances, it is absolutely sincere for the time; but it is a doctrine +not very easily adapted to his habitual creed, and which drops out of +his mind whenever he passes from external nature to himself or his +fellows. The indwelling divinity whom he recognises in every 'freckle, +streak, or stain' on his favourite flowers, seems to be hopelessly +removed from his own personal interests. An awful and mysterious decree +has separated him for ever from the sole source of consolation. + +This is not the place to hint at any judgment upon Cowper's theology, or +to inquire how far a love of nature, in his sense of the words, can be +logically combined with a system based upon the fundamental dogma of the +corruption of man. Certainly a similar anticipation of the poetical +pantheism of Wordsworth may be found in that most logical of Calvinists, +Jonathan Edwards. Cowper, too, could be at no loss for scriptural +precedents, when recognising the immediate voice of God in thunder and +earthquakes, or in the calmer voices of the waterbrooks and the meadows. +His love of nature, at any rate, is at once of a narrower and sincerer +kind than that which Rousseau first made fashionable. He has no tendency +to the misanthropic or cynical view which induces men of morbid or +affected minds to profess a love of savage scenery simply because it is +savage. Neither does he rise to the more philosophical view which sees +in the seas and the mountains the most striking symbols of the great +forces of the universe to which we must accommodate ourselves, and which +might therefore rightfully be associated by a Wordsworth with the +deepest emotions of reverential awe. Nature is to him but a collection +of 'baubles,' soon to be taken away, and he seeks in its contemplation +a temporary relief from anguish, not a permanent object of worship. He +would dread that sentiment as a deistical form of idolatry; and he is +equally far from thinking that the natural man, wherever that vague +person might be found, could possibly be a desirable object of +imitation. His love of nature, in short, keen as it might be, was not +the reflection of any philosophical, religious, or political theory. But +it was genuine enough to charm many who might regard his theological +sentiments as a mere recrudescence of an obsolete form of belief. Mr. +Mill tells us how Wordsworth's poetry, little as he sympathised with +Wordsworth's opinions, solaced an intellect wearied with premature Greek +and over-doses of Benthamism. Such a relief must have come to many +readers of Cowper, who would put down his religion as rank fanaticism, +and his satire as anile declamation. Men suffered even then--though +Cowper was a predecessor of Miss Austen--from existing forms of 'life at +high pressure.' If life was not then so overcrowded, the evils under +which men were suffering appeared to be even more hopeless. The great +lesson of the value of intervals of calm retreat, of silence and +meditation, was already needed, if it is now still more pressing. Cowper +said, substantially, Leave the world, as Rousseau said, Upset the world. +The reformer, to say nothing of his greater intellectual power, +naturally interested the world which he threatened more than the recluse +whom it frightened. Limited within a narrower circle of ideas, and +living in a society where the great issues of the time were not +presented in so naked a form, Cowper's influence ran in a more confined +channel. He felt the incapacity of the old order to satisfy the +emotional wants of mankind, but was content to revive the old forms of +belief instead of seeking a more radical remedy in some subversive or +reconstructive system of thought. But the depth and sincerity of feeling +which explains his marvellous intensity of pathos is sometimes a +pleasant relief to the sentimentalism of his greater predecessor. Nor is +it hard to understand why his passages of sweet and melancholy musing by +the quiet Ouse should have come like a breath of fresh air to the jaded +generation waiting for the fall of the Bastille--and of other things. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] Rousseau himself seems to refer to Clarke, the leader of the +English rationalising school, as the best expounder of his theory, and +defended Pope's Essay against the criticisms of Voltaire. + +[19] A phrase by the way, which Cowper, though little given to +borrowing, took straight from Berkeley's 'Siris.' + +[20] Lord Tennyson suggests the same consolation in the lines ending-- + + Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, + Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky; + And I will see before I die + The palms and temples of the South. + + + + +_THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS_ + + +When browsing at random in a respectable library, one is pretty sure to +hit upon the early numbers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and prompted in +consequence to ask oneself the question, What are the intrinsic merits +of writing which produced so great an effect upon our grandfathers? The +'Review,' we may say, has lived into a third generation. The last +survivor of the original set has passed away; and there are but few +relics even of that second galaxy of authors amongst whom Macaulay was +the most brilliant star. One may speak, therefore, without shocking +existing susceptibilities, of the 'Review' in its first period, when +Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham were the most prominent names. A man +may still call himself middle-aged and yet have a distinct memory of +Brougham courting, rather too eagerly, the applause of the Social +Science Association; or Jeffrey, as he appeared in his kindly old age, +when he could hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet; and even of the +last outpourings of the irrepressible gaiety of Sydney Smith. But the +period of their literary activity is already so distant as to have +passed into the domain of history. It is the same thing to say that it +already belongs in some degree to the neighbouring or overlapping domain +of fiction. + +There is, in fact, already a conventional history of the early +'Edinburgh Review,' repeated without hesitation in all literary +histories and assumed in a thousand allusions, which becomes a little +incredible when we take down the dusty old volumes, where dingy calf has +replaced the original splendours of the blue and yellow, and which have +inevitably lost much of their savour during more than half a century's +repose. The story of the original publication has been given by the +chief founders. Edinburgh, at the beginning of the century, was one of +those provincial centres of intellectual activity which have an +increasing difficulty in maintaining themselves against metropolitan +attractions. In the last half of the eighteenth century, such +philosophical activity as existed in the country seemed to have taken +refuge in the northern half of the island. A set of brilliant young men, +living in a society still proud of the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith, +Reid, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and other northern luminaries, might +naturally be susceptible to the stimulus of literary ambition. In +politics the most rampant Conservatism, rendered bitter by the recent +experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more +undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger +men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an +organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever +lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23) +met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth') +story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation. +The first number appeared in October 1802, and produced, we are told, an +'electrical' effect. Its old humdrum rivals collapsed before it. Its +science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its +politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight +of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn, a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon, +suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political +principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism, +unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we +must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of +reforms, now familiar to us all, were still regarded as startling +innovations. The Catholics were not emancipated, nor the game-laws +softened, nor the Court of Chancery reformed, nor the slave-trade +abolished. Cruel punishment still disgraced the criminal code, libel was +put down with vindictive severity, prisoners were not allowed counsel in +capital cases, and many other grievances now wholly or partially +redressed were still flourishing in full force. + +Were they put down solely by the 'Edinburgh Review?' That, of course, +would not be alleged by its most ardent admirers; though Sydney Smith +certainly holds that the attacks of the 'Edinburgh' were amongst the +most efficient causes of the many victories which followed. I am not +concerned to dispute the statement; nor in fact do I doubt that it +contains much truth. But if we look at the 'Review' simply as literary +connoisseurs, and examine its volumes expecting to be edified by such +critical vigour and such a plentiful outpouring of righteous indignation +in burning language as might correspond to this picture of a great organ +of liberal opinion, we shall, I fear, be cruelly disappointed. Let us +speak the plain truth at once. Everyone who turns from the periodical +literature of the present day to the original 'Edinburgh Review' will be +amazed at its inferiority. It is generally dull, and, when not dull, +flimsy. The vigour has departed; the fire is extinct. To some extent, of +course, this is inevitable. Even the magnificent eloquence of Burke has +lost some of its early gloss. We can read, comparatively unmoved, +passages that would have once carried us off our legs in the exuberant +torrent of passionate invective. But, making all possible allowance for +the fading of all things human, I think that every reader who is frank +will admit his disappointment. Here and there, of course, amusing +passages illuminated by Sydney Smith's humour or Jeffrey's slashing and +swaggering retain a few sparks of fire. The pertness and petulance of +the youthful critics are amusing, though hardly in the way intended by +themselves. But, as a rule, one may most easily characterise the +contents by saying that few of the articles would have a chance of +acceptance by the editor of a first-rate periodical to-day; and that the +majority belong to an inferior variety of what is now called +'padding'--mere perfunctory bits of work, obviously manufactured by the +critic out of the book before him. + +The great political importance of the 'Edinburgh Review' belongs to a +later period. When the Whigs began to revive after the long reign of +Tory principles, and such questions as Roman Catholic Emancipation and +Parliamentary Reform were seriously coming to the front, the 'Review' +grew to be a most effective organ of the rising party. Even in earlier +years, it was doubtless a matter of real moment that the ablest +periodical of the day should manifest sympathies with the cause then so +profoundly depressed. But in those years there is nothing of that +vehement and unsparing advocacy of Whig principles which we might expect +from a band of youthful enthusiasts. So far indeed was the 'Review' from +unhesitating partisanship that the sound Tory Scott contributed to its +pages for some years; and so late as the end of 1807 invited Southey, +then developing into fiercer Toryism, as became a 'renegade' or a +'convert,' to enlist under Jeffrey. Southey, it is true, was prevented +from joining by scruples shared by his correspondent, but it was not for +another year that the breach became irreparable. The final offence was +given by the 'famous article upon Cevallos,' which appeared in October +1808. Even at that period Scott understood some remarks of Jeffrey's as +an offer to suppress the partisan tendencies of his 'Review.' Jeffrey +repudiated this interpretation; but the statement is enough to show +that, for six years after its birth, the 'Review' had not been conducted +in such a way as to pledge itself beyond all redemption in the eyes of +staunch Tories.[21] + +The Cevallos article, the work in uncertain proportions of Brougham and +Jeffrey, was undoubtedly calculated to give offence. It contained an +eloquent expression of foreboding as to the chances of the war in +Spain. The Whigs, whose policy had been opposed to the war, naturally +prophesied its ill-success, and, until this period, facts had certainly +not confuted their auguries. It was equally natural that their opponents +should be scandalised by their apparent want of patriotism. Scott's +indignation was characteristic. The 'Edinburgh Review,' he says, 'tells +you coolly, "We foresee a revolution in this country as well as Mr. +Cobbett;" and, to say the truth, by degrading the person of the +sovereign, exalting the power of the French armies and the wisdom of +their counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be +purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable +to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years +past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own +prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel +family _can_ pretend to be without it,' and it contains the only +valuable literary criticism of the day. The antidote was to be supplied +by the foundation of the 'Quarterly.' The Cevallos article, as Brougham +says, 'first made the Reviewers conspicuous as Liberals.' + +Jeffrey and his friends were in fact in the very difficult position of +all middle parties during a period of intense national and patriotic +excitement. If they attacked Perceval or Canning or Castlereagh in one +direction, they were equally opposed to the rough-and-ready democracy of +Cobbett or Burdett, and to the more philosophical radicalism of men like +Godwin or Bentham. They were generally too young to have been infected +by the original Whig sympathy for the French Revolution, or embittered +by the reaction. They condemned the principles of '89 as decidedly if +not as heartily as the Tories. The difference, as Sydney Smith said to +his imaginary Tory, Abraham Plymley, is 'in the means, not in the end. +We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and abhor the French.' +Only, as the difference about the means was diametrical, Tories +naturally held them to be playing into the hands of destructives, though +more out of cowardice than malignity. In such a position it is not +surprising if the Reviewers generally spoke in apologetic terms and with +bated breath. They could protest against the dominant policy as rash and +bigoted, but could not put forwards conflicting principles without +guarding themselves against the imputation of favouring the common +enemy. The Puritans of Radicalism set down this vacillation to a total +want of fixed principle, if not to baser motives. The first volume of +the 'Westminster Review' (1824) contains a characteristic assault upon +the 'see-saw' system of the 'Edinburgh' by the two Mills. The +'Edinburgh' is sternly condemned for its truckling to the aristocracy, +its cowardice, political immorality, and (of all things!) its +sentimentalism. In after years J. S. Mill contributed to its pages +himself; but the opinion of his fervid youth was that of the whole +Bentham school.[22] It is plain, however, that the 'Review,' even when +it had succeeded, did not absorb the activities of its contributors so +exclusively as is sometimes suggested. They rapidly dispersed to enter +upon different careers. Even before the first number appeared, Jeffrey +complains that almost all his friends are about to emigrate to London; +and the prediction was soon verified. Sydney Smith left to begin his +career as a clergyman in London; Horner and Brougham almost immediately +took to the English bar, with a view to pushing into public life; Allen +joined Lord Holland; Charles Bell set up in a London practice; two other +promising contributors took offence, and deserted the 'Review' in its +infancy; and Jeffrey was left almost alone, though still a centre of +attraction to the scattered group. He himself only undertook the +editorship on the understanding that he might renounce it as soon as he +could do without it; and always guarded himself most carefully against +any appearance of deserting a legal for a literary career. Although the +Edinburgh _cĂ©nacle_ was not dissolved, its bonds were greatly loosened; +the chief contributors were in no sense men who looked upon literature +as a principal occupation; and Jeffrey, as much as Brougham and Horner, +would have resented, as a mischievous imputation, the suggestion that +his chief energies were devoted to the 'Review.' In some sense this +might be an advantage. An article upon politics or philosophy is, of +course, better done by a professed statesman and thinker than by a +literary hack; but, on the other hand, a man who turns aside from +politics or philosophy to do mere hackwork, does it worse than the +professed man of letters. Work, taken up at odd hours to satisfy +editorial importunity or add a few pounds to a narrow income, is apt to +show the characteristic defects of all amateur performances. A very +large part of the early numbers is amateurish in this objectionable +sense. It is mere hand-to-mouth information, and is written, so to +speak, with the left hand. A clever man has turned over the last new +book of travels or poetry, or made a sudden incursion into foreign +literature or into some passage of history entirely fresh to him, and +has given his first impressions with an audacity which almost disarms +one by its extraordinary _naĂŻvetĂ©_. The standard of such disquisitions +was then so low that writing which would now be impossible passed muster +without an objection. When, in later years, Macaulay discussed Hampden +or Chatham, the book which he ostensibly reviewed was a mere pretext for +producing the rich stores of a mind trained by years of previous +historical study. Jeffrey wrote about Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoirs' and +Pepys's 'Diary' as though the books had for the first time revealed to +him the existence of Puritans or of courtiers under the Restoration. The +author of an article upon German metaphysics at the present day would +think it necessary to show that if he had not the portentous learning +which Sir William Hamilton embodied in his 'Edinburgh' articles, he had +at least read the book under review, and knew something of the language. +The author (Thomas Brown--a man who should have known better) of a +contemptuous review of Kant, in an early number of the 'Edinburgh,' +makes it even ostentatiously evident that he has never read a line of +the original, and that his whole knowledge is derived from what (by his +own account) is a very rambling and inadequate French essay. The young +gentlemen who wrote in those days have a jaunty mode of pronouncing upon +all conceivable topics without even affecting to have studied the +subject, which is amusing in its way, and which fully explains the +flimsy nature of their performance. + +The authors, in fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely +ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long +afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney +Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that +time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the +republication was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing +even the most serious books through the pages of a periodical has become +so common that such modesty would now imply the emptiest affectation. +The collections of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith will give a sufficient +impression of the earlier numbers of the 'Review.' The only contributors +of equal reputation were Horner and Brougham. Horner, so far as one can +judge, was a typical representative of those solid, indomitable +Scotchmen whom one knows not whether to respect for their energy or to +dread as the most intolerable of bores. He plodded through legal, +metaphysical, scientific, and literary studies like an elephant forcing +his way through a jungle; and laboured as resolutely and systematically +to acquire graces of style as to master the intricacies of the 'dismal +science.' At an early age, and with no advantages of position, he had +gained extraordinary authority in Parliament. Sydney Smith said of him +that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face, and looked so +virtuous that he might commit any crime with impunity. His death +probably deprived us of a most exemplary statesman and first-rate +Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it can hardly have been a great loss to +literature. Passages from Horner's journals, given in his 'Memoirs,' are +quaint illustrations of the frame of mind generally inculcated in +manuals for the use of virtuous young men. At the age of twenty-eight, +he resolves one day to meditate upon various topics, distributed under +nine heads, including the society to be frequented in the metropolis; +the characters to be studied; the scale of intimacies; the style of +conversation; the use of other men's minds in self-education; the +regulation of ambition, of political sentiments, connections, and +conduct; the importance of 'steadily systematising all plans and aims +of life, and so providing against contingencies as to put happiness at +least out of the reach of accident,' and the cultivation of moral +feelings by 'dignified sentiments and pleasing associations' derived +from poets, moralists, or actual life. Sydney Smith, in a very lively +portrait, says that Horner was the best, kindest, simplest, and most +incorruptible of mankind; but intimates sufficiently that his +impenetrability to the facetious was something almost unexampled. A jest +upon an important subject was, it seems, the only affliction which his +strength of principle would not enable him to bear with patience. His +contributions gave some solid economical speculation to the 'Review,' +but were neither numerous nor lively. Brougham's amazing vitality wasted +itself in a different way. His multifarious energy, from early boyhood +to the borders of old age, would be almost incredible, if we had not the +good fortune to be contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone. His share in the +opening numbers of the 'Review' is another of the points upon which +there is an odd conflict of testimony.[23] But from a very early period +he was the most voluminous and, at times, the most valuable of +contributors. It has been said that he once wrote a whole number, +including articles upon lithotomy and Chinese music. It is more +authentic that he contributed six articles to one number at the very +crisis of his political career, and at the same period he boasts of +having written a fifth of the whole 'Review' to that time. He would sit +down in a morning and write off twenty pages at a single effort. Jeffrey +compares his own editorial authority to that of a feudal monarch over +some independent barons. When Jeffrey gave up the 'Review,' this 'baron' +aspired to something more like domination than independence. He made the +unfortunate editor's life a burden to him. He wrote voluminous letters, +objurgating, entreating, boasting of past services, denouncing rival +contributors, declaring that a regard for the views of any other man was +base subservience to a renegade Ministry, or foolish attention to the +hints of understrappers; threatening, if he was neglected, to set up a +rival Review, and generally hectoring, bullying, and declaiming in a +manner which gives one the highest opinion of the diplomatic skill of +the editor, who managed, without truckling, to avoid a breach with his +tremendous contributor. Brougham, indeed, was not quite blind to the +fact that the 'Review' was as useful to him as he could be to the +'Review,' and was therefore more amenable than might have been expected, +in the last resort. But he was in every relation one of those men who +are nearly as much hated and dreaded by their colleagues as by the +adversary--a kind of irrepressible rocket, only too easy to discharge, +but whose course defied prediction. + +It is, however, admitted by everyone that the literary results of this +portentous activity were essentially ephemeral. His writings are +hopelessly commonplace in substance and slipshod in style. His garden +offers a bushel of potatoes instead of a single peach. Much of +Brougham's work was up to the level necessary to give effect to the +manifesto of an active politician. It was a forcible exposition of the +arguments common at the time; but it has nowhere that stamp of +originality in thought or brilliance in expression which could confer +upon it a permanent vitality. + +Jeffrey and Sydney Smith deserve more respectful treatment. Macaulay +speaks of his first editor with respectful enthusiasm. He says of the +collected contributions that the 'variety and fertility of Jeffrey's +mind' seem more extraordinary than ever. Scarcely could any three men +have produced such 'diversified excellence.' 'When I compare him with +Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his +range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer. But +he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great +judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius +than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much +as Brougham affects the character.' Macaulay hated Brougham, and was, +perhaps, a little unjust to him. But what are we to say of the writings +upon which this panegyric is pronounced? + +Jeffrey's collected articles include about eighty out of two hundred +reviews, nearly all contributed to the 'Edinburgh' within its first +period of twenty-five years. They fill four volumes, and are distributed +under the seven heads--general literature, history, poetry, metaphysics, +fiction, politics, and miscellaneous. Certainly there is versatility +enough implied in such a list, and we may be sure that he has ample +opportunity for displaying whatever may be in him. It is, however, easy +to dismiss some of these divisions. Jeffrey knew history as an English +gentleman of average cultivation knew it; that is to say, not enough to +justify him in writing about it. He knew as much of metaphysics as a +clever lad was likely to pick up at Edinburgh during the reign of Dugald +Stewart; his essays in that kind, though they show some aptitude and +abundant confidence, do not now deserve serious attention. His chief +speculative performance was an essay upon Beauty contributed to the +'Encyclopædia Britannica,' of which his biographer says quaintly that it +is 'as sound as the subject admits of.' It is crude and meagre in +substance. The principal conclusion is the rather unsatisfactory one for +a professional critic, that there are no particular rules about beauty, +and consequently that one taste is about as good as another. Nobody, +however, could be less inclined to apply this over-liberal theory to +questions of literary taste. There, he evidently holds there is most +decidedly a right and wrong, and everybody is very plainly in the wrong +who differs from himself. + +Jeffrey's chief fame--or, should we say, notoriety?--was gained, and his +merit should be tested by his success in this department. The greatest +triumph that a literary critic can win is the early recognition of +genius not yet appreciated by his contemporaries. The next test of his +merit is his capacity for pronouncing sound judgment upon controversies +which are fully before the public; and, finally, no inconsiderable merit +must be allowed to any critic who has a vigorous taste of his own--not +hopelessly eccentric or silly--and expresses it with true literary +force. If not a judge, he may in that case be a useful advocate. + +What can we say for Jeffrey upon this understanding? Did he ever +encourage a rising genius? The sole approach to such a success is an +appreciative notice of Keats, which would be the more satisfactory if +poor Keats had not been previously assailed by the Opposition journal. +The other judgments are for the most part pronounced upon men already +celebrated; and the single phrase which has survived is the celebrated +'This will never do,' directed against Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Every +critic has a sacred and inalienable right to blunder at times: but +Jeffrey's blundering is amazingly systematic and comprehensive. In the +last of his poetical critiques (October 1829) he sums up his critical +experience. He doubts whether Mrs. Hemans, whom he is reviewing at the +time, will be immortal. 'The tuneful quartos of Southey,' he says, 'are +already little better than lumber; and the rich melodies of Keats and +Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth, and the plebeian +pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the field of vision. The novels +of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are +fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to +immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from +its place of pride.' Who survive this general decay? Not Coleridge, who +is not even mentioned; nor is Mrs. Hemans secure. The two who show least +marks of decay are--of all people in the world--Rogers and Campbell! It +is only to be added that this summary was republished in 1843, by which +time the true proportions of the great reputations of the period were +becoming more obvious to an ordinary observer. It seems almost +incredible now that any sane critic should pick out the poems of Rogers +and Campbell as the sole enduring relics from the age of Wordsworth, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Byron. + +Doubtless a critic should rather draw the moral of his own fallibility +than of his superiority to Jeffrey. Criticism is a still more perishable +commodity than poetry. Jeffrey was a man of unusual intelligence and +quickness of feeling; and a follower in his steps should think twice +before he ventures to cast the first stone. If all critics who have +grossly blundered are therefore to be pronounced utterly incompetent, we +should, I fear, have to condemn nearly everyone who has taken up the +profession. Not only Dennis and Rymer, but Dryden, Pope, Addison, +Johnson, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, and even Coleridge, down to the last +new critic in the latest and most fashionable journals, would have to be +censured. Still there are blunders and blunders; and some of Jeffrey's +sins in that kind are such as it is not very easy to forgive. If he +attacked great men, it has been said in his defence, he attacked those +parts of their writings which were really objectionable. And, of course, +nobody will deny that (for example) Wordsworth's wilful and ostentatious +inversion of accepted rules presented a very tempting mark to the +critic. But--to say nothing of Jeffrey's failure to discharge adequately +the correlative duty of generous praise--it must be admitted that his +ridicule seems to strike pretty much at random. He picks out Southey, +certainly the least eminent of the so-called school of Wordsworth, +Coleridge, and Lamb, as the one writer of the set whose poetry deserves +serious consideration; and, besides attacking Wordsworth's faults, his +occasional flatness and childishness, selects some of his finest poems +(e.g. the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality) as flagrant specimens +of the hopelessly absurd. + +The 'White Doe of Rylstone' may not be Wordsworth's best work, but a man +who begins a review of it by proclaiming it to be 'the very worst poem +ever imprinted in a quarto volume,' who follows up this remark by +unmixed and indiscriminating abuse, and who publishes the review +twenty-eight years later as expressing his mature convictions, is +certainly proclaiming his own gross incompetence. Or, again, Jeffrey +writes about 'Wilhelm Meister' (in 1824), knowing its high reputation in +Germany, and finds in it nothing but a text for a dissertation upon the +amazing eccentricity of national taste which can admire 'sheer +nonsense,' and at length proclaims himself tired of extracting 'so much +trash.' There is a kind of indecency, a wanton disregard of the general +consensus of opinion, in such treatment of a contemporary classic (then +just translated by Carlyle, and so brought within Jeffrey's sphere) +which one would hope to be now impossible. It is true that Jeffrey +relents a little at the end, admits that Goethe has 'great talent,' and +would like to withdraw some of his censure. Whilst, therefore, he +regards the novel as an instance of that diversity of national taste +which makes a writer idolised in one country who would not be tolerated +in another, he would hold it out rather as an object of wonder than +contempt. Though the greater part 'would not be endured, and, indeed, +could not have been written in England,' there are many passages of +which any country might naturally be proud. Truly this is an +illustration of Jeffrey's fundamental principle, that taste has no laws, +and is a matter of accidental caprice. + +It may be said that better critics have erred with equal recklessness. +De Quincey, who could be an admirable critic where his indolent +prejudices were not concerned, is even more dead to the merits of +Goethe. Byron's critical remarks are generally worth reading, in spite +of his wilful eccentricity; and he spoke of Wordsworth and Southey still +more brutally than Jeffrey, and admired Rogers as unreasonably. In such +cases we may admit the principle already suggested, that even the most +reckless criticism has a kind of value when it implies a genuine (even +though a mistaken) taste. So long as a man says sincerely what he +thinks, he tells us something worth knowing. + +Unluckily, this is just where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects +to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put +up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable +tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because +admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the +general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some not +too judicious criticism; preferring, for example, the sham romantic +business of the 'Lay' to the incomparable vigour of the rough +moss-troopers, + + Who sought the beeves that made their broth + In Scotland and in England both-- + +terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his +judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is +passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But, +unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals, +it would seem, resemble the old-fashioned squires who kept a badger +ready to be baited whenever a little amusement was desirable. The rising +school of Lake poets, with their austere professions and real +weaknesses, was just the game to show a little sport; and, accordingly, +poor Jeffrey blundered into grievous misapprehensions, and has survived +chiefly by his worst errors. The simple fact is, that he accepted +whatever seemed to a hasty observer to be the safest opinion, that which +was current in the most orthodox critical circles, and expressed it with +rather more point than his neighbours. But his criticism implies no +serious thought or any deeper sentiment than pleasure at having found a +good laughing-stock. The most unmistakable bit of genuine expression of +his own feelings in Jeffrey's writings is, I think, to be found in his +letters to Dickens. 'Oh! my dear, dear Dickens!' he exclaims, 'what a +No. 5' (of 'Dombey and Son') 'you have now given us. I have so cried and +sobbed over it last night and again this morning, and felt my heart +purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed +them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since that divine Nelly +was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has +been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul in the summer +sunshine of that lofty room.' The emotion is a little senile, and most +of us think it exaggerated; but at least it is genuine. The earlier +thunders of the 'Edinburgh Review' have lost their terrors, because they +are in fact mere echoes of commonplace opinion. They are often clever +enough, and have all the air of judicial authority, but we feel that +they are empty shams, concealing no solid core of strong personal +feeling even of the perverse variety. The critic has been asking +himself, not 'What do I feel?' but 'What is the correct remark to make?' + +Jeffrey's political writing suggests, I think, in some respects a higher +estimate of his merits. He has not, it is true, very strong convictions, +but his sentiments are liberal in the better sense of the word, and he +has a more philosophical tone than is usual with English publicists. He +appreciates the truths, now become commonplace, that the political +constitution of the country should be developed so as to give free play +for the underlying social forces without breaking abruptly with the old +traditions. He combats with dignity the narrow prejudices which led to a +policy of rigid repression, and which, in his opinion, could only lead +to revolution. But the effect of his principles is not a little marred +by a certain timidity both of character and intellect. Hopefulness +should be the mark of an ardent reformer, and Jeffrey seems to be always +decided by his fears. His favourite topic is the advantage of a strong +middle party, for he is terribly afraid of a collision between the two +extremes; he can only look forward to despotism if the Tories triumph, +and a sweeping revolution if they are beaten. Meanwhile, for many years +he thinks it most probable that both parties will be swallowed up by the +common enemy. Never was there such a determined croaker. In 1808 he +suspects that Bonaparte will be in Dublin in about fifteen months, when +he, if he survives, will try to go to America. In 1811 he expects +Bonaparte to be in Ireland in eighteen months, and asks how England can +then be kept, and whether it would be worth keeping? France is certain +to conquer the Continent, and our interference will only 'exasperate and +accelerate.' Bonaparte's invasion of Russia in 1813 made him still more +gloomy. He rejoiced at the French defeat as one delivered from a great +terror, but the return of the Emperor dejects him again. All he can say +of the war (just before Waterloo) is that he is 'mortally afraid of it,' +and that he hates Bonaparte 'because he makes me more afraid than +anybody else.' In 1829 he anticipates 'tragical scenes' and a sanguinary +revolution; in 1821 he thinks as ill as ever 'of the state and prospects +of the country,' though with less alarm of speedy mischief; and in 1822 +he looks forward to revolutionary wars all over the Continent, from +which we may possibly escape by reason of our 'miserable poverty;' +whilst it is probable that our old tyrannies and corruptions will last +for some 4,000 or 5,000 years longer. + +A stalwart politician, Whig or Tory, is rarely developed out of a Mr. +Much-Afraid or a Mr. Despondency; they are too closely related to Mr. +Facing-both-Ways. Jeffrey thinks it generally a duty to conceal his +fears and affect a confidence which he does not feel; but perhaps the +best piece of writing in his essays is that in which he for once gives +full expression to his pessimist sentiment. It occurs in a review of a +book in which Madame de StaĂ«l maintains the doctrine of human +perfectibility. Jeffrey explains his more despondent view in a really +eloquent passage. He thinks that the increase of educated intelligence +will not diminish the permanent causes of human misery. War will be as +common as ever, wealth will be used with at least equal selfishness, +luxury and dissipation will increase, enthusiasm will diminish, +intellectual originality will become rarer, the division of labour will +make men's lives pettier and more mechanical, and pauperism grow with +the development of manufactures. When republishing his essays Jeffrey +expresses his continued adherence to these views, and they are more +interesting than most of his work, because they have at least the merits +of originality and sincerity. Still, one cannot help observing that if +the 'Edinburgh Review' was an efficient organ of progress, it was not +from any ardent faith in progress entertained by its chief conductor. + +It is a relief to turn from Jeffrey to Sydney Smith. The highest epithet +applicable to Jeffrey is 'clever,' to which we may prefix some modest +intensitive. He is a brilliant, versatile, and at bottom liberal and +kindly man of the world; but he never gets fairly beyond the border-line +which irrevocably separates lively talent from original power. There are +dozens of writers who could turn out work on the same pattern and about +equally good. Smith, on the other hand, stamps all his work with his +peculiar characteristics. It is original and unmistakable; and in a +certain department--not, of course, a very high one--he has almost +unique merits. I do not think that the 'Plymley Letters' can be +surpassed by anything in the language as specimens of the terse, +effective treatment of a great subject in language suitable for popular +readers. Of course they have no pretence to the keen polish of Junius, +or the weight of thought of Burke, or the rhetorical splendours of +Milton; but their humour, freshness, and spirit are inimitable. The +'Drapier Letters,' to which they have often been compared, were more +effective at the moment; but no fair critic can deny, I think, that +Sydney Smith's performance is now more interesting than Swift's. + +The comparison between the Dean and the Canon is an obvious one, and has +often been made. There is a likeness in the external history of the two +clergymen who both sought for preferment through politics, and were +both, even by friends, felt to have sinned against professional +proprieties, and were put off with scanty rewards in consequence. Both, +too, were masters of a vigorous style, and original humourists. But the +likeness does not go very deep. Swift had the most powerful intellect +and the strongest passion as undeniably as Smith had the sweetest +nature. The admirable good-humour with which Smith accepted his position +and devoted himself to honest work in an obscure country parish, is the +strongest contrast with Swift's misanthropical seclusion; and nothing +can be less like than Smith's admirable domestic history and the +mysterious love affairs with Stella and Vanessa. Smith's character +reminds us more closely of Fuller, whose peculiar humour is much of the +same stamp; and who, falling upon hard times, and therefore tinged by a +more melancholy sentiment, yet showed the same unconquerable +cheerfulness and intellectual vivacity. + +Most of Sydney Smith's 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight +texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of +characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded +kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic. +Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a review of Waterton's +'Wanderings:'-- + + How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To + what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of + Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a + puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? To be sure, the + toucan might retort, To what purpose were gentlemen in Bond + Street created? To what purpose were certain members of + Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with + their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the + country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not + enter into the metaphysics of the toucan. + +Smith's humour is most aptly used to give point to the vigorous logic of +a thoroughly healthy nature, contemptuous of all nonsense, full of +shrewd common-sense, and righteously indignant in the presence of all +injustice and outworn abuse. It would be difficult to find anywhere a +more brilliant assault upon the prejudices which defend established +grievances than the inimitable 'Noodle's Oration,' into which Smith has +compressed the pith of Bentham's 'Book of Fallacies.' There is a certain +resemblance between the logic of Smith and Macaulay, both of whom, it +must be admitted, are rather given to proving commonplaces and inclined +to remain on the surface of things. Smith, like Macaulay, fully +understands the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract, and +hammering obvious truths into men's heads by dint of homely +explanation. Smith's memory does not supply so vast a store of parallels +as that upon which Macaulay could draw so freely; but his humorous +illustrations are more amusing and effective. There could not be a +happier way of putting the argument for what may be called the lottery +system of endowments than the picture of the respectable baker driving +past Northumberland House to St. Paul's Churchyard, and speculating on +the chance of elevating his 'little muffin-faced son' to a place among +the Percies or the highest seat in the Cathedral. Macaulay would have +enforced his reasoning by a catalogue of successful ecclesiastics. The +folly of alienating Catholic sympathies, during our great struggle, by +maintaining the old disabilities, is brought out with equal skill by the +apologue in the 'Plymley Letters' of the orthodox captain of a frigate +in a dangerous action, securing twenty or thirty of his crew, who +happened to be Papists, under a Protestant guard; reminding his sailors, +in a bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorting +the Episcopal gunner to distrust the Presbyterian quartermaster; rushing +through blood and brains to examine his men in the Thirty-nine Articles, +and forbidding anyone to spunge or ram who has not taken the sacrament +according to the rites of the Church of England. It is quite another +question whether Smith really penetrates to the bottom of the dispute; +but the only fault to be found with his statement of the case, as he saw +it, is that it makes it rather too clear. The arguments are never all on +one side in any political question, and the writer who sees absolutely +no difficulty, suggests to a wary reader that he is ignoring something +relevant. Still, this is hardly an objection to a popular advocate, and +it is fair to add that Smith's logic is not more admirable than the +hearty generosity of his sympathy with the oppressed Catholic. The +appeal to cowardice is lost in the appeal to true philanthropic +sentiment. + +With all his merits, there is a less favourable side to Smith's +advocacy. When he was condemned as being too worldly and facetious for a +priest, it was easy to retort that humour is not of necessity +irreligious. It might be added that in his writings it is strictly +subservient to solid argument. In a London party he might throw the +reins upon the neck of his fancy and go on playing with a ludicrous +image till his audience felt the agony of laughter to be really painful. +In his writings he aims almost as straight at his mark as Swift, and is +never diverted by the spirit of pure fun. The humour always illuminates +well-strung logic. But the scandal was not quite groundless. When he +directs his powers against sheer obstruction and antiquated +prejudice--against abuses in prisons, or the game-laws, or education--we +can have no fault to find; nor is it fair to condemn a reviewer because +in all these questions he is a follower rather than a leader. It is +enough if he knows a good cause when he sees it, and does his best to +back up reformers in the press, though hardly a working reformer, and +certainly not an originator of reform. But it is less easy to excuse his +want of sympathy for the reformers themselves. + +If there is one thing which Sydney Smith dreads and dislikes, it is +enthusiasm. Nobody would deny, at the present day, that the zeal which +supplied the true leverage for some of the greatest social reforms of +the time was to be found chiefly amongst the so-called Evangelicals and +Methodists. For them Smith has nothing but the heartiest aversion. He is +always having a quiet jest at the religious sentiments of Perceval or +Wilberforce, and his most prominent articles in the 'Review' were a +series of inexcusably bitter attacks upon the Methodists. He is +thoroughly alarmed and disgusted by their progress. He thinks them +likely to succeed, and says that, if they succeed, 'happiness will be +destroyed, reason degraded, and sound religion banished from the world,' +and that a reign of fanaticism will be succeeded by 'a long period of +the grossest immorality, atheism, and debauchery.' He is not sure that +any remedy or considerable palliative is possible, but he suggests, as +hopeful, the employment of ridicule, and applies it himself most +unsparingly. When the Methodists try to convert the Hindoos, he attacks +them furiously for endangering the empire. They naturally reply that a +Christian is bound to propagate his belief. The answer, says Smith, is +short: 'It is not Christianity which is introduced (into India), but the +debased nonsense and mummery of the Methodists, which has little more to +do with the Christian religion than it has to do with the religion of +China.' The missionaries, he says, are so foolish, 'that the natives +almost instinctively duck and pelt them,' as, one cannot help +remembering, missionaries of an earlier Christian era had been ducked +and pelted. He pronounces the enterprise to be hopeless and cruel, and +clenches his argument by a statement which sounds strangely enough in +the mouth of a sincere Christian:-- + + Let us ask (he says), if the Bible is universally diffused + in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives + to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal--we + who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few + acres about Madras over the whole peninsula and sixty + millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct + every crime of which human nature is capable? What matchless + impudence, to follow up such practice with such precepts! If + we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and + tell them that Machiavel is our prophet and the god of the + Manichæans our god. + +We are to make our practice consistent by giving up our virtues instead +of our vices. Of course, Smith ends his article by a phrase about 'the +slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christianity;' but the +Methodists might well feel that the 'matchless impudence' was not all on +their side, and that this Christian priest, had he lived some centuries +earlier, would have sympathised a good deal more with Gallio than with +St. Paul. + +It is a question which I need not here discuss how far Smith could be +justified in his ridicule of men who, with all their undeniable +absurdity, were at least zealous believers in the creed which he--as is +quite manifest--held in all sincerity. But one remark is obvious; the +Edinburgh Reviewers justify, to a certain point, the claim put forward +by Sydney Smith; they condemned many crying abuses, and condemned them +heartily. They condemned them, as thoroughly sensible men of the world, +animated partly by a really generous sentiment, partly by a tacit +scepticism as to the value of the protected interests, and above all by +the strong conviction that it was quite essential for the middle +party--that is, for the bulk of the respectable well-bred classes--to +throw overboard gross abuses which afforded so many points of attack to +thoroughgoing radicals. On the other hand, they were quite indifferent +or openly hostile to most of the new forces which stirred men's minds. +They patronised political economy because Malthus began by opposing the +revolutionary dreams of Godwin and his like. But every one of the great +impulses of the time was treated by them in an antagonistic spirit. They +savagely ridiculed Coleridge, the great seminal mind of one +philosophical school; they fiercely attacked Bentham and James Mill, the +great leaders of the antagonist school; they were equally opposed to +the Evangelicals who revered Wilberforce, and, in later times, to the +religious party, of which Dr. Newman was the great ornament: in poetry +they clung, as long as they could, to the safe old principles +represented by Crabbe and Rogers: they, covered Wordsworth and Coleridge +with almost unmixed ridicule, ignored Shelley, and were only tender to +Byron and Scott because Scott and Byron were fashionable idols. The +truth is, that it is a mistake to suppose that the eighteenth century +ended with the year 1800. It lasted in the upper currents of opinion +till at least 1832. Sydney Smith's theology is that of Paley and the +common-sense divines of the previous period. Jeffrey's politics were but +slightly in advance of the true old Whigs, who still worshipped +according to the tradition of their fathers in Holland House. The ideal +of the party was to bring the practice of the country up to the theory +whose main outlines had been accepted in the Revolution of 1688; and +they studiously shut their eyes to any newer intellectual and social +movements. + +I do not say this by way of simple condemnation; for we have daily more +reason to acknowledge the immense value of calm, clear common-sense, +which sees the absurd side of even the best impulses. But it is +necessary to bear the fact in mind when estimating such claims as those +put forward by Sydney Smith. The truth seems to be that the 'Edinburgh +Review' enormously raised the tone of periodical literature at the time, +by opening an arena for perfectly independent discussion. Its great +merit, at starting, was that it was no mere publisher's organ, like its +rivals, and that it paid contributors well enough to attract the most +rising talent of the day. As the 'Review' progressed, its capacities +became more generally understood, and its writers, as they rose to +eminence and attracted new allies, put more genuine work into articles +certain to obtain a wide circulation and to come with great authority. +This implies a long step towards the development of the present system, +whose merits and defects would deserve a full discussion--the system +according to which much of the most solid and original work of the time +first appears in periodicals. The tone of periodicals has been +enormously raised, but the effect upon general literature may be more +questionable. But the 'Edinburgh' was not in its early years a journal +with a mission, or the organ of an enthusiastic sect. Rather it was the +instrument used by a number of very clever young men to put forward the +ideas current in the more liberal section of the upper classes, with +much occasional vigour and a large infusion of common-sense, but also +with abundant flippancy and superficiality, and, in a literary sense, +without that solidity of workmanship which is essential for enduring +vitality. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] Scott's letter, stating that this overture had been made by Jeffrey +under terror of the 'Quarterly,' was first published in Lockhart's 'Life +of Scott.' Jeffrey denied that he could ever have made the offer, both +because his contributors were too independent and because he had always +considered politics to be (as he remembered to have told Scott) the +'right leg' of the 'Review.' Undoubtedly, though Scott's letter was +written at the time and Jeffrey's contradiction many years afterwards, +it seems that Scott must have exaggerated. And yet in Horner's 'Memoirs' +we find a letter from Jeffrey which goes far to show that there was more +than might be supposed to confirm Scott's statement. Jeffrey begs for +Horner's assistance in the 'day of need,' caused by the Cevallos article +and the threatened 'Quarterly.' He tells Horner that he may write upon +any subject he pleases--'only no party politics, and nothing but +exemplary moderation and impartiality on all politics. I have allowed +too much mischief to be done from my mere indifference and love of +sport; but it would be inexcusable to spoil the powerful instrument we +have got hold of for the sake of teasing and playing tricks.'--Horner's +_Memoirs_, i. 439. It was on the occasion of the Cevallos article that +the Earl of Buchan solemnly kicked the 'Review' from his study into the +street--a performance which he supposed would be fatal to its +circulation. + +[22] See Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 92, for an interesting account of +these articles. + +[23] It would appear, from one of Jeffrey's statements, that Brougham +selfishly hung back till after the third number of the 'Review,' and its +'assured success' (Horner's _Memoirs_, i. p. 186, and Macvey Napier's +_Correspondence_, p. 422); from another, that Brougham, though anxious +to contribute, was excluded by Sydney Smith, from prudential motives. On +the other hand, Brougham in his autobiography claims (by name) seven +articles in the first number, five in the second, eight in the third, +and five in the fourth; in five of which he had a collaborator. His +hesitation, he says, ended before the appearance of the first number, +and was due to doubts as to Jeffrey's possession of sufficient editorial +power. + + + + +_WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS_ + + +Under every poetry, it has been said, there lies a philosophy. Rather, +it may almost be said, every poetry is a philosophy. The poet and the +philosopher live in the same world and are interested in the same +truths. What is the nature of man and the world in which he lives, and +what, in consequence, should be our conduct? These are the great +problems, the answers to which may take a religious, a poetical, a +philosophical, or an artistic form. The difference is that the poet has +intuitions, while the philosopher gives demonstrations; that the thought +which in one mind is converted into emotion, is in the other resolved +into logic; and that a symbolic representation of the idea is +substituted for a direct expression. The normal relation is exhibited in +the case of the anatomist and the sculptor. The artist intuitively +recognises the most perfect form; the man of science analyses the +structural relations by which it is produced. Though the two provinces +are concentric, they are not coincident. The reasoner is interested in +many details which have no immediate significance for the man of +feeling; and the poetic insight, on the other hand, is capable of +recognising subtle harmonies and discords of which our crude instruments +of weighing and measuring are incapable of revealing the secret. But the +connection is so close that the greatest works of either kind seem to +have a double nature. A philosophy may, like Spinoza's, be apparelled +in the most technical and abstruse panoply of logic, and yet the total +impression may stimulate a religious sentiment as effectively as any +poetic or theosophic mysticism. Or a great imaginative work, like +Shakespeare's, may present us with the most vivid concrete symbols, and +yet suggest, as forcibly as the formal demonstrations of a +metaphysician, the idealist conviction that the visible and tangible +world is a dream-woven tissue covering infinite and inscrutable +mysteries. In each case the highest intellectual faculty manifests +itself in the vigour with which certain profound conceptions of the +world and life have been grasped and assimilated. In each case that man +is greatest who soars habitually to the highest regions and gazes most +steadily upon the widest horizons of time and space. The logical +consistency which frames all dogmas into a consistent whole, is but +another aspect of the imaginative power which harmonises the strongest +and subtlest emotions excited. + +The task, indeed, of deducing the philosophy from the poetry, of +inferring what a man thinks from what he feels, may at times perplex the +acutest critic. Nor, if it were satisfactorily accomplished, could we +infer that the best philosopher is also the best poet. Absolute +incapacity for poetical expression may be combined with the highest +philosophic power. All that can safely be said is that a man's thoughts, +whether embodied in symbols or worked out in syllogisms, are more +valuable in proportion as they indicate greater philosophical insight; +and therefore that, _ceteris paribus_, that man is the greater poet +whose imagination is most transfused with reason; who has the deepest +truths to proclaim as well as the strongest feelings to utter. + +Some theorists implicitly deny this principle by holding substantially +that the poet's function is simply the utterance of a particular mood, +and that, if he utters it forcibly and delicately, we have no more to +ask. Even so, we should not admit that the thoughts suggested to a wise +man by a prospect of death and eternity are of just equal value, if +equally well expressed, with the thoughts suggested to a fool by the +contemplation of a good dinner. But, in practice, the utterance of +emotions can hardly be dissociated from the assertion of principles. +Psychologists have shown, ever since the days of Berkeley, that when a +man describes (as he thinks) a mere sensation, and says, for example, 'I +see a house,' he is really recording the result of a complex logical +process. A great painter and the dullest observer may have the same +impressions of coloured blotches upon their retina. The great man infers +the true nature of the objects which produce his sensations, and can +therefore represent the objects accurately. The other sees only with his +eyes, and can therefore represent nothing. There is thus a logic implied +even in the simplest observation, and one which can be tested by +mathematical rules as distinctly as a proposition in geometry. + +When we have to find a language for our emotions instead of our +sensations, we generally express the result of an incomparably more +complex set of intellectual operations. The poet, in uttering his joy or +sadness, often implies, in the very form of his language, a whole +philosophy of life or of the universe. The explanation is given at the +end of Shakespeare's familiar passage about the poet's eye:-- + + Such tricks hath strong imagination, + That, if it would but apprehend some joy, + It comprehends some bringer of that joy; + Or in the night, imagining some fear, + How easy is a bush supposed a bear! + +The _ap_prehension of the passion, as Shakespeare logically says, is a +_com_prehension of its cause. The imagination reasons. The bare faculty +of sight involves thought and feeling. The symbol which the fancy +spontaneously constructs, implies a whole world of truth or error, of +superstitious beliefs or sound philosophy. The poetry holds a number of +intellectual dogmas in solution; and it is precisely due to these +general dogmas, which are true and important for us as well as for the +poet, that his power over our sympathies is due. If his philosophy has +no power in it, his emotions lose their hold upon our minds, or interest +us only as antiquarians and lovers of the picturesque. But in the +briefest poems of a true thinker we read the essence of the life-long +reflections of a passionate and intellectual nature. Fears and hopes +common to all thoughtful men have been coined into a single phrase. Even +in cases where no definite conviction is expressed or even implied, and +the poem is simply, like music, an indefinite utterance of a certain +state of the emotions, we may discover an intellectual element. The +rational and the emotional nature have such intricate relations that one +cannot exist in great richness and force without justifying an inference +as to the other. From a single phrase, as from a single gesture, we can +often go far to divining the character of a man's thoughts and feelings. +We know more of a man from five minutes' talk than from pages of what is +called 'psychological analysis.' From a passing expression on the face, +itself the result of variations so minute as to defy all analysis, we +instinctively frame judgments as to a man's temperament and habitual +modes of thought and conduct. Indeed, such judgments, if erroneous, +determine us only too exclusively in the most important relations of +life. + +Now the highest poetry is that which expresses the richest, most +powerful, and most susceptible emotional nature, and the most versatile, +penetrative, and subtle intellect. Such qualities may be stamped upon +trifling work. The great artist can express his power within the limits +of a coin or a gem. The great poet will reveal his character through a +sonnet or a song. Shakespeare, or Milton, or Burns, or Wordsworth can +express his whole mode of feeling within a few lines. An ill-balanced +nature reveals itself by a discord, as an illogical mind by a fallacy. A +man need not compose an epic on a system of philosophy to write himself +down an ass. And, inversely, a great mind and a noble nature may show +itself by impalpable but recognisable signs within the 'sonnet's scanty +plot of ground.' Once more, the highest poetry must be that which +expresses not only the richest but the healthiest nature. Disease means +an absence or a want of balance of certain faculties, and therefore +leads to false reasoning or emotional discord. The defect of character +betrays itself in some erroneous mode of thought or baseness of +sentiment. And since morality means obedience to those rules which are +most essential to the spiritual health, vicious feeling indicates some +morbid tendency, and is so far destructive of the poetical faculty. An +immoral sentiment is the sign either of a false judgment of the world +and of human nature, or of a defect in the emotional nature which shows +itself by a discord or an indecorum, and leads to a cynicism or +indecency which offends the reason through the taste. What is called +immorality does not indeed always imply such defects. Sound moral +intuitions may be opposed to the narrow code prevalent at the time; or a +protest against puritanical or ascetic perversions of the standard may +hurry the poet into attacks upon true principles. And, again, the keen +sensibility which makes a man a poet, undoubtedly exposes him to certain +types of disease. He is more likely than his thick-skinned neighbour to +be vexed by evil, and to be drawn into distorted views of life by an +excess of sympathy or indignation. Injudicious admirers prize the +disease instead of the strength from which it springs; and value the +cynicism or the despair instead of the contempt for heartless +commonplace or the desire for better things with which it was +unfortunately connected. A strong moral sentiment has a great value, +even when forced into an unnatural alliance. Nay, even when it is, so to +speak, inverted, it often receives a kind of paradoxical value from its +efficacy against some opposite form of error. It is only a complete +absence of the moral faculty which is irredeemably bad. The poet in whom +it does not exist is condemned to the lower sphere, and can only deal +with the deepest feelings on penalty of shocking us by indecency or +profanity. A man who can revel in 'Epicurus' stye' without even the +indirect homage to purity of remorse and bitterness, can do nothing but +gratify our lowest passions. They, perhaps, have their place, and the +man who is content with such utterances may not be utterly worthless. +But to place him on a level with his betters is to confound every sound +principle of criticism. + +It follows that a kind of collateral test of poetical excellence may be +found by extracting the philosophy from the poetry. The test is, of +course, inadequate. A good philosopher may be an execrable poet. Even +stupidity is happily not inconsistent with sound doctrine, though +inconsistent with a firm grasp of ultimate principles. But the vigour +with which a man grasps and assimilates a deep moral doctrine is a test +of the degree in which he possesses one essential condition of the +higher poetical excellence. A continuous illustration of this principle +is given in the poetry of Wordsworth, who, indeed, has expounded his +ethical and philosophical views so explicitly, one would rather not say +so ostentatiously, that great part of the work is done to our hands. +Nowhere is it easier to observe the mode in which poetry and philosophy +spring from the same root and owe their excellence to the same +intellectual powers. So much has been said by the ablest critics of the +purely poetical side of Wordsworth's genius, that I may willingly +renounce the difficult task of adding or repeating. I gladly take for +granted--what is generally acknowledged--that Wordsworth in his best +moods reaches a greater height than any other modern Englishman. The +word 'inspiration' is less forced when applied to his loftiest poetry +than when used of any of his contemporaries. With defects too obvious to +be mentioned, he can yet pierce furthest behind the veil; and embody +most efficiently the thoughts and emotions which come to us in our most +solemn and reflective moods. Other poetry becomes trifling when we are +making our inevitable passages through the Valley of the Shadow of +Death. Wordsworth's alone retains its power. We love him the more as we +grow older and become more deeply impressed with the sadness and +seriousness of life; we are apt to grow weary of his rivals when we have +finally quitted the regions of youthful enchantment. And I take the +explanation to be that he is not merely a melodious writer, or a +powerful utterer of deep emotion, but a true philosopher. His poetry +wears well because it has solid substance. He is a prophet and a +moralist, as well as a mere singer. His ethical system, in particular, +is as distinctive and capable of systematic exposition as that of +Butler. By endeavouring to state it in plain prose, we shall see how the +poetical power implies a sensitiveness to ideas which, when extracted +from the symbolical embodiment, fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought. + +There are two opposite types to which all moral systems tend. They +correspond to the two great intellectual families to which every man +belongs by right of birth. One class of minds is distinguished by its +firm grasp of facts, by its reluctance to drop solid substance for the +loveliest shadows, and by its preference of concrete truths to the most +symmetrical of theories. In ethical questions the tendency of such minds +is to consider man as a being impelled by strong but unreasonable +passions towards tangible objects. He is a loving, hating, thirsting, +hungering--anything but a reasoning--being. As Swift--a typical example +of this intellectual temperament--declared, man is not an _animal +rationale_, but at most _capax rationis_. At bottom, he is a machine +worked by blind instincts. Their tendency cannot be deduced by _Ă +priori_ reasoning, though reason may calculate the consequences of +indulging them. The passions are equally good, so far as equally +pleasurable. Virtue means that course of conduct which secures the +maximum of pleasure. Fine theories about abstract rights and +correspondence to eternal truths are so many words. They provide decent +masks for our passions; they do not really govern them, or alter their +nature, but they cover the ugly brutal selfishness of mankind, and +soften the shock of conflicting interests. Such a view has something in +it congenial to the English love of reality and contempt for shams. It +may be represented by Swift or Mandeville in the last century; in poetry +it corresponds to the theory attributed by some critics to Shakespeare; +in a tranquil and reasoning mind it leads to the utilitarianism of +Bentham; in a proud, passionate, and imaginative mind it manifests +itself in such a poem as 'Don Juan.' Its strength is in its grasp of +fact; its weakness, in its tendency to cynicism. Opposed to this is the +school which starts from abstract reason. It prefers to dwell in the +ideal world, where principles may be contemplated apart from the +accidents which render them obscure to vulgar minds. It seeks to deduce +the moral code from eternal truths without seeking for a groundwork in +the facts of experience. If facts refuse to conform to theories, it +proposes that facts should be summarily abolished. Though the actual +human being is, unfortunately, not always reasonable, it holds that pure +reason must be in the long run the dominant force, and that it reveals +the laws to which mankind will ultimately conform. The revolutionary +doctrine of the 'rights of man' expressed one form of this doctrine, and +showed in the most striking way a strength and weakness, which are the +converse of those exhibited by its antagonist. It was strong as +appealing to the loftier motives of justice and sympathy; and weak as +defying the appeal to experience. The most striking example in English +literature is in Godwin's 'Political Justice.' The existing social order +is to be calmly abolished because founded upon blind prejudice; the +constituent atoms called men are to be rearranged in an ideal order as +in a mathematical diagram. Shelley gives the translation of this theory +into poetry. The 'Revolt of Islam' or the 'Prometheus Unbound,' with all +its unearthly beauty, wearies the imagination which tries to soar into +the thin air of Shelley's dreamworld; just as the intellect, trying to +apply the abstract formulæ of political metaphysics to any concrete +problem, feels as though it were under an exhausted receiver. In both +cases we seem to have got entirely out of the region of real human +passions and senses into a world, beautiful perhaps, but certainly +impalpable. + +The great aim of moral philosophy is to unite the disjoined element, to +end the divorce between reason and experience, and to escape from the +alternative of dealing with empty but symmetrical formulæ or concrete +and chaotic facts. No hint can be given here as to the direction in +which a final solution must be sought. Whatever the true method, +Wordsworth's mode of conceiving the problem shows how powerfully he +grasped the questions at issue. If his doctrines are not systematically +expounded, they all have a direct bearing upon the real difficulties +involved. They are stated so forcibly in his noblest poems that we might +almost express a complete theory in his own language. But, without +seeking to make a collection of aphorisms from his poetry, we may +indicate the cardinal points of his teaching.[24] + +The most characteristic of all his doctrines is that which is embodied +in the great ode upon the 'Intimations of Immortality.' The doctrine +itself--the theory that the instincts of childhood testify to the +pre-existence of the soul--sounds fanciful enough; and Wordsworth took +rather unnecessary pains to say that he did not hold it as a serious +dogma. We certainly need not ask whether it is reasonable or orthodox to +believe that 'our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.' The fact +symbolised by the poetic fancy--the glory and freshness of our childish +instincts--is equally noteworthy, whatever its cause. Some modern +reasoners would explain its significance by reference to a very +different kind of pre-existence. The instincts, they would say, are +valuable, because they register the accumulated and inherited experience +of past generations. Wordsworth's delight in wild scenery is regarded by +them as due to the 'combination of states that were organised in the +race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were +amongst the mountains, woods, and waters.' In childhood we are most +completely under the dominion of these inherited impulses. The +correlation between the organism and its medium is then most perfect, +and hence the peculiar theme of childish communion with nature. + +Wordsworth would have repudiated the doctrine with disgust. He would +have been 'on the side of the angels.' No memories of the savage and the +monkey, but the reminiscences of the once-glorious soul could explain +his emotions. Yet there is this much in common between him and the men +of science whom he denounced with too little discrimination. The fact of +the value of these primitive instincts is admitted, and admitted for the +same purpose. Man, it is agreed, is furnished with sentiments which +cannot be explained as the result of his individual experience. They may +be intelligible, according to the evolutionist, when regarded as +embodying the past experience of the race; or, according to Wordsworth, +as implying a certain mysterious faculty imprinted upon the soul. The +scientific doctrine, whether sound or not, has modified the whole mode +of approaching ethical problems; and Wordsworth, though with a very +different purpose, gives a new emphasis to the facts, upon a +recognition of which, according to some theorists, must be based the +reconciliation of the great rival schools--the intuitionists and the +utilitarians. The parallel may at first sight seem fanciful; and it +would be too daring to claim for Wordsworth the discovery of the most +remarkable phenomenon which modern psychology must take into account. +There is, however, a real connection between the two doctrines, though +in one sense they are almost antithetical. Meanwhile we observe that the +same sensibility which gives poetical power is necessary to the +scientific observer. The magic of the ode, and of many other passages in +Wordsworth's poetry, is due to his recognition of this mysterious +efficacy of our childish instincts. He gives emphasis to one of the most +striking facts of our spiritual experience, which had passed with little +notice from professed psychologists. He feels what they afterwards tried +to explain. + +The full meaning of the doctrine comes out as we study Wordsworth more +thoroughly. Other poets--almost all poets--have dwelt fondly upon +recollections of childhood. But not feeling so strongly, and therefore +not expressing so forcibly, the peculiar character of the emotion, they +have not derived the same lessons from their observation. The Epicurean +poets are content with Herrick's simple moral-- + + Gather ye rosebuds while ye may-- + +and with his simple explanation-- + + That age is best which is the first, + When youth and blood are warmer. + +Others more thoughtful look back upon the early days with the passionate +regret of Byron's verses: + + There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, + When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; + 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. + +Such painful longings for the 'tender grace of a day that is dead' are +spontaneous and natural. Every healthy mind feels the pang in proportion +to the strength of its affections. But it is also true that the regret +resembles too often the maudlin meditation of a fast young man over his +morning's soda-water. It implies, that is, a non-recognition of the +higher uses to which the fading memories may still be put. A different +tone breathes in Shelley's pathetic but rather hectic moralisings, and +his lamentations over the departure of the 'spirit of delight.' Nowhere +has it found more exquisite expression than in the marvellous 'Ode to +the West Wind.' These magical verses--his best, as it seems to +me--describe the reflection of the poet's own mind in the strange stir +and commotion of a dying winter's day. They represent, we may say, the +fitful melancholy which oppresses a noble spirit when it has recognised +the difficulty of forcing facts into conformity with the ideal. He still +clings to the hope that his 'dead thoughts' may be driven over the +universe, + + Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth. + +But he bows before the inexorable fate which has cramped his energies: + + A heavy weight of years has chained and bowed + One too like thee; tameless and swift and proud. + +Neither Byron nor Shelley can see any satisfactory solution, and +therefore neither can reach a perfect harmony of feeling. The world +seems to them to be out of joint, because they have not known how to +accept the inevitable, nor to conform to the discipline of facts. And, +therefore, however intense the emotion, and however exquisite its +expression, we are left in a state of intellectual and emotional +discontent. Such utterances may suit us in youth, when we can afford to +play with sorrow. As we grow older we feel a certain emptiness in them. +A true man ought not to sit down and weep with an exhausted debauchee. +He cannot afford to confess himself beaten with the idealist who has +discovered that Rome was not built in a day, nor revolutions made with +rose-water. He has to work as long as he has strength; to work in spite +of, even by strength of, sorrow, disappointment, wounded vanity, and +blunted sensibilities; and therefore he must search for some profounder +solution for the dark riddle of life. + +This solution it is Wordsworth's chief aim to supply. In the familiar +verses which stand as a motto to his poems-- + + The child is father to the man, + And I could wish my days to be + Bound each to each by natural piety-- + +the great problem of life, that is, as he conceives it, is to secure a +continuity between the period at which we are guided by half-conscious +instincts, and that in which a man is able to supply the place of these +primitive impulses by reasoned convictions. This is the thought which +comes over and over again in his deepest poems, and round which all his +teaching centred. It supplies the great moral, for example, of the +'Leech-gatherer:' + + My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, + As if life's business were a summer mood: + As if all needful things would come unsought + To genial faith still rich in genial good. + +When his faith is tried by harsh experience, the leech-gatherer comes, + + Like a man from some far region sent + To give me human strength by apt admonishment; + +for he shows how the 'genial faith' may be converted into permanent +strength by resolution and independence. The verses most commonly +quoted, such as-- + + We poets in our youth begin in gladness, + But thereof come in the end despondency and sadness, + +give the ordinary view of the sickly school. Wordsworth's aim is to +supply an answer worthy not only of a poet, but a man. The same +sentiment again is expressed in the grand 'Ode to Duty,' where the + + Stern daughter of the voice of God + +is invoked to supply that 'genial sense of youth' which has hitherto +been a sufficient guidance; or in the majestic morality of the 'Happy +Warrior;' or in the noble verses on 'Tintern Abbey;' or, finally, in the +great ode which gives most completely the whole theory of that process +by which our early intuitions are to be transformed into settled +principles of feeling and action. + +Wordsworth's philosophical theory, in short, depends upon the asserted +identity between our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The +doctrine of a state of pre-existence, as it appears in other +writers--as, for example, in the Cambridge Platonists[25]--was connected +with an obsolete metaphysical system, and the doctrine--exploded in its +old form--of innate ideas. Wordsworth does not attribute any such +preternatural character to the 'blank misgivings' and 'shadowy +recollections' of which he speaks. They are invaluable data of our +spiritual experience; but they do not entitle us to lay down dogmatic +propositions independently of experience. They are spontaneous products +of a nature in harmony with the universe in which it is placed, and +inestimable as a clear indication that such a harmony exists. To +interpret and regulate them belongs to the reasoning faculty and the +higher imagination of later years. If he does not quite distinguish +between the province of reason and emotion--the most difficult of +philosophical problems--he keeps clear of the cruder mysticism, because +he does not seek to elicit any definite formulæ from those admittedly +vague forebodings which lie on the border-land between the two sides of +our nature. With his invariable sanity of mind, he more than once +notices the difficulty of distinguishing between that which nature +teaches us and the interpretations which we impose upon nature.[26] He +carefully refrains from pressing the inference too far. + +The teaching, indeed, assumes that view of the universe which is implied +in his pantheistic language. The Divinity really reveals Himself in the +lonely mountains and the starry heavens. By contemplating them we are +able to rise into that 'blessed mood' in which for a time the burden of +the mystery is rolled off our souls, and we can 'see into the life of +things.' And here we must admit that Wordsworth is not entirely free +from the weakness which generally besets thinkers of this tendency. Like +Shaftesbury in the previous century, who speaks of the universal harmony +as emphatically though not as poetically as Wordsworth, he is tempted to +adopt a too facile optimism. He seems at times to have overlooked that +dark side of nature which is recognised in theological doctrines of +corruption, or in the scientific theories about the fierce struggle for +existence. Can we in fact say that these early instincts prove more than +the happy constitution of the individual who feels them? Is there not a +teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a +complacent brooding over soothing thoughts? Do not the mountains which +Wordsworth loved so well, speak of decay and catastrophe in every line +of their slopes? Do they not suggest the helplessness and narrow +limitations of man, as forcibly as his possible exaltation? The awe +which they strike into our souls has its terrible as well as its amiable +side; and in moods of depression the darker aspect becomes more +conspicuous than the brighter. Nay, if we admit that we have instincts +which are the very substance of all that afterwards becomes ennobling, +have we not also instincts which suggest a close alliance with the +brutes? If the child amidst his newborn blisses suggests a heavenly +origin, does he not also show sensual and cruel instincts which imply at +least an admixture of baser elements? If man is responsive to all +natural influences, how is he to distinguish between the good and the +bad, and, in short, to frame a conscience out of the vague instincts +which contain the germs of all the possible developments of the future? + +To say that Wordsworth has not given a complete answer to such +difficulties, is to say that he has not explained the origin of evil. It +may be admitted, however, that he does to a certain extent show a +narrowness of conception. The voice of nature, as he says, resembles an +echo; but we 'unthinking creatures' listen to 'voices of two different +natures.' We do not always distinguish between the echo of our lower +passions and the 'echoes from beyond the grave.' Wordsworth sometimes +fails to recognise the ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The +'blessed mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the world, is too +easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it. +He finds lonely meditation so inspiring that he is too indifferent to +the troubles of less self-sufficing or clear-sighted human beings. The +ambiguity makes itself felt in the sphere of morality. The ethical +doctrine that virtue consists in conformity to nature becomes ambiguous +with him, as with all its advocates, when we ask for a precise +definition of nature. How are we to know which natural forces make for +us and which fight against us? + +The doctrine of the love of nature, generally regarded as Wordsworth's +great lesson to mankind, means, as interpreted by himself and others, a +love of the wilder and grander objects of natural scenery; a passion for +the 'sounding cataract,' the rock, the mountain, and the forest; a +preference, therefore, of the country to the town, and of the simpler to +the more complex forms of social life. But what is the true value of +this sentiment? The unfortunate Solitary in the 'Excursion' is beset by +three Wordsworths; for the Wanderer and the Pastor are little more (as +Wordsworth indeed intimates) than reflections of himself, seen in +different mirrors. The Solitary represents the anti-social lessons to be +derived from communion with nature. He has become a misanthrope, and has +learnt from 'Candide' the lesson that we clearly do not live in the best +of all possible worlds. Instead of learning the true lesson from nature +by penetrating its deeper meanings, he manages to feed + + Pity and scorn and melancholy pride + +by accidental and fanciful analogies, and sees in rock pyramids or +obelisks a rude mockery of human toils. To confute this sentiment, to +upset 'Candide,' + + This dull product of a scoffer's pen, + +is the purpose of the lofty poetry and versified prose of the long +dialogues which ensue. That Wordsworth should call Voltaire dull is a +curious example of the proverbial blindness of controversialists; but +the moral may be equally good. It is given most pithily in the lines-- + + We live by admiration, hope, and love; + And even as these are well and wisely fused, + The dignity of being we ascend. + +'But what is Error?' continues the preacher; and the Solitary replies by +saying, 'somewhat haughtily,' that love, admiration, and hope are 'mad +fancy's favourite vassals.' The distinction between fancy and +imagination is, in brief, that fancy deals with the superficial +resemblances, and imagination with the deeper truths which underlie +them. The purpose, then, of the 'Excursion,' and of Wordsworth's poetry +in general, is to show how the higher faculty reveals a harmony which we +overlook when, with the Solitary, we + + Skim along the surfaces of things. + +The rightly prepared mind can recognise the divine harmony which +underlies all apparent disorder. The universe is to its perceptions like +the shell whose murmur in a child's ear seems to express a mysterious +union with the sea. But the mind must be rightly prepared. Everything +depends upon the point of view. One man, as he says in an elaborate +figure, looking upon a series of ridges in spring from their northern +side, sees a waste of snow, and from the south a continuous expanse of +green. That view, we must take it, is the right one which is illuminated +by the 'ray divine.' But we must train our eyes to recognise its +splendour; and the final answer to the Solitary is therefore embodied +in a series of narratives, showing by example how our spiritual vision +may be purified or obscured. Our philosophy must be finally based, not +upon abstract speculation and metaphysical arguments, but on the +diffused consciousness of the healthy mind. As Butler sees the universe +by the light of conscience, Wordsworth sees it through the wider +emotions of awe, reverence, and love, produced in a sound nature. + +The pantheistic conception, in short, leads to an unsatisfactory +optimism in the general view of nature, and to an equal tolerance of all +passions as equally 'natural.' To escape from this difficulty we must +establish some more discriminative mode of interpreting nature. Man is +the instrument played upon by all impulses, good or bad. The music which +results may be harmonious or discordant. When the instrument is in tune, +the music will be perfect; but when is it in tune, and how are we to +know that it is in tune? That problem once solved, we can tell which are +the authentic utterances and which are the accidental discords. And by +solving it, or by saying what is the right constitution of human beings, +we shall discover which is the true philosophy of the universe, and what +are the dictates of a sound moral sense. Wordsworth implicitly answers +the question by explaining, in his favourite phrase, how we are to build +up our moral being. + +The voice of nature speaks at first in vague emotions, scarcely +distinguishable from mere animal buoyancy. The boy, hooting in mimicry +of the owls, receives in his heart the voice of mountain torrents and +the solemn imagery of rocks, and woods, and stars. The sportive girl is +unconsciously moulded into stateliness and grace by the floating clouds, +the bending willow, and even by silent sympathy with the motions of the +storm. Nobody has ever shown, with such exquisite power as Wordsworth, +how much of the charm of natural objects in later life is due to early +associations, thus formed in a mind not yet capable of contemplating its +own processes. As old Matthew says in the lines which, however familiar, +can never be read without emotion-- + + My eyes are dim with childish tears, + My heart is idly stirred; + For the same sound is in my ears + Which in those days I heard. + +And the strangely beautiful address to the cuckoo might be made into a +text for a prolonged commentary by an æsthetic philosopher upon the +power of early association. It curiously illustrates, for example, the +reason of Wordsworth's delight in recalling sounds. The croak of the +distant raven, the bleat of the mountain lamb, the splash of the leaping +fish in the lonely tarn, are specially delightful to him, because the +hearing is the most spiritual of our senses; and these sounds, like the +cuckoo's cry, seem to convert the earth into an 'unsubstantial fairy +place.' The phrase 'association' indeed implies a certain arbitrariness +in the images suggested, which is not quite in accordance with +Wordsworth's feeling. Though the echo depends partly upon the hearer, +the mountain voices are specially adapted for certain moods. They have, +we may say, a spontaneous affinity for the nobler affections. If some +early passage in our childhood is associated with a particular spot, a +house or a street will bring back the petty and accidental details: a +mountain or a lake will revive the deeper and more permanent elements of +feeling. If you have made love in a palace, according to Mr. Disraeli's +prescription, the sight of it will recall the splendour of the object's +dress or jewellery; if, as Wordsworth would prefer, with a background of +mountains, it will appear in later days as if they had absorbed, and +were always ready again to radiate forth, the tender and hallowing +influences which then for the first time entered your life. The +elementary and deepest passions are most easily associated with the +sublime and beautiful in nature. + + The primal duties shine aloft like stars; + The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, + Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers. + +And, therefore, if you have been happy enough to take delight in these +natural and universal objects in the early days, when the most permanent +associations are formed, the sight of them in later days will bring back +by pre-ordained and divine symbolism whatever was most ennobling in your +early feelings. The vulgarising associations will drop off of +themselves, and what was pure and lofty will remain. + +From this natural law follows another of Wordsworth's favourite +precepts. The mountains are not with him a symbol of anti-social +feelings. On the contrary, they are in their proper place as the +background of the simple domestic affections. He loves his native hills, +not in the Byronic fashion, as a savage wilderness, but as the +appropriate framework in which a healthy social order can permanently +maintain itself. That, for example, is, as he tells us, the thought +which inspired the 'Brothers,' a poem which excels all modern idylls in +weight of meaning and depth of feeling, by virtue of the idea thus +embodied. The retired valley of Ennerdale, with its grand background of +hills, precipitous enough to be fairly called mountains, forces the two +lads into closer affection. Shut in by these 'enormous barriers,' and +undistracted by the ebb and flow of the outside world, the mutual love +becomes concentrated. A tie like that of family blood is involuntarily +imposed upon the little community of dalesmen. The image of sheep-tracks +and shepherds clad in country grey is stamped upon the elder brother's +mind, and comes back to him in tropical calms; he hears the tones of his +waterfalls in the piping shrouds; and when he returns, recognises every +fresh scar made by winter storms on the mountain sides, and knows by +sight every unmarked grave in the little churchyard. The fraternal +affection sanctifies the scenery, and the sight of the scenery brings +back the affection with overpowering force upon his return. This is +everywhere the sentiment inspired in Wordsworth by his beloved hills. It +is not so much the love of nature pure and simple, as of nature seen +through the deepest human feelings. The light glimmering in a lonely +cottage, the one rude house in the deep valley, with its 'small lot of +life-supporting fields and guardian rocks,' are necessary to point the +moral and to draw to a definite focus the various forces of sentiment. +The two veins of feeling are inseparably blended. The peasant noble, in +the 'Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,' learns equally from men and +nature:-- + + Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; + His daily teachers had been woods and hills, + The silence that is in the starry skies, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + +Without the love, the silence and the sleep would have had no spiritual +meaning. They are valuable as giving intensity and solemnity to the +positive emotion. + +The same remark is to be made upon Wordsworth's favourite teaching of +the advantages of the contemplative life. He is fond of enforcing the +doctrine of the familiar lines, that we can feed our minds 'in a wise +passiveness,' and that + + One impulse from the vernal wood + Can teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good, + Than all the sages can. + +And, according to some commentators, this would seem to express the +doctrine that the ultimate end of life is the cultivation of tender +emotions without reference to action. The doctrine, thus absolutely +stated, would be immoral and illogical. To recommend contemplation in +preference to action is like preferring sleeping to waking; or saying, +as a full expression of the truth, that silence is golden and speech +silvern. Like that familiar phrase, Wordsworth's teaching is not to be +interpreted literally. The essence of such maxims is to be one-sided. +They are paradoxical in order to be emphatic. To have seasons of +contemplation, of withdrawal from the world and from books, of calm +surrendering of ourselves to the influences of nature, is a practice +commended in one form or other by all moral teachers. It is a sanitary +rule, resting upon obvious principles. The mind which is always occupied +in a multiplicity of small observations, or the regulation of practical +details, loses the power of seeing general principles and of associating +all objects with the central emotions of 'admiration, hope, and love.' +The philosophic mind is that which habitually sees the general in the +particular, and finds food for the deepest thought in the simplest +objects. It requires, therefore, periods of repose, in which the +fragmentary and complex atoms of distracted feeling which make up the +incessant whirl of daily life may have time to crystallise round the +central thoughts. But it must feed in order to assimilate; and each +process implies the other as its correlative. A constant interest, +therefore, in the joys and sorrows of our neighbours is as essential as +quiet, self-centred rumination. It is when the eye 'has kept watch o'er +man's mortality,' and by virtue of the tender sympathies of 'the human +heart by which we live,' that to us + + The meanest flower which blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. + +The solitude which implies severance from natural sympathies and +affections is poisonous. The happiness of the heart which lives alone, + + Housed in a dream, an outcast from the kind, + + * * * * * + + Is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind. + +Wordsworth's meditations upon flowers or animal life are impressive +because they have been touched by this constant sympathy. The sermon is +always in his mind, and therefore every stone may serve for a text. His +contemplation enables him to see the pathetic side of the small pains +and pleasures which we are generally in too great a hurry to notice. +There are times, of course, when this moralising tendency leads him to +the regions of the namby-pamby or sheer prosaic platitude. On the other +hand, no one approaches him in the power of touching some rich chord of +feeling by help of the pettiest incident. The old man going to the +fox-hunt with a tear on his cheek, and saying to himself, + + The key I must take, for my Helen is dead; + +or the mother carrying home her dead sailor's bird; the village +schoolmaster, in whom a rift in the clouds revives the memory of his +little daughter; the old huntsman unable to cut through the stump of +rotten wood--touch our hearts at once and for ever. The secret is given +in the rather prosaic apology for not relating a tale about poor Simon +Lee: + + O reader! had you in your mind + Such stores as silent thought can bring, + O gentle reader! you would find + A tale in everything. + +The value of silent thought is so to cultivate the primitive emotions +that they may flow spontaneously upon every common incident, and that +every familiar object becomes symbolic of them. It is a familiar remark +that a philosopher or man of science who has devoted himself to +meditation upon some principle or law of nature, is always finding new +illustrations in the most unexpected quarters. He cannot take up a novel +or walk across the street without hitting upon appropriate instances. +Wordsworth would apply the principle to the building up of our 'moral +being.' Admiration, hope, and love should be so constantly in our +thoughts, that innumerable sights and sounds which are meaningless to +the world should become to us a language incessantly suggestive of the +deepest topics of thought. + +This explains his dislike to science, as he understood the word, and his +denunciations of the 'world.' The man of science is one who cuts up +nature into fragments, and not only neglects their possible significance +for our higher feelings, but refrains on principle from taking it into +account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification, +and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance +as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead +and spiritless,' we are thus really waging + + An impious warfare with the very life + Of our own souls. + +We are putting the letter in place of the spirit, and dealing with +nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem. When we have learnt to +associate every object with some lesson + + Of human suffering or of human joy; + +when we have thus obtained the 'glorious habit,' + + By which sense is made + Subservient still to moral purposes, + Auxiliar to divine; + +the 'dull eye' of science will light up; for, in observing natural +processes, it will carry with it an incessant reference to the spiritual +processes to which they are allied. Science, in short, requires to be +brought into intimate connection with morality and religion. If we are +forced for our immediate purpose to pursue truth for itself, regardless +of consequences, we must remember all the more carefully that truth is a +whole, and that fragmentary bits of knowledge become valuable as they +are incorporated into a general system. The tendency of modern times to +specialism brings with it a characteristic danger. It requires to be +supplemented by a correlative process of integration. We must study +details to increase our knowledge; we must accustom ourselves to look at +the detail in the light of the general principles in order to make it +fruitful. + +The influence of that world which 'is too much with us late and soon' is +of the same kind. The man of science loves barren facts for their own +sake. The man of the world becomes devoted to some petty pursuit without +reference to ultimate ends. He becomes a slave to money, or power, or +praise, without caring for their effect upon his moral character. As +social organisation becomes more complete, the social unit becomes a +mere fragment instead of being a complete whole in himself. Man becomes + + The senseless member of a vast machine, + Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel. + +The division of labour, celebrated with such enthusiasm by Adam +Smith,[27] tends to crush all real life out of its victims. The soul of +the political economist may rejoice when he sees a human being devoting +his whole faculties to the performance of one subsidiary operation in +the manufacture of a pin. The poet and the moralist must notice with +anxiety the contrast between the old-fashioned peasant who, if he +discharged each particular function clumsily, discharged at least many +functions, and found exercise for all the intellectual and moral +faculties of his nature, and the modern artisan doomed to the incessant +repetition of one petty set of muscular expansions and contractions, and +whose soul, if he has one, is therefore rather an encumbrance than +otherwise. This is the evil which is constantly before Wordsworth's +eyes, as it has certainly not become less prominent since his time. The +danger of crushing the individual is a serious one according to his +view; not because it implies the neglect of some abstract political +rights, but from the impoverishment of character which is implied in the +process. Give every man a vote, and abolish all interference with each +man's private tastes, and the danger may still be as great as ever. The +tendency to 'differentiation'--as we call it in modern phraseology--the +social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's +sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon +processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, therefore, be +cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, or by the negative remedy +of removing old barriers. It requires to be met by profounder moral and +religious teaching. Men must be taught what is the really valuable part +of their natures, and what is the purest happiness to be extracted from +life, as well as allowed to gratify fully their own tastes; for who can +say that men encouraged by all their surroundings and appeals to the +most obvious motives to turn themselves into machines, will not +deliberately choose to be machines? Many powerful thinkers have +illustrated Wordsworth's doctrine more elaborately, but nobody has gone +more decisively to the root of the matter. + +One other side of Wordsworth's teaching is still more significant and +original. Our vague instincts are consolidated into reason by +meditation, sympathy with our fellows, communion with nature, and a +constant devotion to 'high endeavours.' If life run smoothly, the +transformation may be easy, and our primitive optimism turn +imperceptibly into general complacency. The trial comes when we make +personal acquaintance with sorrow, and our early buoyancy begins to +fail. We are tempted to become querulous or to lap ourselves in +indifference. Most poets are content to bewail our lot melodiously, and +admit that there is no remedy unless a remedy be found in 'the luxury of +grief.' Prosaic people become selfish, though not sentimental. They +laugh at their old illusions, and turn to the solid consolations of +comfort. Nothing is more melancholy than to study many biographies, and +note--not the failure of early promise, which may mean merely an aiming +above the mark--but the progressive deterioration of character which so +often follows grief and disappointment. If it be not true that most men +grow worse as they grow old, it is surely true that few men pass +through the world without being corrupted as much as purified. + +Now Wordsworth's favourite lesson is the possibility of turning grief +and disappointment into account. He teaches in many forms the necessity +of 'transmuting' sorrow into strength. One of the great evils is a lack +of power, + + An agonising sorrow to transmute. + +The Happy Warrior is, above all, the man who in face of all human +miseries can + + Exercise a power + Which is our human nature's highest dower; + Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves + Of their bad influence, and their good receives; + +who is made more compassionate by familiarity with sorrow, more placable +by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.[28] It +is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to +the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who +will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an +impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we +may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an +intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far +at least as this world is concerned, can really be called consolatory. +None of the ordinary commonplaces will serve, or serve at most as +indications of human sympathy. But there is some consolation in the +thought that even death may bind the survivors closer, and leave as a +legacy enduring motives to noble action. It is easy to say this; but +Wordsworth has the merit of feeling the truth in all its force, and +expressing it by the most forcible images. In one shape or another the +sentiment is embodied in most of his really powerful poetry. It is +intended, for example, to be the moral of the 'White Doe of Rylstone.' +There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is +external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral +and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it +grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem. +Emily, the heroine, is to become a soul + + By force of sorrows high + Uplifted to the purest sky + Of undisturbed serenity. + +The 'White Doe' is one of those poems which make many readers inclined +to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's dogged insensibility; and I +confess that I am not one of its warm admirers. The sentiment seems to +be unduly relaxed throughout; there is a want of sympathy with heroism +of the rough and active type, which is, after all, at least as worthy of +admiration as the more passive variety of the virtue; and the defect is +made more palpable by the position of the chief actors. These rough +borderers, who recall William of Deloraine and Dandie Dinmont, are +somehow out of their element when preaching the doctrines of quietism +and submission to circumstances. But, whatever our judgment of this +particular embodiment of Wordsworth's moral philosophy, the inculcation +of the same lesson gives force to many of his finest poems. It is +enough to mention the 'Leech-gatherer,' the 'Stanzas on Peele Castle,' +'Michael,' and, as expressing the inverse view of the futility of idle +grief, 'Laodamia,' where he has succeeded in combining his morality with +more than his ordinary beauty of poetical form. The teaching of all +these poems falls in with the doctrine already set forth. All moral +teaching, I have sometimes fancied, might be summed up in the one +formula, 'Waste not.' Every element of which our nature is composed may +be said to be good in its proper place; and therefore every vicious +habit springs out of the misapplication of forces which might be turned +to account by judicious training. The waste of sorrow is one of the most +lamentable forms of waste. Sorrow too often tends to produce bitterness +or effeminacy of character. But it may, if rightly used, serve only to +detach us from the lower motives, and give sanctity to the higher. That +is what Wordsworth sees with unequalled clearness, and he therefore sees +also the condition of profiting. The mind in which the most valuable +elements have been systematically strengthened by meditation, by +association of deep thought with the most universal presences, by +constant sympathy with the joys and sorrows of its fellows, will be +prepared to convert sorrow into a medicine instead of a poison. Sorrow +is deteriorating so far as it is selfish. The man who is occupied with +his own interests makes grief an excuse for effeminate indulgence in +self-pity. He becomes weaker and more fretful. The man who has learnt +habitually to think of himself as part of a greater whole, whose conduct +has been habitually directed to noble ends, is purified and strengthened +by the spiritual convulsion. His disappointment, or his loss of some +beloved object, makes him more anxious to fix the bases of his +happiness widely and deeply, and to be content with the consciousness of +honest work, instead of looking for what is called success. + +But I must not take to preaching in the place of Wordsworth. The whole +theory is most nobly summed up in the grand lines already noticed on the +character of the Happy Warrior. There Wordsworth has explained in the +most forcible and direct language the mode in which a grand character +can be formed; how youthful impulses may change into manly purpose; how +pain and sorrow may be transmuted into new forces; how the mind may be +fixed upon lofty purposes; how the domestic affections--which give the +truest happiness--may also be the greatest source of strength to the man +who is + + More brave for this, that he has much to lose; + +and how, finally, he becomes indifferent to all petty ambition-- + + Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; + And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws + His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. + This is the Happy Warrior, this is he + Whom every man in arms should wish to be. + +We may now see what ethical theory underlies Wordsworth's teaching of +the transformation of instinct into reason. We must start from the +postulate that there is in fact a Divine order in the universe; and that +conformity to this order produces beauty as embodied in the external +world, and is the condition of virtue as regulating our character. It is +by obedience to the 'stern lawgiver,' Duty, that flowers gain their +fragrance, and that 'the most ancient heavens' preserve their freshness +and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in +abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are +precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and +emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not +a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are +not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering +their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been +implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds +to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to +experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the +assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it, +though we could not deduce it by an _Ă priori_ method. + +The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and +may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern +teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy +natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great +primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume. +Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and +endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the +primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights +of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;' +and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for +furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite +treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early +happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief +produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on +petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and +pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing the +noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its +instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature, +and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know +how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised +are the laws of morality. + +To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode +of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You +must love him,' as he says of the poet, + + Ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love. + +The doctrine corresponds to the _crede ut intelligas_ of the divine; or +to the philosophic theory that we must start from the knowledge already +constructed within us by instincts which have not yet learnt to reason. +And, finally, if a persistent reasoner should ask why--even admitting +the facts--the higher type should be preferred to the lower, Wordsworth +may ask, Why is bodily health preferable to disease? If a man likes weak +lungs and a bad digestion, reason cannot convince him of his error. The +physician has done enough when he has pointed out the sanitary laws +obedience to which generates strength, long life, and power of +enjoyment. The moralist is in the same position when he has shown how +certain habits conduce to the development of a type superior to its +rivals in all the faculties which imply permanent peace of mind and +power of resisting the shocks of the world without disintegration. Much +undoubtedly remains to be said. Wordsworth's teaching, profound and +admirable as it may be, has not the potency to silence the scepticism +which has gathered strength since his day, and assailed fundamental--or +what to him seemed fundamental--tenets of his system. No one can yet +say what transformation may pass upon the thoughts and emotions for +which he found utterance in speaking of the Divinity and sanctity of +nature. Some people vehemently maintain that the words will be emptied +of all meaning if the old theological conceptions to which he was so +firmly attached should disappear with the development of new modes of +thought. Nature, as regarded by the light of modern science, will be the +name of a cruel and wasteful, or at least of a purely neutral and +indifferent power, or perhaps as merely an equivalent for the +Unknowable, to which the conditions of our intellect prevent us from +ever attaching any intelligible predicate. Others would say that in +whatever terms we choose to speak of the mysterious darkness which +surrounds our little island of comparative light, the emotion generated +in a thoughtful mind by the contemplation of the universe will remain +unaltered or strengthen with clearer knowledge; and that we shall +express ourselves in a new dialect without altering the essence of our +thought. The emotions to which Wordsworth has given utterance will +remain, though the system in which he believed should sink into +oblivion; as, indeed, all human systems have found different modes of +symbolising the same fundamental feelings. But it is enough vaguely to +indicate considerations not here to be developed. + +It only remains to be added once more that Wordsworth's poetry derives +its power from the same source as his philosophy. It speaks to our +strongest feelings because his speculation rests upon our deepest +thoughts. His singular capacity for investing all objects with a glow +derived from early associations; his keen sympathy with natural and +simple emotions; his sense of the sanctifying influences which can be +extracted from sorrow, are of equal value to his power over our +intellects and our imaginations. His psychology, stated systematically, +is rational; and, when expressed passionately, turns into poetry. To be +sensitive to the most important phenomena is the first step equally +towards a poetical or a scientific exposition. To see these truly is the +condition of making the poetry harmonious and the philosophy logical. +And it is often difficult to say which power is most remarkable in +Wordsworth. It would be easy to illustrate the truth by other than moral +topics. His sonnet, noticed by De Quincey, in which he speaks of the +abstracting power of darkness, and observes that as the hills pass into +twilight we see the same sight as the ancient Britons, is impressive as +it stands, but would be equally good as an illustration in a +metaphysical treatise. Again, the sonnet beginning + + With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide, + +is at once, as he has shown in a commentary of his own, an illustration +of a curious psychological law--of our tendency, that is, to introduce +an arbitrary principle of order into a random collection of +objects--and, for the same reason, a striking embodiment of the +corresponding mood of feeling. The little poem called 'Stepping +Westward' is in the same way at once a delicate expression of a specific +sentiment and an acute critical analysis of the subtle associations +suggested by a single phrase. But such illustrations might be multiplied +indefinitely. As he has himself said, there is scarcely one of his poems +which does not call attention to some moral sentiment, or to a general +principle or law of thought, of our intellectual constitution. + +Finally, we might look at the reverse side of the picture, and endeavour +to show how the narrow limits of Wordsworth's power are connected with +certain moral defects; with the want of quick sympathy which shows +itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which +caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather +commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he +assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many +thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would +be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to +console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy +happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to +think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;' +and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest +exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has +expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and +Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in +acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist. + +[25] The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this +connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint. + +[26] As, for example, in the _Lines on Tintern Abbey_: 'If this be but a +vain belief.' + +[27] See Wordsworth's reference to the _Wealth of Nations_, in the +_Prelude_, book xiii. + +[28] So, too, in the _Prelude_:-- + + Then was the truth received into my heart, + That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, + If from the affliction somewhere do not grow + Honour which could not else have been, a faith, + An elevation, and a sanctity; + If new strength be not given, nor old restored, + The fault is ours, not Nature's. + + + + +_LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS_ + + +When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works, +the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part +any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and +were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a +definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an +attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most +striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of +opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general +public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish +applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It +is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer literary palate than is +possessed by the vulgar herd are really so keenly appreciative as the +innocent reader of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in matters +of taste--whether of the literal or metaphorical kind--is the commonest +of vices. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are +more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed. I have heard very good +judges whisper in private that they have found Landor dull; and the rare +citations made from his works often betray a very perfunctory study of +them. Not long ago, for example, an able critic quoted a passage from +one of the 'Imaginary Conversations' to prove that Landor admired +Milton's prose, adding the remark that it might probably be taken as an +expression of his real sentiments, although put in the mouth of a +dramatic person. To anyone who has read Landor with ordinary attention, +it seems as absurd to speak in this hypothetical manner as it would be +to infer from some incidental allusion that Mr. Ruskin admires Turner. +Landor's adoration for Milton is one of the most conspicuous of his +critical propensities. There are, of course, many eulogies upon Landor +of undeniable weight. They are hearty, genuine, and from competent +judges. Yet the enthusiasm of such admirable critics as Mr. Emerson and +Mr. Lowell may be carped at by some who fancy that every American enjoys +a peculiar sense of complacency when rescuing an English genius from the +neglect of his own countrymen. If Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne have +been conspicuous in their admiration, it might be urged that neither of +them has too strong a desire to keep to that beaten highroad of the +commonplace, beyond which even the best guides meet with pitfalls. +Southey's praises of Landor were sincere and emphatic; but it must be +added that they provoke a recollection of one of Johnson's shrewd +remarks. 'The reciprocal civility of authors,' says the Doctor, 'is one +of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.' One forgives poor +Southey indeed for the vanity which enabled him to bear up so bravely +against anxiety and repeated disappointment; and if both he and Landor +found that 'reciprocal civility' helped them to bear the disregard of +contemporaries, one would not judge them harshly. It was simply a tacit +agreement to throw their harmless vanity into a common stock. Of Mr. +Forster, Landor's faithful friend and admirer, one can only say that in +his writing about Landor, as upon other topics, we are distracted +between the respect due to his strong feeling for the excellent in +literature, and the undeniable facts that his criticisms have a very +blunt edge, and that his eulogies are apt to be indiscriminate. + +Southey and Wordsworth had a simple method of explaining the neglect of +a great author. According to them, contemporary neglect affords a +negative presumption in favour of permanent reputation. No lofty poet +has honour in his own generation. Southey's conviction that his +ponderous epics would make the fortune of his children is a pleasant +instance of self-delusion. But the theory is generally admitted in +regard to Wordsworth; and Landor accepted and defended it with +characteristic vigour. 'I have published,' he says in the conversation +with Hare, 'five volumes of "Imaginary Conversations:" cut the worst of +them through the middle, and there will remain in the decimal fraction +enough to satisfy my appetite for fame. I shall dine late; but the +dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.' He recurs +frequently to the doctrine. 'Be patient!' he says, in another character. +'From the higher heavens of poetry it is long before the radiance of the +brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out +one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and +instruments on the poet's grave. The worms must have eaten us before we +rightly know what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are +boxed and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so! I shall not be tired +of waiting.' Conscious, as he says in his own person, that in 2,000 +years there have not been five volumes of prose (the work of one author) +equal to his 'Conversations,' he could indeed afford to wait: if +conscious of earthly things, he must be waiting still. + +This superlative self-esteem strikes one, to say the truth, as part of +Landor's abiding boyishness. It is only in schoolboy themes that we are +still inclined to talk about the devouring love of fame. Grown-up men +look rightly with some contempt upon such aspirations. What work a man +does is really done in, or at least through, his own generation; and the +posthumous fame which poets affect to value means, for the most part, +being known by name to a few antiquarians, schoolmasters, or secluded +students. When the poet, to adopt Landor's metaphor, has become a +luminous star, his superiority to those which have grown dim by distance +is indeed for the first time clearly demonstrated. We can still see him, +though other bodies of his system have vanished into the infinite depths +of oblivion. But he has also ceased to give appreciable warmth or light +to ordinary human beings. He is a splendid name, but not a living +influence. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to any +such statements, but I have a suspicion that even Shakespeare's chief +work may have been done in the Globe Theatre, to living audiences, who +felt what they never thought of criticising, and were quite unable to +measure; and that, spite of all æsthetic philosophers and minute +antiquarians and judicious revivals, his real influence upon men's minds +has been for the most part declining as his fame has been spreading. To +defend or fully expound this heretical dogma would take too much space. +The 'late-dinner' theory, however, as held by Wordsworth and Landor, is +subject to one less questionable qualification. It is an utterly +untenable proposition that great men have been generally overlooked in +their own day. + +If we run over the chief names of our literature, it would be hard to +point to one which was not honoured, and sometimes honoured to excess, +during its proprietor's lifetime. It is, indeed, true that much +ephemeral underwood has often hidden in part the majestic forms which +now stand out as sole relics of the forest. It is true also that the +petty spite and jealousy of contemporaries, especially of their ablest +contemporaries, has often prevented the full recognition of great men. +And there have been some whose fame, like that of Bunyan and De Foe, has +extended amongst the lower sphere of readers before receiving the +ratification of constituted judges. But such irregularities in the +distribution of fame do not quite meet the point. I doubt whether one +could mention a single case in which an author, overlooked at the time +both by the critics and the mass, has afterwards become famous; and the +cases are very rare in which a reputation once decayed has again taken +root and shown real vitality. The experiment of resuscitation has been +tried of late years with great pertinacity. The forgotten images of our +seventeenth-century ancestors have been brought out of the lumber-room +amidst immense flourishes of trumpets, but they are terribly worm-eaten; +and all efforts to make their statues once more stand firmly on their +pedestals have generally failed. Landor himself refused to see the +merits of the mere 'mushrooms,' as he somewhere called them, which grew +beneath the Shakespearian oak; and though such men as Chapman, Webster, +and Ford have received the warmest eulogies of Lamb and other able +successors, their vitality is spasmodic and uncertain. We generally read +them, if we read them, at the point of the critic's bayonet. + +The case of Wordsworth is no precedent for Landor. Wordsworth's fame +was for a long time confined to a narrow sect, and he did all in his +power to hinder its spread by wilful disregard of the established +canons--even when founded in reason. A reformer who will not court the +prejudices even of his friends is likely to be slow in making converts. +But it is one thing to be slow in getting a hearing, and another in +attracting men who are quite prepared to hear. Wordsworth resembled a +man coming into a drawing-room with muddy boots and a smock-frock. He +courted disgust, and such courtship is pretty sure of success. But +Landor made his bow in full court-dress. In spite of the difficulty of +his poetry, he had all the natural graces which are apt to propitiate +cultivated readers. His prose has merits so conspicuous and so dear to +the critical mind, that one might have expected his welcome from the +connoisseurs to be warm even beyond the limit of sincerity. To praise +him was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and +there can be no greater stimulus to critical enthusiasm. One might have +guessed that he would be a favourite with all who set up for a +discernment superior to that of the vulgar; though the causes which must +obstruct a wide recognition of his merits are sufficiently obvious. It +may be interesting to consider the cause of his ill-success with some +fulness; and it is a comfort to the critic to reflect that in such a +case even obtuseness is in some sort a qualification; for it will enable +one to sympathise with the vulgar insensibility to the offered delicacy, +if only to substitute articulate rejection for simple stolid silence. + +I do not wish, indeed, to put forward such a claim too unreservedly. I +will merely take courage to confess that Landor very frequently bores +me. So do a good many writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage +be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon +Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever +spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, +almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser +continuously. Even Milton in Landor's hands, in defiance of his known +opinions, is made to speak contemptuously of 'The Faery Queen.' 'There +is scarcely a poet of the same eminence,' says Porson, obviously +representing Landor in this case, 'whom I have found it so delightful to +read in, and so hard to read through.' What Landor here says of Spenser, +I should venture to say of Landor. There are few books of the kind into +which one may dip with so great a certainty of finding much to admire as +the 'Imaginary Conversations,' and few of any high reputation which are +so certain to become wearisome after a time. And yet, upon thinking of +the whole five volumes so emphatically extolled by their author, one +feels the necessity of some apology for this admission of inadequate +sympathy. There is a vigour of feeling, an originality of character, a +fineness of style which makes one understand, if not quite agree to, the +audacious self-commendation. Part of the effect is due simply to the +sheer quantity of good writing. Take any essay separately, and one must +admit that--to speak only of his contemporaries--there is a greater +charm in passages of equal length by Lamb, De Quincey, or even Hazlitt. +None of them gets upon such stilts, or seems so anxious to keep the +reader at arm's length. But, on the other hand, there is something +imposing in so continuous a flow of stately and generally faultless +English, with so many weighty aphorisms rising spontaneously, without +splashing or disturbance, to the surface of talk, and such an easy +felicity of theme unmarred by the flash and glitter of the modern +epigrammatic style. Lamb is both sweeter and more profound, to say +nothing of his incomparable humour; but then Lamb's flight is short and +uncertain. De Quincey's passages of splendid rhetoric are too often +succeeded by dead levels of verbosity and laboured puerilities which +make annoyance alternate with enthusiasm. Hazlitt is often spasmodic, +and his intrusive egotism is pettish and undignified. But so far at +least as his style is concerned, Landor's unruffled abundant stream of +continuous harmony excites one's admiration the more the longer one +reads. Hardly anyone who has written so much has kept so uniformly to a +high level, and so seldom descended to empty verbosity or to downright +slipshod. It is true that the substance does not always correspond to +the perfection of the form. There are frequent discontinuities of +thought where the style is smoothest. He reminds one at times of those +Alpine glaciers where an exquisitely rounded surface of snow conceals +yawning crevasses beneath; and if one stops for a moment to think, one +is apt to break through the crust with an abrupt and annoying jerk. + +The excellence of Landor's style has, of course, been universally +acknowledged, and it is natural that it should be more appreciated by +his fellow-craftsmen than by general readers less interested in +technical questions. The defects are the natural complements of its +merits. When accused of being too figurative, he had a ready reply. +'Wordsworth,' he says in one of his 'Conversations,' 'slithers on the +soft mud, and cannot stop himself until he comes down. In his poetry +there is as much of prose as there is of poetry in the prose of Milton. +But prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the +other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose, +and neither fan nor burnt feather can bring her to herself again.' The +remark about the relations of prose and poetry was originally made in a +real conversation with Wordsworth in defence of Landor's own luxuriance. +Wordsworth, it is said, took it to himself, and not without reason, as +appears by its insertion in this 'Conversation.' The retort, however +happy, is no more conclusive than other cases of the _tu quoque_. We are +too often inclined to say to Landor as Southey says to Porson in another +place: 'Pray leave these tropes and metaphors.' His sense suffers from a +superfetation of figures, or from the undue pursuit of a figure, till +the 'wind of the poor phrase is cracked.' In the phrase just quoted, for +example, we could dispense with the 'fan and burnt feather,' which have +very little relation to the thought. So, to take an instance of the +excessively florid, I may quote the phrase in which Marvell defends his +want of respect for the aristocracy of his day. 'Ever too hard upon +great men, Mr. Marvell!' says Bishop Parker; and Marvell replies:-- + + Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows because + our sun is setting; the men so little and the places so + lofty that, casting my pebble, I only show where they stand. + They would be less contented with themselves, if they had + obtained their preferment honestly. Luck and dexterity + always give more pleasure than intellect and knowledge; + because they fill up what they fall on to the brim at once; + and people run to them with acclamations at the splash. + Wisdom is reserved and noiseless, contented with hard + earnings, and daily letting go some early acquisition to + make room for better specimens. But great is the exultation + of a worthless man when he receives for the chips and + raspings of his Bridewell logwood a richer reward than the + best and wisest for extensive tracts of well-cleared truths! + Even he who has sold his country-- + +'Forbear, good Mr. Marvell,' says Bishop Parker; and one is inclined to +sympathise with the poor man drowned under this cascade of tropes. It is +certainly imposing, but I should be glad to know the meaning of the +metaphor about 'luck and dexterity.' Passages occur, again, in which we +are tempted to think that Landor is falling into an imitation of an +obsolete model. Take, for example, the following:-- + + A narrow mind cannot be enlarged, nor can a capacious one be + contracted. Are we angry with a phial for not being a flask; + or do we wonder that the skin of an elephant sits uneasily + on a squirrel? + +Or this, in reference to Wordsworth:-- + + Pastiness and flatness are the qualities of a pancake, and + thus far he attained his aim: but if he means it for me, let + him place the accessories on the table, lest what is insipid + and clammy ... grow into duller accretion and moister + viscidity the more I masticate it. + +Or a remark given to Newton:-- + + Wherever there is vacuity of mind, there must either be + flaccidity or craving; and this vacuity must necessarily be + found in the greater part of princes, from the defects of + their education, from the fear of offending them in its + progress by interrogations and admonitions, from the habit + of rendering all things valueless by the facility with which + they are obtained, and transitory by the negligence with + which they are received and holden. + +Should we not remove the names of Porson and Newton from these +sentences, and substitute Sam Johnson? The last passage reads very like +a quotation from the 'Rambler.' Johnson was, in my opinion and in +Landor's, a great writer in spite of his mannerism; but the mannerism is +always rather awkward, and in such places we seem to see--certainly not +a squirrel--but, say, a thoroughbred horse invested with the skin of an +elephant. + +These lapses into the inflated are of course exceptional with Landor. +There can be no question of the fineness of his perception in all +matters of literary form. To say that his standard of style is classical +is to repeat a commonplace too obvious for repetition, except to add a +doubt whether he is not often too ostentatious and self-conscious in his +classicism. He loves and often exhibits a masculine simplicity, and +speaks with enthusiasm of Locke and Swift in their own departments. +Locke is to be 'revered;' he is 'too simply grand for admiration;' and +no one, he thinks, ever had such a power as Swift of saying forcibly and +completely whatever he meant to say. But for his own purposes he +generally prefers a different model. The qualities which he specially +claims seem to be summed up in the conversation upon Bacon's Essays +between Newton and Barrow. Cicero and Bacon, says Barrow, have more +wisdom between them than all the philosophers of antiquity. Newton's +review of the Essays, he adds, 'hath brought back to my recollection so +much of shrewd judgment, so much of rich imagery, such a profusion of +truths so plain as (without his manner of exhibiting them) to appear +almost unimportant, that in various high qualities of the human mind I +must acknowledge not only Cicero, but every prose writer among the +Greeks, to stand far below him. Cicero is least valued for his highest +merits, his fulness, and his perspicuity. Bad judges (and how few are +not so!) desire in composition the concise and obscure; not knowing that +the one most frequently arises from paucity of materials, and the other +from inability to manage and dispose them.' Landor aims, like Bacon, at +rich imagery, at giving to thoughts which appear plain more value by +fineness of expression, and at compressing shrewd judgments into weighty +aphorisms. He would equally rival Cicero in fulness and perspicuity; +whilst a severe rejection of everything slovenly or superfluous would +save him from ever deviating into the merely florid. So far as style can +be really separated from thought, we may admit unreservedly that he has +succeeded in his aim, and has attained a rare harmony of tone and +colouring. + +There may, indeed, be some doubt as to his perspicuity. Southey said +that Landor was obscure, whilst adding that he could not explain the +cause of the obscurity. Causes enough may be suggested. Besides his +incoherency, his love of figures which sometimes become half detached +from the underlying thought, and an over-anxiety to avoid mere smartness +which sometimes leads to real vagueness, he expects too much from his +readers, or perhaps despises them too much. He will not condescend to +explanation if you do not catch his drift at half a word. He is so +desirous to round off his transitions gracefully, that he obliterates +the necessary indications of the main divisions of the subject. When +criticising Milton or Dante, he can hardly keep his hand off the finest +passages in his desire to pare away superfluities. Treating himself in +the same fashion, he leaves none of those little signs which, like the +typographical hand prefixed to a notice, are extremely convenient, +though strictly superfluous. It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard +framework of logical divisions showing too distinctly in an argument, or +to have a too elaborate statement of dates and places and external +relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may be removed too +freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffolding. +Faults of this kind, however, will not explain Landor's failure to get a +real hold upon a large body of readers. Writers of far greater obscurity +and much more repellent blemishes of style to set against much lower +merits, have gained a far wider popularity. The want of sympathy between +so eminent a literary artist and his time must rest upon some deeper +divergence of sentiment. Landor's writings present the same kind of +problem as his life. We are told, and we can see for ourselves, that he +was a man of many very high and many very amiable qualities. He was full +of chivalrous feeling; capable of the most flowing and delicate +courtesy; easily stirred to righteous indignation against every kind of +tyranny and bigotry; capable, too, of a tenderness pleasantly contrasted +with his outbursts of passing wrath; passionately fond of children, and +a true lover of dogs. But with all this, he could never live long at +peace with anybody. He was the most impracticable of men, and every +turning-point in his career was decided by some vehement quarrel. He had +to leave school in consequence of a quarrel, trifling in itself, but +aggravated by 'a fierce defiance of all authority and a refusal to ask +forgiveness.' He got into a preposterous scrape at Oxford, and forced +the authorities to rusticate him. This branched out into a quarrel with +his father. When he set up as a country gentleman at Llanthony Abbey, he +managed to quarrel with his neighbours and his tenants, until the +accumulating consequences to his purse forced him to go to Italy. On the +road thither he began the first of many quarrels with his wife, which +ultimately developed into a chronic quarrel and drove him back to +England. From England he was finally dislodged by another quarrel which +drove him back to Italy. Intermediate quarrels of minor importance are +intercalated between those which provoked decisive crises. The +lightheartedness which provoked all these difficulties is not more +remarkable than the ease with which he threw them off his mind. Blown +hither and thither by his own gusts of passion, he always seems to fall +on his feet, and forgets his trouble as a schoolboy forgets yesterday's +flogging. On the first transitory separation from his wife, he made +himself quite happy by writing Latin verses; and he always seems to have +found sufficient consolation in such literary occupation for vexations +which would have driven some people out of their mind. He would not, he +writes, encounter the rudeness of a certain lawyer to save all his +property; but he adds, 'I have chastised him in my Latin poetry now in +the press.' Such a mode of chastisement seems to have been as completely +satisfactory to Landor as it doubtless was to the lawyer. + +His quarrels do not alienate us, for it is evident that they did not +proceed from any malignant passion. If his temper was ungovernable, his +passions were not odious, or, in any low sense, selfish. In many, if not +all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of +right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive +insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people +who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing +to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense +of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against +stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance of shrewd +sense which fully appreciates Falstaff's theory of honour. Scott himself +managed to combine the two qualities; but poor Landor seems to have had +Hotspur's readiness to quarrel on the tenth part of a hair without the +redeeming touch of common-sense. In a slightly different social sphere, +he must, one would fancy, have been the mark of a dozen bullets before +he had grown up to manhood; it is not quite clear how, even as it was, +he avoided duels, unless because he regarded the practice as a Christian +barbarism to which the ancients had never condescended. + +His position and surroundings tended to aggravate his incoherencies of +statement. Like his own Peterborough, he was a man of aristocratic +feeling, with a hearty contempt for aristocrats. The expectation that he +would one day join the ranks of the country gentlemen unsettled him as a +scholar; and when he became a landed proprietor he despised his fellow +'barbarians' with a true scholar's contempt. He was not forced into the +ordinary professional groove, and yet did not fully imbibe the +prejudices of the class who can afford to be idle, and the natural +result is an odd mixture of conflicting prejudices. He is classical in +taste and cosmopolitan in life, and yet he always retains a certain +John-Bull element. His preference of Shakespeare to Racine is associated +with, if not partly prompted by, a mere English antipathy to foreigners. +He never becomes Italianised so far as to lose his contempt for men +whose ideas of sport rank larks with the orthodox partridge. He abuses +Castlereagh and poor George III. to his heart's content, and so far +flies in the face of British prejudice; but it is by no means as a +sympathiser with foreign innovations. His republicanism is strongly +dashed with old-fashioned conservatism, and he is proud of a doubtful +descent from old worthies of the true English type. Through all his +would-be paganism we feel that at bottom he is after all a true-born +and wrong-headed Englishman. He never, like Shelley, pushed his quarrel +with the old order to the extreme, but remained in a solitary cave of +Adullam. 'There can be no great genius,' says Penn to Peterborough, +'where there is not profound and continued reasoning.' The remark is too +good for Penn; and yet it would be dangerous in Landor's own mouth; for +certainly the defect which most strikes us, both in his life and his +writings, is just the inconsistency which leaves most people as the +reasoning powers develop. His work was marred by the unreasonableness of +a nature so impetuous and so absorbed by any momentary gust of passion +that he could never bring his thoughts or his plans to a focus, or +conform them to a general scheme. His prejudices master him both in +speculation and practice. He cannot fairly rise above them, or govern +them by reference to general principles or the permanent interests of +his life. In the vulgar phrase, he is always ready to cut off his nose +to spite his face. He quarrels with his schoolmaster or his wife. In an +instant he is all fire and fury, runs amuck at his best friends, and +does irreparable mischief. Some men might try to atone for such offences +by remorse. Landor, unluckily for himself, could forget the past as +easily as he could ignore the future. He lives only in the present, and +can throw himself into a favourite author or compose Latin verses or an +imaginary conversation as though schoolmasters or wives, or duns or +critics, had no existence. With such a temperament, reasoning, which +implies patient contemplation and painful liberation from prejudice, has +no fair chance; his principles are not the growth of thought, but the +translation into dogmas of intense likes and dislikes, which have grown +up in his mind he scarcely knows how, and gathered strength by sheer +force of repetition instead of deliberate examination. + +His writings reflect--and in some ways only too faithfully--these +idiosyncrasies. Southey said that his temper was the only explanation of +his faults. 'Never did man represent himself in his writings so much +less generous, less just, less compassionate, less noble in all respects +than he really is. I certainly,' he adds, 'never knew anyone of brighter +genius or of kinder heart.' Southey, no doubt, was in this case +resenting certain attacks of Landor's upon his most cherished opinions; +and, truly, nothing but continuous separation could have preserved the +friendship between two men so peremptorily opposed upon so many +essential points. Southey's criticism, though sharpened by such latent +antagonisms, has really much force. The 'Conversations' give much that +Landor's friends would have been glad to ignore; and yet they present +such a full-length portrait of the man, that it is better to dwell upon +them than upon his poetry, which, moreover, with all its fine qualities, +is (I cannot help thinking) of less intrinsic value. The ordinary +reader, however, is repelled from the 'Conversations' not only by mere +inherent difficulties, but by comments which raise a false expectation. +An easy-going critic is apt to assume of any book that it exactly +fulfils the ostensible aim of the author. So we are told of +'Shakespeare's Examination' (and on the high authority of Charles Lamb), +that no one could have written it except Landor or Shakespeare himself. +When Bacon is introduced, we are assured that the aphorisms introduced +are worthy of Bacon himself. What Cicero is made to say is exactly what +he would have said, 'if he could;' and the dialogue between Walton, +Cotton, and Oldways is, of course, as good as a passage from the +'Complete Angler.' In the same spirit we are told that the dialogues +were to be 'one-act dramas;' and we are informed how the great +philosophers, statesmen, poets, and artists of all ages did in fact pass +across the stage, each represented to the life, and each discoursing in +his most admirable style. + +All this is easy to say, but unluckily represents what the +'Conversations' would have been had they been perfect. To say that they +are very far from perfect is only to say that they were the compositions +of a man; but Landor was also a man to whom his best friends would +hardly attribute a remarkable immunity from fault. The dialogue, it need +hardly be remarked, is one of the most difficult of all forms of +composition. One rule, however, would be generally admitted. Landor +defends his digressions on the ground that they always occur in real +conversations. If we 'adhere to one point,' he says (in Southey's +person), 'it is a disquisition, not a conversation.' And he adds, with +one of his wilful back-handed blows at Plato, that most writers of +dialogue plunge into abstruse questions, and 'collect a heap of +arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiff of some rhetorical +charlatan tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons for the occasion.' +Possibly! but for all that, the perfect dialogue ought not, we should +say, to be really incoherent. It should include digressions, but the +digressions ought to return upon the main subject. The art consists in +preserving real unity in the midst of the superficial deviations +rendered easy by this form of composition. The facility of digression is +really a temptation, not a privilege. Anybody can write blank verse of a +kind, because it so easily slips into prose; and that is why good blank +verse is so rare. And so anybody can write a decent dialogue if you +allow him to ramble as we all do in actual talk. The finest +philosophical dialogues are those in which a complete logical framework +underlies the dramatic structure. They are a perfect fusion of logic and +imagination. Instead of harsh divisions and cross-divisions of the +subject, and a balance of abstract arguments, we have vivid portraits of +human beings, each embodying a different line of thought. But the logic +is still seen, though the more carefully hidden the more exquisite the +skill of the artist. And the purely artistic dialogue which describes +passion or the emotions arising from a given situation should in the +same way set forth a single idea, and preserve a dramatic unity of +conception at least as rigidly as a full-grown play. So far as Landor +used his facilities as an excuse for rambling, instead of so skilfully +subordinating them to the main purpose as to reproduce new variations on +the central theme, he is clearly in error, or is at least aiming at a +lower kind of excellence. And this, it may be said at once, seems to be +the most radical defect in point of composition of Landor's +'Conversations.' They have the fault which his real talk is said to have +exemplified. We are told that his temperament 'disqualified him for +anything like sustained reasoning, and he instinctively backed away from +discussion or argument.' Many of the written dialogues are a prolonged +series of explosions; when one expects a continuous development of a +theme, they are monotonous thunder-growls. Landor undoubtedly had a +sufficient share of dramatic power to write short dialogues expressing a +single situation with most admirable power, delicacy, and firmness of +touch. Nor, again, does the criticism just made refer to those longer +dialogues which are in reality a mere string of notes upon poems or +proposals for reforms in spelling. The slight dramatic form binds +together his pencillings from the margins of 'Paradise Lost' or +Wordsworth's poems very pleasantly, and enables him to give additional +effect to vivacious outbursts of praise or censure. But the more +elaborate dialogues suffer grievously from this absence of a true unity. +There is not that skilful evolution of a central idea without the rigid +formality of scientific discussion which we admire in the real +masterpieces of the art. We have a conglomerate, not an organic growth; +a series of observations set forth with never-failing elegance of style, +and often with singular keenness of perception; but they do not take us +beyond the starting-point. When Robinson Crusoe crossed the Pyrenees, +his guide led him by such dexterous windings and gradual ascents that he +found himself across the mountains before he knew where he was. With +Landor it is just the opposite. After many digressions and ramblings we +find ourselves back on the same side of the original question. We are +marking time with admirable gracefulness, but somehow we are not +advancing. Naturally flesh and blood grow weary when there is no +apparent end to a discussion, except that the author must in time be +wearied of performing variations upon a single theme. + +We are more easily reconciled to some other faults which are rather due +to expectations raised by his critics than to positive errors. No one, +for example, would care to notice an anachronism, if Landor did not +occasionally put in a claim for accuracy. I have no objection whatever +to allow Hooker to console Bacon for his loss of the chancellorship, in +calm disregard of the fact that Hooker died some twenty years before +Bacon rose to that high office. The fault can be amended by substituting +any other name for Hooker's. Nor do I at all wish to find in Landor +that kind of archæological accuracy which is sought by some composers of +historical romances. Were it not that critics have asserted the +opposite, it would be hardly worth while to say that Landor's style +seldom condescends to adapt itself to the mouth of the speaker, and that +from Demosthenes to Porson every interlocutor has palpably the true +Landorian trick of speech. Here and there, it is true, the effect is +rather unpleasant. Pericles and Aspasia are apt to indulge in criticism +of English customs, and no weak regard for time and place prevents +Eubulides from denouncing Canning to Demosthenes. The classical dress +becomes so thin on such occasions, that even the small degree of +illusion which one may fairly desiderate is too rudely interrupted. The +actor does not disguise his voice enough for theatrical purposes. It is +perhaps a more serious fault that the dialogue constantly lapses into +monologue. We might often remove the names of the talkers as useless +interruptions. Some conversations might as well be headed, in legal +phraseology, Landor _v._ Landor, or at most Landor _v._ Landor and +another--the other being some wretched man of straw or Guy Faux effigy +dragged in to be belaboured with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive +nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the +name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be +made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his +philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two to represent +his smashing retorts. + +There is yet another criticism or two to be added. The extreme +scrupulosity with which Landor polishes his style and removes +superfluities from poetical narrative, smoothing them at times till we +can hardly grasp them, might have been applied to some of the wanton +digressions in which the dialogues abound. We should have been glad if +he had ruthlessly cut out two-thirds of the conversation between +Richelieu and others, in which some charming English pastorals are mixed +up with a quantity of unmistakable rubbish. But, for the most part, we +can console ourselves by a smile. When Landor lowers his head and +charges bull-like at the phantom of some king or priest, we are prepared +for, and amused by, his impetuosity. Malesherbes discourses with great +point and vigour upon French literature, and may fairly diverge into a +little politics; but it is certainly comic when he suddenly remembers +one of Landor's pet grievances, and the unlucky Rousseau has to discuss +a question for which few people could be more ludicrously unfit--the +details of a plan for reforming the institution of English justices of +the peace. The grave dignity with which the subject is introduced gives +additional piquancy to the absurdity. An occasional laugh at Landor is +the more valuable because, to say the truth, one is not very likely to +laugh with him. Nothing is more difficult for an author--as Landor +himself observes in reference to Milton--than to decide upon his own +merits as a wit or humorist. I am not quite sure that this is true; for +I have certainly found authors distinctly fallible in judging of their +own merits as poets and philosophers. But it is undeniable that many a +man laughs at his own wit who has to laugh alone. I will not take upon +myself to say that Landor was without humour; he has certainly a +delicate gracefulness which may be classed with the finer kinds of +humour; but if anybody (to take one instance) will read the story which +Chaucer tells to Boccaccio and Petrarch and pronounce it to be amusing, +I can only say that his notions of humour differ materially from mine. +Some of his wrathful satire against kings and priests has a vigour which +is amusing; but the tact which enables him to avoid errors of taste of a +different kind often fails him when he tries the facetious. + +Blemishes such as these go some way, perhaps, to account for Landor's +unpopularity. But they are such as might be amply redeemed by his +vigour, his fulness, and unflagging energy of style. There is no equally +voluminous author of great power who does not fall short of his own +highest achievements in a large part of his work, and who is not open to +the remark that his achievements are not all that we could have wished. +It is doubtless best to take what we can get, and not to repine if we do +not get something better, the possibility of which is suggested by the +actual accomplishment. If Landor had united to his own powers those of +Scott or Shakespeare, he would have been improved. Landor, repenting a +little for some censures of Milton, says to Southey, 'Are we not +somewhat like two little beggar-boys who, forgetting that they are in +tatters, sit noticing a few stains and rents in their father's raiment?' +'But they love him,' replies Southey, and we feel the apology to be +sufficient. + +Can we make it in the case of Landor? Is he a man whom we can take to +our hearts, treating his vagaries and ill-humours as we do the testiness +of a valued friend? Or do we feel that he is one whom it is better to +have for an acquaintance than for an intimate? The problem seems to have +exercised those who knew him best in life. Many, like Southey or Napier, +thought him a man of true nobility and tenderness of character, and +looked upon his defects as mere superficial blemishes. If some who came +closer seem to have had a rather different opinion, we must allow that +a man's personal defects are often unimportant in his literary capacity. +It has been laid down as a general rule that poets cannot get on with +their wives; and yet they are poets in virtue of being lovable at the +core. Landor's domestic troubles need not indicate an incapacity for +meeting our sympathies any more than the domestic troubles of +Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Burns, Byron, Shelley, or many others. In +his poetry a man should show his best self; and defects, important in +the daily life which is made up of trifles, may cease to trouble us when +admitted to the inmost recesses of his nature. + +Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved +unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the +form to the substance--from the manner in which his message is delivered +to the message itself--we find that the superficial defects rise from +very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we +find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. He +has pronounced himself upon a wide range of subjects; there is much +criticism, some of it of a very rare and admirable order; much +theological and political disquisition; and much exposition, in various +forms, of the practical philosophy which every man imbibes according to +his faculties in his passage through the world. It would be undesirable +to discuss seriously his political or religious notions. To say the +truth, they are not really worth discussing, for they are little more +than vehement explosions of unreasoning prejudice. I do not know whether +Landor would have approved the famous aspiration about strangling the +last of kings with the entrails of the last priest, but some such +sentiment seems to sum up all that he really has to say. His doctrine +so far coincides with that of Diderot and other revolutionists, though +he has no sympathy with their social aspirations. His utterances, +however, remind us too much--in substance, though not in form--of the +rhetoric of debating societies. They are as factitious as the +old-fashioned appeals to the memory of Brutus. They would doubtless make +a sensation at the Union. Diogenes tells us that 'all nations, all +cities, all communities, should combine in one great hunt, like that of +the Scythians at the approach of winter, and follow it' (the kingly +power, to wit) 'up, unrelentingly to its perdition. The diadem should +designate the victim; all who wear it, all who offer it, all who bow to +it, should perish.' Demosthenes, in less direct language, announces the +same plan to Eubulides as the one truth, far more important than any +other, and 'more conducive to whatever is desirable to the well-educated +and free.' We laugh, not because the phrase is overstrained, or intended +to have a merely dramatic truth, for Landor puts similar sentiments into +the mouths of all his favourite speakers, but simply because we feel it +to be a mere form of swearing. The language would have been less +elegant, but the meaning just the same, if he had rapped out a good +mouth-filling oath whenever he heard the name of king. When, in +reference to some such utterances, Carlyle said that 'Landor's principle +is mere rebellion,' Landor was much nettled, and declared himself to be +in favour of authority. He despised American republicanism and regarded +Venice as the pattern State. He sympathised in this, as in much else, +with the theorists of Milton's time, and would have been approved by +Harrington or Algernon Sidney; but, for all that, Carlyle seems pretty +well to have hit the mark. Such republicanism is in reality nothing +more than the political expression of intense pride, or, if you prefer +the word, self-respect. It is the sentiment of personal dignity, which +could not bear the thought that he, Landor, should have to bow the knee +to a fool like George III.; or that Milton should have been regarded as +the inferior of such a sneak as Charles I. But the same feeling would +have been just as much shocked by the claim of a demagogue to override +high-spirited gentlemen. Mobs were every whit as vile as kings. He might +have stood for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, if Coriolanus had not an +unfortunate want of taste in his language. Landor, indeed, being never +much troubled as to consistency, is fond of dilating on the absurdity of +any kind of hereditary rank; but he sympathises, to his last fibre, with +the spirit fostered by the existence of an aristocratic caste, and +producible, so far as our experience has gone, in no other way. He is +generous enough to hate all oppression in every form, and therefore to +hate the oppression exercised by a noble as heartily as oppression +exercised by a king. He is a big boy ready to fight anyone who bullies +his fag; but with no doubts as to the merits of fagging. But then he +never chooses to look at the awkward consequences of his opinion. When +talking of politics, an aristocracy full of virtue and talent, ruling on +generous principles a people sufficiently educated to obey its natural +leaders, is the ideal which is vaguely before his mind. To ask how it is +to be produced without hereditary rank, or to be prevented from +degenerating into a tyrannical oligarchy, or to be reconciled at all +with modern principles, is simply to be impertinent. He answers all such +questions by putting himself in imagination into the attitude of a +Pericles or Demosthenes or Milton, fulminating against tyrants and +keeping the mob in its place by the ascendency of genius. To recommend +Venice as a model is simply to say that you have nothing but contempt +for all politics. It is as if a lad should be asked whether he preferred +to join a cavalry or an infantry regiment, and should reply that he +would only serve under Leonidas. + +His religious principles are in the same way little more than the +assertion that he will not be fettered in mind or body by any priest on +earth. The priest is to him what he was to the deists and materialists +of the eighteenth century--a juggling impostor who uses superstition as +an instrument for creeping into the confidence of women and cowards, and +burning brave men; but he has no dreams of the advent of a religion of +reason. He ridicules the notion that truth will prevail: it never has +and it never will. At bottom he prefers paganism to Christianity because +it was tolerant and encouraged art, and allowed philosophers to enjoy as +much privilege as they can ever really enjoy--that of living in peace +and knowing that their neighbours are harmless fools. After a fashion he +likes his own version of Christianity, which is superficially that of +many popular preachers: Be tolerant, kindly, and happy, and don't worry +your head about dogmas, or become a slave to priests. But then one also +feels that humility is generally regarded as an essential part of +Christianity, and that in Landor's version it is replaced by something +like its antithesis. You should do good, too, as you respect yourself +and would be respected by men; but the chief good is the philosophic +mind, which can wrap itself in its own consciousness of worth, and enjoy +the finest pleasures of life without superstitious asceticism. Let the +vulgar amuse themselves with the playthings of their creed, so long as +they do not take to playing with faggots. Stand apart and enjoy your +own superiority with good-natured contempt. + +One of his longest and, in this sense, most characteristic dialogues, is +that between Penn and Peterborough. Peterborough is the ideal aristocrat +with a contempt for the actual aristocracy; and Penn represents the +religion of common-sense. 'Teach men to calculate rightly and thou wilt +have taught them to live religiously,' is Penn's sentiment, and perhaps +not too unfaithful to the original. No one could have a more thorough +contempt for the mystical element in Quakerism than Landor; but he loves +Quakers as sober, industrious, easy-going people, who regard good-humour +and comfort as the ultimate aim of religious life, and who manage to do +without lawyers or priests. Peterborough, meanwhile, represents his +other side--the haughty, energetic, cultivated aristocrat, who, on the +ground of their common aversions, can hold out a friendly hand to the +quiet Quaker. Landor, of course, is both at once. He is the noble who +rather enjoys giving a little scandal at times to his drab-suited +companion; but, on the whole, thinks that it would be an excellent world +if the common people would adopt this harmless form of religion, which +tolerates other opinions and does not give any leverage to kings, +insolvent aristocrats, or intriguing bishops. + +Landor's critical utterances reveal the same tendencies. Much of the +criticism has of course an interest of its own. It is the judgment of a +real master of language upon many technical points of style, and the +judgment, moreover, of a poet who can look even upon classical poets as +one who breathes the same atmosphere at an equal elevation, and who +speaks out like a cultivated gentleman, not as a schoolmaster or a +specialist. But putting aside this and the crotchets about spelling, +which have been dignified with the name of philological theories, the +general direction of his sympathies is eminently characteristic. Landor +of course pays the inevitable homage to the great names of Plato, Dante, +and Shakespeare, and yet it would be scarcely unfair to say that he +hates Plato, that Dante gives him far more annoyance than pleasure, and +that he really cares little for Shakespeare. The last might be denied on +the ground of isolated expressions. 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says, +'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born +ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and +seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes +brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is +dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of +'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be +pacified by the fairly-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed +plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakespeare.' That is his genuine +impression. Some readers may appeal to that 'Examination of Shakespeare' +which (as we have seen) was held by Lamb to be beyond the powers of any +other writer except its hero. I confess that, in my opinion, Lamb could +have himself drawn a far more sympathetic portrait of Shakespeare, and +that Scott would have brought out the whole scene with incomparably +greater vividness. Call it a morning in an English country-house in the +sixteenth century, and it will be full of charming passages along with +some laborious failures. But when we are forced to think of Slender and +Shallow, and Sir Hugh Evans, and the Shakespearian method of +portraiture, the personages in Landor's talk seem half asleep and +terribly given to twaddle. His view of Dante is less equivocal. In the +whole 'Inferno,' Petrarca (evidently representing Landor) finds nothing +admirable but the famous descriptions of Francesca and Ugolino. They are +the 'greater and lesser oases' in a vast desert. And he would pare one +of these fine passages to the quick, whilst the other provokes the +remark ('we must whisper it') that Dante is 'the great master of the +disgusting.' He seems really to prefer Boccaccio and Ovid, to say +nothing of Homer and Virgil. Plato is denounced still more unsparingly. +From Aristotle and Diogenes down to Lord Chatham, assailants are set on +to worry him, and tear to pieces his gorgeous robes with just an +occasional perfunctory apology. Even Lady Jane Grey is deprived of her +favourite. She consents on Ascham's petition to lay aside books, but she +excepts Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Polybius: the 'others I do +resign;' they are good for the arbour and garden walk, but not for the +fireside or pillow. This is surely to wrong the poor soul; but Landor is +intolerant in his enthusiasm for his philosophical favourites. Epicurus +is the teacher whom he really delights to honour, and Cicero is forced +to confess in his last hours that he has nearly come over to the camp of +his old adversary. + +It is easy to interpret the meaning of these prejudices. Landor hates +and despises the romantic and the mystic. He has not the least feeling +for the art which owes its powers to suggestions of the infinite, or to +symbols forced into grotesqueness by the effort to express that for +which no thought can be adequate. He refuses to bother himself with +allegory or dreamy speculation, and, unlike Sir T. Browne, hates to lose +himself in an 'O Altitudo!' He cares nothing for Dante's inner thoughts, +and sees only a hideous chamber of horrors in the 'Inferno.' Plato is a +mere compiler of idle sophistries, and contemptible to the common-sense +and worldly wisdom of Locke and Bacon. In the same spirit he despised +Wordsworth's philosophising as heartily as Jeffrey, and, though he tried +to be just, could really see nothing in him except the writer of good +rustic idylls, and of one good piece of paganism, the 'Laodamia.'[29] +From such a point of view he ranks him below Burns, Scott, and Cowper, +and makes poor Southey consent--Southey who ranked Wordsworth with +Milton! + +These tendencies are generally summed up by speaking of Landor's +objectivity and Hellenism. I have no particular objection to those words +except that they seem rather vague and to leave our problem untouched. A +man may be as 'objective' as you please in a sense, and as thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of Greek art, and yet may manage to fall in with +the spirit of our own times. The truth is, I fancy, that a simpler name +may be given to Landor's tastes, and that we may find them exemplified +nearer home. There is many a good country gentleman who rides well to +hounds, and is most heartily 'objective' in the sense of hating +metaphysics and elaborate allegory and unintelligible art, and +preferring a glass of wine and a talk with a charming young lady to +mystic communings with the world-spirit; and as for Landor's Hellenism, +that surely ought not to be an uncommon phenomenon in the region of +English public schools. It is an odd circumstance that we should be so +much puzzled by the very man who seems to realise precisely that ideal +of culture upon which our most popular system of education is apparently +moulded. Here at last is a man who is really simple-minded enough to +take the habit of writing Latin verses seriously; making it a +consolation in trouble as well as an elegant amusement. He hopes to rest +his fame upon it, and even by a marvellous _tour de force_ writes a +great deal of English poetry which for all the world reads exactly like +a first-rate copy of modern Greek Iambics. For once we have produced +just what the system ought constantly to produce, and yet we cannot make +him out. + +The reason for our not producing more Landors is indeed pretty simple. +Men of real poetic genius are exceedingly rare at all times, and it is +still rarer to find such a man who remains a schoolboy all his life. +Landor is precisely a glorified and sublime edition of the model +sixth-form lad, only with an unusually strong infusion of schoolboy +perversion. Perverse lads, indeed, generally kick over the traces at an +earlier point: and refuse to learn anything. Boys who take kindly to the +classical system are generally good--that is to say, docile. They +develop into prosaic tutors and professors; or, when the cares of life +begin to press, they start their cargo of classical lumber and fill the +void with law or politics. Landor's peculiar temperament led him to kick +against authority, whilst he yet imbibed the spirit of the teaching +fully, and in some respects rather too fully. He was a rebel against the +outward form, and yet more faithful in spirit than most of the obedient +subjects. + +The impatient and indomitable temper which made quiet or continuous +meditation impossible, and the accidental circumstances of his life, +left him in possession of qualities which are in most men subdued or +expelled by the hard discipline of life. Brought into impulsive +collision with all kinds of authorities, he set up a kind of schoolboy +republicanism, and used all his poetic eloquence to give it an air of +reality. But he never cared to bring it into harmony with any definite +system of thought, or let his outbursts of temper transport him into +settled antagonism with accepted principles. He troubled himself just as +little about theological as about political theories; he was as utterly +impervious as the dullest of squires to the mystic philosophy imported +by Coleridge, and found the world quite rich enough in sources of +enjoyment without tormenting himself about the unseen, and the ugly +superstitions which thrive in mental twilight. But he had quarrelled +with parsons as much as with lawyers, and could not stand the thought of +a priest interfering with his affairs or limiting his amusements. And so +he set up as a tolerant and hearty disciple of Epicurus. Chivalrous +sentiment and an exquisite perception of the beautiful saved him from +any gross interpretation of his master's principles; although, to say +the truth, he shows an occasional laxity on some points which savours of +the easy-going pagan, or perhaps of the noble of the old school. As he +grew up he drank deep of English literature, and sympathised with the +grand republican pride of Milton--as sturdy a rebel as himself, and a +still nobler because more serious rhetorician. He went to Italy, and, as +he imbibed Italian literature, sympathised with the joyous spirit of +Boccaccio and the eternal boyishness of classical art. Mediævalism and +all mystic philosophies remained unintelligible to this true-born +Englishman. Irritated rather than humbled by his incapacity, he cast +them aside, pretty much as a schoolboy might throw a Plato at the head +of a pedantic master. + +The best and most attractive dialogues are those in which he can give +free play to this Epicurean sentiment; forget his political mouthing, +and inoculate us for the moment with the spirit of youthful enjoyment. +Nothing can be more perfectly charming in its way than Epicurus in his +exquisite garden, discoursing on his pleasant knoll, where, with +violets, cyclamens, and convolvuluses clustering round, he talks to his +lovely girl-disciples upon the true theory of life--temperate enjoyment +of all refined pleasures, forgetfulness of all cares, and converse with +true chosen spirits far from the noise of the profane vulgar: of the +art, in short, by which a man of fine cultivation may make the most of +this life, and learn to take death as a calm and happy subsidence into +oblivion. Nor far behind is the dialogue in which Lucullus entertains +Cæsar in his delightful villa, and illustrates by example, as well as +precept, Landor's favourite doctrine of the vast superiority of the +literary to the active life. Politics, as he makes even Demosthenes +admit, are the 'sad refuge of restless minds, averse from business and +from study.' And certainly there are moods in which we could ask nothing +better than to live in a remote villa, in which wealth and art have done +everything in their power to give all the pleasures compatible with +perfect refinement and contempt of the grosser tastes. Only it must be +admitted that this is not quite a gospel for the million. And probably +the highest triumph is in the Pentameron, where the whole scene is so +vividly coloured by so many delicate touches, and such charming little +episodes of Italian life, that we seem almost to have seen the fat, +wheezy poet hoisting himself on to his pampered steed, to have listened +to the village gossip, and followed the little flirtations in which the +true poets take so kindly an interest; and are quite ready to pardon +certain useless digressions and critical vagaries, and to overlook +complacently any little laxity of morals. + +These, and many of the shorter and more dramatic dialogues, have a rare +charm, and the critic will return to analyse, if he can, their technical +qualities. But little explanation can be needed, after reading them, of +Landor's want of popularity. If he had applied one-tenth part of his +literary skill to expand commonplace sentiment; if he had talked that +kind of gentle twaddle by which some recent essayists edify their +readers, he might have succeeded in gaining a wide popularity. Or if he +had been really, as some writers seem to fancy, a deep and systematic +thinker as well as a most admirable artist, he might have extorted a +hearing even while provoking dissent. But his boyish waywardness has +disqualified him from reaching the deeper sympathies of either class. We +feel that the most superhuman of schoolboys has really a rather shallow +view of life. His various outbursts of wrath amuse us at best when they +do not bore, even though they take the outward form of philosophy or +statesmanship. He has really no answer or vestige of answer for any +problems of his, nor indeed of any other time, for he has no basis of +serious thought. All he can say is, ultimately, that he feels himself in +a very uncongenial atmosphere, from which it is delightful to retire, in +imagination, to the society of Epicurus, or the study of a few literary +masterpieces. That may be very true, but it can be interesting only to a +few men of similar taste; and men of profound insight, whether of the +poetic or the philosophic temperament, are apt to be vexed by his hasty +dogmatism and irritable rejection of much which deserved his sympathy. +His wanton quarrel with the world has been avenged by the world's +indifference. We may regret the result when we see what rare qualities +have been cruelly wasted, but we cannot fairly shut our eyes to the fact +that the world has a very strong case. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[29] De Quincey gets into a curious puzzle about Landor's remarks in his +essay on Milton _versus_ Southey and Landor. He cannot understand to +which of Wordsworth's poems Landor is referring, and makes some oddly +erroneous guesses. + + + + +_MACAULAY_ + + +Lord Macaulay was pre-eminently a fortunate man; and his good fortune +has survived him. Few, indeed, in the long line of English authors whom +he loved so well, have been equally happy in a biographer. Most official +biographies are a mixture of bungling and indiscretion. It is only in +virtue of some happy coincidence that the one or two people who alone +have the requisite knowledge can produce also the requisite skill and +discretion. Mr. Trevelyan is one of the exceptions to the rule. His book +is such a piece of thorough literary workmanship as would have delighted +its subject. By a rare felicity, the almost filial affection of the +narrator conciliates the reader instead of exciting a distrust of the +narrative. We feel that Macaulay's must have been a lovable character to +excite such warmth of feeling, and a noble character to enable one who +loved him to speak so frankly. The ordinary biographer's idolatry is not +absent, but it becomes a testimony to the hero's excellence instead of +introducing a disturbing element into our estimate of his merits. + +No reader of Macaulay's works will be surprised at the manliness which +is stamped not less plainly upon them than upon his whole career. But +few who were not in some degree behind the scenes would be prepared for +the tenderness of nature which is equally conspicuous. We all recognised +in Macaulay a lover of truth and political honour. We find no more than +we expected, when we are told that the one circumstance upon which he +looked back with some regret was the unauthorised publication by a +constituent of a letter in which he had spoken too frankly of a +political ally. That is indeed an infinitesimal stain upon the character +of a man who rose without wealth or connection, by sheer force of +intellect, to a conspicuous position amongst politicians. But we find +something more than we expected in the singular beauty of Macaulay's +domestic life. In his relations to his father, his sisters, and the +younger generation, he was admirable. The stern religious principle and +profound absorption in philanthropic labours of old Zachary Macaulay +must have made the position of his brilliant son anything but an easy +one. He could hardly read a novel, or contribute to a worldly magazine, +without calling down something like a reproof. The father seems to have +indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip +about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed +culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen +satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of +praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of +royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such +paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive of +anything like mutual confidence. Macaulay seems, in spite of all, to +have been on the most cordial terms with his father to the last. Some +suppression of his sentiments must indeed have been necessary; and we +cannot avoid tracing certain peculiarities of the son's intellectual +career to his having been condemned from an early age to habitual +reticence upon the deepest of all subjects of thought. + +Macaulay's relations to his sisters are sufficiently revealed in a long +series of charming letters, showing, both in their playfulness and in +their literary and political discussions, the unreserved respect and +confidence which united them. One of them writes upon his death: 'We +have lost the light of our home, the most tender, loving, generous, +unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can +tell? What a world of love he poured out upon me and mine!' Reading +these words at the close of the biography, we do not wonder at the +glamour of sisterly affection; but admit them to be the natural +expression of a perfectly sincere conviction. Can there be higher +praise? His relation to children is equally charming. 'He was beyond +comparison the best of playfellows,' writes Mr. Trevelyan; 'unrivalled +in the invention of games, and never weary of repeating them.' He wrote +long letters to his favourites; he addressed pretty little poems to them +on their birthdays, and composed long nursery rhymes for their +edification; whilst overwhelmed with historical labours, and grudging +the demands of society, he would dawdle away whole mornings with them, +and spend the afternoon in taking them to sights; he would build up a +den with newspapers behind the sofa, and act the part of tiger or +brigand; he would take them to the Tower, or Madame Tussaud's, or the +Zoological Gardens, make puns to enliven the Polytechnic, and tell +innumerable anecdotes to animate the statues in the British Museum; nor, +as they grew older, did he neglect the more dignified duty of +inoculating them with the literary tastes which had been the consolation +of his life. Obviously he was the ideal uncle--the uncle of optimistic +fiction, but with qualifications for his task such as few fictitious +uncles can possess. It need hardly be added that Macaulay was a man of +noble liberality in money matters, that he helped his family when they +were in difficulties, and was beloved by the servants who depended upon +him. In his domestic relations he had, according to his nephew, only one +serious fault--he did not appreciate canine excellence; but no man is +perfect. + +The thorough kindliness of the man reconciles us even to his good +fortune. He was an infant phenomenon; the best boy at school; in his +college days, 'ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out' at Bowood, +formed a circle to hear him talk, from breakfast to dinner-time; he was +famous as an author at twenty-five; accepted as a great parliamentary +orator at thirty; and, as a natural consequence, caressed with effusion +by editors, politicians, Whig magnates, and the clique of Holland House; +by thirty-three he had become a man of mark in society, literature, and +politics, and had secured his fortune by gaining a seat in the Indian +Council. His later career was a series of triumphs. He had been the main +support of the greatest literary organ of his party, and the 'Essays' +republished from its pages became at once a standard work. The 'Lays of +Ancient Rome' sold like Scott's most popular poetry; the 'History' +caused an excitement almost unparalleled in literary annals. Not only +was the first sale enormous, but it has gone on ever since increasing. +The popular author was equally popular in Parliament. The benches were +crammed to listen to the rare treat of his eloquence; and he had the far +rarer glory of more than once turning the settled opinion of the House +by a single speech. It is a more vulgar but a striking testimony to his +success that he made 20,000_l._ in one year by literature. Other authors +have had their heads turned by less triumphant careers; they have +descended to lower ambition, and wasted their lives in spasmodic +straining to gain worthless applause. Macaulay remained faithful to his +calling. He worked his hardest to the last, and became a more unsparing +critic of his own performances as time went on. We do not feel even a +passing symptom of a grudge against his good fortune. Rather we are +moved by that kind of sentiment which expresses itself in the schoolboy +phrase, 'Well done our side!' We are glad to see the hearty, kindly, +truthful man crowned with all appropriate praise, and to think that for +once one of our race has got so decidedly the best of it in the hard +battle with the temptations and the miseries of life. + +Certain shortcomings have been set off against these virtues by critics +of Macaulay's life. He was, it has been said, too good a hater. At any +rate, he hated vice, meanness, and charlatanism. It is easier to hate +such things too little than too much. But it must be admitted that his +likes and dislikes indicate a certain rigidity and narrowness of nature. +'In books, as in people and places,' says Mr. Trevelyan, 'he loved that, +and loved that only, to which he had been accustomed from boyhood +upwards.' The faults of which this significant remark reveals one cause, +are marked upon his whole literary character. Macaulay was converted to +Whiggism when at college. The advance from Toryism to Whiggism is not +such as to involve a very violent wrench of the moral and intellectual +nature. Such as it was, it was the only wrench from which Macaulay +suffered. What he was as a scholar of Trinity, he was substantially as a +peer of the realm. He made, it would seem, few new friends, though he +grappled his old ones as 'with hooks of steel.' The fault is one which +belongs to many men of strong natures, and so long as we are +considering Macaulay's life we shall not be much disposed to quarrel +with his innate conservatism. Strong affections are so admirable a +quality that we can pardon the man who loves well though not widely; and +if Macaulay had not a genuine fervour of regard for the little circle of +his intimates, there is no man who deserves such praise. + +It is when we turn from Macaulay's personal character to attempt an +estimate of his literary position, that these faults acquire more +importance. His intellectual force was extraordinary within certain +limits; beyond those limits the giant became a child. He assimilated a +certain set of ideas as a lad, and never acquired a new idea in later +life. He accumulated vast stores of knowledge, but they all fitted into +the old framework of theory. Whiggism seemed to him to provide a +satisfactory solution for all political problems when he was sending his +first article to 'Knight's Magazine,' and when he was writing the last +page of his 'History.' 'I entered public life a Whig,' as he said in +1849, 'and a Whig I am determined to remain.' And what is meant by +Whiggism in Macaulay's mouth? It means substantially that creed which +registers the experience of the English upper classes during the four or +five generations previous to Macaulay. It represents, not the reasoning, +but the instinctive convictions generated by the dogged insistence upon +their privileges of a stubborn, high-spirited, and individually +short-sighted race. To deduce it as a symmetrical doctrine from abstract +propositions would be futile. It is only reasonable so far as a creed, +felt out by the collective instinct of a number of more or less stupid +people, becomes impressed with a quasi-rational unity, not from their +respect for logic, but from the uniformity of the mode of development. +Hatred to pure reason is indeed one of its first principles. A doctrine +avowedly founded on logic instead of instinct becomes for that very +reason suspect to it. Common-sense takes the place of philosophy. At +times this mass of sentiment opposes itself under stress of +circumstances to the absolute theories of monarchy, and then calls +itself Whiggism. At other times it offers an equally dogged resistance +to absolute theories of democracy, and then becomes nominally Tory. In +Macaulay's youth the weight of opinion had been slowly swinging round +from the Toryism generated by dread of revolution, to Whiggism generated +by the accumulation of palpable abuses. The growing intelligence and +more rapidly growing power of the middle classes gave it at the same +time a more popular character than before. Macaulay's 'conversion' was +simply a process of swinging with the tide. The Clapham Sect, amongst +whom he had been brought up, was already more than half Whig, in virtue +of its attack upon the sacred institution of slavery by means of popular +agitation. Macaulay--the most brilliant of its young men--naturally cast +in his lot with the brilliant men, a little older than himself, who +fought under the blue and yellow banner of the 'Edinburgh Review.' No +great change of sentiment was necessary, though some of the old Clapham +doctrines died out in his mind as he was swept into the political +current. + +Macaulay thus early became a thoroughgoing Whig. Whiggism seemed to him +the _ne plus ultra_ of progress: the pure essence of political wisdom. +He was never fully conscious of the vast revolution in thought which was +going on all around him. He was saturated with the doctrines of 1832. He +stated them with unequalled vigour and clearness. Anybody who disputed +them from either side of the question seemed to him to be little better +than a fool. Southey and Mr. Gladstone talked arrant nonsense when they +disputed the logical or practical value of the doctrines laid down by +Locke. James Mill deserved the most contemptuous language for daring to +push those doctrines beyond the sacred line. When Macaulay attacks an +old non-juror or a modern Tory, we can only wonder how opinions which, +on his showing, are so inconceivably absurd, could ever have been held +by any human being. Men are Whigs or not-Whigs, and the not-Whig is less +a heretic to be anathematised than a blockhead beneath the reach of +argument. All political wisdom centres in Holland House, and the +'Edinburgh Review' is its prophet. There is something in the absolute +confidence of Macaulay's political dogmatism which varies between the +sublime and the ridiculous. We can hardly avoid laughing at this +superlative self-satisfaction, and yet we must admit that it is +indicative of a real political force not to be treated with simple +contempt. Belief is power, even when belief is most unreasonable. + +To define a Whig and to define Macaulay is pretty much the same thing. +Let us trace some of the qualities which enabled one man to become so +completely the type of a vast body of his compatriots. + +The first and most obvious power in which Macaulay excelled his +neighbours was his portentous memory. He could assimilate printed pages, +says his nephew, more quickly than others could glance over them. +Whatever he read was stamped upon his mind instantaneously and +permanently, and he read everything. In the midst of severe labours in +India, he read enough classical authors to stock the mind of an ordinary +professor. At the same time he framed a criminal code and devoured +masses of trashy novels. From the works of the ancient Fathers of the +Church to English political pamphlets and to modern street ballads, no +printed matter came amiss to his omnivorous appetite. All that he had +read could be reproduced at a moment's notice. Every fool, he said, can +repeat his Archbishops of Canterbury backwards; and he was as familiar +with the Cambridge Calendar as the most devout Protestant with the +Bible. He could have re-written 'Sir Charles Grandison' from memory if +every copy had been lost. Now it might perhaps be plausibly maintained +that the possession of such a memory is unfavourable to a high +development of the reasoning powers. The case of Pascal, indeed, who is +said never to have forgotten anything, shows that the two powers may +co-exist; and other cases might of course be mentioned. But it is true +that a powerful memory may enable a man to save himself the trouble of +reasoning. It encourages the indolent propensity of deciding +difficulties by precedent instead of principles. Macaulay, for example, +was once required to argue the point of political casuistry as to the +degree of independent action permissible to members of a Cabinet. An +ordinary mind would have to answer by striking a rough balance between +the conveniences and inconveniences likely to arise. It would be forced, +that is to say, to reason from the nature of the case. But Macaulay had +at his fingers' end every instance from the days of Walpole to his own +in which Ministers had been allowed to vote against the general policy +of the Government. By quoting them, he seemed to decide the point by +authority, instead of taking the troublesome and dangerous road of +abstract reasoning. Thus to appeal to experience is with him to appeal +to the stores of a gigantic memory; and is generally the same thing as +to deny the value of all general rules. This is the true Whig doctrine +of referring to precedent rather than to theory. Our popular leaders +were always glad to quote Hampden and Sidney instead of venturing upon +the dangerous ground of abstract rights. + +Macaulay's love of deciding all points by an accumulation of appropriate +instances is indeed characteristic of his mind. It is connected with a +curious defect of analytical power. It appears in his literary criticism +as much as in his political speculations. In an interesting letter to +Mr. Napier, he states the case himself as an excuse for not writing upon +Scott. 'Hazlitt used to say, "I am nothing if not critical." The case +with me,' says Macaulay, 'is precisely the reverse. I have a strong and +acute enjoyment of works of the imagination, but I have never habituated +myself to dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly for that +very reason. Such books as Lessing's "Laocoon," such passages as the +criticism on "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," fill me with wonder and +despair.' If we take any of Macaulay's criticisms, we shall see how +truly he had gauged his own capacity. They are either random discharges +of superlatives or vigorous assertions of sound moral principles. He +compliments some favourite author with an emphatic repetition of the +ordinary eulogies, or shows conclusively that Montgomery was a sham +poet, and Wycherley a corrupt ribald. Nobody can hit a haystack with +more certainty, but he is not so good at a difficult mark. He never +makes a fine suggestion as to the secrets of the art whose products he +admires or describes. His mode, for example, of criticising Bunyan is to +give a list of the passages which he remembers, and of course he +remembers everything. He observes, what is tolerably clear, that +Bunyan's allegory is as vivid as a concrete history, though strangely +comparing him in this respect to Shelley--the least concrete of poets; +and he makes the discovery, which did not require his vast stores of +historical knowledge, 'that it is impossible to doubt that' Bunyan's +trial of Christian and Faithful is meant to satirise the judges of the +time of Charles II. That is as plain as the intention of the last +cartoon in 'Punch.' Macaulay can draw a most vivid portrait, so far as +that can be done by a picturesque accumulation of characteristic facts, +but he never gets below the surface, or details the principles whose +embodiment he describes from without. + +The defect is connected with further peculiarities, in which Macaulay is +the genuine representative of the true Whig type. The practical value of +adherence to precedent is obvious. It may be justified by the assertion +that all sound political philosophy must be based upon experience: and +no one will deny that assertion to contain a most important truth. But +in Macaulay's mind this sound doctrine seems to be confused with the +very questionable doctrine that in political questions there is no +philosophy at all. To appeal to experience may mean either to appeal to +facts so classified and systematically arranged as to illustrate general +truths, or to appeal to a mere mass of observations, without taking the +trouble to elicit their true significance, or even to believe that they +can be resolved into particular cases of a general truth. This is the +difference between an experimental philosophy and a crude empiricism. +Macaulay takes the lower alternative. The vigorous attack upon James +Mill, which he very properly suppressed during his life on account of +its juvenile arrogance, curiously illustrates his mode of thought. No +one can deny, I think, that he makes some very good points against a +very questionable system of political dogmatism. But when we ask what +are Macaulay's own principles, we are left at a stand. He ought, by all +his intellectual sympathies, to be a utilitarian. Yet he treats +utilitarianism with the utmost contempt, though he has no alternative +theory to suggest. He ends his first Essay against Mill by one of his +customary purple patches about Baconian induction. He tells us, in the +second, how to apply it. Bacon proposed to discover the principle of +heat by observing in what qualities all hot bodies agreed, and in what +qualities all cold bodies. Similarly, we are to make a list of all +constitutions which have produced good or bad government, and to +investigate their points of agreement and difference. This sounds +plausible to the uninstructed, but is a mere rhetorical flourish. +Bacon's method is admittedly inadequate for reasons which I leave to men +of science to explain, and Macaulay's method is equally hopeless in +politics. It is hopeless for the simple reason that the complexity of +the phenomena makes it impracticable. We cannot find out what +constitution is best after this fashion, simply because the goodness or +badness of a constitution depends upon a thousand conditions of social, +moral, and intellectual development. When stripped of its pretentious +phraseology, Macaulay's teaching comes simply to this: the only rule in +politics is the rule of thumb. All general principles are wrong or +futile. We have found out in England that our constitution, constructed +in absolute defiance of all _Ă priori_ reasoning, is the best in the +world: it is the best for providing us with the maximum of bread, beef, +beer, and means of buying bread, beer, and beef: and we have got it +because we have never--like those publicans the French--trusted to fine +sayings about truth and justice and human rights, but blundered on, +adding a patch here and knocking a hole there, as our humour prompted +us. + +This sovereign contempt of all speculation--simply as +speculation--reaches its acme in the Essay on Bacon. The curious naĂŻvetĂ© +with which Macaulay denounces all philosophy in that vigorous production +excites a kind of perverse admiration. How can one refuse to admire the +audacity which enables a man explicitly to identify philosophy with +humbug? It is what ninety-nine men out of a hundred think, but not one +in a thousand dares to say. Goethe says somewhere that he likes +Englishmen because English fools are the most thoroughgoing of fools. +English 'Philistines,' as represented by Macaulay, the prince of +Philistines, according to Matthew Arnold, carry their contempt of the +higher intellectual interests to a pitch of real sublimity. Bacon's +theory of induction, says Macaulay, in so many words, was valueless. +Everybody could reason before it as well as after. But Bacon really +performed a service of inestimable value to mankind; and it consisted +precisely in this, that he called their attention from philosophy to the +pursuit of material advantages. The old philosophers had gone on +bothering about theology, ethics, and the true and beautiful, and such +other nonsense. Bacon taught us to work at chemistry and mechanics, to +invent diving-bells and steam-engines and spinning-jennies. We could +never, it seems, have found out the advantages of this direction of our +energies without a philosopher, and so far philosophy is negatively +good. It has written up upon all the supposed avenues to inquiry, 'No +admission except on business;' that is, upon the business of direct +practical discovery. We English have taken the hint, and we have +therefore lived to see when a man can breakfast in London and dine in +Edinburgh, and may look forward to a day when the tops of Ben-Nevis and +Helvellyn will be cultivated like flower-gardens, and when machines +constructed on principles yet to be discovered will be in every house. + +The theory which underlies this conclusion is often explicitly stated. +All philosophy has produced mere futile logomachy. Greek sages and Roman +moralists and mediæval schoolmen have amassed words, and amassed nothing +else. One distinct discovery of a solid truth, however humble, is worth +all their labours. This condemnation applies not only to philosophy, but +to the religious embodiment of philosophy. No satisfactory conclusion +ever has been reached or ever will be reached in theological disputes. +On all such topics, he tells Mr. Gladstone, there has always been the +widest divergence of opinion. Nor are there better hopes for the future. +The ablest minds, he says in the Essay upon Ranke, have believed in +transubstantiation; that is, according to him, in the most ineffable +nonsense. There is no certainty that men will not believe to the end of +time the doctrines which imposed upon so able a man as Sir Thomas More. +Not only, that is, have men been hitherto wandering in a labyrinth +without a clue, but there is no chance that any clue will ever be found. +The doctrine, so familiar to our generation, of laws of intellectual +development, never even occurs to him. The collective thought of +generations marks time without advancing. A guess of Sir Thomas More is +as good or as bad as the guess of the last philosopher. This theory, if +true, implies utter scepticism. And yet Macaulay was clearly not a +sceptic. His creed was hidden under a systematic reticence, and he +resisted every attempt to raise the veil with rather superfluous +indignation. When a constituent dared to ask about his religious views, +he denounced the rash inquirer in terms applicable to an agent of the +Inquisition. He vouchsafed, indeed, the information that he was a +Christian. We may accept the phrase, not only on the strength of his +invariable sincerity, but because it falls in with the general turn of +his arguments. He denounces the futility of the ancient moralists, but +he asserts the enormous social value of Christianity. + +His attitude, in fact, is equally characteristic of the man and his +surroundings. The old Clapham teaching had faded in his mind: it had not +produced a revolt. He retained the old hatred for slavery; and he +retained, with the whole force of his affectionate nature, reverence for +the school of Wilberforce, Thornton, and his own father. He estimated +most highly, not perhaps more highly than they deserved, the value of +the services rendered by them in awakening the conscience of the nation. +In their persistent and disinterested labours he recognised a +manifestation of the great social force of Christianity. But a belief +that Christianity is useful, and even that it is true, may consist with +a profound conviction of the futility of the philosophy with which it +has been associated. Here again Macaulay is a true Whig. The Whig love +of precedent, the Whig hatred for abstract theories, may consist with a +Tory application. But the true Whig differed from the Tory in adding to +these views an invincible suspicion of parsons. The first Whig battles +were fought against the Church as much as against the King. From the +struggle with Sacheverell down to the struggle for Catholic +emancipation, Toryism and High-Church principles were associated against +Whigs and Dissenters. By that kind of dumb instinct which outruns +reason, the Whig had learnt that there was some occult bond of union +between the claims of a priesthood and the claims of a monarchy. The +old maxim, 'No bishop, no king,' suggested the opposite principle that +you must keep down the clergy if you would limit the monarchy. The +natural interpretation of this prejudice into political theory, is that +the Church is extremely useful as an ally of the constable, but +possesses a most dangerous explosive power if allowed to claim +independent authority. In practice we must resist all claims of the +Church to dictate to the State. In theory we must deny the foundation +upon which such claims can alone be founded. Dogmatism must be +pronounced to be fundamentally irrational. Nobody knows anything about +theology; or what is the same thing, no two people agree. As they don't +agree, they cannot claim to impose their beliefs upon others. + +This sentiment comes out curiously in the characteristic Essay just +mentioned. Macaulay says, in reply to Mr. Gladstone, that there is no +more reason for the introduction of religious questions into State +affairs than for introducing them into the affairs of a Canal Company. +He puts his argument with an admirable vigour and clearness which blinds +many readers to the fact that he is begging the question by evading the +real difficulty. If, in fact, Government had as little to do as a Canal +Company with religious opinion, we should have long ago learnt the great +lesson of toleration. But that is just the very _crux_. Can we draw the +line between the spiritual and the secular? Nothing, replies Macaulay, +is easier; and his method has been already indicated. We all agree that +we don't want to be robbed or murdered: we are by no means all agreed +about the doctrine of Trinity. But, says a churchman, a certain creed is +necessary to men's moral and spiritual welfare, and therefore of the +utmost importance even for the prevention of robbery and murder. This +is what Macaulay implicitly denies. The whole of dogmatic theology +belongs to that region of philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever you +please to call it, in which men are doomed to dispute for ever without +coming any nearer to a decision. All that the statesman has to do with +such matters is to see that if men are fools enough to speculate, they +shall not be allowed to cut each other's throats when they reach, as +they always must reach, contradictory results. If you raise a difficult +point--such, for example, as the education question--Macaulay replies, +as so many people have replied before and since, Teach the people 'those +principles of morality which are common to all the forms of +Christianity.' That is easier said than done! The plausibility of the +solution in Macaulay's mouth is due to the fundamental assumption that +everything except morality is hopeless ground of inquiry. Once get +beyond the Ten Commandments and you will sink in a bottomless morass of +argument, counterargument, quibble, logomachy, superstition, and +confusion worse confounded. + +In Macaulay's teaching, as in that of his party, there is doubtless much +that is noble. He has a righteous hatred of oppression in all shapes and +disguises. He can tear to pieces with great logical power many of the +fallacies alleged by his opponents. Our sympathies are certainly with +him as against men who advocate persecution on any grounds, and he is +fully qualified to crush his ordinary opponents. But it is plain that +his whole political and (if we may use the word) philosophical teaching +rests on something like a downright aversion to the higher order of +speculation. He despises it. He wants something tangible and +concrete--something in favour of which he may appeal to the immediate +testimony of the senses. He must feel his feet planted on the solid +earth. The pain of attempting to soar into higher regions is not +compensated to him by the increased width of horizon. And in this +respect he is but the type of most of his countrymen, and reflects what +has been (as I should say) erroneously called their 'unimaginative' view +of things in general. + +Macaulay, at any rate, distinctly belongs to the imaginative class of +minds, if only in virtue of his instinctive preference of the concrete +to the abstract, and his dislike, already noticed, to analysis. He has a +thirst for distinct and vivid images. He reasons by examples instead of +appealing to formulæ. There is a characteristic account in Mr. +Trevelyan's volumes of his habit of rambling amongst the older parts of +London, his fancy teeming with stories attached to the picturesque +fragments of antiquity, and carrying on dialogues between imaginary +persons as vivid, if not as forcible, as those of Scott's novels. To +this habit--rather inverting the order of cause and effect--he +attributes his accuracy of detail. We should rather say that the +intensity of the impressions generated both the accuracy and the +day-dreams. A philosopher would be arguing in his daily rambles where an +imaginative mind is creating a series of pictures. But Macaulay's +imagination is as definitely limited as his speculation. The genuine +poet is also a philosopher. He sees intuitively what the reasoner +evolves by argument. The greatest minds in both classes are equally +marked by their naturalisation in the lofty regions of thought, +inaccessible or uncongenial to men of inferior stamp. It is tempting in +some ways to compare Macaulay to Burke. Burke's superiority is marked by +this, that he is primarily a philosopher, and therefore instinctively +sees the illustration of a general law in every particular fact. +Macaulay, on the contrary, gets away from theory as fast as possible, +and tries to conceal his poverty of thought under masses of ingenious +illustration. + +His imaginative narrowness would come out still more clearly by a +comparison with Carlyle. One significant fact must be enough. Everyone +must have observed how powerfully Carlyle expresses the emotion +suggested by the brief appearance of some little waif from past history. +We may remember, for example, how the usher, De BrĂ©zĂ©, appears for a +moment to utter the last shriek of the old monarchical etiquette, and +then vanishes into the dim abysses of the past. The imagination is +excited by the little glimpse of light flashing for a moment upon some +special point in the cloudy phantasmagoria of human history. The image +of a past existence is projected for a moment upon our eyes, to make us +feel how transitory is life, and how rapidly one visionary existence +expels another. We are such stuff as dreams are made of:-- + + None other than a moving row + Of visionary shapes that come and go + Around the sun-illumined lantern held + In midnight by the master of the show. + +Every object is seen against the background of eternal mystery. In +Macaulay's pages this element is altogether absent. We see a figure from +the past as vividly as if he were present. We observe the details of his +dress, the odd oaths with which his discourse is interlarded, the minute +peculiarities of his features or manner. We laugh or admire as we should +do at a living man; and we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But +the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into oblivion, +that our little island of daylight will soon be shrouded in the +gathering mist, and that we tread at every instant on the dust of +forgotten continents. We treat the men of past ages quite at our ease. +We applaud and criticise Hampden or Chatham as we should applaud Peel or +Cobden. There is no atmospheric effect--no sense of the dim march of +ages, or of the vast procession of human life. It is doubtless a great +feat to make the past present. It is a greater to emancipate us from the +tyranny of the present, and to raise us to a point at which we feel that +we too are almost as dreamlike as the men of old time. To gain clearness +and definition Macaulay has dropped the element of mystery. He sees +perfectly whatever can be seen by the ordinary lawyer, or politician, or +merchant; he is insensible to the visions which reveal themselves only +to minds haunted by thoughts of eternity, and delighting to dwell in the +border-land where dreams blend with realities. Mysticism is to him +hateful, and historical figures form groups of individuals, not symbols +of forces working behind the veil. + +Macaulay, therefore, can be no more a poet in the sense in which the +word is applied to Spenser, or to Wordsworth, both of whom he holds to +be simply intolerable bores, than he can be a metaphysician or a +scientific thinker. In common phraseology, he is a Philistine--a word +which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher +intellectual interests. The word may also be defined, however, as the +name applied by prigs to the rest of their species. And I hold that the +modern fashion of using it as a common term of abuse amounts to a +literary nuisance. It enables intellectual coxcombs to brand men with an +offensive epithet for being a degree more manly than themselves. There +is much that is good in your Philistine; and when we ask what Macaulay +was, instead of showing what he was not, we shall perhaps find that the +popular estimate is not altogether wrong. + +Macaulay was not only a typical Whig, but the prophet of Whiggism to his +generation. Though not a poet or a philosopher, he was a born +rhetorician. His parliamentary career proves his capacity sufficiently, +though want of the physical qualifications, and of exclusive devotion to +political success, prevented him, as perhaps a want of subtlety or +flexibility of mind would have always prevented him, from attaining +excellence as a debater. In everything that he wrote, however, we see +the true rhetorician. He tells us that Fox wrote debates, whilst +Mackintosh spoke essays. Macaulay did both. His compositions are a +series of orations on behalf of sound Whig views, whatever their +external form. Given a certain audience--and every orator supposes a +particular audience--their effectiveness is undeniable. Macaulay's may +be composed of ordinary Englishmen, with a moderate standard of +education. His arguments are adapted to the ordinary Cabinet Minister, +or, what is much the same, to the person who is willing to pay a +shilling to hear an evening lecture. He can hit an audience composed of +such materials--to quote Burke's phrase about George Grenville--'between +wind and water.' He uses the language, the logic, and the images which +they can fully understand; and though his hearer, like his schoolboy, is +ostensibly credited at times with a portentous memory, Macaulay always +takes excellent care to put him in mind of the facts which he is assumed +to remember. The faults and the merits of his style follow from his +resolute determination to be understood of the people. He was specially +delighted, as his nephew tells us, by a reader at Messrs. +Spottiswoode's, who said that in all the 'History' there was only one +sentence the meaning of which was not obvious to him at first sight. We +are more surprised that there was one such sentence. Clearness is the +first of the cardinal virtues of style; and nobody ever wrote more +clearly than Macaulay. He sacrifices much, it is true, in order to +obtain it. He proves that two and two make four with a pertinacity which +would make him dull, if it were not for his abundance of brilliant +illustration. He always remembers the principle which should guide a +barrister in addressing a jury. He has not merely to exhibit his proofs, +but to hammer them into the heads of his audience by incessant +repetition. It is no small proof of artistic skill that a writer who +systematically adopts this method should yet be invariably lively. He +goes on blacking the chimney with a persistency which somehow amuses us +because he puts so much heart into his work. He proves the most obvious +truths again and again; but his vivacity never flags. This tendency +undoubtedly leads to great defects of style. His sentences are +monotonous and mechanical. He has a perfect hatred of pronouns, and for +fear of a possible entanglement between 'hims' and 'hers' and 'its,' he +will repeat not merely a substantive, but a whole group of substantives. +Sometimes, to make his sense unmistakable, he will repeat a whole +formula, with only a change in the copula. For the same reason, he hates +all qualifications and parentheses. Each thought must be resolved into +its constituent parts; each argument must be expressed as a simple +proposition: and his paragraphs are rather aggregates of independent +atoms than possessed of a continuous unity. His writing--to use a +favourite formula of his own--bears the same relation to a style of +graceful modulation that a bit of mosaic work bears to a picture. Each +phrase has its distinct hue, instead of melting into its neighbours. +Here we have a black patch and there a white. There are no half tones, +no subtle interblending of different currents of thought. It is partly +for this reason that his descriptions of character are often so +unsatisfactory. He likes to represent a man as a bundle of +contradictions, because it enables him to obtain startling contrasts. He +heightens a vice in one place, a virtue in another, and piles them +together in a heap, without troubling himself to ask whether nature can +make such monsters, or preserve them if made. To anyone given to +analysis, these contrasts are actually painful. There is a story of the +Duke of Wellington having once stated that the rats got into his bottles +in Spain. 'They must have been very large bottles or very small rats,' +said somebody. 'On the contrary,' replied the Duke, 'the rats were very +large and the bottles very small.' Macaulay delights in leaving us face +to face with such contrasts in more important matters. Boswell must, we +would say, have been a clever man or his biography cannot have been so +good as you say. On the contrary, says Macaulay, he was the greatest of +fools and the best of biographers. He strikes a discord and purposely +fails to resolve it. To men of more delicate sensibility the result is +an intolerable jar. + +For the same reason, Macaulay's genuine eloquence is marred by the +symptoms of malice prepense. When he sews on a purple patch, he is +resolved that there shall be no mistake about it; it must stand out from +a radical contrast of colours. The emotion is not to swell by degrees, +till you find yourself carried away in the torrent which set out as a +tranquil stream. The transition is deliberately emphasised. On one side +of a full stop you are listening to a matter-of-fact statement; on the +other, there is all at once a blare of trumpets and a beating of drums, +till the crash almost deafens you. He regrets in one of his letters that +he has used up the celebrated, and, it must be confessed, really +forcible passage about the impeachment scene in Westminster Hall. It +might have come in usefully in the 'History,' which, as he then hoped, +would reach the time of Warren Hastings. The regret is unpleasantly +suggestive of that deliberation in the manufacture of eloquence which +stamps it as artificial. + +Such faults may annoy critics, even of no very sensitive fibre. What is +it that redeems them? The first answer is, that the work is impressive +because it is thoroughly genuine. The stream, it is true, comes forth by +spasmodic gushes, when it ought to flow in a continuous current; but it +flows from a full reservoir instead of being pumped from a shallow +cistern. The knowledge and, what is more, the thoroughly-assimilated +knowledge, is enormous. Mr. Trevelyan has shown in detail what we had +all divined for ourselves, how much patient labour is often employed in +a paragraph or the turn of a phrase. To accuse Macaulay of +superficiality is, in this sense, altogether absurd. His speculation may +be meagre, but his store of information is simply inexhaustible. Mill's +writing was impressive, because one often felt that a single argument +condensed the result of a long process of reflection. Macaulay has the +lower but similar merit that a single picturesque touch implies +incalculable masses of knowledge. It is but an insignificant part of the +building which appears above ground. Compare a passage with the assigned +authority, and you are inclined to accuse him--sometimes it may be +rightfully--of amplifying and modifying. But more often the particular +authority is merely the nucleus round which a whole volume of other +knowledge has crystallised. A single hint is significant to a +properly-prepared mind of a thousand facts not explicitly contained in +it. Nobody, he said, could judge of the accuracy of one part of his +'History' who had not 'soaked his mind with the transitory literature of +the day.' His real authority was not this or that particular passage, +but a literature. And for this reason alone, Macaulay's historical +writings have a permanent value which will prevent them from being +superseded even by more philosophical thinkers, whose minds have not +undergone the 'soaking' process. + +It is significant again that imitations of Macaulay are almost as +offensive as imitations of Carlyle. Every great writer has his +parasites. Macaulay's false glitter and jingle, his frequent flippancy +and superficiality of thought, are more easily caught than his virtues; +but so are all faults. Would-be followers of Carlyle catch the strained +gestures without the rapture of his inspiration. Would-be followers of +Mill fancied themselves to be logical when they were only hopelessly +unsympathetic and unimaginative; and would-be followers of some other +writers can be effeminate and foppish without being subtle or graceful. +Macaulay's thoroughness of work has, perhaps, been less contagious than +we could wish. Something of the modern raising of the standard of +accuracy in historical inquiry may be set down to his influence. The +misfortune is that, if some writers have learnt from him to be flippant +without learning to be laborious, others have caught the accuracy +without the liveliness. In the later volumes of his 'History,' his +vigour began to be a little clogged by the fulness of his knowledge; and +we can observe symptoms of the tendency of modern historians to grudge +the sacrifice of sifting their knowledge. They read enough, but instead +of giving us the results, they tumble out the accumulated mass of raw +materials upon our devoted heads, till they make us long for a fire in +the State Paper Office. + +Fortunately, Macaulay did not yield to this temptation in his earlier +writings, and the result is that he is, for the ordinary reader, one of +the two authorities for English history, the other being Shakespeare. +Without comparing their merits, we must admit that the compression of so +much into a few short narratives shows intensity as well as compass of +mind. He could digest as well as devour, and he tried his digestion +pretty severely. It is fashionable to say that part of his practical +force is due to the training of parliamentary life. Familiarity with the +course of affairs doubtless strengthened his insight into history, and +taught him the value of downright common-sense in teaching an average +audience. Speaking purely from the literary point of view, I cannot +agree further in the opinion suggested. I suspect the 'History' would +have been better if Macaulay had not been so deeply immersed in all the +business of legislation and electioneering. I do not profoundly +reverence the House of Commons' tone--even in the House of Commons; and +in literature it easily becomes a nuisance. Familiarity with the actual +machinery of politics tends to strengthen the contempt for general +principles, of which Macaulay had an ample share. It encourages the +illusion of the fly upon the wheel, the doctrine that the dust and din +of debate and the worry of lobbies and committee-rooms are not the +effect but the cause of the great social movement. The historian of the +Roman Empire, as we know, owed something to the captain of Hampshire +Militia; but years of life absorbed in parliamentary wrangling and in +sitting at the feet of the philosophers of Holland House were not +likely to widen a mind already disposed to narrow views of the world. + +For Macaulay's immediate success, indeed, the training was undoubtedly +valuable. As he carried into Parliament the authority of a great writer, +so he wrote books with the authority of the practical politician. He has +the true instinct of affairs. He knows what are the immediate motives +which move masses of men; and is never misled by fanciful analogies or +blindfolded by the pedantry of official language. He has seen +flesh-and-blood statesmen--at any rate, English statesmen--and +understands the nature of the animal. Nobody can be freer from the +dominion of crotchets. All his reasoning is made of the soundest common +sense, and represents, if not the ultimate forces, yet forces with which +we have to reckon. And he knows, too, how to stir the blood of the +average Englishman. He understands most thoroughly the value of +concentration, unity, and simplicity. Every speech or essay forms an +artistic whole, in which some distinct moral is vigorously driven home +by a succession of downright blows. This strong rhetorical instinct is +shown conspicuously in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which, whatever we +might say of them as poetry, are an admirable specimen of rhymed +rhetoric. We know how good they are when we see how incapable are modern +ballad-writers in general of putting the same swing and fire into their +verses. Compare, for example, Aytoun's 'Lays of the Cavaliers,' as the +most obvious parallel:-- + + Not swifter pours the avalanche + Adown the steep incline, + That rises o'er the parent springs + Of rough and rapid Rhine, + +than certain Scotch heroes over an entrenchment. Place this mouthing by +any parallel passage in Macaulay:-- + + Now, by our sire Quirinus, + It was a goodly sight + To see the thirty standards + Swept down the tide of flight. + So flies the spray in Adria + When the black squall doth blow. + So corn-sheaves in the flood time + Spin down the whirling Po. + +And so on in verses which innumerable schoolboys of inferior pretensions +to Macaulay's know by heart. And in such cases the verdict of the +schoolboy is perhaps more valuable than that of the literary +connoisseur. There are, of course, many living poets who can do +tolerably something of far higher quality which Macaulay could not do at +all. But I don't know who, since Scott, could have done this particular +thing. Possibly Mr. Kingsley might have approached it, or the poet, if +he would have condescended so far, who sang the bearing of the good news +from Ghent to Aix. In any case, the feat is significant of Macaulay's +true power. It looks easy; it involves no demands upon the higher +reasoning or imaginative powers: but nobody will believe it to be easy +who observes the extreme rarity of a success in a feat so often +attempted. + +A similar remark is suggested by Macaulay's 'Essays.' Read such an essay +as that upon Clive, or Warren Hastings, or Chatham. The story seems to +tell itself. The characters are so strongly marked, the events fall so +easily into their places, that we fancy that the narrator's business has +been done to his hand. It wants little critical experience to discover +that this massive simplicity is really indicative of an art not, it may +be, of the highest order, but truly admirable for its purpose. It +indicates not only a gigantic memory, but a glowing mind, which has +fused a crude mass of materials into unity. If we do not find the sudden +touches which reveal the philosophical sagacity or the imaginative +insight of the highest order of intellects, we recognise the true +rhetorical instinct. The outlines may be harsh, and the colours too +glaring; but the general effect has been carefully studied. The details +are wrought in with consummate skill. We indulge in an intercalary pish! +here and there; but we are fascinated and we remember. The actual amount +of intellectual force which goes to the composition of such written +archives is immense, though the quality may leave something to be +desired. Shrewd common-sense may be an inferior substitute for +philosophy, and the faculty which brings remote objects close to the eye +of an ordinary observer for the loftier faculty which tinges everyday +life with the hues of mystic contemplation. But when the common +faculties are present in so abnormal a degree, they begin to have a +dignity of their own. + +It is impossible in such matters to establish any measure of comparison. +No analysis will enable us to say how much pedestrian capacity may be +fairly regarded as equivalent to a small capacity for soaring above the +solid earth, and therefore the question as to the relative value of +Macaulay's work and that of some men of loftier aims and less perfect +execution must be left to individual taste. We can only say that it is +something so to have written the history of many national heroes as to +make their faded glories revive to active life in the memory of their +countrymen. So long as Englishmen are what they are--and they don't seem +to change as rapidly as might be wished--they will turn to Macaulay's +pages to gain a vivid impression of our greatest achievements during an +important period. + +Nor is this all. The fire which glows in Macaulay's history, the intense +patriotic feeling, the love of certain moral qualities, is not +altogether of the highest kind. His ideal of national and individual +greatness might easily be criticised. But the sentiment, as far as it +goes, is altogether sound and manly. He is too fond, it has been said, +of incessant moralising. From a scientific point of view the moralising +is irrelevant. We want to study the causes and the nature of great +social movements; and when we are stopped in order to inquire how far +the prominent actors in them were hurried beyond ordinary rules, we are +transported into a different order of thought. It would be as much to +the purpose if we approved an earthquake for upsetting a fort, and +blamed it for moving the foundations of a church. Macaulay can never +understand this point of view. With him, history is nothing more than a +sum of biographies. And even from a biographical point of view his +moralising is often troublesome. He not only insists upon transporting +party prejudice into his estimates, and mauls poor James II. as he +mauled the Tories in 1832; but he applies obviously inadequate tests. It +is absurd to call upon men engaged in a life-and-death wrestle to pay +scrupulous attention to the ordinary rules of politeness. There are +times when judgments guided by constitutional precedent become +ludicrously out of place, and when the best man is he who aims +straightest at the heart of his antagonist. But, in spite of such +drawbacks, Macaulay's genuine sympathy for manliness and force of +character generally enables him to strike pretty nearly the true note. +To learn the true secret of Cromwell's character we must go to Carlyle, +who can sympathise with deep currents of religious enthusiasm. Macaulay +retains too much of the old Whig distrust for all that it calls +fanaticism fully to recognise the grandeur beneath the grotesque outside +of the Puritan. But Macaulay tells us most distinctly why Englishmen +warm at the name of the great Protector. We, like the banished +Cavaliers, 'glow with an emotion of national pride' at his animated +picture of the unconquerable Ironsides. One phrase may be sufficiently +illustrative. After quoting Clarendon's story of the Scotch nobleman who +forced Charles to leave the field of Naseby by seizing his horse's +bridle, 'no man,' says Macaulay, 'who had much value for his life would +have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day for Oliver +Cromwell.' + +Macaulay, in short, always feels, and therefore communicates, a hearty +admiration for sheer manliness. And some of his portraits of great men +have therefore a genuine power, and show the deeper insight which comes +from true sympathy. He estimates the respectable observer of +constitutional proprieties too highly; he is unduly repelled by the +external oddities of the truly masculine and noble Johnson; but his +enthusiasm for his pet hero, William, or for Chatham or Clive, carries +us along with him. And at moments when he is narrating their exploits, +and can forget his elaborate argumentations and refrain from bits of +deliberate bombast, the style becomes graphic in the higher sense of a +much-abused word, and we confess that we are listening to genuine +eloquence. Putting aside for the moment recollection of foibles, almost +too obvious to deserve the careful demonstration which they have +sometimes received, we are glad to surrender ourselves to the charm of +his straightforward, clear-headed, hard-hitting declamation. There is no +writer with whom it is easier to find fault, or the limits of whose +power may be more distinctly defined; but within his own sphere he goes +forward, as he went through life, with a kind of grand confidence in +himself and his cause, which is attractive, and at times even +provocative of sympathetic enthusiasm. + +Macaulay said, in his Diary, that he wrote his 'History' with an eye to +a remote past and a remote future. He meant to erect a monument more +enduring than brass, and the ambition at least stimulated him to +admirable thoroughness of workmanship. How far his aim was secured must +be left to the decision of a posterity which will not trouble itself +about the susceptibilities of candidates for its favour. In one sense, +however, Macaulay must be interesting so long as the type which he so +fully represents continues to exist. Whig has become an old-fashioned +phrase, and is repudiated by modern Liberals and Radicals, who think +themselves wiser than their fathers. The decay of the old name implies a +remarkable political change; but I doubt whether it implies more than a +very superficial change in the national character. New classes and new +ideas have come upon the stage; but they have a curious family likeness +to the old. The Whiggism whose peculiarities Macaulay reflected so +faithfully represents some of the most deeply-seated tendencies of the +national character. It has, therefore, both its ugly and its honourable +side. Its disregard, or rather its hatred, for pure reason, its +exaltation of expediency above truth and precedent above principle, its +instinctive dread of strong religious or political faiths, are of course +questionable qualities. Yet even they have their nobler side. There is +something almost sublime about the grand unreasonableness of the average +Englishman. His dogged contempt for all foreigners and philosophers, +his intense resolution to have his own way and use his own eyes, to see +nothing that does not come within his narrow sphere of vision, and to +see it quite clearly before he acts upon it, are of course abhorrent to +thinkers of a different order. But they are great qualities in the +struggle for existence which must determine the future of the world. The +Englishman, armed in his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts +with unequalled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, +but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the +universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is +not to be trifled with. Macaulay's sympathy with these qualities led to +some annoying peculiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a +commonness, sometimes a vulgarity, of style which is easily criticised. +But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always +comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is +nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colours resolutely +and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and +spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never +knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He +is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine +love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with +unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which +he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be +narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the +manliness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his +countrymen. He is proud of the healthy vigorous stock from which he +springs; and the fervour of his enthusiasm, though it may shock a +delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue +to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at +bottom--indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud. + + +END OF THE SECOND VOLUME + + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE +LONDON + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Page 31: illlustrations amended to illustrations | + | Page 38: Single quote mark removed from end of excerpt. | + | ("And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!") | + | Page 81: idiosyncracy amended to idiosyncrasy | + | Page 117: Single quote mark in front of "miserable" | + | removed. ("'The man they called Dizzy' can despise a | + | miserable creature ...") | + | Page 131: sweatmeats amended to sweetmeats | + | Page 143: aristocractic amended to aristocratic | + | Page 147: sentiment amended to sentiments | + | Page 163: Mahommedan amended to Mohammedan | + | Page 181: Macchiavelli amended to Machiavelli | + | Page 241: Full stop added after "third generation." | + | Page 247: Comma added after "We both love the | + | Constitution...." | + | Page 325: chartalan amended to charlatan | + | Page 368: Shakspeare amended to Shakespeare | + | | + | Italicisation and hyphenation have been standardised. | + | However, where there is an equal number of instances of | + | a hyphenated and unhyphenated word, both have been | + | retained: dreamlike/dream-like; evildoers/evil-doers; | + | highflown/high-flown; jogtrot/jog-trot; | + | overdoses/over-doses; textbook/text-book. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30336 *** diff --git a/30336-h/30336-h.htm b/30336-h/30336-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d44906 --- /dev/null +++ b/30336-h/30336-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10846 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em; } + .frontend { text-align: center; font-size: 80%} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; } + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } + .chh { text-align: left; font-variant: small-caps; } + .pns { text-align: right; padding-left: 10em; } + + body { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + + .pagenum { position: absolute; left: 91%; text-align: right; + font-size: 70%; background-color: inherit; color: gray; + border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 3px; } + + .blockquot{ margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; } + .attrib { margin-left: 12em; } + + .transnote { margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em; + font-size: 95%; border: solid 1px silver; } + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .footnotes { margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em; + border: dashed 1px silver; } + .footnote { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em; } + .footnote .label { position: absolute; right: 72%; text-align: right; } + .fnanchor { vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none; } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30336 ***</div> + +<div class="transnote"><h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3> + +<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in +this text. For a complete list, please see <a href="#TN">the bottom of +this document</a>.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2>HOURS IN A LIBRARY</h2> + +<h4>VOL. II.</h4> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + + +<h1>HOURS IN A LIBRARY</h1> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>LESLIE STEPHEN</h2> + +<h3><i>NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS</i></h3> + +<h3>IN THREE VOLUMES</h3> + +<h2>VOL. II.</h2> + +<p class="frontend">LONDON<br /> +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE<br /> +1892<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS<br /> +OF<br /> +THE SECOND VOLUME</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC"> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Dr. Johnson's Writings</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Crabbe</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">William Hazlitt</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Disraeli's Novels</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Massinger</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fielding's Novels</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cowper and Rousseau</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The First Edinburgh Reviewers</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Wordsworth's Ethics</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Landor's Imaginary Conversations</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Macaulay</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p> +<h1>HOURS IN A LIBRARY</h1> + + +<h2><i>DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS</i></h2> + + +<p>A book appeared not long ago of which it was the professed object to +give to the modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell's +immortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain from +discussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may be +made in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcome +must, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, to +say the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always mangle +some people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they may +display, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of the +great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an +intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic, +retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon +those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original, +the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There +remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but +not extinct, can be titillated by the promise that they shall not have +the trouble of making their own selection. Let us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> wish them good +digestions, and, in spite of modern changes of fashion, more robust +taste for the future. I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell. A man, indeed, may +be a good Christian, and an excellent father of a family, without loving +Johnson or Boswell, for a sense of humour is not one of the primary +virtues. But Boswell's is one of the very few books which, after many +years of familiarity, will still provoke a hearty laugh even in the +solitude of a study; and the laughter is of that kind which does one +good.</p> + +<p>I do not wish, however, to pronounce one more eulogy upon an old friend, +but to say a few words on a question which he sometimes suggests. +Macaulay's well-known but provoking essay is more than usually lavish in +overstrained paradoxes. He has explicitly declared that Boswell wrote +one of the most charming of books because he was one of the greatest of +fools. And his remarks suggest, if they do not implicitly assert, that +Johnson wrote some of the most unreadable of books, although, if not +because, he possessed one of the most vigorous intellects of the time. +Carlyle has given a sufficient explanation of the first paradox; but the +second may justify a little further inquiry. As a general rule, the talk +of a great man is the reflection of his books. Nothing is so false as +the common saying that the presence of a distinguished writer is +generally disappointing. It exemplifies a very common delusion. People +are so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> impressed by the disparity which sometimes occurs, that they +take the exception for the rule. It is, of course, true that a man's +verbal utterances may differ materially from his written utterances. He +may, like Addison, be shy in company; he may, like many retired +students, be slow in collecting his thoughts; or he may, like Goldsmith, +be over-anxious to shine at all hazards. But a patient observer will +even then detect the essential identity under superficial differences; +and in the majority of cases, as in that of Macaulay himself, the +talking and the writing are palpably and almost absurdly similar. The +whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who +is partially revealed to us in his spoken or his written words. Whatever +the means of communication, the problem is the same. The two methods of +inquiry may supplement each other; but their substantial agreement is +the test of their accuracy. If Johnson, as a writer, appears to us to be +a mere windbag and manufacturer of sesquipedalian verbiage, whilst, as a +talker, he appears to be one of the most genuine and deeply feeling of +men, we may be sure that our analysis has been somewhere defective. The +discrepancy is, of course, partly explained by the faults of Johnson's +style; but the explanation only removes the difficulty a degree further. +'The style is the man' is a very excellent aphorism, though some eminent +writers have lately pointed out that Buffon's original remark was <i>le +style c'est de l'homme</i>. That only proves that, like many other good +sayings, it has been polished and brought to perfection by the process +of attrition in numerous minds, instead of being struck out at a blow by +a solitary thinker. From a purely logical point of view, Buffon may be +correct; but the very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration +which makes it more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> biting whilst less rigidly accurate. According to +Buffon, the style might belong to a man as an acquisition rather than to +natural growth. There are parasitical writers who, in the old phrase, +have 'formed their style,' by the imitation of accepted models, and who +have, therefore, possessed it only by right of appropriation. Boswell +has a discussion as to the writers who may have served Johnson in this +capacity. But, in fact, Johnson, like all other men of strong +idiosyncrasy, formed his style as he formed his legs. The peculiarities +of his limbs were in some degree the result of conscious efforts in +walking, swimming, and 'buffeting with his books.' This development was +doubtless more fully determined by the constitution which he brought +into the world, and the circumstances under which he was brought up. And +even that queer Johnsonese, which Macaulay supposes him to have adopted +in accordance with a more definite literary theory, will probably appear +to be the natural expression of certain innate tendencies, and of the +mental atmosphere which he breathed from youth. To appreciate fairly the +strangely cumbrous form of his written speech, we must penetrate more +deeply than may at first sight seem necessary beneath the outer rind of +this literary Behemoth. The difficulty of such spiritual dissection is, +indeed, very great; but some little light may be thrown upon the subject +by following out such indications as we possess.</p> + +<p>The talking Johnson is sufficiently familiar to us. So far as Boswell +needs an interpreter, Carlyle has done all that can be done. He has +concentrated and explained what is diffused, and often unconsciously +indicated in Boswell's pages. When reading Boswell, we are half ashamed +of his power over our sympathies. It is like turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>ing over a portfolio +of sketches, caricatured, inadequate, and each giving only some +imperfect aspect of the original. Macaulay's smart paradoxes only +increase our perplexity by throwing the superficial contrasts into +stronger relief. Carlyle, with true imaginative insight, gives us at +once the essence of Johnson; he brings before our eyes the luminous body +of which we had previously been conscious only by a series of imperfect +images refracted through a number of distorting media. To render such a +service effectually is the highest triumph of criticism; and it would be +impertinent to say again in feebler language what Carlyle has expressed +so forcibly. We may, however, recall certain general conclusions by way +of preface to the problem which he has not expressly considered, how far +Johnson succeeded in expressing himself through his writings.</p> + +<p>The world, as Carlyle sees it, is composed, we all know, of two classes: +there are 'the dull millions, who, as a dull flock, roll hither and +thither, whithersoever they are led,' and there are a few superior +natures who can see and can will. There are, in other words, the heroes, +and those whose highest wisdom is to be hero-worshippers. Johnson's +glory is that he belonged to the sacred band, though he could not claim +within it the highest, or even a very high, rank. In the current +dialect, therefore, he was 'nowise a clothes-horse or patent digester, +but a genuine man.' Whatever the accuracy of the general doctrine, or of +certain corollaries which are drawn from it, the application to Johnson +explains one main condition of his power. Persons of colourless +imagination may hold—nor will we dispute their verdict—that Carlyle +overcharges his lights and shades, and brings his heroes into too +startling a contrast with the vulgar herd. Yet it is undeniable that +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> great bulk of mankind are transmitters rather than originators of +spiritual force. Most of us are necessarily condemned to express our +thoughts in formulas which we have learnt from others and can but +slightly tinge with our feeble personality. Nor, as a rule, are we even +consistent disciples of any one school of thought. What we call our +opinions are mere bundles of incoherent formulæ, arbitrarily stitched +together because our reasoning faculties are too dull to make +inconsistency painful. Of the vast piles of books which load our +libraries, ninety-nine hundredths and more are but printed echoes: and +it is the rarest of pleasures to say, Here is a distinct record of +impressions at first hand. We commonplace beings are hurried along in +the crowd, living from hand to mouth on such slices of material and +spiritual food as happen to drift in our direction, with little more +power of taking an independent course, or of forming any general theory, +than the polyps which are carried along by an oceanic current. Ask any +man what he thinks of the world in which he is placed: whether, for +example, it is on the whole a scene of happiness or misery, and he will +either answer by some cut-and-dried fragments of what was once wisdom, +or he will confine himself to a few incoherent details. He had a good +dinner to-day and a bad toothache yesterday, and a family affliction or +blessing the day before. But he is as incapable of summing up his +impressions as an infant of performing an operation in the differential +calculus. It is as rare as it is refreshing to find a man who can stand +on his own legs and be conscious of his own feelings, who is sturdy +enough to react as well as to transmit action, and lofty enough to raise +himself above the hurrying crowd and have some distinct belief as to +whence it is coming and whither it is going. Now Johnson, as one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> the +sturdiest of mankind, had the power due to a very distinct sentiment, if +not to a very clear theory, about the world in which he lived. It had +buffeted him severely enough, and he had formed a decisive estimate of +its value. He was no man to be put off with mere phrases in place of +opinions, or to accept doctrines which were not capable of expressing +genuine emotion. To this it must be added that his emotions were as deep +and tender as they were genuine. How sacred was his love for his old and +ugly wife; how warm his sympathy wherever it could be effective; how +manly the self-respect with which he guarded his dignity through all the +temptations of Grub Street, need not be once more pointed out. Perhaps, +however, it is worth while to notice the extreme rarity of such +qualities. Many people, we think, love their fathers. Fortunately, that +is true; but in how many people is filial affection strong enough to +overpower the dread of eccentricity? How many men would have been +capable of doing penance in Uttoxeter market years after their father's +death for a long-passed act of disobedience? Most of us, again, would +have a temporary emotion of pity for an outcast lying helplessly in the +street. We should call the police, or send her in a cab to the +workhouse, or, at least, write to the <i>Times</i> to denounce the defective +arrangements of public charity. But it is perhaps better not to ask how +many good Samaritans would take her on their shoulders to their own +homes, care for her wants, and put her into a better way of life.</p> + +<p>In the lives of most eminent men we find much good feeling and +honourable conduct; but it is an exception, even in the case of good +men, when we find that a life has been shaped by other than the ordinary +conventions, or that emotions have dared to overflow the well-worn +channels of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> respectability. The love which we feel for Johnson is due +to the fact that the pivots upon which his life turned are invariably +noble motives, and not mere obedience to custom. More than one modern +writer has expressed a fraternal affection for Addison, and it is +justified by the kindly humour which breathes through his 'Essays.' But +what anecdote of that most decorous and successful person touches our +hearts or has the heroic ring of Johnson's wrestlings with adverse +fortune? Addison showed how a Christian could die—when his life has run +smoothly through pleasant places, secretaryships of state, and marriages +with countesses, and when nothing—except a few overdoses of port +wine—has shaken his nerves or ruffled his temper. A far deeper emotion +rises at the deathbed of the rugged old pilgrim, who has fought his way +to peace in spite of troubles within and without, who has been jeered in +Vanity Fair and has descended into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, +and escaped with pain and difficulty from the clutches of Giant Despair. +When the last feelings of such a man are tender, solemn, and simple, we +feel ourselves in a higher presence than that of an amiable gentleman +who simply died, as he lived, with consummate decorum.</p> + +<p>On turning, however, from Johnson's life to his writings, from Boswell +to the 'Rambler,' it must be admitted that the shock is trying to our +nerves. The 'Rambler' has, indeed, high merits. The impression which it +made upon his own generation proves the fact; for the reputation, +however temporary, was not won by a concession to the fashions of the +day, but to the influence of a strong judgment uttering itself through +uncouth forms. The melancholy which colours its pages is the melancholy +of a noble nature. The tone of thought reminds us of Bishop Butler,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> +whose writings, defaced by a style even more tiresome, though less +pompous than Johnson's, have owed their enduring reputation to a +philosophical acuteness in which Johnson was certainly very deficient. +Both of these great men, however, impress us by their deep sense of the +evils under which humanity suffers, and their rejection of the +superficial optimism of the day. Butler's sadness, undoubtedly, is that +of a recluse, and Johnson's that of a man of the world; but the +sentiment is fundamentally the same. It may be added, too, that here, as +elsewhere, Johnson speaks with the sincerity of a man drawing upon his +own experience. He announces himself as a scholar thrust out upon the +world rather by necessity than choice; and a large proportion of the +papers dwell upon the various sufferings of the literary class. Nobody +could speak more feelingly of those sufferings, as no one had a closer +personal acquaintance with them. But allowing to Johnson whatever credit +is due to the man who performs one more variation on the old theme, +<i>Vanitas vanitatum</i>, we must in candour admit that the 'Rambler' has the +one unpardonable fault: it is unreadable.</p> + +<p>What an amazing turn it shows for commonplaces! That life is short, that +marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men +are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, +that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from +detraction;—these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon +which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. +Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an +unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no man from this time,' is the comment in +one of his stories, 'suffer his felicity to depend on the death of his +aunt.' Every actor, of course, uses the same dialect. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> gay young +gentleman tells us that he used to amuse his companions by giving them +notice of his friends' oddities. 'Every man,' he says, 'has some +habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which +never fails to excite mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By +premonition of these particularities, I secured our pleasantry.' The +feminine characters, Flirtillas, and Cleoras, and Euphelias, and +Penthesileas, are, if possible, still more grotesque. Macaulay remarks +that he wears the petticoat with as ill a grace as Falstaff himself. The +reader, he thinks, will cry out with Sir Hugh, 'I like not when a 'oman +has a great peard! I spy a great peard under her muffler.' Oddly enough +Johnson gives the very same quotation; and goes on to warn his supposed +correspondents that Phyllis must send no more letters from the Horse +Guards; and that Belinda must 'resign her pretensions to female elegance +till she has lived three weeks without hearing the politics of Button's +Coffee House.' The Doctor was probably sensible enough of his own +defects. And yet there is a still more wearisome set of articles. In +emulation of the precedent set by Addison, Johnson indulges in the +dreariest of allegories. Criticism, we are told, was the eldest daughter +of Labour and Truth, but at last resigned in favour of Time, and left +Prejudice and False Taste to reign in company with Fraud and Mischief. +Then we have the genealogy of Wit and Learning, and of Satire, the Son +of Wit and Malice, and an account of their various quarrels, and the +decision of Jupiter. Neither are the histories of such semi-allegorical +personages as Almamoulin, the son of Nouradin, or of Anningait and Ayut, +the Greenland lovers, much more refreshing to modern readers. That +Johnson possessed humour of no mean order, we know from Boswell; but no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> +critic could have divined his power from the clumsy gambols in which he +occasionally recreates himself. Perhaps his happiest effort is a +dissertation upon the advantage of living in garrets; but the humour +struggles and gasps dreadfully under the weight of words. 'There are,' +he says, 'some who would continue blockheads' (the Alpine Club was not +yet founded), 'even on the summit of the Andes or the Peak of Teneriffe. +But let not any man be considered as unimprovable till this potent +remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was found to be great only in a +garret, as the joiner of Aretæus was rational in no other place but his +own shop.'</p> + +<p>How could a man of real power write such unendurable stuff? Or how, +indeed, could any man come to embody his thoughts in the style of which +one other sentence will be a sufficient example? As it is afterwards +nearly repeated, it may be supposed to have struck his fancy. The +remarks of the philosophers who denounce temerity are, he says, 'too +just to be disputed and too salutary to be rejected; but there is +likewise some danger lest timorous prudence should be inculcated till +courage and enterprise are wholly repressed and the mind congested in +perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.' Is +there not some danger, we ask, that the mind will be benumbed into +perpetual torpidity by the influence of this soporific sapience? It is +still true, however, that this Johnsonese, so often burlesqued and +ridiculed, was, as far as we can judge, a genuine product. Macaulay says +that it is more offensive than the mannerism of Milton or Burke, because +it is a mannerism adopted on principle and sustained by constant effort. +Facts do not confirm the theory. Milton's prose style seems to be the +result of a conscious effort to run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> English into classical moulds. +Burke's mannerism does not appear in his early writings, and we can +trace its development from the imitation of Bolingbroke to the last +declamation against the Revolution. But Johnson seems to have written +Johnsonese from his cradle. In his first original composition, the +preface to Father Lobo's 'Abyssinia,' the style is as distinctive as in +the 'Rambler.' The Parliamentary reports in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' +make Pitt and Fox<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> express sentiments which are probably their own in +language which is as unmistakably Johnson's. It is clear that his style, +good or bad, was the same from his earliest efforts. It is only in his +last book, the 'Lives of the Poets,' that the mannerism, though equally +marked, is so far subdued as to be tolerable. What he himself called his +habit of using 'too big words and too many of them' was no affectation, +but as much the result of his special idiosyncrasy as his queer +gruntings and twitchings. Sir Joshua Reynolds indeed maintained, and we +may believe so attentive an observer, that his strange physical +contortions were the result of bad habit, not of actual disease. +Johnson, he said, could sit as still as other people when his attention +was called to it. And possibly, if he had tried, he might have avoided +the fault of making 'little fishes talk like whales.' But how did the +bad habits arise? According to Boswell, Johnson professed to have +'formed his style' partly upon Sir W. Temple, and on 'Chambers's +Proposal for his Dictionary.' The statement was obviously +misinterpreted: but there is a glimmering of truth in the theory that +the 'style was formed'—so far as those words have any meaning—on the +'giants of the seventeenth century,' and especially upon Sir Thomas +Browne. Johnson's taste,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> in fact, had led him to the study of writers +in many ways congenial to him. His favourite book, as we know, was +Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' The pedantry of the older school did +not repel him; the weighty thought rightly attracted him; and the more +complex structure of sentence was perhaps a pleasant contrast to an ear +saturated with the Gallicised neatness of Addison and Pope. Unluckily, +the secret of the old majestic cadence was hopelessly lost. Johnson, +though spiritually akin to the giants, was the firmest ally and subject +of the dwarfish dynasty which supplanted them. The very faculty of +hearing seems to change in obedience to some mysterious law at different +stages of intellectual development; and that which to one generation is +delicious music is to another a mere droning of bagpipes or the grinding +of monotonous barrel-organs.</p> + +<p>Assuming that a man can find perfect satisfaction in the versification +of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that +'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in +blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout +the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid +satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of +alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more +or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work +with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's +harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was +'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for +'lavishing much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.' Moreover, +the poor man did his best by introducing sounding proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> names, even +when they 'added little music to his poem:' an example of this feeble, +though well-meant expedient, being the passage about the moon, which—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">The Tuscan artist views,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At evening, from the top of Fiesole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, &c.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This profanity passed at the time for orthodoxy. But the misfortune was, +that Johnson, unhesitatingly subscribing to the rules of Queen Anne's +critics, is always instinctively feeling after the grander effects of +the old school. Nature prompts him to the stateliness of Milton, whilst +Art orders him to deal out long and short syllables alternately, and to +make them up in parcels of ten, and then tie the parcels together in +pairs by the help of a rhyme. The natural utterance of a man of strong +perceptions, but of unwieldy intellect, of a melancholy temperament, and +capable of very deep, but not vivacious emotions, would be in stately +and elaborate phrases. His style was not more distinctly a work of art +than the style of Browne or Milton, but, unluckily, it was a work of bad +art. He had the misfortune, not so rare as it may sound, to be born in +the wrong century; and is, therefore, a giant in fetters; the amplitude +of stride is still there, but it is checked into mechanical regularity. +A similar phenomenon is observable in other writers of the time. The +blank verse of Young, for example, is generally set to Pope's tune with +the omission of the rhymes, whilst Thomson, revolting more or less +consciously against the canons of his time, too often falls into mere +pompous mouthing. Shaftesbury, in the previous generation, trying to +write poetical prose, becomes as pedantic as Johnson, though in a +different style; and Gibbon's mannerism is a familiar example of a +similar escape from a monotonous simplicity into awkward com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>plexity. +Such writers are like men who have been chilled by what Johnson would +call the 'frigorifick' influence of the classicism of their fathers, and +whose numbed limbs move stiffly and awkwardly in a first attempt to +regain the old liberty. The form, too, of the 'Rambler' is unfortunate. +Johnson has always Addison before his eyes; to whom it was formerly the +fashion to compare him for the same excellent reason which has recently +suggested comparisons between Dickens and Thackeray—namely, that their +works were published in the same external shape. Unluckily, Johnson gave +too much excuse for the comparison by really imitating Addison. He has +to make allegories, and to give lively sketches of feminine +peculiarities, and to ridicule social foibles of which he was, at most, +a distant observer. The inevitable consequence is, that though here and +there we catch a glimpse of the genuine man, we are, generally, too much +provoked by the awkwardness of his costume to be capable of enjoying, or +even reading him.</p> + +<p>In many of his writings, however, Johnson manages, almost entirely, to +throw off these impediments. In his deep capacity for sympathy and +reverence, we recognise some of the elements that go to the making of a +poet. He is always a man of intuitions rather than of discursive +intellect; often keen of vision, though wanting in analytical power. For +poetry, indeed, as it is often understood now, or even as it was +understood by Pope, he had little enough qualification. He had not the +intellectual vivacity implied in the marvellously neat workmanship of +Pope, and still less the delight in all natural and artistic beauty +which we generally take to be essential to poetic excellence. His +contempt for 'Lycidas' is sufficiently significant upon that head. Still +more characteristic is the incapacity to under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>stand Spenser, which +comes out incidentally in his remarks upon some of those imitations, +which even in the middle of the eighteenth century showed that +sensibility to the purest form of poetry was not by any means extinct +amongst us. But there is a poetry, though we sometimes seem to forget +it, which is the natural expression of deep moral sentiment; and of this +Johnson has written enough to reveal very genuine power. The touching +verses upon the death of Levett are almost as pathetic as Cowper; and +fragments of the two imitations of Juvenal have struck deep enough to be +not quite forgotten. We still quote the lines about pointing a moral and +adorning a tale, which conclude a really noble passage. We are too often +reminded of his melancholy musings over the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fears of the brave and follies of the wise,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and a few of the concluding lines of the 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' in +which he answers the question whether man must of necessity</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>in helplessness and ignorance, may have something of a familiar ring. We +are to give thanks, he says,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For love, which scarce collective man can fill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counts death kind nature's signal for retreat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These goods for man, the laws of heaven ordain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And makes the happiness she does not find.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These lines, and many others which might be quoted, are noble in +expression, as well as lofty and tender in feeling. Johnson, like +Wordsworth, or even more deeply than Words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>worth, had felt all the +'heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world;' and, +though he stumbles a little in the narrow limits of his versification, +he bears himself nobly, and manages to put his heart into his poetry. +Coleridge's paraphrase of the well-known lines, 'Let observation with +extensive observation, observe mankind from China to Peru,' would +prevent us from saying that he had thrown off his verbiage. He has not +the felicity of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' though he wrote one of the best +couplets in that admirable poem; but his ponderous lines show genuine +vigour, and can be excluded from poetry only by the help of an arbitrary +classification.</p> + +<p>The fullest expression, however, of Johnson's feeling is undoubtedly to +be found in 'Rasselas.' The inevitable comparison with Voltaire's +'Candide,' which, by an odd coincidence, appeared almost simultaneously, +suggests some curious reflections. The resemblance between the moral of +the two books is so strong that, as Johnson remarked, it would have been +difficult not to suppose that one had given a hint to the other but for +the chronological difficulty. The contrast, indeed, is as marked as the +likeness. 'Candide' is not adapted for family reading, whereas +'Rasselas' might be a textbook for young ladies studying English in a +convent. 'Candide' is a marvel of clearness and vivacity; whereas to +read 'Rasselas' is about as exhilarating as to wade knee-deep through a +sandy desert. Voltaire and Johnson, however, the great sceptic and the +last of the true old Tories, coincide pretty well in their view of the +world, and in the remedy which they suggest. The world is, they agree, +full of misery, and the optimism which would deny the reality of the +misery is childish. <i>Il faut cultiver notre jardin</i> is the last word of +'Candide,' and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> Johnson's teaching, both here and elsewhere, may be +summed up in the words 'Work, and don't whine.' It need not be +considered here, nor, perhaps, is it quite plain, what speculative +conclusions Voltaire meant to be drawn from his teaching. The +peculiarity of Johnson is, that he is apparently indifferent to any such +conclusion. A dogmatic assertion, that the world is on the whole a scene +of misery, may be pressed into the service of different philosophies. +Johnson asserted the opinion resolutely, both in writing and in +conversation, but apparently never troubled himself with any inferences +but such as have a directly practical tendency. He was no +'speculatist'—a word which now strikes us as having an American twang, +but which was familiar to the lexicographer. His only excursion to the +borders of such regions was in the very forcible review of Soane Jenyns, +who had made a jaunty attempt to explain the origin of evil by the help +of a few of Pope's epigrams. Johnson's sledge-hammer smashes his flimsy +platitudes to pieces with an energy too good for such a foe. For +speculation, properly so called, there was no need. The review, like +'Rasselas,' is simply a vigorous protest against the popular attempt to +make things pleasant by a feeble dilution of the most watery kind of +popular teaching. He has no trouble in remarking that the evils of +poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that +there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered +consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country +gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it +was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks +facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he +tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in +denying it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the +papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue to a +comedy with the words—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surveys the general toil of human kind.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the 'Life of Savage' he makes the common remark that the lives of +many of the greatest teachers of mankind have been miserable. The +explanation to which he inclines is that they have not been more +miserable than their neighbours, but that their misery has been more +conspicuous. His melancholy view of life may have been caused simply by +his unfortunate constitution; for everybody sees in the disease of his +own liver a disorder of the universe; but it was also intensified by the +natural reaction of a powerful nature against the fluent optimism of the +time, which expressed itself in Pope's aphorism, Whatever is, is right. +The strongest men of the time revolted against that attempt to cure a +deep-seated disease by a few fine speeches. The form taken by Johnson's +revolt is characteristic. His nature was too tender and too manly to +incline to Swift's misanthropy. Men might be wretched, but he would not +therefore revile them as filthy Yahoos. He was too reverent and cared +too little for abstract thought to share the scepticism of Voltaire. In +this miserable world the one worthy object of ambition is to do one's +duty, and the one consolation deserving the name is to be found in +religion. That Johnson's religious opinions sometimes took the form of +rather grotesque superstition may be true; and it is easy enough to +ridicule some of its manifestations. He took the creed of his day +without much examination of the evidence upon which its dogmas rested; +but a writer must be thoughtless indeed who should be more inclined to +laugh at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> his superficial oddities, than to admire the reverent spirit +and the brave self-respect with which he struggled through a painful +life. The protest of 'Rasselas' against optimism is therefore widely +different from the protest of Voltaire. The deep and genuine feeling of +the Frenchman is concealed under smart assaults upon the dogmas of +popular theology; the Englishman desires to impress upon us the futility +of all human enjoyments, with a view to deepen the solemnity of our +habitual tone of thought. It is true, indeed, that the evil is dwelt +upon more forcibly than the remedy. The book is all the more impressive. +We are almost appalled by the gloomy strength which sees so forcibly the +misery of the world and rejects so unequivocally all the palliatives of +sentiment and philosophy. The melancholy is intensified by the ponderous +style, which suggests a man weary of a heavy burden. The air seems to be +filled with what Johnson once called 'inspissated gloom.' 'Rasselas,' +one may say, has a narrow escape of being a great book, though it is ill +calculated for the hasty readers of to-day. Indeed, the defects are +serious enough. The class of writing to which it belongs demands a +certain dramatic picturesqueness to point the moral effectively. Not +only the long-winded sentences, but the slow evolution of thought and +the deliberation with which he works out his pictures of misery, make +the general effect dull beside such books as 'Candide' or 'Gulliver's +Travels.' A touch of epigrammatic exaggeration is very much needed; and +yet anybody who has the courage to read it through will admit that +Johnson is not an unworthy guide into those gloomy regions of +imagination which we all visit sometimes, and which it is as well to +visit in good company.</p> + +<p>After his fashion, Johnson is a fair representative of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> Greatheart. His +melancholy is distinguished from that of feebler men by the strength of +the conviction that 'it will do no good to whine.' We know his view of +the great prophet of the Revolutionary school. 'Rousseau,' he said, to +Boswell's astonishment, 'is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a +sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from +the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in +the plantations.' That is a fine specimen of the good Johnsonese +prejudices of which we hear so much; and, of course, it is easy to infer +that Johnson was an ignorant bigot, who had not in any degree taken the +measure of the great moving forces of his time. Nothing, indeed, can be +truer than that Johnson cared very little for the new gospel of the +rights of man. His truly British contempt for all such fancies ('for +anything I see,' he once said, 'foreigners are fools') is one of his +strongest characteristics. Now, Rousseau and his like took a view of the +world as it was quite as melancholy as Johnson's. They inferred that it +ought to be turned upside down, assured that the millennium would begin +as soon as a few revolutionary dogmas were accepted. All their remedies +appeared to the excellent Doctor as so much of that cant of which it was +a man's first duty to clear his mind. The evils of life were far too +deeply seated to be caused or cured by kings or demagogues. One of the +most popular commonplaces of the day was the mischief of luxury. That we +were all on the high road to ruin on account of our wealth, our +corruption, and the growth of the national debt, was the text of any +number of political agitators. The whole of this talk was, to his mind, +so much whining and cant. Luxury did no harm, and the mass of the +people, as indeed was in one sense obvious enough, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> only too little +of it. The pet 'state of nature' of theorists was a silly figment. The +genuine savage was little better than an animal; and a savage woman, +whose contempt for civilised life had prompted her to escape to the +forest, was simply a 'speaking cat.' The natural equality of mankind was +mere moonshine. So far is it from being true, he says, that no two +people can be together for half an hour without one acquiring an evident +superiority over the other. Subordination is an essential element of +human happiness. A Whig stinks in his nostrils because to his eye modern +Whiggism is 'a negation of all principles.' As he said of Priestley's +writings, it unsettles everything and settles nothing. 'He is a cursed +Whig, a <i>bottomless</i> Whig as they all are now,' was his description +apparently of Burke. Order, in fact, is a vital necessity; what +particular form it may take matters comparatively little; and therefore +all revolutionary dogmas were chimerical as an attack upon the +inevitable conditions of life, and mischievous so far as productive of +useless discontent. We need not ask what mixture of truth and falsehood +there may be in these principles. Of course, a Radical, or even a +respectable Whig, like Macaulay, who believed in the magical efficacy of +the British Constitution, might shriek or laugh at such doctrine. +Johnson's political pamphlets, besides the defects natural to a writer +who was only a politician by accident, advocate the most retrograde +doctrines. Nobody at the present day thinks that the Stamp Act was an +admirable or justifiable measure; or would approve of telling the +Americans that they ought to have been grateful for their long exemption +instead of indignant at the imposition. 'We do not put a calf into the +plough; we wait till he is an ox'—was not a judicious taunt. He was +utterly wrong; and, if everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> who is utterly wrong in a political +controversy deserves unmixed contempt, there is no more to be said for +him. We might indeed argue that Johnson was in some ways entitled to the +sympathy of enlightened people. His hatred of the Americans was +complicated by his hatred of slave-owners. He anticipated Lincoln in +proposing the emancipation of the negroes as a military measure. His +uniform hatred for the slave trade scandalised poor Boswell, who held +that its abolition would be equivalent to 'shutting the gates of mercy +on mankind.' His language about the blundering tyranny of the English +rule in Ireland would satisfy Mr. Froude, though he would hardly have +loved a Home Ruler. He denounces the frequency of capital punishment and +the harshness of imprisonment for debt, and he invokes a compassionate +treatment of the outcasts of our streets as warmly as the more +sentimental Goldsmith. His conservatism may be at times obtuse, but it +is never of the cynical variety. He hates cruelty and injustice as +righteously as he hates anarchy. Indeed, Johnson's contempt for mouthing +agitators of the Wilkes and Junius variety is one which may be shared by +most thinkers who would not accept his principles. There is a vigorous +passage in the 'False Alarm' which is scarcely unjust to the patriots of +the day. He describes the mode in which petitions are generally got up. +They are sent from town to town, and the people flock to see what is to +be sent to the king. 'One man signs because he hates the Papists; +another because he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes; one because +it will vex the parson; another because he owes his landlord nothing; +one because he is rich; another because he is poor; one to show that he +is not afraid, and another to show that he can write.' The people, he +thinks, are as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> off as they are likely to be under any form of +government; and grievances about general warrants or the rights of +juries in libel cases are not really felt so long as they have enough to +eat and drink and wear. The error, we may probably say, was less in the +contempt for a very shallow agitation than in the want of perception +that deeper causes of discontent were accumulating in the background. +Wilkes in himself was a worthless demagogue; but Wilkes was the straw +carried by the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment, to which Johnson +was entirely blind. Yet whatever we may think of his political +philosophy, the value of these solid sturdy prejudices is undeniable. To +the fact that Johnson was the typical representative of a large class of +Englishmen, we owe it that the Society of Rights did not develop into a +Jacobin Club. The fine phrases on which Frenchmen became intoxicated +never turned the heads of men impervious to abstract theories and +incapable of dropping substances for shadows. There are evils in each +temperament; but it is as well that some men should carry into politics +that rooted contempt for whining which lay so deep in Johnson's nature. +He scorned the sickliness of the Rousseau school as, in spite of his +constitutional melancholy, he scorned valetudinarianism whether of the +bodily or the spiritual order. He saw evil enough in the world to be +heartily, at times too roughly, impatient of all fine ladies who made a +luxury of grief or of demagogues who shrieked about theoretical +grievances which did not sensibly affect the happiness of one man in a +thousand. The lady would not have time to nurse her sorrows if she had +been a washerwoman; the grievances with which the demagogues yelled +themselves hoarse could hardly be distinguished amidst the sorrows of +the vast majority condemned to keep starvation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> at bay by unceasing +labour. His incapacity for speculation makes his pamphlets worthless +beside Burke's philosophical discourses; but the treatment, if wrong and +defective on the theoretical side, is never contemptible. Here, as +elsewhere, he judges by his intuitive aversions. He rejects too hastily +whatever seems insipid or ill-flavoured to his spiritual appetite. Like +all the shrewd and sensible part of mankind he condemns as mere +moonshine what may be really the first faint dawn of a new daylight. But +then his intuitions are noble, and his fundamental belief is the vital +importance of order, of religion, and of morality, coupled with a +profound conviction, surely not erroneous, that the chief sources of +human suffering lie far deeper than any of the remedies proposed by +constitution-mongers and fluent theorists. The literary version of these +prejudices or principles is given most explicitly in the 'Lives of the +Poets'—the book which is now the most readable of Johnson's +performances, and which most frequently recalls his conversational +style. Indeed, it is a thoroughly admirable book, and but for one or two +defects might enjoy a much more decided popularity. It is full of shrewd +sense and righteous as well as keen estimates of men and things. The +'Life of Savage,' written in earlier times, is the best existing +portrait of that large class of authors who, in Johnson's phrase, 'hung +loose upon society' in the days of the Georges. The Lives of Pope, +Dryden, and others have scarcely been superseded, though much fuller +information has since come to light; and they are all well worth +reading. But the criticism, like the politics, is woefully out of date. +Johnson's division between the shams and the realities deserves all +respect in both cases, but in both cases he puts many things on the +wrong side of the dividing line. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> hearty contempt for sham pastorals +and sham love-poetry will be probably shared by modern readers. 'Who +will hear of sheep and goats and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets +through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of +literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be for the most +part thrown away as men grow wise and nations grow learned.' But +elsewhere he blunders into terrible misapprehensions. Where he errs by +simply repeating the accepted rules of the Pope school, he for once +talks mere second-hand nonsense. But his independent judgments are +interesting even when erroneous. His unlucky assault upon 'Lycidas,' +already noticed, is generally dismissed with a pitying shrug of the +shoulders. 'Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phœbus, Neptune and Æolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can +less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a +shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone; how +one god asks another god what has become of Lycidas, and how neither god +can tell. He who thus grieves can excite no sympathy; he who thus +praises will confer no honour.'</p> + +<p>Of course every tyro in criticism has his answer ready; he can discourse +about the æsthetic tendencies of the <i>Renaissance</i> period, and explain +the necessity of placing one's self at a writer's point of view, and +entering into the spirit of the time. He will add, perhaps, that +'Lycidas' is a test of poetical feeling, and that he who does not +appreciate its exquisite melody has no music in his soul. The same +writer who will tell us all this, and doubtless with perfect truth, +would probably have adopted Pope or Johnson's theory with equal +confidence if he had lived in the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> century. 'Lycidas' repelled +Johnson by incongruities, which, from his point of view, were certainly +offensive. Most modern readers, I will venture to suggest, feel the same +annoyances, though they have not the courage to avow them freely. If +poetry is to be judged exclusively by the simplicity and force with +which it expresses sincere emotion, 'Lycidas' would hardly convince us +of Milton's profound sorrow for the death of King, and must be condemned +accordingly. To the purely pictorial or musical effects of a poem +Johnson was nearly blind; but that need not suggest a doubt as to the +sincerity of his love for the poetry which came within the range of his +own sympathies. Every critic is in effect criticising himself as well as +his author; and I confess that to my mind an obviously sincere record of +impressions, however one-sided they may be, is infinitely refreshing, as +revealing at least the honesty of the writer. The ordinary run of +criticism generally implies nothing but the extreme desire of the author +to show that he is open to the very last new literary fashion. I should +welcome a good assault upon Shakespeare which was not prompted by a love +of singularity; and there are half-a-dozen popular idols—I have not the +courage to name them—a genuine attack upon whom I could witness with +entire equanimity, not to say some complacency. If Johnson's blunder in +this case implied sheer stupidity, one can only say that honest +stupidity is a much better thing than clever insincerity or fluent +repetition of second-hand dogmas. But, in fact, this dislike of +'Lycidas,' and a good many instances of critical incapacity might be +added, is merely a misapplication of a very sound principle. The hatred +of cant and humbug and affectation of all vanity is a most salutary +ingredient even in poetical criticism. Johnson, with his natural +ignorance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> that historical method, the exaltation of which threatens +to become a part of our contemporary cant, made the pardonable blunder +of supposing that what would have been gross affectation in Gray must +have been affectation in Milton. His ear had been too much corrupted by +the contemporary school to enable him to recognise beauties which would +even have shone through some conscious affectation. He had the rare +courage—for, even then, Milton was one of the tabooed poets—to say +what he thought as forcibly as he could say it; and he has suffered the +natural punishment of plain speaking. It must, of course, be admitted +that a book embodying such principles is doomed to become more or less +obsolete, like his political pamphlets. And yet, as significant of the +writer's own character, as containing many passages of sound judgment, +expressed in forcible language, it is still, if not a great book, really +impressive within the limits of its capacity.</p> + +<p>After this imperfect survey of Johnson's writings, it only remains to be +noticed that all the most prominent peculiarities are the very same +which give interest to his spoken utterances. The doctrine is the same, +though the preacher's manner has changed. His melancholy is not so +heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of +excitement; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and +unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts +into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. His hearty love of +truth, and uncompromising hatred of cant in all its innumerable +transmutations, prompt half his most characteristic sayings. His queer +prejudices take a humorous form, and give a delightful zest to his +conversation. His contempt for abstract speculation comes out when he +vanquishes Berkeley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> not with a grin, but by 'striking his foot with +mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem +to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous +thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down +with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they +compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions +of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous +rather than witty. He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that +all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. As +Boswell says, he is through your body in an instant without any +preliminary parade; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill +of fence. 'We know we are free and there's an end of it,' is his +characteristic summary of a perplexed bit of metaphysics; and he would +evidently have no patience to wander through the labyrinths in which men +like Jonathan Edwards delighted to perplex themselves. We should have +been glad to see a fuller report of one of those conversations in which +Burke 'wound into a subject like a serpent,' and contrast his method +with Johnson's downright hitting. Boswell had not the power, even if he +had the will, to give an adequate account of such a 'wit combat.'</p> + +<p>That such a mind should express itself most forcibly in speech is +intelligible enough. Conversation was to him not merely a contest, but a +means of escape from himself. 'I may be cracking my joke,' he said to +Boswell,'and cursing the sun: Sun, how I hate thy beams!' The phrase +sounds exaggerated, but it was apparently his settled conviction that +the only remedy for melancholy, except indeed the religious remedy, was +in hard work or in the rapture of conversational strife. His little +circle of friends called forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> his humour as the House of Commons +excited Chatham's eloquence; and both of them were inclined to mouth too +much when deprived of the necessary stimulus. Chatham's set speeches +were as pompous as Johnson's deliberate writing. Johnson and Chatham +resemble the chemical bodies which acquire entirely new properties when +raised beyond a certain degree of temperature. Indeed, we frequently +meet touches of the conversational Johnson in his controversial writing. +'Taxation no Tyranny' is at moments almost as pithy as Swift, though the +style is never so simple. The celebrated Letter to Chesterfield, and the +letter in which he tells MacPherson that he will not be 'deterred from +detecting what he thinks a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian,' are as +good specimens of the smashing repartee as anything in Boswell's +reports. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often +as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous +phrases into simple words without losing some of their meaning. The +structure of the sentences is compact, though they are too elaborately +balanced and stuffed with superfluous antitheses. The language might be +simpler, but it is not a mere sham aggregation of words. His written +style, however faulty in other respects, is neither slipshod nor +ambiguous, and passes into his conversational style by imperceptible +degrees. The radical identity is intelligible, though the superficial +contrast is certainly curious. We may perhaps say that his century, +unfavourable to him as a writer, gave just what he required for talking. +If, as is sometimes said, the art of conversation is disappearing, it is +because society has become too large and diffuse. The good talker, as +indeed the good artist of every kind, depends upon the tacit +co-operation of the social medium. The chorus, as Johnson has himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> +shown very well in one of the 'Ramblers,' is quite as essential as the +main performer. Nobody talks well in London, because everybody has +constantly to meet a fresh set of interlocutors, and is as much put out +as a musician who has to be always learning a new instrument. A literary +dictator has ceased to be a possibility, so far as direct personal +influence is concerned. In the club, Johnson knew how every blow would +tell, and in the rapid thrust and parry dropped the heavy style which +muffled his utterances in print. He had to deal with concrete +illustrations, instead of expanding into platitudinous generalities. The +obsolete theories which impair the value of his criticism and his +politics, become amusing in the form of pithy sayings, though they weary +us when asserted in formal expositions. His greatest literary effort, +the 'Dictionary,' has of necessity become antiquated in use, and, in +spite of the intellectual vigour indicated, can hardly be commended for +popular reading. And thus but for the inimitable Boswell, it must be +admitted that Johnson would probably have sunk very deeply into +oblivion. A few good sayings would have been preserved by Mrs. Thrale +and others, or have been handed down by tradition, and doubtless +assigned in process of time to Sydney Smith and other conversational +celebrities. A few couplets from the 'Vanity of Human Wishes' would not +yet have been submerged, and curious readers would have recognised the +power of 'Rasselas,' and been delighted with some shrewd touches in the +'Lives of the Poets.' But with all desire to magnify critical insight, +it must be admitted that that man would have shown singular penetration, +and been regarded as an eccentric commentator, who had divined the +humour and the fervour of mind which lay hid in the remains of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> huge +lexicographer. And yet when we have once recognised his power, we can +see it everywhere indicated in his writings, though by an unfortunate +fatality the style or the substance was always so deeply affected by the +faults of the time, that the product is never thoroughly sound. His +tenacious conservatism caused him to cling to decaying materials for the +want of anything better, and he has suffered the natural penalty. He was +a great force half wasted, so far as literature was concerned, because +the fashionable costume of the day hampered the free exercises of his +powers, and because the only creeds to which he could attach himself +were in the phase of decline and inanition. A century earlier or later +he might have succeeded in expressing himself through books as well as +through his talk; but it is not given to us to choose the time of our +birth, and some very awkward consequences follow.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See, for example, the great debate on February 13, 1741.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span></p> +<h2><i>CRABBE</i></h2> + + +<p>It is nearly a century since George Crabbe, then a young man of +five-and-twenty, put three pounds in his pocket and started from his +native town of Aldborough, with a box of clothes and a case of surgical +instruments, to make his fortune in London. Few men have attempted that +adventure with less promising prospects. Any sensible adviser would have +told him to prefer starvation in his native village to starvation in the +back lanes of London. The adviser would, perhaps, have been vexed, but +would not have been confuted, by Crabbe's good fortune. We should still +recommend a youth not to jump into a river, though, of a thousand who +try the experiment, one may happen to be rescued by a benevolent +millionaire, and be put in the road to fortune. The chances against +Crabbe were enormous. Literature, considered as a trade, is a good deal +better at the present day than it was towards the end of the last +century, and yet anyone who has an opportunity of comparing the failures +with the successes, would be more apt to quote Chatterton than Crabbe as +a precedent for youthful aspirants. Crabbe, indeed, might say for +himself that literature was the only path open to him. His father was +collector of salt duties at Aldborough, a position, as one may imagine, +of no very great emolument. He had, however, given his son the chance of +acquiring a smattering of 'scholarship,' in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> sense in which that +word is used by the less educated lower classes. To the slender store of +learning acquired in a cheap country school, the lad managed to add such +medical training as could be picked up during an apprenticeship in an +apothecary's shop. With this provision of knowledge he tried to obtain +practice in his native town. He failed to get any patients of the paying +variety. Crabbe was clumsy and absent-minded to the end of his life. He +had, moreover, a taste for botany, and the shrewd inhabitants of +Aldborough, with that perverse tendency to draw inferences which is +characteristic of people who cannot reason, argued that as he picked up +his samples in the ditches, he ought to sell the medicines presumably +compounded from them for nothing. In one way or other, poor Crabbe had +sunk to the verge of distress. Of course, under these circumstances, he +had fallen in love and engaged himself at the age of eighteen to a young +lady, apparently as poor as himself. Of course, too, he called Miss Elmy +'Mira,' and addressed her in verses which occasionally appeared in the +poet's corner of a certain 'Wheble's Magazine.' My Mira, said the young +surgeon, in a style which must have been rather antiquated even in +Aldborough—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My Mira, shepherds, is as fair<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As sylvan nymphs who haunt the vale;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As sylphs who dwell in purest air,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As fays who skim the dusky dale.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Moreover, he won a prize for a poem on Hope, and composed an +'Allegorical Fable' and a piece called 'The Atheist reclaimed;' and, in +short, added plentifully to the vast rubbish-heap of old-world verses, +now decayed beyond the industry of the most persevering of Dryasdusts. +Nay,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> he even succeeded by some mysterious means in getting one of his +poems published separately. It was called 'Inebriety,' and was an +unblushing imitation of Pope. Here is a couplet by way of sample:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Champagne the courtier drinks the spleen to chase,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The colonel Burgundy, and Port his Grace.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>From the satirical the poet diverges into the mock heroic:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">See Inebriety! her wand she waves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The interstices of the box of clothing which went with him from +Aldborough to London were doubtless crammed with much waste paper +scribbled over with these feeble echoes of Pope's Satires, and with +appeals to nymphs, muses, and shepherds. Crabbe was one of those men who +are born a generation after their natural epoch, and was as little +accessible to the change of fashion in poetry as in costume. When, +therefore, he finally resolved to hazard his own fate and Mira's upon +the results of his London adventure, the literary goods at his disposal +were already somewhat musty in character. The year 1780, in which he +reached London, marks the very nadir of English poetry. From the days of +Elizabeth to our own there has never been so absolutely barren a period. +People had become fairly tired of the jingle of Pope's imitators, and +the new era had not dawned. Goldsmith and Gray, both recently dead, +serve to illustrate the condition in which the most exquisite polish and +refinement of language has been developed until there is a danger of +sterility. The 'Elegy' and the 'Deserted Village' are in their way +inimitable poems: but we feel that the intellectual fibre of the poets +has become dangerously delicate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span> The critical faculty could not be +stimulated further without destroying all spontaneous impulse. The +reaction to a more masculine and passionate school was imminent; and if +the excellent Crabbe could have put into his box a few of Burns's +lyrics, or even a copy of Cowper's 'Task,' one might have augured better +for his prospects. But what chance was there for a man who could still +be contentedly invoking the muse and stringing together mechanic echoes +of Pope's couplets? How could he expect to charm the jaded faculties of +a generation which was already beginning to heave and stir with a +longing for some fresh excitement? For a year the fate which has +overtaken so many rash literary adventurers seemed to be approaching +steadily. One temporary gleam of good fortune cheered him for a time. He +persuaded an enterprising publisher to bring out a poem called 'The +Candidate,' which had some faint success, though ridiculed by the +reviewers. Unluckily the publisher became bankrupt and Crabbe was thrown +upon his resources—the poor three pounds and box of surgical +instruments aforesaid. How he managed to hold out for a year is a +mystery. It was lucky for him, as he intimates, that he had never heard +of the fate of Chatterton, who had poisoned himself just ten years +before. A Journal which he wrote for Mira is published in his Life, and +gives an account of his feelings during three months of his cruel +probation. He applies for a situation as amanuensis offered in an +advertisement, and comforts himself on failing with the reflection that +the advertiser was probably a sharper. He writes piteous letters to +publishers, and gets, of course, the stereotyped reply with which the +most amiable of publishers must damp the ardour of aspiring genius. The +disappointment is not much softened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> by the publisher's statement that +'he does not mean by this to insinuate any want of merit in the poem, +but rather a want of attention in the public.' Bit by bit his surgical +instruments go to the pawnbroker. When one publisher sends his polite +refusal poor Crabbe has only sixpence-farthing in the world, which, by +the purchase of a pint of porter, is reduced to fourpence-halfpenny. The +exchequer fills again by the disappearance of his wardrobe and his +watch; but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of +Dryden for three-and-sixpence, and on coming home tears his only coat, +which he manages to patch tolerably with a borrowed needle and thread, +pretending, with a pathetic shift, that they are required to stitch +together manuscripts instead of broadcloth. And so for a year the wolf +creeps nearer the door, whilst Crabbe gallantly keeps up appearances and +spirits, and yet he tries to preserve a show of good spirits in the +Journal to Mira, and continues to labour at his versemaking. Perhaps, +indeed, it may be regarded as a bad symptom that he is reduced to +distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is +nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he +thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of +deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the +desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and +comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather +commonplace in expression, but when read by the light of the distresses +he was enduring, show a brave unembittered spirit, not to be easily +respected too highly. Starvation seemed to be approaching; or, at least, +the only alternative was the abandonment of his ambition, and +acceptance, if he could get it, of the post of druggist's assis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>tant. He +had but one resource left; and that not of the most promising kind. +Crabbe, amongst his other old-fashioned notions, had a strong belief in +the traditional patron. Johnson might have given him some hints upon the +subject; but luckily, as it turned out, he pursued what Chesterfield's +correspondent would have thought the most hopeless of all courses. He +wrote to Lord North, who was at that moment occupied in contemplating +the final results of the ingenious policy by which America was lost to +England, and probably consigned Crabbe's letter to the waste-paper +basket. Then he tried the effect of a copy of verses, beginning:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">T' adorn a rich or save a sinking State.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He added a letter saying that, as Lord North had not answered him, Lord +Shelburne would probably be glad to supply the needs of a starving +apothecary turned poet. Another copy of verses was enclosed, pointing +out that Shelburne's reputed liberality would be repaid in the usual +coin:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then shall my grateful strains his ear rejoice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His name harmonious thrilled on Mira's voice;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the reviving bays new sweets shall spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nobody can blame North and Shelburne for not acting the part of Good +Samaritans. He, at least, may throw the first stone who has always taken +the trouble to sift the grain from the chaff amidst all the begging +letters which he has received, and who has never lamented that his +benevolence outran his discretion. But there was one man in England at +the time who had the rare union of qualities necessary for Crabbe's +purpose. Burke is a name never to be mentioned without reverence; not +only because Burke was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> incomparably the greatest of all English +political writers, and a standing refutation of the theory which couples +rhetorical excellence with intellectual emptiness, but also because he +was a man whose glowing hatred of all injustice and sympathy for all +suffering never evaporated in empty words. His fine literary perception +enabled him to detect the genuine excellence which underlay the +superficial triviality of Crabbe's verses. He discovered the genius +where men like North and Shelburne might excusably see nothing but the +mendicant versifier; and a benevolence still rarer than his critical +ability forbade him to satisfy his conscience by the sacrifice of a +five-pound note. When, by the one happy thought of his life, Crabbe +appealed to Burke's sympathy, the poet was desperately endeavouring to +get a poem through the press. But he owed fourteen pounds, and every +application to friends as poor as himself, and to patrons upon whom he +had no claims, had been unsuccessful. Nothing but ruin was before him. +After writing to Burke he spent the night in pacing Westminster Bridge. +The letter on which his fate hung is the more pathetic because it is +free from those questionable poetical flourishes which had failed to +conciliate his former patrons. It tells his story frankly and forcibly. +Burke, however, was not a rich man, and was at one of the most exciting +periods of his political career. His party was at last fighting its way +to power by means of the general resentment against the gross +mismanagement of their antagonists. A perfunctory discharge of the duty +of charity would have been pardonable; but from the moment when Crabbe +addressed Burke the poor man's fortune was made. Burke's glory rests +upon services of much more importance to the world at large than even +the preservation to the country of a man of genuine power.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> Yet there +are few actions on which he could reflect with more unalloyed +satisfaction; and the case is not a solitary one in Burke's history. A +political triumph may often be only hastened a year or two by the +efforts of even a great leader; but the salvage of a genius which would +otherwise have been hopelessly wrecked in the deep waters of poverty is +so much clear gain to mankind. One circumstance may be added as oddly +characteristic of Crabbe. He always spoke of his benefactor with +becoming gratitude: and many years afterwards Moore and Rogers thought +that they might extract some interesting anecdotes of the great author +from the now celebrated poet. Burke, as we know, was a man whom you +would discover to be remarkable if you stood with him for five minutes +under a haystack in a shower. Crabbe stayed in his house for months +under circumstances most calculated to be impressive. Burke was at the +height of his power and reputation; he was the first man of any +distinction whom the poet had ever seen; the two men had long and +intimate conversations, and Crabbe, it may be added, was a very keen +observer of character. And yet all that Rogers and Moore could extract +from him was a few 'vague generalities.' Moore suggests some +explanation; but the fact seems to be that Crabbe was one of those +simple, homespun characters, whose interests are strictly limited to +their own peculiar sphere. Burke, when he pleased, could talk of oxen as +well as politics, and doubtless adapted his conversation to the taste of +the young poet. Probably, much more was said about the state of Burke's +farm than about the prospects of the Whig party. Crabbe's powers of +vision were as limited as they were keen, and the great qualities to +which Burke owed his reputation could only exhibit themselves in a +sphere to which Crabbe never rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> His attempt to draw a likeness of +Burke under the name of 'Eugenius,' in the 'Borough,' is open to the +objection that it would be nearly as applicable to Wilberforce, Howard, +or Dr. Johnson. It is a mere complimentary daub, in which every +remarkable feature of the original is blurred or altogether omitted.</p> + +<p>The inward Crabbe remained to the end of his days what nature and +education had already made him; the outward Crabbe, by the help of +Burke, rapidly put on a more prosperous appearance. His poems were +published and achieved success. He took orders and found patrons. +Thurlow gave him £100, and afterwards presented him to two small +livings, growling out with an oath that he was 'as like Parson Adams as +twelve to a dozen.' The Duke of Rutland appointed him chaplain, a +position in which he seems to have been singularly out of his element. +Further patronage, however, made him independent, and he married his +Mira and lived very happily ever afterwards. Perhaps, with his +old-fashioned ideas, he would not quite have satisfied some clerical +critics of the present day. His views about non-residence and +pluralities seem to have been lax for the time; and his hearty dislike +for dissent was coupled with a general dislike for enthusiasm of all +kinds. He liked to ramble about after flowers and fossils, and to hammer +away at his poems in a study where chaos reigned supreme. For twenty-two +years after his first success as an author, he never managed to get a +poem into a state fit for publication, though periodical conflagrations +of masses of manuscript—too vast to be burnt in the chimney—testified +to his continuous industry. His reappearance seems to have been caused +chiefly by his desire to send a son to the University. His success was +repeated, though a new school had arisen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> which knew not Pope. The youth +who had been kindly received by Burke, Reynolds, and Johnson, came back +from his country retreat to be lionised at Holland House, and be petted +by Brougham and Moore, and Rogers and Campbell, and all the rising +luminaries. He paid a visit to Scott contemporaneously with George IV., +and pottered about the queer old wynds and closes of Edinburgh, which he +preferred to the New Town, and apparently to Arthur's Seat, with a +judicious <i>caddie</i> following to keep him out of mischief. A more +tangible kind of homage was the receipt of £3,000 from Murray for his +'Tales of the Hall,' which so delighted him that he insisted on carrying +the bills loose in his pocket till he could show them 'to his son John' +in the country.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> There, no doubt, he was most at home; and his +parishioners gradually became attached to their 'Parson Adams,' in spite +of his quaintnesses and some manful defiance of their prejudices. All +women and children loved him, and he died at a good old age in 1832, +having lived into a new order in many things, and been as little +affected by the change as most men. The words with which he concludes +the sketch of the Vicar in his 'Borough' are not inappropriate to +himself:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nor one so old has left this world of sin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More like the being that he entered in.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The peculiar homeliness of Crabbe's character and poetry is excellently +hit off in the 'Rejected Addresses,' and the lines beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">John Richard William Alexander Dwyer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>are probably more familiar to the present generation than any of the +originals. 'Pope in the worsted stockings' is the title hit off for him +by Horace Smith, and has about the same degree of truth as most smart +sayings of the kind. The 'worsted stockings' at least are +characteristic. Crabbe's son and biographer indicates some of the +surroundings of his father's early life in a description of the uncle, a +Mr. Tovell, with whom the poet's wife, the Mira of his Journal, passed +her youth. He was a sturdy yeoman, living in an old house with a moat, a +rookery, and fishponds. The hall was paved with black and white marble, +and the staircase was of black oak, slippery as ice, with a chiming +clock and a barrel-organ on the landing-places. The handsome +drawing-room and dining-rooms were only used on grand occasions, such as +the visit of a neighbouring peer. Mrs. Tovell jealously reserved for +herself the duty of scrubbing these state apartments, and sent any +servant to the right-about who dared to lay unhallowed hands upon them. +The family sat habitually in the old-fashioned kitchen, by a huge open +chimney, where the blaze of a whole pollard sometimes eclipsed the +feeble glimmer of the single candle in an iron candlestick, intended to +illuminate Mrs. Tovell's labours with the needle. Masters and servants, +with any travelling tinker or ratcatcher, all dined together, and the +nature of their meals has been described by Crabbe himself:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But when the men beside their station took,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The maidens with them, and with these the cook;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When one huge wooden bowl before them stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bacon, mass saline, where never lean<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When from a single horn the party drew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>then, the poet goes on to intimate, squeamish persons might feel a +little uncomfortable. After dinner followed a nap of precisely one hour. +Then bottles appeared on the table, and neighbouring farmers, with faces +rosy with brandy, drifted in for a chat. One of these heroes never went +to bed sober, but scandalised all teetotallers by retaining all his +powers and coursing after he was ninety. Bowl after bowl of punch was +emptied, and the conversation took so convivial a character that Crabbe +generally found it expedient to withdraw, though his son, who records +these performances, was held to be too young to be injured, and the +servants were too familiar for their presence to be a restraint.</p> + +<p>It was in this household that the poet found his Mira. Crabbe's own +father was apparently at a lower point of the social scale; and during +his later years took to drinking and to flinging dishes about the room +whenever he was out of temper. Crabbe always drew from the life; most of +his characters might have joined in his father's drinking bouts, or told +stories over Mr. Tovell's punchbowls. Doubtless a social order of the +same kind survived till a later period in various corners of the island. +The Tovells of to-day get their fashions from London, and their +labourers, instead of dining with them in their kitchen, have taken to +forming unions and making speeches about their rights. If, here and +there, in some remote nooks we find an approximation to the coarse, +hearty patriarchal mode of life, we regard it as a naturalist regards a +puny modern reptile, the representative of gigantic lizards of old +geological epochs. A sketch or two of its peculiarities, sufficiently +softened and idealised to suit modern tastes, forms a picturesque +background to a modern picture. Some of Miss Brontë's rough +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>Yorkshiremen would have drunk punch with Mr. Tovell; and the farmers in +the 'Mill on the Floss' are representatives of the same race, slightly +degenerate, in so far as they are just conscious that a new cause of +disturbance is setting into the quiet rural districts. Dandie Dinmont +again is a relation of Crabbe's heroes, though the fresh air of the +Cheviots and the stirring traditions of the old border life have +conferred upon him a more poetical colouring. To get a realistic picture +of country life as Crabbe saw it, we must go back to Squire Western, or +to some of the roughly-hewn masses of flesh who sat to Hogarth. Perhaps +it may be said that Miss Austen's delicate portrait of the more polished +society, which took the waters at Bath, and occasionally paid a visit to +London, implies a background of coarser manners and more brutal +passions, which lay outside her peculiar province. The question +naturally occurs to social philosophers, whether the improvement in the +external decencies of life and the wider intellectual horizon of modern +days prove a genuine advance over the rude and homely plenty of an +earlier generation. I refer to such problems only to remark that Crabbe +must be consulted by those who wish to look upon the seamy side of the +time which he describes. He very soon dropped his nymphs and shepherds, +and ceased to invoke the idyllic muse. In his long portrait gallery +there are plenty of virtuous people, and some people intended to be +refined; but features indicative of coarse animal passions, brutality, +selfishness, and sensuality are drawn to the life, and the development +of his stories is generally determined by some of the baser elements of +human nature. 'Jesse and Colin' are described in one of the Tales; but +they are not the Jesse and Colin of Dresden china. They are such rustics +as ate fat bacon and drank 'heavy ale and new;'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> not the imaginary +personages who exchanged amatory civilities in the old-fashioned +pastorals ridiculed by Pope and Gay.</p> + +<p>Crabbe's rough style is indicative of his general temper. It is in +places at least the most slovenly and slipshod that was ever adopted by +any true poet. The authors of the 'Rejected Addresses' had simply to +copy, without attempting the impossible task of caricaturing. One of +their familiar couplets, for example, runs thus:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Emmanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And here is the original Crabbe:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Swallow, a poor attorney, brought his boy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up at his desk, and gave him his employ.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When boy cannot be made to rhyme with employ, Crabbe is very fond of +dragging in a hoy. In the 'Parish Register' he introduces a narrative +about a village grocer and his friend in these lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aged were both, that Dawkins, Ditchem this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who much of marriage thought and much amiss.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or to quote one more opening of a story:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Counter and Clubb were men in trade, whose pains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Credit, and prudence, brought them constant gains;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Partners and punctual, every friend agreed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counter and Clubb were men who must succeed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But of such gems anyone may gather as many as he pleases by simply +turning over Crabbe's pages. In one sense, they are rather pleasant than +otherwise. They are so characteristic and put forward with such absolute +simplicity that they have the same effect as a good old provincialism in +the mouth of a genuine countryman. It must, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> be admitted that +Crabbe's careful study of Pope had not initiated him in some of his +master's secrets. The worsted stockings were uncommonly thick. If Pope's +brilliance of style savours too much of affectation, Crabbe never +manages to hit off an epigram in the whole of his poetry. The language +seldom soars above the style which would be intelligible to the merest +clodhopper; and we can understand how, when in his later years Crabbe +was introduced to wits and men of the world, he generally held his +peace, or, at most, let fall some bit of dry quiet humour. At rare +intervals he remembers that a poet ought to indulge in a figure of +speech, and laboriously compounds a simile which appears in his poetry +like a bit of gold lace on a farmer's homespun coat. He confessed as +much in answer to a shrewd criticism of Jeffrey's, saying that he +generally thought of such illustrations and inserted them after he had +finished his tale. Here is one of these deliberately-concocted +ornaments, intended to explain the remark that the difference between +the character of two brothers came out when they were living together +quietly:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As various colours in a painted ball,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While it has rest are seen distinctly all;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, whirl'd around by some exterior force,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They all are blended in the rapid course;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So in repose and not by passion swayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We saw the difference by their habits made;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, tried by strong emotions, they became<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled with one love, and were in heart the same.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The conceit is ingenious enough in one sense, but painfully ingenious. +It requires some thought to catch the likeness suggested, and then it +turns out to be purely superficial. The resemblance of such a writer to +Pope obviously does not go deep. Crabbe imitates Pope because everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> +imitated him at that day. He adopted Pope's metre because it had come to +be almost the only recognised means of poetical expression. He stuck to +it after his contemporaries had introduced new versification, partly +because he was old-fashioned to the backbone and partly because he had +none of those lofty inspirations which naturally generate new forms of +melody. He seldom trusts himself to be lyrical, and when he does his +versification is nearly as monotonous as it is in his narrative poetry. +We must not expect to soar with Crabbe into any of the loftier regions; +to see the world 'apparelled in celestial light,' or to descry</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such forms as glitter in the muses' ray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We shall find no vehement outbursts of passion, breaking loose from the +fetters of sacred convention. Crabbe is perfectly content with the +British Constitution, with the Thirty-nine Articles, and all +respectabilities in Church and State, and therefore he is quite content +also with the good old jogtrot of the recognised metres; his language, +halting invariably, and for the most part clumsy enough, is sufficiently +differentiated from prose by the mould into which it is run, and he +never wants to kick over the traces with his more excitable +contemporaries.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The good old rule<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sufficeth him, the simple plan<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>that each verse should consist of ten syllables, with an occasional +Alexandrine to accommodate a refractory epithet, and should rhyme +peaceably with its neighbour.</p> + +<p>From all which it may be too harshly inferred that Crabbe is merely a +writer in rhyming prose, and deserving of no attention from the more +enlightened adherents of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> later school. The inference, I say, would be +hasty, for it is impossible to read Crabbe patiently without receiving a +very distinct and original impression. If some pedants of æsthetic +philosophy should declare that we ought not to be impressed because +Crabbe breaks all their rules, we can only reply they are mistaking +their trade. The true business of the critic is to discover from +observation what are the conditions under which a book appeals to our +sympathies, and, if he finds an apparent exception to his rules, to +admit that he has made an oversight, and not to condemn the facts which +persist in contradicting his theories. It may, indeed, be freely granted +that Crabbe has suffered seriously by his slovenly methods and his +insensibility to the more exquisite and ethereal forms of poetical +excellence. But however he may be classified, he possesses the essential +mark of genius, namely, that his pictures, however coarse the +workmanship, stamp themselves on our minds indelibly and +instantaneously. His pathos is here and there clumsy, but it goes +straight to the mark. His characteristic qualities were first distinctly +shown in the 'Village,' which was partly composed under Burke's eye, and +was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after +Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective, +to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank +facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two +is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then +listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too +exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities about +agricultural bliss. If his 'Auburn' is rather idealised, the most +prosaic of critics cannot object to the glow thrown by the memory of the +poet over the scene of now ruined happiness, and, moreover,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> Goldsmith's +delicate humour guards him instinctively from laying on his rose-colour +too thickly. Crabbe, however, will have nothing to do with rose-colour, +thick or thin. There is one explicit reference in the poem to his +predecessor's work, and it is significant. Everybody remembers, or ought +to remember, Goldsmith's charming pastor, to whom it can only be +objected that he has not the fear of political economists before his +eyes. This is Crabbe's retort after describing a dying pauper in need of +spiritual consolation:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And does not he, the pious man, appear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, 'passing rich with forty pounds a year?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far unlike him, feeds this little flock:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As much as God or man can fairly ask;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rest he gives to loves and labours light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fields the morning, and to feasts the night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None better skilled the noisy pack to guide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To urge their chase, to cheer them, or to chide;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This fox-hunting parson (of whom Cowper has described a duplicate) lets +the pauper die as he pleases; and afterwards allows him to be buried +without attending, performing the funerals, it seems, in a lump upon +Sundays. Crabbe admits in a note that such negligence was uncommon, but +adds that it is not unknown. The flock is, on the whole, worthy of the +shepherd. The old village sports have died out in favour of smuggling +and wrecking. The poor are not, as rich men fancy, healthy and well fed. +Their work makes them premature victims to ague and rheumatism; their +food is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Homely, not wholesome, plain, not plenteous, such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As you who praise would never deign to touch.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The ultimate fate of the worn-out labourer is the poorhouse, described +in lines of which it is enough to say that Scott and Wordsworth learnt +them by heart, and the melancholy deathbed already noticed. Are we +reading a poem or a Blue Book done into rhyme? may possibly be the +question of some readers. The answer should perhaps be that a good many +Blue Books contain an essence which only requires to be properly +extracted and refined to become genuine poetry. If Crabbe's verses +retain rather too much of the earthly elements, he is capable of +transmuting his minerals into genuine gold, as well as of simply +collecting them. Nothing, for example, is more characteristic than the +mode in which the occasional descriptions of nature are harmoniously +blended with the human life in his poetry. Crabbe is an ardent lover of +a certain type of scenery, to which justice has not often been done. We +are told how, after a long absence from Suffolk, he rode sixty miles +from his house to have a dip in the sea. Some of his poems appear to be +positively impregnated with a briny, or rather perhaps a tarry, odour. +The sea which he loved was by no means a Byronic sea. It has no grandeur +of storm, and still less has it the Mediterranean blue. It is the +sluggish muddy element which washes the flat shores of his beloved +Suffolk. He likes even the shelving beach, with fishermen's boats and +decaying nets and remnants of stale fish. He loves the dreary estuary, +where the slow tide sways backwards and forwards, and whence</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">High o'er the restless deep, above the reach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of gunner's hope, vast flocks of wildfowl stretch.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The coming generation of poets took to the mountains; but Crabbe +remained faithful to the dismal and yet, in his hands, the impressive +scenery of his native salt-marshes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> His method of description suits the +country. His verses never become melodramatic, nor does he ever seem to +invest nature with the mystic life of Wordsworth's poetry. He gives the +plain prosaic facts which impress us because they are in such perfect +harmony with the sentiment. Here, for example, is a fragment from the +'Village,' which is simply a description of the neighbourhood of +Aldborough:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From thence a length of burning sand appears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to the ragged infant threaten war;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The writer is too obviously a botanist; but the picture always remains +with us as the only conceivable background for the poverty-stricken +population whom he is about to describe. The actors in the 'Borough' are +presented to us in a similar setting; and it may be well to put a +sea-piece beside this bit of barren common. Crabbe's range of +descriptive power is pretty well confined within the limits so defined. +He is scarcely at home beyond the tide-marks:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be it the summer noon; a sandy space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ebbing tide has left upon its place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then just the hot and stony beach above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light twinkling streams in bright confusion move;<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There the broad bosom of the ocean keeps<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> +<span class="i0">An equal motion; swelling as it sleeps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then slowly sinking; curling to the strand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faint lazy waves o'ercreep the ridgy sand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And back return in silence, smooth and slow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ships in the calm seem anchored: for they glide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the still sea, urged slowly by the tide:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Art thou not present, this calm scene before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where all beside is pebbly length of shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far as eye can reach, it can discern no more?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I have omitted a couplet which verges on the scientific; for Crabbe is +unpleasantly anxious to leave nothing unexplained. The effect is, in its +way, perfect. Anyone who pleases may compare it with Wordsworth's calm +in the verses upon Peele Castle, where the sentiment is given without +the minute statement of facts, and where, too, we have the inevitable +quotation about the 'light that never was on sea or land,' and is pretty +nearly as rare in Crabbe's poetry. What he sees we can all see, though +not so intensely, and his art consists in selecting the precise elements +that tell most forcibly towards bringing us into the required frame of +mind. To enjoy Crabbe fully, we ought perhaps to be acclimatised on the +coast of the Eastern Counties; we should become sensitive to the +plaintive music of the scenery, which is now generally drowned by the +discordant sounds of modern watering-places, and would seem insipid to a +generation which values excitement in scenery as in fiction. Readers, +who measure the beauty of a district by its average height above the +sea-level, and who cannot appreciate the charm of a 'waste enormous +marsh,' may find Crabbe uncongenial.</p> + +<p>The human character is determined, as Mr. Buckle and other philosophers +have assured us, by the climate and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> soil. A little ingenuity, such +as those philosophers display in accommodating facts to theory, might +discover a parallel between the type of Crabbe's personages and the +fauna and flora of his native district. Declining a task which might +lead to fanciful conclusions, I may assume that the East Anglian +character is sufficiently familiar, whatever the causes by which it has +been determined. To define Crabbe's poetry we have simply to imagine +ourselves listening to the stories of his parishioners, told by a +clergyman brought up amongst the lower rank of the middle classes, +scarcely elevated above their prejudices, and not willingly leaving +their circle of ideas. We must endow him with that simplicity of +character which gives us frequent cause to smile at its proprietor, but +which does not disqualify him from seeing a great deal further into his +neighbours than they are apt to give him credit for doing. Such insight, +in fact, is due not to any great subtlety of intellect, but to the +possession of deep feeling and sympathy. Crabbe saw little more of Burke +than would have been visible to an ordinary Suffolk farmer. When +transplanted to a ducal mansion, he only drew the pretty obvious +inference, embodied in a vigorous poem, that a patron is a very +disagreeable and at times a very mischievous personage. The joys and +griefs which really interest him are of the very tangible and solid kind +which affect men and women to whom the struggle for existence is a stern +reality. Here and there his good-humoured but rather clumsy ridicule may +strike some lady to whom some demon has whispered 'have a taste;' and +who turns up her nose at the fat bacon on Mr. Tovell's table. He pities +her squeamishness, but thinks it rather unreasonable. He satirises too +the heads of the rustic aristocracy; the brutal squire who bullies his +nephew the clergyman for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> preaching against his vices, and corrupts the +whole neighbourhood; or the speculative banker who cheats old maids +under pretence of looking after their investments. If the squire does +not generally appear in Crabbe in the familiar dramatic character of a +rural Lovelace, it is chiefly because Crabbe has no great belief in the +general purity of the inferior ranks of rural life. But his most +powerful stories deal with the tragedies—only too life-like—of the +shop and the farm. He describes the temptations which lead the small +tradesman to adulterate his goods, or the parish clerk to embezzle the +money subscribed in the village church, and the evil influence of +dissenting families in fostering a spiritual pride which leads to more +unctuous hypocrisy; for, though he says of the wicked squire that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">His worship ever was a Churchman true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And held in scorn the Methodistic crew,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the scorn is only objectionable to him in so far as it is a cynical +cloak for scorn of good morals. He tells how boys run away to sea, or +join strolling players, and have in consequence to beg their bread at +the end of their days. The almshouse or the county gaol is the natural +end of his villains, and he paints to the life the evil courses which +generally lead to such a climax. Nobody describes better the process of +going to the dogs. And most of all, he sympathises with the village +maiden who has listened too easily to the voice of the charmer, in the +shape of a gay sailor or a smart London footman, and has to reap the +bitter consequences of her too easy faith. Most of his stories might be +paralleled by the experience of any country clergyman who has entered +into the life of his parishioners. They are as commonplace and as +pathetic as the things which are happening round us every day, and which +fill a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> neglected paragraph in a country newspaper. The treatment varies +from the purely humorous to the most deep and genuine pathos; though it +never takes us into the regions of the loftier imagination.</p> + +<p>The more humorous of these performances may be briefly dismissed. Crabbe +possesses the faculty, but not in any eminent degree; his hand is a +little heavy, and one must remember that Mr. Tovell and his like were of +the race who require to have a joke driven into their heads with a +sledge-hammer. Once or twice we come upon a sketch which may help to +explain Miss Austen's admiration. There is an old maid devoted to Mira, +and rejoicing in stuffed puppies and parrots, who might have been +ridiculed by Emma Woodhouse, and a parson who would have suited the +Eltons admirably:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fiddling and fishing were his arts; at times<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He altered sermons and he aimed at rhymes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his fair friends, not yet intent on cards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oft he amused with riddles and charades.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such sketches are a pleasant relief to his more sombre portraiture; but +it is in the tragic elements that his true power comes out. The motives +of his stories may be trivial, but never the sentiment. The deep manly +emotion makes us forget not only the frequent clumsiness of his style +but the pettiness of the incident, and what is more difficult, the +rather bread-and-butter tone of morality. If he is a little too fond of +bringing his villains to the gallows, he is preoccupied less by the +external consequences than by the natural working of evil passions. With +him sin is not punished by being found out, but by disintegrating the +character and blunting the higher sensibilities. He shows—and the +moral, if not new, is that which possesses the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> really intellectual +interest—how evil-doers are tortured by the cravings of desires that +cannot be satisfied, and the lacerations inflicted by ruined +self-respect. And therefore there is a truth in Crabbe's delineations +which is quite independent of his more or less rigid administration of +poetical justice. His critics used to accuse him of having a low opinion +of human nature. It is quite true that he assigns to selfishness and +brutal passion a very large part in carrying on the machinery of the +world. Some readers may infer that he was unlucky in his experience, and +others that he loved facts too unflinchingly. His stories sometimes +remind one of Balzac's in the descriptions of selfishness triumphant +over virtue. One, for example, of his deeply pathetic poems is called +'The Brothers;' and repeats the old contrast given in Fielding's Tom +Jones and Blifil. The shrewd sly hypocrite has received all manner of +kindnesses from the generous and simple sailor, and when, at last, the +poor sailor is ruined in health and fortune, he comes home expecting to +be supported by the gratitude of the brother, who has by this time made +money and is living at his ease. Nothing can be more pathetic or more in +the spirit of some of Balzac's stories than the way in which the rich +man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal +feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; +till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the +kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his +only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into +hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is not to be corrupted by +the coarse language of his poor old uncle. The rich brother suspects +that the sailor has broken this rule, and is reviling him for his +ingratitude, when suddenly he discovers that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> is abusing a corpse. +The old sailor's heart is broken at last; and his brother repents too +late. He tries to comfort his remorse by cross-examining the boy, who +was the cause of the last quarrel:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Did he not curse me, child?' 'He never cursed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But could not breathe, and said his heart would burst.'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'And so will mine'——'But, father, you must pray;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My uncle said it took his pains away.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Praying, however, cannot bring back the dead; and the fratricide, for +such he feels himself to be, is a melancholy man to the end of his days. +In Balzac's hands repentance would have had no place, and selfishness +have been finally triumphant and unabashed. We need not ask which would +be the most effective or the truest treatment; though I must put in a +word for the superior healthiness of Crabbe's mind. There is nothing +morbid about him. Still it would be absurd to push such a comparison +far. Crabbe's portraits are only spirited vignettes compared with the +elaborate full-lengths drawn by the intense imagination of the French +novelist; and Crabbe's whole range of thought is incomparably narrower. +The two writers have a real resemblance only in so far as in each case a +powerful accumulation of life-like details enables them to produce a +pathos, powerful by its vivid reality.</p> + +<p>The singular power of Crabbe is in some sense more conspicuous in the +stories where the incidents are almost audaciously trifling. One of them +begins with this not very impressive and very ungrammatical couplet:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With our late Vicar, and his age the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His clerk, hight Jachin, to his office came.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Jachin is a man of oppressive respectability; so oppressive, indeed, +that some of the scamps of the borough try to get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> him into scrapes by +temptations of a very inartificial kind, which he is strong enough to +resist. At last, however, it occurs to Jachin that he can easily +embezzle part of the usual monthly offerings while saving his character +in his own eyes by some obvious sophistry. He is detected and dismissed, +and dies after coming upon the parish. These materials for a tragic poem +are not very promising; and I do not mean to say that the sorrows of +poor Jachin affect us as deeply as those of Gretchen or Desdemona. The +parish clerk is perhaps a fit type of all that was least poetical in the +old social order of the country, and virtue which succumbs to the +temptation of taking two shillings out of a plate scarcely wants a +Mephistopheles to overcome it. We may perhaps think that the apologetic +note which the excellent Crabbe inserts at the end of his poem, to the +effect that he did not mean by it to represent mankind as 'puppets of an +overpowering destiny,' or 'to deny the doctrine of seducing spirits,' is +a little superfluous. The fact that a parish-clerk has taken to petty +pilfering can scarcely justify those heterodox conclusions. But when we +have smiled at Crabbe's philosophy, we begin to wonder at the force of +his sentiment. A blighted human soul is a pathetic object, however +paltry the temptation to which it has succumbed. Jachin has the dignity +of despair, though he is not quite a fallen archangel; and Crabbe's +favourite scenery harmonises with his agony.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In each lone place, dejected and dismayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or to the restless sea and roaring wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gave the strong yearnings of a ruined mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the broad beach, the silent summer day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stretched on some wreck, he wore his life away;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +<span class="i0">Or where the river mingles with the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or on the mud-bank by the elder tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or by the bounding marsh-dyke, there was he.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nor would he have been a more pitiable object if he had betrayed a +nation or sold his soul for a Garter instead of the pillage of a +subscription plate. Poor old Jachin's story may seem to be borrowed from +a commonplace tract; but the detected pilferer, though he has only lost +the respect of the parson, the overseer, and the beadle, touches us as +deeply as the Byronic hero who has fallen out with the whole system of +the world.</p> + +<p>If we refuse to sympathise with the pang due to so petty a +catastrophe—though our sympathy should surely be proportioned to the +keenness of the suffering rather than the absolute height of the +fall—we may turn to tragedy of a deeper dye. Peter Grimes, as his name +indicates, was a ruffian from his infancy. He once knocked down his poor +old father, who warned him of the consequences of his brutality:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This he revolved, and drank for his relief.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Adopting such a remedy, he sank from bad to worse, and gradually became +a thief, a smuggler, and a social outlaw. In those days, however, as is +proved by the history of Mrs. Brownrigg, parish authorities practised +the 'boarding-out system' after a reckless fashion. Peter was allowed to +take two or three apprentices in succession, whom he bullied, starved, +and maltreated, and who finally died under suspicious circumstances. The +last was found dead in Peter's fishing-boat after a rough voyage: and +though nothing could be proved, the Mayor told him that he should have +no more slaves to belabour. Peter, pursuing his trade in solitude, +gradually became morbid and depressed. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> melancholy estuary became +haunted by ghostly visions. He had to groan and sweat with no vent for +his passion:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus by himself compelled to live each day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the same time the same dull views to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water only, when the tides were high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Peter grew more sullen, and the scenery became more weird and +depressing. The few who watched him remarked that there were three +places where Peter seemed to be more than usually moved. For a time he +hurried past them, whistling as he rowed; but gradually he seemed to be +fascinated. The idle loungers in the summer saw a man and boat lingering +in the tideway, apparently watching the gliding waves without casting a +net or looking at the wildfowl. At last his delirium becoming stronger, +he is carried to the poorhouse, and tells his story to the clergyman. +Nobody has painted with greater vigour that kind of externalised +conscience which may still survive in a brutalised mind. Peter Grimes, +of course, sees his victims' spirits and hates them. He fancies that his +father torments him out of spite, characteristically forgetting that the +ghost had some excuse for his anger:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No living being had I lately seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I paddled up and down and dipped my net,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A father's pleasure, when his toil was done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To plague and torture thus an only son!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> +<span class="i0">And so I sat and looked upon the stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How it ran on, and felt as in a dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But dream it was not; no!—I fixed my eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw my father on the water stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hold a thin pale boy in either hand;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there they glided ghastly on the top<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the salt flood, and never touched a drop;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would have struck them, but they knew the intent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And smiled upon the oar, and down they went.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Remorse in Peter's mind takes the shape of bitter hatred for his +victims; and with another characteristic confusion, he partly attributes +his sufferings to some evil influence intrinsic in the locality:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There were three places, where they ever rose—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole long river has not such as those—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Places accursed, where, if a man remain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll see the things which strike him to the brain.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And then the malevolent ghosts forced poor Peter to lean on his oars, +and showed him visions of coming horrors. Grimes dies impenitent, and +fancying that his tormentors are about to seize him. Of all haunted men +in fiction, it is not easy to think of a case where the horror is more +terribly realised. The blood-boulter'd Banquo tortured a noble victim, +but scarcely tortured him more effectually. Peter Grimes was doubtless a +close relation of Peter Bell. Bell having the advantage of Wordsworth's +interpretation, leads us to many thoughts which lie altogether beyond +Crabbe's reach; but, looking simply at the sheer tragic force of the two +characters, Grimes is to Bell what brandy is to small beer. He would +never have shown the white feather like his successor, who,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">After ten months' melancholy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Became a good and honest man.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If, in some sense, Peter Grimes is the most effective of Crabbe's +heroes, he would, if taken alone, give a very distorted impression of +the general spirit of the poetry. It is only at intervals that he +introduces us to downright criminals. There is, indeed, a description of +a convicted felon, which, according to Macaulay, has made 'many a rough +and cynical reader cry like a child,' and which, if space were +unlimited, would make a striking pendant to the agony of the burdened +Grimes. But, as a rule, Crabbe can find motives enough for tenderness in +sufferings which have nothing to do with the criminal law, and of which +the mere framework of the story is often interesting enough. His +peculiar power is best displayed in so presenting to us the sorrows of +commonplace characters as to make us feel that a shabby coat and a +narrow education, and the most unromantic of characters, need not cut +off our sympathies with a fellow-creature; and that the dullest +tradesman who treads on our toes in an omnibus may want only a power of +articulate expression to bring before us some of the deepest of all +problems. The parish clerk and the grocer—or whatever may be the +proverbial epitome of human dulness—may swell the chorus of lamentation +over the barrenness and the hardships and the wasted energies and the +harsh discords of life which is always 'steaming up' from the world, and +to which it is one, though perhaps not the highest, of the poet's +functions to make us duly sensible. Crabbe, like all realistic writers, +must be studied at full length, and therefore quotations are necessarily +unjust. It will be sufficient if I refer—pretty much at random—to the +short story of 'Phœbe Dawson' in the 'Parish Register,' to the more +elaborate stories of 'Edward Shore' and the 'Parting Hour' in the +'Tales,' or to the story of 'Ruth' in the 'Tales of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> the Hall,' where +again the dreary pathos is strangely heightened by Crabbe's favourite +seaport scenery, to prove that he might be called as truly as Goldsmith +<i>affectuum potens</i>, though scarcely <i>lenis, dominator</i>.</p> + +<p>It is time, however, to conclude with a word or two as to Crabbe's +peculiar place in the history of English literature. I said that, unlike +his contemporaries, Cowper and Burns, he adhered rigidly to the form of +the earlier eighteenth-century school, and partly for this reason +excited the wayward admiration of Byron, who always chose to abuse the +bridge which carried him to fame. But Crabbe's clumsiness of expression +makes him a very inadequate successor of Pope or of Goldsmith, and his +claims are really founded on the qualities which led Byron to call him +'nature's sternest painter, yet her best.' On this side he is connected +with some tendencies of the school which supplanted his early models. So +far as Wordsworth and his followers represented the reaction from the +artificial to a love of unsophisticated nature, Crabbe is entirely at +one with them. He did not share that unlucky taste for the namby-pamby +by which Wordsworth annoyed his contemporaries, and spoilt some of his +earlier poems. Its place was filled in Crabbe's mind by an even more +unfortunate disposition for the simply humdrum and commonplace, which, +it must be confessed, makes it almost as hard to read a good many of his +verses as to consume large quantities of suet pudding, and has probably +destroyed his popularity with the present generation. Still, Crabbe's +influence was powerful as against the old conventionality. He did not, +like his predecessors, write upon the topics which interested 'persons +of quality,' and never gives us the impression of having composed his +rhymes in a full-bottomed wig or even in a Grub Street<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> garret. He has +gone out into country fields and village lanes, and paints directly from +man and nature, with almost a cynical disregard of the accepted code of +propriety. But the points on which he parts company with his more +distinguished contemporaries is equally obvious. Mr. Stopford Brooke has +lately been telling us with great eloquence what is the theology which +underlies the poetical tendencies of the last generation of poets. Of +that creed, a sufficiently vague one, it must be admitted, Crabbe was by +no means an apostle. Rather one would say he was as indifferent as a +good old-fashioned clergyman could very well be to the existence of any +new order of ideas in the world. The infidels, whom he sometimes +attacks, read Bolingbroke, and Chubb, and Mandeville, and have only +heard by report even of the existence of Voltaire. The Dissenters, whom +he so heartily detests, have listened to Whitefield and Wesley, or +perhaps to Huntington, S.S.—that is, as it may now be necessary to +explain, Sinner Saved. Every newer development of thought was still far +away from the quiet pews of Aldborough, and the only form of Church +restoration of which he has heard is the objectionable practice of +painting a new wall to represent a growth of lichens. Crabbe appreciates +the charm of the picturesque, but has never yet heard of our elaborate +methods of creating modern antiques. Lapped in such ignorance, and with +a mind little given to speculation, it is only in character that Crabbe +should be totally insensible to the various moods of thought represented +by Wordsworth's pantheistic conceptions of nature, or by Shelley's +dreamy idealism, or Byron's fierce revolutionary impulses. Still less, +if possible, could he sympathise with that love of beauty, pure and +simple, of which Keats was the first prophet. He might, indeed, be +briefly described<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> by saying that he is at the very opposite pole from +Keats. The more bigoted admirers of Keats—for there are bigots in +matters of taste or poetry as well as in science or theology or +politics—would refuse the title of poet to Crabbe altogether on the +strength of the absence of this element from his verses. Like his most +obvious parallels in painting, he is too fond of boors and pothouses to +be allowed the quality of artistic perception. I will not argue the +point, which is, perhaps, rather a question of classification than of +intrinsic merit; but I will venture to suggest a test which will, I +think, give Crabbe a very firm, though, it may be, not a very lofty +place. Though I should be unwilling to be reckoned as one of Macaulay's +'rough and cynical readers,' I admit that I can read the story of the +convicted felon, or of Peter Grimes, without indulging in downright +blubbering. Most readers, I fear, can in these days get through pathetic +poems and novels without absolutely using their pocket-handkerchiefs. +But though Crabbe may not prompt such outward and visible signs of +emotion, I think that he produces a more distinct tendency to tears than +almost any poet of his time. True, he does not appeal to emotions, +accessible only through the finer intellectual perceptions, or to the +thoughts which 'lie too deep for tears.' That prerogative belongs to men +of more intense character, greater philosophical power, and more +delicate instincts. But the power of touching readers by downright +pictures of homespun griefs and sufferings is one which, to my mind, +implies some poetical capacity, and which clearly belongs to Crabbe.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> It seems, one is sorry to add, that Murray made a very bad bargain +in this case.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span></p> +<h2><i>WILLIAM HAZLITT</i></h2> + + +<p>There are few great books or great men that do not sadden us by a sense +of incompleteness. The writer, we feel, is better than his work. His +full power only reveals itself by flashes. There are blemishes in his +design, due to mere oversight or indolence; his energy has flagged, or +he has alloyed his pure gold to please the mob; or some burst of wayward +passion has disturbed the fair proportions of his work, and the man +himself is a half-finished or half-ruined fragment. The rough usage of +the world leaves its mark on the spiritual constitution of even the +strongest and best amongst us; and perhaps the finest natures suffer +more than others in virtue of their finer sympathies. 'Hamlet' is a +pretty good performance, if we make allowances; but what would it have +been if Shakespeare could have been at his highest level all through, +and if every element of strength in him had been purified from every +weakness? What would it have been, shall we say, if he could have had +the advantage of reading a few modern lectures on æsthetics? We may, +perhaps, be content with Shakespeare as circumstances left him; but in +reading our modern poets, the sentiment of regret is stronger. If Byron +had not been driven into his wild revolt against the world; if Shelley +had been judiciously treated from his youth; if Keats had had healthier +lungs; if Wordsworth had not grown rusty in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> solitude; if Scott had +not been tempted into publisher's speculations; if Coleridge had never +taken to opium—what great poems might not have opened the new era of +literature, where now we have but incomplete designs, and listen to +harmonies half destroyed by internal discord? The regret, however, is +less when a man has succeeded in uttering the thought that was in him, +though it may never have found a worthy expression. Wordsworth could +have told us little more, though the 'Excursion' had been as complete a +work as 'Paradise Lost;' and if Scott might have written more +'Waverleys' and 'Antiquaries' and 'Old Mortalities,' he could hardly +have written better ones. But the works of some other writers suggest +possibilities which never even approached fulfilment. If the opinion +formed by his contemporaries of Coleridge be anywhere near the truth, we +lost in him a potential philosopher of a very high order, as we more +clearly lost a poet of singular fascination. Coleridge naturally +suggests the name of De Quincey, whose works are as often tantalising as +satisfying. And to make, it is true, a considerable drop from the +greatest of these names, we often feel when we take up one of Hazlitt's +glowing Essays, that here, too, was a man who might have made a far more +enduring mark as a writer of English prose. At their best, his writings +are admirable; they have the true stamp; the thought is masculine and +the expression masterly; phrases engrave themselves on the memory; and +we catch glimpses of a genuine thinker and no mere manufacturer of +literary commonplace. On a more prolonged study, it is true, we become +conscious of many shortcomings, and the general effect is somehow rather +cloying, though hardly from an excess of sweetness. And yet he deserves +the study both of the critic and the student of character.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span></p> + +<p>The story of Hazlitt's life has been told by his grandson; but there is +a rather curious defect of materials for so recent a biography. He kept, +it seems, no letters,—a weakness, if it be a weakness, for which one is +rather apt to applaud him in these days: but, on the other hand, nobody +ever indulged more persistently in the habit of washing his dirty linen +in public. Not even his idol Rousseau could be more demonstrative of his +feelings and recollections. His Essays are autobiographical, sometimes +even offensively; and after reading them we are even more familiar than +his contemporaries with many points of his character. He loved to pour +himself out in his Essays</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">as plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He has laid bare for the most careless reader the main elements of his +singular composition. Like some others of his revolutionary friends, +Godwin, for example, Leigh Hunt, and Tom Paine, he represents the old +dissenting spirit in a new incarnation. The grandfather a stern +Calvinist, the father a Unitarian, the son a freethinker; those were the +gradations through which more than one family passed during the closing +years of the last century and the opening of this. One generation still +clung to the old Puritan traditions and Jonathan Edwards; the next +followed Priestley; and the third joined the little band of radicals who +read Cobbett, scorned Southey as a deserter, and refused to be +frightened by the French Revolution. The outside crust of opinion may be +shed with little change to the inner man. Hazlitt was a dissenter to his +backbone. He was born to be in a minority; to be a living protest +against the dominant creed and constitution. He recognised and +denounced, but he never shook off, the faults characteristic of small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> +sects. A want of wide intellectual culture, and a certain sourness of +temper, cramped his powers and sometimes marred his writing. But from +his dissenting forefathers Hazlitt inherited something better. Beside +the huge tomes of controversial divinity on his father's shelves, the +'Patres Poloni,' Pripscovius, Crellius and Cracovius, Lardner and +Doddridge, and Baxter and Bates, and Howe, were the legends of the +Puritan hagiology. The old dissenters, he tells us, had Neale's 'History +of the Puritans' by heart, and made their children read Calamy's account +of the 2,000 ejected ministers along with the stories of Daniel in the +Lion's Den and Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Sympathy for the +persecuted, unbending resistance to the oppressor, was the creed which +had passed into their blood. 'This covenant they kept as the stars keep +their courses; this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better, +as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it does not +wither in their decay.... It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, +smiles in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to +the grave. This'—for in Hazlitt lies a personal application in all his +moralising—'This is better than the whirligig life of a court +poet'—such, for example, as Robert Southey.</p> + +<p>But Hazlitt's descent was not pure. If we could trace back the line of +his ancestry we should expect to find that by some freak of fortune, one +of the rigid old Puritans had married a descendant of some great Flemish +or Italian painter. Love of graceful forms and bright colouring and +voluptuous sensations had been transmitted to their descendants, though +hitherto repressed by the stern discipline of British nonconformity. As +the discipline relaxed, the Hazlitts reverted to the ancestral type. +Hazlitt himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> his brother and his sister, were painters by instinct. +The brother became a painter of miniatures by profession; and Hazlitt to +the end of his days revered Titian almost as much as he revered his +great idol Napoleon. An odd pair of idols, one thinks, for a youth +brought up upon Pripscovius and his brethren! A keen delight in all +artistic and natural beauty was an awkward endowment for a youth +intended for the ministry. Keats was scarcely more out of place in a +surgery than Hazlitt would have been in a Unitarian pulpit of those +days, and yet from that pulpit, oddly enough, came the greatest impulse +to Hazlitt. It came from a man who, like Hazlitt himself, though in a +higher degree than Hazlitt, combined the artistic and the philosophic +temperament. Coleridge, as Hazlitt somewhere says, threw a great stone +into the standing pool of contemporary thought; and it was in January +1798—one of the many dates in his personal history to which he recurs +with unceasing fondness—that Hazlitt rose before daylight and walked +ten miles in the mud to hear Coleridge preach. He has told, in his +graphic manner, how the voice of the preacher 'rose like a stream of +rich distilled perfumes;' how he launched into his subject, after giving +out the text, 'like an eagle dallying with the wind;' and how his young +hearer seemed to be listening to the music of the spheres, to see the +union of poetry and philosophy; and behold truth and genius embracing +under the eye of religion. His description of the youthful Coleridge has +a fit pendant in the wonderful description of the full-blown philosopher +in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling;' where, indeed, one or two touches are +taken from Hazlitt's Essays. It is Hazlitt who remarked, even at this +early meeting, that the dreamy poet philosopher could never decide on +which side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> footpath he should walk; and Hazlitt, who struck out +the epigram that Coleridge was an excellent talker if allowed to start +from no premisses and come to no conclusion. The glamour of Coleridge's +theosophy never seems to have fascinated Hazlitt's stubborn intellect. +At this time, indeed, Coleridge had not yet been inoculated with German +mysticism. In after years, the disciple, according to his custom, +renounced his master and assailed him with half-regretful anger. But the +intercourse and kindly encouragement of so eminent a man seem to have +roused Hazlitt's ambition. His poetical and his speculative intellect +were equally stirred. The youth was already longing to write a +philosophical treatise. The two elements of his nature thus roused to +action led him along a 'strange diagonal.' He would be at once a painter +and a metaphysician. Some eight years of artistic labour convinced him +that he could not be a Titian or a Raphael, and he declined to be a mere +Hazlitt junior. His metaphysical studies, on the contrary, convinced him +that he might be a Hume or a Berkeley; but unluckily they convinced +himself alone. The tiny volume which contained their results was +neglected by everybody but the author, who, to the end of his days, +loved it with the love of a mother for a deformed child. It is written, +to say the truth, in a painful and obscure style; it is the work of a +man who has brooded over his own thoughts in solitude till he cannot +appreciate the need of a clear exposition. The narrowness of his reading +had left him in ignorance of the new aspects under which the eternal +problems were presenting themselves to the new generation; and a +metaphysical discussion in antiquated phraseology is as useless as a +lady's dress in the last year's fashion. Hazlitt, in spite of this +double failure, does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> seem to have been much disturbed by +impecuniosity; but the most determined Bohemian has to live. For some +years he strayed about the purlieus of literature, drudging, +translating, and doing other cobbler's work. Two of his performances, +however, were characteristic; he wrote an attack upon Malthus, and he +made an imprudent marriage. Even Malthusians must admit that imprudent +marriages may have some accidental good consequences. When a man has +fairly got his back to the wall, he is forced to fight; and Hazlitt, at +the age of thirty-four, with a wife and a son, at last discovered the +great secret of the literary profession, that a clever man can write +when he has to write or starve. To compose had been labour and grief to +him, so long as he could potter round a thought indefinitely; but with +the printer's devil on one side and the demands of a family on the +other, his ink began to flow freely, and during the last fifteen or +seventeen years of his life he became a voluminous though fragmentary +author. Several volumes of essays, lectures, and criticisms, besides his +more ambitious 'Life of Napoleon,' and a great deal of anonymous +writing, attest his industry. He died in 1830, at the age of fifty-two; +leaving enough to show that he could have done more and a good deal of a +rare, if not of the highest kind of excellence.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, as I have said, is everywhere autobiographical. Besides that +secret, that a man can write if he must, he had discovered the further +secret that the easiest of all topics is his own feelings. It is an +apparent paradox, though the explanation is not far to seek, that +Hazlitt, though shy with his friends, was the most unreserved of +writers. Indeed he takes the public into his confidence with a facility +which we cannot easily forgive. Biographers of late have been guilty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> of +flagrant violations of the unwritten code which should protect the +privacies of social life from the intrusions of public curiosity. But +the most unscrupulous of biographers would hardly have dared to tear +aside the veil so audaciously as Hazlitt, in one conspicuous instance at +least, chose to do for himself. His idol Rousseau had indeed gone +further; but when Rousseau told the story of his youth, it was at least +seen through a long perspective of years, and his own personality might +seem to be scarcely interested. Hazlitt chose, in the strange book +called the 'New Pygmalion,' or 'Liber Amoris,' to invite the British +public at large to look on at a strange tragi-comedy, of which the last +scene was scarcely finished. Hazlitt had long been unhappy in his family +life. His wife appears to have been a masculine woman, with no talent +for domesticity; completely indifferent to her husband's pursuits, and +inclined to despise him for so fruitless an employment of his energies. +They had already separated, it seems, when Hazlitt fell desperately in +love with Miss Sarah Walker, the daughter of his lodging-house keeper. +The husband and wife agreed to obtain a divorce under the Scotch law, +after which they might follow their own paths, and Sarah Walker become +the second Mrs. Hazlitt. Some months had to be spent by Mr. and Mrs. +Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's +journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly +resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and +imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all +pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, +takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some +picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has +made a fool of him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>self, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a +troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved +pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his +friends letters which seem to be throbbing with unrestrainable passion. +He is raving as Romeo at Mantua might have raved about Juliet. To hear +Miss Walker called his wife will be music to his ears, such as they +never heard. But it seems doubtful whether, after all, his Juliet will +have him. He shrieks mere despair and suicide. Nothing is left in the +world to give him a drop of comfort. The breeze does not cool him nor +the blue sky delight him. He will never lie down at night nor rise up of +a morning in peace, nor even behold his little boy's face with pleasure, +unless he is restored to her favour. And Mrs. Hazlitt reports, after +acknowledging the receipt of £10, that Mr. Hazlitt was so much +'enamoured' of one of these letters that he pulled it out of his pocket +twenty times a day, wanted to read it to his companions, and ranted and +gesticulated till people took him for a madman. The 'Liber Amoris' is +made out of these letters—more or less altered and disguised, with some +reports of conversations with the lovely Sarah. 'It was an explosion of +frenzy,' says De Quincey; his reckless mode of relieving his bosom of +certain perilous stuff, with little care whether it produced scorn or +sympathy. A passion which urges its victim to such improprieties should +be, at least, deep and genuine. One would have liked him better if he +had not taken his frenzy to market. The 'Liber Amoris' tells us +accordingly that the author, Hazlitt's imaginary double, died abroad, +'of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of mind.' +The hero, in short, breaks his heart when the lady marries somebody +else. Hazlitt's heart was more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> elastic. Miss Sarah Walker married, and +Hazlitt next year married a widow lady 'of some property,' made a tour +with her on the Continent, and then—quarrelled with her also. It is not +a pretty story. Hazlitt's biographer informs us, by way of excuse, that +his grandfather was 'physically incapable'—whatever that may mean—'of +fixing his affection upon a single object.' He 'comprehended,' indeed, +'the worth of constancy' and other virtues as well as most men, and +could have written about them better than most men; but somehow 'a +sinister influence or agency,' a periphrasis for a sensuous temperament, +was perpetually present, which confined his virtues to the sphere of +theory. An apology sometimes is worse than a satire. The case, however, +seems to be sufficiently plain. We need not suspect that Hazlitt was +consciously acting a part and nursing his 'frenzy' because he thought +that it would make a startling book. He was an egotist and a man of +impulse. His impressions were for the time overpowering; but they were +transient. His temper was often stronger than his passions. A gust of +anger would make him quarrel with his oldest friends. Every emotion +justified itself for the time, because it was his. He always did well, +whether it pleased him for the moment to be angry, to be in love, to be +cynical, or to be furiously indignant. The end, therefore, of his life +exhibits a series of short impetuous fits of passionate endeavour, +rather than devotion to a single overruling purpose; and all his +writings are brief outbursts of eloquent feeling, where neither the +separate fragments nor the works considered as a whole obey any law of +logical development. And yet, in some ways, Hazlitt boasted, and boasted +plausibly enough, of his constancy. He has the same ideas to the end of +his life that he had at fourteen. He would, he remarks, be an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> excellent +man on a jury; he would say little, but would starve the eleven other +obstinate fellows out. Amongst politicians he was a faithful Abdiel, +when all others had deserted the cause. He loved the books of his +boyhood, the fields where he had walked, the gardens where he had drunk +tea, and, to a rather provoking extent, the old quotations and old +stories which he had used from his first days of authorship. The +explanation of the apparent paradox gives the clue to Hazlitt's singular +character.</p> + +<p>What I have called Hazlitt's egotism is more euphemistically and perhaps +more accurately described by Talfourd,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> 'an intense consciousness of +his own individual being.' The word egotism in our rough estimates of +character is too easily confounded with selfishness. Hazlitt might have +been the person who, as one making a strange confession, assured a +friend that he took a deep interest in his own concerns. He was, one +would say, decidedly unselfish, if by selfishness is meant a disposition +to feather one's own nest without regard for other people's wants. Still +less was he selfish in the sense of preferring solid bread and butter to +the higher needs of mind and spirit. His sentiments are always generous, +and if scorn is too familiar a mood, it is scorn of the base and +servile. But his peculiarity is that these generous feelings are always +associated with some special case. He sees every abstract principle by +the concrete instance. He hates insolence in the abstract, but his +hatred flames into passion when it is insolence to Hazlitt. He resembles +that good old lady who wrote on the margin of her 'Complete Duty of Man' +the name of that neighbour who most conspicuously sinned against the +precept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> in the opposite text. Tyranny with Hazlitt is named Pitt, party +spite is Gifford, apostasy is Southey, and fidelity may be called +Cobbett or Godwin; though he finds names for the vices much more easily +than for the virtues. And thus, if he cannot be condemned for +selfishness, one must be charitable not to put down a good many of his +offences to its sister jealousy. The personal and the public sentiments +are so invariably blended in his mind that neither he nor anybody else +could have analysed their composition. He was apt to be the more moody +and irritable because his resentments clothed themselves spontaneously +in the language of some nobler emotion. If his friends are cold, he +bewails the fickleness of humanity; if they are successful, it is not +envy that prompts his irritation, but the rarity of the correspondence +between merit and reward. Such a man is more faithful to his dead than +to his living friends. The dead cannot change; they always come back to +his memory in their old colours; their names recall the old tender +emotion placed above all change and chance. But who can tell that our +dearest living friend may not come into awkward collision with us before +he has left the room? It is as well to be on our guard! It is curious +how the two feelings alternate in Hazlitt's mind in regard to the +friends who are at once dead and living; how fondly he dwells upon the +Coleridge of Wem and Nether Stowey where he first listened to the +enchanter's voice, and with what bitterness, which is yet but soured +affection, he turns upon the Coleridge who defended war-taxes in the +'Friend.' He hacks and hews at Southey through several furious Essays, +and ends with a groan. 'We met him unexpectedly the other day in St. +Giles's,' he says, 'were sorry we had passed him without speaking to an +old friend, turned and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> looked after him for some time as to a tale of +other days—sighing, as we walked on, Alas, poor Southey!' He fancies +himself to be in the mood of Brutus murdering Cæsar. It is patriotism +struggling with old associations of friendship; if there is any personal +element in the hostility, no one is less conscious of it than the +possessor. To the whole Lake school his attitude is always the +same—justice done grudgingly in spite of anger, or satire tempered by +remorse. No one could say nastier things of that very different egotist, +Wordsworth; nor could anyone, outside the sacred clique, pay him +heartier compliments. Nobody, indeed, can dislike egotism like an +egotist. 'Wordsworth,' says Hazlitt, 'sees nothing but himself and the +universe; he hates all greatness and all pretensions to it but his own. +His egotism is in this respect a madness, for he scorns even the +admiration of himself, thinking it a presumption in anyone to suppose +that he has taste or sense enough to understand him. He hates all +science and all art: he hates chemistry, he hates conchology, he hates +Sir Isaac Newton, he hates logic, he hates metaphysics,' and so on +through a long list of hatreds, ending with the inimitable Napoleon, +whom Wordsworth hates, it seems, 'to get rid of the idea of anything +greater, or thought to be greater, than himself.' Hazlitt might have +made out a tolerable list of his own antipathies; though, to do him +justice, of antipathies balanced by ardent enthusiasm, especially for +the dead or the distant.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, indeed, was incapable of the superlative self-esteem here +attributed to Wordsworth. His egotism is a curious variety of that +Protean passion, compounded as skilfully as the melancholy of Jaques. It +is not the fascinating and humorous egotism of Lamb, who disarms us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> +beforehand by a smile at his own crotchets. Hazlitt is too serious to be +playful. Nor is it like the amusing egotism of Boswell, combined with a +vanity which evades our contempt, because it asks so frankly for +sympathy. Hazlitt is too proud and too bitter. Neither is it the +misanthropic egotism of Byron, which, through all its affectation, +implies a certain aristocratic contempt of the world and its laws. +Hazlitt has not the sweep and continuity of Byron's passion. His +egotism—be it said without offence—is dashed with something of the +feeling common amongst his dissenting friends. He feels the awkwardness +which prevails amongst a clique branded by a certain social stigma, and +despises himself for his awkwardness. He resents neglect and scorns to +ask for patronage. His egotism is a touchy and wayward feeling which +takes the mask of misanthropy. He is always meditating upon his own +qualities, but not in the spirit of the conceited man who plumes himself +upon his virtues, nor of the ascetic who broods over his vices. He +prefers the apparently self-contradictory attitude (but human nature is +illogical) of meditating with remorse upon his own virtues. What in +others is complacency, becomes with him, ostensibly at least, +self-reproach. He affects—but it is hard to say where the affectation +begins—to be annoyed by the contemplation of his own merits. He is +angry with the world for preferring commonplace to genius, and rewarding +stupidity by success; but in form at least, he mocks at his own folly +for expecting better things. If he is vain at bottom, his vanity shows +itself indirectly by depreciating his neighbours. He is too proud to +dwell upon his own virtues, but he has been convinced by impartial +observation that the world at large is in a conspiracy against merit. +Thus he manages to transform his self-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>consciousness into the semblance +of proud humility, and extracts a bitter and rather morbid pleasure from +dwelling upon his disappointments and failures. Half-a-dozen of his best +Essays give expression to this mood, which is rather bitter than +querulous. He enlarges cordially on the 'disadvantages of intellectual +superiority.' An author—Hazlitt, to wit—is not allowed to relax into +dulness; if he is brilliant he is not understood, and if he professes an +interest in common things it is assumed that then he must be a fool. And +yet in the midst of these grumblings he is forced to admit a touch of +weakness, and tells us how it pleases him to hear a man ask in the Fives +Court, 'Which is Mr. Hazlitt?' He, the most idiosyncratic of men, and +most proud of it at bottom, declares how 'he hates his style to be +known, as he hates all idiosyncrasy.' At the next moment he purrs with +complacency at the recollection of having been forced into an avowal of +his authorship of an article in the 'Edinburgh Review.' Most generally +he eschews these naïve lapses into vanity. He dilates on the old text of +the 'shyness of scholars.' The learned are out of place in competition +with the world. They are not and ought not to fancy themselves fitted +for the vulgar arena. They can never enjoy their old privileges. 'Fool +that it (learning) was, ever to forego its privileges and loosen the +strong hold it had on opinion in bigotry and superstition!' The same +tone of disgust pronounces itself more cynically in an Essay 'on the +pleasure of hating.' Hatred is, he admits, a poisonous ingredient in all +our passions, but it is that which gives reality to them. Patriotism +means hatred of the French, and virtue is a hatred of other people's +faults to atone for our own vices. All things turn to hatred. 'We hate +old friends, we hate old books, we hate old opinions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> and at last we +come to hate ourselves.' Summing up all his disappointments, the broken +friendships, and disappointed ambitions, and vanished illusions, he +asks, in conclusion, whether he has not come to hate and despise +himself? 'Indeed, I do,' he answers, 'and chiefly for not having hated +and despised the world enough.'</p> + +<p>This is an outbreak of temporary spleen. Nobody loved his old books and +old opinions better. Hazlitt is speaking in the character of Timon, +which indeed fits him rather too easily. But elsewhere the same strain +of cynicism comes out in more natural and less extravagant form. Take, +for example, the Essay on the 'Conduct of Life.' It is a piece of <i>bonâ +fide</i> advice addressed to his boy at school, and gives in a sufficiently +edifying form the commonplaces which elders are accustomed to address to +their juniors. Honesty, independence, diligence, and temperance are +commended in good set terms, though with an earnestness which, as is +often the case with Hazlitt, imparts some reality to outworn formulæ. +When, however, he comes to the question of marriage, the true man breaks +out. Don't trust, he says, to fine sentiments: they will make no more +impression on these delicate creatures than on a piece of marble. Love +in women is vanity, interest, or fancy. Women care nothing about talents +or virtue—about poets or philosophers or politicians. They judge by the +eye. 'No true woman ever regarded anything but her lover's person and +address.' The author has no chance; for he lives in a dream, he feels +nothing spontaneously, his metaphysical refinements are all thrown away. +'Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the +fire in your eye; adorn your person; maintain your health, your beauty, +and your animal spirits; for if you once lapse into poetry and +philo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>sophy you will want an eye to show you, a hand to guide you, a +bosom to love—and will stagger into your grave old before your time, +unloved and unlovely.' 'A spider,' he adds, 'the meanest creature that +crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow, but a scholar has no mate or +fellow.' Mrs. Hazlitt, Miss Sarah Walker, and several other ladies, +thought Hazlitt surly and cared nothing for his treatise on human +nature. Therefore (it is true Hazlittian logic) no woman cares for +sentiment. The sex which despised him must be despicable. Equally +characteristic is his profound belief that his failure in another line +is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most +characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. +He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, +and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does +not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, +with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not +being a Government tool. He wrote a charming character of Congreve's +Millamant, but it was unnoticed because he was not a Government tool. +Gifford would not relish his account of Dekkar's Orlando +Friscobaldo—because he was not a Government tool. He wrote admirable +table-talks—for once, as they are nearly finished, he will venture to +praise himself. He could swear (were they not his) that the thoughts in +them were 'founded as the rock, free as the air, the hue like an Italian +picture.' But, had the style been like polished steel, as firm and as +bright, it would have availed him nothing, for he was not a Government +tool. The world hated him, we see, for his merits. It is a bad world, he +says; but don't think that it is my vanity which has taken offence, for +I am remarkable for modesty, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> therefore I know that my virtues are +faults of which I ought to be ashamed. Is this pride or vanity, or +humility, or cynicism, or self-reproach for wasted talents, or an +intimate blending of passions for which there is no precise name? Who +can unravel the masks within masks of a cunning egotism?</p> + +<p>To one virtue, however, that of political constancy, Hazlitt lays claim +in the most emphatic terms. If he quarrels with all his friends—'most +of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or +cold, uncomfortable acquaintance'—it is, of course, their fault. A +thoroughgoing egotist must think himself the centre of gravity of the +world, and all change of relations must mean that others have moved away +from him. Politically, too, all who have given up his opinions are +deserters, and generally from the worst of motives. He accuses Burke of +turning against the Revolution from—of all motives in the +world!—jealousy of Rousseau; a theory still more impossible than Mr. +Buckle's hypothesis of madness. Court favour supplies in most cases a +simpler explanation of the general demoralisation. Hazlitt could not +give credit to men like Southey and Coleridge for sincere alarm at the +French Revolution. Such a sentiment would be too unreasonable, for he +had not been alarmed himself. His constancy, indeed, would be admirable +if it did not suggest doubts of his wisdom. A man whose opinions at +fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If +his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by +experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. +To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write +yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what +Hazlitt called his opinions were really his feelings. He could argue +very in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>geniously, as appears from his remarks on Coleridge and Malthus, +but his logic was the slave, not the ruler, of his emotions. His +politics were simply the expression, in a generalised form, of his +intense feeling of personality. They are a projection upon the modern +political world of that heroic spirit of individual self-respect which +animated his Puritan forefathers. One question, and only one question, +he frequently tells us, is of real importance. All the rest is mere +verbiage. The single dogma worth attacking or defending is the divine +right of kings. Are men, in the old phrase, born saddled and bridled, +and other men ready booted and spurred, or are they not? That is the +single shibboleth which distinguishes true men from false. Others, he +says, bowed their heads to the image of the beast. 'I spit upon it, and +buffeted it, and pointed at it, and drew aside the veil that then half +concealed it.' This passionate denial of the absolute right of men over +their fellows is but vicarious pride, if you please to call it so, or a +generous recognition of the dignity of human nature translated into +political terms. Hazlitt's character did not change, however much his +judgment of individuals might change; and therefore the principles which +merely reflected his character remained rooted and unshaken. And yet his +politics changed curiously enough in another sense. The abstract truth, +in Hazlitt's mind, must always have a concrete symbol. He chose to +regard Napoleon as the antithesis to the divine right of kings. That was +the vital formula of Napoleon, his essence, and the true meaning of his +policy. The one question in abstract politics was typified for Hazlitt +by the contrast between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance. To prove that +Napoleon could trample on human rights as roughly as any legitimate +sovereign was for him mere waste<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> of time. Napoleon's tyranny meant a +fair war against the evil principle. Had Hazlitt lived in France, and +come into collision with press laws, it is likely enough that his +sentiments would have changed. But Napoleon was far enough off to serve +as a mere poetical symbol; his memory had got itself entwined in those +youthful associations on which Hazlitt always dwelt so fondly; and, +moreover, to defend 'Boney' was to quarrel with most of his countrymen, +and even of his own party. What more was wanted to make him one of +Hazlitt's superstitions? No more ardent devotee of the Napoleonic legend +ever existed, and Hazlitt's last years were employed in writing a book +which is a political pamphlet as much as a history. He worships the +eldest Napoleon with the fervour of a corporal of the Old Guard, and +denounces the great conspiracy of kings and nobles with the energy of +Cobbett; but he had none of the special knowledge which alone could give +permanent value to such a performance. He seems to have consulted only +the French authorities; and it is refreshing for once to find an +Englishman telling the story of Waterloo entirely from the French side, +and speaking, for example, of left and right as if he had been—as in +imagination he was—by the side of Napoleon instead of Wellington. Even +M. Victor Hugo can see more merit in the English army and its commander. +A radical, who takes Napoleon for his polar star, must change some of +his theories, though he disguises the change from himself; but a change +of a different kind came over Hazlitt as he grew older.</p> + +<p>The enthusiasm of the Southeys and Wordsworths for the French Revolution +changed—whatever their motives—into enthusiasm for the established +order. Hazlitt's enthusiasm remained, but became the enthusiasm of +regret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> instead of hope. As one by one the former zealots dropped off he +despised them as renegades, and clasped his old creed the more firmly to +his bosom. But the change did not draw him nearer to the few who +remained faithful. They perversely loved the wrong side of the right +cause, or loved it for the wrong reason. He liked the Whigs no better +than the Tories; the 'Edinburgh' and the 'Quarterly' were opposition +coaches, making a great dust and spattering each other with mud, but +travelling by the same road to the same end. A Whig, he said, was a +trimmer who dared neither to be a rogue nor an honest man, but was 'a +sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning +negation of the two.' And the true genuine radical reformers? To them, +as represented by the school of Bentham, Hazlitt entertained an aversion +quite as hearty as his aversion for Whigs and Tories. If, he says, the +Whigs are too finical to join heartily with the popular advocates, the +Reformers are too cold. They hated literature, poetry, and romance; +nothing gives them pleasure that does not give others pain; +utilitarianism means prosaic, hard-hearted, narrow-minded dogmatism. +Indeed, his pet essay on the principles of human nature was simply an +assault on what he took to be their fundamental position. He fancied +that the school of Bentham regarded man as a purely selfish and +calculating animal; and his whole philosophy was an attempt to prove the +natural disinterestedness of man, and to indicate for the imagination +and the emotions their proper place beside the calculating faculty. Few +were those who did not come under one or other clause of this sweeping +denunciation. He assailed Shelley, who was neither Whig, Tory, nor +Utilitarian, so cuttingly as to provoke a dispute with Leigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> Hunt, and +had some of his sharp criticisms for his friend Godwin. His general +moral, indeed, is the old congenial one. The reformer is as unfit for +this world as the scholar. He is the only wise man, but, as things go, +wisdom is the worst of follies. The reformer, he says, is necessarily a +marplot; he does not know what he would be at; if he did, he does not +much care for it; and, moreover, he is 'governed habitually by a spirit +of contradiction, and is always wise beyond what is practicable.' Upon +this text Hazlitt dilates with immense spirit, satirising the crotchety +and impracticable race, and contrasting them with the disciplined +phalanx of Toryism, brilliantly and bitterly enough to delight Gifford; +and yet he is writing a preface to a volume of radical Essays. He is +consoling himself for being in a minority of one by proving that two +virtuous men must always disagree. Hazlitt is no genuine democrat. He +hates 'both mobs,' or, in other words, the great mass of the human race. +He would sympathise with Coriolanus more easily than with the Tribunes. +He laughs at the perfectibility of the species, and holds that 'all +things move, not in progress but in a ceaseless round.' The glorious +dream is fled:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The radiance which was once so bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is now for ever taken from our sight;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and his only consolation is to live over in memory the sanguine times of +his youth, before Napoleon had fallen and the Holy Alliance restored the +divine right of kings; to cherish eternal regret for the hopes that have +departed, and hatred and scorn equally enduring for those who blasted +them. 'Give me back,' he exclaims, 'one single evening at Boxhill, after +a stroll in the deep empurpled woods, before Bonaparte was yet beaten, +with "wine of Attic taste," when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> wit, beauty, friendship presided at +the board.' The personal blends with the political regret.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, the politician, was soured. He fed his morbid egotism by +indignantly chewing the cud of disappointment, and scornfully rejecting +comfort. He quarrelled with his wife and with most of his friends, even +with the gentle Lamb, till Lamb regained his affections by the brief +quarrel with Southey. Certainly, he might call himself, with some +plausibility, 'the king of good haters.' But, after all, Hazlitt's +cynicism is the souring of a generous nature; and when we turn from the +politician to the critic and the essayist, our admiration for his powers +is less frequently jarred by annoyance at their wayward misuse. His +egotism—for he is still an egotist—here takes a different shape. His +criticism is not of the kind which is now most popular. He lived before +the days of philosophers who talk about the organism and its +environment, and of the connoisseurs who boast of an eclectic taste for +all the delicate essences of art. He never thought of showing that a +great writer was only the product of his time, race, and climate; and he +had not learnt to use such terms of art as 'supreme,' 'gracious,' +'tender,' 'bitter,' and 'subtle,' in which a good deal of criticism now +consists. Lamb, says Hazlitt, tried old authors 'on his palate as +epicures taste olives;' and the delicacy of discrimination which makes +the process enjoyable is perhaps the highest qualification of a good +critic. Hazlitt's point of view was rather different, nor can we ascribe +to him without qualification that exquisite appreciation of purely +literary charm which is so rare and so often affected. Nobody, indeed, +loved some authors more heartily or understood them better; his love is +so hearty that he cannot preserve the true critical attitude. Instead of +trying them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> on his palate, he swallows them greedily. His judgment of +an author seems to depend upon two circumstances. He is determined in +great measure by his private associations, and in part by his sympathy +for the character of the writer. His interest in this last sense is, one +may say, rather psychological than purely critical. He thinks of an +author not as the exponent of a particular vein of thought or emotion, +nor as an artistic performer on the instrument of language, but as a +human being to be loved or hated, or both, like Napoleon or Gifford or +Southey.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt's favourite authors were, for the most part, the friends of his +youth. He had pored over their pages till he knew them by heart; their +phrases were as familiar to his lips as texts of Scripture to preachers +who know but one book; the places where he had read them became sacred +to him, and a glory of his early enthusiasm was still reflected from the +old pages. Rousseau was his beloved above all writers. They had a +natural affinity. What Hazlitt says of Rousseau may be partly applied to +himself. Of Hazlitt it might be said almost as truly as of Rousseau, +that 'he had the most intense consciousness of his own existence. No +object that had once made an impression upon him was ever after +effaced.' In Rousseau's 'Confessions' and 'Nouvelle Héloïse,' Hazlitt +saw the reflections of his own passions. He spent, he declares, two +whole years in reading these two books; and they were the happiest years +of his life. He marks with a white stone the days on which he read +particular passages. It was on April 10, 1798—as he tells us some +twenty years later—that he sat down to a volume of the 'New Héloïse,' +at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. He +tells us which passage he read and what was the view before his bodily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +eyes. His first reading of 'Paul and Virginia' is associated with an inn +at Bridgewater; and at another old-fashioned inn he tells how the rustic +fare and the quaint architecture gave additional piquancy to Congreve's +wit. He remembers, too, the spot at which he first read Mrs. Inchbald's +'Simple Story;' how he walked out to escape from one of the tenderest +parts, in order to return again with double relish.</p> + +<p>'An old crazy hand-organ,' he adds, 'was playing "Robin Adair," a summer +shower dropped manna on my head, and slaked my feverish thirst of +happiness.' He looks back to his first familiarity with his favourites +as an old man may think of his honeymoon. The memories of his own +feelings, of his author's poetry, and of the surrounding scenery, are +inextricably fused together. The sight of an old volume, he says, +sometimes shakes twenty years off his life; he sees his old friends +alive again, the place where he read the book, the day when he got it, +the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky. To these old favourites he +remained faithful, except that he seems to have tired of the glitter of +Junius. Burke's politics gave him some severe twinges. He says, in one +place, that he always tests the sense and candour of a Liberal by his +willingness to admit the greatness of Burke. He adds, as a note to the +Essay in which this occurs, that it was written in a 'fit of extravagant +candour,' when he thought that he could be more than just to an enemy +without betraying a cause. He oscillates between these views as his +humour changes. He is absurdly unjust to Burke the politician; but he +does not waver in his just recognition of the marvellous power of the +greatest—I should almost say the only great—political writer in the +language. The first time he read a passage from Burke, he said, This is +true eloquence. Johnson immediately became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> shelved, and Junius 'shrunk +up into little antithetic points and well-tuned sentences. But Burke's +style was forked and playful like the lightning, crested like the +serpent.' He is never weary of Burke, as he elsewhere says; and, in +fact, he is man enough to recognise genuine power when he meets it. To +another great master he yields with a reluctance which is an involuntary +compliment. The one author whom he admitted into his Pantheon after his +youthful enthusiasm had cooled was unluckily the most consistent of +Tories. Who is there, he asks, that admires the author of 'Waverley' +more than I do? Who is there that despises Sir Walter Scott more? The +Scotch novels, as they were then called, fairly overpowered him. The +imaginative force, the geniality and the wealth of picturesque incident +of the greatest of novelists, disarmed his antipathy. It is curious to +see how he struggles with himself. He blesses and curses in a breath. He +applies to Scott Pope's description of Bacon, 'the greatest, wisest, +meanest of mankind,' and asks—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who would not laugh if such a man there be?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who would not weep if "Waverley" were he?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He crowns a torrent of abuse by declaring that Scott has encouraged the +lowest panders of a venal press, 'deluging and nauseating the public +mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang;' +and presently he calls Scott—by way, it is true, of lowering +Byron—'one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived.' He +invents a theory, to which he returns more than once, to justify the +contrast. Scott, he says, is much such a writer as the Duke of +Wellington (the hated antithesis of Napoleon, whose 'foolish face' he +specially detests) is a general. The one gets 100,000 men together, and +'leaves it to them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> fight out the battle, for if he meddled with it +he might spoil sport; the other gets an innumerable quantity of facts +together, and lets them tell their story as they may. The facts are +stubborn in the last instance as the men are in the first, and in +neither case is the broth spoiled by the cook.' Both heroes show modesty +and self-knowledge, but 'little boldness or inventiveness of genius.' On +the strength of this doctrine he even compares Scott disadvantageously +with Godwin and Mrs. Inchbald, who had, it seems, more invention though +fewer facts. Hazlitt was not bound to understand strategy, and devoutly +held that Wellington's armies succeeded because their general only +looked on. But he should have understood his own trade a little better. +Putting aside this grotesque theory, he feels Scott's greatness truly, +and admits it generously. He enjoys the broth, to use his own phrase, +though he is determined to believe that it somehow made itself.</p> + +<p>Lamb said that Hazlitt was a greater authority when he praised than when +he abused, a doctrine which may be true of others than Hazlitt. The true +distinction is rather that Hazlitt, though always unsafe as a judge, is +admirable as an advocate in his own cause, and poor when merely speaking +from his brief. Of Mrs. Inchbald I must say what Hazlitt shocked his +audience by saying of Hannah More; that she has written a good deal +which I have not read, and I therefore cannot deny that her novels might +have been written by Venus; but I cannot admit that Wycherley's brutal +'Plain-dealer' is as good as ten volumes of sermons. 'It is curious to +see,' says Hazlitt, rather naïvely, 'how the same subject is treated by +two such different authors as Shakespeare and Wycherley.' Macaulay's +remark about the same coincidence is more to the point. 'Wycherley +borrows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> Viola,' says that vigorous moralist, 'and Viola forthwith +becomes a pander of the basest sort.' That is literally true. Indeed, +Hazlitt's love for the dramatists of the Restoration is something of a +puzzle, except so far as it is explained by early associations. Even +then it is hard to explain the sympathy which Hazlitt, the lover of +Rousseau and sentiment, feels for Congreve, whose speciality it is that +a touch of sentiment is as rare in his painfully-witty dialogues as a +drop of water in the desert. Perhaps a contempt for the prejudices of +respectable people gave zest to Hazlitt's enjoyment of a literature, +representative of a social atmosphere, most propitious to his best +feelings. And yet, though I cannot take Hazlitt's judgment, I would +frankly admit that Hazlitt's enthusiasm brings out Congreve's real +merits with a force of which a calmer judge would be incapable. His warm +praises of 'The Beggar's Opera,' his assault upon Sidney's 'Arcadia,' +his sarcasms against Tom Moore, are all excellent in their way, whether +we do or do not agree with his final result. Whenever Hazlitt writes +from his own mind, in short, he writes what is well worth reading. +Hazlitt learnt something in his later years from Lamb. He prefers, he +says, those papers of Elia in which there is the least infusion of +antiquated language; and, in fact, Lamb never inoculated him with his +taste for the old English literature. Hazlitt gave a series of lectures +upon the Elizabethan dramatists, and carelessly remarks some time +afterwards that he has only read about a quarter of Beaumont and +Fletcher's plays, and intends to read the rest when he has a chance. It +is plain, indeed, that the lectures, though written at times with great +spirit, are the work of a man who has got them up for the occasion. And +in his more ambitious and successful essays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> upon Shakespeare the same +want of reading appears in another way. He is more familiar with +Shakespeare's text than many better scholars. His familiarity is proved +by a habit of quotation of which it has been disputed whether it is a +merit or a defect. What phrenologists would call the adhesiveness of +Hazlitt's mind, its extreme retentiveness for any impression which has +once been received, tempts him to a constant repetition of familiar +phrases and illustrations. He has, too, a trick of working in patches of +his old essays, which he expressly defends on the ground that a book +which has not reached a second edition may be considered by its author +as manuscript. This self-plagiarism sometimes worries us, as we are +worried by a man whose conversation runs in ruts. But his quotations +from other authors, where used in moderation, often give a pleasant +richness to his style. Shakespeare, in particular, seems to be a +storehouse into which he can always dip for an appropriate turn of +phrase, and his love of Shakespeare is of a characteristic kind. He has +not counted syllables nor weighed various readings. He does not throw a +new light upon delicate indications of thought and sentiment, nor +philosophise after the manner of Coleridge and the Germans, nor regard +Shakespeare as the representative of his age according to the sweeping +method of M. Taine. Neither does he seem to love Shakespeare himself as +he loves Rousseau or Richardson. He speaks contemptuously of the Sonnets +and Poems, and, though I respect his sincerity, I think that such a +verdict necessarily indicates indifference to the most Shakespearian +parts of Shakespeare. The calm assertion that the qualities of the Poems +are the reverse of the qualities of the plays is unworthy of Hazlitt's +general acuteness. That which really attracts Hazlitt is sufficiently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> +indicated by the title of his book; he describes the characters of +Shakespeare's plays. It is Iago, and Timon, and Coriolanus, and Anthony, +and Cleopatra, who really interest him. He loves and hates them as if +they were his own contemporaries; he gives the main outlines of their +character with a spirited touch. And yet one somehow feels that Hazlitt +is not at his best in Shakespearian criticism; his eulogies savour of +commonplace, and are wanting in spontaneity. There is not that warm glow +of personal feeling which gives light and warmth to his style whenever +he touches upon his early favourites. Perhaps he is a little daunted by +the greatness of his task, and perhaps there is something in the +Shakespearian width of sympathy and in the Shakespearian humour which +lies beyond Hazlitt's sphere. His criticism of Hamlet is feeble; he does +not do justice to Mercutio or to Jaques; but he sympathises more +heartily with the tremendous passion of Lear and Othello, and finds +something congenial to his taste in Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. It +is characteristic, too, that he evidently understands Shakespeare better +on the stage than in the closet. When he can associate Iago and Shylock +with the visible presence of Kean, he can introduce that personal +element which is so necessary to his best writing.</p> + +<p>The best, indeed, of Hazlitt's criticisms—if the word may be so far +extended—are his criticisms of living men. The criticism of +contemporary portraits called the 'Spirit of the Age' is one of the +first of those series which have now become popular, as it is certainly +one of the very best. The descriptions of Bentham, and Godwin, and +Coleridge, and Horne Tooke are masterpieces in their way. They are, of +course, unfair; but that is part of their charm. One would no more take +for granted Hazlitt's valuation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> Wordsworth than Timon's judgment of +Alcibiades. Hazlitt sees through coloured glasses, but his vision is not +the less penetrating. The vulgar satirist is such a one as Hazlitt +somewhere mentioned who called Wordsworth a dunce. Hazlitt was quite +incapable of such a solecism. He knew, nobody better, that a telling +caricature must be a good likeness. If he darkens the shades, and here +and there exaggerates an ungainly feature, we still know that the shade +exists and that the feature is not symmetrical. De Quincey reports the +saying of some admiring friend of Hazlitt, who confessed to a shudder +whenever Hazlitt used his habitual gesture of placing his hand within +his waistcoat. The hand might emerge armed with a dagger. Whenever, said +the same friend (Heaven preserve us from our friends!), Hazlitt had been +distracted for a moment from the general conversation, he looked round +with a mingled air of suspicion and defiance, as though some +objectionable phrase might have evaded his censure in the interval. The +traits recur to us when we read Hazlitt's descriptions of the men he had +known. We seem to see the dark sardonic man, watching the faces and +gestures of his friends, ready to take sudden offence at any affront to +his cherished prejudices, and yet hampered by a kind of nervous timidity +which makes him unpleasantly conscious of his own awkwardness. He +remains silent, till somebody unwittingly contradicts his unspoken +thoughts—the most irritating kind of contradiction to some people!—and +perhaps heaps indiscriminating praise on an old friend, a term nearly +synonymous with an old enemy. Then the dagger suddenly flashes out, and +Hazlitt strikes two or three rapid blows, aimed with unerring accuracy +at the weak points of the armour which he knows so well. And then, as he +strikes, a relenting comes over him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> he remembers old days with a +sudden gush of fondness, and puts in a touch of scorn for his allies or +himself. Coleridge may deserve a blow, but the applause of Coleridge's +enemies awakes his self-reproach. His invective turns into panegyric, +and he warms for a time into hearty admiration, which proves that his +irritation arises from an excess, not from a defect, of sensibility; but +finding that he has gone a little too far, he lets his praise slide into +equivocal description, and, with some parting epigram, he relapses into +silence. The portraits thus drawn are never wanting in piquancy nor in +fidelity. Brooding over his injuries and his desertions, Hazlitt has +pondered almost with the eagerness of a lover upon the qualities of his +intimates. Suspicion, unjust it may be, has given keenness to his +investigation. He has interpreted in his own fashion every mood and +gesture. He has watched his friends as a courtier watches a royal +favourite. He has stored in his memory, as we fancy, the good retorts +which his shyness or unreadiness smothered at the propitious moment, and +brings them out in the shape of a personal description. When such a man +sits at our tables, silent and apparently self-absorbed, and yet shrewd +and sensitive, we may well be afraid of the dagger, though it may not be +drawn till after our death, and may write memoirs instead of piercing +flesh. And yet Hazlitt is no mean assassin of reputations; nor is his +enmity as a rule more than the seamy side of friendship. Gifford, +indeed, and Croker, 'the talking potato,' are treated as outside the +pale of human rights.</p> + +<p>Excellent as Hazlitt can be as a dispenser of praise and blame, he seems +to me to be at his best in a different capacity. The first of his +performances which attracted much attention was the Round Table, +designed by Leigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> Hunt (who contributed a few papers), on the old +'Spectator' model. In the essays afterwards collected in the volumes +called 'Table Talk' and the 'Plain Speaker,' he is still better, because +more certain of his position. It would, indeed, be difficult to name any +writer, from the days of Addison to those of Lamb, who has equalled +Hazlitt's best performances of this kind. Addison is too unlike to +justify a comparison; and, to say the truth, though he has rather more +in common with Lamb, the contrast is much more obvious than the +resemblance. Each wants the other's most characteristic vein; Hazlitt +has hardly a touch of humour, and Lamb is incapable of Hazlitt's caustic +scorn for the world and himself. They have indeed in common, besides +certain superficial tastes, a love of pathetic brooding over the past. +But the sentiment exerted is radically different. Lamb forgets himself +when brooding over an old author or summing up the 'old familiar faces.' +His melancholy and his mirth cast delightful cross-lights upon the +topics of which he converses, and we do not know, until we pause to +reflect, that it is not the intrinsic merit of the objects, but Lamb's +own character, which has caused our pleasure. They would be dull, that +is, in other hands; but the feeling is embodied in the object described, +and not made itself the source of our interest. With Hazlitt, it is the +opposite. He is never more present than when he is dwelling upon the +past. Even in criticising a book or a man, his favourite mode is to tell +us how he came to love or to hate him; and in the non-critical Essays he +is always appealing to us, directly or indirectly, for sympathy with his +own personal emotions. He tells us how passionately he is yearning for +the days of his youth; he is trying to escape from his pressing +annoyances; wrapping himself in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> sacred associations against the fret +and worry of surrounding cares; repaying himself for the scorn of women +or Quarterly Reviewers by retreating into some imaginary hermitage; and +it is the delight of dreaming upon which he dwells more than upon the +beauty of the visions revealed to his inward eye. The force with which +this sentiment is presented gives a curious fascination to some of his +essays. Take, for example, the essay in 'Table Talk,' 'On Living to +One's self,'—an essay written, as he is careful to tell us, on a mild +January day in the country, whilst the fire is blazing on the hearth and +a partridge getting ready for his supper. There he expatiates in happy +isolation on the enjoyments of living as 'a silent spectator of the +mighty scheme of things;' as being in the world, and not of it; watching +the clouds and the stars, poring over a book, or gazing at a picture +without a thought of becoming an author or an artist. He has drifted +into a quiet little backwater, and congratulates himself in all +sincerity on his escape from the turbulent stream outside. He drinks in +the delight of rest at every pore; reduces himself for the time to the +state of a polyp drifting on the warm ocean stream, and becomes a +voluptuous hermit. He calls up the old days when he acted up to his +principles, and found pleasure enough in endless meditation and quiet +observation of nature. He preaches most edifyingly on the +disappointments, the excitements, the rough impacts of hard facts upon +sensitive natures, which haunt the world outside, and declares, in all +sincerity, 'this sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it +to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets.' He is sincere, and therefore +eloquent; and we need not, unless we please, add the remark that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +enjoys rest because it is a relief from toil; and that he will curse the +country as heartily as any man if doomed to entire rest. This meditation +on the phenomena of his own sensations leads him often into interesting +reflections of a psychological kind. He analyses his own feelings with +constant eagerness, as he analyses the character of his enemies. A good +specimen is the essay 'On Antiquity' in the 'Plain Speaker,' which +begins with some striking remarks on the apparently arbitrary mode in +which some objects and periods seem older to us than others, in defiance +of chronology. The monuments of the Middle Ages seem more antique than +the Greek statues and temples with their immortal youth. 'It is not the +full-grown, articulated, thoroughly accomplished periods of the world +that we regard with the pity or reverence due to age, so much as those +imperfect, unformed, uncertain periods which seem to totter on the verge +of non-existence, to shrink from the grasp of our feeble imagination, as +they crawl out of, or retire into the womb of time, of which our utmost +assurance is to doubt whether they ever were or not.' And then, as +usual, he passes to his own experience, and meditates on the changed +aspect of the world in youth and maturer life. The petty, personal +emotions pass away, whilst the grand and ideal 'remains with us +unimpaired in its lofty abstraction from age to age.' Therefore, though +the inference is not quite clear, he can never forget the first time he +saw Mrs. Siddons act, or the appearance of Burke's 'Letter to a Noble +Lord.' And then, in a passage worthy of Sir Thomas Browne, he describes +the change produced as our minds are stereotyped, as our most striking +thoughts become truisms, and we lose the faculty of admiration. In our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +youth 'art woos us; science tempts us with her intricate labyrinths; +each step presents unlooked-for vistas, and closes upon us our backward +path. Our onward road is strange, obscure, and infinite. We are +bewildered in a shadow, lost in a dream. Our perceptions have the +brightness and indistinctness of a trance. Our continuity of +consciousness is broken, crumbles, and falls to pieces. We go on +learning and forgetting every hour. Our feelings are chaotic, confused, +strange to each other and ourselves.' But in time we learn by rote the +lessons which we had to spell out in our youth. 'A very short period +(from 15 to 25 or 30) includes the whole map and table of contents of +human life. From that time we may be said to live our lives over again, +repeat ourselves—the same thoughts return at stated intervals, like the +tunes of a barrel-organ; and the volume of the universe is no more than +a form of words, a book of reference.'</p> + +<p>From such musings Hazlitt can turn to describe any fresh impression +which has interested him, in spite of his occasional weariness, with a +freshness and vivacity which proves that his eye had not grown dim, nor +his temperament incapable of enjoyment. He fell in love with Miss Sarah +Wilson at the tolerably ripe age of 43; and his desire to live in the +past is not to be taken more seriously than his contempt for his +literary reputation. It lasts only till some vivid sensation occurs in +the present. In congenial company he could take a lively share in +conversation, as is proved not only by external evidence, but by his +very amusing book of conversations with Northcote—an old cynic out of +whom it does not seem that anybody else could strike many sparks,—or +from the essay, partly historical, it is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> be supposed, in which he +records his celebrated discussion with Lamb, on persons whom one would +wish to have seen. But perhaps some of his most characteristic +performances in this line are those in which he anticipates the modern +taste for muscularity. His wayward disposition to depreciate ostensibly +his own department of action, leads him to write upon the 'disadvantages +of intellectual superiority,' and to maintain the thesis that the glory +of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And +perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the +physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives—in +which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his +last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau—and +still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill +Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, and we +are pretty well ashamed of the last flicker of enthusiasm created by +Sayers and Heenan. We may therefore enjoy without remorse the prose-poem +in which Hazlitt kindles with genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful +glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising +of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We +condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the +old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way +home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle Héloïse,' admit +for a moment that 'Love of the Fancy is,' as the historian assures us, +'compatible with a cultivation of sentiment.' If Hazlitt had thrown as +much into his description of the Battle of Waterloo, and had taken the +English side, he would have been a popular writer. But even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> Hazlitt +cannot quite embalm the memories of Cribb, Belcher, and Gully.</p> + +<p>It is time, however, to stop. More might be said by a qualified writer +of Hazlitt's merits as a judge of pictures or of the stage. The same +literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, +condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man +can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, +capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow +that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and +Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; +nor, on the other hand, has he the plain homespun force of Swift and +Cobbett. And yet readers who do not insist upon measuring all prose by +the same standard, will probably agree that if Hazlitt is not a great +rhetorician, if he aims at no gorgeous effects of complex harmony, he +has yet an eloquence of his own. It is indeed an eloquence which does +not imply quick sympathy with many moods of feeling, or an intellectual +vision at once penetrating and comprehensive. It is the eloquence +characteristic of a proud and sensitive nature, which expresses a very +keen if narrow range of feeling, and implies a powerful grasp of one, if +only one side of the truth. Hazlitt harps a good deal upon one string; +but that string vibrates forcibly. His best passages are generally an +accumulation of short, pithy sentences, shaped in strong feeling, and +coloured by picturesque association; but repeating, rather than +corroborating, each other. The last blow goes home, but each falls on +the same place. He varies the phrase more than the thought; and +sometimes he becomes obscure, because he is so absorbed in his own +feelings that he forgets the very existence of strangers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> who require +explanation. Read through Hazlitt, and this monotony becomes a little +tiresome; but dip into him at intervals, and you will often be +astonished that so vigorous a writer has not left some more enduring +monument of his remarkable powers.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In the excellent Essay prefixed to 'Hazlitt's Literary Remains.'</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span></p> +<h2><i>DISRAELI'S NOVELS</i><a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h2> + + +<p>It is a commonplace with men of literary eminence to extol the man of +deeds above the man of words. Scott was half ashamed of scribbling +novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true +prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the +shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in +masters of the art to depreciate their own peculiar function. People who +have less personal interest in the matter need not be so modest. I will +confess, at any rate, to preferring the men who have sown some new seed +of thought above the heroes whose names mark epochs in history. I would +rather make the nation's ballads than give its laws, dictate principles +than carry them into execution, and leaven a country with new ideas than +translate them into facts, inevitably mangling and distorting them in +the process. And therefore I would rather have written 'Hamlet' than +defeated the Spanish Armada; or 'Paradise Lost,' than have turned out +the Long Parliament; or 'Gray's Elegy,' than have stormed the heights of +Abram; or the Waverley Novels, than have won Waterloo or even Trafalgar. +I would rather have been Voltaire or Goethe than Frederick or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> Napoleon; +and I suspect that when the poor historian of the nineteenth century +begins his superhuman work, he will, as a thorough philosopher, +attribute more importance to two or three recent English writers than to +all the English statesmen who have been strutting and fretting their +little hour at Westminster. And therefore, too, I wish that Disraeli +could have stuck to his novels instead of rising to be Prime Minister of +England. This opinion is, of course, entirely independent of any +judgment which may be passed upon Disraeli's political career. Granting +that his cause has always been the right one, granting that he has +rendered it essential services, I should still wish that his brilliant +literary ability had been allowed to ripen undisturbed by all the +worries and distractions of parliamentary existence. Persons who think +the creation of a majority in the House of Commons a worthy reward for +the labours of a lifetime will, of course, differ from this conclusion. +Disraeli, at any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck +off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more +alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have +gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby +and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they +embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little +propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still +survives, must have lost many illusions; he must have herded with the +Tapers and Tadpoles, and prompted Rigby to write slashing articles on +his behalf in the quarterlies. He must have felt that his intellect was +cruelly wasted in talking claptrap and platitude to suit the thick +comprehensions of his party; and the huge dead weight of the invincible +impenetrability to ideas of ordinary mankind must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> have lain heavy upon +his soul. How many Tadpoles, one would like to know, still haunt the +Carlton Club, or throng the ministerial benches, and how many Rigbys +have forced their way into the Cabinet? That is one of the state secrets +which will hardly be divulged by the only competent observer. But at any +rate it is sad that the critic, who applied the lash so skilfully, +should have been so unequally yoked with the objects of his contempt. +Disraeli's talents for entertaining fiction may not indeed have been +altogether wasted in his official career; but he at least may pardon +admirers of his writing, who regret that he should have squandered +powers of imagination, capable of true creative work, upon that +alternation of truckling and blustering which is called governing the +country.</p> + +<p>The qualities which are of rather equivocal value in a minister of state +may be admirable in the domain of literature. It is hardly desirable +that the followers of a political leader should be haunted by an +ever-recurring doubt as to whether his philosophical utterances express +deep convictions, or the extemporised combinations of a fertile fancy, +and be uncertain whether he is really putting their clumsy thoughts into +clearer phrases, or foisting showy nonsense upon them for his own +purposes, or simply laughing at them in his sleeve. But, in a purely +literary sense, this ambiguous hovering between two meanings, this +oscillation between the ironical and the serious, is always amusing, and +sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in +literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air +of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in +earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a +standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> +the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments +of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright +sarcasm, as unmistakable in its meaning as the cut of a whip across your +face; and elsewhere we have passages which aim unmistakably, and +sometimes with unmistakable success, at rhetorical excellence. But, +between the two, there is a wide field where we may interpret his +meaning as we please. The philosophical theory may imply a genuine +belief, or may be a mere bit of conventional filling in, or perhaps a +parody of his friends or himself. The gorgeous passages may be +intentionally over-coloured, or may really represent his most sincere +taste. His homage may be genuine or a biting mockery. His extravagances +are kept precisely at such a pitch that it is equally fair to argue that +a satirist must have meant them to be absurd, or to argue only that he +would have seen their absurdity in anybody else. The unfortunate critic +feels himself in a position analogous to that of the suitors in the +'Merchant of Venice.' He may blunder grievously, whatever alternative he +selects. If he pronounces a passage to be pure gold, it may turn out to +be merely the mask of a bitter sneer; or he may declare it to be +ingenious burlesque when put forward in the most serious earnest; or may +ridicule it as overstrained bombast, and find that it was never meant to +be anything else. It is wiser to admit that perhaps the author was not +very clear himself, or possibly enjoyed that ambiguous attitude which +might be interpreted according to the taste of his readers and the +development of events. A man who deals in oracular utterances acquires +instinctively a mode of speech which may shift its colour with every +change of light. The texture of Disraeli's writings is so ingeniously +shot with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> irony and serious sentiment that each tint may predominate by +turns. It is impossible to suppose that the weaver of so cunning a web +should never have intended the effects which he produces; but +frequently, too, they must be the spontaneous and partly unconscious +results of a peculiar intellectual temperament. Delight in blending the +pathetic with the ludicrous is the characteristic of the true humorist. +Disraeli is not exactly a humorist, but something for which the rough +nomenclature of critics has not yet provided a distinctive name. His +pathos is not sufficiently tender, nor his laughter quite genial enough. +The quality which results is homologous to, though not identical with, +genuine humour: for the smile we must substitute a sneer, and the +element which enters into combination with the satire is something more +distantly allied to poetical unction than to glittering rhetoric. The +Disraelian irony thus compounded is hitherto a unique product of +intellectual chemistry.</p> + +<p>Most of Disraeli's novels are intended to set forth what, for want of a +better name, must be called a religious or political creed. To grasp its +precise meaning, or to determine the precise amount of earnestness with +which it is set forth, is of course hopeless. Its essence is to be +mysterious, and half the preacher's delight is in tantalising his +disciples. At moments he cannot quite suppress the amusement with which +he mocks their hopeless bewilderment. When Coningsby is on the point of +entering public life, he reads a speech of one of the initiated, +'denouncing the Venetian constitution, to the amazement of several +thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown +danger, now first introduced to their notice.' What more amusing than +suddenly to reveal to good easy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> citizens that what they took for +wholesome food is deadly poison, and to watch their hopeless incapacity +to understand whether you are really announcing a truth or launching an +epigram!</p> + +<p>Disraeli, undoubtedly, has certain fixed beliefs which underlie and +which, indeed, explain the superficial versatility of his teaching. +Amongst the various doctrines with which he plays more or less +seriously, two at least are deeply rooted in his mind. He holds, with a +fervour in every way honourable, a belief in the marvellous endowments +of his race, and connected with this belief is an almost romantic +admiration for every manifestation of intellectual power. Vivian Grey, +in a bit of characteristic bombast, describes himself as 'one who has +worshipped the empire of the intellect;' and his career is simply an +attempt to act out the principle that the world belongs of right to the +cleverest. Of Sidonia, after every superlative in the language has been +lavished upon his marvellous acquirements, we are told that 'the only +human quality that interested him was intellect.' Intellect is equally, +if not quite as exclusively, interesting to the creator of Sidonia. He +admires it in all its forms—in a Jesuit or a leader of the +International, in a charlatan or a statesman, or perhaps even more in +one who combines the two characters; but the most interesting of all +objects to Disraeli, if one may judge from his books, is a precocious +youth, whose delight in the sudden consciousness of great abilities has +not yet been dashed by experience. In some other writers we may learn +the age of the author by the age of his hero. A novelist who adopts the +common practice of painting from himself naturally finds out the merits +of middle age in his later works. But in every one of Disraeli's works, +from 'Vivian Grey' to 'Lothair,' the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> central figure is a youth, who is +frequently a statesman at school, and astonishes the world before he has +reached his majority. The change in the author's position is, indeed, +equally marked in a different way. The youthful heroes of Disraeli's +early novels are creative; in his later they become chiefly receptive. +Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming show their genius by insubordination; +Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of Sidonia; +and Lothair reduces himself so completely to a mere 'passive bucket' to +be pumped into by every variety of teacher, that he is unpleasantly like +a fool. Disraeli still loves ingenuous youth; but he has gained quite a +new perception of the value of docility. Here and there, of course, +there is a gentle gibe at juvenile vanity. 'My opinions are already +formed on every subject,' says Lothair; 'that is, on every subject of +importance; and, what is more, they will never change.' But such vanity +has nothing offensive. The audacity with which a lad of twenty solves +all the problems of the universe, excites in Disraeli genuine and really +generous sympathy. Sidonia converts the sentiment into a theory. +Experience, he says, is less than nothing to a creative mind. 'Almost +everything that is great has been done by youth.' The greatest captains, +the greatest poets, artists, statesmen, and religious reformers of the +world, have done their best work by middle life. All theories upon all +subjects can be proved from history; and the great Sidonia is not to be +pinned down by too literal an interpretation. But at least he is +expressing Disraeli's admiration for intellect which has the fervour, +rapidity, and reckless audacity of youth, which trusts its intuitions +instead of its calculations, and takes its crudest guesses for flashes +of inspiration. The exuberant buoyancy of his youthful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> heroes gives a +certain contagious charm to Disraeli's pages, which is attractive even +when verging upon extravagance. Our popular novelists have learned to +associate high spirits with muscularity; their youthful heroes are +either athletes destined to put on flesh in later days, or premature +prigs with serious convictions and a tendency to sermons and blue-books. +After a course of such books, Disraeli's genuine love of talent is +refreshing. He dwells fondly upon the effervescence of genius which +drives men to kick over the traces of respectability and strike out +short cuts to fame. If at bottom his heroes are rather eccentric than +original, they have at least a righteous hatred of all bores and +Philistines, and despise orthodoxy, political economy, and sound +information generally. They can provide you with new theories of +politics and history, as easily as Mercutio could pour out a string of +similes; and we have scarcely the heart to ask whether this vivacious +ebullition implies the process of fermentation by which a powerful mind +clears its crude ideas, or only an imitation of the process by which +superlative cleverness apes true genius. Intellect, as it becomes +sobered by middle age and by scholastic training, is no longer so +charming. When its guesses ossify into fixed opinions, and its arrogance +takes the airs of scientific dogmatism, it is always a tiresome and may +be a dangerous quality. Some indication of what Disraeli means by +intellect may be found in the preface to 'Lothair.' Speaking of the +conflict between science and the old religions, he says that it is a +most flagrant fallacy to suppose that modern ages have a monopoly of +scientific discovery. The greatest discoveries are not those of modern +ages. 'No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a +discovery as writing, or algebra, or language.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> What are the most +brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of +fire and the metals?' Hipparchus ranks with the Keplers and Newtons; and +Copernicus was but the champion of Pythagoras. To say nothing of the +characteristic assumption that somebody 'discovered' language and fire +in the same sense as modern chemists discovered spectrum analysis, the +argument is substantially that, because Hipparchus was as great a genius +as Newton, the views of the ancients upon religious or historical +questions deserve just as much respect as those of the moderns. In other +words, the accumulated knowledge of ages has taught us nothing. 'What is +conveniently called progress' is merely a polite name for change; and +one clever man's guess is as good as another, whatever the period at +which he lived. This theory is the correlative of Sidonia's assertion, +that experience is useless to the man of genius. The experience of the +race is just as valueless. Modern criticism is nothing but an +intellectual revolt of the Teutonic races against the Semitic +revelation, as the French revolution was a political revolt of the +Celtic races. The disturbance will pass away; and we shall find that +Abraham and Moses knew more about the universe than Hegel or Comte. The +prophets of the sacred race were divinely endowed with an esoteric +knowledge concealed from the vulgar behind mystic symbols and +ceremonies. If the old oracles are dumb, some gleams of the same power +still remain, and in the language of mere mortals are called genius. We +find it in perfection only amongst the Semites, whose finer +organisation, indicated by their musical supremacy, enables them to +catch the still small voice inaudible to our grosser ears. The Aryans, +indeed, have some touches of a cognate power, but it is dulled by a more +sensuous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> temperament. They can enter the court of the Gentiles; but +their mortal vesture is too muddy for admission into the holy of holies. +If ever they catch a glimpse of the truth, it is in their brilliant +youth, when, still uncorrupted by worldly politics, they can induce some +Sidonia partly to draw aside the veil.</p> + +<p>The intellect, then, as Disraeli conceives it, is not the faculty +denounced by theologians, which delights in systematic logical inquiry, +and hopes to attain truth by the unrestricted conflict of innumerable +minds. It is an abnormal power of piercing mysteries granted only to a +few distinguished seers. It does not lead to an earthly science, +expressible in definite formulas, and capable of being taught in Sunday +schools. The knowledge cannot be fully communicated to the profane, and +is at most to be shadowed forth in dim oracular utterances. Disraeli's +instinctive affinity for some kind of mystic teaching is indicated by +Vivian Grey's first request to his father. 'I wish,' he exclaims, 'to +make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want Plotinus and +Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrianus, and Mosanius Tyrius, and +Pericles, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damasenis!' But Vivian +Grey, as we know, wanted also to conquer the Marquis of Carabas; and the +odd combination between a mystic philosopher and a mere political +charlatan displays Disraeli's peculiar irony. Intellect with him is a +double-edged weapon: it is at once the faculty which reads the dark +riddle of the universe, and the faculty which makes use of Tapers and +Tadpoles. Our modern Daniel is also a shrewd electioneering agent. +Cynics, indeed, have learned in these later days to regard mystery as +too often synonymous with nonsense. The difficulty of interpreting +esoteric doctrines to the vulgar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> generally consists in this—that the +doctrines are mere collections of big words which collapse, instead of +becoming lucid, when put into plain English. The mystagogue is but too +closely allied to the charlatan. He may be straining to utter some +secret too deep for human utterance, or he is looking wise to conceal +absolute vacuity of thought. And at other times he must surely be +laughing at the youthful audacity which fancies that speculation is to +be carried on by a series of sudden inspirations, instead of laborious +accumulation of rigorously-tested reasonings.</p> + +<p>The three novels, 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' published from +1844 to 1847, form, as their author has told us, a trilogy intended to +set forth his views of political, social, and religious problems. Each +of them exhibits, in one form or other, this peculiar train of thought. +'Coningsby,' if I am not mistaken, is by far the ablest, and probably +owes its pre-eminence to the simple fact that it deals with the topics +in which its author felt the keenest interest. The social speculations +of 'Sybil' savour too much of the politician getting up a telling case; +and the religious speculations of 'Tancred' are pushed to the extreme +verge of the grotesque. But 'Coningsby' wants little but a greater +absence of purpose to be a first-rate novel. If Disraeli had confined +himself to the merely artistic point of view, he might have drawn a +picture of political society worthy of comparison with 'Vanity Fair.' +Lord Monmouth is evidently related to the Marquis of Steyne; and Rigby +is a masterpiece, though perhaps rather too suggestive of a direct study +from nature. Lord Monmouth is the ideal type of the 'Venetian' +aristocracy; and Rigby, like his historical namesake, of the corrupt +wire-pullers who flourished under their shade. The consistent +Epicureanism of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> the noble, in whom a sense of duty is only represented +by a vague instinct that he ought to preserve his political influence as +part of his personal splendour, and as an insurance against possible +incendiarism, is admirably contrasted by the coarser selfishness of +Rigby, who relieves his patron of all dirty work on consideration of +feathering his own nest, and fancying himself to be a statesman. The +whole background, in short, is painted with inimitable spirit and +fidelity. The one decided failure amongst the subsidiary characters is +Lucian Grey, the professional parasite, who earns his dinners by his +witty buffoonery. Somehow, his fun is terribly dreary on paper; perhaps +because, as a parasite, he is not allowed to indulge in the cutting +irony which animates all Disraeli's best sayings. The simple buffoonery +of exuberant animal spirits is not in Disraeli's line. When he can +neither be bitter nor rhetorical, he is apt to drop into mere mechanical +flatness. But nobody has described more vigorously all the meaner forms +of selfishness, stupidity, and sycophancy engendered under 'that fatal +drollery,' as Tancred describes it, 'called a parliamentary government.' +The pompous dulness which affects philosophical gravity, the appetite +for the mere dry husks and bran of musty constitutional platitude which +takes the airs of political wisdom, the pettifogging cunning which +supposes the gossips of lobbies and smoking-rooms to be the embodiment +of statesmanship, the selfishness which degrades political warfare into +a branch of stock-jobbing, and takes a great principle to be useful in +suggesting electioneering cries, as Telford thought that navigable +rivers were created to feed canals,—these and other tendencies favoured +by party government are hit off to the life. 'The man they called Dizzy' +can despise a miserable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> creature having the honour to be as heartily as +Carlyle himself, and, if his theories are serious, sometimes took our +blessed Constitution to be a mere shelter for such vermin as the Tapers +and Tadpoles. Two centuries of a parliamentary monarchy and a +parliamentary Church, says Coningsby, have made government detested, and +religion disbelieved. 'Political compromises,' says the omniscient +Sidonia, 'are not to be tolerated except at periods of rude transition. +An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariat of what is called +representative government. Your House of Commons, that has absorbed all +other powers in the State, will in all probability fall more rapidly +than it rose.' In short, the press will take its place. This is one of +those impromptu theories of history which are not to be taken too +literally. Indeed, the satirical background is intended to throw into +clearer relief a band of men of genius to whom has been granted some +insight into the great political mystery. Who, then, are the true +antithesis to the Tapers and Tadpoles? Should we compare them with a +Cromwell, who has a creed as well as a political platform; and contrast +'our young Queen and our old institutions' with some new version of the +old war cry, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon'? Or may we at least +have a glimpse of a Chatham, wakening the national spirit to sweep aside +the Newcastles and Bubb Dodingtons of the present day? Or, if Cromwells +and Chathams be too old-fashioned, and translate the Semitic principle +into a narrow English Protestantism, may we not have some genuine +revolutionary fanatic, a Cimourdain or a Gauvain, to burn up all this +dry chaff of mouldy politics with the fire of a genuine human passion? +Such a contrast, however effective, would have been a little awkward in +the year 1844. Young England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> had an ideal standard of its own, and +Disraeli must be the high priest of its peculiar hero-worship. Whether, +in this case, political trammels injured his artistic sense, or whether +his peculiar artistic tendencies injured his political career, is a +question rather for the historian than the critic.</p> + +<p>Certain it is, at any rate, that the <i>cénacle</i> of politicians, whose +interests are to be thrown in relief against this mass of grovelling +corruption, forms but a feeble contrast, even in the purely artistic +sense. We have no right to doubt that Disraeli thought that Coningsby +and his friends represented the true solution of the difficulty; yet if +anybody had wished to demonstrate that a genuine belief might sometimes +make a man more contemptible than hypocritical selfishness, he could +scarcely have defended the paradox more ingeniously. 'Unconscious +cerebration' has become a popular explanation of many phenomena; and it +would hardly be fanciful to assume that one lobe of Disraeli's brain is +in the habit of secreting bitter satire unknown to himself, and +cunningly inserting it behind the thin veil of sentiment unconsciously +elaborated by the other. We are prepared, indeed, to accept the new +doctrine, as cleverly as Balzac could have inoculated us with a +provisional belief in animal magnetism, to heighten our interest in a +thrilling story of wonder. We have judicious hints of esoteric political +doctrine, which has been partially understood by great men at various +periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the +opening pages of 'Sybil.' The most remarkable thing about our popular +history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is 'a complete +mystification;' many of the principal characters never appear, as, for +example, Major Wildman, who was 'the soul of English politics from 1640 +to 1688.' It is not surprising,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> therefore, that two of our three chief +statesmen in later times should be systematically depreciated. The +younger Pitt, indeed, has been extolled, though on wrong grounds. But +Bolingbroke and Shelburne, our two finest political geniuses, are passed +over with contempt by ordinary historians. A historian might amuse +himself by tracing the curious analogy between the most showy +representatives of the old race of statesmen and the modern successor +who delights to sing his praises. The Patriot King is really to some +extent an anticipation of Disraeli's peculiar democratic Toryism. But +the chief merit of Shelburne would seem to be that the qualities which +earned for him the nickname of Malagrida made him convenient as a +hypothetical depository of some esoteric scheme of politics. For the +purposes of fiction, at any rate, we may believe that English politics +are a riddle of which only three men have guessed the true solution +since the 'financial' revolution of 1688. Pitt was only sound so far as +he was the pupil of Shelburne; but Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Disraeli +possessed the true key, and fully understood, for example, that Charles +I. was the 'holocaust of direct taxation.' But frankly to expound this +theory would be to destroy its charm, and to cast pearls before +political economists. And, therefore, its existence is dimly adumbrated +rather than its meaning revealed; and we have hints that there are +wheels within wheels, and that in the lowest deep of mystery there is a +yet deeper mystery. Coningsby and his associates, the brilliant +Buckhurst and the rich Catholic country gentleman, Eustace Lyle, are but +unripe neophytes, feeling after the true doctrine, but not yet fully +initiated. The superlative Sidonia, the man who by thirty has exhausted +all the sources of human knowledge, become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> master of the learning of +every nation, of all tongues, dead or living, and of every literature, +western and oriental; who has pursued all the speculations of science to +their last term; who has lived in all orders of society, and observed +man in every phase of civilisation; who has a penetrative intellect +which enables him to follow as by intuition the most profound of all +questions, and a power of communicating with precision the most abstruse +ideas; whose wealth would make Monte Cristo seem a pauper; who is so far +above his race that woman seems to him a toy, and man a machine,—this +thrice miraculous Sidonia, who can yet stoop from his elevation to win a +steeplechase from the Gentiles, or return their hospitality by an +exquisite dinner, is the fitting depository of the precious secret. No +one can ever accuse Disraeli of a want of audacity. He does not, like +weaker men, shrink from introducing men of genius because he is afraid +that he will not be able to make them talk in character; and when, in +'Venetia,' he introduces Byron and Shelley, he is kind enough to write +poetry for them, which produces as great an effect as the original.</p> + +<p>And now having a true prophet, having surrounded him with a band of +disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our +mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery. +Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle +the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be +satisfied. There is not any secret doctrine in politics. Bolingbroke may +have been a very clever man, but he could not see through a stone wall. +The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright +prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the +imagination, if not for the reason.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> Some mystic formula might be +pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as +we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some +magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give +us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to +be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to +believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical +efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the +inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something +to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It +was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might +have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into +that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might +possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with +his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which +are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against +politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a +newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical +millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal +skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer +air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by +slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of +burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the +ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain +<i>aplomb</i>; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the +spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His +last book of 'Coningsby' opens with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> Christmas scene worthy of an +illustrated keepsake. We have buttery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and +red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar's head +with a canticle.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Caput apri defero,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reddens laudes Domino,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>sing the noble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli +blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise +the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament. +He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a +passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that +the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert +hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be +trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to +this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, +and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies, +'The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?' It would, indeed, +be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of +Manchester. After dilating, in 'Tancred,' upon the vitality of Damascus, +he observes, 'As yet the disciples of progress have not been able +exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great +faith in the future of Birkenhead.' Perhaps the true sentiment is that +the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles, +look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan +civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but +admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the +moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant. +The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> of +Sidonia. The world—at least the Gentile world—is a farce. Ninety-nine +men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and +make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and +imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly. +As for the hundredth man—the youthful Coningsby or Tancred—his +enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his +game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is +almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success. +Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need +not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may +heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a +serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in +solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite +forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a +real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a +latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from +becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however +misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a +genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a +subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition +would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh, +but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the +consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest +degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite +utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical +colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, +but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> and +perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms +melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain +twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, +if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of +'Coningsby.'</p> + +<p>The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in +different proportions. 'Sybil' is chiefly devoted to what its author +calls 'an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period +in our social history.' We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is +enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself +capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists +who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into +sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer +purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand +impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to +tabulate in blue-books,—if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense +in which Miss Brontë knew them, and still less in the sense in which +Scott knew the Borderers—he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the +effects of trades' unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might +excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in 'Tancred' we again come +upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli's special +idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in +'Coningsby.' Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led +into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the +mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer +satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager +to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> +theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He +is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural +machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet, +intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the +satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words +and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous +air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be +solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous +picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must +be admitted that Tancred's own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even +more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that +'inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality,' and that God can +only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine—a theory which has +afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, God +can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this +belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great +Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us. +He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he +himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo +Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the +later learning—a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew, +and still retains some of the 'magnetic influence'—this great man, in +whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And +thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find +ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great +revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there +is 'absolutely no sport of any kind' near Jerusalem; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> follow Tancred +where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before +the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into +ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration. +Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful +young woman comes straight out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and asks the +insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews +had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised +by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, +indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary +pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or +Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible +propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is +introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those +of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely +satirical one of interpreting Tancred's lofty dreams into political +intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are +convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the +strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion. +Can they be the guardians of the 'Asian mystery'? To our amazement it +turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phœbus of 'Lothair.' They +have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely +cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall +prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or +Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most +solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which +appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was +still untouched by time;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet +lustrous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke +from the pensive passion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead +glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his +majestic forehead.' After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia, +this person told Tancred to 'announce the sublime and solacing doctrine +of Theocratic Equality.' But when Tancred, after his startling +adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the +Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of +bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after +him—Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the +novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. 'Out laughs the stern +philosopher,' or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, 'What, +ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth.' +Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering +cry.</p> + +<p>Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amusement? +Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the +passages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a +genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was +he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to +apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his +satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies. +Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear +in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept +the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only +solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution, +by accepting the theory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> of a double consciousness, and resolving to +pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes +us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either +aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of +fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener +enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed +lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we +had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are +blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria +of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew +doctors and classical artists, mediæval monks and Anglican bishops, +perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from +Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws +dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley +actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as +arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking +cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and +original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest +realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere +mystification.</p> + +<p>But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to +observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge +into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was +composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic +tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian +Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in +which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the +'Wondrous Tale of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited +attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels—except +Scott's and Kingsley's—are a weariness to the flesh, and when the +history is so remote from any association with modern feeling, even Mr. +Disraeli's vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An +opposite error disturbs one's appreciation of 'Venetia.' Byron and +Shelley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of +fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord +Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their +prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. 'Henrietta Temple' +and 'Contarini Fleming' may count as Mr. Disraeli's most satisfactory +performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and +has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, +but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of +a poetic nature—a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative +literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of +Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple' +professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are +certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli's art be not +the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The +same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this +different field it does not produce quite the same results. One +prominent tendency connects all his stories. When 'Lothair' made its +appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the +seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter. +Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates, +distributed with such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> reckless profusion amongst the characters, +intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth, +or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would +apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every +ducal millionaire, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven.' Vast landed +estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go +together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter +of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. 'If the youth who bears this +requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the +right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king; +and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that +is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat.' The +theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or +less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though +no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is +most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in +simple splendour, in 'ropes of pearls,' in priceless diamonds, gorgeous +clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not +uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an +infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience +of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early +admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour +insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar, +as to call his admiration for dukes snobbish; but the passion is too +sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for +the society of dukes, or take a child's pleasure in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> bright colours for +their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a +dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is +thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy +concessions, it ought not to be offensive.</p> + +<p>Disraeli's pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in +their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a +frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the +ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said +parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific +type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely +fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are +members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet, +Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a +Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet +incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped +by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to +such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli's modes of +representing passion. He has frankly explained his theory. The +peasant-noble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love 'in huts where poor +men lie,' and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in +support of the principle. That is not Disraeli's view. 'Love,' he says, +'that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a +ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount +with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as +its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is +placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate +the passion that is breathed in palaces,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> amid the ennobling creations +of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst +perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods'—woods, +that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All +Disraeli's passionate lovers—and they are very passionate—are provided +with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of +exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of +a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can +detect at once the stamp of noble blood in every gesture, and a coronet +is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make +love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced +gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the +background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled +with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery +state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence +by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is +suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> +says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such +beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as +wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural +needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; +or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable +beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of +genii. The passion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to +stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash +and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects.</p> + +<p>In the 'Arabian Nights' the lover repeats a passage of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> poetry and then +faints from emotion, and Disraeli's lovers are apt to be as +demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity +makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example, +the model love-story in 'Henrietta Temple.' Told by a cold and +unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:—Ferdinand +Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army, +he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength +of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich nobleman. The +grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine's cousin, Katherine +Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the +property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement. +Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first +sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his +engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She +fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels +are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though +Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough +to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not +ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the +strength of it—a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on +false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at +last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured +of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the +greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from +Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover's +misfortunes. And then a 'happy thought'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> occurs to the two pairs of +lovers. If Miss Temple's wealth had come earlier, she might have married +Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an +exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom +marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand +Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The +moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at +the sponging-house. 'It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and +their hundreds that are ever done up,' says this keen observer. 'A nob +was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall. +Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing.'</p> + +<p>This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives +Disraeli's secret. His 'nobs' are so splendid in their surroundings, +such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown +upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be +hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be +questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues? +The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling +complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her +dark and lustrous locks. Love for such a being is the 'transcendent and +surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy.' It is a rapture +and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what +sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine, +'pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming +spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious +and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a +big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> played upon his lip.' +But 'the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories, +the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild +order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity +succeeded—a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circumambient +happiness.' In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love +which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some +warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the +domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms +of passion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as +plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to +gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is +that, while other men assume that the commonest things will take a +splendid colour as seen through a lover's eyes, Disraeli takes care that +whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring.</p> + +<p>Once more, if we consent for the time to take our author's view—and +that is the necessary condition for enjoying most literature—we must +admit the vivacity and, at times, the real eloquence of Disraeli's +rhetoric. In 'Contarini Fleming' he takes a still more ambitious flight, +and with considerable success. Fleming, the embodiment of the poetic +character, is, we might almost say, to other poets what Armine is to +other lovers. He has the same love of brilliant effects, and the same +absence of genuine tenderness. But one other qualification must be made. +We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that +amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, +and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But +his genius is so versatile that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> doubt its true destination. His +first literary performance is to write a version of 'Vivian Grey,' a +reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put +himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by +Schiller's Robbers to emulate the career of Moor; his greatest feat is a +sudden stroke of diplomacy which enables him to defeat the plans of more +veteran statesmen. And when he has gone through his initiation, wooed +and won his marvellous beauty, and lost her in an ideal island, the +final shape of his aspirations is curiously characteristic. Having +become rich quite unexpectedly—for he did not know that he was to be +the hero of one of Disraeli's novels—he resolved to 'create a +paradise.' He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful +gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace +full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes +to 'create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in +extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most +accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity.' He has already laid +the foundation of a tower which is to rise to a height of at least a +hundred and fifty feet, and is to equal in solidity and design the most +celebrated works of antiquity. Certainly the scheme is magnificent; but +it is scarcely the ambition which one might have expected from a poet. +Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic +temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible +memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with +profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary +complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the +splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a +cultivated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a +series of brilliant travellers' sketches, is no mean master of what may +be called poetical prose. His pictures of life and scenery are +vivacious, rapid, and decisive. In later years, the habit of +parliamentary oratory seems to have injured Disraeli's style. In +'Lothair' there is a good deal of slipshod verbiage. But in these +earlier stories the style is generally excellent till it becomes too +ambitious. It has a kind of metallic glitter, brilliant, sparkling with +numerous flashes of wit and fancy, and never wanting in sharpness of +effect, though it may be deficient in delicacy. Yet the author, who is +of necessity to be partly identified with the hero of 'Contarini +Fleming,' is distinctly not a poet; and the incapacity is most evident +when he endeavours to pass the inexorable limits. The distinction +between poetry and rhetoric is as profound as it is undefinable. A true +poet, as possessing an exquisite sensibility to the capacities of his +instrument, does not try to get the effects of metre when he is writing +without its restrictions and its advantages. Disraeli shows occasionally +a want of this delicacy of perception by breaking into a kind of +compromise between the two which can only be called Ossianesque. The +effect, for example, of such a passage as the following is, to my taste +at least, simply grotesque:—</p> + +<p>'Still the courser onward rushes; still his mighty heart supports him. +Season and space, the glowing soil, the burning ray, yield to the +tempest of his frame, the thunder of his nerves, and lightning of his +veins.</p> + +<p>'Food or water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise +with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that +hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the +jackal's felon cry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with +snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful +snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This is +their sole society.'</p> + +<p>And so on. Some great writers have made prose as melodious as verse; and +Disraeli can at times follow their example successfully. But one likes +to know what one is reading; and the effect of this queer expression is +as if, in the centre of a solemn march, were incorporated a few +dancing-steps, <i>à propos</i> to nothing, and then subsiding into a regular +pace. Milton wrote grand prose and grand verse; but you are never +uncertain whether a fragment of 'Paradise Lost' may or may not have been +inserted by mere accident in the 'Areopagitica.'</p> + +<p>Not to dwell upon such minor defects, nobody can read 'Contarini +Fleming' or 'Henrietta Temple' without recognising the admirable talent +and exuberant vitality of the author. They have the faults of juvenile +performances; they are too gaudy; the author has been tempted to turn +aside too frequently in search of some brilliant epigram; he has +mistaken bombast for eloquence, and mere flowery brilliance for warmth +of emotion. But we might hope that longer experience and more earnest +purpose might correct such defects. Alas! in the year of their +publication, Disraeli first entered Parliament. His next works comprised +the trilogy, where the artistic aim has become subordinate to the +political or biological; and some thirty years of parliamentary labours +led to 'Lothair,' of which it is easiest to assume that it is a +practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon +Disraeli's own youthful performances. May one not lament the degradation +of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Perhaps I ought to substitute 'Lord Beaconsfield' for Disraeli; but +I am writing of the author of 'Coningsby,' rather than of the author of +'Endymion:' and I will therefore venture to preserve the older name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'He never loved that loved not at first sight,' says Marlowe, and +Shakespeare after him. I cannot say whether this be an undesigned +literary coincidence or an appropriation. Disraeli, we know, was skilful +in the art of annexation. One or two instances may be added. Here is a +clear case of borrowing. Fuller says in the character of the good +sea-captain in the 'Holy State'—'Who first taught the water to imitate +the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, +the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the +sea is the ape of the land?' Essper George, in 'Vivian Grey,' says to +the sea: 'O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, +but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of +hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more +doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents +as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought +to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but +here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The +writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were +made of the —— government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain +of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, "call it <i>blunderment</i> or +<i>plunderment</i> or what you like—only not a <i>government</i>!"'—Coleridge's +'Essays on his own Times,' p. 893. Disraeli is sometimes credited with +the epigram in 'Lothair' about critics being authors who have failed. I +know not who said this first; but it was certainly not Disraeli. Landor +makes Porson tell Southey: 'Those who have failed as writers turn +reviewers.' The classical passage is in Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, he says, +said somewhere of a sculptor who had become discouraged: 'Redevenu +artiste <i>in partibus</i>, il avait beaucoup de succès dans les salons, il +était consulté par beaucoup d'amateurs; <i>il passa critique comme tous +les impuissants qui mentent à leurs débuts</i>.' Sainte-Beuve, naturally +indignant at a phrase aimed against his craft, if not against himself, +says that this may be true of a sculptor or painter who deserts his art +in order to talk; 'mais, dans l'ordre de la pensée, cette parole de M. +de Balzac qui revient souvent sous la plume de toute une école de jeunes +littérateurs, est à la fois (je leur en demande pardon) une injustice et +une erreur.'—'Causeries du Lundi,' vol. ii. p. 455. A very similar +phrase is to be found in a book where one would hardly look for such +epigrams, Marryat's 'King's Own.' But to trace such witticisms to their +first source is a task for 'Notes and Queries.'</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span></p> +<h2><i>MASSINGER</i></h2> + + +<p>In one of the best of his occasional essays, Kingsley held a brief for +the plaintiffs in the old case of Puritans <i>versus</i> Playwrights. The +litigation in which this case represents a minor issue has lasted for a +period far exceeding that of the most pertinacious lawsuit, and is not +likely to come to an end within any assignable limits of time. When the +discussion is pressed home, it is seen to involve fundamentally +different conceptions of human life and its purposes; and it can only +cease when we have discovered the grounds of a permanent conciliation +between the ethical and the æsthetic elements of human nature. The +narrower controversy between the stage and the Church has itself a long +history. It has left some curious marks upon English literature. The +prejudice which uttered itself through the Puritan Prynne was inherited, +in a later generation, by the High-Churchmen Collier and William Law. +The attack, it is true, may be ostensibly directed—as in Kingsley's +essay—against the abuse of the stage rather than against the stage +itself. Kingsley pays the usual tribute to Shakespeare whilst denouncing +the whole literature of which Shakespeare's dramas are the most +conspicuous product. But then, everybody always distinguishes in terms +between the use and the abuse; and the line of demarcation generally +turns out to be singularly fluctuating and uncertain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> You can hardly +demolish Beaumont and Fletcher without bringing down some of the +outlying pinnacles, if not shaking the very foundations, of the temple +sacred to Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>It would be regrettable, could one stop to regret the one-sided and +illogical construction of the human mind, that a fair judgment in such +matters seems to require incompatible qualities. Your impartial critic +or historian is generally a man who leaves out of account nothing but +the essential. His impartiality means sympathy with the commonplace, and +incapacity for understanding heroic faith and overpowering enthusiasm. +He fancies that a man or a book can be judged by balancing a list of +virtues and vices as if they were separate entities lying side by side +in a box, instead of different aspects of a vital force. On the other +hand, the vivid imagination which restores dead bones to life makes its +possessor a partisan in extinct quarrels, and as short-sighted and +unfair a partisan as the original actors. Roundheads and Cavaliers have +been dead these two centuries.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreamfooted as the shadow of a cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They flit across the ear.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet few even amongst modern writers are capable of doing justice to both +sides without first making both sides colourless. Hallam judges men in +the throes of a revolution as though they were parties in a lawsuit to +be decided by precedents and parchments, and Carlyle cannot appreciate +Cromwell's magnificent force of character without making him all but +infallible and impeccable. Critics of the early drama are equally +one-sided. The exquisite literary faculty of Charles Lamb revelled in +detecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> beauties which had been covered with the dust of oblivion +during the reign of Pope. His appreciation was intensified by that charm +of discovery which finds its typical utterance in Keats's famous sonnet. +He was scarcely a more impartial judge of Fletcher or Ford than 'Stout +Cortes' of the new world revealed by his enterprise. We may willingly +defer to his judgment of the relative value of the writers whom he +discusses, but we must qualify his judgment of their intrinsic +excellence by the recollection that he speaks as a lover. To him and +other thoroughgoing admirers of the old drama the Puritanical onslaught +upon the stage presented itself as the advent of a gloomy superstition, +ruthlessly stamping out all that was beautiful in art and literature. +Kingsley, an admirable hater, could perceive only the opposite aspect of +the phenomena. To him the Puritan protest appears as the voice of the +enlightened conscience; the revolution means the troubling of the turbid +waters at the descent of the angel; Prynne's 'Histriomastix' is the +blast of the trumpet at which the rotten and polluted walls of Jericho +are to crumble into dust. The stage, which represented the tone of +aristocratic society, rightfully perished with the order which it +flattered. Courtiers had learnt to indulge in a cynical mockery of +virtue, or to find an unholy attraction in the accumulation of +extravagant horrors. The English drama, in short, was one of those evil +growths which are fostered by deeply-seated social corruption, and are +killed off by the breath of a purer air. That such phenomena occur at +times is undeniable. Mr. Symonds has recently shown us, in his history +of the Renaissance, how the Italian literature to which our English +dramatists owed so many suggestions was the natural fruit of a society +poisoned at the roots. Nor, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> we have shaken off that spirit of +slavish adulation in which modern antiquarians and critics have regarded +the so-called Elizabethan dramatists, can we deny that there are +symptoms of a similar mischief in their writings. Some of the most +authoritative testimonials have a suspicious element. Praise has been +lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama. +Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human +passion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible +for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the +straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the +author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of +revolting motives. Such adulation ought to have disappeared with the +first fervour of rehabilitation. Much that has been praised in the old +drama is rubbish, and some of it disgusting rubbish.</p> + +<p>The question, however, remains, how far we ought to adopt either view of +the situation? Are we bound to cast aside the later dramas of the school +as simply products of corruption? It may be of interest to consider the +light thrown upon this question by the works of Massinger, nearly the +last of the writers who can really claim a permanent position in +literature. Massinger, born in 1584, died in 1639. His surviving works +were composed, with one exception, after 1620. They represent, +therefore, the tastes of the playgoing classes during the rapid +development of the great struggle which culminated in the rebellion. In +a literary sense it is the period when the imaginative impulse +represented by the great dramatists was running low. It is curious to +reflect that, if Shakespeare had lived out his legitimate allowance of +threescore years and ten, he might have witnessed the production, not +only of the first, but of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> nearly all the best works of his school; had +his life been prolonged for ten years more, he would have witnessed its +final extinction. Within these narrow limits of time the drama had +undergone a change corresponding to the change in the national mood. The +difference, for example, between Marlowe and Massinger at the opening +and the close of the period—though their births were separated by only +twenty years—corresponds to the difference between the temper of the +generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation +which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of +Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit +perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse +which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great +Queen. But it has led also to writers being too summarily classed +together who really represent very different phases in a remarkable +evolution. After making all allowances for personal idiosyncrasies, we +can still see how profoundly the work of Massinger is coloured by the +predominant sentiment of the later epoch.</p> + +<p>As little is known of Massinger's life as of the lives of most of the +contemporary dramatists who had the good or ill fortune to be born +before the days of the modern biographical mania. It is known that he, +like most of his brethren, suffered grievously from impecuniosity; and +he records in one of his dedications his obligations to a patron without +whose bounty he would for many years have 'but faintly subsisted.' His +father had been employed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke; but Massinger, +though acknowledging a certain debt of gratitude to the Herbert family, +can hardly have received from them any effective patronage. Whatever +their relations may have been, it has been pointed out by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> Professor +Gardiner<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> that Massinger probably sympathised with the political views +represented by the two sons of his father's patron, who were +successively Earls of Pembroke during the reigns of the first James and +Charles. On two occasions he got into trouble with the licenser for +attacks, real or supposed, upon the policy of the Government. More than +one of his plays contain, according to Professor Gardiner, references to +the politics of the day as distinct as those conveyed by a cartoon in +'Punch.' The general result of his argument is to show that Massinger +sympathised with the views of an aristocratic party who looked with +suspicion upon the despotic tendencies of Charles's Government, and +thought that they could manage refractory parliaments by adopting a more +spirited foreign policy. Though in reality weak and selfish enough, they +affected to protest against the materialising and oppressive policy of +the extreme Royalists. How far these views represented any genuine +convictions, and how far Massinger's adhesion implied a complete +sympathy with them, or might indicate that kind of delusion which often +leads a mere literary observer to see a lofty intention in the schemes +of a selfish politician, are questions which I am incompetent to +discuss, and which obviously do not admit of a decided answer. They +confirm, as far as they go, the general impression as to Massinger's +point of view which we should derive from his writings without special +interpretation. 'Shakespeare,' says Coleridge, 'gives the permanent +politics of human nature' (whatever they may be!), 'and the only +predilection which appears shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the +populace. Massinger is a decided Whig; Beaumont and Fletcher +high-flying, passive-obedience Tories.' The author of 'Coriolanus,' one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> +would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, +though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to +systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the +sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not +explicitly pronounced upon issues hardly revealed even to</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">The prophetic soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the wide world dreaming of things to come.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The sense of national unity evolved in the great struggle with Spain had +not yet been lost in the discord of the rising generation. The other +classifications may be accepted with less reserve. The dramatists +represented the views of their patrons. The drama reflected in the main +the sentiments of an aristocratic class alarmed by the growing vigour of +the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a +thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in 'Valentinian' are, to follow the +same guidance, so 'very slavish and reptile' that it is a trial of +charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge's rather needless +surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the +duty to God should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days +was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a +bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right +may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The +difference between Fletcher and Massinger, who were occasional +collaborators and apparently close friends (Massinger, it is said, was +buried in Fletcher's grave), was probably due to difference of +temperament as much as to the character of Massinger's family +connection. Massinger's melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of +his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must +have beset the more thoughtful members<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> of his party, as Fletcher +represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Massinger is +given to expatiating upon the text that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Subjects' lives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are not their prince's tennis-balls, to be bandied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sport away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The high-minded Pulcheria, in the 'Emperor of the East,' administers a +bitter reproof to a slavish 'projector' who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Roars out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All is the King's, his will above the laws;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who whispers in his ear that nobody should bring a salad from his garden +without paying 'gabel,' or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that, +if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a +city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Is this the way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be wash'd with widows' and wrong'd orphans' tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or his power grow contemptible?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were +written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the +vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of +Massinger's view of the political situation of the time. We see what +were the topics that were beginning to occupy men's minds.</p> + +<p>Dryden made the remark, often quoted for purposes of indignant +reprobation by modern critics, that Beaumont and Fletcher 'understood +and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better' (than +Shakespeare); 'whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartees +no poet can ever paint as they did.' It is, of course, easy enough to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> +reply that in the true sense of the word 'gentleman' Shakespeare's +heroes are incomparably superior to those of his successors; but then +this is just the sense in which Dryden did not use the word. His real +meaning indicates a very sound piece of historical criticism. Fletcher +describes a new social type; the 'King's Young Courtier' who is +deserting the good old ways of his father, the 'old courtier of the +Queen.' The change is but one step in that continuous process which has +substituted the modern gentleman for the old feudal noble; but the step +taken at that period was great and significant. The chivalrous type, +represented in Sidney's life and Spenser's poetry, is beginning to be +old-fashioned and out of place as the industrial elements of society +become more prominent. The aristocrat in the rising generation finds +that his occupation is going. He takes to those 'wild debaucheries' +which Dryden oddly reckons among the attributes of a true gentleman; and +learns the art of 'quick repartee' in the courtly society which has time +enough on its hands to make a business of amusement. The euphuism and +allied affectations of the earlier generation had a certain grace, as +the external clothing of a serious chivalrous sentiment; but it is +rapidly passing into a silly coxcombry to be crushed by Puritanism or +snuffed out by the worldly cynicism of the new generation. Shakespeare's +Henry or Romeo may indulge in wild freaks or abandon themselves to the +intense passions of vigorous youth; but they will settle down into good +statesmen and warriors as they grow older. Their love-making is a phase +in their development, not the business of their lives. Fletcher's heroes +seem to be not only occupied for the moment, but to make a permanent +profession of what with their predecessors was a passing phase of +youthful ebullience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> It is true that we have still a long step to make +before we sink to the mere <i>roué</i>, the shameless scapegrace and cynical +man about town of the Restoration. To make a Wycherley you must distil +all the poetry out of a Fletcher. Fletcher is a true poet; and the +graceful sentiment, though mixed with a coarse alloy, still repels that +unmitigated grossness which, according to Burke's famous aphorism, is +responsible for half the evil of vice. He is still alive to generous and +tender emotions, though it can scarcely be said that his morality has +much substance in it. It is a sentiment, not a conviction, and covers +without quenching many ugly and brutal emotions.</p> + +<p>In Fletcher's wild gallants, still adorned by a touch of the chivalrous; +reckless, immoral, but scarcely cynical; not sceptical as to the +existence of virtue, but only admitting morality by way of parenthesis +to the habitual current of their thoughts, we recognise the kind of +stuff from which to frame the Cavaliers who will follow Rupert and be +crushed by Cromwell. A characteristic sentiment which occurs constantly +in the drama of the period represents the soldier out of work. We are +incessantly treated to lamentations upon the ingratitude of the +comfortable citizens who care nothing for the men to whom they owed +their security. The political history of the times explains the +popularity of such complaints. Englishmen were fretting under their +enforced abstinence from the exciting struggles on the Continent. There +was no want of Dugald Dalgettys returning from the wars to afford models +for the military braggart or the bluff honest soldier, both of whom go +swaggering through so many of the plays of the time. Clarendon in his +Life speaks of the temptations which beset him from mixing with the +military society of the time. There was a large and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> increasing class, +no longer finding occupation in fighting Spaniards and searching for +Eldorado, and consequently, in the Yankee phrase, 'spoiling for a +fight.' When the time comes, they will be ready enough to fight +gallantly, and to show an utter incapacity for serious discipline. They +will meet the citizens, whom they have mocked so merrily, and find that +reckless courage and spasmodic chivalry do not exhaust the +qualifications for military success.</p> + +<p>Massinger represents a different turn of sentiment which would be +encouraged in some minds by the same social conditions. Instead of +abandoning himself frankly to the stream of youthful sentiment, he feels +that it has a dangerous aspect. The shadow of coming evils was already +dark enough to suggest various forebodings. But he is also a moraliser +by temperament. Mr. Ward says that his strength is owing in a great +degree to his appreciation of the great moral forces; and the remark is +only a confirmation of the judgment of most of his critics. It is, of +course, not merely that he is fond of adding little moral tags of +questionable applicability to the end of his plays. 'We are taught,' he +says in the 'Fatal Dowry,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By this sad precedent, how just soever<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our reasons are to remedy our wrongs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are yet to leave them to their will and power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That to that purpose have authority.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But it is, to say the least, doubtful whether anybody would have that +judicious doctrine much impressed upon him by seeing the play itself. +Nor can one rely much upon the elaborate and very eloquent defence of +his art in the 'Roman Actor.' Paris, the actor, sets forth very +vigorously that the stage tends to lay bare the snares to which youth is +exposed and to inflame a noble ambition by example. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> the discharge of +such a function deserves reward from the Commonwealth—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Actors may put in for as large a share<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As all the sects of the philosophers;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They with cold precepts—perhaps seldom read—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deliver what an honourable thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The active virtue is; but does that fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blood, or swell the veins with emulation<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be both good and great, equal to that<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which is presented in our theatres?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Massinger goes on to show, after the fashion of Jaques in 'As You Like +It,' that the man who chooses to put on the cap is responsible for the +application of the satire. He had good reasons, as we have seen, for +feeling sensitive as to misunderstandings—or, rather, too thorough +understandings—of this kind.</p> + +<p>To some dramatists of the time, who should put forward such a plea, one +would be inclined to answer in the sensible words of old Fuller. 'Two +things,' he says, 'are set forth to us in stage plays; some grave +sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vicious examples: and +with these desperate oaths, lustful talk, and riotous acts, are so +personated to the life, that wantons are tickled with delight, and feed +their palates upon them. It seems the goodness is not portrayed with +equal accents of liveliness as the wicked things are; otherwise men +would be deterred from vicious courses, with seeing the woful success +which follows them'—a result scarcely to be claimed by the actors of +the day. Massinger, however, shows more moral feeling than is expended +in providing sentiments to be tacked on as an external appendage, or +satisfied by an obedience to the demands of poetic justice. He is not +content with knocking his villains on the head—a practice in which he, +like his contemporaries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> indulges with only too much complacency. The +idea which underlies most of his plays is a struggle of virtue assailed +by external or inward temptations. He is interested by the ethical +problems introduced in the play of conflicting passions, and never more +eloquent than in uttering the emotions of militant or triumphant virtue. +His view of life, indeed, is not only grave, but has a distinct +religious colouring. From various indications, it is probable that he +was a Roman Catholic. Some of these are grotesque enough. The +'Renegado,' for example, not only shows that Massinger was, for dramatic +purposes at least, an ardent believer in baptismal regeneration, but +includes—what one would scarcely have sought in such a place—a +discussion as to the validity of lay-baptism. The first of his surviving +plays, the 'Virgin Martyr' (in which he was assisted by Dekker), is +simply a dramatic version of an ecclesiastical legend. Though it seems +to have been popular at the time, the modern reader will probably think +that, in this case at least, the religious element is a little out of +place. An angel and a devil take an active part in the performance; +miracles are worked on the stage; the unbelievers are so shockingly +wicked, and the Christians so obtrusively good, that we—the +worldly-minded—are sensible of a little recalcitration, unless we are +disarmed by the simplicity of the whole performance. Religious tracts of +all ages and in all forms are apt to produce this ambiguous effect. +Unless we are quite in harmony with their assumptions, we feel that they +deal too much in conventional rose-colour. The angelic and diabolic +elements are not so clearly discriminated in this world, and should show +themselves less unequivocally on the stage, which ought to be its +mirror. Such art was not congenial to the English atmosphere; it might +be suitable in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> Madrid; but when forcibly transplanted to the London +stage, we feel that the performance has not the simple earnestness by +which alone it can be justified. The sentiment has a certain unreality, +and the <i>naïveté</i> suggests affectation. The implied belief is got up for +the moment and has a hollow ring. And therefore, the whole work, in +spite of some eloquence, is nothing better than a curiosity, as an +attempt at the assimilation of a heterogeneous form of art.</p> + +<p>A similar vein of sentiment, though not showing itself in so undiluted a +form, runs through most of Massinger's plays. He is throughout a +sentimentalist and a rhetorician. He is not, like the greatest men, +dominated by thoughts and emotions which force him to give them external +embodiment in life-like symbols. He is rather a man of much real feeling +and extraordinary facility of utterance, who finds in his stories +convenient occasions for indulging in elaborate didactic utterances upon +moral topics. It is probably this comparative weakness of the higher +imaginative faculty which makes Lamb speak of him rather disparagingly. +He is too self-conscious and too anxious to enforce downright moral +sentiments to satisfy a critic by whom spontaneous force and direct +insight were rightly regarded as the highest poetic qualities. A single +touch in Shakespeare, or even in Webster or Ford, often reveals more +depth of feeling than a whole scene of Massinger's facile and often +deliberately forensic eloquence. His temperament is indicated by the +peculiarities of his style. It is, as Coleridge says, poetry +differentiated by the smallest possible degree from prose. The greatest +artists of blank verse have so complete a mastery of their language that +it is felt as a fibre which runs through and everywhere strengthens the +harmony, and is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> yet in complete subordination to the sentiment. With a +writer of the second order, such as Fletcher, the metre becomes more +prominent, and at times produces a kind of monotonous sing-song, which +begins to remind us unpleasantly of the still more artificial tone +characteristic of the rhymed tragedies of the next generation. Massinger +diverges in the opposite direction. The metre is felt enough and only +just enough to give a more stately step to rather florid prose. It is +one of his marks that a line frequently ends by some insignificant 'of' +or 'from,' so as to exclude the briefest possible pause in reading. +Thus, to take an example pretty much at random, the following instance +might be easily read without observing that it was blank verse at all:—</p> + +<p>'Your brave achievements in the war, and what you did for me, unspoken, +because I would not force the sweetness of your modesty to a blush, are +written here; and that there might be nothing wanting to sum up my +numerous engagements (never in my hopes to be cancelled), the great +duke, our mortal enemy, when my father's country lay open to his fury +and the spoil of the victorious army, and I brought into his power, hath +shown himself so noble, so full of honour, temperance, and all virtues +that can set off a prince; that, though I cannot render him that respect +I would, I am bound in thankfulness to admire him.'</p> + +<p>Such a style is suitable to a man whose moods do not often hurry him +into impetuous, or vivacious, or epigrammatic utterance. As the Persian +poet says of his country: his warmth is not heat, and his coolness is +not cold. He flows on in a quiet current, never breaking into foam or +fury, but vigorous, and invariably lucid. As a pleader before a +law-court—the character in which, as Mr. Ward observes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> he has a +peculiar fondness for presenting himself—he would carry his audience +along with him, but scarcely hold them in spell-bound astonishment or +hurry them into fits of excitement. Melancholy resignation or dignified +dissatisfaction will find in him a powerful exponent, but scarcely +despair, or love, or hatred, or any social phase of pure unqualified +passion.</p> + +<p>The natural field for the display of such qualities is the romantic +drama, which Massinger took from the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher, and +endowed with greater dignity and less poetic fervour. For the vigorous +comedy of real life, as Jonson understood it, he has simply no capacity; +and in his rare attempts at humour, succeeds only in being at once dull +and dirty. His stage is generally occupied with dignified lords and +ladies, professing the most chivalrous sentiments, which are +occasionally too high-flown and overstrained to be thoroughly effective, +but which are yet uttered with sufficient sincerity. They are not mere +hollow pretences, consciously adopted to conceal base motives; but one +feels the want of an occasional infusion of the bracing air of common +sense. It is the voice of a society still inspired with the traditional +sentiments of honour and self-respect, but a little afraid of contact +with the rough realities of life. Its chivalry is a survival from a past +epoch, not a spontaneous outgrowth of the most vital elements of +contemporary development. In another generation, such a tone will be +adopted by a conscious and deliberate artifice, and be reflected in mere +theatrical rant. In the past, it was the natural expression of a +high-spirited race, full of self-confidence and pride in its own +vigorous audacity. In this transitional period it has a certain hectic +flush, symptomatic of approaching decay; anxious to give a wide berth +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> realities, and most at home in the border land where dreams are only +half dispelled by the light of common day. 'Don Quixote' had sounded the +knell of the old romance, but something of the old spirit still lingers, +and can tinge with an interest, not yet wholly artificial, the lives and +passions of beings who are thus hovering on the outskirts of the living +world. The situations most characteristic of Massinger's tendency are in +harmony with this tone of sentiment. They are romances taken from a +considerable variety of sources, developed in a clearly connected series +of scenes. They are wanting in the imaginative unity of the great plays, +which show that a true poet has been profoundly moved by some profound +thought embodied in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare, +seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his +imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity +of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and +wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English +plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in +order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's +plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following +intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many +eloquent observations, though not developments of one master-thought. We +often feel that, if external circumstances had been propitious, he would +have expressed himself more naturally in the form of a prose romance +than in a drama. Nor, again, does he often indulge in those exciting and +horrible situations which possess such charms for his contemporaries. +There are occasions, it is true, in which this element is not wanting. +In the 'Unnatural Combat,' for example, we have a father killing his son +in a duel, by the end of the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> act; and when, after a succession +of horrors of the worst kind, we are treated to a ghost, 'full of +wounds, leading in the shadow of a lady, her face leprous,' and the +worst criminal is killed by a flash of lightning, we feel that we were +fully entitled to such a catastrophe. We can only say, in Massinger's +words,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">May we make use of<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This great example, and learn from it that<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There cannot be a want of power above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To punish murder and unlawful love!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The 'Duke of Milan' again culminates with a horrible scene, rivalling, +though with less power, the grotesque horrors of Webster's 'Duchess of +Malfi.' Other instances might be given of concessions to that +blood-and-thunder style of dramatic writing for which our ancestors had +a never-failing appetite. But, as a rule, Massinger inclines, as far as +contemporary writers will allow him, to the side of mercy. Instead of +using slaughter so freely that a new set of actors has to be introduced +to bury the old—a misfortune which sometimes occurs in the plays of the +time—he generally tends to a happy solution, and is disposed not only +to dismiss his virtuous characters to felicity, but even to make his +villains virtuous. We have not been excited to that pitch at which our +passions can only be harmonised by an effusion of blood, and a mild +solution is sufficient for the calmer feelings which have been aroused.</p> + +<p>This tendency illustrates Massinger's conception of life in another +sense. Nothing is more striking in the early stage than the vigour of +character of most of these heroes. Individual character, as it is said, +takes the place in the modern of fate in the ancient drama. Every man is +run in a mould of iron, and may break, but cannot bend. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> fitting +prologue to the whole literature is provided by Marlowe's Tamburlaine, +with his superhuman audacity and vast bombastic rants, the incarnation +of a towering ambition which scorns all laws but its own devouring +passion. Faustus, braving all penalties, human and divine, is another +variety of the same type: and when we have to do with a weak character +like Edward II., we feel that it is his natural destiny to be confined +in a loathsome dungeon, with mouldy bread to eat and ditch-water to +drink. The world is for the daring; and though daring may be pushed to +excess, weakness is the one unpardonable offence. A thoroughgoing +villain is better than a trembling saint. If Shakespeare's instinctive +taste revealed the absurdity of the bombastic exaggeration of such +tendencies, his characters are equally unbending. His villains die, like +Macbeth and Iago, with their teeth set, and scorn even a deathbed +repentance. Hamlet exhibits the unfitness for a world of action of the +man who is foolish enough to see two sides to every question. So again, +Chapman, the writer who in fulness and fire of thought approaches most +nearly to Shakespeare, is an ardent worshipper of pure energy of +character. His Bussy d'Ambois cannot be turned from his purpose even by +the warnings of the ghost of his accomplice, and a mysterious spirit +summoned expressly to give advice. An admirably vigorous phrase from one +of the many declamations of his hero Byron—another representative of +the same haughty strength of will—gives his theory of character:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loves t' have his sail filled with a lusty wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his rapt ship run on her side so low<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Pure, undiluted energy, stern force of will, delight in danger for its +own sake, contempt for all laws but the self-imposed, those are the +cardinal virtues, and challenge our sympathy even when they lead their +possessor to destruction. The psychology implied in Jonson's treating of +'humour' is another phase of the same sentiment. The side by which +energetic characters lend themselves to comedy is the exaggeration of +some special trait which determines their course as tyrannically as +ambition governs the character suited for tragedy.</p> + +<p>When we turn to Massinger, this boundless vigour has disappeared. The +blood has grown cool. The tyrant no longer forces us to admiration by +the fulness of his vitality, and the magnificence of his contempt for +law. Whether for good or bad, he is comparatively a poor creature. He +has developed an uneasy conscience, and even whilst affecting to defy +the law, trembles at the thought of an approaching retribution. His +boasts have a shrill, querulous note in them. His creator does not fully +sympathise with his passion. Massinger cannot throw himself into the +situation; and is anxious to dwell upon the obvious moral considerations +which prove such characters to be decidedly inconvenient members of +society for their tamer neighbours. He is of course the more in +accordance with a correct code of morality, but fails correspondingly in +dramatic force and brilliance of colour. To exhibit a villain truly, +even to enable us to realise the true depth of his villainy, one must be +able for a moment to share his point of view, and therefore to +understand the true law of his being. It is a very sound rule in the +conduct of life, that we should not sympathise with scoundrels. But the +morality of the poet, as of the scientific psychologist, is founded upon +the unflinching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> veracity which sets forth all motives with absolute +impartiality. Some sort of provisional sympathy with the wicked there +must be, or they become mere impossible monsters or the conventional +scarecrows of improving tracts.</p> + +<p>This is Massinger's weakest side. His villains want backbone, and his +heroes are deficient in simple overmastering passion, or supplement +their motives by some overstrained and unnatural crotchet. Impulsiveness +takes the place of vigour, and indicates the want of a vigorous grasp of +the situation. Thus, for example, the 'Duke of Milan,' which is +certainly amongst the more impressive of Massinger's plays, may be +described as a variation upon the theme of 'Othello.' To measure the +work of any other writer by its relation to that masterpiece is, of +course, to apply a test of undue severity. Of comparison, properly +speaking, there can be no question. The similarity of the situation, +however, may bring out Massinger's characteristics. The Duke, who takes +the place of Othello, is, like his prototype, a brave soldier. The most +spirited and effective passage in the play is the scene in which he is +brought as a prisoner before Charles V., and not only extorts the +admiration of his conqueror, but wins his liberty by a dignified avowal +of his previous hostility, and avoidance of any base compliance. The +Duke shows himself to be a high-minded gentleman, and we are so far +prepared to sympathise with him when exposed to the wiles of +Francisco—the Iago of the piece. But, unfortunately, the scene is not +merely a digression in a constructive sense, but involves a +psychological inconsistency. The gallant soldier contrives to make +himself thoroughly contemptible. He is represented as excessively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> +uxorious, and his passion takes the very disagreeable turn of posthumous +jealousy. He has instructed Francisco to murder the wife whom he adores, +in case of his own death during the war, and thus to make sure that she +could not marry anybody else. On his return, the wife, who has been +informed by the treachery of Francisco of this pleasant arrangement, is +naturally rather cool to him; whereupon he flies into a rage and swears +that he will</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Never think of curs'd Marcelia more.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His affection returns in another scene, but only in order to increase +his jealousy, and on hearing Francisco's slander he proceeds to stab his +wife out of hand. It is the action of a weak man in a passion, not of a +noble nature tortured to madness. Finding out his mistake, he of course +repents again, and expresses himself with a good deal of eloquence which +would be more effective if we could forget the overpowering pathos of +the parallel scene in 'Othello.' Much sympathy, however, is impossible +for a man whose whole conduct is so flighty, and so obviously determined +by the immediate demands of successive situations of the play, and not +the varying manifestation of a powerfully conceived character. Francisco +is a more coherent villain, and an objection made by Hazlitt to his +apparent want of motive is at least equally valid against Iago; but he +is of course but a diluted version of that superlative villain, as +Marcelia is a rather priggish and infinitely less tender Desdemona. The +failure, however, of the central figure to exhibit any fixity of +character is the real weakness of the play; and the horrors of the last +scene fail to atone for the want of the vivid style which reveals an +'intense and gloomy mind.'</p> + +<p>This kind of versatility and impulsiveness of character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> is revealed by +the curious convertibility—if one may use the word—of his characters. +They are the very reverse of the men of iron of the previous generation. +They change their state of mind as easily as the characters of the +contemporary drama put on disguises. We are often amazed at the +simplicity which enables a whole family to suppose the brother and +father to whom they have been speaking ten minutes before to be an +entire stranger, because he has changed his coat or talks broken +English. The audience must have been easily satisfied in such cases; but +it requires almost equal simplicity to accept some of Massinger's +transformations. In such a play as the 'Virgin Martyr,' a religious +conversion is a natural part of the scheme. Nor need we be surprised at +the amazing facility with which a fair Mohammedan is converted in the +'Renegado' by the summary assertion that the 'juggling Prophet' is a +cheat, and taught a pigeon to feed in his ear. Can there be strength, it +is added, in that religion which allows us to fear death? 'This is +unanswerable,' exclaims the lady, 'and there is something tells me I err +in my opinion.' This is almost as good as the sudden thought of swearing +eternal friendship in the 'Anti-Jacobin.' The hardened villain of the +first act in the same play falls into despair in the third, and, with +the help of an admirable Jesuit, becomes a most useful and exemplary +convert by the fifth. But such catastrophes may be regarded as more or +less miraculous. The versatility of character is more singular when +religious conversions are not in question. 'I am certain,' says Philanax +in the 'Emperor of the East,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A prince so soon in his disposition altered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was never heard nor read of.'<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That proves that Philanax was not familiar with Massinger's plays. The +disposition of princes and of subjects is there constantly altered with +the most satisfactory result. It is not merely that, as often happens +elsewhere, the villains are summarily forced to repent at the end of a +play, like Angelo in 'Measure for Measure,' in order to allow the +curtain to fall upon a prospect of happiness. Such forced catastrophes +are common, if clumsy enough. But there is something malleable in the +very constitution of Massinger's characters. They repent half-way +through the performance, and see the error of their ways with a facility +which we could wish to be imitated in common life. The truth seems to be +that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is +more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be +irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal +to the feelings for a change of character. Thus, for example, in the +'Picture'—a characteristic, though not a very successful play—we have +a story founded upon the temptations of a separated husband and wife. +The husband carries with him a magical picture, which grows dark or +bright according to the behaviour of the wife, whom it represents. The +husband is tempted to infidelity by a queen, herself spoilt by the +flatteries of an uxorious husband; and the wife by a couple of +courtiers, who have all the vices of Fletcher's worst heroes without any +of their attractions. The interest of the play, such as it is, depends +upon the varying moods of the chief actors, who become so eloquent under +a sense of wrong or a reflection upon the charms of virtue, that they +approach the bounds of vice, and then gravitate back to respectability. +Everybody becomes perfectly respectable before the end of the play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> is +reached, and we are to suppose that they will remain respectable ever +afterwards. They avoid tragic results by their want of the overmastering +passions which lead to great crimes or noble actions. They are really +eloquent, but even more moved by their eloquence than the spectators can +be. They form the kind of audience which would be most flattering to an +able preacher, but in which a wise preacher would put little confidence. +And, therefore, besides the fanciful incident of the picture, they give +us an impression of unreality. They have no rich blood in their veins; +and are little better than lay figures taking up positions as it may +happen, in order to form an effective tableau illustrative of an +unexceptionable moral.</p> + +<p>There is, it is true, one remarkable exception to the general weakness +of Massinger's characters. The vigour with which Sir Giles Overreach is +set forth has made him the one well-known figure in Massinger's gallery, +and the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts' showed, in consequence, more vitality +than any of his other plays. Much praise has been given, and not more +than enough, to the originality and force of the conception. The +conventional miser is elevated into a great man by a kind of inverse +heroism, and made terrible instead of contemptible. But it is equally +plain that here, too, Massinger fails to project himself fairly into his +villain. His rants are singularly forcible, but they are clearly what +other people would think about him, not what he would really think, +still less what he would say, of himself. Take, for example, the very +fine speech in which he replies to the question of the virtuous +nobleman, whether he is not frightened by the imprecations of his +victims:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Yes, as rocks are<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When foaming billows split themselves against<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> +<span class="i0">Their flinty sides; or as the moon is moved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am of a solid temper, and, like these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steer on a constant course; with mine own sword,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If called into the field, I can make that right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which fearful enemies murmur at as wrong.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, for those other piddling complaints<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breath'd out in bitterness, as when they call me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On my poor neighbour's rights or grand incloser<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of what was common to my private use,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I only think what 'tis to have my daughter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Makes me insensible to remorse or pity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the least sting of conscience.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Put this into the third person; read 'he' for 'I,' and 'his' for 'my,' +and it is an admirable bit of denunciation of a character probably +intended as a copy from life. It is a description of a wicked man from +outside; and wickedness seen from outside is generally unreasonable and +preposterous. When it is converted, by simple alteration of pronouns, +into the villain's own account of himself, the internal logic which +serves as a pretext disappears, and he becomes a mere monster. It is for +this reason that, as Hazlitt says, Massinger's villains—and he was +probably thinking especially of Overreach and Luke in 'A City +Madam'—appear like drunkards or madmen. His plays are apt to be a +continuous declamation, cut up into fragments, and assigned to the +different actors; and the essential unfitness of such a method to +dramatic requirements needs no elaborate demonstration. The villains +will have to denounce themselves, and will be ready to undergo +conversion at a moment's notice, in order to spout openly on behalf of +virtue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> as vigorously as they have spouted in transparent disguise on +behalf of vice.</p> + +<p>There is another consequence of Massinger's romantic tendency, which is +more pleasing. The chivalrous ideal of morality involves a reverence for +women, which may be exaggerated or affected, but which has at least a +genuine element in it. The women on the earlier stage have comparatively +a bad time of it amongst their energetic companions. Shakespeare's women +are undoubtedly most admirable and lovable creatures; but they are +content to take a subordinate part, and their highest virtue generally +includes entire submission to the will of their lords and masters. Some, +indeed, have an abundant share of the masculine temperament, like +Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth; but then they are by no means model +characters. Iago's description of the model woman is a cynical version +of the true Shakespearian theory. Women's true sphere, according to him, +or according to the modern slang, is domestic life; and if circumstances +force a Cordelia, an Imogen, a Rosalind, or a Viola, to take a more +active share in life, they take good care to let us know that they have +a woman's heart under their man's doublet. The weaker characters in +Massinger give a higher place to women, and justify it by a sentiment of +chivalrous devotion. The excess, indeed, of such submissiveness is often +satirised. In the 'Roman Actor,' the 'Emperor of the East,' the 'Duke of +Milan,' the 'Picture,' and elsewhere, we have various phases of uxorious +weakness, which suggest a possible application to the Court of Charles +I. Elsewhere, as in the 'Maid of Honour' and the 'Bashful Lover,' we are +called upon to sympathise with manifestations of a highflown devotion to +feminine excellence. Thus, the bashful lover, who is the hero of one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> +his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself +scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her +he exclaims—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">As Moors salute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rising sun with joyful superstition,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I could fall down and worship.—O my heart!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Phœbe breaking through an envious cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or something which no simile can express,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With wonder and astonishment, does possess me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is +liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to +any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her +through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of +this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow +himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two +lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky +enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her +interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright +cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the +offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He +resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of +Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this +catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds +that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world +as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would +involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better +provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by +Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the +advantage of poor Mariana,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> whose reunion with her hypocritical husband +certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to +intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded +as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate, +in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who +has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot, +consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature +of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not +look out for others. She may permit herself for once to return the +affection of a worthy lover; but, when he fails, she must not condescend +again to love. That would be to admit that love was a necessity of her +life, not a special act of favour for some exceptional proofs of +worthiness. Given the general tone of sentiment, I confess that, to my +taste, Massinger's solution has the merit, not only of originality, but +of harmony. It may, of course, be held that a jilted lady should, in a +perfectly healthy state of society, have some other alternative besides +a convent or an unworthy marriage. Some people, for example, may hold +that she should be able to take to active life as a lawyer or a +professor of medicine; or they may hold that love ought not to hold so +prominent a part even in a woman's life that disappointed passion should +involve, as a necessary consequence, the entire abandonment of the +world. But, taking the romantic point of view, of which it is the very +essence to set an extravagant value upon love, and remembering that +Massinger had not heard of modern doctrines of woman's rights, one must +admit, I think, that he really shows, by the best means in his power, a +strong sense of the dignity of womanhood, and that his catastrophe is +more satisfactory than the violent death or the consignment to an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> +inferior lover which would have commended themselves to most Elizabethan +dramatists.</p> + +<p>The same vein of chivalrous sentiment gives a fine tone to some of +Massinger's other plays; to the 'Bondman,' for example, and the 'Great +Duke of Florence,' in both of which the treatment of lover's devotion +shows a higher sense of the virtue of feminine dignity and purity than +is common in the contemporary stage. There is, of course, a want of +reality, an admission of extravagant motives, and an absence of dramatic +concentration, which indicate an absence of high imaginative power. +Chivalry, at its best, is not very reconcilable with common-sense; and +the ideal hero is divided, as Cervantes shows, by very narrow +distinctions from the downright madman. What was absurd in the more +vigorous manifestations of the spirit does not vanish when its energy is +lowered, and the rhetorician takes the place of the poet. But the +sentiment is still genuine, and often gives real dignity to Massinger's +eloquent speeches. It is true that, in apparent inconsistency with this +excellence, passages of Massinger are even more deeply stained than +usual with revolting impurities. Not only are his bad men and women apt +to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed +out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the +indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy +explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity, +nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong +religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with +considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch, +according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he +suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the +centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once +dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst +ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be +accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two +Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected. +But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are +superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the +structure of his plays.</p> + +<p>I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which +would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all +doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple +product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or +overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as +an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The +dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his +moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes +in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most +willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a +certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration. +But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say +honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays? +Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company, +say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is +clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt +to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic +affection?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> Is there not rather a sense that we have been all the time +in an unnatural region, where, it is true, a sense of honour and other +good qualities come in for much eloquent praise, but where, above +everything, there is a marked absence of downright wholesome +common-sense? Of course the effect is partly due to the region in which +the old dramatists generally sought for their tragic situations. We are +never quite at home in this fictitious cloudland, where the springs of +action are strange, unaccountable, and altogether different from those +with which we have to do in the workaday world. A great poet, indeed, +weaves a magic mirror out of these dream-like materials, in which he +shows us the great passions, love, and jealousy, and ambition, reflected +upon a gigantic scale. But, in weaker hands, the characters become +eccentric instead of typical: his vision simply distorts instead of +magnifying the fundamental truths of human nature. The liberty which +could be used by Shakespeare becomes dangerous for his successors. +Instead of a legitimate idealisation, we have simply an abandonment of +any basis in reality.</p> + +<p>The admission that Massinger is moral must therefore be qualified by the +statement that he is unnatural; or, in other words, that his morality is +morbid. The groundwork of all the virtues, we are sometimes told, is +strength. A strong nature may be wicked, but a weak one cannot attain +any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that +the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid +perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has +that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see +illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly +that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> plausible, +or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist +admits that vice is often pleasant, and that wicked men flourish like a +green bay-tree. He cannot be over-anxious to preach, for he feels that +the intrinsic charm of high qualities can dispense with any artificial +attempts to bolster them up by sham rhetoric, or to slur over the hard +facts of life. He will describe Iago as impartially as Desdemona, and, +having given us the facts, leave us to make what we please of them. It +is the mark of a more sickly type of morality, that it must always be +distorting the plain truth. It becomes sentimental, because it wishes to +believe that what is pleasant must be true. It makes villains condemn +themselves, because such a practice would save so much trouble to judges +and moralists. Not appreciating the full force of passions, it allows +the existence of grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a +little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and +represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial +examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes +necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest +position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is +possible is a very different one from our own.</p> + +<p>The decline of the great poetic impulse does not yet reveal itself by +sheer blindness to moral distinctions, or downright subservience to +vice. A lowered vitality does not necessarily imply disease, though it +is favourable to the development of vicious germs. The morality which +flourishes in an exhausted soil is not a plant of hardy growth and tough +fibre, nourished by rough common-sense, flourishing amongst the fierce +contests of vigorous passions, and delighting in the open air and the +broad daylight. It loves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> the twilight of romance, and creates heroes +impulsive, eccentric, extravagant in their resolves, servile in their +devotion, and whose very natures are more or less allied to weakness and +luxurious self-indulgence. Massinger, indeed, depicts with much sympathy +the virtues of the martyr and the penitent; he can illustrate the +paradox that strength can be conquered by weakness, and violence by +resignation. His good women triumph by softening the hearts of their +persecutors. Their purity is more attractive than the passions of their +rivals. His deserted King shows himself worthy of more loyalty than his +triumphant persecutors. His Roman actor atones for his weakness by +voluntarily taking part in his own punishment.</p> + +<p>Such passive virtues are undoubtedly most praiseworthy; but they may +border upon qualities not quite so praiseworthy. It is a melancholy +truth that your martyr is apt to be a little sanctimonious, and that a +penitent is generally a bit of a sneak. Resignation and self-restraint +are admirable qualities, but admirable in proportion to the force of the +opposing temptation. The strong man curbing his passions, the weak woman +finding strength in patient suffering, are deserving of our deepest +admiration; but in Massinger we feel that the triumph of virtue implies +rather a want of passion than a power of commanding it, and that +resignation is comparatively easy when it connotes an absence of active +force. The general lowering of vitality, the want of rigid dramatic +colouring, deprive his martyrs of that background of vigorous reality +against which their virtues would be forcibly revealed. His pathos is +not vivid and penetrating. Truly pathetic power is produced only when we +see that it is a sentiment wrung from a powerful intellect by keen +sympathy with the wrongs of life. We are affected by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> tears of a +strong man; but the popular preacher who enjoys weeping produces in us +nothing but contempt. Massinger's heroes and heroines have not, we may +say, backbone enough in them to make us care very deeply for their +sorrows. And they moralise rather too freely. We do not want sermons, +but sympathy, when we are in our deepest grief; and we do not feel that +anyone feels very keenly who can take his sorrows for a text, and preach +in his agony upon the vanity of human wishes or the excellence of +resignation.</p> + +<p>Massinger's remarkable flow of genuine eloquence, his real dignity of +sentiment, his sympathy for virtuous motive, entitle him to respect; but +we cannot be blind to the defect which keeps his work below the level of +his greatest contemporaries. It is, in one word, a want of vital force. +His writing is pitched in too low a key. He is not invigorating, +stimulating, capable of fascinating us by the intensity of his +conceptions. His highest range is a dignified melancholy or a certain +chivalrous recognition of the noble side of human nature. The art which +he represents is still a genuine and spontaneous growth instead of an +artificial manufacture. He is not a mere professor of deportment, or +maker of fine phrases. The days of mere affection have not yet arrived; +but, on the other hand, there is an absence of that grand vehemence of +soul which breathes in the spontaneous, if too lawless, vigour of the +older race. There is something hollow under all this stately rhetoric; +there are none of those vivid phrases which reveal minds moved by strong +passions and excited by new aspects of the world. The sails of his verse +are not, in Chapman's phrase, 'filled with a lusty wind,' but moving at +best before a steady breath of romantic sentiment, and sometimes +flapping rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> ominously for want of true impulse. High thinking may +still be there, but it is a little self-conscious, and in need of +artificial stimulant. The old strenuous spirit has disappeared, or gone +elsewhere—perhaps to excite a Puritan imagination, and create another +incarnation of the old type of masculine vigour in the hero of 'Paradise +Lost.'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Contemporary Review</i> for August 1876.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span></p> +<h2><i>FIELDING'S NOVELS</i></h2> + + +<p>A double parallel has often been pointed out between the two pairs of +novelists who were most popular in the middle of our own and of the +preceding century. The intellectual affinity which made Smollett the +favourite author of Dickens is scarcely so close as that which commended +Fielding to Thackeray. The resemblance between 'Pickwick' and 'Humphrey +Clinker,' or between 'David Copperfield' and 'Roderick Random,' consists +chiefly in the exuberance of animal spirits, the keen eye for external +oddity, the consequent tendency to substitute caricature for portrait, +and the vivid transformation of autobiography into ostensible fiction, +which are characteristic of both authors. Between Fielding and Thackeray +the resemblance is closer. The peculiar irony of 'Jonathan Wild' has its +closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' +of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's +burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong +to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent since the days +of Lady Bellaston, but the costume of the actors has changed more than +their nature. Rawdon Crawley would not have been surprised to meet +Captain Booth in a spunging-house; Shandon and his friends preserved the +old traditions of Fielding's Grub Street; Lord Steyne and Major<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> +Pendennis were survivals from the more congenial period of Lord Fellamar +and Colonel James; and the two Amelias represent cognate ideals of +female excellence. Or, to take an instance of similarity in detail, +might not this anecdote from 'The Covent Garden Journal' have rounded +off a paragraph in the 'Snob Papers?' A friend of Fielding saw a dirty +fellow in a mud-cart lash another with his whip, saying, with an oath, +'I will teach you manners to your betters.' Fielding's friend wondered +what could be the condition of this social inferior of a mud-cart +driver, till he found him to be the owner of a dust-cart driven by +asses. The great butt of Fielding's satire is, as he tells us, +affectation; the affectation which he specially hates is that of +straitlaced morality; Thackeray's satire is more generally directed +against the particular affectation called snobbishness; but the evil +principle attacked by either writer is merely one avatar of the demon +assailed by the other.</p> + +<p>The resemblance, which extends in some degree to style, might perhaps be +shown to imply a very close intellectual affinity. I am content, +however, to notice the literary genealogy as illustrative of the fact +that Fielding was the ancestor of one great race of novelists. 'I am,' +he says expressly in 'Tom Jones,' 'the founder of a new province of +writing.' Richardson's 'Clarissa'<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> and Smollett's 'Roderick Random' +were indeed published before 'Tom Jones;' but the provinces over which +Richardson and Smollett reigned were distinct from the contiguous +province of which Fielding claimed to be the first legislator.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> Smollett +(who comes nearest) professed to imitate 'Gil Blas' as Fielding +professed to imitate Cervantes. Smollett's story inherits from its +ancestry a reckless looseness of construction. It is a series of +anecdotes strung together by the accident that they all happen to the +same person. 'Tom Jones,' on the contrary, has a carefully constructed +plot, if not, as Coleridge asserts, one of the three best plots in +existence (its rivals being 'Œ dipus Tyrannus' and 'The Alchemist'). Its +excellence depends upon the skill with which it is made subservient to +the development of character and the thoroughness with which the working +motives of the persons involved have been thought out. Fielding +claims—even ostentatiously—that he is writing a history, not a +romance; a history not the less true because all the facts are +imaginary, for the fictitious incidents serve to exhibit the most +general truths of human character. It is by this seriousness of purpose +that his work is distinguished from the old type of novel, developed by +Smollett, which is but a collection of amusing anecdotes; or from such +work as De Foe's, in which the external facts are given with an almost +provoking indifference to display of character and passion. Fielding's +great novels have a true organic unity as well as a consecutive story, +and are intended in our modern jargon as genuine studies in +psychological analysis.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>Johnson, no mean authority when in his own sphere and free from personal +bias, expressly traversed this claim; he declared that there was more +knowledge of the human heart in a letter of 'Clarissa' than in the whole +of 'Tom Jones;' and said more picturesquely, that Fielding could tell +the hour by looking at the dial-plate, whilst Richardson knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> how the +clock was made.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> It is tempting to set this down as a Johnsonian +prejudice, and to deny or retort the comparison. Fielding, we might say, +paints flesh and blood; whereas Richardson consciously constructs his +puppets out of frigid abstractions. Lovelace is a bit of mechanism; Tom +Jones a human being. In fact, however, such comparisons are misleading. +Nothing is easier than to find an appropriate ticket for the objects of +our criticism, and summarily pigeon-hole Richardson as an idealist and +Fielding as a realist; Richardson as subjective and morbid, Fielding as +objective and full of coarse health; or to attribute to either of them +the deepest knowledge of the human heart. These are the mere banalities +of criticism; and I can never hear them without a suspicion that a +professor of æsthetics is trying to hoodwink me by a bit of technical +platitude. The cant phrases which have been used so often by panegyrists +too lazy to define their terms, have become almost as meaningless as the +complimentary formulæ of society.</p> + +<p>Knowledge of the human heart in particular is a phrase which covers very +different states of mind. It may mean that power by which the novelist +or dramatist identifies himself with his characters; sees through their +eyes and feels with their senses; it is the product of a rich nature, a +vivid imagination, and great powers of sympathy, and draws a +comparatively small part of its resources from external experience. The +novelist knows how his characters would feel under given conditions, +because he feels it himself; he sees from within, not from without; and +is almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> undergoing an actual experience instead of condensing his +observations on life. This is the power in which Shakespeare is supreme; +which Richardson proved himself, in his most powerful passages, to +possess in no small degree; and which in Balzac seems to have generated +fits of absolute hallucination.</p> + +<p>Fielding's novels are not without proof of this power, as no great +imaginative work can be possible without it; but the knowledge for which +he is specially conspicuous differs almost in kind. This knowledge is +drawn from observation rather than intuitive sympathy. It consists in +great part of those weighty maxims which a man of keen powers of +observation stores up in his passage through a varied experience. It is +the knowledge of Ulysses, who has known</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Cities of men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And manners, climates, councils, governments;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the knowledge of a Machiavelli, who has looked behind the screen of +political hypocrisies; the knowledge of which the essence is distilled +in Bacon's 'Essays;' or the knowledge of which Polonius seems to have +retained many shrewd scraps even when he had fallen into his dotage. +In reading 'Clarissa' or 'Eugénie Grandet' we are aware that the soul +of Richardson or Balzac has transmigrated into another shape; that the +author is projected into his character, and is really giving us one +phase of his own sentiments. In reading Fielding we are listening to +remarks made by a spectator instead of an actor; we are receiving the +pithy recollections of the man about town; the prodigal who has been +with scamps in gambling-houses, and drunk beer in pothouses and punch +with country squires; the keen observer who has judged all characters, +from Sir Robert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> Walpole down to Betsy Canning;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> who has fought the +hard battle of life with unflagging spirit, though with many falls; +and who, in spite of serious stains, has preserved the goodness of his +heart and the soundness of his head. The experience is generally given +in the shape of typical anecdotes rather than in explicit maxims; but +it is not the less distinctly the concentrated essence of observation, +rather than the spontaneous play of a vivid imagination. Like Balzac, +Fielding has portrayed the 'Comédie Humaine;' but his imagination has +never overpowered the coolness of his judgment. He shows a superiority +to his successor in fidelity almost as marked as his inferiority in +vividness. And, therefore, it may be said in passing, it is refreshing +to read Fielding at a time when this element of masculine observation +is the one thing most clearly wanting in modern literature. Our novels +give us the emotions of young ladies, which, in their way, are very +good things; they reflect the sentimental view of life, and the +sensational view, and the commonplace view, and the high philosophical +view. One thing they do not tell us. What does the world look like to +a shrewd police-magistrate, with a keen eye in his head and a sound +heart in his bosom? It might be worth knowing. Perhaps (who can tell?) +it would still look rather like Fielding's world.</p> + +<p>The peculiarity is indicated by Fielding's method. Scott,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> who, like +Fielding, generally describes from the outside, is content to keep +himself in the background. 'Here,' he says to his readers, 'are the +facts; make what you can of them.' Fielding will not efface himself; he +is always present as chorus; he tells us what moral we ought to draw; he +overflows with shrewd remarks, given in their most downright shape, +instead of obliquely suggested through the medium of anecdotes; he likes +to stop us as we pass through his portrait gallery; to take us by the +button-hole and expound his views of life and his criticisms on things +in general. His remarks are often so admirable that we prefer the +interpolations to the main current of narrative. Whether this plan is +the best must depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the author; but it goes +some way to explain one problem, over which Scott puzzles +himself—namely, why Fielding's plays are so inferior to his novels. +There are other reasons, external and internal; but it is at least clear +that a man who can never retire behind his puppets is not in the +dramatic frame of mind. He is always lecturing where a dramatist must be +content to pull the wires. Shakespeare is really as much present in his +plays as Fielding in his novels; but he does not let us know it; whereas +the excellent Fielding seems to be quite incapable of hiding his broad +shoulders and lofty stature behind his little puppet-show.</p> + +<p>There are, of course, actors in Fielding's world who can be trusted to +speak for themselves. Tom Jones, at any rate, who is Fielding in his +youth, or Captain Booth, who is the Fielding of later years, are drawn +from within. Their creator's sympathy is so close and spontaneous that +he has no need of his formulæ and precedents. But elsewhere he betrays +his method by his desire to produce his authority. You will find the +explanation of a certain line of conduct,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> he says, in 'human nature, +page almost the last.' He is a little too fond of taking down that +volume with a flourish; of exhibiting his familiarity with its pages, +and referring to the passages which justify his assertions. Fielding has +an odd touch of the pedant. He is fond of airing his classical +knowledge; and he is equally fond of quoting this imaginary code which +he has had to study so thoroughly and painfully. The effect, however, is +to give an air of artificiality to some of his minor characters. They +show the traces of deliberate composition too distinctly, though the +blemish may be forgiven in consideration of the genuine force and +freshness of his thinking. If manufactured articles, they are not +second-hand manufactures. His knowledge, unlike that of the good Parson +Adams, comes from life, not books.</p> + +<p>The worldly wisdom for which Fielding is so conspicuous had indeed been +gathered in doubtful places, and shows traces of its origin. He had been +forced, as he said, to choose between the positions of a hackney +coachman and of a hackney writer. 'His genius,' said Lady M. W. Montagu, +who records the saying, 'deserves a better fate.' Whether it would have +been equally fertile, if favoured by more propitious surroundings, is +one of those fruitless questions which belong to the boundless history +of the might-have-beens. But one fact requires to be emphasised. +Fielding's critics and biographers have dwelt far too exclusively upon +the uglier side of his Bohemian life. They have presented him as +yielding to all the temptations which can mislead keen powers of +enjoyment, when the purse is one day at the lowest ebb and the next +overflowing with the profits of some lucky hit at the theatre. Those +unfortunate yellow liveries which contributed to dissipate his little +fortune have scandalised posterity as they scandalised his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> country +neighbours.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But it is essential to remember that the history of the +Fielding of later years, of the Fielding to whom we owe the novels, is +the record of a manful and persistent struggle to escape from the mire +of Grub Street. During that period he was studying the law with the +energy of a young student; redeeming the office of magistrate from the +discredit into which it had fallen in the hands of fee-hunting +predecessors; considering seriously, and making practical proposals to +remedy, the evils which then made the lowest social strata a hell upon +earth; sacrificing his last chances of health and life to put down with +a strong hand the robbers who infested the streets of London; and +clinging with affection to his wife and children. He never got fairly +clear of that lamentable slough of despond into which his follies had +plunged him. His moral tone lost what delicacy it had once possessed; he +had not the strength which enabled Johnson to gain elevation even from +the temptations which then beset the unlucky 'author by profession.' +Some literary hacks of the day escaped only by selling themselves, body +and soul; others sank into misery and vice, like poor Boyce, a fragment +of whose poem has been preserved by Fielding, and who appears in +literary history scribbling for pay in a sack arranged to represent a +shirt. Fielding never let go his hold of the firm land, though he must +have felt through life like one whose feet are always plunging into a +hopeless quagmire. To describe him as a mere reckless Bohemian, is to +overlook the main facts of his story. He was manly to the last, not in +the sense in which man means animal; but with the manliness of one who +struggles bravely to redeem early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> errors, and who knows the value of +independence, purity, and domestic affection. The scanty anecdotes which +do duty for his biography reveal little of his true life. We know, +indeed, from a spiteful and obviously exaggerated story of Horace +Walpole's, that he once had a very poor supper in doubtful company; and +from another anecdote, of slightly apocryphal flavour, that he once gave +to 'friendship' the money which ought to have been given to the +collector of rates. But really to know the man, we must go to his books.</p> + +<p>What did Fielding learn of the world which had treated him so roughly? +That the world must be composed of fools because it did not bow before +his genius, or of knaves because it did not reward his honesty? Men of +equal ability have drawn both those and the contradictory conclusions +from experience. Human nature, as philosophers assure us, varies little +from age to age; but the pictures drawn by the best observers vary so +strangely as to convince us that a portrait depends as much upon the +artist as upon the sitter. One can see nothing but the baser, and +another nothing but the nobler, passions. To one the world is like a +masque representing the triumph of vice; and another placidly assures us +that virtue is always rewarded by peace of mind, and that even the +temporary prosperity of the wicked is an illusion. On one canvas we see +a few great heroes stand out from a multitude of pygmies; on its rival, +giants and dwarfs appear to have pretty much the same stature. The world +is a scene of unrestrained passions impelling their puppets into +collision or alliance without intelligible design; or a scene of +domestic order, where an occasional catastrophe interferes as little +with ordinary lives as a comet with the solar system. Blind fate governs +one world of the imagination, and beneficent Providence another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> The +theories embodied in poetry vary as widely as the philosophies on which +they are founded; and to philosophise is to declare the fundamental +assumptions of half the wise men of the world to be transparent +fallacies.</p> + +<p>We need not here attempt to reconcile these apparent contradictions. As +little need we attempt to settle Fielding's philosophy, for it resembles +the snakes in Iceland. It seems to have been his opinion that philosophy +is, as a rule, a fine word for humbug. That was a common conviction of +his day; but his acceptance of it doubtless indicates the limits of his +power. In his pages we have the shrewdest observation of man in his +domestic relations; but we scarcely come into contact with man as he +appears in presence of the infinite, and therefore with the deepest +thoughts and loftiest imaginings of the great poets and philosophers. +Fielding remains inflexibly in the regions of common-sense and everyday +experience. But he has given an emphatic opinion of that part of the +world which was visible to him, and it is one worth knowing. In a +remarkable conversation, reported in Boswell, Burke and Johnson, two of +the greatest of Fielding's contemporaries, seem to have agreed that they +had found men less just and more generous than they could have imagined. +People begin by judging the world from themselves, and it is therefore +natural that two men of great intellectual power should have expected +from their fellows a more than average adherence to settled principles. +Thus Johnson and Burke discovered that reason, upon which justice +depends, has less influence than a young reasoner is apt to fancy. On +the other hand, they discovered that the blind instincts by which the +mass is necessarily guided are not so bad as they are represented by the +cynics. The Rochefoucauld or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> Mandeville who passes off his smart +sayings upon the public as serious, knows better than anybody that a man +must be a fool to take them literally. The wisdom which he affects is +very easily learnt, and is more often the product of the premature +sagacity dear to youth than of a ripened judgment. Good-hearted men, at +least, like Johnson and Burke, shake off cynicism whilst others are +acquiring it.</p> + +<p>Fielding's verdict seems to differ at first sight. He undoubtedly lays +great stress upon the selfishness of mankind. He seldom admits of an +apparently generous action without showing its alloy of selfish motive, +and sometimes showing that it is a mere cloak for selfish motives. In a +characteristic passage of his 'Voyage to Lisbon' he applies his theory +to his own case. When the captain falls on his knees, he will not suffer +a brave man and an old man to remain for a moment in that posture, but +forgives him at once. He hastens, however, utterly to disclaim all +praise, on the ground that his true motive was simply the convenience of +forgiveness. 'If men were wiser,' he adds, 'they would be oftener +influenced by that motive.' This kind of inverted hypocrisy, which may +be graceful in a man's own case (for nobody will doubt that Fielding was +less guided by calculation than he asserts), is not so graceful when +applied to his neighbours. And perhaps some readers may hold that +Fielding pitches the average strain of human motive too low. I should +rather surmise that he substantially agrees with Johnson and Burke. The +fact that most men attend a good deal to their own interests is one of +the primary data of life. It is a thing at which we have no more right +to be astonished than at the fact that even saints and martyrs have to +eat and drink like other persons, or that a sound digestion is the +foundation of much moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> excellence. It is one of those facts which +people of a romantic turn of mind may choose to overlook, but which no +honest observer of life can seriously deny. Our conduct is determined +through some thirty points of the compass by our own interest; and, +happily, through at least nine-and-twenty of those points is rightfully +so determined. Each man is forced, by an unavoidable necessity, to look +after his own and his children's bread and butter, and to spend most of +his efforts on that innocent end. So long as he does not pursue his +interests wrongfully, nor remain dead to other calls when they happen, +there is little cause for complaint, and certainly there is none for +surprise.</p> + +<p>Fielding recognises, but never exaggerates, this homely truth. He has a +hearty and generous belief in the reality of good impulses, and the +existence of thoroughly unselfish men. The main actors in his world are +not, as in Balzac's, mere hideous incarnations of selfishness. The +superior sanity of his mind keeps him from nightmares, if its calmness +is unfavourable to lofty visions. With Balzac, women like Lady Bellaston +become the rule instead of the exception, and their evil passions are +the dominant forces in society. Fielding, though he recognises their +existence, tells us plainly that they are exceptional. Society, he says, +is as moral as ever it was, and given more to frivolity than to +vice<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>—a statement judiciously overlooked by some of the critics who +want to make graphic history out of his novels. Fielding's mind had +gathered coarseness, but it had not been poisoned. He sees how many ugly +things are covered by the superficial gloss of fashion, but he does not +condescend to travesty the facts in order to gratify a morbid taste for +the horrible. When he wants a good man or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> woman he knows where to find +them, and paints from Allen or his own wife with obvious sincerity and +hearty sympathy. He is less anxious to exhibit human selfishness than to +show us that an alloy of generosity is to be found even amidst base +motives. Some of his happiest touches are illustrations of this +doctrine. His villains (with a significant exception) are never +monsters. They have some touch of human emotion. No desert, according to +him, is so bare but that some sweet spring blends with its brackish +waters. His grasping landladies have genuine movements of sympathy; and +even the scoundrelly Black George, the game-keeper, is anxious to do Tom +Jones a good turn, without risk, of course, to his own comfort, by way +of compensation for previous injuries. It is this impartial insight into +the ordinary texture of human motive that gives a certain solidity and +veracity to Fielding's work. We are always made to feel that the actions +spring fairly and naturally from the character of his persons, not from +the exigencies of his story or the desire to be effective. The one great +difficulty in 'Tom Jones' is the assumption that the excellent Allworthy +should have been deceived for years by the hypocrite Blifil, and blind +to the substantial kindliness of his ward. Here we may fancy that +Fielding has been forced to be unnatural by his plot. Yet he suggests a +satisfactory solution with admirable skill. Allworthy is prejudiced in +favour of Blifil by the apparently unjust prejudice of Blifil's mother +in favour of the jovial Tom. A generous man may easily become blind to +the faults of a supposed victim of maternal injustice; and even here +Fielding fairly escapes from the blame due to ordinary novelists, who +invent impossible misunderstandings in order to bring about intricate +perplexities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span></p> + +<p>Blifil is perhaps the one case (for 'Jonathan Wild' is a satire, not a +history, or, as M. Taine fancies, a tract) in which Fielding seems to +lose his unvarying coolness of judgment; and the explanation is obvious. +The one fault to which he is, so to speak, unjust, is hypocrisy. +Hypocrisy, indeed, cannot well be painted too black, but it should not +be made impossible. When Fielding has to deal with such a character, he +for once loses his self-command, and, like inferior writers, begins to +be angry with his creatures. Instead of analysing and explaining, he +simply reviles and leaves us in presence of a moral anomaly. Blifil is +not more wicked than Iago, but we seem to understand the psychical +chemistry by which an Iago is compounded; whereas Blifil can only be +regarded as a devil (if the word be not too dignified) who does not +really belong to this world at all. The error, though characteristic of +a man whose great intellectual merit is his firm grasp of realities, and +whose favourite virtue is his downright sincerity, is not the less a +blemish. Hatred of pedantry too easily leads to hatred of culture, and +hatred of hypocrisy to distrust of the more exalted virtues. Fielding +cannot be just to motives lying rather outside his ordinary sphere of +thought. He can mock heartily and pleasantly enough at the affectation +of philosophy, as in the case where Parson Adams, urging poor Joseph +Andrews, by considerations drawn from the Bible and from Seneca, to be +ready to resign his Fanny 'peaceably, quietly, and contentedly,' +suddenly hears of the supposed loss of his own little child, and is +called upon to act instead of preaching. But his satire upon all +characters and creeds which embody the more exalted strains of feeling +is apt to be indiscriminate. A High Churchman, according to him, is a +Pharisee who prefers orthodoxy to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> virtue; a Methodist a mere +mountebank, who counterfeits spiritual raptures to impose upon dupes; a +Freethinker is a man who weaves a mask of fine phrases, under which to +cover his aversion to the restraints of religion. Fielding's religion +consists chiefly of a solid homespun morality, and he is more suspicious +of an excessive than of a defective zeal. Similarly he is a hearty Whig, +but no revolutionist. He has as hearty a contempt for the cant about +liberty<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> as Dr. Johnson himself, and has very stringent remedies to +propose for regulating the mob. The bailiff in 'Amelia,' who, whilst he +brutally maltreats the unlucky prisoners for debt, swaggers about the +British Constitution, and swears that he is 'all for liberty,' recalls +the boatman who ridiculed French slavery to Voltaire, and was carried +off next day by a pressgang. Fielding, indeed, is no fanatical adherent +of our blessed Constitution, which, as he says, has been pronounced by +some of our wisest men to be too perfect to be altered in any +particular, and which a number of the said wisest men have been mending +ever since. He hates cant on all sides impartially, though, as a sound +Whig, he specially hates Papists and Jacobites as the most offensive of +all Pharisees, marked for detestation by their taste for frogs and +French wine in preference to punch and roast beef. He is a patriotic +Briton, whose patriotism takes the genuine shape of a hearty growl at +English abuses, with a tacit assumption that things are worse elsewhere.</p> + +<p>The reflection of this quality of solid good sense, absolutely scorning +any ailment except that of solid facts, is the so-called realism of +Fielding's novels. He is, indeed, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> hearty a realist as Hogarth, whose +congenial art he is never tired of praising with all the cordiality of +his nature, and to whom he refers his readers for portraits of several +characters in 'Tom Jones.' His scenery is as realistic as a photograph. +Tavern kitchens, spunging-house parlours, the back-slums of London +streets, are drawn from the realities with unflinching vigour. We see +the stains of beer-pots and smell the fumes of stale tobacco as +distinctly as in Hogarth's engravings. He shrinks neither from the +coarse nor the absolutely disgusting. It is enough to recall the female +boxing or scratching matches which are so frequent in his pages. On one +such occasion his language seems to imply that he had watched such +battles in the spirit of a connoisseur in our own day watching less +inexpressibly disgusting prize-fights. Certainly we could wish that, if +such scenes were to be depicted, there might have been a clearer proof +that the artist had a nose and eyes capable of feeling offence.</p> + +<p>But the nickname 'realist' slides easily into another sense. The realist +is sometimes supposed to be more shallow as well as more prosaic than +the idealist; to be content with the outside where the idealist pierces +to the heart. He gives the bare fact, where his rival gives the idea +symbolised by the fact, and therefore rendering it attractive to the +higher intellect. Fielding's view of his own art is instructive in this +as in other matters. Poetic invention, he says, is generally taken to be +a creative faculty; and if so, it is the peculiar property of the +romance-writers, who frankly take leave of the actual and possible. +Fielding disavows all claim to this faculty; he writes histories, not +romances. But, in his sense, poetic invention means, not creation, but +'discovery;' that is, 'a quick,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> sagacious penetration into the true +essence of all objects of our contemplation.' Perhaps we may say that it +is chiefly a question of method whether a writer should portray men or +angels—the beings, that is, of everyday life—or beings placed under a +totally different set of circumstances. The more vital question is +whether, by one method or the other, he shows us a man's heart or only +his clothes; whether he appeals to our intellects or imaginations, or +amuses us by images which do not sink below the eye. In scientific +writings a man may give us the true law of a phenomenon, whether he +exemplifies it in extreme or average cases, in the orbit of a comet or +the fall of an apple. The romance-writer should show us what real men +would be in dreamland, the writer of 'histories' what they are on the +knifeboard of an omnibus. True insight may be shown in either case, or +may be absent in either, according as the artist deals with the deepest +organic laws or the more external accidents. The 'Ancient Mariner' is an +embodiment of certain simple emotional phases and moral laws amidst the +phantasmagoric incidents of a dream, and De Foe does not interpret them +better because he confines himself to the most prosaic incidents. When +romance becomes really arbitrary, and is parted from all basis of +observation, it loses its true interest and deserves Fielding's +condemnation. Fielding conscientiously aims at discharging the highest +function. He describes, as he says in 'Joseph Andrews,' 'not men, but +manners; not an individual, but a species.' His lawyer, he tells us, has +been alive for the last four thousand years, and will probably survive +four thousand more. Mrs. Tow-wouse lives wherever turbulent temper, +avarice, and insensibility are united; and her sneaking husband wherever +a good inclination has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> glimmered forth, eclipsed by poverty of spirit +and understanding. But the type which shows best the force and the +limits of Fielding's genius is Parson Adams. He belongs to a +distinguished family, whose members have been portrayed by the greatest +historians. He is a collateral descendant of Don Quixote, for whose +creation Fielding felt a reverence exceeded only by his reverence for +Shakespeare.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The resemblance is, of course, distant, and consists +chiefly in this, that the parson, like the knight, lives in an ideal +world, and is constantly shocked by harsh collision with facts. He +believes in his sermons instead of his sword, and his imagination is +tenanted by virtuous squires and model parsons instead of Arcadian +shepherds, or knight-errants and fair ladies. His imagination is not +exalted beyond the limits of sanity, but only colours the prosaic +realities in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> accordance with the impulses of a tranquil benevolence. If +the theme be fundamentally similar, it is treated with a far less daring +hand.</p> + +<p>Adams is much more closely related to Sir Roger de Coverley, the Vicar +of Wakefield, or Uncle Toby. Each of these lovable beings invites us at +once to sympathise with and to smile at the unaffected simplicity which, +seeing no evil, becomes half ludicrous and half pathetic in this corrupt +world. Adams stands out from his brethren by his intense reality. If he +smells too distinctly of beer and tobacco, we believe in him more firmly +than in the less full-blooded creations of Sterne and Goldsmith. Parson +Adams, indeed, has a startling vigour of organisation. Not merely the +hero of a modern ritualist novel, but Amyas Leigh or Guy Livingstone +himself, might have been amazed at his athletic prowess. He stalks ahead +of the stage-coach (favoured doubtless by the bad roads of the period) +as though he had accepted the modern principle about fearing God and +walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours. His mutton fist and the +crabtree cudgel which swings so freely round his clerical head would +have daunted the contemporary gladiators, Slack and Broughton. He shows +his Christian humility not merely by familiarity with his poorest +parishioners, but in sitting up whole nights in tavern kitchens, +drinking unlimited beer, smoking inextinguishable pipes, and revelling +in a ceaseless flow of gossip. We smile at the good man's intense +delight in a love-story, at the simplicity which makes him see a good +Samaritan in Parson Trulliber, at the absence of mind which makes him +pitch his Æschylus into the fire, or walk a dozen miles in profound +oblivion of the animal which should have been between his knees; but his +contemporaries were provoked to a horse-laugh, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> when we remark the +tremendous practical jokes which his innocence suggests to them, we +admit that he requires his whole athletic vigour to bring so tender a +heart safely through so rough a world.</p> + +<p>If the ideal hero is always to live in fancy-land and talk in blank +verse, Adams has clearly no right to the title; nor, indeed, has Don +Quixote. But the masculine portraiture of the coarse realities is not +only indicative of intellectual vigour, but artistically appropriate. +The contrast between the world and its simple-minded inhabitant is the +more forcible in proportion to the firmness and solidity of Fielding's +touch. Uncle Toby proves that Sterne had preserved enough tenderness to +make an exquisite plaything of his emotions. The Vicar of Wakefield +proves that Goldsmith had preserved a childlike innocence of +imagination, and could retire from duns and publishers to an idyllic +world of his own. Joseph Andrews proves that Fielding was neither a +child nor a sentimentalist, but that he had learnt to face facts as they +are, and set a true value on the best elements of human life. In the +midst of vanity and vexation of spirit he could find some comfort in +pure and strong domestic affection. He can indulge his feelings without +introducing the false note of sentimentalism, or condescending to tone +his pictures with rose-colour. He wants no illusions. The exemplary Dr. +Harrison in 'Amelia' held no action unworthy of him which could protect +an innocent person or 'bring a rogue to the gallows.' Good Parson Adams +could lay his cudgel on the back of a villain with hearty goodwill. He +believes too easily in human goodness, but there is not a maudlin fibre +in his whole body. He would not be the man to cry over a dead donkey +whilst children are in want of bread. He would be slower than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> the +excellent Dr. Primrose to believe in the reformation of a villain by +fine phrases, and if he fell into such a weakness, his biographer would +not, like Goldsmith, be inclined to sanction the error. A villain is +induced to reform, indeed, by the sight of Amelia's excellence, but +Fielding is careful to tell us that the change was illusory, and that +the villain ended on a gallows. We are made sensible that if Adams had +his fancies they were foibles, and therefore sources of misfortune. We +are to admire the childlike character, but not to share its illusions. +The world is not made of moonshine. Hypocrisy, cruelty, avarice, and +lust have to be stamped out by hard blows, not cured by delicate +infusion of graceful sentimentalisms.</p> + +<p>So far Fielding's portrait of an ideal character is all the better for +his masculine grasp of fact. It must, however, be admitted that he fails +a little on the other side of the contrast. He believes in a good heart, +but scarcely in very lofty motive. He tells us in 'Tom Jones'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> that +he has painted no perfect character, because he never happened to meet +one. His stories, like 'Vanity Fair,' may be described as novels without +a hero. It is not merely that his characters are imperfect, but that +they are deficient in the finer ingredients which go to make up the +nearest approximations of our imperfect natures to heroism. Colonel +Newcome was not perhaps so good a man as Parson Adams, but he had a +certain delicacy of sentiment which led him, as we may remember, to be +rather hard upon Tom Jones, and which Fielding (as may be gathered from +Bath in 'Amelia') would have been inclined to ridicule. Parson Adams is +simple enough to become a laughing-stock to the brutal, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> never +consciously rebels against the dictates of the plainest common-sense. +His theology comes from Tillotson and Hoadly; he has no eye for the +romantic side of his creed, and would be apt to condemn a mystic as +simply a fool. His loftiest aspiration is not to reform the world or any +part of it, but to get a modest bit of preferment (he actually receives +it, we are happy to think, in 'Amelia'), enough to pay for his tobacco +and his children's schooling. Fielding's dislike to the romantic makes +him rather blind to the elevated. He will not only start from the +actual, but does not conceive the possibility of an infusion of loftier +principles. The existing standard of sound sense prescribes an +impassable limit to his imagination. Parson Adams is an admirable +incarnation of certain excellent and honest impulses. He sets forth the +wisdom of the heart and the beauty of the simple instincts of an +affectionate nature. But we are forced to admit that he is not the +highest type conceivable, and might, for example, learn something from +his less robust colleague Dr. Primrose.</p> + +<p>This remark suggests the common criticism, expounded with his usual +brilliancy by M. Taine. Fielding, he tells us, loves nature, but he does +not love it 'like the great impartial artists, Shakespeare and Goethe.' +He moralises incessantly—which is wrong. Moreover, his morality appears +to be very questionable. It consists in preferring instinct to reason. +The hero is the man who is born generous as a dog is born affectionate. +And this, says M. Taine, might be all very well were it not for a great +omission. Fielding has painted nature, but nature without refinement, +poetry and chivalry. He can only describe the impetuosity of the senses, +not the nervous exaltation and the poetic rapture. Man is with him 'a +good buffalo; and perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> he is the hero required by a people which is +itself called John Bull.' In all which there is an undoubted vein of +truth. Fielding's want of refinement, for example, is one of those +undeniable facts which must be taken for granted. But, without seeking +to set right some other statements implied in M. Taine's judgment, it is +worth while to consider a little more fully the moral aspect of +Fielding's work. Much has been said upon this point by some who, with M. +Taine, take Fielding for a mere 'buffalo,' and by others who, like +Coleridge—a safer and more sympathetic critic—hold 'Tom Jones' to be, +on the whole, a sound exposition of healthy morality.</p> + +<p>Fielding, on the 'buffalo' view, is supposed to be simply taking one +side in one of those perpetual controversies which has occupied many +generations and never approaches a settlement. He prefers nature to law, +instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against +Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee +without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and +despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such +a doctrine—so absolutely stated—is rather a negation of all morality +than a lax morality. If it implies a love of generous instincts, it +denies that a man should have any regard for moral rules, which are +needed precisely in order to control our spontaneous instincts. Virtue +is amiable, but ceases to be meritorious. Nothing would be easier than +to quote passages in which Fielding expressly repudiates such a theory; +but, of course, a writer's morality must be judged by the conceptions +embodied in his work, not by the maxims scattered through it. Nor, for +the same reason, can we pay much attention to Fielding's express +assertion that he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> writing in the interests of virtue; for Smollett, +and less scrupulous writers than Smollett, have found their account in +similar protestations. Yet anybody, I think, who will compare 'Joseph +Andrews' with that intentionally most moral work, 'Pamela,' will admit +that Fielding's morality goes deeper than this. Fielding at least makes +us love virtue, and is incapable of the solecism which Richardson +commits in substantially preaching that virtue means standing out for a +higher price. That Fielding's reckless heroes have a genuine sensibility +to the claims of virtue, appears still more unmistakably when we compare +them with the heartless fine gentlemen of the Congreve school and of his +own early plays, or put the faulty Captain Booth beside such an +unredeemed scamp as Peregrine Pickle.</p> + +<p>It is clear, in short, that the aim of Fielding (whether he succeeds or +not) is the very reverse of that attributed to him by M. Taine. 'Tom +Jones' and 'Amelia' have, ostensibly at least, a most emphatic moral +attached to them; and not only attached to them, but borne in mind and +even too elaborately preached throughout. That moral is the one which +Fielding had learnt in the school of his own experience. It is the moral +that dissipation bears fruit in misery. The remorse, it is true, which +was generated in Fielding and in his heroes was not the remorse which +drives a man to a cloister, or which even seriously poisons his +happiness. The offences against morality are condoned too easily, and +the line between vice and virtue drawn in accordance with certain +distinctions which even Parson Adams could scarcely have approved. Vice, +he seems to say, is altogether objectionable only when complicated by +cruelty or hypocrisy. But if Fielding's moral sense is not very +delicate, it is vigorous. He hates most heartily what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> he sees to be +wrong, though his sight might easily be improved in delicacy of +discrimination. The truth is simply that Fielding accepted that moral +code which the better men of the world in his time really acknowledged, +as distinguished from that by which they affected to be bound. That so +wide a distinction should generally exist between these codes is a +matter for deep regret. That Fielding in his hatred for humbug should +have condemned purity as puritanical is clearly lamentable. The +confusion, however, was part of the man, and, as already noticed, shows +itself in one shape or other throughout his work. But it would be unjust +to condemn him upon that ground as antagonistic or indifferent to +reasonable morality. His morality is at the superior antipodes from the +cynicism of a Wycherley; and far superior to the prurient sentimentalism +of Sterne or the hot-pressed priggishness of Richardson, or even the +reckless Bohemianism of Smollett.</p> + +<p>There is a deeper question, however, beneath this discussion. The +morality of those 'great impartial artists' of whom M. Taine speaks +differs from Fielding's in a more serious sense. The highest morality of +a great work of art depends upon the power with which the essential +beauty and ugliness of virtue and vice are exhibited by an impartial +observer. The morality, for example, of Goethe and Shakespeare appears +in the presentation of such characters as Iago and Mephistopheles. The +insight of true genius shows us by such examples what is the true +physiology of vice; what is the nature of the man who has lost all faith +in virtue and all sympathy with purity and nobility of character. The +artist of inferior rank tries to make us hate vice by showing that it +comes to a bad end precisely because he has an adequate perception of +its true nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> He can see that a drunkard generally gets into debt or +incurs an attack of <i>delirium tremens</i>, but he does not exhibit the +moral disintegration which is the underlying cause of the misfortune, +and which may be equally fatal, even if it happens to evade the penalty. +The distinction depends upon the power of the artist to fulfil +Fielding's requirement of penetrating to the essence of the objects of +his contemplation. It corresponds to the distinction in philosophy +between a merely prudential system of ethics—the system of the gallows +and the gaol—and the system which recognises the deeper issues +perceptible to a fine moral sense.</p> + +<p>Now, in certain matters, Fielding's morality is of the merely prudential +kind. It resembles Hogarth's simple doctrine that the good apprentice +will be Lord Mayor and the bad apprentice get into Newgate. So shrewd an +observer was indeed well aware, and could say very forcibly,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> that +virtue in this world might sometimes lead to poverty, contempt, and +imprisonment. He does not, like some novelists, assume the character of +a temporal Providence, and knock his evildoers on the head at the end of +the story. He shows very forcibly that the difficulties which beset poor +Jones and Booth are not to be fairly called accidents, but are the +difficulties to which bad conduct generally leads a man, and which are +all the harder when not counterbalanced by a clear conscience. He can +even describe with sympathy such a character as poor Atkinson in +'Amelia,' whose unselfish love brings him more blows than favours of +fortune. But it is true that he is a good deal more sensible to what are +called the prudential sanctions of virtue, at least of a certain +category of virtues, than to its essential beauty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> So far the want of +refinement of which M. Taine speaks does, in fact, lower, and lower very +materially, his moral perception. A man of true delicacy could never +have dragged Tom Jones into his lowest degradation without showing more +forcibly his abhorrence of his loose conduct. This is, as Colonel +Newcome properly points out, the great and obvious blot upon the story, +which no critics have missed, and we cannot even follow the leniency of +Coleridge, who thinks that a single passage introduced to express +Fielding's real judgment would have remedied the mischief. It is too +obvious to be denied without sophistry that Tom, though he has many good +feelings, and can preach very edifying sermons to his less scrupulous +friend Nightingale, requires to be cast in a different mould. His whole +character should have been strung to a higher pitch to make us feel that +such degradation would not merely have required punishment to restore +his self-complacency, but have left a craving for some thorough moral +ablution.</p> + +<p>Granting unreservedly all that may be urged upon this point, we may +still agree with the judgment pronounced by the most congenial critics. +Fielding's pages reek too strongly of tobacco; they are apt to turn +delicate stomachs; but the atmosphere is, on the whole, healthy and +bracing. No man can read them without prejudice and fail to recognise +the fact that he has been in contact with something much higher than a +'good buffalo.' He has learnt to know a man, not merely full of animal +vigour, not merely stored with various experience of men and manners, +but also in the main sound and unpoisoned by the mephitic vapours which +poisoned the atmosphere of his police-office. If the scorn of hypocrisy +is too fully emphasised, and the sensitiveness to ugly and revolting +objects too much deadened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> by a rough life, yet nobody could be more +heartily convinced of the beauty and value of those solid domestic +instincts on which human happiness must chiefly depend. Put Fielding +beside the modern would-be satirists who make society—especially French +society<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>—a mere sink of nastiness, or beside the more virtuous +persons whose favourite affectation is simplicity, and who labour most +spasmodically to be masculine, and his native vigour, his massive +common-sense, his wholesome views of men and manners, stand out in solid +relief. Certainly he was limited in perception, and not so elevated in +tone as might be desired; but he is a fitting representative of the +stalwart vigour and the intellectual shrewdness evident in the best men +of his time. The English domestic life of the period was certainly far +from blameless, and anything but refined; but if we have gained in some +ways, we are hardly entitled to look with unqualified disdain upon the +rough vigour of our beer-drinking, beef-eating ancestors.</p> + +<p>We have felt, indeed, the limitations of Fielding's art more clearly +since English fiction found a new starting-point in Scott. Scott made us +sensible of many sources of interest to which Fielding was naturally +blind. He showed us especially that a human being belonged to a society +going through a long course of historical development, and renewed the +bonds with the past which had been rudely snapped in Fielding's period. +Fielding only deals, it may be roughly said, with men as members of a +little family circle, whereas Scott shows them as members of a nation +rich in old historical traditions, related to the past and the future, +and to the external nature in which it has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> developed. A wider set +of forces is introduced into our conception of humanity, and the +romantic element, which Fielding ignored, comes again to life. Scott, +too, was a greater man than Fielding, of wider sympathy, loftier +character, and, not the least, with an incomparably keener ear for the +voices of the mountains, the sea, and the sky. The more Scott is +studied, the higher, I believe, the opinion that we shall form of some +of his powers. But in one respect Fielding is his superior. It is a kind +of misnomer which classifies all Scott's books as novels. They are +embodied legends and traditions, descriptions of men, and races, and +epochs of history; but many of them are novels, as it were, by accident, +and modern readers are often disappointed because the name suggests +misleading associations. They expect to sympathise with Scott's heroes, +whereas the heroes are generally dropped in from without, just to give +ostensible continuity to the narrative. The apparent accessories are +really the main substance. The Jacobites and not Waverley, the +Borderers, not Mr. Van Beest Brown, the Covenanters, not Morton or Lord +Evandale, are the real subject of Scott's best romances. Now Fielding is +really a novelist in the more natural sense. We are interested, that is, +by the main characters, though they are not always the most attractive +in themselves. We are really absorbed by the play of their passions and +the conflict of their motives, and not merely taking advantage of the +company to see the surrounding scenery or phases of social life. In this +sense Fielding's art is admirable, and surpassed that of all his English +predecessors as of most of his successors. If the light is concentrated +in a narrow focus, it is still healthy daylight. So long as we do not +wish to leave his circle of ideas, we see little fault in the vigour +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> which he fulfils his intention. And therefore, whatever Fielding's +other faults, he is beyond comparison the most faithful and profound +mouthpiece of the passions and failings of a society which seems at once +strangely remote and yet strangely near to us. When seeking to solve +that curious problem which is discussed in one of Hazlitt's best +essays—what characters one would most like to have met?—and running +over the various claims of a meeting at the Mermaid with Shakespeare and +Jonson, a 'neat repast of Attic taste' with Milton, a gossip at Button's +with Addison and Steele, a club-dinner with Johnson and Burke, a supper +with Lamb, or (certainly the least attractive) an evening at Holland +House, I sometimes fancy that, after all, few things would be pleasanter +than a pipe and a bowl of punch with Fielding and Hogarth. It is true +that for such a purpose I provide myself in imagination with a new set +of sturdy nerves, and with a digestion such as that which was once equal +to the horrors of an undergraduates' 'wine party.' But, having made that +trifling assumption, I fancy that there would be few places where one +would hear more good motherwit, shrewder judgments of men and things, or +a sounder appreciation of those homely elements of which human life is +in fact chiefly composed. Common-sense in the highest degree—whether we +choose to identify it or contrast it with genius—is at least one of the +most enduring and valuable of qualities in literature as everywhere +else; and Fielding is one of its best representatives. But perhaps one +is unduly biassed by the charm of a complete escape in imagination from +the thousand and one affectations which have grown up since Fielding +died and we have all become so much wiser and more learned than all +previous generations.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Richardson wrote the first part of 'Pamela' between November 10, +1739, and January 10, 1740. 'Joseph Andrews' appeared in 1742. The first +four volumes of 'Clarissa Harlowe' and 'Roderick Random' appeared in the +beginning of 1748; 'Tom Jones' in 1749.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See some appreciative remarks upon this in Scott's preface to the +<i>Monastery</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It is rather curious that Richardson uses the same comparison to +Miss Fielding. He assures her that her brother only knew the outside of +a clock, whilst she knew all the finer springs and movements of its +inside. See <i>Richardson's Correspondence</i>, ii. 105.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Fielding blundered rather strangely in the celebrated Betsy Canning +case, as Balzac did in the 'Affaire Peytel'; but the story is too long +for repetition in this place. The trials of Miss Canning and her +supposed kidnappers are amongst the most amusing in the great collection +of State Trials. See vol. xix. of the 8vo edition. Fielding's defence of +his own conduct in the matter is reprinted in his 'Miscellanies and +Poems,' being the supplementary volume of the last collected edition of +his works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> They were really the property not of Fielding but of the once +famous '<i>beau</i> Fielding.' See <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See <i>Tom Jones</i>, book xiv. chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See <i>Voyage to Lisbon</i> (July 21) for some very good remarks upon +this word, which, as he says, no two men understand in the same sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> In his interesting Life of Godwin, Mr. Paul claims for his hero (I +dare say rightly) that he was the first English writer to give a +'lengthy and appreciative notice' of 'Don Quixote.' But when he infers +that Godwin was also the first English writer who recognised in +Cervantes a great humourist, satirist, moralist, and artist, he seems to +me to overlook Fielding and others. So Warton in his essay on 'Pope' +calls 'Don Quixote' the 'most original and unrivalled work of modern +times.' The book must have been popular in England from its publication, +as we know from the preface to Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the +Burning Castle'; and numerous translations and imitations show that +Cervantes was always enjoyed, if not criticised. Fielding's frequent +references to 'Don Quixote' (to say nothing of his play, 'Don Quixote in +England') imply an admiration fully as warm as that of Godwin. 'Don +Quixote,' says Fielding, is more worthy the name of history than +Mariana, and he always speaks of Cervantes in the tone of an +affectionate disciple. Fielding, I will add, seems to me to have admired +Shakespeare more heartily and intelligently than ninety-nine out of a +hundred modern supporters of Shakespeare societies; though these +gentlemen are never happier than when depreciating English +eighteenth-century critics to exalt vapid German philosophising. +Fielding's favourite play seems from his quotations to have been +'Othello.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Book x. chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Tom Jones</i>, book xv. chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> For Fielding's view of the French novels of his day see <i>Tom +Jones</i>, book xiii. chap. ix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span></p> +<h2><i>COWPER AND ROUSSEAU</i></h2> + + +<p>Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Cowper—considered as the type of domestic +poets—has recently been translated for the benefit of English readers. +It is interesting to know on the highest authority what are the +qualities which may recommend a writer, so strongly tinged by local +prejudices, to the admiration of a different race and generation. The +gulf which separates the Olney of a century back from modern Paris is +wide enough to give additional value to the generous appreciation of the +critic. I have not the presumption to supplement or correct any part of +his judgment. It is enough to remark briefly that Cowper's immediate +popularity was, as is usually the case, due in part to qualities which +have little to do with his more enduring reputation. Sainte-Beuve dwells +with special fondness upon his pictures of domestic and rural life. He +notices, of course, the marvellous keenness of his pathetic poems; and +he touches, though with some hint that national affinity is necessary to +its full appreciation, upon the playful humour which immortalised John +Gilpin, and lights up the poet's most charming letters. Something, +perhaps, might still be said by a competent critic upon the singular +charm of Cowper's best style. A poet, for example, might perhaps tell +us, though a prosaic person cannot, what is the secret of the impression +made by such a poem as the 'Wreck of the Royal George.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> Given an +ordinary newspaper paragraph about wreck or battle, turn it into the +simplest possible language, do not introduce a single metaphor or figure +of speech, indulge in none but the most obvious of all reflections—as, +for example, that when a man is once drowned he won't win any more +battles—and produce as the result a copy of verses which nobody can +ever read without instantly knowing them by heart. How Cowper managed to +perform such a feat, and why not one poet even in a hundred can perform +it, are questions which might lead to some curious critical speculation.</p> + +<p>The qualities, however, which charm the purely literary critic do not +account for the whole of Cowper's influence. A great part of his +immediate, and some part of his more enduring success, have been clearly +owing to a different cause. On reading Johnson's 'Lives,' Cowper +remarked, rather uncharitably, that there was scarcely one good man +amongst the poets. Few poets, indeed, shared those religious views which +commended him more than any literary excellence to a large class of +readers. Religious poetry is generally popular out of all proportion to +its æsthetic merits. Young was but a second-rate Pope in point of +talent; but probably the 'Night Thoughts' have been studied by a dozen +people for one who has read the 'Essay on Man' or the 'Imitations of +Horace.' In our own day, nobody, I suppose, would hold that the +popularity of the 'Christian Year' has been strictly proportioned to its +poetical excellence; and Cowper's vein of religious meditation has +recommended him to thousands who, if biassed at all, were quite +unconsciously biassed by the admirable qualities which endeared him to +such a critic as Sainte-Beuve. His own view was frequently and +unequivocally expressed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> He says over and over again—and his entire +sincerity lifts him above all suspicion of the affected +self-depreciation of other writers—that he looked upon his poetical +work as at best innocent trifling, except so far as his poems were +versified sermons. His intention was everywhere didactic—sometimes +annoyingly didactic—and his highest ambition was to be a useful +auxiliary to the prosaic exhortations of Doddridge, Watts, or his friend +Newton. His religion, said some people, drove him mad. Even a generous +critic like Mr. Stopford Brooke cannot refrain from hinting that his +madness was in some part due to the detested influence of Calvinism. In +fact, it may be admitted that Newton—who is half inclined to boast that +he has a name for driving people mad—scarcely showed his judgment in +setting a man who had already been in confinement to write hymns which +at times are the embodiment of despair. But it is obviously contrary to +the plainest facts to say that Cowper was driven mad by his creed. His +first attack preceded his religious enthusiasm; and a gentleman who +tries to hang himself because he has received a comfortable appointment +for life, is in a state of mind which may be explained without reference +to his theological views. It would be truer to say that when Cowper's +intellect was once unhinged, he found a congenial expression for the +tortures of his soul in the imagery provided by the sternest of +Christian sects. But neither can this circumstance be alleged as in +itself disparaging to the doctrines thus misapplied. A religious belief +which does not provide language for the darkest moods of the human mind, +for profound melancholy, torturing remorse and gloomy foreboding, is a +religion not calculated to lay a powerful grasp upon the imaginations of +mankind. Had Cowper been a Roman Catholic, the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> anguish of mind +might have driven him to seek relief in the recesses of some austere +monastery. Had he, like Rousseau, been a theoretical optimist, he would, +like Rousseau, have tortured himself with the conflict between theory +and fact—between the world as it might be and the corrupt and tyrannous +world as it is—and have held that all men were in a conspiracy to rob +him of his peace. The chief article of Rousseau's rather hazy creed was +the duty of universal philanthropy, and Rousseau fancied himself to be +the object of all men's hatred. Similarly, Cowper, who held that the +first duty of man was the love of God, fancied that some mysterious +cause had made him the object of the irrevocable hatred of his Creator. +With such fancies, reason and creeds which embody reason have nothing to +do except to give shape to the instruments of self-torture. The cause of +the misery is the mind diseased. You can no more raze out its rooted +troubles by arguing against the reality of the phantoms which it +generates than cure any other delirium by the most irrefragable logic.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve makes some remarks upon this analogy between Rousseau and +Cowper. The comparison suggests some curious considerations as to the +contrast and likeness of the two cases represented. Some personal +differences are, of course, profound and obvious. Cowper was as +indisputably the most virtuous man, as Rousseau the greatest +intellectual power. Cowper's domestic life was as beautiful as +Rousseau's was repulsive. Rousseau, moreover, was more decidedly a +sentimentalist than Cowper, if by sentimentalism we mean that +disposition which makes a luxury of grief, and delights in poring over +its own morbid emotions. Cowper's tears are always wrung from him by +intense anguish of soul, and never, as is occasionally the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> case with +Rousseau, suggests that the weeper is proud of his excessive tenderness. +Nevertheless, it is probably true, as Mr. Lowell says, that Cowper is +the nearest congener of Rousseau in our language. The two men, of +course, occupy in one respect an analogous literary position. We +habitually assign to Cowper an important place—though of course a +subordinate place to Rousseau—in bringing about the reaction against +the eighteenth-century code of taste and morality. In each case it would +generally be said that the change indicated was a return to nature and +passion from the artificial coldness of the dominant school. That +reaction, whatever its precise nature, took characteristically different +forms in England and in France; and it is as illustrating one of the +most important distinctions that I propose to say a few words upon the +contrast thus exhibited.</p> + +<p>Return to Nature! That was the war-cry which animated the Lake school in +their assault upon the then established authority. Pope, as they held, +had tied the hands of English poets by his jingling metres and frigid +conventionalities. The muse—to make use of the old-fashioned +phrase—had been rouged and bewigged, and put into high-heeled boots, +till she had lost the old majestic freedom of gait and energy of action. +Let us go back to our ancient school, to Milton and Shakespeare and +Spenser and Chaucer, and break the ignoble fetters imported from the +pseudo-classicists of France. These and similar phrases, repeated and +varied in a thousand forms, have become part of the stock-in-trade of +literary historians, and are put forward so fluently that we sometimes +forget to ask what it is precisely that they mean. Down to Milton, it is +assumed, we were natural; then we became artificial; and with the +Revolution we became natural again. That a theory so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> generally received +and so consciously adopted by the leaders of the new movement must have +in it a considerable amount of truth, is not to be disputed. But it is +sometimes not easy to interpret it into very plain language. The method +of explaining great intellectual and social movements by the phrase +'reaction' is a very tempting one, for the simple reason that it enables +us to effect a great saving of thought. The change is made to explain +itself. History becomes a record of oscillations; we are always swinging +backwards and forwards, pendulum fashion, from one extreme to another. +The courtiers of Charles II. were too dissolute because the Puritans +were too strict; Addison and Steele were respectable because Congreve +and Wycherley were licentious; Wesley was zealous because the Church had +become indifferent; the Revolution of 1789 was a reaction against the +manners of the last century, and the Revolution in running its course +set up a reaction against itself. Now it is easy enough to admit that +there is some truth in this theory. Every great man who moves his race +profoundly is of necessity protesting against the worst evils of the +time, and it is as true as a copy-book that zeal leads to extremes, and +one extreme to its opposite. A river flowing through a nearly level +plain turns its concavity alternately to the east and west, and we may +fairly explain each bend by the fact that the previous bend was in the +opposite direction. But that does not explain why the river flows +down-hill, nor show which direction tends downwards. We may account for +trifling oscillations, not for the main current. Nor does it seem at +first a self-evident proposition that vice, for example, necessarily +generates over-strictness. A man is not always a Pharisee because his +father has been a sinner. In fact, the people who talk so fluently about +reaction fall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> back whenever it suits them upon the inverse theory. If a +process happens to be continuous, the reason is as simple and +satisfactory as in the opposite case. A man is dissolute, they will tell +us, because his father was dissolute; just as they will tell us, in the +opposite case, that he was dissolute because his father was strict. +Obviously, the mere statement of a reaction is not by itself +satisfactory. We want to know why there should have been a reaction; why +the code of morals which satisfied one generation did not satisfy its +successors; why the coming man was repelled rather than attracted; what +it was that made Pope array himself in a wig instead of appreciating the +noble freedom of his predecessors; and why, again, at a given period men +became tired of the old wig business. When we have solved, or +approximated to a solution of, that problem, we shall generally find, I +suspect, that the action and reaction are generally more superficial +phenomena than we suppose, and that the great processes of evolution are +going on beneath the surface comparatively undisturbed by the changes +which first attract our notice. Every man naturally exaggerates the +share of his education due to himself. He fancies that he has made a +wonderful improvement upon his father's views, perhaps by reversing the +improvement made by the father on the grandfather's. He does not see, +what is plain enough to a more distant generation, that in reality each +generation is most closely bound to its nearest predecessors.</p> + +<p>There is, too, a special source of ambiguity in the catchword used by +the revolutionary school. They spoke of a return to nature. What, to ask +once more a very troublesome question, is meant by nature? Does it mean +inanimate nature? If so, is a love of nature clearly good or 'natural?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> +Was Wordsworth justifiable <i>primâ facie</i> for telling us to study +mountains rather than Pope for announcing that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The proper study of mankind is man?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is it not more natural to be interested in men than in mountains? Does +nature include man in his natural state? If so, what is the natural +state of man? Is the savage the man of nature, or the unsophisticated +peasant, or the man whose natural powers are developed to the highest +pitch? Is a native of the Andaman Islands the superior of Socrates? If +you admit that Socrates is superior to the savage, where do you draw the +line between the natural and the artificial? If a coral reef is natural +and beautiful because it is the work of insects, and a town artificial +and ugly because made by man, we must reject as unnatural all the best +products of the human race. If you distinguish between different works +of man, the distinction becomes irrelevant, for the products to which we +most object are just as natural, in any assignable sense of the word, as +those which we most admire. The word natural may indeed be used as +equivalent simply to beneficial or healthy; but then it loses all value +as an implicit test of what is and what is not beneficial. Probably, +indeed, some such sense was floating before the minds of most who have +used the term. We shall generally find a vague recognition of the fact +that there is a continuous series of integrating and disintegrating +processes; that some charges imply a normal development of the social or +individual organism leading to increased health and strength, whilst +others are significant of disease and ultimate obliteration or decay of +structure. Thus the artificial style of the Pope school, the appeals to +the muse, the pastoral affectation, and so forth, may be called +unnatural, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> the philosophy of that style is the retention of +obsolete symbols after all vitality has departed, and when they +consequently become mere obstructions, embarrassing the free flow of +emotion which they once stimulated.</p> + +<p>But, however this may be, it is plain that the very different senses +given to the word nature by different schools of thought were +characteristic of profoundly different conceptions of the world and its +order. There is a sense in which it may be said with perfect accuracy +that the worship of nature, so far from being a fresh doctrine of the +new school, was the most characteristic tenet of the school from which +it dissented. All the speculative part of the English literature in the +first half of the eighteenth century is a prolonged discussion as to the +meaning and value of the law of nature, the religion of nature, and the +state of nature. The deist controversy, which occupied every one of the +keenest thinkers of the time, turned essentially upon this problem: +granting that there is an ascertainable and absolutely true religion of +nature, what is its relation to revealed religion? That, for example, is +the question explicitly discussed in Butler's typical book, which gives +the pith of the whole orthodox argument, and the same speculation +suggested the theme of Pope's 'Essay on Man,' which, in its occasional +strength and its many weaknesses, is perhaps the most characteristic, +though far from the most valuable product of the time. The religion of +nature undoubtedly meant something very different with Butler or Pope +from what it would have meant with Wordsworth or Coleridge—something so +different, indeed, that we might at first say that the two creeds had +nothing in common but the name. But we may see from Rousseau that there +was a real and intimate connection. Rousseau's philosophy, in fact, is +taken bodily from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> teaching of his English predecessors. His +celebrated profession of faith through the lips of the Vicaire Savoyard, +which delighted Voltaire and profoundly influenced the leaders of the +French Revolution, is in fact the expression of a deism identical with +that of Pope's essay.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The political theories of the Social Contract +are founded upon the same base which served Locke and the English +political theorists of 1688; and are applied to sanction the attempt to +remodel existing societies in accordance with what they would have +called the law of nature. It is again perfectly true that Rousseau drew +from his theory consequences which inspired Robespierre, and would have +made Locke's hair stand on end; and that Pope would have been +scandalised at the too open revelation of his religious tendencies. It +is also true that Rousseau's passion was of infinitely greater +importance than his philosophy. But it remains true that the logical +framework into which his theories were fitted came to him straight from +the same school of thought which was dominant in England during the +preceding period. The real change effected by Rousseau was that he +breathed life into the dead bones. The English theorists, as has been +admirably shown by Mr. Morley in his 'Rousseau,' acted after their +national method. They accepted doctrines which, if logically developed, +would have led to a radical revolution, and therefore refused to develop +them logically. They remained in their favourite attitude of compromise, +and declined altogether to accommodate practice to theory. Locke's +political principles fairly carried out implied universal suffrage, the +absolute supremacy of the popular will, and the abolition of class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span> +privileges. And yet it never seems to have occurred to him that he was +even indirectly attacking that complex structure of the British +Constitution, rooted in history, marked in every detail by special +conditions of growth, and therefore anomalous to the last degree when +tried by <i>à priori</i> reasoning, of which Burke's philosophical eloquence +gives the best explanation and apology. Similarly, Clarke's theology is +pure deism, embodied in a series of propositions worked out on the model +of a mathematical text-book, and yet in his eyes perfectly consistent +with an acceptance of the orthodox dogmas which repose upon traditional +authority. This attitude of mind, so intelligible on this side of the +Channel, was utterly abhorrent to Rousseau's logical instincts. +Englishmen were content to keep their abstract theories for the closet +or the lecture-room, and dropped them as soon as they were in the pulpit +or in Parliament. Rousseau could give no quarter to any doctrine which +could not be fitted into a symmetrical edifice of abstract reasoning. He +carried into actual warfare the weapons which his English teachers had +kept for purposes of mere scholastic disputation. A monarchy, an order +of privileged nobility, a hierarchy claiming supernatural authority, +were not logically justifiable on the accepted principles. Never mind, +was the English answer, they work very well in practice; let us leave +them alone. Down with them to the ground! was Rousseau's passionate +retort. Realise the ideal; force practice into conformity with theory; +the voice of the poor and the oppressed is crying aloud for vengeance; +the divergence of the actual from the theoretical is no mere trifle to +be left to the slow action of time; it means the misery of millions and +the corruption of their rulers. The doctrine which had amused +philosophers was to become the war-cry of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> masses; the men of '89 +were at no loss to translate into precepts suited for the immediate +wants of the day the doctrines which found their first utterance in the +glow of his voluminous eloquence; and the fall of the Bastille showed +the first vibrations of the earthquake which is still shaking the soil +of Europe.</p> + +<p>It is easy, then, to give a logical meaning to Rousseau's return to +nature. The whole inanimate world, so ran his philosophy, is perfect, +and shows plainly the marks of the Divine workmanship. All evil really +comes from man's abuse of freewill. Mountains, and forests, and seas, +all objects which have not suffered from his polluting touch, are +perfect and admirable. Let us fall down and worship. Man, too, himself, +as he came from his Creator's hands, is perfect. His 'natural'—that is, +original—impulses are all good; and in all men, in all races and +regions of the earth, we find a conscience which unerringly +distinguishes good from evil, and a love of his fellows which causes man +to obey the dictates of his conscience. And yet the world, as we see it, +is a prison or a lazar-house. Disease and starvation make life a burden, +and poison the health of the coming generations; those whom fortune has +placed above the masses make use of their advantages to harden their +hearts, and extract means of selfish enjoyment from the sufferings of +their fellow-creatures. What is the source of this heartrending discord? +The abuse of men's freewill; that is, of the mysterious power which +enables us to act contrary to the dictates of nature. What is the best +name for the disease which it generates? Luxury and corruption—the two +cant objects of denunciations which were as popular in the +pre-revolutionary generation as attacks upon sensationalism and +over-excitement at the present day. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> what, then, is the mode of +cure? The return to nature. We are to make history run backwards, to +raze to its foundations the whole social and intellectual structure that +has been erected by generations of corrupt and selfish men. Everything +by which the civilised man differs from some theoretical pretension is +tainted with a kind of original sin. Political institutions, as they +exist, are conveniences for enabling the rich to rob the poor, and +churches contrivances by which priests make ignorance and superstition +play into the hands of selfish authority. Level all the existing order, +and build up a new one on principles of pure reason; give up all the +philosophical and theological dogmas, which have been the work of +designing priests and bewildered speculators, and revert to that pure +and simple religion which is divinely implanted in the heart of every +uncorrupted human being. The Savoyard vicar, if you have any doubts, +will tell you what is the true creed; and if you don't believe it, is +Rousseau's rather startling corollary, you ought to be put to death.</p> + +<p>That final touch shows the arbitrary and despotic spirit characteristic +of the relentless theorist. I need not here inquire what relation may be +borne by Rousseau's theories to any which could now be accepted by +intelligent thinkers. It is enough to say that there would be, to put it +gently, some slight difficulty in settling the details of this pure +creed common to all unsophisticated minds, and in seeing what would be +left when we had destroyed all institutions alloyed by sin and +selfishness. The meaning, however, in this connection of his love of +nature, taking the words in their mere common-sense, is in harmony with +his system. The mountains, whose worship he was the first to adumbrate, +if not actually to institute, were the symbols of the great natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> +forces free from any stain of human interference. Greed and cruelty had +not stained the pure waters of his lovely lake, or dimmed the light to +which his vicar points as in the early morning it grazes the edges of +the mighty mountain buttresses. Whatever symbolism may be found in the +Alps, suggesting emotions of awe, wonder, and softened melancholy, came +unstained by the association with the vices of a complex civilisation. +If poets and critics have not quite analysed the precise nature of our +modern love of mountain scenery, the sentiment may at least be +illustrated by a modern parallel. The most eloquent writer who, in our +day, has transferred to his pages the charm of Alpine beauties, shares +in many ways Rousseau's antipathy for the social order. Mr. Ruskin would +explain better than anyone why the love of the sublimest scenery should +be associated with a profound conviction that all things are out of +joint, and that society can only be regenerated by rejecting all the +achievements upon which the ordinary optimist plumes himself. After all, +it is not surprising that those who are most sick of man as he is should +love the regions where man seems smallest. When Swift wished to express +his disgust for his race, he showed how absurd our passions appear in a +creature six inches high; and the mountains make us all Liliputians. In +other mouths Rousseau's sentiment, more fully interpreted, became +unequivocally misanthropical. Byron, if any definite logical theory were +to be fixed upon him, excluded the human race at large from his +conception of nature. He loved, or talked as though he loved, the +wilderness precisely because it was a wilderness; the sea because it +sent men 'shivering to their gods,' and the mountains because their +avalanches crush the petty works of human industry. Rousseau was less +anti-social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> than his disciple. The mountains with him were the great +barriers which kept civilisation and all its horrors at bay. They were +the asylums for liberty and simplicity. There the peasant, unspoilt as +yet by <i>trinkgelds</i>, not oppressed by the great, nor corrupted by the +rich, could lead that idyllic life upon which his fancy delighted. In a +passage quoted, as Sainte-Beuve notices, by Cowper, Rousseau describes, +with his usual warmth of sentiment, the delightful <i>matinée anglaise</i> +passed in sight of the Alps by the family which had learnt the charms of +simplicity, and regulated its manners and the education of its children +by the unsophisticated laws of nature. It is doubtless a charming +picture, though the virtuous persons concerned are a little +over-conscious of their virtue, and it indicates a point of coincidence +between the two men. Rousseau, as Mr. Morley says, could appreciate as +well as Cowper the charms of a simple and natural life. Nobody could be +more eloquent on the beauty of domesticity; no one could paint better +the happiness of family life, where the main occupation was the +primitive labour of cultivating the ground, where no breath of +unhallowed excitement penetrated from the restless turmoil of the +outside world, where the mother knew her place, and kept to her placid +round of womanly duties, and where the children were taught with a +gentle firmness which developed every germ of reason and affection, +without undue stimulus or undue repression. And yet one must doubt +whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of +the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to +listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with +cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> would have been a little +scandalised by some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, +and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. Cowper +and Mrs. Unwin, and even their more fashionable friend, Lady Austen, +would have felt their respectable prejudices shocked by contact with the +new Héloïse; and the views of life taken by their teacher, the converted +slaveholder, John Newton, were as opposite as possible to those of +Rousseau's imaginary vicar. Indeed, Rousseau's ideal families have that +stain of affectation from which Cowper is so conspicuously free. The +rose-colour is laid on too thickly. They are too fond of taking credit +for universal admiration of the fine feelings which invariably animate +their breasts; their charitable sentiments are apt to take the form of +very easy condonation of vice; and if they repudiate the world, we +cannot believe that they are really unconscious of its existence. +Perhaps this dash of self-consciousness was useful in recommending them +to the taste of the jaded and weary society, sickening of a strange +disease which it could not interpret to itself, and finding for the +moment a new excitement in the charms of ancient simplicity. The real +thing might have palled upon it. But Rousseau's artificial and +self-conscious simplicity expressed that vague yearning and spirit of +unrest which could generate a half-sensual sentimentalism, but could be +repelled by genuine sentiment. Perhaps it not uncommonly happens that +those who are more or less tainted with a morbid tendency can denounce +it most effectually. The most effective satirist is the man who has +escaped with labour and pains, and not without some grievous stains, +from the slough in which others are still mired. The perfectly pure has +sometimes too little sympathy with his weaker brethren to place himself +at their point of view. Indeed, as we shall have occasion to remark,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> +Cowper is an instance of a thinker too far apart from the great world to +apply the lash effectually.</p> + +<p>Rousseau's view of the world and its evils was thus coherent enough, +however unsatisfactory in its basis, and was a development of, not a +reaction against, the previously dominant philosophy; and, though using +a different dialect and confined by different conditions, Cowper's +attack upon the existing order harmonises with much of Rousseau's +language. The first volume of poems, in which he had not yet discovered +the secret of his own strength, is in form a continuation of the satires +of the Pope school, and in substance a religious version of Rousseau's +denunciations of luxury. Amongst the first symptoms of the growing +feeling of uneasy discontent had been the popularity of Brown's +now-forgotten 'Estimate.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The inestimable estimate of Brown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Cowper; and he proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious +administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the +country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and +lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' +'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all +turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or +simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of +meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the +coarse-fibred friend of his youth, we have a sad strain of lamentation +over the growing luxury and effeminacy of the age. It is a continued +anticipation of the lines in the 'Task,' which seem to express his most +serious and sincere conviction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The course of human ills, from good to ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Increase of power begets increase of wealth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wealth luxury, and luxury excess:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Excess the scrofulous and itchy plague,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seizes first the opulent, descends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the next rank contagious, and in time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taints downwards all the graduated scale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of order, from the chariot to the plough.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That is his one unvariable lesson, set in different lights, but +associated more or less closely with every observation. The world is +ripening or rotting; and, as with Rousseau, luxury is the most +significant name of the absorbing evil. That such a view should commend +itself to a mind so clouded with melancholy would not be at any time +surprising, but it fell in with a widely spread conviction. Cowper had +not, indeed, learnt the most effective mode of touching men's hearts. +Separated by a retirement of twenty years from the world, with which he +had never been very familiar, and at which he only 'peeped through the +loopholes of retreat,' his satire wanted the brilliance, the quickness +of illustration from actual life, which alone makes satire readable. His +tone of feeling too frequently suggests that the critic represents the +querulous comments of old ladies gossiping about the outside world over +their tea-cups, easily scandalised by very simple things. Mrs. Unwin was +an excellent old lady, and Newton a most zealous country clergyman. +Probably they were intrinsically superior to the fine ladies and +gentlemen who laughed at them. But a mind acclimatised to the atmosphere +which they breathed inevitably lost its nervous tone. There was true +masculine vigour underlying Cowper's jeremiads; but it was natural that +many people should only see in him an amiable valetudinarian, not +qualified for a censorship of statesmen and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> men of the world. The man +who fights his way through London streets can't stop to lament over +every splash and puddle which might shock poor Cowper's nervous +sensibility.</p> + +<p>The last poem of the series, however, 'Retirement,' showed that Cowper +had a more characteristic and solacing message to mankind than a mere +rehearsal of the threadbare denunciations of luxury. The 'Task' revealed +his genuine power. There appeared those admirable delineations of +country scenery and country thoughts which Sainte-Beuve detaches so +lovingly from the mass of serious speculation in which they are +embedded. What he, as a purely literary critic, passed over as +comparatively uninteresting, gives the exposition of Cowper's +intellectual position. The poem is in fact a political, moral, and +religious disquisition interspersed with charming vignettes, which, +though not obtrusively moralised, illustrate the general thesis. The +poetical connoisseur may separate them from their environment, as a +collector of engravings might cut out the illustrations from the now +worthless letterpress. The poor author might complain that the most +important moral was thus eliminated from his book. But the author is +dead, and his opinions don't much matter. To understand Cowper's mind, +however, we must take the now obsolete meditation with the permanently +attractive pictures. To know why he so tenderly loved the slow windings +of the sinuous Ouse, we must see what he thought of the great Babel +beyond. It is the distant murmur of the great city that makes his little +refuge so attractive. The general vein of thought which appears in every +book of the poem is most characteristically expressed in the fifth, +called 'A Winter Morning Walk.' Cowper strolls out at sunrise in his +usual mood of tender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> playfulness, smiles at the vast shadow cast by the +low winter sun, as he sees upon the cottage wall the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Preposterous sight! the legs without the man.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He remarks, with a passing recollection of his last sermon, that we are +all shadows; but turns to note the cattle cowering behind the fences; +the labourer carving the haystack; the woodman going to work, followed +by his half-bred cur, and cheered by the fragrance of his short pipe. He +watches the marauding sparrows, and thinks with tenderness of the fate +of less audacious birds; and then pauses to examine the strange fretwork +erected at the mill-dam by the capricious freaks of the frost. Art, it +suggests to him, is often beaten by Nature; and his fancy goes off to +the winter palace of ice erected by the Russian empress. His friend +Newton makes use of the same easily allegorised object in one of his +religious writings; though I know not whether the poet or the divine +first turned it to account. Cowper, at any rate, is immediately diverted +into a meditation on 'human grandeur and the courts of kings.' The +selfishness and folly of the great give him an obvious theme for a +dissertation in the true Rousseau style. He tells us how 'kings were +first invented'—the ordinary theory of the time being that +political—deists added religious—institutions were all somehow +'invented' by knaves to impose upon fools. 'War is a game,' he says, in +the familiar phrase,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">'Which were their subjects wise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kings would not play at.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But, unluckily, their subjects are fools. In England indeed—for Cowper, +by virtue of his family traditions, was in theory a sound Whig—we know +how far to trust our kings; and he rises into a warmth on behalf of +liberty for which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> thinks it right to make a simple-minded apology in +a note. The sentiment suggests a vigorous and indeed prophetic +denunciation of the terrors of the Bastille, and its 'horrid towers and +dungeons.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's not an English heart that would not leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear that ye were fallen at last!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Within five or six years English hearts were indeed welcoming the event +thus foretold as the prospect of a new era of liberty. Liberty, says +Cowper, is the one thing which makes England dear. Were that boon lost,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I would at least bewail it under skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Milder, amongst a people less austere;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In scenes which, having never known me free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So far Cowper was but expressing the sentiments of Rousseau, omitting, +of course, Rousseau's hearty dislike for England. But liberty suggests +to Cowper a different and more solemn vein of thought. There are worse +dungeons, he remembers, than the Bastille, and a slavery compared with +which that of the victims of French tyranny is a trifle—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is yet a liberty unsung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By poets, and by senators unpraised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of earth and hell confederate take away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The patriot is lower than the martyr, though more highly prized by the +world; and Cowper changes his strain of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> patriotic fervour into a +prolonged devotional comment upon the text,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all are slaves besides.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Who would have thought that we could glide so easily into so solemn a +topic from looking at the quaint freaks of morning shadows? But the +charm of the 'Task' is its sincerity; and in Cowper's mind the most +trivial objects really are connected by subtle threads of association +with the most solemn thoughts. He begins with mock heroics on the sofa, +and ends with a glowing vision of the millennium. No dream of human +perfectibility, but the expected advent of the true Ruler of the earth, +is the relief to the palpable darkness of the existing world. The +'Winter Walk' traces the circle of thought through which his mind +invariably revolves.</p> + +<p>It would be a waste of labour to draw out in definite formula the +systems adopted, from emotional sympathy, rather than from any logical +speculation, by Cowper and Rousseau. Each in some degree owed his +power—though Rousseau in a far higher degree than Cowper—to his +profound sensitiveness to the heavy burden of the time. Each of them +felt like a personal grief, and exaggerated in a distempered +imagination, the weariness and the forebodings more dimly present to +contemporaries. In an age when old forms of government had grown rigid +and obsolete, when the stiffened crust of society was beginning to heave +with new throes, when ancient faiths had left mere husks of dead formulæ +to cramp the minds of men, when even superficial observers were startled +by vague omens of a coming crash, or expected some melodramatic +regeneration of the world, it was perhaps not strange that two men, +tottering on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> verge of madness, should be amongst the most +impressive prophets. The truth of Butler's speculation, that nations, +like individuals, might go mad, was about to receive an apparent +confirmation. Cowper, like Rousseau, might see the world through the +distorting haze of a disordered fancy, but the world at large was itself +strangely disordered, and the smouldering discontent of the inarticulate +masses found an echo in their passionate utterances. Their voices were +like the moan of a coming earthquake.</p> + +<p>The difference, however, so characteristic of the two countries, is +reflected by the national representatives. Nobody could be less of a +revolutionist than Cowper. His whiggism was little more than a +tradition. Though he felt bound to denounce kings, to talk about Hampden +and Sidney, and to sympathise with Mrs. Macaulay's old-fashioned +republicanism, there was not a more loyal subject of George III., or one +more disposed, when he could turn his mind from his pet hares to the +concerns of the empire, to lament the revolt of the American colonies. +The awakening of England from the pleasant slumbers of the eighteenth +century—for it seems pleasant in these more restless times—took place +in a curiously sporadic and heterogeneous fashion. In France the +spiritual and temporal were so intricately welded together, the +interests of the State were so deeply involved in maintaining the faith +of the Church, that conservatism and orthodoxy naturally went together. +Philosophers rejected with equal fervour the established religious and +the political creed. The new volume of passionate feeling, no longer +satisfied with the ancient barriers, poured itself in both cases into +the revolutionary channel. In England no such plain and simple issue +existed. We had our usual system of compromises in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> practice, and hybrid +combinations of theory. There were infidel conservatives and radical +believers. The man who more than any other influenced English history +during that century was John Wesley. Wesley was to the full as deeply +impressed as Rousseau with the moral and social evils of the time. We +may doubt whether Cowper's denunciations of luxury owed most to +Rousseau's sentimental eloquence or to the matter-of-fact vigour of +Wesley's 'Appeals.' Cowper's portrait of Whitefield—'Leuconomus,' as he +calls him, to evade the sneers of the cultivated—and his frequent +references to the despised sect of Methodists reveal the immediate +source of much of his indignation. So far as those evils were caused by +the intellectual and moral conditions common to Europe at large, Wesley +and Rousseau might be called allies. Both of them gave satisfaction to +the need for a free play of unsatisfied emotions. Their solutions of the +problem were of course radically different; and Cowper only speaks the +familiar language of his sect when he taunts the philosopher with his +incapacity to free man from his bondage:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Spend all the powers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with poetic trappings grace thy prose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it outmantle all the pride of verse;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>where he was possibly, as Sainte-Beuve suggests, thinking of Rousseau, +though Shaftesbury was the more frequent butt of such denunciations. The +difference in the solution of the great problem of moral regeneration +was facilitated by the difference of the environment. Rousseau, though +he shows a sentimental tenderness for Christianity, could not be +orthodox without putting himself on the side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> oppressors. Wesley, +though feeling profoundly the social discords of the time, could take +the side of the poor without the need of breaking in pieces a rigid +system of class-privilege. The evil which he had to encounter did not +present itself as tyranny oppressing helplessness, but as a general +neglect of reciprocal duties verging upon license. On the whole, +therefore, he took the conservative side of political questions. When +the American war gave the first signal of coming troubles, the +combinations of opinion were significant of the general state of mind. +Wesley and Johnson denounced the rebels from the orthodox point of view +with curious coincidence of language. The only man of equal intellectual +calibre who took the same side unequivocally was the arch-infidel +Gibbon. The then sleepy Established Church was too tolerant or too +indifferent to trouble him: why should he ally himself with Puritans and +enthusiasts to attack the Government which at once supported and tied +its hands? On the other side, we find such lovers of the established +religious order as Burke associated with free-thinkers like Tom Paine +and Horne Tooke. Tooke might agree with Voltaire in private, but he +could not air his opinions to a party which relied in no small measure +on the political zeal of sound dissenters. Dissent, in fact, meant +something like atheism combined with radicalism in France; in England it +meant desire for the traditional liberties of Englishmen, combined with +an often fanatical theological creed.</p> + +<p>Cowper, brought up amidst such surroundings, had no temptation to adopt +Rousseau's sweeping revolutionary fervour. His nominal whiggism was not +warmed into any subversive tendency. The labourers with whose sorrows he +sympathised might be ignorant, coarse, and drunken; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span> saw their faults +too clearly to believe in Rousseau's idyllic conventionalities, and +painted the truth as realistically as Crabbe: they required to be kept +out of the public-house, not to be liberated from obsolete feudal +disqualifications; a poacher, such as he described, was not the victim +of a brutal aristocracy, but simply a commonplace variety of thief. And, +on the other hand, when he denounces the laziness and selfishness of the +Establishment, the luxurious bishops, the sycophantic curates, the +sporting and the fiddling and the card-playing parson, he has no thought +of the enmity to Christianity which such satire would have suggested to +a French reformer, but is mentally contrasting the sleepiness of the +bishops with the virtues of Newton or Whitefield.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Where dwell these matchless saints?' old Curio cries.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Even at your side, sir, and before your eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The favour'd few, the enthusiasts you despise.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And whatever be thought of Cowper's general estimate of the needs of his +race, it must be granted that in one respect his philosophy was more +consequent than Rousseau's. Rousseau, though a deist in theory, rejected +the deist conclusion, that whatever is, is right; and consequently the +problem of how it can be that men, who are naturally so good, are in +fact so vile, remained a difficulty, only slurred over by his fluent +metaphysics about freewill. Cowper's belief in the profound corruption +of human nature supplied him with a doctrine less at variance with his +view of facts. He has no illusions about the man of nature. The savage, +he tells us, was a drunken beast till rescued from his bondage by the +zeal of the Moravian missionaries; and the poor are to be envied, not +because their lives are actually much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> better, but because they escape +the temptations and sophistries of the rich and learned.</p> + +<p>But how should this sentiment fit in with Cowper's love of nature? In +the language of his sect, nature is generally opposed to grace. It is +applied to a world in which not only the human inhabitants, but the +whole creation, is tainted with a mysterious evil. Why should Cowper +find relief in contemplating a system in which waste and carnage play so +conspicuous a part? Why, when he rescued his pet hares from the general +fate of their race, did he not think of the innumerable hares who +suffered not only from guns and greyhounds, but from the general +annoyances incident to the struggle for existence? Would it not have +been more logical if he had placed his happiness altogether in another +world, where the struggles and torments of our everyday life are +unknown? Indeed, though Cowper, as an orthodox Protestant, held that +ascetic practices ministered simply to spiritual conceit, was he not +bound to a sufficiently galling form of asceticism? His friends +habitually looked askance upon all those pleasures of the intellect and +the imagination which are not directly subservient to the religious +emotions. They had grave doubts of the expediency of his studies of the +pagan Homer. They looked with suspicion upon the slightest indulgence in +social amusements. And Cowper fully shared their sentiments. A taste for +music, for example, generally suggests to him a parson fiddling when he +ought to be praying; and following once more the lead of Newton, he +remarks upon the Handel celebration as a piece of grotesque profanity. +The name of science calls up to him a pert geologist, declaring after an +examination of the earth</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That He who made it, and revealed its date<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Moses, was mistaken in its age.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Not only is the great bulk of his poetry directly religious or +devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has +admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to +Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, <i>Vive la +bagatelle!</i> as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have +said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because +he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very +different. Nothing is more melancholy than Swift's elaborate triflings, +because they represent the efforts of a powerful intellect passing into +madness under enforced inaction, to kill time by childish occupation. +And the diagnosis of Cowper's case is similar. He trifles, he says, +because he is reduced to it by necessity. His most ludicrous verses have +been written in his saddest mood. It would be, he adds, 'but a shocking +vagary' if the sailors on a ship in danger relieved themselves 'by +fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such a part act I.' His love of +country sights and pleasures is so intense because it is the most +effectual relief. 'Oh!' he exclaims, 'I could spend whole days and +nights in gazing upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as +they flow.' And he adds, in his characteristic vein of thought, 'if +every human being upon earth could feel as I have done for many years, +there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an +unawakened one could be found from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle.' +The earth and the sun itself are, he says, but 'baubles;' but they are +the baubles which alone can distract his attention from more awful +prospects. His little garden and greenhouse are playthings lent to him +for a time, and soon to be left. He 'never framed a wish or formed a +plan,' as he says in the 'Task,' of which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> scene was not laid in the +country; and when the gloomiest forebodings unhinged his mind, his love +became a passion. He is like his own prisoner in the Bastille playing +with spiders. All other avenues of delight are closed to him; he +believes, whenever his dark hour of serious thought returns, that he is +soon to be carried off to unspeakable torments; all ordinary methods of +human pleasure seem to be tainted with some corrupting influence; but +whilst playing with his spaniel, or watching his cucumbers, or walking +with Mrs. Unwin in the fields, he can for a moment distract his mind +with purely innocent pleasures. The awful background of his visions, +never quite absent, though often, we may hope, far removed from actual +consciousness, throws out these hours of delight into more prominent +relief. The sternest of his monitors, John Newton himself, could hardly +grudge this cup of cold water presented, as it were, to the lips of a +man in a self-made purgatory.</p> + +<p>This is the peculiar turn which gives so characteristic a tone to +Cowper's loving portraits of scenery. He is like the Judas seen by St. +Brandan on the iceberg; he is enjoying a momentary relaxation between +the past of misery and the future of anticipated torment. Such a +sentiment must, fortunately, be in some sense exceptional and +idiosyncratic. And yet, once more, it fell in with the prevailing +current of thought. Cowper agrees with Rousseau in finding that the +contemplation of scenery, unpolluted by human passion, and the enjoyment +of a calm domestic life is the best anodyne for a spirit wearied with +the perpetual disorders of a corrupt social order. He differs from him, +as we have seen, in the conviction that a deeper remedy is wanting than +any mere political change; in a more profound sense of human wickedness, +and, on the other hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> in a narrower estimate of the conditions of +human life. His definition of Nature, to put it logically, would exclude +that natural man in whose potential existence Rousseau more or less +believed. The passionate love of scenery was enough to distinguish him +from the poets of the preceding school, whose supposed hatred of Nature +meant simply that they were thoroughly immersed in the pleasures of a +society then first developed in its modern form, and not yet undermined +by the approach of a new revolution. The men of Pope and Addison's time +looked upon country squires as bores incapable of intellectual pleasure, +and, therefore, upon country life as a topic for gentle ridicule, or +more frequently as an unmitigated nuisance. Probably their estimate was +a very sound one. When a true poet like Thomson really enjoyed the fresh +air, his taste did not become a passion, and the scenery appeared to him +as a pleasant background to his Castle of Indolence. Cowper's peculiar +religious views prevented him again from anticipating the wider and more +philosophical sentiment of Wordsworth. Like Pope and Wordsworth, indeed, +he occasionally uses language which has a pantheistic sound. He +expresses his belief that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">There lives and works<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soul in all things, and that soul is God.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But when Pope uses a similar phrase, it is the expression of a decaying +philosophy which never had much vitality, or passed from the sphere of +intellectual speculation to affect the imagination and the emotions. It +is a dogma which he holds sincerely, it may be, but not firmly enough to +colour his habitual sentiments. With Wordsworth, whatever its precise +meaning, it is an expression of an habitual and abiding sentiment, which +rises naturally to his lips when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span>ever he abandons himself to his +spontaneous impulses. With Cowper, as is the case with all Cowper's +utterances, it is absolutely sincere for the time; but it is a doctrine +not very easily adapted to his habitual creed, and which drops out of +his mind whenever he passes from external nature to himself or his +fellows. The indwelling divinity whom he recognises in every 'freckle, +streak, or stain' on his favourite flowers, seems to be hopelessly +removed from his own personal interests. An awful and mysterious decree +has separated him for ever from the sole source of consolation.</p> + +<p>This is not the place to hint at any judgment upon Cowper's theology, or +to inquire how far a love of nature, in his sense of the words, can be +logically combined with a system based upon the fundamental dogma of the +corruption of man. Certainly a similar anticipation of the poetical +pantheism of Wordsworth may be found in that most logical of Calvinists, +Jonathan Edwards. Cowper, too, could be at no loss for scriptural +precedents, when recognising the immediate voice of God in thunder and +earthquakes, or in the calmer voices of the waterbrooks and the meadows. +His love of nature, at any rate, is at once of a narrower and sincerer +kind than that which Rousseau first made fashionable. He has no tendency +to the misanthropic or cynical view which induces men of morbid or +affected minds to profess a love of savage scenery simply because it is +savage. Neither does he rise to the more philosophical view which sees +in the seas and the mountains the most striking symbols of the great +forces of the universe to which we must accommodate ourselves, and which +might therefore rightfully be associated by a Wordsworth with the +deepest emotions of reverential awe. Nature is to him but a collection +of 'baubles,' soon to be taken away, and he seeks in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> contemplation +a temporary relief from anguish, not a permanent object of worship. He +would dread that sentiment as a deistical form of idolatry; and he is +equally far from thinking that the natural man, wherever that vague +person might be found, could possibly be a desirable object of +imitation. His love of nature, in short, keen as it might be, was not +the reflection of any philosophical, religious, or political theory. But +it was genuine enough to charm many who might regard his theological +sentiments as a mere recrudescence of an obsolete form of belief. Mr. +Mill tells us how Wordsworth's poetry, little as he sympathised with +Wordsworth's opinions, solaced an intellect wearied with premature Greek +and over-doses of Benthamism. Such a relief must have come to many +readers of Cowper, who would put down his religion as rank fanaticism, +and his satire as anile declamation. Men suffered even then—though +Cowper was a predecessor of Miss Austen—from existing forms of 'life at +high pressure.' If life was not then so overcrowded, the evils under +which men were suffering appeared to be even more hopeless. The great +lesson of the value of intervals of calm retreat, of silence and +meditation, was already needed, if it is now still more pressing. Cowper +said, substantially, Leave the world, as Rousseau said, Upset the world. +The reformer, to say nothing of his greater intellectual power, +naturally interested the world which he threatened more than the recluse +whom it frightened. Limited within a narrower circle of ideas, and +living in a society where the great issues of the time were not +presented in so naked a form, Cowper's influence ran in a more confined +channel. He felt the incapacity of the old order to satisfy the +emotional wants of mankind, but was content to revive the old forms of +belief instead of seeking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> a more radical remedy in some subversive or +reconstructive system of thought. But the depth and sincerity of feeling +which explains his marvellous intensity of pathos is sometimes a +pleasant relief to the sentimentalism of his greater predecessor. Nor is +it hard to understand why his passages of sweet and melancholy musing by +the quiet Ouse should have come like a breath of fresh air to the jaded +generation waiting for the fall of the Bastille—and of other things.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Rousseau himself seems to refer to Clarke, the leader of the +English rationalising school, as the best expounder of his theory, and +defended Pope's Essay against the criticisms of Voltaire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> A phrase by the way, which Cowper, though little given to +borrowing, took straight from Berkeley's 'Siris.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Lord Tennyson suggests the same consolation in the lines ending—</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And I will see before I die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The palms and temples of the South.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p> +<h2><i>THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS</i></h2> + + +<p>When browsing at random in a respectable library, one is pretty sure to +hit upon the early numbers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and prompted in +consequence to ask oneself the question, What are the intrinsic merits +of writing which produced so great an effect upon our grandfathers? The +'Review,' we may say, has lived into a third generation. The last +survivor of the original set has passed away; and there are but few +relics even of that second galaxy of authors amongst whom Macaulay was +the most brilliant star. One may speak, therefore, without shocking +existing susceptibilities, of the 'Review' in its first period, when +Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham were the most prominent names. A man +may still call himself middle-aged and yet have a distinct memory of +Brougham courting, rather too eagerly, the applause of the Social +Science Association; or Jeffrey, as he appeared in his kindly old age, +when he could hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet; and even of the +last outpourings of the irrepressible gaiety of Sydney Smith. But the +period of their literary activity is already so distant as to have +passed into the domain of history. It is the same thing to say that it +already belongs in some degree to the neighbouring or overlapping domain +of fiction.</p> + +<p>There is, in fact, already a conventional history of the early +'Edinburgh Review,' repeated without hesitation in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> all literary +histories and assumed in a thousand allusions, which becomes a little +incredible when we take down the dusty old volumes, where dingy calf has +replaced the original splendours of the blue and yellow, and which have +inevitably lost much of their savour during more than half a century's +repose. The story of the original publication has been given by the +chief founders. Edinburgh, at the beginning of the century, was one of +those provincial centres of intellectual activity which have an +increasing difficulty in maintaining themselves against metropolitan +attractions. In the last half of the eighteenth century, such +philosophical activity as existed in the country seemed to have taken +refuge in the northern half of the island. A set of brilliant young men, +living in a society still proud of the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith, +Reid, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and other northern luminaries, might +naturally be susceptible to the stimulus of literary ambition. In +politics the most rampant Conservatism, rendered bitter by the recent +experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more +undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger +men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an +organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever +lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23) +met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth') +story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation. +The first number appeared in October 1802, and produced, we are told, an +'electrical' effect. Its old humdrum rivals collapsed before it. Its +science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its +politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight +of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon, +suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political +principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism, +unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we +must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of +reforms, now familiar to us all, were still regarded as startling +innovations. The Catholics were not emancipated, nor the game-laws +softened, nor the Court of Chancery reformed, nor the slave-trade +abolished. Cruel punishment still disgraced the criminal code, libel was +put down with vindictive severity, prisoners were not allowed counsel in +capital cases, and many other grievances now wholly or partially +redressed were still flourishing in full force.</p> + +<p>Were they put down solely by the 'Edinburgh Review?' That, of course, +would not be alleged by its most ardent admirers; though Sydney Smith +certainly holds that the attacks of the 'Edinburgh' were amongst the +most efficient causes of the many victories which followed. I am not +concerned to dispute the statement; nor in fact do I doubt that it +contains much truth. But if we look at the 'Review' simply as literary +connoisseurs, and examine its volumes expecting to be edified by such +critical vigour and such a plentiful outpouring of righteous indignation +in burning language as might correspond to this picture of a great organ +of liberal opinion, we shall, I fear, be cruelly disappointed. Let us +speak the plain truth at once. Everyone who turns from the periodical +literature of the present day to the original 'Edinburgh Review' will be +amazed at its inferiority. It is generally dull, and, when not dull, +flimsy. The vigour has departed; the fire is extinct. To some extent, of +course, this is inevitable. Even the magnificent eloquence of Burke has +lost some of its early gloss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> We can read, comparatively unmoved, +passages that would have once carried us off our legs in the exuberant +torrent of passionate invective. But, making all possible allowance for +the fading of all things human, I think that every reader who is frank +will admit his disappointment. Here and there, of course, amusing +passages illuminated by Sydney Smith's humour or Jeffrey's slashing and +swaggering retain a few sparks of fire. The pertness and petulance of +the youthful critics are amusing, though hardly in the way intended by +themselves. But, as a rule, one may most easily characterise the +contents by saying that few of the articles would have a chance of +acceptance by the editor of a first-rate periodical to-day; and that the +majority belong to an inferior variety of what is now called +'padding'—mere perfunctory bits of work, obviously manufactured by the +critic out of the book before him.</p> + +<p>The great political importance of the 'Edinburgh Review' belongs to a +later period. When the Whigs began to revive after the long reign of +Tory principles, and such questions as Roman Catholic Emancipation and +Parliamentary Reform were seriously coming to the front, the 'Review' +grew to be a most effective organ of the rising party. Even in earlier +years, it was doubtless a matter of real moment that the ablest +periodical of the day should manifest sympathies with the cause then so +profoundly depressed. But in those years there is nothing of that +vehement and unsparing advocacy of Whig principles which we might expect +from a band of youthful enthusiasts. So far indeed was the 'Review' from +unhesitating partisanship that the sound Tory Scott contributed to its +pages for some years; and so late as the end of 1807 invited Southey, +then developing into fiercer Toryism, as became a 'renegade'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> or a +'convert,' to enlist under Jeffrey. Southey, it is true, was prevented +from joining by scruples shared by his correspondent, but it was not for +another year that the breach became irreparable. The final offence was +given by the 'famous article upon Cevallos,' which appeared in October +1808. Even at that period Scott understood some remarks of Jeffrey's as +an offer to suppress the partisan tendencies of his 'Review.' Jeffrey +repudiated this interpretation; but the statement is enough to show +that, for six years after its birth, the 'Review' had not been conducted +in such a way as to pledge itself beyond all redemption in the eyes of +staunch Tories.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>The Cevallos article, the work in uncertain proportions of Brougham and +Jeffrey, was undoubtedly calculated to give offence. It contained an +eloquent expression of fore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>boding as to the chances of the war in +Spain. The Whigs, whose policy had been opposed to the war, naturally +prophesied its ill-success, and, until this period, facts had certainly +not confuted their auguries. It was equally natural that their opponents +should be scandalised by their apparent want of patriotism. Scott's +indignation was characteristic. The 'Edinburgh Review,' he says, 'tells +you coolly, "We foresee a revolution in this country as well as Mr. +Cobbett;" and, to say the truth, by degrading the person of the +sovereign, exalting the power of the French armies and the wisdom of +their counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be +purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable +to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years +past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own +prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel +family <i>can</i> pretend to be without it,' and it contains the only +valuable literary criticism of the day. The antidote was to be supplied +by the foundation of the 'Quarterly.' The Cevallos article, as Brougham +says, 'first made the Reviewers conspicuous as Liberals.'</p> + +<p>Jeffrey and his friends were in fact in the very difficult position of +all middle parties during a period of intense national and patriotic +excitement. If they attacked Perceval or Canning or Castlereagh in one +direction, they were equally opposed to the rough-and-ready democracy of +Cobbett or Burdett, and to the more philosophical radicalism of men like +Godwin or Bentham. They were generally too young to have been infected +by the original Whig sympathy for the French Revolution, or embittered +by the reaction. They condemned the principles of '89 as decidedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> if +not as heartily as the Tories. The difference, as Sydney Smith said to +his imaginary Tory, Abraham Plymley, is 'in the means, not in the end. +We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and abhor the French.' +Only, as the difference about the means was diametrical, Tories +naturally held them to be playing into the hands of destructives, though +more out of cowardice than malignity. In such a position it is not +surprising if the Reviewers generally spoke in apologetic terms and with +bated breath. They could protest against the dominant policy as rash and +bigoted, but could not put forwards conflicting principles without +guarding themselves against the imputation of favouring the common +enemy. The Puritans of Radicalism set down this vacillation to a total +want of fixed principle, if not to baser motives. The first volume of +the 'Westminster Review' (1824) contains a characteristic assault upon +the 'see-saw' system of the 'Edinburgh' by the two Mills. The +'Edinburgh' is sternly condemned for its truckling to the aristocracy, +its cowardice, political immorality, and (of all things!) its +sentimentalism. In after years J. S. Mill contributed to its pages +himself; but the opinion of his fervid youth was that of the whole +Bentham school.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> It is plain, however, that the 'Review,' even when +it had succeeded, did not absorb the activities of its contributors so +exclusively as is sometimes suggested. They rapidly dispersed to enter +upon different careers. Even before the first number appeared, Jeffrey +complains that almost all his friends are about to emigrate to London; +and the prediction was soon verified. Sydney Smith left to begin his +career as a clergyman in London; Horner and Brougham<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> almost immediately +took to the English bar, with a view to pushing into public life; Allen +joined Lord Holland; Charles Bell set up in a London practice; two other +promising contributors took offence, and deserted the 'Review' in its +infancy; and Jeffrey was left almost alone, though still a centre of +attraction to the scattered group. He himself only undertook the +editorship on the understanding that he might renounce it as soon as he +could do without it; and always guarded himself most carefully against +any appearance of deserting a legal for a literary career. Although the +Edinburgh <i>cénacle</i> was not dissolved, its bonds were greatly loosened; +the chief contributors were in no sense men who looked upon literature +as a principal occupation; and Jeffrey, as much as Brougham and Horner, +would have resented, as a mischievous imputation, the suggestion that +his chief energies were devoted to the 'Review.' In some sense this +might be an advantage. An article upon politics or philosophy is, of +course, better done by a professed statesman and thinker than by a +literary hack; but, on the other hand, a man who turns aside from +politics or philosophy to do mere hackwork, does it worse than the +professed man of letters. Work, taken up at odd hours to satisfy +editorial importunity or add a few pounds to a narrow income, is apt to +show the characteristic defects of all amateur performances. A very +large part of the early numbers is amateurish in this objectionable +sense. It is mere hand-to-mouth information, and is written, so to +speak, with the left hand. A clever man has turned over the last new +book of travels or poetry, or made a sudden incursion into foreign +literature or into some passage of history entirely fresh to him, and +has given his first impressions with an audacity which almost disarms +one by its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> extraordinary <i>naïveté</i>. The standard of such disquisitions +was then so low that writing which would now be impossible passed muster +without an objection. When, in later years, Macaulay discussed Hampden +or Chatham, the book which he ostensibly reviewed was a mere pretext for +producing the rich stores of a mind trained by years of previous +historical study. Jeffrey wrote about Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoirs' and +Pepys's 'Diary' as though the books had for the first time revealed to +him the existence of Puritans or of courtiers under the Restoration. The +author of an article upon German metaphysics at the present day would +think it necessary to show that if he had not the portentous learning +which Sir William Hamilton embodied in his 'Edinburgh' articles, he had +at least read the book under review, and knew something of the language. +The author (Thomas Brown—a man who should have known better) of a +contemptuous review of Kant, in an early number of the 'Edinburgh,' +makes it even ostentatiously evident that he has never read a line of +the original, and that his whole knowledge is derived from what (by his +own account) is a very rambling and inadequate French essay. The young +gentlemen who wrote in those days have a jaunty mode of pronouncing upon +all conceivable topics without even affecting to have studied the +subject, which is amusing in its way, and which fully explains the +flimsy nature of their performance.</p> + +<p>The authors, in fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely +ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long +afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney +Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that +time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the +republica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>tion was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing +even the most serious books through the pages of a periodical has become +so common that such modesty would now imply the emptiest affectation. +The collections of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith will give a sufficient +impression of the earlier numbers of the 'Review.' The only contributors +of equal reputation were Horner and Brougham. Horner, so far as one can +judge, was a typical representative of those solid, indomitable +Scotchmen whom one knows not whether to respect for their energy or to +dread as the most intolerable of bores. He plodded through legal, +metaphysical, scientific, and literary studies like an elephant forcing +his way through a jungle; and laboured as resolutely and systematically +to acquire graces of style as to master the intricacies of the 'dismal +science.' At an early age, and with no advantages of position, he had +gained extraordinary authority in Parliament. Sydney Smith said of him +that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face, and looked so +virtuous that he might commit any crime with impunity. His death +probably deprived us of a most exemplary statesman and first-rate +Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it can hardly have been a great loss to +literature. Passages from Horner's journals, given in his 'Memoirs,' are +quaint illustrations of the frame of mind generally inculcated in +manuals for the use of virtuous young men. At the age of twenty-eight, +he resolves one day to meditate upon various topics, distributed under +nine heads, including the society to be frequented in the metropolis; +the characters to be studied; the scale of intimacies; the style of +conversation; the use of other men's minds in self-education; the +regulation of ambition, of political sentiments, connections, and +conduct; the importance of 'steadily systematising all plans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> and aims +of life, and so providing against contingencies as to put happiness at +least out of the reach of accident,' and the cultivation of moral +feelings by 'dignified sentiments and pleasing associations' derived +from poets, moralists, or actual life. Sydney Smith, in a very lively +portrait, says that Horner was the best, kindest, simplest, and most +incorruptible of mankind; but intimates sufficiently that his +impenetrability to the facetious was something almost unexampled. A jest +upon an important subject was, it seems, the only affliction which his +strength of principle would not enable him to bear with patience. His +contributions gave some solid economical speculation to the 'Review,' +but were neither numerous nor lively. Brougham's amazing vitality wasted +itself in a different way. His multifarious energy, from early boyhood +to the borders of old age, would be almost incredible, if we had not the +good fortune to be contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone. His share in the +opening numbers of the 'Review' is another of the points upon which +there is an odd conflict of testimony.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> But from a very early period +he was the most voluminous and, at times, the most valuable of +contributors. It has been said that he once wrote a whole number, +including articles upon lithotomy and Chinese music. It is more +authentic that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> contributed six articles to one number at the very +crisis of his political career, and at the same period he boasts of +having written a fifth of the whole 'Review' to that time. He would sit +down in a morning and write off twenty pages at a single effort. Jeffrey +compares his own editorial authority to that of a feudal monarch over +some independent barons. When Jeffrey gave up the 'Review,' this 'baron' +aspired to something more like domination than independence. He made the +unfortunate editor's life a burden to him. He wrote voluminous letters, +objurgating, entreating, boasting of past services, denouncing rival +contributors, declaring that a regard for the views of any other man was +base subservience to a renegade Ministry, or foolish attention to the +hints of understrappers; threatening, if he was neglected, to set up a +rival Review, and generally hectoring, bullying, and declaiming in a +manner which gives one the highest opinion of the diplomatic skill of +the editor, who managed, without truckling, to avoid a breach with his +tremendous contributor. Brougham, indeed, was not quite blind to the +fact that the 'Review' was as useful to him as he could be to the +'Review,' and was therefore more amenable than might have been expected, +in the last resort. But he was in every relation one of those men who +are nearly as much hated and dreaded by their colleagues as by the +adversary—a kind of irrepressible rocket, only too easy to discharge, +but whose course defied prediction.</p> + +<p>It is, however, admitted by everyone that the literary results of this +portentous activity were essentially ephemeral. His writings are +hopelessly commonplace in substance and slipshod in style. His garden +offers a bushel of potatoes instead of a single peach. Much of +Brougham's work was up to the level necessary to give effect to the +manifesto of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> an active politician. It was a forcible exposition of the +arguments common at the time; but it has nowhere that stamp of +originality in thought or brilliance in expression which could confer +upon it a permanent vitality.</p> + +<p>Jeffrey and Sydney Smith deserve more respectful treatment. Macaulay +speaks of his first editor with respectful enthusiasm. He says of the +collected contributions that the 'variety and fertility of Jeffrey's +mind' seem more extraordinary than ever. Scarcely could any three men +have produced such 'diversified excellence.' 'When I compare him with +Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his +range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer. But +he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great +judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius +than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much +as Brougham affects the character.' Macaulay hated Brougham, and was, +perhaps, a little unjust to him. But what are we to say of the writings +upon which this panegyric is pronounced?</p> + +<p>Jeffrey's collected articles include about eighty out of two hundred +reviews, nearly all contributed to the 'Edinburgh' within its first +period of twenty-five years. They fill four volumes, and are distributed +under the seven heads—general literature, history, poetry, metaphysics, +fiction, politics, and miscellaneous. Certainly there is versatility +enough implied in such a list, and we may be sure that he has ample +opportunity for displaying whatever may be in him. It is, however, easy +to dismiss some of these divisions. Jeffrey knew history as an English +gentleman of average cultivation knew it; that is to say, not enough to +justify him in writing about it. He knew as much of meta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>physics as a +clever lad was likely to pick up at Edinburgh during the reign of Dugald +Stewart; his essays in that kind, though they show some aptitude and +abundant confidence, do not now deserve serious attention. His chief +speculative performance was an essay upon Beauty contributed to the +'Encyclopædia Britannica,' of which his biographer says quaintly that it +is 'as sound as the subject admits of.' It is crude and meagre in +substance. The principal conclusion is the rather unsatisfactory one for +a professional critic, that there are no particular rules about beauty, +and consequently that one taste is about as good as another. Nobody, +however, could be less inclined to apply this over-liberal theory to +questions of literary taste. There, he evidently holds there is most +decidedly a right and wrong, and everybody is very plainly in the wrong +who differs from himself.</p> + +<p>Jeffrey's chief fame—or, should we say, notoriety?—was gained, and his +merit should be tested by his success in this department. The greatest +triumph that a literary critic can win is the early recognition of +genius not yet appreciated by his contemporaries. The next test of his +merit is his capacity for pronouncing sound judgment upon controversies +which are fully before the public; and, finally, no inconsiderable merit +must be allowed to any critic who has a vigorous taste of his own—not +hopelessly eccentric or silly—and expresses it with true literary +force. If not a judge, he may in that case be a useful advocate.</p> + +<p>What can we say for Jeffrey upon this understanding? Did he ever +encourage a rising genius? The sole approach to such a success is an +appreciative notice of Keats, which would be the more satisfactory if +poor Keats had not been previously assailed by the Opposition journal. +The other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> judgments are for the most part pronounced upon men already +celebrated; and the single phrase which has survived is the celebrated +'This will never do,' directed against Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Every +critic has a sacred and inalienable right to blunder at times: but +Jeffrey's blundering is amazingly systematic and comprehensive. In the +last of his poetical critiques (October 1829) he sums up his critical +experience. He doubts whether Mrs. Hemans, whom he is reviewing at the +time, will be immortal. 'The tuneful quartos of Southey,' he says, 'are +already little better than lumber; and the rich melodies of Keats and +Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth, and the plebeian +pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the field of vision. The novels +of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are +fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to +immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from +its place of pride.' Who survive this general decay? Not Coleridge, who +is not even mentioned; nor is Mrs. Hemans secure. The two who show least +marks of decay are—of all people in the world—Rogers and Campbell! It +is only to be added that this summary was republished in 1843, by which +time the true proportions of the great reputations of the period were +becoming more obvious to an ordinary observer. It seems almost +incredible now that any sane critic should pick out the poems of Rogers +and Campbell as the sole enduring relics from the age of Wordsworth, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Byron.</p> + +<p>Doubtless a critic should rather draw the moral of his own fallibility +than of his superiority to Jeffrey. Criticism is a still more perishable +commodity than poetry. Jeffrey was a man of unusual intelligence and +quickness of feeling;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> and a follower in his steps should think twice +before he ventures to cast the first stone. If all critics who have +grossly blundered are therefore to be pronounced utterly incompetent, we +should, I fear, have to condemn nearly everyone who has taken up the +profession. Not only Dennis and Rymer, but Dryden, Pope, Addison, +Johnson, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, and even Coleridge, down to the last +new critic in the latest and most fashionable journals, would have to be +censured. Still there are blunders and blunders; and some of Jeffrey's +sins in that kind are such as it is not very easy to forgive. If he +attacked great men, it has been said in his defence, he attacked those +parts of their writings which were really objectionable. And, of course, +nobody will deny that (for example) Wordsworth's wilful and ostentatious +inversion of accepted rules presented a very tempting mark to the +critic. But—to say nothing of Jeffrey's failure to discharge adequately +the correlative duty of generous praise—it must be admitted that his +ridicule seems to strike pretty much at random. He picks out Southey, +certainly the least eminent of the so-called school of Wordsworth, +Coleridge, and Lamb, as the one writer of the set whose poetry deserves +serious consideration; and, besides attacking Wordsworth's faults, his +occasional flatness and childishness, selects some of his finest poems +(e.g. the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality) as flagrant specimens +of the hopelessly absurd.</p> + +<p>The 'White Doe of Rylstone' may not be Wordsworth's best work, but a man +who begins a review of it by proclaiming it to be 'the very worst poem +ever imprinted in a quarto volume,' who follows up this remark by +unmixed and indiscriminating abuse, and who publishes the review +twenty-eight years later as expressing his mature convictions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> is +certainly proclaiming his own gross incompetence. Or, again, Jeffrey +writes about 'Wilhelm Meister' (in 1824), knowing its high reputation in +Germany, and finds in it nothing but a text for a dissertation upon the +amazing eccentricity of national taste which can admire 'sheer +nonsense,' and at length proclaims himself tired of extracting 'so much +trash.' There is a kind of indecency, a wanton disregard of the general +consensus of opinion, in such treatment of a contemporary classic (then +just translated by Carlyle, and so brought within Jeffrey's sphere) +which one would hope to be now impossible. It is true that Jeffrey +relents a little at the end, admits that Goethe has 'great talent,' and +would like to withdraw some of his censure. Whilst, therefore, he +regards the novel as an instance of that diversity of national taste +which makes a writer idolised in one country who would not be tolerated +in another, he would hold it out rather as an object of wonder than +contempt. Though the greater part 'would not be endured, and, indeed, +could not have been written in England,' there are many passages of +which any country might naturally be proud. Truly this is an +illustration of Jeffrey's fundamental principle, that taste has no laws, +and is a matter of accidental caprice.</p> + +<p>It may be said that better critics have erred with equal recklessness. +De Quincey, who could be an admirable critic where his indolent +prejudices were not concerned, is even more dead to the merits of +Goethe. Byron's critical remarks are generally worth reading, in spite +of his wilful eccentricity; and he spoke of Wordsworth and Southey still +more brutally than Jeffrey, and admired Rogers as unreasonably. In such +cases we may admit the principle already suggested, that even the most +reckless criticism has a kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> of value when it implies a genuine (even +though a mistaken) taste. So long as a man says sincerely what he +thinks, he tells us something worth knowing.</p> + +<p>Unluckily, this is just where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects +to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put +up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable +tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because +admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the +general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some not +too judicious criticism; preferring, for example, the sham romantic +business of the 'Lay' to the incomparable vigour of the rough +moss-troopers,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who sought the beeves that made their broth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Scotland and in England both—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his +judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is +passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But, +unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals, +it would seem, resemble the old-fashioned squires who kept a badger +ready to be baited whenever a little amusement was desirable. The rising +school of Lake poets, with their austere professions and real +weaknesses, was just the game to show a little sport; and, accordingly, +poor Jeffrey blundered into grievous misapprehensions, and has survived +chiefly by his worst errors. The simple fact is, that he accepted +whatever seemed to a hasty observer to be the safest opinion, that which +was current in the most orthodox critical circles, and expressed it with +rather more point than his neighbours. But his criticism implies no +serious thought or any deeper sentiment than pleasure at having found a +good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> laughing-stock. The most unmistakable bit of genuine expression of +his own feelings in Jeffrey's writings is, I think, to be found in his +letters to Dickens. 'Oh! my dear, dear Dickens!' he exclaims, 'what a +No. 5' (of 'Dombey and Son') 'you have now given us. I have so cried and +sobbed over it last night and again this morning, and felt my heart +purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed +them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since that divine Nelly +was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has +been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul in the summer +sunshine of that lofty room.' The emotion is a little senile, and most +of us think it exaggerated; but at least it is genuine. The earlier +thunders of the 'Edinburgh Review' have lost their terrors, because they +are in fact mere echoes of commonplace opinion. They are often clever +enough, and have all the air of judicial authority, but we feel that +they are empty shams, concealing no solid core of strong personal +feeling even of the perverse variety. The critic has been asking +himself, not 'What do I feel?' but 'What is the correct remark to make?'</p> + +<p>Jeffrey's political writing suggests, I think, in some respects a higher +estimate of his merits. He has not, it is true, very strong convictions, +but his sentiments are liberal in the better sense of the word, and he +has a more philosophical tone than is usual with English publicists. He +appreciates the truths, now become commonplace, that the political +constitution of the country should be developed so as to give free play +for the underlying social forces without breaking abruptly with the old +traditions. He combats with dignity the narrow prejudices which led to a +policy of rigid repression, and which, in his opinion, could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span> only lead +to revolution. But the effect of his principles is not a little marred +by a certain timidity both of character and intellect. Hopefulness +should be the mark of an ardent reformer, and Jeffrey seems to be always +decided by his fears. His favourite topic is the advantage of a strong +middle party, for he is terribly afraid of a collision between the two +extremes; he can only look forward to despotism if the Tories triumph, +and a sweeping revolution if they are beaten. Meanwhile, for many years +he thinks it most probable that both parties will be swallowed up by the +common enemy. Never was there such a determined croaker. In 1808 he +suspects that Bonaparte will be in Dublin in about fifteen months, when +he, if he survives, will try to go to America. In 1811 he expects +Bonaparte to be in Ireland in eighteen months, and asks how England can +then be kept, and whether it would be worth keeping? France is certain +to conquer the Continent, and our interference will only 'exasperate and +accelerate.' Bonaparte's invasion of Russia in 1813 made him still more +gloomy. He rejoiced at the French defeat as one delivered from a great +terror, but the return of the Emperor dejects him again. All he can say +of the war (just before Waterloo) is that he is 'mortally afraid of it,' +and that he hates Bonaparte 'because he makes me more afraid than +anybody else.' In 1829 he anticipates 'tragical scenes' and a sanguinary +revolution; in 1821 he thinks as ill as ever 'of the state and prospects +of the country,' though with less alarm of speedy mischief; and in 1822 +he looks forward to revolutionary wars all over the Continent, from +which we may possibly escape by reason of our 'miserable poverty;' +whilst it is probable that our old tyrannies and corruptions will last +for some 4,000 or 5,000 years longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span></p> + +<p>A stalwart politician, Whig or Tory, is rarely developed out of a Mr. +Much-Afraid or a Mr. Despondency; they are too closely related to Mr. +Facing-both-Ways. Jeffrey thinks it generally a duty to conceal his +fears and affect a confidence which he does not feel; but perhaps the +best piece of writing in his essays is that in which he for once gives +full expression to his pessimist sentiment. It occurs in a review of a +book in which Madame de Staël maintains the doctrine of human +perfectibility. Jeffrey explains his more despondent view in a really +eloquent passage. He thinks that the increase of educated intelligence +will not diminish the permanent causes of human misery. War will be as +common as ever, wealth will be used with at least equal selfishness, +luxury and dissipation will increase, enthusiasm will diminish, +intellectual originality will become rarer, the division of labour will +make men's lives pettier and more mechanical, and pauperism grow with +the development of manufactures. When republishing his essays Jeffrey +expresses his continued adherence to these views, and they are more +interesting than most of his work, because they have at least the merits +of originality and sincerity. Still, one cannot help observing that if +the 'Edinburgh Review' was an efficient organ of progress, it was not +from any ardent faith in progress entertained by its chief conductor.</p> + +<p>It is a relief to turn from Jeffrey to Sydney Smith. The highest epithet +applicable to Jeffrey is 'clever,' to which we may prefix some modest +intensitive. He is a brilliant, versatile, and at bottom liberal and +kindly man of the world; but he never gets fairly beyond the border-line +which irrevocably separates lively talent from original power. There are +dozens of writers who could turn out work on the same pattern and about +equally good. Smith, on the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> hand, stamps all his work with his +peculiar characteristics. It is original and unmistakable; and in a +certain department—not, of course, a very high one—he has almost +unique merits. I do not think that the 'Plymley Letters' can be +surpassed by anything in the language as specimens of the terse, +effective treatment of a great subject in language suitable for popular +readers. Of course they have no pretence to the keen polish of Junius, +or the weight of thought of Burke, or the rhetorical splendours of +Milton; but their humour, freshness, and spirit are inimitable. The +'Drapier Letters,' to which they have often been compared, were more +effective at the moment; but no fair critic can deny, I think, that +Sydney Smith's performance is now more interesting than Swift's.</p> + +<p>The comparison between the Dean and the Canon is an obvious one, and has +often been made. There is a likeness in the external history of the two +clergymen who both sought for preferment through politics, and were +both, even by friends, felt to have sinned against professional +proprieties, and were put off with scanty rewards in consequence. Both, +too, were masters of a vigorous style, and original humourists. But the +likeness does not go very deep. Swift had the most powerful intellect +and the strongest passion as undeniably as Smith had the sweetest +nature. The admirable good-humour with which Smith accepted his position +and devoted himself to honest work in an obscure country parish, is the +strongest contrast with Swift's misanthropical seclusion; and nothing +can be less like than Smith's admirable domestic history and the +mysterious love affairs with Stella and Vanessa. Smith's character +reminds us more closely of Fuller, whose peculiar humour is much of the +same stamp; and who, falling upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> hard times, and therefore tinged by a +more melancholy sentiment, yet showed the same unconquerable +cheerfulness and intellectual vivacity.</p> + +<p>Most of Sydney Smith's 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight +texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of +characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded +kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic. +Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a review of Waterton's +'Wanderings:'—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To +what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of +Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a +puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? To be sure, the +toucan might retort, To what purpose were gentlemen in Bond +Street created? To what purpose were certain members of +Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with +their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the +country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not +enter into the metaphysics of the toucan.</p></div> + +<p>Smith's humour is most aptly used to give point to the vigorous logic of +a thoroughly healthy nature, contemptuous of all nonsense, full of +shrewd common-sense, and righteously indignant in the presence of all +injustice and outworn abuse. It would be difficult to find anywhere a +more brilliant assault upon the prejudices which defend established +grievances than the inimitable 'Noodle's Oration,' into which Smith has +compressed the pith of Bentham's 'Book of Fallacies.' There is a certain +resemblance between the logic of Smith and Macaulay, both of whom, it +must be admitted, are rather given to proving commonplaces and inclined +to remain on the surface of things. Smith, like Macaulay, fully +understands the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract, and +hammering obvious truths<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> into men's heads by dint of homely +explanation. Smith's memory does not supply so vast a store of parallels +as that upon which Macaulay could draw so freely; but his humorous +illustrations are more amusing and effective. There could not be a +happier way of putting the argument for what may be called the lottery +system of endowments than the picture of the respectable baker driving +past Northumberland House to St. Paul's Churchyard, and speculating on +the chance of elevating his 'little muffin-faced son' to a place among +the Percies or the highest seat in the Cathedral. Macaulay would have +enforced his reasoning by a catalogue of successful ecclesiastics. The +folly of alienating Catholic sympathies, during our great struggle, by +maintaining the old disabilities, is brought out with equal skill by the +apologue in the 'Plymley Letters' of the orthodox captain of a frigate +in a dangerous action, securing twenty or thirty of his crew, who +happened to be Papists, under a Protestant guard; reminding his sailors, +in a bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorting +the Episcopal gunner to distrust the Presbyterian quartermaster; rushing +through blood and brains to examine his men in the Thirty-nine Articles, +and forbidding anyone to spunge or ram who has not taken the sacrament +according to the rites of the Church of England. It is quite another +question whether Smith really penetrates to the bottom of the dispute; +but the only fault to be found with his statement of the case, as he saw +it, is that it makes it rather too clear. The arguments are never all on +one side in any political question, and the writer who sees absolutely +no difficulty, suggests to a wary reader that he is ignoring something +relevant. Still, this is hardly an objection to a popular advocate, and +it is fair to add that Smith's logic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> is not more admirable than the +hearty generosity of his sympathy with the oppressed Catholic. The +appeal to cowardice is lost in the appeal to true philanthropic +sentiment.</p> + +<p>With all his merits, there is a less favourable side to Smith's +advocacy. When he was condemned as being too worldly and facetious for a +priest, it was easy to retort that humour is not of necessity +irreligious. It might be added that in his writings it is strictly +subservient to solid argument. In a London party he might throw the +reins upon the neck of his fancy and go on playing with a ludicrous +image till his audience felt the agony of laughter to be really painful. +In his writings he aims almost as straight at his mark as Swift, and is +never diverted by the spirit of pure fun. The humour always illuminates +well-strung logic. But the scandal was not quite groundless. When he +directs his powers against sheer obstruction and antiquated +prejudice—against abuses in prisons, or the game-laws, or education—we +can have no fault to find; nor is it fair to condemn a reviewer because +in all these questions he is a follower rather than a leader. It is +enough if he knows a good cause when he sees it, and does his best to +back up reformers in the press, though hardly a working reformer, and +certainly not an originator of reform. But it is less easy to excuse his +want of sympathy for the reformers themselves.</p> + +<p>If there is one thing which Sydney Smith dreads and dislikes, it is +enthusiasm. Nobody would deny, at the present day, that the zeal which +supplied the true leverage for some of the greatest social reforms of +the time was to be found chiefly amongst the so-called Evangelicals and +Methodists. For them Smith has nothing but the heartiest aversion. He is +always having a quiet jest at the religious sentiments of Perceval or +Wilberforce, and his most pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>minent articles in the 'Review' were a +series of inexcusably bitter attacks upon the Methodists. He is +thoroughly alarmed and disgusted by their progress. He thinks them +likely to succeed, and says that, if they succeed, 'happiness will be +destroyed, reason degraded, and sound religion banished from the world,' +and that a reign of fanaticism will be succeeded by 'a long period of +the grossest immorality, atheism, and debauchery.' He is not sure that +any remedy or considerable palliative is possible, but he suggests, as +hopeful, the employment of ridicule, and applies it himself most +unsparingly. When the Methodists try to convert the Hindoos, he attacks +them furiously for endangering the empire. They naturally reply that a +Christian is bound to propagate his belief. The answer, says Smith, is +short: 'It is not Christianity which is introduced (into India), but the +debased nonsense and mummery of the Methodists, which has little more to +do with the Christian religion than it has to do with the religion of +China.' The missionaries, he says, are so foolish, 'that the natives +almost instinctively duck and pelt them,' as, one cannot help +remembering, missionaries of an earlier Christian era had been ducked +and pelted. He pronounces the enterprise to be hopeless and cruel, and +clenches his argument by a statement which sounds strangely enough in +the mouth of a sincere Christian:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Let us ask (he says), if the Bible is universally diffused +in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives +to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal—we +who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few +acres about Madras over the whole peninsula and sixty +millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct +every crime of which human nature is capable? What matchless +impudence, to follow up such practice with such precepts! If +we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and +tell them that Machiavel is our prophet and the god of the +Manichæans our god.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span></p></div> + +<p>We are to make our practice consistent by giving up our virtues instead +of our vices. Of course, Smith ends his article by a phrase about 'the +slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christianity;' but the +Methodists might well feel that the 'matchless impudence' was not all on +their side, and that this Christian priest, had he lived some centuries +earlier, would have sympathised a good deal more with Gallio than with +St. Paul.</p> + +<p>It is a question which I need not here discuss how far Smith could be +justified in his ridicule of men who, with all their undeniable +absurdity, were at least zealous believers in the creed which he—as is +quite manifest—held in all sincerity. But one remark is obvious; the +Edinburgh Reviewers justify, to a certain point, the claim put forward +by Sydney Smith; they condemned many crying abuses, and condemned them +heartily. They condemned them, as thoroughly sensible men of the world, +animated partly by a really generous sentiment, partly by a tacit +scepticism as to the value of the protected interests, and above all by +the strong conviction that it was quite essential for the middle +party—that is, for the bulk of the respectable well-bred classes—to +throw overboard gross abuses which afforded so many points of attack to +thoroughgoing radicals. On the other hand, they were quite indifferent +or openly hostile to most of the new forces which stirred men's minds. +They patronised political economy because Malthus began by opposing the +revolutionary dreams of Godwin and his like. But every one of the great +impulses of the time was treated by them in an antagonistic spirit. They +savagely ridiculed Coleridge, the great seminal mind of one +philosophical school; they fiercely attacked Bentham and James Mill, the +great leaders of the antagonist school; they were equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> opposed to +the Evangelicals who revered Wilberforce, and, in later times, to the +religious party, of which Dr. Newman was the great ornament: in poetry +they clung, as long as they could, to the safe old principles +represented by Crabbe and Rogers: they, covered Wordsworth and Coleridge +with almost unmixed ridicule, ignored Shelley, and were only tender to +Byron and Scott because Scott and Byron were fashionable idols. The +truth is, that it is a mistake to suppose that the eighteenth century +ended with the year 1800. It lasted in the upper currents of opinion +till at least 1832. Sydney Smith's theology is that of Paley and the +common-sense divines of the previous period. Jeffrey's politics were but +slightly in advance of the true old Whigs, who still worshipped +according to the tradition of their fathers in Holland House. The ideal +of the party was to bring the practice of the country up to the theory +whose main outlines had been accepted in the Revolution of 1688; and +they studiously shut their eyes to any newer intellectual and social +movements.</p> + +<p>I do not say this by way of simple condemnation; for we have daily more +reason to acknowledge the immense value of calm, clear common-sense, +which sees the absurd side of even the best impulses. But it is +necessary to bear the fact in mind when estimating such claims as those +put forward by Sydney Smith. The truth seems to be that the 'Edinburgh +Review' enormously raised the tone of periodical literature at the time, +by opening an arena for perfectly independent discussion. Its great +merit, at starting, was that it was no mere publisher's organ, like its +rivals, and that it paid contributors well enough to attract the most +rising talent of the day. As the 'Review' progressed, its capacities +became more generally understood, and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> writers, as they rose to +eminence and attracted new allies, put more genuine work into articles +certain to obtain a wide circulation and to come with great authority. +This implies a long step towards the development of the present system, +whose merits and defects would deserve a full discussion—the system +according to which much of the most solid and original work of the time +first appears in periodicals. The tone of periodicals has been +enormously raised, but the effect upon general literature may be more +questionable. But the 'Edinburgh' was not in its early years a journal +with a mission, or the organ of an enthusiastic sect. Rather it was the +instrument used by a number of very clever young men to put forward the +ideas current in the more liberal section of the upper classes, with +much occasional vigour and a large infusion of common-sense, but also +with abundant flippancy and superficiality, and, in a literary sense, +without that solidity of workmanship which is essential for enduring +vitality.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Scott's letter, stating that this overture had been made by Jeffrey +under terror of the 'Quarterly,' was first published in Lockhart's 'Life +of Scott.' Jeffrey denied that he could ever have made the offer, both +because his contributors were too independent and because he had always +considered politics to be (as he remembered to have told Scott) the +'right leg' of the 'Review.' Undoubtedly, though Scott's letter was +written at the time and Jeffrey's contradiction many years afterwards, +it seems that Scott must have exaggerated. And yet in Horner's 'Memoirs' +we find a letter from Jeffrey which goes far to show that there was more +than might be supposed to confirm Scott's statement. Jeffrey begs for +Horner's assistance in the 'day of need,' caused by the Cevallos article +and the threatened 'Quarterly.' He tells Horner that he may write upon +any subject he pleases—'only no party politics, and nothing but +exemplary moderation and impartiality on all politics. I have allowed +too much mischief to be done from my mere indifference and love of +sport; but it would be inexcusable to spoil the powerful instrument we +have got hold of for the sake of teasing and playing tricks.'—Horner's +<i>Memoirs</i>, i. 439. It was on the occasion of the Cevallos article that +the Earl of Buchan solemnly kicked the 'Review' from his study into the +street—a performance which he supposed would be fatal to its +circulation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See Mill's <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 92, for an interesting account of +these articles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It would appear, from one of Jeffrey's statements, that Brougham +selfishly hung back till after the third number of the 'Review,' and its +'assured success' (Horner's <i>Memoirs</i>, i. p. 186, and Macvey Napier's +<i>Correspondence</i>, p. 422); from another, that Brougham, though anxious +to contribute, was excluded by Sydney Smith, from prudential motives. On +the other hand, Brougham in his autobiography claims (by name) seven +articles in the first number, five in the second, eight in the third, +and five in the fourth; in five of which he had a collaborator. His +hesitation, he says, ended before the appearance of the first number, +and was due to doubts as to Jeffrey's possession of sufficient editorial +power.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span></p> +<h2><i>WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS</i></h2> + + +<p>Under every poetry, it has been said, there lies a philosophy. Rather, +it may almost be said, every poetry is a philosophy. The poet and the +philosopher live in the same world and are interested in the same +truths. What is the nature of man and the world in which he lives, and +what, in consequence, should be our conduct? These are the great +problems, the answers to which may take a religious, a poetical, a +philosophical, or an artistic form. The difference is that the poet has +intuitions, while the philosopher gives demonstrations; that the thought +which in one mind is converted into emotion, is in the other resolved +into logic; and that a symbolic representation of the idea is +substituted for a direct expression. The normal relation is exhibited in +the case of the anatomist and the sculptor. The artist intuitively +recognises the most perfect form; the man of science analyses the +structural relations by which it is produced. Though the two provinces +are concentric, they are not coincident. The reasoner is interested in +many details which have no immediate significance for the man of +feeling; and the poetic insight, on the other hand, is capable of +recognising subtle harmonies and discords of which our crude instruments +of weighing and measuring are incapable of revealing the secret. But the +connection is so close that the greatest works of either kind seem to +have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> a double nature. A philosophy may, like Spinoza's, be apparelled +in the most technical and abstruse panoply of logic, and yet the total +impression may stimulate a religious sentiment as effectively as any +poetic or theosophic mysticism. Or a great imaginative work, like +Shakespeare's, may present us with the most vivid concrete symbols, and +yet suggest, as forcibly as the formal demonstrations of a +metaphysician, the idealist conviction that the visible and tangible +world is a dream-woven tissue covering infinite and inscrutable +mysteries. In each case the highest intellectual faculty manifests +itself in the vigour with which certain profound conceptions of the +world and life have been grasped and assimilated. In each case that man +is greatest who soars habitually to the highest regions and gazes most +steadily upon the widest horizons of time and space. The logical +consistency which frames all dogmas into a consistent whole, is but +another aspect of the imaginative power which harmonises the strongest +and subtlest emotions excited.</p> + +<p>The task, indeed, of deducing the philosophy from the poetry, of +inferring what a man thinks from what he feels, may at times perplex the +acutest critic. Nor, if it were satisfactorily accomplished, could we +infer that the best philosopher is also the best poet. Absolute +incapacity for poetical expression may be combined with the highest +philosophic power. All that can safely be said is that a man's thoughts, +whether embodied in symbols or worked out in syllogisms, are more +valuable in proportion as they indicate greater philosophical insight; +and therefore that, <i>ceteris paribus</i>, that man is the greater poet +whose imagination is most transfused with reason; who has the deepest +truths to proclaim as well as the strongest feelings to utter.</p> + +<p>Some theorists implicitly deny this principle by holding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> substantially +that the poet's function is simply the utterance of a particular mood, +and that, if he utters it forcibly and delicately, we have no more to +ask. Even so, we should not admit that the thoughts suggested to a wise +man by a prospect of death and eternity are of just equal value, if +equally well expressed, with the thoughts suggested to a fool by the +contemplation of a good dinner. But, in practice, the utterance of +emotions can hardly be dissociated from the assertion of principles. +Psychologists have shown, ever since the days of Berkeley, that when a +man describes (as he thinks) a mere sensation, and says, for example, 'I +see a house,' he is really recording the result of a complex logical +process. A great painter and the dullest observer may have the same +impressions of coloured blotches upon their retina. The great man infers +the true nature of the objects which produce his sensations, and can +therefore represent the objects accurately. The other sees only with his +eyes, and can therefore represent nothing. There is thus a logic implied +even in the simplest observation, and one which can be tested by +mathematical rules as distinctly as a proposition in geometry.</p> + +<p>When we have to find a language for our emotions instead of our +sensations, we generally express the result of an incomparably more +complex set of intellectual operations. The poet, in uttering his joy or +sadness, often implies, in the very form of his language, a whole +philosophy of life or of the universe. The explanation is given at the +end of Shakespeare's familiar passage about the poet's eye:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such tricks hath strong imagination,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, if it would but apprehend some joy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It comprehends some bringer of that joy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or in the night, imagining some fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How easy is a bush supposed a bear!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The <i>ap</i>prehension of the passion, as Shakespeare logically says, is a +<i>com</i>prehension of its cause. The imagination reasons. The bare faculty +of sight involves thought and feeling. The symbol which the fancy +spontaneously constructs, implies a whole world of truth or error, of +superstitious beliefs or sound philosophy. The poetry holds a number of +intellectual dogmas in solution; and it is precisely due to these +general dogmas, which are true and important for us as well as for the +poet, that his power over our sympathies is due. If his philosophy has +no power in it, his emotions lose their hold upon our minds, or interest +us only as antiquarians and lovers of the picturesque. But in the +briefest poems of a true thinker we read the essence of the life-long +reflections of a passionate and intellectual nature. Fears and hopes +common to all thoughtful men have been coined into a single phrase. Even +in cases where no definite conviction is expressed or even implied, and +the poem is simply, like music, an indefinite utterance of a certain +state of the emotions, we may discover an intellectual element. The +rational and the emotional nature have such intricate relations that one +cannot exist in great richness and force without justifying an inference +as to the other. From a single phrase, as from a single gesture, we can +often go far to divining the character of a man's thoughts and feelings. +We know more of a man from five minutes' talk than from pages of what is +called 'psychological analysis.' From a passing expression on the face, +itself the result of variations so minute as to defy all analysis, we +instinctively frame judgments as to a man's temperament and habitual +modes of thought and conduct. Indeed, such judgments, if erroneous, +determine us only too exclusively in the most important relations of +life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span></p> + +<p>Now the highest poetry is that which expresses the richest, most +powerful, and most susceptible emotional nature, and the most versatile, +penetrative, and subtle intellect. Such qualities may be stamped upon +trifling work. The great artist can express his power within the limits +of a coin or a gem. The great poet will reveal his character through a +sonnet or a song. Shakespeare, or Milton, or Burns, or Wordsworth can +express his whole mode of feeling within a few lines. An ill-balanced +nature reveals itself by a discord, as an illogical mind by a fallacy. A +man need not compose an epic on a system of philosophy to write himself +down an ass. And, inversely, a great mind and a noble nature may show +itself by impalpable but recognisable signs within the 'sonnet's scanty +plot of ground.' Once more, the highest poetry must be that which +expresses not only the richest but the healthiest nature. Disease means +an absence or a want of balance of certain faculties, and therefore +leads to false reasoning or emotional discord. The defect of character +betrays itself in some erroneous mode of thought or baseness of +sentiment. And since morality means obedience to those rules which are +most essential to the spiritual health, vicious feeling indicates some +morbid tendency, and is so far destructive of the poetical faculty. An +immoral sentiment is the sign either of a false judgment of the world +and of human nature, or of a defect in the emotional nature which shows +itself by a discord or an indecorum, and leads to a cynicism or +indecency which offends the reason through the taste. What is called +immorality does not indeed always imply such defects. Sound moral +intuitions may be opposed to the narrow code prevalent at the time; or a +protest against puritanical or ascetic perversions of the standard may +hurry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> the poet into attacks upon true principles. And, again, the keen +sensibility which makes a man a poet, undoubtedly exposes him to certain +types of disease. He is more likely than his thick-skinned neighbour to +be vexed by evil, and to be drawn into distorted views of life by an +excess of sympathy or indignation. Injudicious admirers prize the +disease instead of the strength from which it springs; and value the +cynicism or the despair instead of the contempt for heartless +commonplace or the desire for better things with which it was +unfortunately connected. A strong moral sentiment has a great value, +even when forced into an unnatural alliance. Nay, even when it is, so to +speak, inverted, it often receives a kind of paradoxical value from its +efficacy against some opposite form of error. It is only a complete +absence of the moral faculty which is irredeemably bad. The poet in whom +it does not exist is condemned to the lower sphere, and can only deal +with the deepest feelings on penalty of shocking us by indecency or +profanity. A man who can revel in 'Epicurus' stye' without even the +indirect homage to purity of remorse and bitterness, can do nothing but +gratify our lowest passions. They, perhaps, have their place, and the +man who is content with such utterances may not be utterly worthless. +But to place him on a level with his betters is to confound every sound +principle of criticism.</p> + +<p>It follows that a kind of collateral test of poetical excellence may be +found by extracting the philosophy from the poetry. The test is, of +course, inadequate. A good philosopher may be an execrable poet. Even +stupidity is happily not inconsistent with sound doctrine, though +inconsistent with a firm grasp of ultimate principles. But the vigour +with which a man grasps and assimilates a deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> moral doctrine is a test +of the degree in which he possesses one essential condition of the +higher poetical excellence. A continuous illustration of this principle +is given in the poetry of Wordsworth, who, indeed, has expounded his +ethical and philosophical views so explicitly, one would rather not say +so ostentatiously, that great part of the work is done to our hands. +Nowhere is it easier to observe the mode in which poetry and philosophy +spring from the same root and owe their excellence to the same +intellectual powers. So much has been said by the ablest critics of the +purely poetical side of Wordsworth's genius, that I may willingly +renounce the difficult task of adding or repeating. I gladly take for +granted—what is generally acknowledged—that Wordsworth in his best +moods reaches a greater height than any other modern Englishman. The +word 'inspiration' is less forced when applied to his loftiest poetry +than when used of any of his contemporaries. With defects too obvious to +be mentioned, he can yet pierce furthest behind the veil; and embody +most efficiently the thoughts and emotions which come to us in our most +solemn and reflective moods. Other poetry becomes trifling when we are +making our inevitable passages through the Valley of the Shadow of +Death. Wordsworth's alone retains its power. We love him the more as we +grow older and become more deeply impressed with the sadness and +seriousness of life; we are apt to grow weary of his rivals when we have +finally quitted the regions of youthful enchantment. And I take the +explanation to be that he is not merely a melodious writer, or a +powerful utterer of deep emotion, but a true philosopher. His poetry +wears well because it has solid substance. He is a prophet and a +moralist, as well as a mere singer. His ethical system, in par<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>ticular, +is as distinctive and capable of systematic exposition as that of +Butler. By endeavouring to state it in plain prose, we shall see how the +poetical power implies a sensitiveness to ideas which, when extracted +from the symbolical embodiment, fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought.</p> + +<p>There are two opposite types to which all moral systems tend. They +correspond to the two great intellectual families to which every man +belongs by right of birth. One class of minds is distinguished by its +firm grasp of facts, by its reluctance to drop solid substance for the +loveliest shadows, and by its preference of concrete truths to the most +symmetrical of theories. In ethical questions the tendency of such minds +is to consider man as a being impelled by strong but unreasonable +passions towards tangible objects. He is a loving, hating, thirsting, +hungering—anything but a reasoning—being. As Swift—a typical example +of this intellectual temperament—declared, man is not an <i>animal +rationale</i>, but at most <i>capax rationis</i>. At bottom, he is a machine +worked by blind instincts. Their tendency cannot be deduced by <i>à +priori</i> reasoning, though reason may calculate the consequences of +indulging them. The passions are equally good, so far as equally +pleasurable. Virtue means that course of conduct which secures the +maximum of pleasure. Fine theories about abstract rights and +correspondence to eternal truths are so many words. They provide decent +masks for our passions; they do not really govern them, or alter their +nature, but they cover the ugly brutal selfishness of mankind, and +soften the shock of conflicting interests. Such a view has something in +it congenial to the English love of reality and contempt for shams. It +may be represented by Swift or Mandeville in the last century; in poetry +it corresponds to the theory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> attributed by some critics to Shakespeare; +in a tranquil and reasoning mind it leads to the utilitarianism of +Bentham; in a proud, passionate, and imaginative mind it manifests +itself in such a poem as 'Don Juan.' Its strength is in its grasp of +fact; its weakness, in its tendency to cynicism. Opposed to this is the +school which starts from abstract reason. It prefers to dwell in the +ideal world, where principles may be contemplated apart from the +accidents which render them obscure to vulgar minds. It seeks to deduce +the moral code from eternal truths without seeking for a groundwork in +the facts of experience. If facts refuse to conform to theories, it +proposes that facts should be summarily abolished. Though the actual +human being is, unfortunately, not always reasonable, it holds that pure +reason must be in the long run the dominant force, and that it reveals +the laws to which mankind will ultimately conform. The revolutionary +doctrine of the 'rights of man' expressed one form of this doctrine, and +showed in the most striking way a strength and weakness, which are the +converse of those exhibited by its antagonist. It was strong as +appealing to the loftier motives of justice and sympathy; and weak as +defying the appeal to experience. The most striking example in English +literature is in Godwin's 'Political Justice.' The existing social order +is to be calmly abolished because founded upon blind prejudice; the +constituent atoms called men are to be rearranged in an ideal order as +in a mathematical diagram. Shelley gives the translation of this theory +into poetry. The 'Revolt of Islam' or the 'Prometheus Unbound,' with all +its unearthly beauty, wearies the imagination which tries to soar into +the thin air of Shelley's dreamworld; just as the intellect, trying to +apply the abstract formulæ of political<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> metaphysics to any concrete +problem, feels as though it were under an exhausted receiver. In both +cases we seem to have got entirely out of the region of real human +passions and senses into a world, beautiful perhaps, but certainly +impalpable.</p> + +<p>The great aim of moral philosophy is to unite the disjoined element, to +end the divorce between reason and experience, and to escape from the +alternative of dealing with empty but symmetrical formulæ or concrete +and chaotic facts. No hint can be given here as to the direction in +which a final solution must be sought. Whatever the true method, +Wordsworth's mode of conceiving the problem shows how powerfully he +grasped the questions at issue. If his doctrines are not systematically +expounded, they all have a direct bearing upon the real difficulties +involved. They are stated so forcibly in his noblest poems that we might +almost express a complete theory in his own language. But, without +seeking to make a collection of aphorisms from his poetry, we may +indicate the cardinal points of his teaching.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>The most characteristic of all his doctrines is that which is embodied +in the great ode upon the 'Intimations of Immortality.' The doctrine +itself—the theory that the instincts of childhood testify to the +pre-existence of the soul—sounds fanciful enough; and Wordsworth took +rather unnecessary pains to say that he did not hold it as a serious +dogma. We certainly need not ask whether it is reasonable or orthodox to +believe that 'our birth is but a sleep and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> forgetting.' The fact +symbolised by the poetic fancy—the glory and freshness of our childish +instincts—is equally noteworthy, whatever its cause. Some modern +reasoners would explain its significance by reference to a very +different kind of pre-existence. The instincts, they would say, are +valuable, because they register the accumulated and inherited experience +of past generations. Wordsworth's delight in wild scenery is regarded by +them as due to the 'combination of states that were organised in the +race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were +amongst the mountains, woods, and waters.' In childhood we are most +completely under the dominion of these inherited impulses. The +correlation between the organism and its medium is then most perfect, +and hence the peculiar theme of childish communion with nature.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth would have repudiated the doctrine with disgust. He would +have been 'on the side of the angels.' No memories of the savage and the +monkey, but the reminiscences of the once-glorious soul could explain +his emotions. Yet there is this much in common between him and the men +of science whom he denounced with too little discrimination. The fact of +the value of these primitive instincts is admitted, and admitted for the +same purpose. Man, it is agreed, is furnished with sentiments which +cannot be explained as the result of his individual experience. They may +be intelligible, according to the evolutionist, when regarded as +embodying the past experience of the race; or, according to Wordsworth, +as implying a certain mysterious faculty imprinted upon the soul. The +scientific doctrine, whether sound or not, has modified the whole mode +of approaching ethical problems; and Wordsworth, though with a very +different purpose, gives a new emphasis to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span> facts, upon a +recognition of which, according to some theorists, must be based the +reconciliation of the great rival schools—the intuitionists and the +utilitarians. The parallel may at first sight seem fanciful; and it +would be too daring to claim for Wordsworth the discovery of the most +remarkable phenomenon which modern psychology must take into account. +There is, however, a real connection between the two doctrines, though +in one sense they are almost antithetical. Meanwhile we observe that the +same sensibility which gives poetical power is necessary to the +scientific observer. The magic of the ode, and of many other passages in +Wordsworth's poetry, is due to his recognition of this mysterious +efficacy of our childish instincts. He gives emphasis to one of the most +striking facts of our spiritual experience, which had passed with little +notice from professed psychologists. He feels what they afterwards tried +to explain.</p> + +<p>The full meaning of the doctrine comes out as we study Wordsworth more +thoroughly. Other poets—almost all poets—have dwelt fondly upon +recollections of childhood. But not feeling so strongly, and therefore +not expressing so forcibly, the peculiar character of the emotion, they +have not derived the same lessons from their observation. The Epicurean +poets are content with Herrick's simple moral—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gather ye rosebuds while ye may—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and with his simple explanation—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That age is best which is the first,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When youth and blood are warmer.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Others more thoughtful look back upon the early days with the passionate +regret of Byron's verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such painful longings for the 'tender grace of a day that is dead' are +spontaneous and natural. Every healthy mind feels the pang in proportion +to the strength of its affections. But it is also true that the regret +resembles too often the maudlin meditation of a fast young man over his +morning's soda-water. It implies, that is, a non-recognition of the +higher uses to which the fading memories may still be put. A different +tone breathes in Shelley's pathetic but rather hectic moralisings, and +his lamentations over the departure of the 'spirit of delight.' Nowhere +has it found more exquisite expression than in the marvellous 'Ode to +the West Wind.' These magical verses—his best, as it seems to +me—describe the reflection of the poet's own mind in the strange stir +and commotion of a dying winter's day. They represent, we may say, the +fitful melancholy which oppresses a noble spirit when it has recognised +the difficulty of forcing facts into conformity with the ideal. He still +clings to the hope that his 'dead thoughts' may be driven over the +universe,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But he bows before the inexorable fate which has cramped his energies:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A heavy weight of years has chained and bowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One too like thee; tameless and swift and proud.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Neither Byron nor Shelley can see any satisfactory solution, and +therefore neither can reach a perfect harmony of feeling. The world +seems to them to be out of joint, because they have not known how to +accept the inevitable, nor to conform to the discipline of facts. And, +therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> however intense the emotion, and however exquisite its +expression, we are left in a state of intellectual and emotional +discontent. Such utterances may suit us in youth, when we can afford to +play with sorrow. As we grow older we feel a certain emptiness in them. +A true man ought not to sit down and weep with an exhausted debauchee. +He cannot afford to confess himself beaten with the idealist who has +discovered that Rome was not built in a day, nor revolutions made with +rose-water. He has to work as long as he has strength; to work in spite +of, even by strength of, sorrow, disappointment, wounded vanity, and +blunted sensibilities; and therefore he must search for some profounder +solution for the dark riddle of life.</p> + +<p>This solution it is Wordsworth's chief aim to supply. In the familiar +verses which stand as a motto to his poems—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The child is father to the man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I could wish my days to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound each to each by natural piety—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the great problem of life, that is, as he conceives it, is to secure a +continuity between the period at which we are guided by half-conscious +instincts, and that in which a man is able to supply the place of these +primitive impulses by reasoned convictions. This is the thought which +comes over and over again in his deepest poems, and round which all his +teaching centred. It supplies the great moral, for example, of the +'Leech-gatherer:'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As if life's business were a summer mood:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if all needful things would come unsought<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To genial faith still rich in genial good.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When his faith is tried by harsh experience, the leech-gatherer comes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like a man from some far region sent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To give me human strength by apt admonishment;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>for he shows how the 'genial faith' may be converted into permanent +strength by resolution and independence. The verses most commonly +quoted, such as—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We poets in our youth begin in gladness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thereof come in the end despondency and sadness,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>give the ordinary view of the sickly school. Wordsworth's aim is to +supply an answer worthy not only of a poet, but a man. The same +sentiment again is expressed in the grand 'Ode to Duty,' where the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stern daughter of the voice of God<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is invoked to supply that 'genial sense of youth' which has hitherto +been a sufficient guidance; or in the majestic morality of the 'Happy +Warrior;' or in the noble verses on 'Tintern Abbey;' or, finally, in the +great ode which gives most completely the whole theory of that process +by which our early intuitions are to be transformed into settled +principles of feeling and action.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth's philosophical theory, in short, depends upon the asserted +identity between our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The +doctrine of a state of pre-existence, as it appears in other +writers—as, for example, in the Cambridge Platonists<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>—was connected +with an obsolete metaphysical system, and the doctrine—exploded in its +old form—of innate ideas. Wordsworth does not attribute any such +preternatural character to the 'blank misgivings' and 'shadowy +recollections' of which he speaks. They are invaluable data of our +spiritual experience; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> they do not entitle us to lay down dogmatic +propositions independently of experience. They are spontaneous products +of a nature in harmony with the universe in which it is placed, and +inestimable as a clear indication that such a harmony exists. To +interpret and regulate them belongs to the reasoning faculty and the +higher imagination of later years. If he does not quite distinguish +between the province of reason and emotion—the most difficult of +philosophical problems—he keeps clear of the cruder mysticism, because +he does not seek to elicit any definite formulæ from those admittedly +vague forebodings which lie on the border-land between the two sides of +our nature. With his invariable sanity of mind, he more than once +notices the difficulty of distinguishing between that which nature +teaches us and the interpretations which we impose upon nature.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> He +carefully refrains from pressing the inference too far.</p> + +<p>The teaching, indeed, assumes that view of the universe which is implied +in his pantheistic language. The Divinity really reveals Himself in the +lonely mountains and the starry heavens. By contemplating them we are +able to rise into that 'blessed mood' in which for a time the burden of +the mystery is rolled off our souls, and we can 'see into the life of +things.' And here we must admit that Wordsworth is not entirely free +from the weakness which generally besets thinkers of this tendency. Like +Shaftesbury in the previous century, who speaks of the universal harmony +as emphatically though not as poetically as Wordsworth, he is tempted to +adopt a too facile optimism. He seems at times to have overlooked that +dark side of nature which is recognised in theological doctrines of +corruption, or in the scientific<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> theories about the fierce struggle for +existence. Can we in fact say that these early instincts prove more than +the happy constitution of the individual who feels them? Is there not a +teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a +complacent brooding over soothing thoughts? Do not the mountains which +Wordsworth loved so well, speak of decay and catastrophe in every line +of their slopes? Do they not suggest the helplessness and narrow +limitations of man, as forcibly as his possible exaltation? The awe +which they strike into our souls has its terrible as well as its amiable +side; and in moods of depression the darker aspect becomes more +conspicuous than the brighter. Nay, if we admit that we have instincts +which are the very substance of all that afterwards becomes ennobling, +have we not also instincts which suggest a close alliance with the +brutes? If the child amidst his newborn blisses suggests a heavenly +origin, does he not also show sensual and cruel instincts which imply at +least an admixture of baser elements? If man is responsive to all +natural influences, how is he to distinguish between the good and the +bad, and, in short, to frame a conscience out of the vague instincts +which contain the germs of all the possible developments of the future?</p> + +<p>To say that Wordsworth has not given a complete answer to such +difficulties, is to say that he has not explained the origin of evil. It +may be admitted, however, that he does to a certain extent show a +narrowness of conception. The voice of nature, as he says, resembles an +echo; but we 'unthinking creatures' listen to 'voices of two different +natures.' We do not always distinguish between the echo of our lower +passions and the 'echoes from beyond the grave.' Wordsworth sometimes +fails to recognise the ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The +'blessed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the world, is too +easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it. +He finds lonely meditation so inspiring that he is too indifferent to +the troubles of less self-sufficing or clear-sighted human beings. The +ambiguity makes itself felt in the sphere of morality. The ethical +doctrine that virtue consists in conformity to nature becomes ambiguous +with him, as with all its advocates, when we ask for a precise +definition of nature. How are we to know which natural forces make for +us and which fight against us?</p> + +<p>The doctrine of the love of nature, generally regarded as Wordsworth's +great lesson to mankind, means, as interpreted by himself and others, a +love of the wilder and grander objects of natural scenery; a passion for +the 'sounding cataract,' the rock, the mountain, and the forest; a +preference, therefore, of the country to the town, and of the simpler to +the more complex forms of social life. But what is the true value of +this sentiment? The unfortunate Solitary in the 'Excursion' is beset by +three Wordsworths; for the Wanderer and the Pastor are little more (as +Wordsworth indeed intimates) than reflections of himself, seen in +different mirrors. The Solitary represents the anti-social lessons to be +derived from communion with nature. He has become a misanthrope, and has +learnt from 'Candide' the lesson that we clearly do not live in the best +of all possible worlds. Instead of learning the true lesson from nature +by penetrating its deeper meanings, he manages to feed</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pity and scorn and melancholy pride<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>by accidental and fanciful analogies, and sees in rock pyramids or +obelisks a rude mockery of human toils. To confute this sentiment, to +upset 'Candide,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This dull product of a scoffer's pen,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is the purpose of the lofty poetry and versified prose of the long +dialogues which ensue. That Wordsworth should call Voltaire dull is a +curious example of the proverbial blindness of controversialists; but +the moral may be equally good. It is given most pithily in the lines—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We live by admiration, hope, and love;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even as these are well and wisely fused,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dignity of being we ascend.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>'But what is Error?' continues the preacher; and the Solitary replies by +saying, 'somewhat haughtily,' that love, admiration, and hope are 'mad +fancy's favourite vassals.' The distinction between fancy and +imagination is, in brief, that fancy deals with the superficial +resemblances, and imagination with the deeper truths which underlie +them. The purpose, then, of the 'Excursion,' and of Wordsworth's poetry +in general, is to show how the higher faculty reveals a harmony which we +overlook when, with the Solitary, we</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Skim along the surfaces of things.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The rightly prepared mind can recognise the divine harmony which +underlies all apparent disorder. The universe is to its perceptions like +the shell whose murmur in a child's ear seems to express a mysterious +union with the sea. But the mind must be rightly prepared. Everything +depends upon the point of view. One man, as he says in an elaborate +figure, looking upon a series of ridges in spring from their northern +side, sees a waste of snow, and from the south a continuous expanse of +green. That view, we must take it, is the right one which is illuminated +by the 'ray divine.' But we must train our eyes to recognise its +splendour; and the final answer to the Solitary is there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>fore embodied +in a series of narratives, showing by example how our spiritual vision +may be purified or obscured. Our philosophy must be finally based, not +upon abstract speculation and metaphysical arguments, but on the +diffused consciousness of the healthy mind. As Butler sees the universe +by the light of conscience, Wordsworth sees it through the wider +emotions of awe, reverence, and love, produced in a sound nature.</p> + +<p>The pantheistic conception, in short, leads to an unsatisfactory +optimism in the general view of nature, and to an equal tolerance of all +passions as equally 'natural.' To escape from this difficulty we must +establish some more discriminative mode of interpreting nature. Man is +the instrument played upon by all impulses, good or bad. The music which +results may be harmonious or discordant. When the instrument is in tune, +the music will be perfect; but when is it in tune, and how are we to +know that it is in tune? That problem once solved, we can tell which are +the authentic utterances and which are the accidental discords. And by +solving it, or by saying what is the right constitution of human beings, +we shall discover which is the true philosophy of the universe, and what +are the dictates of a sound moral sense. Wordsworth implicitly answers +the question by explaining, in his favourite phrase, how we are to build +up our moral being.</p> + +<p>The voice of nature speaks at first in vague emotions, scarcely +distinguishable from mere animal buoyancy. The boy, hooting in mimicry +of the owls, receives in his heart the voice of mountain torrents and +the solemn imagery of rocks, and woods, and stars. The sportive girl is +unconsciously moulded into stateliness and grace by the floating clouds, +the bending willow, and even by silent sympathy with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> motions of the +storm. Nobody has ever shown, with such exquisite power as Wordsworth, +how much of the charm of natural objects in later life is due to early +associations, thus formed in a mind not yet capable of contemplating its +own processes. As old Matthew says in the lines which, however familiar, +can never be read without emotion—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My eyes are dim with childish tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My heart is idly stirred;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the same sound is in my ears<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Which in those days I heard.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And the strangely beautiful address to the cuckoo might be made into a +text for a prolonged commentary by an æsthetic philosopher upon the +power of early association. It curiously illustrates, for example, the +reason of Wordsworth's delight in recalling sounds. The croak of the +distant raven, the bleat of the mountain lamb, the splash of the leaping +fish in the lonely tarn, are specially delightful to him, because the +hearing is the most spiritual of our senses; and these sounds, like the +cuckoo's cry, seem to convert the earth into an 'unsubstantial fairy +place.' The phrase 'association' indeed implies a certain arbitrariness +in the images suggested, which is not quite in accordance with +Wordsworth's feeling. Though the echo depends partly upon the hearer, +the mountain voices are specially adapted for certain moods. They have, +we may say, a spontaneous affinity for the nobler affections. If some +early passage in our childhood is associated with a particular spot, a +house or a street will bring back the petty and accidental details: a +mountain or a lake will revive the deeper and more permanent elements of +feeling. If you have made love in a palace, according to Mr. Disraeli's +prescription, the sight of it will recall the splendour of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span> object's +dress or jewellery; if, as Wordsworth would prefer, with a background of +mountains, it will appear in later days as if they had absorbed, and +were always ready again to radiate forth, the tender and hallowing +influences which then for the first time entered your life. The +elementary and deepest passions are most easily associated with the +sublime and beautiful in nature.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The primal duties shine aloft like stars;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And, therefore, if you have been happy enough to take delight in these +natural and universal objects in the early days, when the most permanent +associations are formed, the sight of them in later days will bring back +by pre-ordained and divine symbolism whatever was most ennobling in your +early feelings. The vulgarising associations will drop off of +themselves, and what was pure and lofty will remain.</p> + +<p>From this natural law follows another of Wordsworth's favourite +precepts. The mountains are not with him a symbol of anti-social +feelings. On the contrary, they are in their proper place as the +background of the simple domestic affections. He loves his native hills, +not in the Byronic fashion, as a savage wilderness, but as the +appropriate framework in which a healthy social order can permanently +maintain itself. That, for example, is, as he tells us, the thought +which inspired the 'Brothers,' a poem which excels all modern idylls in +weight of meaning and depth of feeling, by virtue of the idea thus +embodied. The retired valley of Ennerdale, with its grand background of +hills, precipitous enough to be fairly called mountains, forces the two +lads into closer affection. Shut in by these 'enormous barriers,' and +undistracted by the ebb and flow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> of the outside world, the mutual love +becomes concentrated. A tie like that of family blood is involuntarily +imposed upon the little community of dalesmen. The image of sheep-tracks +and shepherds clad in country grey is stamped upon the elder brother's +mind, and comes back to him in tropical calms; he hears the tones of his +waterfalls in the piping shrouds; and when he returns, recognises every +fresh scar made by winter storms on the mountain sides, and knows by +sight every unmarked grave in the little churchyard. The fraternal +affection sanctifies the scenery, and the sight of the scenery brings +back the affection with overpowering force upon his return. This is +everywhere the sentiment inspired in Wordsworth by his beloved hills. It +is not so much the love of nature pure and simple, as of nature seen +through the deepest human feelings. The light glimmering in a lonely +cottage, the one rude house in the deep valley, with its 'small lot of +life-supporting fields and guardian rocks,' are necessary to point the +moral and to draw to a definite focus the various forces of sentiment. +The two veins of feeling are inseparably blended. The peasant noble, in +the 'Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,' learns equally from men and +nature:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">His daily teachers had been woods and hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The silence that is in the starry skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The sleep that is among the lonely hills.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Without the love, the silence and the sleep would have had no spiritual +meaning. They are valuable as giving intensity and solemnity to the +positive emotion.</p> + +<p>The same remark is to be made upon Wordsworth's favourite teaching of +the advantages of the contemplative life. He is fond of enforcing the +doctrine of the familiar lines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> that we can feed our minds 'in a wise +passiveness,' and that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One impulse from the vernal wood<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Can teach you more of man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of moral evil and of good,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Than all the sages can.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And, according to some commentators, this would seem to express the +doctrine that the ultimate end of life is the cultivation of tender +emotions without reference to action. The doctrine, thus absolutely +stated, would be immoral and illogical. To recommend contemplation in +preference to action is like preferring sleeping to waking; or saying, +as a full expression of the truth, that silence is golden and speech +silvern. Like that familiar phrase, Wordsworth's teaching is not to be +interpreted literally. The essence of such maxims is to be one-sided. +They are paradoxical in order to be emphatic. To have seasons of +contemplation, of withdrawal from the world and from books, of calm +surrendering of ourselves to the influences of nature, is a practice +commended in one form or other by all moral teachers. It is a sanitary +rule, resting upon obvious principles. The mind which is always occupied +in a multiplicity of small observations, or the regulation of practical +details, loses the power of seeing general principles and of associating +all objects with the central emotions of 'admiration, hope, and love.' +The philosophic mind is that which habitually sees the general in the +particular, and finds food for the deepest thought in the simplest +objects. It requires, therefore, periods of repose, in which the +fragmentary and complex atoms of distracted feeling which make up the +incessant whirl of daily life may have time to crystallise round the +central thoughts. But it must feed in order to assimilate; and each +process implies the other as its correlative. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> constant interest, +therefore, in the joys and sorrows of our neighbours is as essential as +quiet, self-centred rumination. It is when the eye 'has kept watch o'er +man's mortality,' and by virtue of the tender sympathies of 'the human +heart by which we live,' that to us</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The meanest flower which blows can give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The solitude which implies severance from natural sympathies and +affections is poisonous. The happiness of the heart which lives alone,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Housed in a dream, an outcast from the kind,<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Wordsworth's meditations upon flowers or animal life are impressive +because they have been touched by this constant sympathy. The sermon is +always in his mind, and therefore every stone may serve for a text. His +contemplation enables him to see the pathetic side of the small pains +and pleasures which we are generally in too great a hurry to notice. +There are times, of course, when this moralising tendency leads him to +the regions of the namby-pamby or sheer prosaic platitude. On the other +hand, no one approaches him in the power of touching some rich chord of +feeling by help of the pettiest incident. The old man going to the +fox-hunt with a tear on his cheek, and saying to himself,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The key I must take, for my Helen is dead;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or the mother carrying home her dead sailor's bird; the village +schoolmaster, in whom a rift in the clouds revives the memory of his +little daughter; the old huntsman unable to cut through the stump of +rotten wood—touch our hearts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> at once and for ever. The secret is given +in the rather prosaic apology for not relating a tale about poor Simon +Lee:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O reader! had you in your mind<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Such stores as silent thought can bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O gentle reader! you would find<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A tale in everything.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The value of silent thought is so to cultivate the primitive emotions +that they may flow spontaneously upon every common incident, and that +every familiar object becomes symbolic of them. It is a familiar remark +that a philosopher or man of science who has devoted himself to +meditation upon some principle or law of nature, is always finding new +illustrations in the most unexpected quarters. He cannot take up a novel +or walk across the street without hitting upon appropriate instances. +Wordsworth would apply the principle to the building up of our 'moral +being.' Admiration, hope, and love should be so constantly in our +thoughts, that innumerable sights and sounds which are meaningless to +the world should become to us a language incessantly suggestive of the +deepest topics of thought.</p> + +<p>This explains his dislike to science, as he understood the word, and his +denunciations of the 'world.' The man of science is one who cuts up +nature into fragments, and not only neglects their possible significance +for our higher feelings, but refrains on principle from taking it into +account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification, +and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance +as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead +and spiritless,' we are thus really waging</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An impious warfare with the very life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of our own souls.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We are putting the letter in place of the spirit, and dealing with +nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem. When we have learnt to +associate every object with some lesson</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of human suffering or of human joy;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>when we have thus obtained the 'glorious habit,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">By which sense is made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Subservient still to moral purposes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Auxiliar to divine;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the 'dull eye' of science will light up; for, in observing natural +processes, it will carry with it an incessant reference to the spiritual +processes to which they are allied. Science, in short, requires to be +brought into intimate connection with morality and religion. If we are +forced for our immediate purpose to pursue truth for itself, regardless +of consequences, we must remember all the more carefully that truth is a +whole, and that fragmentary bits of knowledge become valuable as they +are incorporated into a general system. The tendency of modern times to +specialism brings with it a characteristic danger. It requires to be +supplemented by a correlative process of integration. We must study +details to increase our knowledge; we must accustom ourselves to look at +the detail in the light of the general principles in order to make it +fruitful.</p> + +<p>The influence of that world which 'is too much with us late and soon' is +of the same kind. The man of science loves barren facts for their own +sake. The man of the world becomes devoted to some petty pursuit without +reference to ultimate ends. He becomes a slave to money, or power, or +praise, without caring for their effect upon his moral character. As +social organisation becomes more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> complete, the social unit becomes a +mere fragment instead of being a complete whole in himself. Man becomes</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The senseless member of a vast machine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The division of labour, celebrated with such enthusiasm by Adam +Smith,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> tends to crush all real life out of its victims. The soul of +the political economist may rejoice when he sees a human being devoting +his whole faculties to the performance of one subsidiary operation in +the manufacture of a pin. The poet and the moralist must notice with +anxiety the contrast between the old-fashioned peasant who, if he +discharged each particular function clumsily, discharged at least many +functions, and found exercise for all the intellectual and moral +faculties of his nature, and the modern artisan doomed to the incessant +repetition of one petty set of muscular expansions and contractions, and +whose soul, if he has one, is therefore rather an encumbrance than +otherwise. This is the evil which is constantly before Wordsworth's +eyes, as it has certainly not become less prominent since his time. The +danger of crushing the individual is a serious one according to his +view; not because it implies the neglect of some abstract political +rights, but from the impoverishment of character which is implied in the +process. Give every man a vote, and abolish all interference with each +man's private tastes, and the danger may still be as great as ever. The +tendency to 'differentiation'—as we call it in modern phraseology—the +social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's +sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon +processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span>fore, be +cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, or by the negative remedy +of removing old barriers. It requires to be met by profounder moral and +religious teaching. Men must be taught what is the really valuable part +of their natures, and what is the purest happiness to be extracted from +life, as well as allowed to gratify fully their own tastes; for who can +say that men encouraged by all their surroundings and appeals to the +most obvious motives to turn themselves into machines, will not +deliberately choose to be machines? Many powerful thinkers have +illustrated Wordsworth's doctrine more elaborately, but nobody has gone +more decisively to the root of the matter.</p> + +<p>One other side of Wordsworth's teaching is still more significant and +original. Our vague instincts are consolidated into reason by +meditation, sympathy with our fellows, communion with nature, and a +constant devotion to 'high endeavours.' If life run smoothly, the +transformation may be easy, and our primitive optimism turn +imperceptibly into general complacency. The trial comes when we make +personal acquaintance with sorrow, and our early buoyancy begins to +fail. We are tempted to become querulous or to lap ourselves in +indifference. Most poets are content to bewail our lot melodiously, and +admit that there is no remedy unless a remedy be found in 'the luxury of +grief.' Prosaic people become selfish, though not sentimental. They +laugh at their old illusions, and turn to the solid consolations of +comfort. Nothing is more melancholy than to study many biographies, and +note—not the failure of early promise, which may mean merely an aiming +above the mark—but the progressive deterioration of character which so +often follows grief and disappointment. If it be not true that most men +grow worse as they grow old, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> surely true that few men pass +through the world without being corrupted as much as purified.</p> + +<p>Now Wordsworth's favourite lesson is the possibility of turning grief +and disappointment into account. He teaches in many forms the necessity +of 'transmuting' sorrow into strength. One of the great evils is a lack +of power,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An agonising sorrow to transmute.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Happy Warrior is, above all, the man who in face of all human +miseries can</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Exercise a power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which is our human nature's highest dower;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their bad influence, and their good receives;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who is made more compassionate by familiarity with sorrow, more placable +by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It +is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to +the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who +will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an +impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we +may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an +intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far +at least as this world is concerned, can really be called consolatory. +None of the ordinary commonplaces will serve, or serve at most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> as +indications of human sympathy. But there is some consolation in the +thought that even death may bind the survivors closer, and leave as a +legacy enduring motives to noble action. It is easy to say this; but +Wordsworth has the merit of feeling the truth in all its force, and +expressing it by the most forcible images. In one shape or another the +sentiment is embodied in most of his really powerful poetry. It is +intended, for example, to be the moral of the 'White Doe of Rylstone.' +There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is +external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral +and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it +grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem. +Emily, the heroine, is to become a soul</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By force of sorrows high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uplifted to the purest sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of undisturbed serenity.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The 'White Doe' is one of those poems which make many readers inclined +to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's dogged insensibility; and I +confess that I am not one of its warm admirers. The sentiment seems to +be unduly relaxed throughout; there is a want of sympathy with heroism +of the rough and active type, which is, after all, at least as worthy of +admiration as the more passive variety of the virtue; and the defect is +made more palpable by the position of the chief actors. These rough +borderers, who recall William of Deloraine and Dandie Dinmont, are +somehow out of their element when preaching the doctrines of quietism +and submission to circumstances. But, whatever our judgment of this +particular embodiment of Wordsworth's moral philosophy, the inculcation +of the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> lesson gives force to many of his finest poems. It is +enough to mention the 'Leech-gatherer,' the 'Stanzas on Peele Castle,' +'Michael,' and, as expressing the inverse view of the futility of idle +grief, 'Laodamia,' where he has succeeded in combining his morality with +more than his ordinary beauty of poetical form. The teaching of all +these poems falls in with the doctrine already set forth. All moral +teaching, I have sometimes fancied, might be summed up in the one +formula, 'Waste not.' Every element of which our nature is composed may +be said to be good in its proper place; and therefore every vicious +habit springs out of the misapplication of forces which might be turned +to account by judicious training. The waste of sorrow is one of the most +lamentable forms of waste. Sorrow too often tends to produce bitterness +or effeminacy of character. But it may, if rightly used, serve only to +detach us from the lower motives, and give sanctity to the higher. That +is what Wordsworth sees with unequalled clearness, and he therefore sees +also the condition of profiting. The mind in which the most valuable +elements have been systematically strengthened by meditation, by +association of deep thought with the most universal presences, by +constant sympathy with the joys and sorrows of its fellows, will be +prepared to convert sorrow into a medicine instead of a poison. Sorrow +is deteriorating so far as it is selfish. The man who is occupied with +his own interests makes grief an excuse for effeminate indulgence in +self-pity. He becomes weaker and more fretful. The man who has learnt +habitually to think of himself as part of a greater whole, whose conduct +has been habitually directed to noble ends, is purified and strengthened +by the spiritual convulsion. His disappointment, or his loss of some +beloved object, makes him more anxious to fix the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> bases of his +happiness widely and deeply, and to be content with the consciousness of +honest work, instead of looking for what is called success.</p> + +<p>But I must not take to preaching in the place of Wordsworth. The whole +theory is most nobly summed up in the grand lines already noticed on the +character of the Happy Warrior. There Wordsworth has explained in the +most forcible and direct language the mode in which a grand character +can be formed; how youthful impulses may change into manly purpose; how +pain and sorrow may be transmuted into new forces; how the mind may be +fixed upon lofty purposes; how the domestic affections—which give the +truest happiness—may also be the greatest source of strength to the man +who is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">More brave for this, that he has much to lose;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and how, finally, he becomes indifferent to all petty ambition—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This is the Happy Warrior, this is he<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whom every man in arms should wish to be.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We may now see what ethical theory underlies Wordsworth's teaching of +the transformation of instinct into reason. We must start from the +postulate that there is in fact a Divine order in the universe; and that +conformity to this order produces beauty as embodied in the external +world, and is the condition of virtue as regulating our character. It is +by obedience to the 'stern lawgiver,' Duty, that flowers gain their +fragrance, and that 'the most ancient heavens' preserve their freshness +and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in +abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and +emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not +a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are +not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering +their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been +implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds +to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to +experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the +assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it, +though we could not deduce it by an <i>à priori</i> method.</p> + +<p>The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and +may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern +teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy +natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great +primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume. +Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and +endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the +primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights +of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;' +and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for +furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite +treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early +happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief +produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on +petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and +pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> the +noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its +instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature, +and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know +how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised +are the laws of morality.</p> + +<p>To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode +of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You +must love him,' as he says of the poet,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Ere to you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He will seem worthy of your love.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The doctrine corresponds to the <i>crede ut intelligas</i> of the divine; or +to the philosophic theory that we must start from the knowledge already +constructed within us by instincts which have not yet learnt to reason. +And, finally, if a persistent reasoner should ask why—even admitting +the facts—the higher type should be preferred to the lower, Wordsworth +may ask, Why is bodily health preferable to disease? If a man likes weak +lungs and a bad digestion, reason cannot convince him of his error. The +physician has done enough when he has pointed out the sanitary laws +obedience to which generates strength, long life, and power of +enjoyment. The moralist is in the same position when he has shown how +certain habits conduce to the development of a type superior to its +rivals in all the faculties which imply permanent peace of mind and +power of resisting the shocks of the world without disintegration. Much +undoubtedly remains to be said. Wordsworth's teaching, profound and +admirable as it may be, has not the potency to silence the scepticism +which has gathered strength since his day, and assailed fundamental—or +what to him seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> fundamental—tenets of his system. No one can yet +say what transformation may pass upon the thoughts and emotions for +which he found utterance in speaking of the Divinity and sanctity of +nature. Some people vehemently maintain that the words will be emptied +of all meaning if the old theological conceptions to which he was so +firmly attached should disappear with the development of new modes of +thought. Nature, as regarded by the light of modern science, will be the +name of a cruel and wasteful, or at least of a purely neutral and +indifferent power, or perhaps as merely an equivalent for the +Unknowable, to which the conditions of our intellect prevent us from +ever attaching any intelligible predicate. Others would say that in +whatever terms we choose to speak of the mysterious darkness which +surrounds our little island of comparative light, the emotion generated +in a thoughtful mind by the contemplation of the universe will remain +unaltered or strengthen with clearer knowledge; and that we shall +express ourselves in a new dialect without altering the essence of our +thought. The emotions to which Wordsworth has given utterance will +remain, though the system in which he believed should sink into +oblivion; as, indeed, all human systems have found different modes of +symbolising the same fundamental feelings. But it is enough vaguely to +indicate considerations not here to be developed.</p> + +<p>It only remains to be added once more that Wordsworth's poetry derives +its power from the same source as his philosophy. It speaks to our +strongest feelings because his speculation rests upon our deepest +thoughts. His singular capacity for investing all objects with a glow +derived from early associations; his keen sympathy with natural and +simple emotions; his sense of the sanctifying influences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> which can be +extracted from sorrow, are of equal value to his power over our +intellects and our imaginations. His psychology, stated systematically, +is rational; and, when expressed passionately, turns into poetry. To be +sensitive to the most important phenomena is the first step equally +towards a poetical or a scientific exposition. To see these truly is the +condition of making the poetry harmonious and the philosophy logical. +And it is often difficult to say which power is most remarkable in +Wordsworth. It would be easy to illustrate the truth by other than moral +topics. His sonnet, noticed by De Quincey, in which he speaks of the +abstracting power of darkness, and observes that as the hills pass into +twilight we see the same sight as the ancient Britons, is impressive as +it stands, but would be equally good as an illustration in a +metaphysical treatise. Again, the sonnet beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is at once, as he has shown in a commentary of his own, an illustration +of a curious psychological law—of our tendency, that is, to introduce +an arbitrary principle of order into a random collection of +objects—and, for the same reason, a striking embodiment of the +corresponding mood of feeling. The little poem called 'Stepping +Westward' is in the same way at once a delicate expression of a specific +sentiment and an acute critical analysis of the subtle associations +suggested by a single phrase. But such illustrations might be multiplied +indefinitely. As he has himself said, there is scarcely one of his poems +which does not call attention to some moral sentiment, or to a general +principle or law of thought, of our intellectual constitution.</p> + +<p>Finally, we might look at the reverse side of the picture, and endeavour +to show how the narrow limits of Words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>worth's power are connected with +certain moral defects; with the want of quick sympathy which shows +itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which +caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather +commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he +assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many +thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would +be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to +console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy +happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to +think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;' +and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest +exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has +expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and +Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in +acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this +connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> As, for example, in the <i>Lines on Tintern Abbey</i>: 'If this be but a +vain belief.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See Wordsworth's reference to the <i>Wealth of Nations</i>, in the +<i>Prelude</i>, book xiii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> So, too, in the <i>Prelude</i>:—</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then was the truth received into my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If from the affliction somewhere do not grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Honour which could not else have been, a faith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An elevation, and a sanctity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If new strength be not given, nor old restored,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fault is ours, not Nature's.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span></p> +<h2><i>LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS</i></h2> + + +<p>When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works, +the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part +any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and +were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a +definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an +attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most +striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of +opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general +public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish +applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It +is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer literary palate than is +possessed by the vulgar herd are really so keenly appreciative as the +innocent reader of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in matters +of taste—whether of the literal or metaphorical kind—is the commonest +of vices. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are +more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed. I have heard very good +judges whisper in private that they have found Landor dull; and the rare +citations made from his works often betray a very perfunctory study of +them. Not long ago, for example, an able critic quoted a passage from +one of the 'Imaginary Conversations' to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> prove that Landor admired +Milton's prose, adding the remark that it might probably be taken as an +expression of his real sentiments, although put in the mouth of a +dramatic person. To anyone who has read Landor with ordinary attention, +it seems as absurd to speak in this hypothetical manner as it would be +to infer from some incidental allusion that Mr. Ruskin admires Turner. +Landor's adoration for Milton is one of the most conspicuous of his +critical propensities. There are, of course, many eulogies upon Landor +of undeniable weight. They are hearty, genuine, and from competent +judges. Yet the enthusiasm of such admirable critics as Mr. Emerson and +Mr. Lowell may be carped at by some who fancy that every American enjoys +a peculiar sense of complacency when rescuing an English genius from the +neglect of his own countrymen. If Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne have +been conspicuous in their admiration, it might be urged that neither of +them has too strong a desire to keep to that beaten highroad of the +commonplace, beyond which even the best guides meet with pitfalls. +Southey's praises of Landor were sincere and emphatic; but it must be +added that they provoke a recollection of one of Johnson's shrewd +remarks. 'The reciprocal civility of authors,' says the Doctor, 'is one +of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.' One forgives poor +Southey indeed for the vanity which enabled him to bear up so bravely +against anxiety and repeated disappointment; and if both he and Landor +found that 'reciprocal civility' helped them to bear the disregard of +contemporaries, one would not judge them harshly. It was simply a tacit +agreement to throw their harmless vanity into a common stock. Of Mr. +Forster, Landor's faithful friend and admirer, one can only say that in +his writing about Landor, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> upon other topics, we are distracted +between the respect due to his strong feeling for the excellent in +literature, and the undeniable facts that his criticisms have a very +blunt edge, and that his eulogies are apt to be indiscriminate.</p> + +<p>Southey and Wordsworth had a simple method of explaining the neglect of +a great author. According to them, contemporary neglect affords a +negative presumption in favour of permanent reputation. No lofty poet +has honour in his own generation. Southey's conviction that his +ponderous epics would make the fortune of his children is a pleasant +instance of self-delusion. But the theory is generally admitted in +regard to Wordsworth; and Landor accepted and defended it with +characteristic vigour. 'I have published,' he says in the conversation +with Hare, 'five volumes of "Imaginary Conversations:" cut the worst of +them through the middle, and there will remain in the decimal fraction +enough to satisfy my appetite for fame. I shall dine late; but the +dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.' He recurs +frequently to the doctrine. 'Be patient!' he says, in another character. +'From the higher heavens of poetry it is long before the radiance of the +brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out +one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and +instruments on the poet's grave. The worms must have eaten us before we +rightly know what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are +boxed and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so! I shall not be tired +of waiting.' Conscious, as he says in his own person, that in 2,000 +years there have not been five volumes of prose (the work of one author) +equal to his 'Conversations,' he could indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> afford to wait: if +conscious of earthly things, he must be waiting still.</p> + +<p>This superlative self-esteem strikes one, to say the truth, as part of +Landor's abiding boyishness. It is only in schoolboy themes that we are +still inclined to talk about the devouring love of fame. Grown-up men +look rightly with some contempt upon such aspirations. What work a man +does is really done in, or at least through, his own generation; and the +posthumous fame which poets affect to value means, for the most part, +being known by name to a few antiquarians, schoolmasters, or secluded +students. When the poet, to adopt Landor's metaphor, has become a +luminous star, his superiority to those which have grown dim by distance +is indeed for the first time clearly demonstrated. We can still see him, +though other bodies of his system have vanished into the infinite depths +of oblivion. But he has also ceased to give appreciable warmth or light +to ordinary human beings. He is a splendid name, but not a living +influence. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to any +such statements, but I have a suspicion that even Shakespeare's chief +work may have been done in the Globe Theatre, to living audiences, who +felt what they never thought of criticising, and were quite unable to +measure; and that, spite of all æsthetic philosophers and minute +antiquarians and judicious revivals, his real influence upon men's minds +has been for the most part declining as his fame has been spreading. To +defend or fully expound this heretical dogma would take too much space. +The 'late-dinner' theory, however, as held by Wordsworth and Landor, is +subject to one less questionable qualification. It is an utterly +untenable proposition that great men have been generally overlooked in +their own day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span></p> + +<p>If we run over the chief names of our literature, it would be hard to +point to one which was not honoured, and sometimes honoured to excess, +during its proprietor's lifetime. It is, indeed, true that much +ephemeral underwood has often hidden in part the majestic forms which +now stand out as sole relics of the forest. It is true also that the +petty spite and jealousy of contemporaries, especially of their ablest +contemporaries, has often prevented the full recognition of great men. +And there have been some whose fame, like that of Bunyan and De Foe, has +extended amongst the lower sphere of readers before receiving the +ratification of constituted judges. But such irregularities in the +distribution of fame do not quite meet the point. I doubt whether one +could mention a single case in which an author, overlooked at the time +both by the critics and the mass, has afterwards become famous; and the +cases are very rare in which a reputation once decayed has again taken +root and shown real vitality. The experiment of resuscitation has been +tried of late years with great pertinacity. The forgotten images of our +seventeenth-century ancestors have been brought out of the lumber-room +amidst immense flourishes of trumpets, but they are terribly worm-eaten; +and all efforts to make their statues once more stand firmly on their +pedestals have generally failed. Landor himself refused to see the +merits of the mere 'mushrooms,' as he somewhere called them, which grew +beneath the Shakespearian oak; and though such men as Chapman, Webster, +and Ford have received the warmest eulogies of Lamb and other able +successors, their vitality is spasmodic and uncertain. We generally read +them, if we read them, at the point of the critic's bayonet.</p> + +<p>The case of Wordsworth is no precedent for Landor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> Wordsworth's fame +was for a long time confined to a narrow sect, and he did all in his +power to hinder its spread by wilful disregard of the established +canons—even when founded in reason. A reformer who will not court the +prejudices even of his friends is likely to be slow in making converts. +But it is one thing to be slow in getting a hearing, and another in +attracting men who are quite prepared to hear. Wordsworth resembled a +man coming into a drawing-room with muddy boots and a smock-frock. He +courted disgust, and such courtship is pretty sure of success. But +Landor made his bow in full court-dress. In spite of the difficulty of +his poetry, he had all the natural graces which are apt to propitiate +cultivated readers. His prose has merits so conspicuous and so dear to +the critical mind, that one might have expected his welcome from the +connoisseurs to be warm even beyond the limit of sincerity. To praise +him was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and +there can be no greater stimulus to critical enthusiasm. One might have +guessed that he would be a favourite with all who set up for a +discernment superior to that of the vulgar; though the causes which must +obstruct a wide recognition of his merits are sufficiently obvious. It +may be interesting to consider the cause of his ill-success with some +fulness; and it is a comfort to the critic to reflect that in such a +case even obtuseness is in some sort a qualification; for it will enable +one to sympathise with the vulgar insensibility to the offered delicacy, +if only to substitute articulate rejection for simple stolid silence.</p> + +<p>I do not wish, indeed, to put forward such a claim too unreservedly. I +will merely take courage to confess that Landor very frequently bores +me. So do a good many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage +be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon +Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever +spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, +almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser +continuously. Even Milton in Landor's hands, in defiance of his known +opinions, is made to speak contemptuously of 'The Faery Queen.' 'There +is scarcely a poet of the same eminence,' says Porson, obviously +representing Landor in this case, 'whom I have found it so delightful to +read in, and so hard to read through.' What Landor here says of Spenser, +I should venture to say of Landor. There are few books of the kind into +which one may dip with so great a certainty of finding much to admire as +the 'Imaginary Conversations,' and few of any high reputation which are +so certain to become wearisome after a time. And yet, upon thinking of +the whole five volumes so emphatically extolled by their author, one +feels the necessity of some apology for this admission of inadequate +sympathy. There is a vigour of feeling, an originality of character, a +fineness of style which makes one understand, if not quite agree to, the +audacious self-commendation. Part of the effect is due simply to the +sheer quantity of good writing. Take any essay separately, and one must +admit that—to speak only of his contemporaries—there is a greater +charm in passages of equal length by Lamb, De Quincey, or even Hazlitt. +None of them gets upon such stilts, or seems so anxious to keep the +reader at arm's length. But, on the other hand, there is something +imposing in so continuous a flow of stately and generally faultless +English, with so many weighty aphorisms rising spontaneously, without +splashing or disturbance, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> the surface of talk, and such an easy +felicity of theme unmarred by the flash and glitter of the modern +epigrammatic style. Lamb is both sweeter and more profound, to say +nothing of his incomparable humour; but then Lamb's flight is short and +uncertain. De Quincey's passages of splendid rhetoric are too often +succeeded by dead levels of verbosity and laboured puerilities which +make annoyance alternate with enthusiasm. Hazlitt is often spasmodic, +and his intrusive egotism is pettish and undignified. But so far at +least as his style is concerned, Landor's unruffled abundant stream of +continuous harmony excites one's admiration the more the longer one +reads. Hardly anyone who has written so much has kept so uniformly to a +high level, and so seldom descended to empty verbosity or to downright +slipshod. It is true that the substance does not always correspond to +the perfection of the form. There are frequent discontinuities of +thought where the style is smoothest. He reminds one at times of those +Alpine glaciers where an exquisitely rounded surface of snow conceals +yawning crevasses beneath; and if one stops for a moment to think, one +is apt to break through the crust with an abrupt and annoying jerk.</p> + +<p>The excellence of Landor's style has, of course, been universally +acknowledged, and it is natural that it should be more appreciated by +his fellow-craftsmen than by general readers less interested in +technical questions. The defects are the natural complements of its +merits. When accused of being too figurative, he had a ready reply. +'Wordsworth,' he says in one of his 'Conversations,' 'slithers on the +soft mud, and cannot stop himself until he comes down. In his poetry +there is as much of prose as there is of poetry in the prose of Milton. +But prose on certain occasions can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> bear a great deal of poetry; on the +other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose, +and neither fan nor burnt feather can bring her to herself again.' The +remark about the relations of prose and poetry was originally made in a +real conversation with Wordsworth in defence of Landor's own luxuriance. +Wordsworth, it is said, took it to himself, and not without reason, as +appears by its insertion in this 'Conversation.' The retort, however +happy, is no more conclusive than other cases of the <i>tu quoque</i>. We are +too often inclined to say to Landor as Southey says to Porson in another +place: 'Pray leave these tropes and metaphors.' His sense suffers from a +superfetation of figures, or from the undue pursuit of a figure, till +the 'wind of the poor phrase is cracked.' In the phrase just quoted, for +example, we could dispense with the 'fan and burnt feather,' which have +very little relation to the thought. So, to take an instance of the +excessively florid, I may quote the phrase in which Marvell defends his +want of respect for the aristocracy of his day. 'Ever too hard upon +great men, Mr. Marvell!' says Bishop Parker; and Marvell replies:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows because +our sun is setting; the men so little and the places so +lofty that, casting my pebble, I only show where they stand. +They would be less contented with themselves, if they had +obtained their preferment honestly. Luck and dexterity +always give more pleasure than intellect and knowledge; +because they fill up what they fall on to the brim at once; +and people run to them with acclamations at the splash. +Wisdom is reserved and noiseless, contented with hard +earnings, and daily letting go some early acquisition to +make room for better specimens. But great is the exultation +of a worthless man when he receives for the chips and +raspings of his Bridewell logwood a richer reward than the +best and wisest for extensive tracts of well-cleared truths! +Even he who has sold his country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>—</p></div> + +<p>'Forbear, good Mr. Marvell,' says Bishop Parker; and one is inclined to +sympathise with the poor man drowned under this cascade of tropes. It is +certainly imposing, but I should be glad to know the meaning of the +metaphor about 'luck and dexterity.' Passages occur, again, in which we +are tempted to think that Landor is falling into an imitation of an +obsolete model. Take, for example, the following:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A narrow mind cannot be enlarged, nor can a capacious one be +contracted. Are we angry with a phial for not being a flask; +or do we wonder that the skin of an elephant sits uneasily +on a squirrel?</p></div> + +<p>Or this, in reference to Wordsworth:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Pastiness and flatness are the qualities of a pancake, and +thus far he attained his aim: but if he means it for me, let +him place the accessories on the table, lest what is insipid +and clammy ... grow into duller accretion and moister +viscidity the more I masticate it.</p></div> + +<p>Or a remark given to Newton:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Wherever there is vacuity of mind, there must either be +flaccidity or craving; and this vacuity must necessarily be +found in the greater part of princes, from the defects of +their education, from the fear of offending them in its +progress by interrogations and admonitions, from the habit +of rendering all things valueless by the facility with which +they are obtained, and transitory by the negligence with +which they are received and holden.</p></div> + +<p>Should we not remove the names of Porson and Newton from these +sentences, and substitute Sam Johnson? The last passage reads very like +a quotation from the 'Rambler.' Johnson was, in my opinion and in +Landor's, a great writer in spite of his mannerism; but the mannerism is +always rather awkward, and in such places we seem to see—cer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span>tainly not +a squirrel—but, say, a thoroughbred horse invested with the skin of an +elephant.</p> + +<p>These lapses into the inflated are of course exceptional with Landor. +There can be no question of the fineness of his perception in all +matters of literary form. To say that his standard of style is classical +is to repeat a commonplace too obvious for repetition, except to add a +doubt whether he is not often too ostentatious and self-conscious in his +classicism. He loves and often exhibits a masculine simplicity, and +speaks with enthusiasm of Locke and Swift in their own departments. +Locke is to be 'revered;' he is 'too simply grand for admiration;' and +no one, he thinks, ever had such a power as Swift of saying forcibly and +completely whatever he meant to say. But for his own purposes he +generally prefers a different model. The qualities which he specially +claims seem to be summed up in the conversation upon Bacon's Essays +between Newton and Barrow. Cicero and Bacon, says Barrow, have more +wisdom between them than all the philosophers of antiquity. Newton's +review of the Essays, he adds, 'hath brought back to my recollection so +much of shrewd judgment, so much of rich imagery, such a profusion of +truths so plain as (without his manner of exhibiting them) to appear +almost unimportant, that in various high qualities of the human mind I +must acknowledge not only Cicero, but every prose writer among the +Greeks, to stand far below him. Cicero is least valued for his highest +merits, his fulness, and his perspicuity. Bad judges (and how few are +not so!) desire in composition the concise and obscure; not knowing that +the one most frequently arises from paucity of materials, and the other +from inability to manage and dispose them.' Landor aims, like Bacon, at +rich imagery, at giving to thoughts which appear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> plain more value by +fineness of expression, and at compressing shrewd judgments into weighty +aphorisms. He would equally rival Cicero in fulness and perspicuity; +whilst a severe rejection of everything slovenly or superfluous would +save him from ever deviating into the merely florid. So far as style can +be really separated from thought, we may admit unreservedly that he has +succeeded in his aim, and has attained a rare harmony of tone and +colouring.</p> + +<p>There may, indeed, be some doubt as to his perspicuity. Southey said +that Landor was obscure, whilst adding that he could not explain the +cause of the obscurity. Causes enough may be suggested. Besides his +incoherency, his love of figures which sometimes become half detached +from the underlying thought, and an over-anxiety to avoid mere smartness +which sometimes leads to real vagueness, he expects too much from his +readers, or perhaps despises them too much. He will not condescend to +explanation if you do not catch his drift at half a word. He is so +desirous to round off his transitions gracefully, that he obliterates +the necessary indications of the main divisions of the subject. When +criticising Milton or Dante, he can hardly keep his hand off the finest +passages in his desire to pare away superfluities. Treating himself in +the same fashion, he leaves none of those little signs which, like the +typographical hand prefixed to a notice, are extremely convenient, +though strictly superfluous. It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard +framework of logical divisions showing too distinctly in an argument, or +to have a too elaborate statement of dates and places and external +relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may be removed too +freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffolding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +Faults of this kind, however, will not explain Landor's failure to get a +real hold upon a large body of readers. Writers of far greater obscurity +and much more repellent blemishes of style to set against much lower +merits, have gained a far wider popularity. The want of sympathy between +so eminent a literary artist and his time must rest upon some deeper +divergence of sentiment. Landor's writings present the same kind of +problem as his life. We are told, and we can see for ourselves, that he +was a man of many very high and many very amiable qualities. He was full +of chivalrous feeling; capable of the most flowing and delicate +courtesy; easily stirred to righteous indignation against every kind of +tyranny and bigotry; capable, too, of a tenderness pleasantly contrasted +with his outbursts of passing wrath; passionately fond of children, and +a true lover of dogs. But with all this, he could never live long at +peace with anybody. He was the most impracticable of men, and every +turning-point in his career was decided by some vehement quarrel. He had +to leave school in consequence of a quarrel, trifling in itself, but +aggravated by 'a fierce defiance of all authority and a refusal to ask +forgiveness.' He got into a preposterous scrape at Oxford, and forced +the authorities to rusticate him. This branched out into a quarrel with +his father. When he set up as a country gentleman at Llanthony Abbey, he +managed to quarrel with his neighbours and his tenants, until the +accumulating consequences to his purse forced him to go to Italy. On the +road thither he began the first of many quarrels with his wife, which +ultimately developed into a chronic quarrel and drove him back to +England. From England he was finally dislodged by another quarrel which +drove him back to Italy. Intermediate quarrels of minor importance are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> +intercalated between those which provoked decisive crises. The +lightheartedness which provoked all these difficulties is not more +remarkable than the ease with which he threw them off his mind. Blown +hither and thither by his own gusts of passion, he always seems to fall +on his feet, and forgets his trouble as a schoolboy forgets yesterday's +flogging. On the first transitory separation from his wife, he made +himself quite happy by writing Latin verses; and he always seems to have +found sufficient consolation in such literary occupation for vexations +which would have driven some people out of their mind. He would not, he +writes, encounter the rudeness of a certain lawyer to save all his +property; but he adds, 'I have chastised him in my Latin poetry now in +the press.' Such a mode of chastisement seems to have been as completely +satisfactory to Landor as it doubtless was to the lawyer.</p> + +<p>His quarrels do not alienate us, for it is evident that they did not +proceed from any malignant passion. If his temper was ungovernable, his +passions were not odious, or, in any low sense, selfish. In many, if not +all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of +right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive +insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people +who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing +to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense +of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against +stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance of shrewd +sense which fully appreciates Falstaff's theory of honour. Scott himself +managed to combine the two qualities; but poor Landor seems to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span> had +Hotspur's readiness to quarrel on the tenth part of a hair without the +redeeming touch of common-sense. In a slightly different social sphere, +he must, one would fancy, have been the mark of a dozen bullets before +he had grown up to manhood; it is not quite clear how, even as it was, +he avoided duels, unless because he regarded the practice as a Christian +barbarism to which the ancients had never condescended.</p> + +<p>His position and surroundings tended to aggravate his incoherencies of +statement. Like his own Peterborough, he was a man of aristocratic +feeling, with a hearty contempt for aristocrats. The expectation that he +would one day join the ranks of the country gentlemen unsettled him as a +scholar; and when he became a landed proprietor he despised his fellow +'barbarians' with a true scholar's contempt. He was not forced into the +ordinary professional groove, and yet did not fully imbibe the +prejudices of the class who can afford to be idle, and the natural +result is an odd mixture of conflicting prejudices. He is classical in +taste and cosmopolitan in life, and yet he always retains a certain +John-Bull element. His preference of Shakespeare to Racine is associated +with, if not partly prompted by, a mere English antipathy to foreigners. +He never becomes Italianised so far as to lose his contempt for men +whose ideas of sport rank larks with the orthodox partridge. He abuses +Castlereagh and poor George III. to his heart's content, and so far +flies in the face of British prejudice; but it is by no means as a +sympathiser with foreign innovations. His republicanism is strongly +dashed with old-fashioned conservatism, and he is proud of a doubtful +descent from old worthies of the true English type. Through all his +would-be paganism we feel that at bottom he is after all a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> true-born +and wrong-headed Englishman. He never, like Shelley, pushed his quarrel +with the old order to the extreme, but remained in a solitary cave of +Adullam. 'There can be no great genius,' says Penn to Peterborough, +'where there is not profound and continued reasoning.' The remark is too +good for Penn; and yet it would be dangerous in Landor's own mouth; for +certainly the defect which most strikes us, both in his life and his +writings, is just the inconsistency which leaves most people as the +reasoning powers develop. His work was marred by the unreasonableness of +a nature so impetuous and so absorbed by any momentary gust of passion +that he could never bring his thoughts or his plans to a focus, or +conform them to a general scheme. His prejudices master him both in +speculation and practice. He cannot fairly rise above them, or govern +them by reference to general principles or the permanent interests of +his life. In the vulgar phrase, he is always ready to cut off his nose +to spite his face. He quarrels with his schoolmaster or his wife. In an +instant he is all fire and fury, runs amuck at his best friends, and +does irreparable mischief. Some men might try to atone for such offences +by remorse. Landor, unluckily for himself, could forget the past as +easily as he could ignore the future. He lives only in the present, and +can throw himself into a favourite author or compose Latin verses or an +imaginary conversation as though schoolmasters or wives, or duns or +critics, had no existence. With such a temperament, reasoning, which +implies patient contemplation and painful liberation from prejudice, has +no fair chance; his principles are not the growth of thought, but the +translation into dogmas of intense likes and dislikes, which have grown +up in his mind he scarcely knows how, and gathered strength<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> by sheer +force of repetition instead of deliberate examination.</p> + +<p>His writings reflect—and in some ways only too faithfully—these +idiosyncrasies. Southey said that his temper was the only explanation of +his faults. 'Never did man represent himself in his writings so much +less generous, less just, less compassionate, less noble in all respects +than he really is. I certainly,' he adds, 'never knew anyone of brighter +genius or of kinder heart.' Southey, no doubt, was in this case +resenting certain attacks of Landor's upon his most cherished opinions; +and, truly, nothing but continuous separation could have preserved the +friendship between two men so peremptorily opposed upon so many +essential points. Southey's criticism, though sharpened by such latent +antagonisms, has really much force. The 'Conversations' give much that +Landor's friends would have been glad to ignore; and yet they present +such a full-length portrait of the man, that it is better to dwell upon +them than upon his poetry, which, moreover, with all its fine qualities, +is (I cannot help thinking) of less intrinsic value. The ordinary +reader, however, is repelled from the 'Conversations' not only by mere +inherent difficulties, but by comments which raise a false expectation. +An easy-going critic is apt to assume of any book that it exactly +fulfils the ostensible aim of the author. So we are told of +'Shakespeare's Examination' (and on the high authority of Charles Lamb), +that no one could have written it except Landor or Shakespeare himself. +When Bacon is introduced, we are assured that the aphorisms introduced +are worthy of Bacon himself. What Cicero is made to say is exactly what +he would have said, 'if he could;' and the dialogue between Walton, +Cotton, and Oldways is, of course, as good as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span> passage from the +'Complete Angler.' In the same spirit we are told that the dialogues +were to be 'one-act dramas;' and we are informed how the great +philosophers, statesmen, poets, and artists of all ages did in fact pass +across the stage, each represented to the life, and each discoursing in +his most admirable style.</p> + +<p>All this is easy to say, but unluckily represents what the +'Conversations' would have been had they been perfect. To say that they +are very far from perfect is only to say that they were the compositions +of a man; but Landor was also a man to whom his best friends would +hardly attribute a remarkable immunity from fault. The dialogue, it need +hardly be remarked, is one of the most difficult of all forms of +composition. One rule, however, would be generally admitted. Landor +defends his digressions on the ground that they always occur in real +conversations. If we 'adhere to one point,' he says (in Southey's +person), 'it is a disquisition, not a conversation.' And he adds, with +one of his wilful back-handed blows at Plato, that most writers of +dialogue plunge into abstruse questions, and 'collect a heap of +arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiff of some rhetorical +charlatan tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons for the occasion.' +Possibly! but for all that, the perfect dialogue ought not, we should +say, to be really incoherent. It should include digressions, but the +digressions ought to return upon the main subject. The art consists in +preserving real unity in the midst of the superficial deviations +rendered easy by this form of composition. The facility of digression is +really a temptation, not a privilege. Anybody can write blank verse of a +kind, because it so easily slips into prose; and that is why good blank +verse is so rare. And so anybody can write a decent dialogue if you +allow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> him to ramble as we all do in actual talk. The finest +philosophical dialogues are those in which a complete logical framework +underlies the dramatic structure. They are a perfect fusion of logic and +imagination. Instead of harsh divisions and cross-divisions of the +subject, and a balance of abstract arguments, we have vivid portraits of +human beings, each embodying a different line of thought. But the logic +is still seen, though the more carefully hidden the more exquisite the +skill of the artist. And the purely artistic dialogue which describes +passion or the emotions arising from a given situation should in the +same way set forth a single idea, and preserve a dramatic unity of +conception at least as rigidly as a full-grown play. So far as Landor +used his facilities as an excuse for rambling, instead of so skilfully +subordinating them to the main purpose as to reproduce new variations on +the central theme, he is clearly in error, or is at least aiming at a +lower kind of excellence. And this, it may be said at once, seems to be +the most radical defect in point of composition of Landor's +'Conversations.' They have the fault which his real talk is said to have +exemplified. We are told that his temperament 'disqualified him for +anything like sustained reasoning, and he instinctively backed away from +discussion or argument.' Many of the written dialogues are a prolonged +series of explosions; when one expects a continuous development of a +theme, they are monotonous thunder-growls. Landor undoubtedly had a +sufficient share of dramatic power to write short dialogues expressing a +single situation with most admirable power, delicacy, and firmness of +touch. Nor, again, does the criticism just made refer to those longer +dialogues which are in reality a mere string of notes upon poems or +proposals for reforms in spelling. The slight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span> dramatic form binds +together his pencillings from the margins of 'Paradise Lost' or +Wordsworth's poems very pleasantly, and enables him to give additional +effect to vivacious outbursts of praise or censure. But the more +elaborate dialogues suffer grievously from this absence of a true unity. +There is not that skilful evolution of a central idea without the rigid +formality of scientific discussion which we admire in the real +masterpieces of the art. We have a conglomerate, not an organic growth; +a series of observations set forth with never-failing elegance of style, +and often with singular keenness of perception; but they do not take us +beyond the starting-point. When Robinson Crusoe crossed the Pyrenees, +his guide led him by such dexterous windings and gradual ascents that he +found himself across the mountains before he knew where he was. With +Landor it is just the opposite. After many digressions and ramblings we +find ourselves back on the same side of the original question. We are +marking time with admirable gracefulness, but somehow we are not +advancing. Naturally flesh and blood grow weary when there is no +apparent end to a discussion, except that the author must in time be +wearied of performing variations upon a single theme.</p> + +<p>We are more easily reconciled to some other faults which are rather due +to expectations raised by his critics than to positive errors. No one, +for example, would care to notice an anachronism, if Landor did not +occasionally put in a claim for accuracy. I have no objection whatever +to allow Hooker to console Bacon for his loss of the chancellorship, in +calm disregard of the fact that Hooker died some twenty years before +Bacon rose to that high office. The fault can be amended by substituting +any other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> name for Hooker's. Nor do I at all wish to find in Landor +that kind of archæological accuracy which is sought by some composers of +historical romances. Were it not that critics have asserted the +opposite, it would be hardly worth while to say that Landor's style +seldom condescends to adapt itself to the mouth of the speaker, and that +from Demosthenes to Porson every interlocutor has palpably the true +Landorian trick of speech. Here and there, it is true, the effect is +rather unpleasant. Pericles and Aspasia are apt to indulge in criticism +of English customs, and no weak regard for time and place prevents +Eubulides from denouncing Canning to Demosthenes. The classical dress +becomes so thin on such occasions, that even the small degree of +illusion which one may fairly desiderate is too rudely interrupted. The +actor does not disguise his voice enough for theatrical purposes. It is +perhaps a more serious fault that the dialogue constantly lapses into +monologue. We might often remove the names of the talkers as useless +interruptions. Some conversations might as well be headed, in legal +phraseology, Landor <i>v.</i> Landor, or at most Landor <i>v.</i> Landor and +another—the other being some wretched man of straw or Guy Faux effigy +dragged in to be belaboured with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive +nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the +name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be +made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his +philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two to represent +his smashing retorts.</p> + +<p>There is yet another criticism or two to be added. The extreme +scrupulosity with which Landor polishes his style and removes +superfluities from poetical narrative, smoothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> them at times till we +can hardly grasp them, might have been applied to some of the wanton +digressions in which the dialogues abound. We should have been glad if +he had ruthlessly cut out two-thirds of the conversation between +Richelieu and others, in which some charming English pastorals are mixed +up with a quantity of unmistakable rubbish. But, for the most part, we +can console ourselves by a smile. When Landor lowers his head and +charges bull-like at the phantom of some king or priest, we are prepared +for, and amused by, his impetuosity. Malesherbes discourses with great +point and vigour upon French literature, and may fairly diverge into a +little politics; but it is certainly comic when he suddenly remembers +one of Landor's pet grievances, and the unlucky Rousseau has to discuss +a question for which few people could be more ludicrously unfit—the +details of a plan for reforming the institution of English justices of +the peace. The grave dignity with which the subject is introduced gives +additional piquancy to the absurdity. An occasional laugh at Landor is +the more valuable because, to say the truth, one is not very likely to +laugh with him. Nothing is more difficult for an author—as Landor +himself observes in reference to Milton—than to decide upon his own +merits as a wit or humorist. I am not quite sure that this is true; for +I have certainly found authors distinctly fallible in judging of their +own merits as poets and philosophers. But it is undeniable that many a +man laughs at his own wit who has to laugh alone. I will not take upon +myself to say that Landor was without humour; he has certainly a +delicate gracefulness which may be classed with the finer kinds of +humour; but if anybody (to take one instance) will read the story which +Chaucer tells to Boccaccio and Petrarch and pronounce it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span> to be amusing, +I can only say that his notions of humour differ materially from mine. +Some of his wrathful satire against kings and priests has a vigour which +is amusing; but the tact which enables him to avoid errors of taste of a +different kind often fails him when he tries the facetious.</p> + +<p>Blemishes such as these go some way, perhaps, to account for Landor's +unpopularity. But they are such as might be amply redeemed by his +vigour, his fulness, and unflagging energy of style. There is no equally +voluminous author of great power who does not fall short of his own +highest achievements in a large part of his work, and who is not open to +the remark that his achievements are not all that we could have wished. +It is doubtless best to take what we can get, and not to repine if we do +not get something better, the possibility of which is suggested by the +actual accomplishment. If Landor had united to his own powers those of +Scott or Shakespeare, he would have been improved. Landor, repenting a +little for some censures of Milton, says to Southey, 'Are we not +somewhat like two little beggar-boys who, forgetting that they are in +tatters, sit noticing a few stains and rents in their father's raiment?' +'But they love him,' replies Southey, and we feel the apology to be +sufficient.</p> + +<p>Can we make it in the case of Landor? Is he a man whom we can take to +our hearts, treating his vagaries and ill-humours as we do the testiness +of a valued friend? Or do we feel that he is one whom it is better to +have for an acquaintance than for an intimate? The problem seems to have +exercised those who knew him best in life. Many, like Southey or Napier, +thought him a man of true nobility and tenderness of character, and +looked upon his defects as mere superficial blemishes. If some who came +closer seem to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> had a rather different opinion, we must allow that +a man's personal defects are often unimportant in his literary capacity. +It has been laid down as a general rule that poets cannot get on with +their wives; and yet they are poets in virtue of being lovable at the +core. Landor's domestic troubles need not indicate an incapacity for +meeting our sympathies any more than the domestic troubles of +Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Burns, Byron, Shelley, or many others. In +his poetry a man should show his best self; and defects, important in +the daily life which is made up of trifles, may cease to trouble us when +admitted to the inmost recesses of his nature.</p> + +<p>Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved +unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the +form to the substance—from the manner in which his message is delivered +to the message itself—we find that the superficial defects rise from +very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we +find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. He +has pronounced himself upon a wide range of subjects; there is much +criticism, some of it of a very rare and admirable order; much +theological and political disquisition; and much exposition, in various +forms, of the practical philosophy which every man imbibes according to +his faculties in his passage through the world. It would be undesirable +to discuss seriously his political or religious notions. To say the +truth, they are not really worth discussing, for they are little more +than vehement explosions of unreasoning prejudice. I do not know whether +Landor would have approved the famous aspiration about strangling the +last of kings with the entrails of the last priest, but some such +sentiment seems to sum up all that he really has to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> say. His doctrine +so far coincides with that of Diderot and other revolutionists, though +he has no sympathy with their social aspirations. His utterances, +however, remind us too much—in substance, though not in form—of the +rhetoric of debating societies. They are as factitious as the +old-fashioned appeals to the memory of Brutus. They would doubtless make +a sensation at the Union. Diogenes tells us that 'all nations, all +cities, all communities, should combine in one great hunt, like that of +the Scythians at the approach of winter, and follow it' (the kingly +power, to wit) 'up, unrelentingly to its perdition. The diadem should +designate the victim; all who wear it, all who offer it, all who bow to +it, should perish.' Demosthenes, in less direct language, announces the +same plan to Eubulides as the one truth, far more important than any +other, and 'more conducive to whatever is desirable to the well-educated +and free.' We laugh, not because the phrase is overstrained, or intended +to have a merely dramatic truth, for Landor puts similar sentiments into +the mouths of all his favourite speakers, but simply because we feel it +to be a mere form of swearing. The language would have been less +elegant, but the meaning just the same, if he had rapped out a good +mouth-filling oath whenever he heard the name of king. When, in +reference to some such utterances, Carlyle said that 'Landor's principle +is mere rebellion,' Landor was much nettled, and declared himself to be +in favour of authority. He despised American republicanism and regarded +Venice as the pattern State. He sympathised in this, as in much else, +with the theorists of Milton's time, and would have been approved by +Harrington or Algernon Sidney; but, for all that, Carlyle seems pretty +well to have hit the mark. Such republicanism is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> reality nothing +more than the political expression of intense pride, or, if you prefer +the word, self-respect. It is the sentiment of personal dignity, which +could not bear the thought that he, Landor, should have to bow the knee +to a fool like George III.; or that Milton should have been regarded as +the inferior of such a sneak as Charles I. But the same feeling would +have been just as much shocked by the claim of a demagogue to override +high-spirited gentlemen. Mobs were every whit as vile as kings. He might +have stood for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, if Coriolanus had not an +unfortunate want of taste in his language. Landor, indeed, being never +much troubled as to consistency, is fond of dilating on the absurdity of +any kind of hereditary rank; but he sympathises, to his last fibre, with +the spirit fostered by the existence of an aristocratic caste, and +producible, so far as our experience has gone, in no other way. He is +generous enough to hate all oppression in every form, and therefore to +hate the oppression exercised by a noble as heartily as oppression +exercised by a king. He is a big boy ready to fight anyone who bullies +his fag; but with no doubts as to the merits of fagging. But then he +never chooses to look at the awkward consequences of his opinion. When +talking of politics, an aristocracy full of virtue and talent, ruling on +generous principles a people sufficiently educated to obey its natural +leaders, is the ideal which is vaguely before his mind. To ask how it is +to be produced without hereditary rank, or to be prevented from +degenerating into a tyrannical oligarchy, or to be reconciled at all +with modern principles, is simply to be impertinent. He answers all such +questions by putting himself in imagination into the attitude of a +Pericles or Demosthenes or Milton, fulminating against tyrants and +keeping the mob in its place by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> ascendency of genius. To recommend +Venice as a model is simply to say that you have nothing but contempt +for all politics. It is as if a lad should be asked whether he preferred +to join a cavalry or an infantry regiment, and should reply that he +would only serve under Leonidas.</p> + +<p>His religious principles are in the same way little more than the +assertion that he will not be fettered in mind or body by any priest on +earth. The priest is to him what he was to the deists and materialists +of the eighteenth century—a juggling impostor who uses superstition as +an instrument for creeping into the confidence of women and cowards, and +burning brave men; but he has no dreams of the advent of a religion of +reason. He ridicules the notion that truth will prevail: it never has +and it never will. At bottom he prefers paganism to Christianity because +it was tolerant and encouraged art, and allowed philosophers to enjoy as +much privilege as they can ever really enjoy—that of living in peace +and knowing that their neighbours are harmless fools. After a fashion he +likes his own version of Christianity, which is superficially that of +many popular preachers: Be tolerant, kindly, and happy, and don't worry +your head about dogmas, or become a slave to priests. But then one also +feels that humility is generally regarded as an essential part of +Christianity, and that in Landor's version it is replaced by something +like its antithesis. You should do good, too, as you respect yourself +and would be respected by men; but the chief good is the philosophic +mind, which can wrap itself in its own consciousness of worth, and enjoy +the finest pleasures of life without superstitious asceticism. Let the +vulgar amuse themselves with the playthings of their creed, so long as +they do not take to playing with faggots.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span> Stand apart and enjoy your +own superiority with good-natured contempt.</p> + +<p>One of his longest and, in this sense, most characteristic dialogues, is +that between Penn and Peterborough. Peterborough is the ideal aristocrat +with a contempt for the actual aristocracy; and Penn represents the +religion of common-sense. 'Teach men to calculate rightly and thou wilt +have taught them to live religiously,' is Penn's sentiment, and perhaps +not too unfaithful to the original. No one could have a more thorough +contempt for the mystical element in Quakerism than Landor; but he loves +Quakers as sober, industrious, easy-going people, who regard good-humour +and comfort as the ultimate aim of religious life, and who manage to do +without lawyers or priests. Peterborough, meanwhile, represents his +other side—the haughty, energetic, cultivated aristocrat, who, on the +ground of their common aversions, can hold out a friendly hand to the +quiet Quaker. Landor, of course, is both at once. He is the noble who +rather enjoys giving a little scandal at times to his drab-suited +companion; but, on the whole, thinks that it would be an excellent world +if the common people would adopt this harmless form of religion, which +tolerates other opinions and does not give any leverage to kings, +insolvent aristocrats, or intriguing bishops.</p> + +<p>Landor's critical utterances reveal the same tendencies. Much of the +criticism has of course an interest of its own. It is the judgment of a +real master of language upon many technical points of style, and the +judgment, moreover, of a poet who can look even upon classical poets as +one who breathes the same atmosphere at an equal elevation, and who +speaks out like a cultivated gentleman, not as a schoolmaster or a +specialist. But putting aside this and the crotchets about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span> spelling, +which have been dignified with the name of philological theories, the +general direction of his sympathies is eminently characteristic. Landor +of course pays the inevitable homage to the great names of Plato, Dante, +and Shakespeare, and yet it would be scarcely unfair to say that he +hates Plato, that Dante gives him far more annoyance than pleasure, and +that he really cares little for Shakespeare. The last might be denied on +the ground of isolated expressions. 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says, +'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born +ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and +seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes +brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is +dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of +'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be +pacified by the fairly-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed +plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakespeare.' That is his genuine +impression. Some readers may appeal to that 'Examination of Shakespeare' +which (as we have seen) was held by Lamb to be beyond the powers of any +other writer except its hero. I confess that, in my opinion, Lamb could +have himself drawn a far more sympathetic portrait of Shakespeare, and +that Scott would have brought out the whole scene with incomparably +greater vividness. Call it a morning in an English country-house in the +sixteenth century, and it will be full of charming passages along with +some laborious failures. But when we are forced to think of Slender and +Shallow, and Sir Hugh Evans, and the Shakespearian method of +portraiture, the personages in Landor's talk seem half asleep and +terribly given to twaddle. His view of Dante is less equivocal. In the +whole 'Inferno,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> Petrarca (evidently representing Landor) finds nothing +admirable but the famous descriptions of Francesca and Ugolino. They are +the 'greater and lesser oases' in a vast desert. And he would pare one +of these fine passages to the quick, whilst the other provokes the +remark ('we must whisper it') that Dante is 'the great master of the +disgusting.' He seems really to prefer Boccaccio and Ovid, to say +nothing of Homer and Virgil. Plato is denounced still more unsparingly. +From Aristotle and Diogenes down to Lord Chatham, assailants are set on +to worry him, and tear to pieces his gorgeous robes with just an +occasional perfunctory apology. Even Lady Jane Grey is deprived of her +favourite. She consents on Ascham's petition to lay aside books, but she +excepts Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Polybius: the 'others I do +resign;' they are good for the arbour and garden walk, but not for the +fireside or pillow. This is surely to wrong the poor soul; but Landor is +intolerant in his enthusiasm for his philosophical favourites. Epicurus +is the teacher whom he really delights to honour, and Cicero is forced +to confess in his last hours that he has nearly come over to the camp of +his old adversary.</p> + +<p>It is easy to interpret the meaning of these prejudices. Landor hates +and despises the romantic and the mystic. He has not the least feeling +for the art which owes its powers to suggestions of the infinite, or to +symbols forced into grotesqueness by the effort to express that for +which no thought can be adequate. He refuses to bother himself with +allegory or dreamy speculation, and, unlike Sir T. Browne, hates to lose +himself in an 'O Altitudo!' He cares nothing for Dante's inner thoughts, +and sees only a hideous chamber of horrors in the 'Inferno.' Plato is a +mere compiler of idle sophistries, and contemptible to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span> common-sense +and worldly wisdom of Locke and Bacon. In the same spirit he despised +Wordsworth's philosophising as heartily as Jeffrey, and, though he tried +to be just, could really see nothing in him except the writer of good +rustic idylls, and of one good piece of paganism, the 'Laodamia.'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +From such a point of view he ranks him below Burns, Scott, and Cowper, +and makes poor Southey consent—Southey who ranked Wordsworth with +Milton!</p> + +<p>These tendencies are generally summed up by speaking of Landor's +objectivity and Hellenism. I have no particular objection to those words +except that they seem rather vague and to leave our problem untouched. A +man may be as 'objective' as you please in a sense, and as thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of Greek art, and yet may manage to fall in with +the spirit of our own times. The truth is, I fancy, that a simpler name +may be given to Landor's tastes, and that we may find them exemplified +nearer home. There is many a good country gentleman who rides well to +hounds, and is most heartily 'objective' in the sense of hating +metaphysics and elaborate allegory and unintelligible art, and +preferring a glass of wine and a talk with a charming young lady to +mystic communings with the world-spirit; and as for Landor's Hellenism, +that surely ought not to be an uncommon phenomenon in the region of +English public schools. It is an odd circumstance that we should be so +much puzzled by the very man who seems to realise precisely that ideal +of culture upon which our most popular system of education is apparently +moulded. Here at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> is a man who is really simple-minded enough to +take the habit of writing Latin verses seriously; making it a +consolation in trouble as well as an elegant amusement. He hopes to rest +his fame upon it, and even by a marvellous <i>tour de force</i> writes a +great deal of English poetry which for all the world reads exactly like +a first-rate copy of modern Greek Iambics. For once we have produced +just what the system ought constantly to produce, and yet we cannot make +him out.</p> + +<p>The reason for our not producing more Landors is indeed pretty simple. +Men of real poetic genius are exceedingly rare at all times, and it is +still rarer to find such a man who remains a schoolboy all his life. +Landor is precisely a glorified and sublime edition of the model +sixth-form lad, only with an unusually strong infusion of schoolboy +perversion. Perverse lads, indeed, generally kick over the traces at an +earlier point: and refuse to learn anything. Boys who take kindly to the +classical system are generally good—that is to say, docile. They +develop into prosaic tutors and professors; or, when the cares of life +begin to press, they start their cargo of classical lumber and fill the +void with law or politics. Landor's peculiar temperament led him to kick +against authority, whilst he yet imbibed the spirit of the teaching +fully, and in some respects rather too fully. He was a rebel against the +outward form, and yet more faithful in spirit than most of the obedient +subjects.</p> + +<p>The impatient and indomitable temper which made quiet or continuous +meditation impossible, and the accidental circumstances of his life, +left him in possession of qualities which are in most men subdued or +expelled by the hard discipline of life. Brought into impulsive +collision with all kinds of authorities, he set up a kind of schoolboy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span> +republicanism, and used all his poetic eloquence to give it an air of +reality. But he never cared to bring it into harmony with any definite +system of thought, or let his outbursts of temper transport him into +settled antagonism with accepted principles. He troubled himself just as +little about theological as about political theories; he was as utterly +impervious as the dullest of squires to the mystic philosophy imported +by Coleridge, and found the world quite rich enough in sources of +enjoyment without tormenting himself about the unseen, and the ugly +superstitions which thrive in mental twilight. But he had quarrelled +with parsons as much as with lawyers, and could not stand the thought of +a priest interfering with his affairs or limiting his amusements. And so +he set up as a tolerant and hearty disciple of Epicurus. Chivalrous +sentiment and an exquisite perception of the beautiful saved him from +any gross interpretation of his master's principles; although, to say +the truth, he shows an occasional laxity on some points which savours of +the easy-going pagan, or perhaps of the noble of the old school. As he +grew up he drank deep of English literature, and sympathised with the +grand republican pride of Milton—as sturdy a rebel as himself, and a +still nobler because more serious rhetorician. He went to Italy, and, as +he imbibed Italian literature, sympathised with the joyous spirit of +Boccaccio and the eternal boyishness of classical art. Mediævalism and +all mystic philosophies remained unintelligible to this true-born +Englishman. Irritated rather than humbled by his incapacity, he cast +them aside, pretty much as a schoolboy might throw a Plato at the head +of a pedantic master.</p> + +<p>The best and most attractive dialogues are those in which he can give +free play to this Epicurean sentiment; forget his political mouthing, +and inoculate us for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> moment with the spirit of youthful enjoyment. +Nothing can be more perfectly charming in its way than Epicurus in his +exquisite garden, discoursing on his pleasant knoll, where, with +violets, cyclamens, and convolvuluses clustering round, he talks to his +lovely girl-disciples upon the true theory of life—temperate enjoyment +of all refined pleasures, forgetfulness of all cares, and converse with +true chosen spirits far from the noise of the profane vulgar: of the +art, in short, by which a man of fine cultivation may make the most of +this life, and learn to take death as a calm and happy subsidence into +oblivion. Nor far behind is the dialogue in which Lucullus entertains +Cæsar in his delightful villa, and illustrates by example, as well as +precept, Landor's favourite doctrine of the vast superiority of the +literary to the active life. Politics, as he makes even Demosthenes +admit, are the 'sad refuge of restless minds, averse from business and +from study.' And certainly there are moods in which we could ask nothing +better than to live in a remote villa, in which wealth and art have done +everything in their power to give all the pleasures compatible with +perfect refinement and contempt of the grosser tastes. Only it must be +admitted that this is not quite a gospel for the million. And probably +the highest triumph is in the Pentameron, where the whole scene is so +vividly coloured by so many delicate touches, and such charming little +episodes of Italian life, that we seem almost to have seen the fat, +wheezy poet hoisting himself on to his pampered steed, to have listened +to the village gossip, and followed the little flirtations in which the +true poets take so kindly an interest; and are quite ready to pardon +certain useless digressions and critical vagaries, and to overlook +complacently any little laxity of morals.</p> + +<p>These, and many of the shorter and more dramatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span> dialogues, have a rare +charm, and the critic will return to analyse, if he can, their technical +qualities. But little explanation can be needed, after reading them, of +Landor's want of popularity. If he had applied one-tenth part of his +literary skill to expand commonplace sentiment; if he had talked that +kind of gentle twaddle by which some recent essayists edify their +readers, he might have succeeded in gaining a wide popularity. Or if he +had been really, as some writers seem to fancy, a deep and systematic +thinker as well as a most admirable artist, he might have extorted a +hearing even while provoking dissent. But his boyish waywardness has +disqualified him from reaching the deeper sympathies of either class. We +feel that the most superhuman of schoolboys has really a rather shallow +view of life. His various outbursts of wrath amuse us at best when they +do not bore, even though they take the outward form of philosophy or +statesmanship. He has really no answer or vestige of answer for any +problems of his, nor indeed of any other time, for he has no basis of +serious thought. All he can say is, ultimately, that he feels himself in +a very uncongenial atmosphere, from which it is delightful to retire, in +imagination, to the society of Epicurus, or the study of a few literary +masterpieces. That may be very true, but it can be interesting only to a +few men of similar taste; and men of profound insight, whether of the +poetic or the philosophic temperament, are apt to be vexed by his hasty +dogmatism and irritable rejection of much which deserved his sympathy. +His wanton quarrel with the world has been avenged by the world's +indifference. We may regret the result when we see what rare qualities +have been cruelly wasted, but we cannot fairly shut our eyes to the fact +that the world has a very strong case.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> De Quincey gets into a curious puzzle about Landor's remarks in his +essay on Milton <i>versus</i> Southey and Landor. He cannot understand to +which of Wordsworth's poems Landor is referring, and makes some oddly +erroneous guesses.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span></p> +<h2><i>MACAULAY</i></h2> + + +<p>Lord Macaulay was pre-eminently a fortunate man; and his good fortune +has survived him. Few, indeed, in the long line of English authors whom +he loved so well, have been equally happy in a biographer. Most official +biographies are a mixture of bungling and indiscretion. It is only in +virtue of some happy coincidence that the one or two people who alone +have the requisite knowledge can produce also the requisite skill and +discretion. Mr. Trevelyan is one of the exceptions to the rule. His book +is such a piece of thorough literary workmanship as would have delighted +its subject. By a rare felicity, the almost filial affection of the +narrator conciliates the reader instead of exciting a distrust of the +narrative. We feel that Macaulay's must have been a lovable character to +excite such warmth of feeling, and a noble character to enable one who +loved him to speak so frankly. The ordinary biographer's idolatry is not +absent, but it becomes a testimony to the hero's excellence instead of +introducing a disturbing element into our estimate of his merits.</p> + +<p>No reader of Macaulay's works will be surprised at the manliness which +is stamped not less plainly upon them than upon his whole career. But +few who were not in some degree behind the scenes would be prepared for +the tenderness of nature which is equally conspicuous. We all recognised +in Macaulay a lover of truth and political honour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span> We find no more than +we expected, when we are told that the one circumstance upon which he +looked back with some regret was the unauthorised publication by a +constituent of a letter in which he had spoken too frankly of a +political ally. That is indeed an infinitesimal stain upon the character +of a man who rose without wealth or connection, by sheer force of +intellect, to a conspicuous position amongst politicians. But we find +something more than we expected in the singular beauty of Macaulay's +domestic life. In his relations to his father, his sisters, and the +younger generation, he was admirable. The stern religious principle and +profound absorption in philanthropic labours of old Zachary Macaulay +must have made the position of his brilliant son anything but an easy +one. He could hardly read a novel, or contribute to a worldly magazine, +without calling down something like a reproof. The father seems to have +indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip +about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed +culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen +satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of +praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of +royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such +paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive of +anything like mutual confidence. Macaulay seems, in spite of all, to +have been on the most cordial terms with his father to the last. Some +suppression of his sentiments must indeed have been necessary; and we +cannot avoid tracing certain peculiarities of the son's intellectual +career to his having been condemned from an early age to habitual +reticence upon the deepest of all subjects of thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span></p> + +<p>Macaulay's relations to his sisters are sufficiently revealed in a long +series of charming letters, showing, both in their playfulness and in +their literary and political discussions, the unreserved respect and +confidence which united them. One of them writes upon his death: 'We +have lost the light of our home, the most tender, loving, generous, +unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can +tell? What a world of love he poured out upon me and mine!' Reading +these words at the close of the biography, we do not wonder at the +glamour of sisterly affection; but admit them to be the natural +expression of a perfectly sincere conviction. Can there be higher +praise? His relation to children is equally charming. 'He was beyond +comparison the best of playfellows,' writes Mr. Trevelyan; 'unrivalled +in the invention of games, and never weary of repeating them.' He wrote +long letters to his favourites; he addressed pretty little poems to them +on their birthdays, and composed long nursery rhymes for their +edification; whilst overwhelmed with historical labours, and grudging +the demands of society, he would dawdle away whole mornings with them, +and spend the afternoon in taking them to sights; he would build up a +den with newspapers behind the sofa, and act the part of tiger or +brigand; he would take them to the Tower, or Madame Tussaud's, or the +Zoological Gardens, make puns to enliven the Polytechnic, and tell +innumerable anecdotes to animate the statues in the British Museum; nor, +as they grew older, did he neglect the more dignified duty of +inoculating them with the literary tastes which had been the consolation +of his life. Obviously he was the ideal uncle—the uncle of optimistic +fiction, but with qualifications for his task such as few fictitious +uncles can possess. It need hardly be added that Macaulay was a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span> of +noble liberality in money matters, that he helped his family when they +were in difficulties, and was beloved by the servants who depended upon +him. In his domestic relations he had, according to his nephew, only one +serious fault—he did not appreciate canine excellence; but no man is +perfect.</p> + +<p>The thorough kindliness of the man reconciles us even to his good +fortune. He was an infant phenomenon; the best boy at school; in his +college days, 'ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out' at Bowood, +formed a circle to hear him talk, from breakfast to dinner-time; he was +famous as an author at twenty-five; accepted as a great parliamentary +orator at thirty; and, as a natural consequence, caressed with effusion +by editors, politicians, Whig magnates, and the clique of Holland House; +by thirty-three he had become a man of mark in society, literature, and +politics, and had secured his fortune by gaining a seat in the Indian +Council. His later career was a series of triumphs. He had been the main +support of the greatest literary organ of his party, and the 'Essays' +republished from its pages became at once a standard work. The 'Lays of +Ancient Rome' sold like Scott's most popular poetry; the 'History' +caused an excitement almost unparalleled in literary annals. Not only +was the first sale enormous, but it has gone on ever since increasing. +The popular author was equally popular in Parliament. The benches were +crammed to listen to the rare treat of his eloquence; and he had the far +rarer glory of more than once turning the settled opinion of the House +by a single speech. It is a more vulgar but a striking testimony to his +success that he made 20,000<i>l.</i> in one year by literature. Other authors +have had their heads turned by less triumphant careers; they have +descended to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span> lower ambition, and wasted their lives in spasmodic +straining to gain worthless applause. Macaulay remained faithful to his +calling. He worked his hardest to the last, and became a more unsparing +critic of his own performances as time went on. We do not feel even a +passing symptom of a grudge against his good fortune. Rather we are +moved by that kind of sentiment which expresses itself in the schoolboy +phrase, 'Well done our side!' We are glad to see the hearty, kindly, +truthful man crowned with all appropriate praise, and to think that for +once one of our race has got so decidedly the best of it in the hard +battle with the temptations and the miseries of life.</p> + +<p>Certain shortcomings have been set off against these virtues by critics +of Macaulay's life. He was, it has been said, too good a hater. At any +rate, he hated vice, meanness, and charlatanism. It is easier to hate +such things too little than too much. But it must be admitted that his +likes and dislikes indicate a certain rigidity and narrowness of nature. +'In books, as in people and places,' says Mr. Trevelyan, 'he loved that, +and loved that only, to which he had been accustomed from boyhood +upwards.' The faults of which this significant remark reveals one cause, +are marked upon his whole literary character. Macaulay was converted to +Whiggism when at college. The advance from Toryism to Whiggism is not +such as to involve a very violent wrench of the moral and intellectual +nature. Such as it was, it was the only wrench from which Macaulay +suffered. What he was as a scholar of Trinity, he was substantially as a +peer of the realm. He made, it would seem, few new friends, though he +grappled his old ones as 'with hooks of steel.' The fault is one which +belongs to many men of strong natures, and so long as we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span> +considering Macaulay's life we shall not be much disposed to quarrel +with his innate conservatism. Strong affections are so admirable a +quality that we can pardon the man who loves well though not widely; and +if Macaulay had not a genuine fervour of regard for the little circle of +his intimates, there is no man who deserves such praise.</p> + +<p>It is when we turn from Macaulay's personal character to attempt an +estimate of his literary position, that these faults acquire more +importance. His intellectual force was extraordinary within certain +limits; beyond those limits the giant became a child. He assimilated a +certain set of ideas as a lad, and never acquired a new idea in later +life. He accumulated vast stores of knowledge, but they all fitted into +the old framework of theory. Whiggism seemed to him to provide a +satisfactory solution for all political problems when he was sending his +first article to 'Knight's Magazine,' and when he was writing the last +page of his 'History.' 'I entered public life a Whig,' as he said in +1849, 'and a Whig I am determined to remain.' And what is meant by +Whiggism in Macaulay's mouth? It means substantially that creed which +registers the experience of the English upper classes during the four or +five generations previous to Macaulay. It represents, not the reasoning, +but the instinctive convictions generated by the dogged insistence upon +their privileges of a stubborn, high-spirited, and individually +short-sighted race. To deduce it as a symmetrical doctrine from abstract +propositions would be futile. It is only reasonable so far as a creed, +felt out by the collective instinct of a number of more or less stupid +people, becomes impressed with a quasi-rational unity, not from their +respect for logic, but from the uniformity of the mode of development. +Hatred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span> to pure reason is indeed one of its first principles. A doctrine +avowedly founded on logic instead of instinct becomes for that very +reason suspect to it. Common-sense takes the place of philosophy. At +times this mass of sentiment opposes itself under stress of +circumstances to the absolute theories of monarchy, and then calls +itself Whiggism. At other times it offers an equally dogged resistance +to absolute theories of democracy, and then becomes nominally Tory. In +Macaulay's youth the weight of opinion had been slowly swinging round +from the Toryism generated by dread of revolution, to Whiggism generated +by the accumulation of palpable abuses. The growing intelligence and +more rapidly growing power of the middle classes gave it at the same +time a more popular character than before. Macaulay's 'conversion' was +simply a process of swinging with the tide. The Clapham Sect, amongst +whom he had been brought up, was already more than half Whig, in virtue +of its attack upon the sacred institution of slavery by means of popular +agitation. Macaulay—the most brilliant of its young men—naturally cast +in his lot with the brilliant men, a little older than himself, who +fought under the blue and yellow banner of the 'Edinburgh Review.' No +great change of sentiment was necessary, though some of the old Clapham +doctrines died out in his mind as he was swept into the political +current.</p> + +<p>Macaulay thus early became a thoroughgoing Whig. Whiggism seemed to him +the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of progress: the pure essence of political wisdom. +He was never fully conscious of the vast revolution in thought which was +going on all around him. He was saturated with the doctrines of 1832. He +stated them with unequalled vigour and clearness. Anybody who disputed +them from either side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span> question seemed to him to be little better +than a fool. Southey and Mr. Gladstone talked arrant nonsense when they +disputed the logical or practical value of the doctrines laid down by +Locke. James Mill deserved the most contemptuous language for daring to +push those doctrines beyond the sacred line. When Macaulay attacks an +old non-juror or a modern Tory, we can only wonder how opinions which, +on his showing, are so inconceivably absurd, could ever have been held +by any human being. Men are Whigs or not-Whigs, and the not-Whig is less +a heretic to be anathematised than a blockhead beneath the reach of +argument. All political wisdom centres in Holland House, and the +'Edinburgh Review' is its prophet. There is something in the absolute +confidence of Macaulay's political dogmatism which varies between the +sublime and the ridiculous. We can hardly avoid laughing at this +superlative self-satisfaction, and yet we must admit that it is +indicative of a real political force not to be treated with simple +contempt. Belief is power, even when belief is most unreasonable.</p> + +<p>To define a Whig and to define Macaulay is pretty much the same thing. +Let us trace some of the qualities which enabled one man to become so +completely the type of a vast body of his compatriots.</p> + +<p>The first and most obvious power in which Macaulay excelled his +neighbours was his portentous memory. He could assimilate printed pages, +says his nephew, more quickly than others could glance over them. +Whatever he read was stamped upon his mind instantaneously and +permanently, and he read everything. In the midst of severe labours in +India, he read enough classical authors to stock the mind of an ordinary +professor. At the same time he framed a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span> criminal code and devoured +masses of trashy novels. From the works of the ancient Fathers of the +Church to English political pamphlets and to modern street ballads, no +printed matter came amiss to his omnivorous appetite. All that he had +read could be reproduced at a moment's notice. Every fool, he said, can +repeat his Archbishops of Canterbury backwards; and he was as familiar +with the Cambridge Calendar as the most devout Protestant with the +Bible. He could have re-written 'Sir Charles Grandison' from memory if +every copy had been lost. Now it might perhaps be plausibly maintained +that the possession of such a memory is unfavourable to a high +development of the reasoning powers. The case of Pascal, indeed, who is +said never to have forgotten anything, shows that the two powers may +co-exist; and other cases might of course be mentioned. But it is true +that a powerful memory may enable a man to save himself the trouble of +reasoning. It encourages the indolent propensity of deciding +difficulties by precedent instead of principles. Macaulay, for example, +was once required to argue the point of political casuistry as to the +degree of independent action permissible to members of a Cabinet. An +ordinary mind would have to answer by striking a rough balance between +the conveniences and inconveniences likely to arise. It would be forced, +that is to say, to reason from the nature of the case. But Macaulay had +at his fingers' end every instance from the days of Walpole to his own +in which Ministers had been allowed to vote against the general policy +of the Government. By quoting them, he seemed to decide the point by +authority, instead of taking the troublesome and dangerous road of +abstract reasoning. Thus to appeal to experience is with him to appeal +to the stores of a gigantic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span> memory; and is generally the same thing as +to deny the value of all general rules. This is the true Whig doctrine +of referring to precedent rather than to theory. Our popular leaders +were always glad to quote Hampden and Sidney instead of venturing upon +the dangerous ground of abstract rights.</p> + +<p>Macaulay's love of deciding all points by an accumulation of appropriate +instances is indeed characteristic of his mind. It is connected with a +curious defect of analytical power. It appears in his literary criticism +as much as in his political speculations. In an interesting letter to +Mr. Napier, he states the case himself as an excuse for not writing upon +Scott. 'Hazlitt used to say, "I am nothing if not critical." The case +with me,' says Macaulay, 'is precisely the reverse. I have a strong and +acute enjoyment of works of the imagination, but I have never habituated +myself to dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly for that +very reason. Such books as Lessing's "Laocoon," such passages as the +criticism on "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," fill me with wonder and +despair.' If we take any of Macaulay's criticisms, we shall see how +truly he had gauged his own capacity. They are either random discharges +of superlatives or vigorous assertions of sound moral principles. He +compliments some favourite author with an emphatic repetition of the +ordinary eulogies, or shows conclusively that Montgomery was a sham +poet, and Wycherley a corrupt ribald. Nobody can hit a haystack with +more certainty, but he is not so good at a difficult mark. He never +makes a fine suggestion as to the secrets of the art whose products he +admires or describes. His mode, for example, of criticising Bunyan is to +give a list of the passages which he remembers, and of course he +remembers everything.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span> He observes, what is tolerably clear, that +Bunyan's allegory is as vivid as a concrete history, though strangely +comparing him in this respect to Shelley—the least concrete of poets; +and he makes the discovery, which did not require his vast stores of +historical knowledge, 'that it is impossible to doubt that' Bunyan's +trial of Christian and Faithful is meant to satirise the judges of the +time of Charles II. That is as plain as the intention of the last +cartoon in 'Punch.' Macaulay can draw a most vivid portrait, so far as +that can be done by a picturesque accumulation of characteristic facts, +but he never gets below the surface, or details the principles whose +embodiment he describes from without.</p> + +<p>The defect is connected with further peculiarities, in which Macaulay is +the genuine representative of the true Whig type. The practical value of +adherence to precedent is obvious. It may be justified by the assertion +that all sound political philosophy must be based upon experience: and +no one will deny that assertion to contain a most important truth. But +in Macaulay's mind this sound doctrine seems to be confused with the +very questionable doctrine that in political questions there is no +philosophy at all. To appeal to experience may mean either to appeal to +facts so classified and systematically arranged as to illustrate general +truths, or to appeal to a mere mass of observations, without taking the +trouble to elicit their true significance, or even to believe that they +can be resolved into particular cases of a general truth. This is the +difference between an experimental philosophy and a crude empiricism. +Macaulay takes the lower alternative. The vigorous attack upon James +Mill, which he very properly suppressed during his life on account of +its juvenile arrogance, curiously illustrates his mode of thought. No +one can deny, I think, that he makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span> some very good points against a +very questionable system of political dogmatism. But when we ask what +are Macaulay's own principles, we are left at a stand. He ought, by all +his intellectual sympathies, to be a utilitarian. Yet he treats +utilitarianism with the utmost contempt, though he has no alternative +theory to suggest. He ends his first Essay against Mill by one of his +customary purple patches about Baconian induction. He tells us, in the +second, how to apply it. Bacon proposed to discover the principle of +heat by observing in what qualities all hot bodies agreed, and in what +qualities all cold bodies. Similarly, we are to make a list of all +constitutions which have produced good or bad government, and to +investigate their points of agreement and difference. This sounds +plausible to the uninstructed, but is a mere rhetorical flourish. +Bacon's method is admittedly inadequate for reasons which I leave to men +of science to explain, and Macaulay's method is equally hopeless in +politics. It is hopeless for the simple reason that the complexity of +the phenomena makes it impracticable. We cannot find out what +constitution is best after this fashion, simply because the goodness or +badness of a constitution depends upon a thousand conditions of social, +moral, and intellectual development. When stripped of its pretentious +phraseology, Macaulay's teaching comes simply to this: the only rule in +politics is the rule of thumb. All general principles are wrong or +futile. We have found out in England that our constitution, constructed +in absolute defiance of all <i>à priori</i> reasoning, is the best in the +world: it is the best for providing us with the maximum of bread, beef, +beer, and means of buying bread, beer, and beef: and we have got it +because we have never—like those publicans the French—trusted to fine +sayings about truth and justice and human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span> rights, but blundered on, +adding a patch here and knocking a hole there, as our humour prompted +us.</p> + +<p>This sovereign contempt of all speculation—simply as +speculation—reaches its acme in the Essay on Bacon. The curious naïveté +with which Macaulay denounces all philosophy in that vigorous production +excites a kind of perverse admiration. How can one refuse to admire the +audacity which enables a man explicitly to identify philosophy with +humbug? It is what ninety-nine men out of a hundred think, but not one +in a thousand dares to say. Goethe says somewhere that he likes +Englishmen because English fools are the most thoroughgoing of fools. +English 'Philistines,' as represented by Macaulay, the prince of +Philistines, according to Matthew Arnold, carry their contempt of the +higher intellectual interests to a pitch of real sublimity. Bacon's +theory of induction, says Macaulay, in so many words, was valueless. +Everybody could reason before it as well as after. But Bacon really +performed a service of inestimable value to mankind; and it consisted +precisely in this, that he called their attention from philosophy to the +pursuit of material advantages. The old philosophers had gone on +bothering about theology, ethics, and the true and beautiful, and such +other nonsense. Bacon taught us to work at chemistry and mechanics, to +invent diving-bells and steam-engines and spinning-jennies. We could +never, it seems, have found out the advantages of this direction of our +energies without a philosopher, and so far philosophy is negatively +good. It has written up upon all the supposed avenues to inquiry, 'No +admission except on business;' that is, upon the business of direct +practical discovery. We English have taken the hint, and we have +therefore lived to see when a man can breakfast in London<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span> and dine in +Edinburgh, and may look forward to a day when the tops of Ben-Nevis and +Helvellyn will be cultivated like flower-gardens, and when machines +constructed on principles yet to be discovered will be in every house.</p> + +<p>The theory which underlies this conclusion is often explicitly stated. +All philosophy has produced mere futile logomachy. Greek sages and Roman +moralists and mediæval schoolmen have amassed words, and amassed nothing +else. One distinct discovery of a solid truth, however humble, is worth +all their labours. This condemnation applies not only to philosophy, but +to the religious embodiment of philosophy. No satisfactory conclusion +ever has been reached or ever will be reached in theological disputes. +On all such topics, he tells Mr. Gladstone, there has always been the +widest divergence of opinion. Nor are there better hopes for the future. +The ablest minds, he says in the Essay upon Ranke, have believed in +transubstantiation; that is, according to him, in the most ineffable +nonsense. There is no certainty that men will not believe to the end of +time the doctrines which imposed upon so able a man as Sir Thomas More. +Not only, that is, have men been hitherto wandering in a labyrinth +without a clue, but there is no chance that any clue will ever be found. +The doctrine, so familiar to our generation, of laws of intellectual +development, never even occurs to him. The collective thought of +generations marks time without advancing. A guess of Sir Thomas More is +as good or as bad as the guess of the last philosopher. This theory, if +true, implies utter scepticism. And yet Macaulay was clearly not a +sceptic. His creed was hidden under a systematic reticence, and he +resisted every attempt to raise the veil with rather superfluous +indignation. When a constituent dared to ask about his religious views, +he denounced the rash inquirer in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span> terms applicable to an agent of the +Inquisition. He vouchsafed, indeed, the information that he was a +Christian. We may accept the phrase, not only on the strength of his +invariable sincerity, but because it falls in with the general turn of +his arguments. He denounces the futility of the ancient moralists, but +he asserts the enormous social value of Christianity.</p> + +<p>His attitude, in fact, is equally characteristic of the man and his +surroundings. The old Clapham teaching had faded in his mind: it had not +produced a revolt. He retained the old hatred for slavery; and he +retained, with the whole force of his affectionate nature, reverence for +the school of Wilberforce, Thornton, and his own father. He estimated +most highly, not perhaps more highly than they deserved, the value of +the services rendered by them in awakening the conscience of the nation. +In their persistent and disinterested labours he recognised a +manifestation of the great social force of Christianity. But a belief +that Christianity is useful, and even that it is true, may consist with +a profound conviction of the futility of the philosophy with which it +has been associated. Here again Macaulay is a true Whig. The Whig love +of precedent, the Whig hatred for abstract theories, may consist with a +Tory application. But the true Whig differed from the Tory in adding to +these views an invincible suspicion of parsons. The first Whig battles +were fought against the Church as much as against the King. From the +struggle with Sacheverell down to the struggle for Catholic +emancipation, Toryism and High-Church principles were associated against +Whigs and Dissenters. By that kind of dumb instinct which outruns +reason, the Whig had learnt that there was some occult bond of union +between the claims of a priesthood and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span> claims of a monarchy. The +old maxim, 'No bishop, no king,' suggested the opposite principle that +you must keep down the clergy if you would limit the monarchy. The +natural interpretation of this prejudice into political theory, is that +the Church is extremely useful as an ally of the constable, but +possesses a most dangerous explosive power if allowed to claim +independent authority. In practice we must resist all claims of the +Church to dictate to the State. In theory we must deny the foundation +upon which such claims can alone be founded. Dogmatism must be +pronounced to be fundamentally irrational. Nobody knows anything about +theology; or what is the same thing, no two people agree. As they don't +agree, they cannot claim to impose their beliefs upon others.</p> + +<p>This sentiment comes out curiously in the characteristic Essay just +mentioned. Macaulay says, in reply to Mr. Gladstone, that there is no +more reason for the introduction of religious questions into State +affairs than for introducing them into the affairs of a Canal Company. +He puts his argument with an admirable vigour and clearness which blinds +many readers to the fact that he is begging the question by evading the +real difficulty. If, in fact, Government had as little to do as a Canal +Company with religious opinion, we should have long ago learnt the great +lesson of toleration. But that is just the very <i>crux</i>. Can we draw the +line between the spiritual and the secular? Nothing, replies Macaulay, +is easier; and his method has been already indicated. We all agree that +we don't want to be robbed or murdered: we are by no means all agreed +about the doctrine of Trinity. But, says a churchman, a certain creed is +necessary to men's moral and spiritual welfare, and therefore of the +utmost importance even for the prevention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span> of robbery and murder. This +is what Macaulay implicitly denies. The whole of dogmatic theology +belongs to that region of philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever you +please to call it, in which men are doomed to dispute for ever without +coming any nearer to a decision. All that the statesman has to do with +such matters is to see that if men are fools enough to speculate, they +shall not be allowed to cut each other's throats when they reach, as +they always must reach, contradictory results. If you raise a difficult +point—such, for example, as the education question—Macaulay replies, +as so many people have replied before and since, Teach the people 'those +principles of morality which are common to all the forms of +Christianity.' That is easier said than done! The plausibility of the +solution in Macaulay's mouth is due to the fundamental assumption that +everything except morality is hopeless ground of inquiry. Once get +beyond the Ten Commandments and you will sink in a bottomless morass of +argument, counterargument, quibble, logomachy, superstition, and +confusion worse confounded.</p> + +<p>In Macaulay's teaching, as in that of his party, there is doubtless much +that is noble. He has a righteous hatred of oppression in all shapes and +disguises. He can tear to pieces with great logical power many of the +fallacies alleged by his opponents. Our sympathies are certainly with +him as against men who advocate persecution on any grounds, and he is +fully qualified to crush his ordinary opponents. But it is plain that +his whole political and (if we may use the word) philosophical teaching +rests on something like a downright aversion to the higher order of +speculation. He despises it. He wants something tangible and +concrete—something in favour of which he may appeal to the imme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span>diate +testimony of the senses. He must feel his feet planted on the solid +earth. The pain of attempting to soar into higher regions is not +compensated to him by the increased width of horizon. And in this +respect he is but the type of most of his countrymen, and reflects what +has been (as I should say) erroneously called their 'unimaginative' view +of things in general.</p> + +<p>Macaulay, at any rate, distinctly belongs to the imaginative class of +minds, if only in virtue of his instinctive preference of the concrete +to the abstract, and his dislike, already noticed, to analysis. He has a +thirst for distinct and vivid images. He reasons by examples instead of +appealing to formulæ. There is a characteristic account in Mr. +Trevelyan's volumes of his habit of rambling amongst the older parts of +London, his fancy teeming with stories attached to the picturesque +fragments of antiquity, and carrying on dialogues between imaginary +persons as vivid, if not as forcible, as those of Scott's novels. To +this habit—rather inverting the order of cause and effect—he +attributes his accuracy of detail. We should rather say that the +intensity of the impressions generated both the accuracy and the +day-dreams. A philosopher would be arguing in his daily rambles where an +imaginative mind is creating a series of pictures. But Macaulay's +imagination is as definitely limited as his speculation. The genuine +poet is also a philosopher. He sees intuitively what the reasoner +evolves by argument. The greatest minds in both classes are equally +marked by their naturalisation in the lofty regions of thought, +inaccessible or uncongenial to men of inferior stamp. It is tempting in +some ways to compare Macaulay to Burke. Burke's superiority is marked by +this, that he is primarily a philosopher, and therefore instinctively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span> +sees the illustration of a general law in every particular fact. +Macaulay, on the contrary, gets away from theory as fast as possible, +and tries to conceal his poverty of thought under masses of ingenious +illustration.</p> + +<p>His imaginative narrowness would come out still more clearly by a +comparison with Carlyle. One significant fact must be enough. Everyone +must have observed how powerfully Carlyle expresses the emotion +suggested by the brief appearance of some little waif from past history. +We may remember, for example, how the usher, De Brézé, appears for a +moment to utter the last shriek of the old monarchical etiquette, and +then vanishes into the dim abysses of the past. The imagination is +excited by the little glimpse of light flashing for a moment upon some +special point in the cloudy phantasmagoria of human history. The image +of a past existence is projected for a moment upon our eyes, to make us +feel how transitory is life, and how rapidly one visionary existence +expels another. We are such stuff as dreams are made of:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">None other than a moving row<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of visionary shapes that come and go<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Around the sun-illumined lantern held<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In midnight by the master of the show.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Every object is seen against the background of eternal mystery. In +Macaulay's pages this element is altogether absent. We see a figure from +the past as vividly as if he were present. We observe the details of his +dress, the odd oaths with which his discourse is interlarded, the minute +peculiarities of his features or manner. We laugh or admire as we should +do at a living man; and we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But +the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into oblivion, +that our little island<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span> of daylight will soon be shrouded in the +gathering mist, and that we tread at every instant on the dust of +forgotten continents. We treat the men of past ages quite at our ease. +We applaud and criticise Hampden or Chatham as we should applaud Peel or +Cobden. There is no atmospheric effect—no sense of the dim march of +ages, or of the vast procession of human life. It is doubtless a great +feat to make the past present. It is a greater to emancipate us from the +tyranny of the present, and to raise us to a point at which we feel that +we too are almost as dreamlike as the men of old time. To gain clearness +and definition Macaulay has dropped the element of mystery. He sees +perfectly whatever can be seen by the ordinary lawyer, or politician, or +merchant; he is insensible to the visions which reveal themselves only +to minds haunted by thoughts of eternity, and delighting to dwell in the +border-land where dreams blend with realities. Mysticism is to him +hateful, and historical figures form groups of individuals, not symbols +of forces working behind the veil.</p> + +<p>Macaulay, therefore, can be no more a poet in the sense in which the +word is applied to Spenser, or to Wordsworth, both of whom he holds to +be simply intolerable bores, than he can be a metaphysician or a +scientific thinker. In common phraseology, he is a Philistine—a word +which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher +intellectual interests. The word may also be defined, however, as the +name applied by prigs to the rest of their species. And I hold that the +modern fashion of using it as a common term of abuse amounts to a +literary nuisance. It enables intellectual coxcombs to brand men with an +offensive epithet for being a degree more manly than themselves. There +is much that is good in your Philistine; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span> when we ask what Macaulay +was, instead of showing what he was not, we shall perhaps find that the +popular estimate is not altogether wrong.</p> + +<p>Macaulay was not only a typical Whig, but the prophet of Whiggism to his +generation. Though not a poet or a philosopher, he was a born +rhetorician. His parliamentary career proves his capacity sufficiently, +though want of the physical qualifications, and of exclusive devotion to +political success, prevented him, as perhaps a want of subtlety or +flexibility of mind would have always prevented him, from attaining +excellence as a debater. In everything that he wrote, however, we see +the true rhetorician. He tells us that Fox wrote debates, whilst +Mackintosh spoke essays. Macaulay did both. His compositions are a +series of orations on behalf of sound Whig views, whatever their +external form. Given a certain audience—and every orator supposes a +particular audience—their effectiveness is undeniable. Macaulay's may +be composed of ordinary Englishmen, with a moderate standard of +education. His arguments are adapted to the ordinary Cabinet Minister, +or, what is much the same, to the person who is willing to pay a +shilling to hear an evening lecture. He can hit an audience composed of +such materials—to quote Burke's phrase about George Grenville—'between +wind and water.' He uses the language, the logic, and the images which +they can fully understand; and though his hearer, like his schoolboy, is +ostensibly credited at times with a portentous memory, Macaulay always +takes excellent care to put him in mind of the facts which he is assumed +to remember. The faults and the merits of his style follow from his +resolute determination to be understood of the people. He was specially +delighted, as his nephew tells us, by a reader at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span> Messrs. +Spottiswoode's, who said that in all the 'History' there was only one +sentence the meaning of which was not obvious to him at first sight. We +are more surprised that there was one such sentence. Clearness is the +first of the cardinal virtues of style; and nobody ever wrote more +clearly than Macaulay. He sacrifices much, it is true, in order to +obtain it. He proves that two and two make four with a pertinacity which +would make him dull, if it were not for his abundance of brilliant +illustration. He always remembers the principle which should guide a +barrister in addressing a jury. He has not merely to exhibit his proofs, +but to hammer them into the heads of his audience by incessant +repetition. It is no small proof of artistic skill that a writer who +systematically adopts this method should yet be invariably lively. He +goes on blacking the chimney with a persistency which somehow amuses us +because he puts so much heart into his work. He proves the most obvious +truths again and again; but his vivacity never flags. This tendency +undoubtedly leads to great defects of style. His sentences are +monotonous and mechanical. He has a perfect hatred of pronouns, and for +fear of a possible entanglement between 'hims' and 'hers' and 'its,' he +will repeat not merely a substantive, but a whole group of substantives. +Sometimes, to make his sense unmistakable, he will repeat a whole +formula, with only a change in the copula. For the same reason, he hates +all qualifications and parentheses. Each thought must be resolved into +its constituent parts; each argument must be expressed as a simple +proposition: and his paragraphs are rather aggregates of independent +atoms than possessed of a continuous unity. His writing—to use a +favourite formula of his own—bears the same relation to a style of +graceful modulation that a bit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span> of mosaic work bears to a picture. Each +phrase has its distinct hue, instead of melting into its neighbours. +Here we have a black patch and there a white. There are no half tones, +no subtle interblending of different currents of thought. It is partly +for this reason that his descriptions of character are often so +unsatisfactory. He likes to represent a man as a bundle of +contradictions, because it enables him to obtain startling contrasts. He +heightens a vice in one place, a virtue in another, and piles them +together in a heap, without troubling himself to ask whether nature can +make such monsters, or preserve them if made. To anyone given to +analysis, these contrasts are actually painful. There is a story of the +Duke of Wellington having once stated that the rats got into his bottles +in Spain. 'They must have been very large bottles or very small rats,' +said somebody. 'On the contrary,' replied the Duke, 'the rats were very +large and the bottles very small.' Macaulay delights in leaving us face +to face with such contrasts in more important matters. Boswell must, we +would say, have been a clever man or his biography cannot have been so +good as you say. On the contrary, says Macaulay, he was the greatest of +fools and the best of biographers. He strikes a discord and purposely +fails to resolve it. To men of more delicate sensibility the result is +an intolerable jar.</p> + +<p>For the same reason, Macaulay's genuine eloquence is marred by the +symptoms of malice prepense. When he sews on a purple patch, he is +resolved that there shall be no mistake about it; it must stand out from +a radical contrast of colours. The emotion is not to swell by degrees, +till you find yourself carried away in the torrent which set out as a +tranquil stream. The transition is deliberately emphasised. On one side +of a full stop you are listening to a matter-of-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span>fact statement; on the +other, there is all at once a blare of trumpets and a beating of drums, +till the crash almost deafens you. He regrets in one of his letters that +he has used up the celebrated, and, it must be confessed, really +forcible passage about the impeachment scene in Westminster Hall. It +might have come in usefully in the 'History,' which, as he then hoped, +would reach the time of Warren Hastings. The regret is unpleasantly +suggestive of that deliberation in the manufacture of eloquence which +stamps it as artificial.</p> + +<p>Such faults may annoy critics, even of no very sensitive fibre. What is +it that redeems them? The first answer is, that the work is impressive +because it is thoroughly genuine. The stream, it is true, comes forth by +spasmodic gushes, when it ought to flow in a continuous current; but it +flows from a full reservoir instead of being pumped from a shallow +cistern. The knowledge and, what is more, the thoroughly-assimilated +knowledge, is enormous. Mr. Trevelyan has shown in detail what we had +all divined for ourselves, how much patient labour is often employed in +a paragraph or the turn of a phrase. To accuse Macaulay of +superficiality is, in this sense, altogether absurd. His speculation may +be meagre, but his store of information is simply inexhaustible. Mill's +writing was impressive, because one often felt that a single argument +condensed the result of a long process of reflection. Macaulay has the +lower but similar merit that a single picturesque touch implies +incalculable masses of knowledge. It is but an insignificant part of the +building which appears above ground. Compare a passage with the assigned +authority, and you are inclined to accuse him—sometimes it may be +rightfully—of amplifying and modifying. But more often the particular +authority is merely the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span> nucleus round which a whole volume of other +knowledge has crystallised. A single hint is significant to a +properly-prepared mind of a thousand facts not explicitly contained in +it. Nobody, he said, could judge of the accuracy of one part of his +'History' who had not 'soaked his mind with the transitory literature of +the day.' His real authority was not this or that particular passage, +but a literature. And for this reason alone, Macaulay's historical +writings have a permanent value which will prevent them from being +superseded even by more philosophical thinkers, whose minds have not +undergone the 'soaking' process.</p> + +<p>It is significant again that imitations of Macaulay are almost as +offensive as imitations of Carlyle. Every great writer has his +parasites. Macaulay's false glitter and jingle, his frequent flippancy +and superficiality of thought, are more easily caught than his virtues; +but so are all faults. Would-be followers of Carlyle catch the strained +gestures without the rapture of his inspiration. Would-be followers of +Mill fancied themselves to be logical when they were only hopelessly +unsympathetic and unimaginative; and would-be followers of some other +writers can be effeminate and foppish without being subtle or graceful. +Macaulay's thoroughness of work has, perhaps, been less contagious than +we could wish. Something of the modern raising of the standard of +accuracy in historical inquiry may be set down to his influence. The +misfortune is that, if some writers have learnt from him to be flippant +without learning to be laborious, others have caught the accuracy +without the liveliness. In the later volumes of his 'History,' his +vigour began to be a little clogged by the fulness of his knowledge; and +we can observe symptoms of the tendency of modern historians to grudge +the sacrifice of sifting their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span> knowledge. They read enough, but instead +of giving us the results, they tumble out the accumulated mass of raw +materials upon our devoted heads, till they make us long for a fire in +the State Paper Office.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, Macaulay did not yield to this temptation in his earlier +writings, and the result is that he is, for the ordinary reader, one of +the two authorities for English history, the other being Shakespeare. +Without comparing their merits, we must admit that the compression of so +much into a few short narratives shows intensity as well as compass of +mind. He could digest as well as devour, and he tried his digestion +pretty severely. It is fashionable to say that part of his practical +force is due to the training of parliamentary life. Familiarity with the +course of affairs doubtless strengthened his insight into history, and +taught him the value of downright common-sense in teaching an average +audience. Speaking purely from the literary point of view, I cannot +agree further in the opinion suggested. I suspect the 'History' would +have been better if Macaulay had not been so deeply immersed in all the +business of legislation and electioneering. I do not profoundly +reverence the House of Commons' tone—even in the House of Commons; and +in literature it easily becomes a nuisance. Familiarity with the actual +machinery of politics tends to strengthen the contempt for general +principles, of which Macaulay had an ample share. It encourages the +illusion of the fly upon the wheel, the doctrine that the dust and din +of debate and the worry of lobbies and committee-rooms are not the +effect but the cause of the great social movement. The historian of the +Roman Empire, as we know, owed something to the captain of Hampshire +Militia; but years of life absorbed in parliamentary wrangling and in +sitting at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span> the feet of the philosophers of Holland House were not +likely to widen a mind already disposed to narrow views of the world.</p> + +<p>For Macaulay's immediate success, indeed, the training was undoubtedly +valuable. As he carried into Parliament the authority of a great writer, +so he wrote books with the authority of the practical politician. He has +the true instinct of affairs. He knows what are the immediate motives +which move masses of men; and is never misled by fanciful analogies or +blindfolded by the pedantry of official language. He has seen +flesh-and-blood statesmen—at any rate, English statesmen—and +understands the nature of the animal. Nobody can be freer from the +dominion of crotchets. All his reasoning is made of the soundest common +sense, and represents, if not the ultimate forces, yet forces with which +we have to reckon. And he knows, too, how to stir the blood of the +average Englishman. He understands most thoroughly the value of +concentration, unity, and simplicity. Every speech or essay forms an +artistic whole, in which some distinct moral is vigorously driven home +by a succession of downright blows. This strong rhetorical instinct is +shown conspicuously in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which, whatever we +might say of them as poetry, are an admirable specimen of rhymed +rhetoric. We know how good they are when we see how incapable are modern +ballad-writers in general of putting the same swing and fire into their +verses. Compare, for example, Aytoun's 'Lays of the Cavaliers,' as the +most obvious parallel:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not swifter pours the avalanche<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Adown the steep incline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That rises o'er the parent springs<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of rough and rapid Rhine,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>than certain Scotch heroes over an entrenchment. Place this mouthing by +any parallel passage in Macaulay:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now, by our sire Quirinus,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">It was a goodly sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see the thirty standards<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Swept down the tide of flight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So flies the spray in Adria<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When the black squall doth blow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So corn-sheaves in the flood time<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Spin down the whirling Po.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And so on in verses which innumerable schoolboys of inferior pretensions +to Macaulay's know by heart. And in such cases the verdict of the +schoolboy is perhaps more valuable than that of the literary +connoisseur. There are, of course, many living poets who can do +tolerably something of far higher quality which Macaulay could not do at +all. But I don't know who, since Scott, could have done this particular +thing. Possibly Mr. Kingsley might have approached it, or the poet, if +he would have condescended so far, who sang the bearing of the good news +from Ghent to Aix. In any case, the feat is significant of Macaulay's +true power. It looks easy; it involves no demands upon the higher +reasoning or imaginative powers: but nobody will believe it to be easy +who observes the extreme rarity of a success in a feat so often +attempted.</p> + +<p>A similar remark is suggested by Macaulay's 'Essays.' Read such an essay +as that upon Clive, or Warren Hastings, or Chatham. The story seems to +tell itself. The characters are so strongly marked, the events fall so +easily into their places, that we fancy that the narrator's business has +been done to his hand. It wants little critical experience to discover +that this massive simplicity is really indicative of an art not, it may +be, of the highest order, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span> truly admirable for its purpose. It +indicates not only a gigantic memory, but a glowing mind, which has +fused a crude mass of materials into unity. If we do not find the sudden +touches which reveal the philosophical sagacity or the imaginative +insight of the highest order of intellects, we recognise the true +rhetorical instinct. The outlines may be harsh, and the colours too +glaring; but the general effect has been carefully studied. The details +are wrought in with consummate skill. We indulge in an intercalary pish! +here and there; but we are fascinated and we remember. The actual amount +of intellectual force which goes to the composition of such written +archives is immense, though the quality may leave something to be +desired. Shrewd common-sense may be an inferior substitute for +philosophy, and the faculty which brings remote objects close to the eye +of an ordinary observer for the loftier faculty which tinges everyday +life with the hues of mystic contemplation. But when the common +faculties are present in so abnormal a degree, they begin to have a +dignity of their own.</p> + +<p>It is impossible in such matters to establish any measure of comparison. +No analysis will enable us to say how much pedestrian capacity may be +fairly regarded as equivalent to a small capacity for soaring above the +solid earth, and therefore the question as to the relative value of +Macaulay's work and that of some men of loftier aims and less perfect +execution must be left to individual taste. We can only say that it is +something so to have written the history of many national heroes as to +make their faded glories revive to active life in the memory of their +countrymen. So long as Englishmen are what they are—and they don't seem +to change as rapidly as might be wished—they will turn to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span> Macaulay's +pages to gain a vivid impression of our greatest achievements during an +important period.</p> + +<p>Nor is this all. The fire which glows in Macaulay's history, the intense +patriotic feeling, the love of certain moral qualities, is not +altogether of the highest kind. His ideal of national and individual +greatness might easily be criticised. But the sentiment, as far as it +goes, is altogether sound and manly. He is too fond, it has been said, +of incessant moralising. From a scientific point of view the moralising +is irrelevant. We want to study the causes and the nature of great +social movements; and when we are stopped in order to inquire how far +the prominent actors in them were hurried beyond ordinary rules, we are +transported into a different order of thought. It would be as much to +the purpose if we approved an earthquake for upsetting a fort, and +blamed it for moving the foundations of a church. Macaulay can never +understand this point of view. With him, history is nothing more than a +sum of biographies. And even from a biographical point of view his +moralising is often troublesome. He not only insists upon transporting +party prejudice into his estimates, and mauls poor James II. as he +mauled the Tories in 1832; but he applies obviously inadequate tests. It +is absurd to call upon men engaged in a life-and-death wrestle to pay +scrupulous attention to the ordinary rules of politeness. There are +times when judgments guided by constitutional precedent become +ludicrously out of place, and when the best man is he who aims +straightest at the heart of his antagonist. But, in spite of such +drawbacks, Macaulay's genuine sympathy for manliness and force of +character generally enables him to strike pretty nearly the true note. +To learn the true secret of Cromwell's character we must go to Carlyle, +who can sympathise with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span> deep currents of religious enthusiasm. Macaulay +retains too much of the old Whig distrust for all that it calls +fanaticism fully to recognise the grandeur beneath the grotesque outside +of the Puritan. But Macaulay tells us most distinctly why Englishmen +warm at the name of the great Protector. We, like the banished +Cavaliers, 'glow with an emotion of national pride' at his animated +picture of the unconquerable Ironsides. One phrase may be sufficiently +illustrative. After quoting Clarendon's story of the Scotch nobleman who +forced Charles to leave the field of Naseby by seizing his horse's +bridle, 'no man,' says Macaulay, 'who had much value for his life would +have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day for Oliver +Cromwell.'</p> + +<p>Macaulay, in short, always feels, and therefore communicates, a hearty +admiration for sheer manliness. And some of his portraits of great men +have therefore a genuine power, and show the deeper insight which comes +from true sympathy. He estimates the respectable observer of +constitutional proprieties too highly; he is unduly repelled by the +external oddities of the truly masculine and noble Johnson; but his +enthusiasm for his pet hero, William, or for Chatham or Clive, carries +us along with him. And at moments when he is narrating their exploits, +and can forget his elaborate argumentations and refrain from bits of +deliberate bombast, the style becomes graphic in the higher sense of a +much-abused word, and we confess that we are listening to genuine +eloquence. Putting aside for the moment recollection of foibles, almost +too obvious to deserve the careful demonstration which they have +sometimes received, we are glad to surrender ourselves to the charm of +his straightforward, clear-headed, hard-hitting declamation. There is no +writer with whom it is easier to find fault, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span> the limits of whose +power may be more distinctly defined; but within his own sphere he goes +forward, as he went through life, with a kind of grand confidence in +himself and his cause, which is attractive, and at times even +provocative of sympathetic enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Macaulay said, in his Diary, that he wrote his 'History' with an eye to +a remote past and a remote future. He meant to erect a monument more +enduring than brass, and the ambition at least stimulated him to +admirable thoroughness of workmanship. How far his aim was secured must +be left to the decision of a posterity which will not trouble itself +about the susceptibilities of candidates for its favour. In one sense, +however, Macaulay must be interesting so long as the type which he so +fully represents continues to exist. Whig has become an old-fashioned +phrase, and is repudiated by modern Liberals and Radicals, who think +themselves wiser than their fathers. The decay of the old name implies a +remarkable political change; but I doubt whether it implies more than a +very superficial change in the national character. New classes and new +ideas have come upon the stage; but they have a curious family likeness +to the old. The Whiggism whose peculiarities Macaulay reflected so +faithfully represents some of the most deeply-seated tendencies of the +national character. It has, therefore, both its ugly and its honourable +side. Its disregard, or rather its hatred, for pure reason, its +exaltation of expediency above truth and precedent above principle, its +instinctive dread of strong religious or political faiths, are of course +questionable qualities. Yet even they have their nobler side. There is +something almost sublime about the grand unreasonableness of the average +Englishman. His dogged contempt for all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span> foreigners and philosophers, +his intense resolution to have his own way and use his own eyes, to see +nothing that does not come within his narrow sphere of vision, and to +see it quite clearly before he acts upon it, are of course abhorrent to +thinkers of a different order. But they are great qualities in the +struggle for existence which must determine the future of the world. The +Englishman, armed in his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts +with unequalled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, +but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the +universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is +not to be trifled with. Macaulay's sympathy with these qualities led to +some annoying peculiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a +commonness, sometimes a vulgarity, of style which is easily criticised. +But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always +comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is +nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colours resolutely +and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and +spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never +knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He +is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine +love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with +unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which +he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be +narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the +manliness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his +countrymen. He is proud of the healthy vigorous stock from which he +springs; and the fervour of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span> enthusiasm, though it may shock a +delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue +to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at +bottom—indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud.</p> + + +<p class="center">END OF THE SECOND VOLUME</p> + +<p class="frontend">PRINTED BY<br /> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br /> +LONDON</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="transnote"> +<a name="TN" id="TN"></a><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_31">31</a>: illlustrations amended to illustrations</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_38">38</a>: Single quote mark removed from end of excerpt. +("And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!")</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_81">81</a>: idiosyncracy amended to idiosyncrasy</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_117">117</a>: Single quote mark in front of "miserable" +removed. ("'The man they called Dizzy' can despise a +miserable creature ...")</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_131">131</a>: sweatmeats amended to sweetmeats</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_143">143</a>: aristocractic amended to aristocratic</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_147">147</a>: sentiment amended to sentiments</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_163">163</a>: Mahommedan amended to Mohammedan</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_181">181</a>: Macchiavelli amended to Machiavelli</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_241">241</a>: Full stop added after "third generation."</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_247">247</a>: Comma added after "We both love the +Constitution...."</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_325">325</a>: chartalan amended to charlatan</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_368">368</a>: Shakspeare amended to Shakespeare</p> + +<p>Italicisation and hyphenation have been standardised. +However, where there is an equal number of instances of +a hyphenated and unhyphenated word, both have been +retained: dreamlike/dream-like; evildoers/evil-doers; +highflown/high-flown; jogtrot/jog-trot; +overdoses/over-doses; textbook/text-book.</p></div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30336 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39ec249 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #30336 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30336) diff --git a/old/30336-8.txt b/old/30336-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aae2791 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30336-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10970 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hours in a Library + New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) + +Author: Leslie Stephen + +Release Date: October 25, 2009 [EBook #30336] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOURS IN A LIBRARY *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | + | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | + | this document. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + +VOL. II. + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + +BY + +LESLIE STEPHEN + +_NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS_ + +IN THREE VOLUMES + +VOL. II. + +LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1892 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONTENTS + +OF + +THE SECOND VOLUME + + + PAGE + +DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS 1 + +CRABBE 33 + +WILLIAM HAZLITT 67 + +DISRAELI'S NOVELS 106 + +MASSINGER 141 + +FIELDING'S NOVELS 177 + +COWPER AND ROUSSEAU 208 + +THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS 241 + +WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS 270 + +LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 308 + +MACAULAY 343 + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + + + + +_DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS_ + + +A book appeared not long ago of which it was the professed object to +give to the modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell's +immortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain from +discussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may be +made in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcome +must, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, to +say the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always mangle +some people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they may +display, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of the +great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an +intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic, +retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon +those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original, +the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There +remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but +not extinct, can be titillated by the promise that they shall not have +the trouble of making their own selection. Let us wish them good +digestions, and, in spite of modern changes of fashion, more robust +taste for the future. I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell. A man, indeed, may +be a good Christian, and an excellent father of a family, without loving +Johnson or Boswell, for a sense of humour is not one of the primary +virtues. But Boswell's is one of the very few books which, after many +years of familiarity, will still provoke a hearty laugh even in the +solitude of a study; and the laughter is of that kind which does one +good. + +I do not wish, however, to pronounce one more eulogy upon an old friend, +but to say a few words on a question which he sometimes suggests. +Macaulay's well-known but provoking essay is more than usually lavish in +overstrained paradoxes. He has explicitly declared that Boswell wrote +one of the most charming of books because he was one of the greatest of +fools. And his remarks suggest, if they do not implicitly assert, that +Johnson wrote some of the most unreadable of books, although, if not +because, he possessed one of the most vigorous intellects of the time. +Carlyle has given a sufficient explanation of the first paradox; but the +second may justify a little further inquiry. As a general rule, the talk +of a great man is the reflection of his books. Nothing is so false as +the common saying that the presence of a distinguished writer is +generally disappointing. It exemplifies a very common delusion. People +are so impressed by the disparity which sometimes occurs, that they +take the exception for the rule. It is, of course, true that a man's +verbal utterances may differ materially from his written utterances. He +may, like Addison, be shy in company; he may, like many retired +students, be slow in collecting his thoughts; or he may, like Goldsmith, +be over-anxious to shine at all hazards. But a patient observer will +even then detect the essential identity under superficial differences; +and in the majority of cases, as in that of Macaulay himself, the +talking and the writing are palpably and almost absurdly similar. The +whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who +is partially revealed to us in his spoken or his written words. Whatever +the means of communication, the problem is the same. The two methods of +inquiry may supplement each other; but their substantial agreement is +the test of their accuracy. If Johnson, as a writer, appears to us to be +a mere windbag and manufacturer of sesquipedalian verbiage, whilst, as a +talker, he appears to be one of the most genuine and deeply feeling of +men, we may be sure that our analysis has been somewhere defective. The +discrepancy is, of course, partly explained by the faults of Johnson's +style; but the explanation only removes the difficulty a degree further. +'The style is the man' is a very excellent aphorism, though some eminent +writers have lately pointed out that Buffon's original remark was_ le +style c'est de l'homme_. That only proves that, like many other good +sayings, it has been polished and brought to perfection by the process +of attrition in numerous minds, instead of being struck out at a blow by +a solitary thinker. From a purely logical point of view, Buffon may be +correct; but the very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration +which makes it more biting whilst less rigidly accurate. According to +Buffon, the style might belong to a man as an acquisition rather than to +natural growth. There are parasitical writers who, in the old phrase, +have 'formed their style,' by the imitation of accepted models, and who +have, therefore, possessed it only by right of appropriation. Boswell +has a discussion as to the writers who may have served Johnson in this +capacity. But, in fact, Johnson, like all other men of strong +idiosyncrasy, formed his style as he formed his legs. The peculiarities +of his limbs were in some degree the result of conscious efforts in +walking, swimming, and 'buffeting with his books.' This development was +doubtless more fully determined by the constitution which he brought +into the world, and the circumstances under which he was brought up. And +even that queer Johnsonese, which Macaulay supposes him to have adopted +in accordance with a more definite literary theory, will probably appear +to be the natural expression of certain innate tendencies, and of the +mental atmosphere which he breathed from youth. To appreciate fairly the +strangely cumbrous form of his written speech, we must penetrate more +deeply than may at first sight seem necessary beneath the outer rind of +this literary Behemoth. The difficulty of such spiritual dissection is, +indeed, very great; but some little light may be thrown upon the subject +by following out such indications as we possess. + +The talking Johnson is sufficiently familiar to us. So far as Boswell +needs an interpreter, Carlyle has done all that can be done. He has +concentrated and explained what is diffused, and often unconsciously +indicated in Boswell's pages. When reading Boswell, we are half ashamed +of his power over our sympathies. It is like turning over a portfolio +of sketches, caricatured, inadequate, and each giving only some +imperfect aspect of the original. Macaulay's smart paradoxes only +increase our perplexity by throwing the superficial contrasts into +stronger relief. Carlyle, with true imaginative insight, gives us at +once the essence of Johnson; he brings before our eyes the luminous body +of which we had previously been conscious only by a series of imperfect +images refracted through a number of distorting media. To render such a +service effectually is the highest triumph of criticism; and it would be +impertinent to say again in feebler language what Carlyle has expressed +so forcibly. We may, however, recall certain general conclusions by way +of preface to the problem which he has not expressly considered, how far +Johnson succeeded in expressing himself through his writings. + +The world, as Carlyle sees it, is composed, we all know, of two classes: +there are 'the dull millions, who, as a dull flock, roll hither and +thither, whithersoever they are led,' and there are a few superior +natures who can see and can will. There are, in other words, the heroes, +and those whose highest wisdom is to be hero-worshippers. Johnson's +glory is that he belonged to the sacred band, though he could not claim +within it the highest, or even a very high, rank. In the current +dialect, therefore, he was 'nowise a clothes-horse or patent digester, +but a genuine man.' Whatever the accuracy of the general doctrine, or of +certain corollaries which are drawn from it, the application to Johnson +explains one main condition of his power. Persons of colourless +imagination may hold--nor will we dispute their verdict--that Carlyle +overcharges his lights and shades, and brings his heroes into too +startling a contrast with the vulgar herd. Yet it is undeniable that +the great bulk of mankind are transmitters rather than originators of +spiritual force. Most of us are necessarily condemned to express our +thoughts in formulas which we have learnt from others and can but +slightly tinge with our feeble personality. Nor, as a rule, are we even +consistent disciples of any one school of thought. What we call our +opinions are mere bundles of incoherent formulć, arbitrarily stitched +together because our reasoning faculties are too dull to make +inconsistency painful. Of the vast piles of books which load our +libraries, ninety-nine hundredths and more are but printed echoes: and +it is the rarest of pleasures to say, Here is a distinct record of +impressions at first hand. We commonplace beings are hurried along in +the crowd, living from hand to mouth on such slices of material and +spiritual food as happen to drift in our direction, with little more +power of taking an independent course, or of forming any general theory, +than the polyps which are carried along by an oceanic current. Ask any +man what he thinks of the world in which he is placed: whether, for +example, it is on the whole a scene of happiness or misery, and he will +either answer by some cut-and-dried fragments of what was once wisdom, +or he will confine himself to a few incoherent details. He had a good +dinner to-day and a bad toothache yesterday, and a family affliction or +blessing the day before. But he is as incapable of summing up his +impressions as an infant of performing an operation in the differential +calculus. It is as rare as it is refreshing to find a man who can stand +on his own legs and be conscious of his own feelings, who is sturdy +enough to react as well as to transmit action, and lofty enough to raise +himself above the hurrying crowd and have some distinct belief as to +whence it is coming and whither it is going. Now Johnson, as one of the +sturdiest of mankind, had the power due to a very distinct sentiment, if +not to a very clear theory, about the world in which he lived. It had +buffeted him severely enough, and he had formed a decisive estimate of +its value. He was no man to be put off with mere phrases in place of +opinions, or to accept doctrines which were not capable of expressing +genuine emotion. To this it must be added that his emotions were as deep +and tender as they were genuine. How sacred was his love for his old and +ugly wife; how warm his sympathy wherever it could be effective; how +manly the self-respect with which he guarded his dignity through all the +temptations of Grub Street, need not be once more pointed out. Perhaps, +however, it is worth while to notice the extreme rarity of such +qualities. Many people, we think, love their fathers. Fortunately, that +is true; but in how many people is filial affection strong enough to +overpower the dread of eccentricity? How many men would have been +capable of doing penance in Uttoxeter market years after their father's +death for a long-passed act of disobedience? Most of us, again, would +have a temporary emotion of pity for an outcast lying helplessly in the +street. We should call the police, or send her in a cab to the +workhouse, or, at least, write to the _Times_ to denounce the defective +arrangements of public charity. But it is perhaps better not to ask how +many good Samaritans would take her on their shoulders to their own +homes, care for her wants, and put her into a better way of life. + +In the lives of most eminent men we find much good feeling and +honourable conduct; but it is an exception, even in the case of good +men, when we find that a life has been shaped by other than the ordinary +conventions, or that emotions have dared to overflow the well-worn +channels of respectability. The love which we feel for Johnson is due +to the fact that the pivots upon which his life turned are invariably +noble motives, and not mere obedience to custom. More than one modern +writer has expressed a fraternal affection for Addison, and it is +justified by the kindly humour which breathes through his 'Essays.' But +what anecdote of that most decorous and successful person touches our +hearts or has the heroic ring of Johnson's wrestlings with adverse +fortune? Addison showed how a Christian could die--when his life has run +smoothly through pleasant places, secretaryships of state, and marriages +with countesses, and when nothing--except a few overdoses of port +wine--has shaken his nerves or ruffled his temper. A far deeper emotion +rises at the deathbed of the rugged old pilgrim, who has fought his way +to peace in spite of troubles within and without, who has been jeered in +Vanity Fair and has descended into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, +and escaped with pain and difficulty from the clutches of Giant Despair. +When the last feelings of such a man are tender, solemn, and simple, we +feel ourselves in a higher presence than that of an amiable gentleman +who simply died, as he lived, with consummate decorum. + +On turning, however, from Johnson's life to his writings, from Boswell +to the 'Rambler,' it must be admitted that the shock is trying to our +nerves. The 'Rambler' has, indeed, high merits. The impression which it +made upon his own generation proves the fact; for the reputation, +however temporary, was not won by a concession to the fashions of the +day, but to the influence of a strong judgment uttering itself through +uncouth forms. The melancholy which colours its pages is the melancholy +of a noble nature. The tone of thought reminds us of Bishop Butler, +whose writings, defaced by a style even more tiresome, though less +pompous than Johnson's, have owed their enduring reputation to a +philosophical acuteness in which Johnson was certainly very deficient. +Both of these great men, however, impress us by their deep sense of the +evils under which humanity suffers, and their rejection of the +superficial optimism of the day. Butler's sadness, undoubtedly, is that +of a recluse, and Johnson's that of a man of the world; but the +sentiment is fundamentally the same. It may be added, too, that here, as +elsewhere, Johnson speaks with the sincerity of a man drawing upon his +own experience. He announces himself as a scholar thrust out upon the +world rather by necessity than choice; and a large proportion of the +papers dwell upon the various sufferings of the literary class. Nobody +could speak more feelingly of those sufferings, as no one had a closer +personal acquaintance with them. But allowing to Johnson whatever credit +is due to the man who performs one more variation on the old theme, +_Vanitas vanitatum_, we must in candour admit that the 'Rambler' has the +one unpardonable fault: it is unreadable. + +What an amazing turn it shows for commonplaces! That life is short, that +marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men +are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, +that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from +detraction;--these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon +which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. +Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an +unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no man from this time,' is the comment in +one of his stories, 'suffer his felicity to depend on the death of his +aunt.' Every actor, of course, uses the same dialect. A gay young +gentleman tells us that he used to amuse his companions by giving them +notice of his friends' oddities. 'Every man,' he says, 'has some +habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which +never fails to excite mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By +premonition of these particularities, I secured our pleasantry.' The +feminine characters, Flirtillas, and Cleoras, and Euphelias, and +Penthesileas, are, if possible, still more grotesque. Macaulay remarks +that he wears the petticoat with as ill a grace as Falstaff himself. The +reader, he thinks, will cry out with Sir Hugh, 'I like not when a 'oman +has a great peard! I spy a great peard under her muffler.' Oddly enough +Johnson gives the very same quotation; and goes on to warn his supposed +correspondents that Phyllis must send no more letters from the Horse +Guards; and that Belinda must 'resign her pretensions to female elegance +till she has lived three weeks without hearing the politics of Button's +Coffee House.' The Doctor was probably sensible enough of his own +defects. And yet there is a still more wearisome set of articles. In +emulation of the precedent set by Addison, Johnson indulges in the +dreariest of allegories. Criticism, we are told, was the eldest daughter +of Labour and Truth, but at last resigned in favour of Time, and left +Prejudice and False Taste to reign in company with Fraud and Mischief. +Then we have the genealogy of Wit and Learning, and of Satire, the Son +of Wit and Malice, and an account of their various quarrels, and the +decision of Jupiter. Neither are the histories of such semi-allegorical +personages as Almamoulin, the son of Nouradin, or of Anningait and Ayut, +the Greenland lovers, much more refreshing to modern readers. That +Johnson possessed humour of no mean order, we know from Boswell; but no +critic could have divined his power from the clumsy gambols in which he +occasionally recreates himself. Perhaps his happiest effort is a +dissertation upon the advantage of living in garrets; but the humour +struggles and gasps dreadfully under the weight of words. 'There are,' +he says, 'some who would continue blockheads' (the Alpine Club was not +yet founded), 'even on the summit of the Andes or the Peak of Teneriffe. +But let not any man be considered as unimprovable till this potent +remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was found to be great only in a +garret, as the joiner of Aretćus was rational in no other place but his +own shop.' + +How could a man of real power write such unendurable stuff? Or how, +indeed, could any man come to embody his thoughts in the style of which +one other sentence will be a sufficient example? As it is afterwards +nearly repeated, it may be supposed to have struck his fancy. The +remarks of the philosophers who denounce temerity are, he says, 'too +just to be disputed and too salutary to be rejected; but there is +likewise some danger lest timorous prudence should be inculcated till +courage and enterprise are wholly repressed and the mind congested in +perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.' Is +there not some danger, we ask, that the mind will be benumbed into +perpetual torpidity by the influence of this soporific sapience? It is +still true, however, that this Johnsonese, so often burlesqued and +ridiculed, was, as far as we can judge, a genuine product. Macaulay says +that it is more offensive than the mannerism of Milton or Burke, because +it is a mannerism adopted on principle and sustained by constant effort. +Facts do not confirm the theory. Milton's prose style seems to be the +result of a conscious effort to run English into classical moulds. +Burke's mannerism does not appear in his early writings, and we can +trace its development from the imitation of Bolingbroke to the last +declamation against the Revolution. But Johnson seems to have written +Johnsonese from his cradle. In his first original composition, the +preface to Father Lobo's 'Abyssinia,' the style is as distinctive as in +the 'Rambler.' The Parliamentary reports in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' +make Pitt and Fox[1] express sentiments which are probably their own in +language which is as unmistakably Johnson's. It is clear that his style, +good or bad, was the same from his earliest efforts. It is only in his +last book, the 'Lives of the Poets,' that the mannerism, though equally +marked, is so far subdued as to be tolerable. What he himself called his +habit of using 'too big words and too many of them' was no affectation, +but as much the result of his special idiosyncrasy as his queer +gruntings and twitchings. Sir Joshua Reynolds indeed maintained, and we +may believe so attentive an observer, that his strange physical +contortions were the result of bad habit, not of actual disease. +Johnson, he said, could sit as still as other people when his attention +was called to it. And possibly, if he had tried, he might have avoided +the fault of making 'little fishes talk like whales.' But how did the +bad habits arise? According to Boswell, Johnson professed to have +'formed his style' partly upon Sir W. Temple, and on 'Chambers's +Proposal for his Dictionary.' The statement was obviously +misinterpreted: but there is a glimmering of truth in the theory that +the 'style was formed'--so far as those words have any meaning--on the +'giants of the seventeenth century,' and especially upon Sir Thomas +Browne. Johnson's taste, in fact, had led him to the study of writers +in many ways congenial to him. His favourite book, as we know, was +Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' The pedantry of the older school did +not repel him; the weighty thought rightly attracted him; and the more +complex structure of sentence was perhaps a pleasant contrast to an ear +saturated with the Gallicised neatness of Addison and Pope. Unluckily, +the secret of the old majestic cadence was hopelessly lost. Johnson, +though spiritually akin to the giants, was the firmest ally and subject +of the dwarfish dynasty which supplanted them. The very faculty of +hearing seems to change in obedience to some mysterious law at different +stages of intellectual development; and that which to one generation is +delicious music is to another a mere droning of bagpipes or the grinding +of monotonous barrel-organs. + +Assuming that a man can find perfect satisfaction in the versification +of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that +'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in +blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout +the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid +satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of +alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more +or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work +with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's +harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was +'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for +'lavishing much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.' Moreover, +the poor man did his best by introducing sounding proper names, even +when they 'added little music to his poem:' an example of this feeble, +though well-meant expedient, being the passage about the moon, which-- + + The Tuscan artist views, + At evening, from the top of Fiesole + Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, &c. + +This profanity passed at the time for orthodoxy. But the misfortune was, +that Johnson, unhesitatingly subscribing to the rules of Queen Anne's +critics, is always instinctively feeling after the grander effects of +the old school. Nature prompts him to the stateliness of Milton, whilst +Art orders him to deal out long and short syllables alternately, and to +make them up in parcels of ten, and then tie the parcels together in +pairs by the help of a rhyme. The natural utterance of a man of strong +perceptions, but of unwieldy intellect, of a melancholy temperament, and +capable of very deep, but not vivacious emotions, would be in stately +and elaborate phrases. His style was not more distinctly a work of art +than the style of Browne or Milton, but, unluckily, it was a work of bad +art. He had the misfortune, not so rare as it may sound, to be born in +the wrong century; and is, therefore, a giant in fetters; the amplitude +of stride is still there, but it is checked into mechanical regularity. +A similar phenomenon is observable in other writers of the time. The +blank verse of Young, for example, is generally set to Pope's tune with +the omission of the rhymes, whilst Thomson, revolting more or less +consciously against the canons of his time, too often falls into mere +pompous mouthing. Shaftesbury, in the previous generation, trying to +write poetical prose, becomes as pedantic as Johnson, though in a +different style; and Gibbon's mannerism is a familiar example of a +similar escape from a monotonous simplicity into awkward complexity. +Such writers are like men who have been chilled by what Johnson would +call the 'frigorifick' influence of the classicism of their fathers, and +whose numbed limbs move stiffly and awkwardly in a first attempt to +regain the old liberty. The form, too, of the 'Rambler' is unfortunate. +Johnson has always Addison before his eyes; to whom it was formerly the +fashion to compare him for the same excellent reason which has recently +suggested comparisons between Dickens and Thackeray--namely, that their +works were published in the same external shape. Unluckily, Johnson gave +too much excuse for the comparison by really imitating Addison. He has +to make allegories, and to give lively sketches of feminine +peculiarities, and to ridicule social foibles of which he was, at most, +a distant observer. The inevitable consequence is, that though here and +there we catch a glimpse of the genuine man, we are, generally, too much +provoked by the awkwardness of his costume to be capable of enjoying, or +even reading him. + +In many of his writings, however, Johnson manages, almost entirely, to +throw off these impediments. In his deep capacity for sympathy and +reverence, we recognise some of the elements that go to the making of a +poet. He is always a man of intuitions rather than of discursive +intellect; often keen of vision, though wanting in analytical power. For +poetry, indeed, as it is often understood now, or even as it was +understood by Pope, he had little enough qualification. He had not the +intellectual vivacity implied in the marvellously neat workmanship of +Pope, and still less the delight in all natural and artistic beauty +which we generally take to be essential to poetic excellence. His +contempt for 'Lycidas' is sufficiently significant upon that head. Still +more characteristic is the incapacity to understand Spenser, which +comes out incidentally in his remarks upon some of those imitations, +which even in the middle of the eighteenth century showed that +sensibility to the purest form of poetry was not by any means extinct +amongst us. But there is a poetry, though we sometimes seem to forget +it, which is the natural expression of deep moral sentiment; and of this +Johnson has written enough to reveal very genuine power. The touching +verses upon the death of Levett are almost as pathetic as Cowper; and +fragments of the two imitations of Juvenal have struck deep enough to be +not quite forgotten. We still quote the lines about pointing a moral and +adorning a tale, which conclude a really noble passage. We are too often +reminded of his melancholy musings over the + + Fears of the brave and follies of the wise, + +and a few of the concluding lines of the 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' in +which he answers the question whether man must of necessity + + Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate, + +in helplessness and ignorance, may have something of a familiar ring. We +are to give thanks, he says, + + For love, which scarce collective man can fill; + For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill; + For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, + Counts death kind nature's signal for retreat; + These goods for man, the laws of heaven ordain, + These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain, + With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, + And makes the happiness she does not find. + +These lines, and many others which might be quoted, are noble in +expression, as well as lofty and tender in feeling. Johnson, like +Wordsworth, or even more deeply than Wordsworth, had felt all the +'heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world;' and, +though he stumbles a little in the narrow limits of his versification, +he bears himself nobly, and manages to put his heart into his poetry. +Coleridge's paraphrase of the well-known lines, 'Let observation with +extensive observation, observe mankind from China to Peru,' would +prevent us from saying that he had thrown off his verbiage. He has not +the felicity of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' though he wrote one of the best +couplets in that admirable poem; but his ponderous lines show genuine +vigour, and can be excluded from poetry only by the help of an arbitrary +classification. + +The fullest expression, however, of Johnson's feeling is undoubtedly to +be found in 'Rasselas.' The inevitable comparison with Voltaire's +'Candide,' which, by an odd coincidence, appeared almost simultaneously, +suggests some curious reflections. The resemblance between the moral of +the two books is so strong that, as Johnson remarked, it would have been +difficult not to suppose that one had given a hint to the other but for +the chronological difficulty. The contrast, indeed, is as marked as the +likeness. 'Candide' is not adapted for family reading, whereas +'Rasselas' might be a textbook for young ladies studying English in a +convent. 'Candide' is a marvel of clearness and vivacity; whereas to +read 'Rasselas' is about as exhilarating as to wade knee-deep through a +sandy desert. Voltaire and Johnson, however, the great sceptic and the +last of the true old Tories, coincide pretty well in their view of the +world, and in the remedy which they suggest. The world is, they agree, +full of misery, and the optimism which would deny the reality of the +misery is childish. _Il faut cultiver notre jardin_ is the last word of +'Candide,' and Johnson's teaching, both here and elsewhere, may be +summed up in the words 'Work, and don't whine.' It need not be +considered here, nor, perhaps, is it quite plain, what speculative +conclusions Voltaire meant to be drawn from his teaching. The +peculiarity of Johnson is, that he is apparently indifferent to any such +conclusion. A dogmatic assertion, that the world is on the whole a scene +of misery, may be pressed into the service of different philosophies. +Johnson asserted the opinion resolutely, both in writing and in +conversation, but apparently never troubled himself with any inferences +but such as have a directly practical tendency. He was no +'speculatist'--a word which now strikes us as having an American twang, +but which was familiar to the lexicographer. His only excursion to the +borders of such regions was in the very forcible review of Soane Jenyns, +who had made a jaunty attempt to explain the origin of evil by the help +of a few of Pope's epigrams. Johnson's sledge-hammer smashes his flimsy +platitudes to pieces with an energy too good for such a foe. For +speculation, properly so called, there was no need. The review, like +'Rasselas,' is simply a vigorous protest against the popular attempt to +make things pleasant by a feeble dilution of the most watery kind of +popular teaching. He has no trouble in remarking that the evils of +poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that +there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered +consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country +gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it +was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks +facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he +tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in +denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the +papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue to a +comedy with the words-- + + Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind + Surveys the general toil of human kind. + +In the 'Life of Savage' he makes the common remark that the lives of +many of the greatest teachers of mankind have been miserable. The +explanation to which he inclines is that they have not been more +miserable than their neighbours, but that their misery has been more +conspicuous. His melancholy view of life may have been caused simply by +his unfortunate constitution; for everybody sees in the disease of his +own liver a disorder of the universe; but it was also intensified by the +natural reaction of a powerful nature against the fluent optimism of the +time, which expressed itself in Pope's aphorism, Whatever is, is right. +The strongest men of the time revolted against that attempt to cure a +deep-seated disease by a few fine speeches. The form taken by Johnson's +revolt is characteristic. His nature was too tender and too manly to +incline to Swift's misanthropy. Men might be wretched, but he would not +therefore revile them as filthy Yahoos. He was too reverent and cared +too little for abstract thought to share the scepticism of Voltaire. In +this miserable world the one worthy object of ambition is to do one's +duty, and the one consolation deserving the name is to be found in +religion. That Johnson's religious opinions sometimes took the form of +rather grotesque superstition may be true; and it is easy enough to +ridicule some of its manifestations. He took the creed of his day +without much examination of the evidence upon which its dogmas rested; +but a writer must be thoughtless indeed who should be more inclined to +laugh at his superficial oddities, than to admire the reverent spirit +and the brave self-respect with which he struggled through a painful +life. The protest of 'Rasselas' against optimism is therefore widely +different from the protest of Voltaire. The deep and genuine feeling of +the Frenchman is concealed under smart assaults upon the dogmas of +popular theology; the Englishman desires to impress upon us the futility +of all human enjoyments, with a view to deepen the solemnity of our +habitual tone of thought. It is true, indeed, that the evil is dwelt +upon more forcibly than the remedy. The book is all the more impressive. +We are almost appalled by the gloomy strength which sees so forcibly the +misery of the world and rejects so unequivocally all the palliatives of +sentiment and philosophy. The melancholy is intensified by the ponderous +style, which suggests a man weary of a heavy burden. The air seems to be +filled with what Johnson once called 'inspissated gloom.' 'Rasselas,' +one may say, has a narrow escape of being a great book, though it is ill +calculated for the hasty readers of to-day. Indeed, the defects are +serious enough. The class of writing to which it belongs demands a +certain dramatic picturesqueness to point the moral effectively. Not +only the long-winded sentences, but the slow evolution of thought and +the deliberation with which he works out his pictures of misery, make +the general effect dull beside such books as 'Candide' or 'Gulliver's +Travels.' A touch of epigrammatic exaggeration is very much needed; and +yet anybody who has the courage to read it through will admit that +Johnson is not an unworthy guide into those gloomy regions of +imagination which we all visit sometimes, and which it is as well to +visit in good company. + +After his fashion, Johnson is a fair representative of Greatheart. His +melancholy is distinguished from that of feebler men by the strength of +the conviction that 'it will do no good to whine.' We know his view of +the great prophet of the Revolutionary school. 'Rousseau,' he said, to +Boswell's astonishment, 'is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a +sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from +the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in +the plantations.' That is a fine specimen of the good Johnsonese +prejudices of which we hear so much; and, of course, it is easy to infer +that Johnson was an ignorant bigot, who had not in any degree taken the +measure of the great moving forces of his time. Nothing, indeed, can be +truer than that Johnson cared very little for the new gospel of the +rights of man. His truly British contempt for all such fancies ('for +anything I see,' he once said, 'foreigners are fools') is one of his +strongest characteristics. Now, Rousseau and his like took a view of the +world as it was quite as melancholy as Johnson's. They inferred that it +ought to be turned upside down, assured that the millennium would begin +as soon as a few revolutionary dogmas were accepted. All their remedies +appeared to the excellent Doctor as so much of that cant of which it was +a man's first duty to clear his mind. The evils of life were far too +deeply seated to be caused or cured by kings or demagogues. One of the +most popular commonplaces of the day was the mischief of luxury. That we +were all on the high road to ruin on account of our wealth, our +corruption, and the growth of the national debt, was the text of any +number of political agitators. The whole of this talk was, to his mind, +so much whining and cant. Luxury did no harm, and the mass of the +people, as indeed was in one sense obvious enough, had only too little +of it. The pet 'state of nature' of theorists was a silly figment. The +genuine savage was little better than an animal; and a savage woman, +whose contempt for civilised life had prompted her to escape to the +forest, was simply a 'speaking cat.' The natural equality of mankind was +mere moonshine. So far is it from being true, he says, that no two +people can be together for half an hour without one acquiring an evident +superiority over the other. Subordination is an essential element of +human happiness. A Whig stinks in his nostrils because to his eye modern +Whiggism is 'a negation of all principles.' As he said of Priestley's +writings, it unsettles everything and settles nothing. 'He is a cursed +Whig, a _bottomless_ Whig as they all are now,' was his description +apparently of Burke. Order, in fact, is a vital necessity; what +particular form it may take matters comparatively little; and therefore +all revolutionary dogmas were chimerical as an attack upon the +inevitable conditions of life, and mischievous so far as productive of +useless discontent. We need not ask what mixture of truth and falsehood +there may be in these principles. Of course, a Radical, or even a +respectable Whig, like Macaulay, who believed in the magical efficacy of +the British Constitution, might shriek or laugh at such doctrine. +Johnson's political pamphlets, besides the defects natural to a writer +who was only a politician by accident, advocate the most retrograde +doctrines. Nobody at the present day thinks that the Stamp Act was an +admirable or justifiable measure; or would approve of telling the +Americans that they ought to have been grateful for their long exemption +instead of indignant at the imposition. 'We do not put a calf into the +plough; we wait till he is an ox'--was not a judicious taunt. He was +utterly wrong; and, if everybody who is utterly wrong in a political +controversy deserves unmixed contempt, there is no more to be said for +him. We might indeed argue that Johnson was in some ways entitled to the +sympathy of enlightened people. His hatred of the Americans was +complicated by his hatred of slave-owners. He anticipated Lincoln in +proposing the emancipation of the negroes as a military measure. His +uniform hatred for the slave trade scandalised poor Boswell, who held +that its abolition would be equivalent to 'shutting the gates of mercy +on mankind.' His language about the blundering tyranny of the English +rule in Ireland would satisfy Mr. Froude, though he would hardly have +loved a Home Ruler. He denounces the frequency of capital punishment and +the harshness of imprisonment for debt, and he invokes a compassionate +treatment of the outcasts of our streets as warmly as the more +sentimental Goldsmith. His conservatism may be at times obtuse, but it +is never of the cynical variety. He hates cruelty and injustice as +righteously as he hates anarchy. Indeed, Johnson's contempt for mouthing +agitators of the Wilkes and Junius variety is one which may be shared by +most thinkers who would not accept his principles. There is a vigorous +passage in the 'False Alarm' which is scarcely unjust to the patriots of +the day. He describes the mode in which petitions are generally got up. +They are sent from town to town, and the people flock to see what is to +be sent to the king. 'One man signs because he hates the Papists; +another because he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes; one because +it will vex the parson; another because he owes his landlord nothing; +one because he is rich; another because he is poor; one to show that he +is not afraid, and another to show that he can write.' The people, he +thinks, are as well off as they are likely to be under any form of +government; and grievances about general warrants or the rights of +juries in libel cases are not really felt so long as they have enough to +eat and drink and wear. The error, we may probably say, was less in the +contempt for a very shallow agitation than in the want of perception +that deeper causes of discontent were accumulating in the background. +Wilkes in himself was a worthless demagogue; but Wilkes was the straw +carried by the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment, to which Johnson +was entirely blind. Yet whatever we may think of his political +philosophy, the value of these solid sturdy prejudices is undeniable. To +the fact that Johnson was the typical representative of a large class of +Englishmen, we owe it that the Society of Rights did not develop into a +Jacobin Club. The fine phrases on which Frenchmen became intoxicated +never turned the heads of men impervious to abstract theories and +incapable of dropping substances for shadows. There are evils in each +temperament; but it is as well that some men should carry into politics +that rooted contempt for whining which lay so deep in Johnson's nature. +He scorned the sickliness of the Rousseau school as, in spite of his +constitutional melancholy, he scorned valetudinarianism whether of the +bodily or the spiritual order. He saw evil enough in the world to be +heartily, at times too roughly, impatient of all fine ladies who made a +luxury of grief or of demagogues who shrieked about theoretical +grievances which did not sensibly affect the happiness of one man in a +thousand. The lady would not have time to nurse her sorrows if she had +been a washerwoman; the grievances with which the demagogues yelled +themselves hoarse could hardly be distinguished amidst the sorrows of +the vast majority condemned to keep starvation at bay by unceasing +labour. His incapacity for speculation makes his pamphlets worthless +beside Burke's philosophical discourses; but the treatment, if wrong and +defective on the theoretical side, is never contemptible. Here, as +elsewhere, he judges by his intuitive aversions. He rejects too hastily +whatever seems insipid or ill-flavoured to his spiritual appetite. Like +all the shrewd and sensible part of mankind he condemns as mere +moonshine what may be really the first faint dawn of a new daylight. But +then his intuitions are noble, and his fundamental belief is the vital +importance of order, of religion, and of morality, coupled with a +profound conviction, surely not erroneous, that the chief sources of +human suffering lie far deeper than any of the remedies proposed by +constitution-mongers and fluent theorists. The literary version of these +prejudices or principles is given most explicitly in the 'Lives of the +Poets'--the book which is now the most readable of Johnson's +performances, and which most frequently recalls his conversational +style. Indeed, it is a thoroughly admirable book, and but for one or two +defects might enjoy a much more decided popularity. It is full of shrewd +sense and righteous as well as keen estimates of men and things. The +'Life of Savage,' written in earlier times, is the best existing +portrait of that large class of authors who, in Johnson's phrase, 'hung +loose upon society' in the days of the Georges. The Lives of Pope, +Dryden, and others have scarcely been superseded, though much fuller +information has since come to light; and they are all well worth +reading. But the criticism, like the politics, is woefully out of date. +Johnson's division between the shams and the realities deserves all +respect in both cases, but in both cases he puts many things on the +wrong side of the dividing line. His hearty contempt for sham pastorals +and sham love-poetry will be probably shared by modern readers. 'Who +will hear of sheep and goats and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets +through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of +literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be for the most +part thrown away as men grow wise and nations grow learned.' But +elsewhere he blunders into terrible misapprehensions. Where he errs by +simply repeating the accepted rules of the Pope school, he for once +talks mere second-hand nonsense. But his independent judgments are +interesting even when erroneous. His unlucky assault upon 'Lycidas,' +already noticed, is generally dismissed with a pitying shrug of the +shoulders. 'Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and Ćolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can +less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a +shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone; how +one god asks another god what has become of Lycidas, and how neither god +can tell. He who thus grieves can excite no sympathy; he who thus +praises will confer no honour.' + +Of course every tyro in criticism has his answer ready; he can discourse +about the ćsthetic tendencies of the _Renaissance_ period, and explain +the necessity of placing one's self at a writer's point of view, and +entering into the spirit of the time. He will add, perhaps, that +'Lycidas' is a test of poetical feeling, and that he who does not +appreciate its exquisite melody has no music in his soul. The same +writer who will tell us all this, and doubtless with perfect truth, +would probably have adopted Pope or Johnson's theory with equal +confidence if he had lived in the last century. 'Lycidas' repelled +Johnson by incongruities, which, from his point of view, were certainly +offensive. Most modern readers, I will venture to suggest, feel the same +annoyances, though they have not the courage to avow them freely. If +poetry is to be judged exclusively by the simplicity and force with +which it expresses sincere emotion, 'Lycidas' would hardly convince us +of Milton's profound sorrow for the death of King, and must be condemned +accordingly. To the purely pictorial or musical effects of a poem +Johnson was nearly blind; but that need not suggest a doubt as to the +sincerity of his love for the poetry which came within the range of his +own sympathies. Every critic is in effect criticising himself as well as +his author; and I confess that to my mind an obviously sincere record of +impressions, however one-sided they may be, is infinitely refreshing, as +revealing at least the honesty of the writer. The ordinary run of +criticism generally implies nothing but the extreme desire of the author +to show that he is open to the very last new literary fashion. I should +welcome a good assault upon Shakespeare which was not prompted by a love +of singularity; and there are half-a-dozen popular idols--I have not the +courage to name them--a genuine attack upon whom I could witness with +entire equanimity, not to say some complacency. If Johnson's blunder in +this case implied sheer stupidity, one can only say that honest +stupidity is a much better thing than clever insincerity or fluent +repetition of second-hand dogmas. But, in fact, this dislike of +'Lycidas,' and a good many instances of critical incapacity might be +added, is merely a misapplication of a very sound principle. The hatred +of cant and humbug and affectation of all vanity is a most salutary +ingredient even in poetical criticism. Johnson, with his natural +ignorance of that historical method, the exaltation of which threatens +to become a part of our contemporary cant, made the pardonable blunder +of supposing that what would have been gross affectation in Gray must +have been affectation in Milton. His ear had been too much corrupted by +the contemporary school to enable him to recognise beauties which would +even have shone through some conscious affectation. He had the rare +courage--for, even then, Milton was one of the tabooed poets--to say +what he thought as forcibly as he could say it; and he has suffered the +natural punishment of plain speaking. It must, of course, be admitted +that a book embodying such principles is doomed to become more or less +obsolete, like his political pamphlets. And yet, as significant of the +writer's own character, as containing many passages of sound judgment, +expressed in forcible language, it is still, if not a great book, really +impressive within the limits of its capacity. + +After this imperfect survey of Johnson's writings, it only remains to be +noticed that all the most prominent peculiarities are the very same +which give interest to his spoken utterances. The doctrine is the same, +though the preacher's manner has changed. His melancholy is not so +heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of +excitement; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and +unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts +into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. His hearty love of +truth, and uncompromising hatred of cant in all its innumerable +transmutations, prompt half his most characteristic sayings. His queer +prejudices take a humorous form, and give a delightful zest to his +conversation. His contempt for abstract speculation comes out when he +vanquishes Berkeley, not with a grin, but by 'striking his foot with +mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem +to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous +thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down +with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they +compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions +of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous +rather than witty. He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that +all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. As +Boswell says, he is through your body in an instant without any +preliminary parade; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill +of fence. 'We know we are free and there's an end of it,' is his +characteristic summary of a perplexed bit of metaphysics; and he would +evidently have no patience to wander through the labyrinths in which men +like Jonathan Edwards delighted to perplex themselves. We should have +been glad to see a fuller report of one of those conversations in which +Burke 'wound into a subject like a serpent,' and contrast his method +with Johnson's downright hitting. Boswell had not the power, even if he +had the will, to give an adequate account of such a 'wit combat.' + +That such a mind should express itself most forcibly in speech is +intelligible enough. Conversation was to him not merely a contest, but a +means of escape from himself. 'I may be cracking my joke,' he said to +Boswell,'and cursing the sun: Sun, how I hate thy beams!' The phrase +sounds exaggerated, but it was apparently his settled conviction that +the only remedy for melancholy, except indeed the religious remedy, was +in hard work or in the rapture of conversational strife. His little +circle of friends called forth his humour as the House of Commons +excited Chatham's eloquence; and both of them were inclined to mouth too +much when deprived of the necessary stimulus. Chatham's set speeches +were as pompous as Johnson's deliberate writing. Johnson and Chatham +resemble the chemical bodies which acquire entirely new properties when +raised beyond a certain degree of temperature. Indeed, we frequently +meet touches of the conversational Johnson in his controversial writing. +'Taxation no Tyranny' is at moments almost as pithy as Swift, though the +style is never so simple. The celebrated Letter to Chesterfield, and the +letter in which he tells MacPherson that he will not be 'deterred from +detecting what he thinks a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian,' are as +good specimens of the smashing repartee as anything in Boswell's +reports. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often +as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous +phrases into simple words without losing some of their meaning. The +structure of the sentences is compact, though they are too elaborately +balanced and stuffed with superfluous antitheses. The language might be +simpler, but it is not a mere sham aggregation of words. His written +style, however faulty in other respects, is neither slipshod nor +ambiguous, and passes into his conversational style by imperceptible +degrees. The radical identity is intelligible, though the superficial +contrast is certainly curious. We may perhaps say that his century, +unfavourable to him as a writer, gave just what he required for talking. +If, as is sometimes said, the art of conversation is disappearing, it is +because society has become too large and diffuse. The good talker, as +indeed the good artist of every kind, depends upon the tacit +co-operation of the social medium. The chorus, as Johnson has himself +shown very well in one of the 'Ramblers,' is quite as essential as the +main performer. Nobody talks well in London, because everybody has +constantly to meet a fresh set of interlocutors, and is as much put out +as a musician who has to be always learning a new instrument. A literary +dictator has ceased to be a possibility, so far as direct personal +influence is concerned. In the club, Johnson knew how every blow would +tell, and in the rapid thrust and parry dropped the heavy style which +muffled his utterances in print. He had to deal with concrete +illustrations, instead of expanding into platitudinous generalities. The +obsolete theories which impair the value of his criticism and his +politics, become amusing in the form of pithy sayings, though they weary +us when asserted in formal expositions. His greatest literary effort, +the 'Dictionary,' has of necessity become antiquated in use, and, in +spite of the intellectual vigour indicated, can hardly be commended for +popular reading. And thus but for the inimitable Boswell, it must be +admitted that Johnson would probably have sunk very deeply into +oblivion. A few good sayings would have been preserved by Mrs. Thrale +and others, or have been handed down by tradition, and doubtless +assigned in process of time to Sydney Smith and other conversational +celebrities. A few couplets from the 'Vanity of Human Wishes' would not +yet have been submerged, and curious readers would have recognised the +power of 'Rasselas,' and been delighted with some shrewd touches in the +'Lives of the Poets.' But with all desire to magnify critical insight, +it must be admitted that that man would have shown singular penetration, +and been regarded as an eccentric commentator, who had divined the +humour and the fervour of mind which lay hid in the remains of the huge +lexicographer. And yet when we have once recognised his power, we can +see it everywhere indicated in his writings, though by an unfortunate +fatality the style or the substance was always so deeply affected by the +faults of the time, that the product is never thoroughly sound. His +tenacious conservatism caused him to cling to decaying materials for the +want of anything better, and he has suffered the natural penalty. He was +a great force half wasted, so far as literature was concerned, because +the fashionable costume of the day hampered the free exercises of his +powers, and because the only creeds to which he could attach himself +were in the phase of decline and inanition. A century earlier or later +he might have succeeded in expressing himself through books as well as +through his talk; but it is not given to us to choose the time of our +birth, and some very awkward consequences follow. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] See, for example, the great debate on February 13, 1741. + + + + +_CRABBE_ + + +It is nearly a century since George Crabbe, then a young man of +five-and-twenty, put three pounds in his pocket and started from his +native town of Aldborough, with a box of clothes and a case of surgical +instruments, to make his fortune in London. Few men have attempted that +adventure with less promising prospects. Any sensible adviser would have +told him to prefer starvation in his native village to starvation in the +back lanes of London. The adviser would, perhaps, have been vexed, but +would not have been confuted, by Crabbe's good fortune. We should still +recommend a youth not to jump into a river, though, of a thousand who +try the experiment, one may happen to be rescued by a benevolent +millionaire, and be put in the road to fortune. The chances against +Crabbe were enormous. Literature, considered as a trade, is a good deal +better at the present day than it was towards the end of the last +century, and yet anyone who has an opportunity of comparing the failures +with the successes, would be more apt to quote Chatterton than Crabbe as +a precedent for youthful aspirants. Crabbe, indeed, might say for +himself that literature was the only path open to him. His father was +collector of salt duties at Aldborough, a position, as one may imagine, +of no very great emolument. He had, however, given his son the chance of +acquiring a smattering of 'scholarship,' in the sense in which that +word is used by the less educated lower classes. To the slender store of +learning acquired in a cheap country school, the lad managed to add such +medical training as could be picked up during an apprenticeship in an +apothecary's shop. With this provision of knowledge he tried to obtain +practice in his native town. He failed to get any patients of the paying +variety. Crabbe was clumsy and absent-minded to the end of his life. He +had, moreover, a taste for botany, and the shrewd inhabitants of +Aldborough, with that perverse tendency to draw inferences which is +characteristic of people who cannot reason, argued that as he picked up +his samples in the ditches, he ought to sell the medicines presumably +compounded from them for nothing. In one way or other, poor Crabbe had +sunk to the verge of distress. Of course, under these circumstances, he +had fallen in love and engaged himself at the age of eighteen to a young +lady, apparently as poor as himself. Of course, too, he called Miss Elmy +'Mira,' and addressed her in verses which occasionally appeared in the +poet's corner of a certain 'Wheble's Magazine.' My Mira, said the young +surgeon, in a style which must have been rather antiquated even in +Aldborough-- + + My Mira, shepherds, is as fair + As sylvan nymphs who haunt the vale; + As sylphs who dwell in purest air, + As fays who skim the dusky dale. + +Moreover, he won a prize for a poem on Hope, and composed an +'Allegorical Fable' and a piece called 'The Atheist reclaimed;' and, in +short, added plentifully to the vast rubbish-heap of old-world verses, +now decayed beyond the industry of the most persevering of Dryasdusts. +Nay, he even succeeded by some mysterious means in getting one of his +poems published separately. It was called 'Inebriety,' and was an +unblushing imitation of Pope. Here is a couplet by way of sample:-- + + Champagne the courtier drinks the spleen to chase, + The colonel Burgundy, and Port his Grace. + +From the satirical the poet diverges into the mock heroic:-- + + See Inebriety! her wand she waves, + And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves. + +The interstices of the box of clothing which went with him from +Aldborough to London were doubtless crammed with much waste paper +scribbled over with these feeble echoes of Pope's Satires, and with +appeals to nymphs, muses, and shepherds. Crabbe was one of those men who +are born a generation after their natural epoch, and was as little +accessible to the change of fashion in poetry as in costume. When, +therefore, he finally resolved to hazard his own fate and Mira's upon +the results of his London adventure, the literary goods at his disposal +were already somewhat musty in character. The year 1780, in which he +reached London, marks the very nadir of English poetry. From the days of +Elizabeth to our own there has never been so absolutely barren a period. +People had become fairly tired of the jingle of Pope's imitators, and +the new era had not dawned. Goldsmith and Gray, both recently dead, +serve to illustrate the condition in which the most exquisite polish and +refinement of language has been developed until there is a danger of +sterility. The 'Elegy' and the 'Deserted Village' are in their way +inimitable poems: but we feel that the intellectual fibre of the poets +has become dangerously delicate. The critical faculty could not be +stimulated further without destroying all spontaneous impulse. The +reaction to a more masculine and passionate school was imminent; and if +the excellent Crabbe could have put into his box a few of Burns's +lyrics, or even a copy of Cowper's 'Task,' one might have augured better +for his prospects. But what chance was there for a man who could still +be contentedly invoking the muse and stringing together mechanic echoes +of Pope's couplets? How could he expect to charm the jaded faculties of +a generation which was already beginning to heave and stir with a +longing for some fresh excitement? For a year the fate which has +overtaken so many rash literary adventurers seemed to be approaching +steadily. One temporary gleam of good fortune cheered him for a time. He +persuaded an enterprising publisher to bring out a poem called 'The +Candidate,' which had some faint success, though ridiculed by the +reviewers. Unluckily the publisher became bankrupt and Crabbe was thrown +upon his resources--the poor three pounds and box of surgical +instruments aforesaid. How he managed to hold out for a year is a +mystery. It was lucky for him, as he intimates, that he had never heard +of the fate of Chatterton, who had poisoned himself just ten years +before. A Journal which he wrote for Mira is published in his Life, and +gives an account of his feelings during three months of his cruel +probation. He applies for a situation as amanuensis offered in an +advertisement, and comforts himself on failing with the reflection that +the advertiser was probably a sharper. He writes piteous letters to +publishers, and gets, of course, the stereotyped reply with which the +most amiable of publishers must damp the ardour of aspiring genius. The +disappointment is not much softened by the publisher's statement that +'he does not mean by this to insinuate any want of merit in the poem, +but rather a want of attention in the public.' Bit by bit his surgical +instruments go to the pawnbroker. When one publisher sends his polite +refusal poor Crabbe has only sixpence-farthing in the world, which, by +the purchase of a pint of porter, is reduced to fourpence-halfpenny. The +exchequer fills again by the disappearance of his wardrobe and his +watch; but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of +Dryden for three-and-sixpence, and on coming home tears his only coat, +which he manages to patch tolerably with a borrowed needle and thread, +pretending, with a pathetic shift, that they are required to stitch +together manuscripts instead of broadcloth. And so for a year the wolf +creeps nearer the door, whilst Crabbe gallantly keeps up appearances and +spirits, and yet he tries to preserve a show of good spirits in the +Journal to Mira, and continues to labour at his versemaking. Perhaps, +indeed, it may be regarded as a bad symptom that he is reduced to +distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is +nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he +thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of +deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the +desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and +comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather +commonplace in expression, but when read by the light of the distresses +he was enduring, show a brave unembittered spirit, not to be easily +respected too highly. Starvation seemed to be approaching; or, at least, +the only alternative was the abandonment of his ambition, and +acceptance, if he could get it, of the post of druggist's assistant. He +had but one resource left; and that not of the most promising kind. +Crabbe, amongst his other old-fashioned notions, had a strong belief in +the traditional patron. Johnson might have given him some hints upon the +subject; but luckily, as it turned out, he pursued what Chesterfield's +correspondent would have thought the most hopeless of all courses. He +wrote to Lord North, who was at that moment occupied in contemplating +the final results of the ingenious policy by which America was lost to +England, and probably consigned Crabbe's letter to the waste-paper +basket. Then he tried the effect of a copy of verses, beginning:-- + + Ah! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great, + T' adorn a rich or save a sinking State. + +He added a letter saying that, as Lord North had not answered him, Lord +Shelburne would probably be glad to supply the needs of a starving +apothecary turned poet. Another copy of verses was enclosed, pointing +out that Shelburne's reputed liberality would be repaid in the usual +coin: + + Then shall my grateful strains his ear rejoice, + His name harmonious thrilled on Mira's voice; + Round the reviving bays new sweets shall spring, + And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring! + +Nobody can blame North and Shelburne for not acting the part of Good +Samaritans. He, at least, may throw the first stone who has always taken +the trouble to sift the grain from the chaff amidst all the begging +letters which he has received, and who has never lamented that his +benevolence outran his discretion. But there was one man in England at +the time who had the rare union of qualities necessary for Crabbe's +purpose. Burke is a name never to be mentioned without reverence; not +only because Burke was incomparably the greatest of all English +political writers, and a standing refutation of the theory which couples +rhetorical excellence with intellectual emptiness, but also because he +was a man whose glowing hatred of all injustice and sympathy for all +suffering never evaporated in empty words. His fine literary perception +enabled him to detect the genuine excellence which underlay the +superficial triviality of Crabbe's verses. He discovered the genius +where men like North and Shelburne might excusably see nothing but the +mendicant versifier; and a benevolence still rarer than his critical +ability forbade him to satisfy his conscience by the sacrifice of a +five-pound note. When, by the one happy thought of his life, Crabbe +appealed to Burke's sympathy, the poet was desperately endeavouring to +get a poem through the press. But he owed fourteen pounds, and every +application to friends as poor as himself, and to patrons upon whom he +had no claims, had been unsuccessful. Nothing but ruin was before him. +After writing to Burke he spent the night in pacing Westminster Bridge. +The letter on which his fate hung is the more pathetic because it is +free from those questionable poetical flourishes which had failed to +conciliate his former patrons. It tells his story frankly and forcibly. +Burke, however, was not a rich man, and was at one of the most exciting +periods of his political career. His party was at last fighting its way +to power by means of the general resentment against the gross +mismanagement of their antagonists. A perfunctory discharge of the duty +of charity would have been pardonable; but from the moment when Crabbe +addressed Burke the poor man's fortune was made. Burke's glory rests +upon services of much more importance to the world at large than even +the preservation to the country of a man of genuine power. Yet there +are few actions on which he could reflect with more unalloyed +satisfaction; and the case is not a solitary one in Burke's history. A +political triumph may often be only hastened a year or two by the +efforts of even a great leader; but the salvage of a genius which would +otherwise have been hopelessly wrecked in the deep waters of poverty is +so much clear gain to mankind. One circumstance may be added as oddly +characteristic of Crabbe. He always spoke of his benefactor with +becoming gratitude: and many years afterwards Moore and Rogers thought +that they might extract some interesting anecdotes of the great author +from the now celebrated poet. Burke, as we know, was a man whom you +would discover to be remarkable if you stood with him for five minutes +under a haystack in a shower. Crabbe stayed in his house for months +under circumstances most calculated to be impressive. Burke was at the +height of his power and reputation; he was the first man of any +distinction whom the poet had ever seen; the two men had long and +intimate conversations, and Crabbe, it may be added, was a very keen +observer of character. And yet all that Rogers and Moore could extract +from him was a few 'vague generalities.' Moore suggests some +explanation; but the fact seems to be that Crabbe was one of those +simple, homespun characters, whose interests are strictly limited to +their own peculiar sphere. Burke, when he pleased, could talk of oxen as +well as politics, and doubtless adapted his conversation to the taste of +the young poet. Probably, much more was said about the state of Burke's +farm than about the prospects of the Whig party. Crabbe's powers of +vision were as limited as they were keen, and the great qualities to +which Burke owed his reputation could only exhibit themselves in a +sphere to which Crabbe never rose. His attempt to draw a likeness of +Burke under the name of 'Eugenius,' in the 'Borough,' is open to the +objection that it would be nearly as applicable to Wilberforce, Howard, +or Dr. Johnson. It is a mere complimentary daub, in which every +remarkable feature of the original is blurred or altogether omitted. + +The inward Crabbe remained to the end of his days what nature and +education had already made him; the outward Crabbe, by the help of +Burke, rapidly put on a more prosperous appearance. His poems were +published and achieved success. He took orders and found patrons. +Thurlow gave him Ł100, and afterwards presented him to two small +livings, growling out with an oath that he was 'as like Parson Adams as +twelve to a dozen.' The Duke of Rutland appointed him chaplain, a +position in which he seems to have been singularly out of his element. +Further patronage, however, made him independent, and he married his +Mira and lived very happily ever afterwards. Perhaps, with his +old-fashioned ideas, he would not quite have satisfied some clerical +critics of the present day. His views about non-residence and +pluralities seem to have been lax for the time; and his hearty dislike +for dissent was coupled with a general dislike for enthusiasm of all +kinds. He liked to ramble about after flowers and fossils, and to hammer +away at his poems in a study where chaos reigned supreme. For twenty-two +years after his first success as an author, he never managed to get a +poem into a state fit for publication, though periodical conflagrations +of masses of manuscript--too vast to be burnt in the chimney--testified +to his continuous industry. His reappearance seems to have been caused +chiefly by his desire to send a son to the University. His success was +repeated, though a new school had arisen which knew not Pope. The youth +who had been kindly received by Burke, Reynolds, and Johnson, came back +from his country retreat to be lionised at Holland House, and be petted +by Brougham and Moore, and Rogers and Campbell, and all the rising +luminaries. He paid a visit to Scott contemporaneously with George IV., +and pottered about the queer old wynds and closes of Edinburgh, which he +preferred to the New Town, and apparently to Arthur's Seat, with a +judicious _caddie_ following to keep him out of mischief. A more +tangible kind of homage was the receipt of Ł3,000 from Murray for his +'Tales of the Hall,' which so delighted him that he insisted on carrying +the bills loose in his pocket till he could show them 'to his son John' +in the country.[2] There, no doubt, he was most at home; and his +parishioners gradually became attached to their 'Parson Adams,' in spite +of his quaintnesses and some manful defiance of their prejudices. All +women and children loved him, and he died at a good old age in 1832, +having lived into a new order in many things, and been as little +affected by the change as most men. The words with which he concludes +the sketch of the Vicar in his 'Borough' are not inappropriate to +himself:-- + + Nor one so old has left this world of sin + More like the being that he entered in. + +The peculiar homeliness of Crabbe's character and poetry is excellently +hit off in the 'Rejected Addresses,' and the lines beginning + + John Richard William Alexander Dwyer + Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire, + +are probably more familiar to the present generation than any of the +originals. 'Pope in the worsted stockings' is the title hit off for him +by Horace Smith, and has about the same degree of truth as most smart +sayings of the kind. The 'worsted stockings' at least are +characteristic. Crabbe's son and biographer indicates some of the +surroundings of his father's early life in a description of the uncle, a +Mr. Tovell, with whom the poet's wife, the Mira of his Journal, passed +her youth. He was a sturdy yeoman, living in an old house with a moat, a +rookery, and fishponds. The hall was paved with black and white marble, +and the staircase was of black oak, slippery as ice, with a chiming +clock and a barrel-organ on the landing-places. The handsome +drawing-room and dining-rooms were only used on grand occasions, such as +the visit of a neighbouring peer. Mrs. Tovell jealously reserved for +herself the duty of scrubbing these state apartments, and sent any +servant to the right-about who dared to lay unhallowed hands upon them. +The family sat habitually in the old-fashioned kitchen, by a huge open +chimney, where the blaze of a whole pollard sometimes eclipsed the +feeble glimmer of the single candle in an iron candlestick, intended to +illuminate Mrs. Tovell's labours with the needle. Masters and servants, +with any travelling tinker or ratcatcher, all dined together, and the +nature of their meals has been described by Crabbe himself:-- + + But when the men beside their station took, + The maidens with them, and with these the cook; + When one huge wooden bowl before them stood, + Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food; + With bacon, mass saline, where never lean + Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen; + When from a single horn the party drew + Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new; + +then, the poet goes on to intimate, squeamish persons might feel a +little uncomfortable. After dinner followed a nap of precisely one hour. +Then bottles appeared on the table, and neighbouring farmers, with faces +rosy with brandy, drifted in for a chat. One of these heroes never went +to bed sober, but scandalised all teetotallers by retaining all his +powers and coursing after he was ninety. Bowl after bowl of punch was +emptied, and the conversation took so convivial a character that Crabbe +generally found it expedient to withdraw, though his son, who records +these performances, was held to be too young to be injured, and the +servants were too familiar for their presence to be a restraint. + +It was in this household that the poet found his Mira. Crabbe's own +father was apparently at a lower point of the social scale; and during +his later years took to drinking and to flinging dishes about the room +whenever he was out of temper. Crabbe always drew from the life; most of +his characters might have joined in his father's drinking bouts, or told +stories over Mr. Tovell's punchbowls. Doubtless a social order of the +same kind survived till a later period in various corners of the island. +The Tovells of to-day get their fashions from London, and their +labourers, instead of dining with them in their kitchen, have taken to +forming unions and making speeches about their rights. If, here and +there, in some remote nooks we find an approximation to the coarse, +hearty patriarchal mode of life, we regard it as a naturalist regards a +puny modern reptile, the representative of gigantic lizards of old +geological epochs. A sketch or two of its peculiarities, sufficiently +softened and idealised to suit modern tastes, forms a picturesque +background to a modern picture. Some of Miss Brontë's rough +Yorkshiremen would have drunk punch with Mr. Tovell; and the farmers in +the 'Mill on the Floss' are representatives of the same race, slightly +degenerate, in so far as they are just conscious that a new cause of +disturbance is setting into the quiet rural districts. Dandie Dinmont +again is a relation of Crabbe's heroes, though the fresh air of the +Cheviots and the stirring traditions of the old border life have +conferred upon him a more poetical colouring. To get a realistic picture +of country life as Crabbe saw it, we must go back to Squire Western, or +to some of the roughly-hewn masses of flesh who sat to Hogarth. Perhaps +it may be said that Miss Austen's delicate portrait of the more polished +society, which took the waters at Bath, and occasionally paid a visit to +London, implies a background of coarser manners and more brutal +passions, which lay outside her peculiar province. The question +naturally occurs to social philosophers, whether the improvement in the +external decencies of life and the wider intellectual horizon of modern +days prove a genuine advance over the rude and homely plenty of an +earlier generation. I refer to such problems only to remark that Crabbe +must be consulted by those who wish to look upon the seamy side of the +time which he describes. He very soon dropped his nymphs and shepherds, +and ceased to invoke the idyllic muse. In his long portrait gallery +there are plenty of virtuous people, and some people intended to be +refined; but features indicative of coarse animal passions, brutality, +selfishness, and sensuality are drawn to the life, and the development +of his stories is generally determined by some of the baser elements of +human nature. 'Jesse and Colin' are described in one of the Tales; but +they are not the Jesse and Colin of Dresden china. They are such rustics +as ate fat bacon and drank 'heavy ale and new;' not the imaginary +personages who exchanged amatory civilities in the old-fashioned +pastorals ridiculed by Pope and Gay. + +Crabbe's rough style is indicative of his general temper. It is in +places at least the most slovenly and slipshod that was ever adopted by +any true poet. The authors of the 'Rejected Addresses' had simply to +copy, without attempting the impossible task of caricaturing. One of +their familiar couplets, for example, runs thus:-- + + Emmanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy + Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ! + +And here is the original Crabbe:-- + + Swallow, a poor attorney, brought his boy + Up at his desk, and gave him his employ. + +When boy cannot be made to rhyme with employ, Crabbe is very fond of +dragging in a hoy. In the 'Parish Register' he introduces a narrative +about a village grocer and his friend in these lines:-- + + Aged were both, that Dawkins, Ditchem this, + Who much of marriage thought and much amiss. + +Or to quote one more opening of a story:-- + + Counter and Clubb were men in trade, whose pains, + Credit, and prudence, brought them constant gains; + Partners and punctual, every friend agreed + Counter and Clubb were men who must succeed. + +But of such gems anyone may gather as many as he pleases by simply +turning over Crabbe's pages. In one sense, they are rather pleasant than +otherwise. They are so characteristic and put forward with such absolute +simplicity that they have the same effect as a good old provincialism in +the mouth of a genuine countryman. It must, however, be admitted that +Crabbe's careful study of Pope had not initiated him in some of his +master's secrets. The worsted stockings were uncommonly thick. If Pope's +brilliance of style savours too much of affectation, Crabbe never +manages to hit off an epigram in the whole of his poetry. The language +seldom soars above the style which would be intelligible to the merest +clodhopper; and we can understand how, when in his later years Crabbe +was introduced to wits and men of the world, he generally held his +peace, or, at most, let fall some bit of dry quiet humour. At rare +intervals he remembers that a poet ought to indulge in a figure of +speech, and laboriously compounds a simile which appears in his poetry +like a bit of gold lace on a farmer's homespun coat. He confessed as +much in answer to a shrewd criticism of Jeffrey's, saying that he +generally thought of such illustrations and inserted them after he had +finished his tale. Here is one of these deliberately-concocted +ornaments, intended to explain the remark that the difference between +the character of two brothers came out when they were living together +quietly:-- + + As various colours in a painted ball, + While it has rest are seen distinctly all; + Till, whirl'd around by some exterior force, + They all are blended in the rapid course; + So in repose and not by passion swayed + We saw the difference by their habits made; + But, tried by strong emotions, they became + Filled with one love, and were in heart the same. + +The conceit is ingenious enough in one sense, but painfully ingenious. +It requires some thought to catch the likeness suggested, and then it +turns out to be purely superficial. The resemblance of such a writer to +Pope obviously does not go deep. Crabbe imitates Pope because everybody +imitated him at that day. He adopted Pope's metre because it had come to +be almost the only recognised means of poetical expression. He stuck to +it after his contemporaries had introduced new versification, partly +because he was old-fashioned to the backbone and partly because he had +none of those lofty inspirations which naturally generate new forms of +melody. He seldom trusts himself to be lyrical, and when he does his +versification is nearly as monotonous as it is in his narrative poetry. +We must not expect to soar with Crabbe into any of the loftier regions; +to see the world 'apparelled in celestial light,' or to descry + + Such forms as glitter in the muses' ray, + With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun. + +We shall find no vehement outbursts of passion, breaking loose from the +fetters of sacred convention. Crabbe is perfectly content with the +British Constitution, with the Thirty-nine Articles, and all +respectabilities in Church and State, and therefore he is quite content +also with the good old jogtrot of the recognised metres; his language, +halting invariably, and for the most part clumsy enough, is sufficiently +differentiated from prose by the mould into which it is run, and he +never wants to kick over the traces with his more excitable +contemporaries. + + The good old rule + Sufficeth him, the simple plan + +that each verse should consist of ten syllables, with an occasional +Alexandrine to accommodate a refractory epithet, and should rhyme +peaceably with its neighbour. + +From all which it may be too harshly inferred that Crabbe is merely a +writer in rhyming prose, and deserving of no attention from the more +enlightened adherents of a later school. The inference, I say, would be +hasty, for it is impossible to read Crabbe patiently without receiving a +very distinct and original impression. If some pedants of ćsthetic +philosophy should declare that we ought not to be impressed because +Crabbe breaks all their rules, we can only reply they are mistaking +their trade. The true business of the critic is to discover from +observation what are the conditions under which a book appeals to our +sympathies, and, if he finds an apparent exception to his rules, to +admit that he has made an oversight, and not to condemn the facts which +persist in contradicting his theories. It may, indeed, be freely granted +that Crabbe has suffered seriously by his slovenly methods and his +insensibility to the more exquisite and ethereal forms of poetical +excellence. But however he may be classified, he possesses the essential +mark of genius, namely, that his pictures, however coarse the +workmanship, stamp themselves on our minds indelibly and +instantaneously. His pathos is here and there clumsy, but it goes +straight to the mark. His characteristic qualities were first distinctly +shown in the 'Village,' which was partly composed under Burke's eye, and +was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after +Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective, +to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank +facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two +is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then +listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too +exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities about +agricultural bliss. If his 'Auburn' is rather idealised, the most +prosaic of critics cannot object to the glow thrown by the memory of the +poet over the scene of now ruined happiness, and, moreover, Goldsmith's +delicate humour guards him instinctively from laying on his rose-colour +too thickly. Crabbe, however, will have nothing to do with rose-colour, +thick or thin. There is one explicit reference in the poem to his +predecessor's work, and it is significant. Everybody remembers, or ought +to remember, Goldsmith's charming pastor, to whom it can only be +objected that he has not the fear of political economists before his +eyes. This is Crabbe's retort after describing a dying pauper in need of +spiritual consolation:-- + + And does not he, the pious man, appear, + He, 'passing rich with forty pounds a year?' + Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock, + And far unlike him, feeds this little flock: + A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task + As much as God or man can fairly ask; + The rest he gives to loves and labours light, + To fields the morning, and to feasts the night. + None better skilled the noisy pack to guide, + To urge their chase, to cheer them, or to chide; + A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day, + And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play. + +This fox-hunting parson (of whom Cowper has described a duplicate) lets +the pauper die as he pleases; and afterwards allows him to be buried +without attending, performing the funerals, it seems, in a lump upon +Sundays. Crabbe admits in a note that such negligence was uncommon, but +adds that it is not unknown. The flock is, on the whole, worthy of the +shepherd. The old village sports have died out in favour of smuggling +and wrecking. The poor are not, as rich men fancy, healthy and well fed. +Their work makes them premature victims to ague and rheumatism; their +food is + + Homely, not wholesome, plain, not plenteous, such + As you who praise would never deign to touch. + +The ultimate fate of the worn-out labourer is the poorhouse, described +in lines of which it is enough to say that Scott and Wordsworth learnt +them by heart, and the melancholy deathbed already noticed. Are we +reading a poem or a Blue Book done into rhyme? may possibly be the +question of some readers. The answer should perhaps be that a good many +Blue Books contain an essence which only requires to be properly +extracted and refined to become genuine poetry. If Crabbe's verses +retain rather too much of the earthly elements, he is capable of +transmuting his minerals into genuine gold, as well as of simply +collecting them. Nothing, for example, is more characteristic than the +mode in which the occasional descriptions of nature are harmoniously +blended with the human life in his poetry. Crabbe is an ardent lover of +a certain type of scenery, to which justice has not often been done. We +are told how, after a long absence from Suffolk, he rode sixty miles +from his house to have a dip in the sea. Some of his poems appear to be +positively impregnated with a briny, or rather perhaps a tarry, odour. +The sea which he loved was by no means a Byronic sea. It has no grandeur +of storm, and still less has it the Mediterranean blue. It is the +sluggish muddy element which washes the flat shores of his beloved +Suffolk. He likes even the shelving beach, with fishermen's boats and +decaying nets and remnants of stale fish. He loves the dreary estuary, +where the slow tide sways backwards and forwards, and whence + + High o'er the restless deep, above the reach + Of gunner's hope, vast flocks of wildfowl stretch. + +The coming generation of poets took to the mountains; but Crabbe +remained faithful to the dismal and yet, in his hands, the impressive +scenery of his native salt-marshes. His method of description suits the +country. His verses never become melodramatic, nor does he ever seem to +invest nature with the mystic life of Wordsworth's poetry. He gives the +plain prosaic facts which impress us because they are in such perfect +harmony with the sentiment. Here, for example, is a fragment from the +'Village,' which is simply a description of the neighbourhood of +Aldborough:-- + + Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, + Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor; + From thence a length of burning sand appears, + Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; + Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, + Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye; + There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, + And to the ragged infant threaten war; + There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; + There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil; + Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, + The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; + O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, + And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade. + +The writer is too obviously a botanist; but the picture always remains +with us as the only conceivable background for the poverty-stricken +population whom he is about to describe. The actors in the 'Borough' are +presented to us in a similar setting; and it may be well to put a +sea-piece beside this bit of barren common. Crabbe's range of +descriptive power is pretty well confined within the limits so defined. +He is scarcely at home beyond the tide-marks:-- + + Be it the summer noon; a sandy space + The ebbing tide has left upon its place; + Then just the hot and stony beach above, + Light twinkling streams in bright confusion move; + + * * * * * + + There the broad bosom of the ocean keeps + An equal motion; swelling as it sleeps, + Then slowly sinking; curling to the strand, + Faint lazy waves o'ercreep the ridgy sand, + Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow, + And back return in silence, smooth and slow. + Ships in the calm seem anchored: for they glide + On the still sea, urged slowly by the tide: + Art thou not present, this calm scene before + Where all beside is pebbly length of shore, + And far as eye can reach, it can discern no more? + +I have omitted a couplet which verges on the scientific; for Crabbe is +unpleasantly anxious to leave nothing unexplained. The effect is, in its +way, perfect. Anyone who pleases may compare it with Wordsworth's calm +in the verses upon Peele Castle, where the sentiment is given without +the minute statement of facts, and where, too, we have the inevitable +quotation about the 'light that never was on sea or land,' and is pretty +nearly as rare in Crabbe's poetry. What he sees we can all see, though +not so intensely, and his art consists in selecting the precise elements +that tell most forcibly towards bringing us into the required frame of +mind. To enjoy Crabbe fully, we ought perhaps to be acclimatised on the +coast of the Eastern Counties; we should become sensitive to the +plaintive music of the scenery, which is now generally drowned by the +discordant sounds of modern watering-places, and would seem insipid to a +generation which values excitement in scenery as in fiction. Readers, +who measure the beauty of a district by its average height above the +sea-level, and who cannot appreciate the charm of a 'waste enormous +marsh,' may find Crabbe uncongenial. + +The human character is determined, as Mr. Buckle and other philosophers +have assured us, by the climate and the soil. A little ingenuity, such +as those philosophers display in accommodating facts to theory, might +discover a parallel between the type of Crabbe's personages and the +fauna and flora of his native district. Declining a task which might +lead to fanciful conclusions, I may assume that the East Anglian +character is sufficiently familiar, whatever the causes by which it has +been determined. To define Crabbe's poetry we have simply to imagine +ourselves listening to the stories of his parishioners, told by a +clergyman brought up amongst the lower rank of the middle classes, +scarcely elevated above their prejudices, and not willingly leaving +their circle of ideas. We must endow him with that simplicity of +character which gives us frequent cause to smile at its proprietor, but +which does not disqualify him from seeing a great deal further into his +neighbours than they are apt to give him credit for doing. Such insight, +in fact, is due not to any great subtlety of intellect, but to the +possession of deep feeling and sympathy. Crabbe saw little more of Burke +than would have been visible to an ordinary Suffolk farmer. When +transplanted to a ducal mansion, he only drew the pretty obvious +inference, embodied in a vigorous poem, that a patron is a very +disagreeable and at times a very mischievous personage. The joys and +griefs which really interest him are of the very tangible and solid kind +which affect men and women to whom the struggle for existence is a stern +reality. Here and there his good-humoured but rather clumsy ridicule may +strike some lady to whom some demon has whispered 'have a taste;' and +who turns up her nose at the fat bacon on Mr. Tovell's table. He pities +her squeamishness, but thinks it rather unreasonable. He satirises too +the heads of the rustic aristocracy; the brutal squire who bullies his +nephew the clergyman for preaching against his vices, and corrupts the +whole neighbourhood; or the speculative banker who cheats old maids +under pretence of looking after their investments. If the squire does +not generally appear in Crabbe in the familiar dramatic character of a +rural Lovelace, it is chiefly because Crabbe has no great belief in the +general purity of the inferior ranks of rural life. But his most +powerful stories deal with the tragedies--only too life-like--of the +shop and the farm. He describes the temptations which lead the small +tradesman to adulterate his goods, or the parish clerk to embezzle the +money subscribed in the village church, and the evil influence of +dissenting families in fostering a spiritual pride which leads to more +unctuous hypocrisy; for, though he says of the wicked squire that + + His worship ever was a Churchman true, + And held in scorn the Methodistic crew, + +the scorn is only objectionable to him in so far as it is a cynical +cloak for scorn of good morals. He tells how boys run away to sea, or +join strolling players, and have in consequence to beg their bread at +the end of their days. The almshouse or the county gaol is the natural +end of his villains, and he paints to the life the evil courses which +generally lead to such a climax. Nobody describes better the process of +going to the dogs. And most of all, he sympathises with the village +maiden who has listened too easily to the voice of the charmer, in the +shape of a gay sailor or a smart London footman, and has to reap the +bitter consequences of her too easy faith. Most of his stories might be +paralleled by the experience of any country clergyman who has entered +into the life of his parishioners. They are as commonplace and as +pathetic as the things which are happening round us every day, and which +fill a neglected paragraph in a country newspaper. The treatment varies +from the purely humorous to the most deep and genuine pathos; though it +never takes us into the regions of the loftier imagination. + +The more humorous of these performances may be briefly dismissed. Crabbe +possesses the faculty, but not in any eminent degree; his hand is a +little heavy, and one must remember that Mr. Tovell and his like were of +the race who require to have a joke driven into their heads with a +sledge-hammer. Once or twice we come upon a sketch which may help to +explain Miss Austen's admiration. There is an old maid devoted to Mira, +and rejoicing in stuffed puppies and parrots, who might have been +ridiculed by Emma Woodhouse, and a parson who would have suited the +Eltons admirably:-- + + Fiddling and fishing were his arts; at times + He altered sermons and he aimed at rhymes; + And his fair friends, not yet intent on cards, + Oft he amused with riddles and charades. + +Such sketches are a pleasant relief to his more sombre portraiture; but +it is in the tragic elements that his true power comes out. The motives +of his stories may be trivial, but never the sentiment. The deep manly +emotion makes us forget not only the frequent clumsiness of his style +but the pettiness of the incident, and what is more difficult, the +rather bread-and-butter tone of morality. If he is a little too fond of +bringing his villains to the gallows, he is preoccupied less by the +external consequences than by the natural working of evil passions. With +him sin is not punished by being found out, but by disintegrating the +character and blunting the higher sensibilities. He shows--and the +moral, if not new, is that which possesses the really intellectual +interest--how evil-doers are tortured by the cravings of desires that +cannot be satisfied, and the lacerations inflicted by ruined +self-respect. And therefore there is a truth in Crabbe's delineations +which is quite independent of his more or less rigid administration of +poetical justice. His critics used to accuse him of having a low opinion +of human nature. It is quite true that he assigns to selfishness and +brutal passion a very large part in carrying on the machinery of the +world. Some readers may infer that he was unlucky in his experience, and +others that he loved facts too unflinchingly. His stories sometimes +remind one of Balzac's in the descriptions of selfishness triumphant +over virtue. One, for example, of his deeply pathetic poems is called +'The Brothers;' and repeats the old contrast given in Fielding's Tom +Jones and Blifil. The shrewd sly hypocrite has received all manner of +kindnesses from the generous and simple sailor, and when, at last, the +poor sailor is ruined in health and fortune, he comes home expecting to +be supported by the gratitude of the brother, who has by this time made +money and is living at his ease. Nothing can be more pathetic or more in +the spirit of some of Balzac's stories than the way in which the rich +man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal +feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; +till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the +kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his +only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into +hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is not to be corrupted by +the coarse language of his poor old uncle. The rich brother suspects +that the sailor has broken this rule, and is reviling him for his +ingratitude, when suddenly he discovers that he is abusing a corpse. +The old sailor's heart is broken at last; and his brother repents too +late. He tries to comfort his remorse by cross-examining the boy, who +was the cause of the last quarrel:-- + + 'Did he not curse me, child?' 'He never cursed, + But could not breathe, and said his heart would burst.' + 'And so will mine'----'But, father, you must pray; + My uncle said it took his pains away.' + +Praying, however, cannot bring back the dead; and the fratricide, for +such he feels himself to be, is a melancholy man to the end of his days. +In Balzac's hands repentance would have had no place, and selfishness +have been finally triumphant and unabashed. We need not ask which would +be the most effective or the truest treatment; though I must put in a +word for the superior healthiness of Crabbe's mind. There is nothing +morbid about him. Still it would be absurd to push such a comparison +far. Crabbe's portraits are only spirited vignettes compared with the +elaborate full-lengths drawn by the intense imagination of the French +novelist; and Crabbe's whole range of thought is incomparably narrower. +The two writers have a real resemblance only in so far as in each case a +powerful accumulation of life-like details enables them to produce a +pathos, powerful by its vivid reality. + +The singular power of Crabbe is in some sense more conspicuous in the +stories where the incidents are almost audaciously trifling. One of them +begins with this not very impressive and very ungrammatical couplet:-- + + With our late Vicar, and his age the same, + His clerk, hight Jachin, to his office came. + +Jachin is a man of oppressive respectability; so oppressive, indeed, +that some of the scamps of the borough try to get him into scrapes by +temptations of a very inartificial kind, which he is strong enough to +resist. At last, however, it occurs to Jachin that he can easily +embezzle part of the usual monthly offerings while saving his character +in his own eyes by some obvious sophistry. He is detected and dismissed, +and dies after coming upon the parish. These materials for a tragic poem +are not very promising; and I do not mean to say that the sorrows of +poor Jachin affect us as deeply as those of Gretchen or Desdemona. The +parish clerk is perhaps a fit type of all that was least poetical in the +old social order of the country, and virtue which succumbs to the +temptation of taking two shillings out of a plate scarcely wants a +Mephistopheles to overcome it. We may perhaps think that the apologetic +note which the excellent Crabbe inserts at the end of his poem, to the +effect that he did not mean by it to represent mankind as 'puppets of an +overpowering destiny,' or 'to deny the doctrine of seducing spirits,' is +a little superfluous. The fact that a parish-clerk has taken to petty +pilfering can scarcely justify those heterodox conclusions. But when we +have smiled at Crabbe's philosophy, we begin to wonder at the force of +his sentiment. A blighted human soul is a pathetic object, however +paltry the temptation to which it has succumbed. Jachin has the dignity +of despair, though he is not quite a fallen archangel; and Crabbe's +favourite scenery harmonises with his agony. + + In each lone place, dejected and dismayed, + Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid, + Or to the restless sea and roaring wind + Gave the strong yearnings of a ruined mind; + On the broad beach, the silent summer day, + Stretched on some wreck, he wore his life away; + Or where the river mingles with the sea, + Or on the mud-bank by the elder tree, + Or by the bounding marsh-dyke, there was he. + +Nor would he have been a more pitiable object if he had betrayed a +nation or sold his soul for a Garter instead of the pillage of a +subscription plate. Poor old Jachin's story may seem to be borrowed from +a commonplace tract; but the detected pilferer, though he has only lost +the respect of the parson, the overseer, and the beadle, touches us as +deeply as the Byronic hero who has fallen out with the whole system of +the world. + +If we refuse to sympathise with the pang due to so petty a +catastrophe--though our sympathy should surely be proportioned to the +keenness of the suffering rather than the absolute height of the +fall--we may turn to tragedy of a deeper dye. Peter Grimes, as his name +indicates, was a ruffian from his infancy. He once knocked down his poor +old father, who warned him of the consequences of his brutality:-- + + On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief, + This he revolved, and drank for his relief. + +Adopting such a remedy, he sank from bad to worse, and gradually became +a thief, a smuggler, and a social outlaw. In those days, however, as is +proved by the history of Mrs. Brownrigg, parish authorities practised +the 'boarding-out system' after a reckless fashion. Peter was allowed to +take two or three apprentices in succession, whom he bullied, starved, +and maltreated, and who finally died under suspicious circumstances. The +last was found dead in Peter's fishing-boat after a rough voyage: and +though nothing could be proved, the Mayor told him that he should have +no more slaves to belabour. Peter, pursuing his trade in solitude, +gradually became morbid and depressed. The melancholy estuary became +haunted by ghostly visions. He had to groan and sweat with no vent for +his passion:-- + + Thus by himself compelled to live each day, + To wait for certain hours the tide's delay; + At the same time the same dull views to see, + The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree; + The water only, when the tides were high, + When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry; + The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks, + And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks; + Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float, + As the tide rolls by the impeded boat. + +Peter grew more sullen, and the scenery became more weird and +depressing. The few who watched him remarked that there were three +places where Peter seemed to be more than usually moved. For a time he +hurried past them, whistling as he rowed; but gradually he seemed to be +fascinated. The idle loungers in the summer saw a man and boat lingering +in the tideway, apparently watching the gliding waves without casting a +net or looking at the wildfowl. At last his delirium becoming stronger, +he is carried to the poorhouse, and tells his story to the clergyman. +Nobody has painted with greater vigour that kind of externalised +conscience which may still survive in a brutalised mind. Peter Grimes, +of course, sees his victims' spirits and hates them. He fancies that his +father torments him out of spite, characteristically forgetting that the +ghost had some excuse for his anger:-- + + 'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene, + No living being had I lately seen; + I paddled up and down and dipped my net, + But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get-- + A father's pleasure, when his toil was done, + To plague and torture thus an only son! + And so I sat and looked upon the stream, + How it ran on, and felt as in a dream; + But dream it was not; no!--I fixed my eyes + On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise; + I saw my father on the water stand, + And hold a thin pale boy in either hand; + And there they glided ghastly on the top + Of the salt flood, and never touched a drop; + I would have struck them, but they knew the intent, + And smiled upon the oar, and down they went. + +Remorse in Peter's mind takes the shape of bitter hatred for his +victims; and with another characteristic confusion, he partly attributes +his sufferings to some evil influence intrinsic in the locality:-- + + There were three places, where they ever rose-- + The whole long river has not such as those-- + Places accursed, where, if a man remain, + He'll see the things which strike him to the brain. + +And then the malevolent ghosts forced poor Peter to lean on his oars, +and showed him visions of coming horrors. Grimes dies impenitent, and +fancying that his tormentors are about to seize him. Of all haunted men +in fiction, it is not easy to think of a case where the horror is more +terribly realised. The blood-boulter'd Banquo tortured a noble victim, +but scarcely tortured him more effectually. Peter Grimes was doubtless a +close relation of Peter Bell. Bell having the advantage of Wordsworth's +interpretation, leads us to many thoughts which lie altogether beyond +Crabbe's reach; but, looking simply at the sheer tragic force of the two +characters, Grimes is to Bell what brandy is to small beer. He would +never have shown the white feather like his successor, who, + + After ten months' melancholy, + Became a good and honest man. + +If, in some sense, Peter Grimes is the most effective of Crabbe's +heroes, he would, if taken alone, give a very distorted impression of +the general spirit of the poetry. It is only at intervals that he +introduces us to downright criminals. There is, indeed, a description of +a convicted felon, which, according to Macaulay, has made 'many a rough +and cynical reader cry like a child,' and which, if space were +unlimited, would make a striking pendant to the agony of the burdened +Grimes. But, as a rule, Crabbe can find motives enough for tenderness in +sufferings which have nothing to do with the criminal law, and of which +the mere framework of the story is often interesting enough. His +peculiar power is best displayed in so presenting to us the sorrows of +commonplace characters as to make us feel that a shabby coat and a +narrow education, and the most unromantic of characters, need not cut +off our sympathies with a fellow-creature; and that the dullest +tradesman who treads on our toes in an omnibus may want only a power of +articulate expression to bring before us some of the deepest of all +problems. The parish clerk and the grocer--or whatever may be the +proverbial epitome of human dulness--may swell the chorus of lamentation +over the barrenness and the hardships and the wasted energies and the +harsh discords of life which is always 'steaming up' from the world, and +to which it is one, though perhaps not the highest, of the poet's +functions to make us duly sensible. Crabbe, like all realistic writers, +must be studied at full length, and therefore quotations are necessarily +unjust. It will be sufficient if I refer--pretty much at random--to the +short story of 'Phoebe Dawson' in the 'Parish Register,' to the more +elaborate stories of 'Edward Shore' and the 'Parting Hour' in the +'Tales,' or to the story of 'Ruth' in the 'Tales of the Hall,' where +again the dreary pathos is strangely heightened by Crabbe's favourite +seaport scenery, to prove that he might be called as truly as Goldsmith +_affectuum potens_, though scarcely _lenis, dominator_. + +It is time, however, to conclude with a word or two as to Crabbe's +peculiar place in the history of English literature. I said that, unlike +his contemporaries, Cowper and Burns, he adhered rigidly to the form of +the earlier eighteenth-century school, and partly for this reason +excited the wayward admiration of Byron, who always chose to abuse the +bridge which carried him to fame. But Crabbe's clumsiness of expression +makes him a very inadequate successor of Pope or of Goldsmith, and his +claims are really founded on the qualities which led Byron to call him +'nature's sternest painter, yet her best.' On this side he is connected +with some tendencies of the school which supplanted his early models. So +far as Wordsworth and his followers represented the reaction from the +artificial to a love of unsophisticated nature, Crabbe is entirely at +one with them. He did not share that unlucky taste for the namby-pamby +by which Wordsworth annoyed his contemporaries, and spoilt some of his +earlier poems. Its place was filled in Crabbe's mind by an even more +unfortunate disposition for the simply humdrum and commonplace, which, +it must be confessed, makes it almost as hard to read a good many of his +verses as to consume large quantities of suet pudding, and has probably +destroyed his popularity with the present generation. Still, Crabbe's +influence was powerful as against the old conventionality. He did not, +like his predecessors, write upon the topics which interested 'persons +of quality,' and never gives us the impression of having composed his +rhymes in a full-bottomed wig or even in a Grub Street garret. He has +gone out into country fields and village lanes, and paints directly from +man and nature, with almost a cynical disregard of the accepted code of +propriety. But the points on which he parts company with his more +distinguished contemporaries is equally obvious. Mr. Stopford Brooke has +lately been telling us with great eloquence what is the theology which +underlies the poetical tendencies of the last generation of poets. Of +that creed, a sufficiently vague one, it must be admitted, Crabbe was by +no means an apostle. Rather one would say he was as indifferent as a +good old-fashioned clergyman could very well be to the existence of any +new order of ideas in the world. The infidels, whom he sometimes +attacks, read Bolingbroke, and Chubb, and Mandeville, and have only +heard by report even of the existence of Voltaire. The Dissenters, whom +he so heartily detests, have listened to Whitefield and Wesley, or +perhaps to Huntington, S.S.--that is, as it may now be necessary to +explain, Sinner Saved. Every newer development of thought was still far +away from the quiet pews of Aldborough, and the only form of Church +restoration of which he has heard is the objectionable practice of +painting a new wall to represent a growth of lichens. Crabbe appreciates +the charm of the picturesque, but has never yet heard of our elaborate +methods of creating modern antiques. Lapped in such ignorance, and with +a mind little given to speculation, it is only in character that Crabbe +should be totally insensible to the various moods of thought represented +by Wordsworth's pantheistic conceptions of nature, or by Shelley's +dreamy idealism, or Byron's fierce revolutionary impulses. Still less, +if possible, could he sympathise with that love of beauty, pure and +simple, of which Keats was the first prophet. He might, indeed, be +briefly described by saying that he is at the very opposite pole from +Keats. The more bigoted admirers of Keats--for there are bigots in +matters of taste or poetry as well as in science or theology or +politics--would refuse the title of poet to Crabbe altogether on the +strength of the absence of this element from his verses. Like his most +obvious parallels in painting, he is too fond of boors and pothouses to +be allowed the quality of artistic perception. I will not argue the +point, which is, perhaps, rather a question of classification than of +intrinsic merit; but I will venture to suggest a test which will, I +think, give Crabbe a very firm, though, it may be, not a very lofty +place. Though I should be unwilling to be reckoned as one of Macaulay's +'rough and cynical readers,' I admit that I can read the story of the +convicted felon, or of Peter Grimes, without indulging in downright +blubbering. Most readers, I fear, can in these days get through pathetic +poems and novels without absolutely using their pocket-handkerchiefs. +But though Crabbe may not prompt such outward and visible signs of +emotion, I think that he produces a more distinct tendency to tears than +almost any poet of his time. True, he does not appeal to emotions, +accessible only through the finer intellectual perceptions, or to the +thoughts which 'lie too deep for tears.' That prerogative belongs to men +of more intense character, greater philosophical power, and more +delicate instincts. But the power of touching readers by downright +pictures of homespun griefs and sufferings is one which, to my mind, +implies some poetical capacity, and which clearly belongs to Crabbe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] It seems, one is sorry to add, that Murray made a very bad bargain +in this case. + + + + +_WILLIAM HAZLITT_ + + +There are few great books or great men that do not sadden us by a sense +of incompleteness. The writer, we feel, is better than his work. His +full power only reveals itself by flashes. There are blemishes in his +design, due to mere oversight or indolence; his energy has flagged, or +he has alloyed his pure gold to please the mob; or some burst of wayward +passion has disturbed the fair proportions of his work, and the man +himself is a half-finished or half-ruined fragment. The rough usage of +the world leaves its mark on the spiritual constitution of even the +strongest and best amongst us; and perhaps the finest natures suffer +more than others in virtue of their finer sympathies. 'Hamlet' is a +pretty good performance, if we make allowances; but what would it have +been if Shakespeare could have been at his highest level all through, +and if every element of strength in him had been purified from every +weakness? What would it have been, shall we say, if he could have had +the advantage of reading a few modern lectures on ćsthetics? We may, +perhaps, be content with Shakespeare as circumstances left him; but in +reading our modern poets, the sentiment of regret is stronger. If Byron +had not been driven into his wild revolt against the world; if Shelley +had been judiciously treated from his youth; if Keats had had healthier +lungs; if Wordsworth had not grown rusty in his solitude; if Scott had +not been tempted into publisher's speculations; if Coleridge had never +taken to opium--what great poems might not have opened the new era of +literature, where now we have but incomplete designs, and listen to +harmonies half destroyed by internal discord? The regret, however, is +less when a man has succeeded in uttering the thought that was in him, +though it may never have found a worthy expression. Wordsworth could +have told us little more, though the 'Excursion' had been as complete a +work as 'Paradise Lost;' and if Scott might have written more +'Waverleys' and 'Antiquaries' and 'Old Mortalities,' he could hardly +have written better ones. But the works of some other writers suggest +possibilities which never even approached fulfilment. If the opinion +formed by his contemporaries of Coleridge be anywhere near the truth, we +lost in him a potential philosopher of a very high order, as we more +clearly lost a poet of singular fascination. Coleridge naturally +suggests the name of De Quincey, whose works are as often tantalising as +satisfying. And to make, it is true, a considerable drop from the +greatest of these names, we often feel when we take up one of Hazlitt's +glowing Essays, that here, too, was a man who might have made a far more +enduring mark as a writer of English prose. At their best, his writings +are admirable; they have the true stamp; the thought is masculine and +the expression masterly; phrases engrave themselves on the memory; and +we catch glimpses of a genuine thinker and no mere manufacturer of +literary commonplace. On a more prolonged study, it is true, we become +conscious of many shortcomings, and the general effect is somehow rather +cloying, though hardly from an excess of sweetness. And yet he deserves +the study both of the critic and the student of character. + +The story of Hazlitt's life has been told by his grandson; but there is +a rather curious defect of materials for so recent a biography. He kept, +it seems, no letters,--a weakness, if it be a weakness, for which one is +rather apt to applaud him in these days: but, on the other hand, nobody +ever indulged more persistently in the habit of washing his dirty linen +in public. Not even his idol Rousseau could be more demonstrative of his +feelings and recollections. His Essays are autobiographical, sometimes +even offensively; and after reading them we are even more familiar than +his contemporaries with many points of his character. He loved to pour +himself out in his Essays + + as plain + As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne. + +He has laid bare for the most careless reader the main elements of his +singular composition. Like some others of his revolutionary friends, +Godwin, for example, Leigh Hunt, and Tom Paine, he represents the old +dissenting spirit in a new incarnation. The grandfather a stern +Calvinist, the father a Unitarian, the son a freethinker; those were the +gradations through which more than one family passed during the closing +years of the last century and the opening of this. One generation still +clung to the old Puritan traditions and Jonathan Edwards; the next +followed Priestley; and the third joined the little band of radicals who +read Cobbett, scorned Southey as a deserter, and refused to be +frightened by the French Revolution. The outside crust of opinion may be +shed with little change to the inner man. Hazlitt was a dissenter to his +backbone. He was born to be in a minority; to be a living protest +against the dominant creed and constitution. He recognised and +denounced, but he never shook off, the faults characteristic of small +sects. A want of wide intellectual culture, and a certain sourness of +temper, cramped his powers and sometimes marred his writing. But from +his dissenting forefathers Hazlitt inherited something better. Beside +the huge tomes of controversial divinity on his father's shelves, the +'Patres Poloni,' Pripscovius, Crellius and Cracovius, Lardner and +Doddridge, and Baxter and Bates, and Howe, were the legends of the +Puritan hagiology. The old dissenters, he tells us, had Neale's 'History +of the Puritans' by heart, and made their children read Calamy's account +of the 2,000 ejected ministers along with the stories of Daniel in the +Lion's Den and Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Sympathy for the +persecuted, unbending resistance to the oppressor, was the creed which +had passed into their blood. 'This covenant they kept as the stars keep +their courses; this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better, +as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it does not +wither in their decay.... It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, +smiles in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to +the grave. This'--for in Hazlitt lies a personal application in all his +moralising--'This is better than the whirligig life of a court +poet'--such, for example, as Robert Southey. + +But Hazlitt's descent was not pure. If we could trace back the line of +his ancestry we should expect to find that by some freak of fortune, one +of the rigid old Puritans had married a descendant of some great Flemish +or Italian painter. Love of graceful forms and bright colouring and +voluptuous sensations had been transmitted to their descendants, though +hitherto repressed by the stern discipline of British nonconformity. As +the discipline relaxed, the Hazlitts reverted to the ancestral type. +Hazlitt himself, his brother and his sister, were painters by instinct. +The brother became a painter of miniatures by profession; and Hazlitt to +the end of his days revered Titian almost as much as he revered his +great idol Napoleon. An odd pair of idols, one thinks, for a youth +brought up upon Pripscovius and his brethren! A keen delight in all +artistic and natural beauty was an awkward endowment for a youth +intended for the ministry. Keats was scarcely more out of place in a +surgery than Hazlitt would have been in a Unitarian pulpit of those +days, and yet from that pulpit, oddly enough, came the greatest impulse +to Hazlitt. It came from a man who, like Hazlitt himself, though in a +higher degree than Hazlitt, combined the artistic and the philosophic +temperament. Coleridge, as Hazlitt somewhere says, threw a great stone +into the standing pool of contemporary thought; and it was in January +1798--one of the many dates in his personal history to which he recurs +with unceasing fondness--that Hazlitt rose before daylight and walked +ten miles in the mud to hear Coleridge preach. He has told, in his +graphic manner, how the voice of the preacher 'rose like a stream of +rich distilled perfumes;' how he launched into his subject, after giving +out the text, 'like an eagle dallying with the wind;' and how his young +hearer seemed to be listening to the music of the spheres, to see the +union of poetry and philosophy; and behold truth and genius embracing +under the eye of religion. His description of the youthful Coleridge has +a fit pendant in the wonderful description of the full-blown philosopher +in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling;' where, indeed, one or two touches are +taken from Hazlitt's Essays. It is Hazlitt who remarked, even at this +early meeting, that the dreamy poet philosopher could never decide on +which side of the footpath he should walk; and Hazlitt, who struck out +the epigram that Coleridge was an excellent talker if allowed to start +from no premisses and come to no conclusion. The glamour of Coleridge's +theosophy never seems to have fascinated Hazlitt's stubborn intellect. +At this time, indeed, Coleridge had not yet been inoculated with German +mysticism. In after years, the disciple, according to his custom, +renounced his master and assailed him with half-regretful anger. But the +intercourse and kindly encouragement of so eminent a man seem to have +roused Hazlitt's ambition. His poetical and his speculative intellect +were equally stirred. The youth was already longing to write a +philosophical treatise. The two elements of his nature thus roused to +action led him along a 'strange diagonal.' He would be at once a painter +and a metaphysician. Some eight years of artistic labour convinced him +that he could not be a Titian or a Raphael, and he declined to be a mere +Hazlitt junior. His metaphysical studies, on the contrary, convinced him +that he might be a Hume or a Berkeley; but unluckily they convinced +himself alone. The tiny volume which contained their results was +neglected by everybody but the author, who, to the end of his days, +loved it with the love of a mother for a deformed child. It is written, +to say the truth, in a painful and obscure style; it is the work of a +man who has brooded over his own thoughts in solitude till he cannot +appreciate the need of a clear exposition. The narrowness of his reading +had left him in ignorance of the new aspects under which the eternal +problems were presenting themselves to the new generation; and a +metaphysical discussion in antiquated phraseology is as useless as a +lady's dress in the last year's fashion. Hazlitt, in spite of this +double failure, does not seem to have been much disturbed by +impecuniosity; but the most determined Bohemian has to live. For some +years he strayed about the purlieus of literature, drudging, +translating, and doing other cobbler's work. Two of his performances, +however, were characteristic; he wrote an attack upon Malthus, and he +made an imprudent marriage. Even Malthusians must admit that imprudent +marriages may have some accidental good consequences. When a man has +fairly got his back to the wall, he is forced to fight; and Hazlitt, at +the age of thirty-four, with a wife and a son, at last discovered the +great secret of the literary profession, that a clever man can write +when he has to write or starve. To compose had been labour and grief to +him, so long as he could potter round a thought indefinitely; but with +the printer's devil on one side and the demands of a family on the +other, his ink began to flow freely, and during the last fifteen or +seventeen years of his life he became a voluminous though fragmentary +author. Several volumes of essays, lectures, and criticisms, besides his +more ambitious 'Life of Napoleon,' and a great deal of anonymous +writing, attest his industry. He died in 1830, at the age of fifty-two; +leaving enough to show that he could have done more and a good deal of a +rare, if not of the highest kind of excellence. + +Hazlitt, as I have said, is everywhere autobiographical. Besides that +secret, that a man can write if he must, he had discovered the further +secret that the easiest of all topics is his own feelings. It is an +apparent paradox, though the explanation is not far to seek, that +Hazlitt, though shy with his friends, was the most unreserved of +writers. Indeed he takes the public into his confidence with a facility +which we cannot easily forgive. Biographers of late have been guilty of +flagrant violations of the unwritten code which should protect the +privacies of social life from the intrusions of public curiosity. But +the most unscrupulous of biographers would hardly have dared to tear +aside the veil so audaciously as Hazlitt, in one conspicuous instance at +least, chose to do for himself. His idol Rousseau had indeed gone +further; but when Rousseau told the story of his youth, it was at least +seen through a long perspective of years, and his own personality might +seem to be scarcely interested. Hazlitt chose, in the strange book +called the 'New Pygmalion,' or 'Liber Amoris,' to invite the British +public at large to look on at a strange tragi-comedy, of which the last +scene was scarcely finished. Hazlitt had long been unhappy in his family +life. His wife appears to have been a masculine woman, with no talent +for domesticity; completely indifferent to her husband's pursuits, and +inclined to despise him for so fruitless an employment of his energies. +They had already separated, it seems, when Hazlitt fell desperately in +love with Miss Sarah Walker, the daughter of his lodging-house keeper. +The husband and wife agreed to obtain a divorce under the Scotch law, +after which they might follow their own paths, and Sarah Walker become +the second Mrs. Hazlitt. Some months had to be spent by Mr. and Mrs. +Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's +journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly +resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and +imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all +pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, +takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some +picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has +made a fool of himself, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a +troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved +pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his +friends letters which seem to be throbbing with unrestrainable passion. +He is raving as Romeo at Mantua might have raved about Juliet. To hear +Miss Walker called his wife will be music to his ears, such as they +never heard. But it seems doubtful whether, after all, his Juliet will +have him. He shrieks mere despair and suicide. Nothing is left in the +world to give him a drop of comfort. The breeze does not cool him nor +the blue sky delight him. He will never lie down at night nor rise up of +a morning in peace, nor even behold his little boy's face with pleasure, +unless he is restored to her favour. And Mrs. Hazlitt reports, after +acknowledging the receipt of Ł10, that Mr. Hazlitt was so much +'enamoured' of one of these letters that he pulled it out of his pocket +twenty times a day, wanted to read it to his companions, and ranted and +gesticulated till people took him for a madman. The 'Liber Amoris' is +made out of these letters--more or less altered and disguised, with some +reports of conversations with the lovely Sarah. 'It was an explosion of +frenzy,' says De Quincey; his reckless mode of relieving his bosom of +certain perilous stuff, with little care whether it produced scorn or +sympathy. A passion which urges its victim to such improprieties should +be, at least, deep and genuine. One would have liked him better if he +had not taken his frenzy to market. The 'Liber Amoris' tells us +accordingly that the author, Hazlitt's imaginary double, died abroad, +'of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of mind.' +The hero, in short, breaks his heart when the lady marries somebody +else. Hazlitt's heart was more elastic. Miss Sarah Walker married, and +Hazlitt next year married a widow lady 'of some property,' made a tour +with her on the Continent, and then--quarrelled with her also. It is not +a pretty story. Hazlitt's biographer informs us, by way of excuse, that +his grandfather was 'physically incapable'--whatever that may mean--'of +fixing his affection upon a single object.' He 'comprehended,' indeed, +'the worth of constancy' and other virtues as well as most men, and +could have written about them better than most men; but somehow 'a +sinister influence or agency,' a periphrasis for a sensuous temperament, +was perpetually present, which confined his virtues to the sphere of +theory. An apology sometimes is worse than a satire. The case, however, +seems to be sufficiently plain. We need not suspect that Hazlitt was +consciously acting a part and nursing his 'frenzy' because he thought +that it would make a startling book. He was an egotist and a man of +impulse. His impressions were for the time overpowering; but they were +transient. His temper was often stronger than his passions. A gust of +anger would make him quarrel with his oldest friends. Every emotion +justified itself for the time, because it was his. He always did well, +whether it pleased him for the moment to be angry, to be in love, to be +cynical, or to be furiously indignant. The end, therefore, of his life +exhibits a series of short impetuous fits of passionate endeavour, +rather than devotion to a single overruling purpose; and all his +writings are brief outbursts of eloquent feeling, where neither the +separate fragments nor the works considered as a whole obey any law of +logical development. And yet, in some ways, Hazlitt boasted, and boasted +plausibly enough, of his constancy. He has the same ideas to the end of +his life that he had at fourteen. He would, he remarks, be an excellent +man on a jury; he would say little, but would starve the eleven other +obstinate fellows out. Amongst politicians he was a faithful Abdiel, +when all others had deserted the cause. He loved the books of his +boyhood, the fields where he had walked, the gardens where he had drunk +tea, and, to a rather provoking extent, the old quotations and old +stories which he had used from his first days of authorship. The +explanation of the apparent paradox gives the clue to Hazlitt's singular +character. + +What I have called Hazlitt's egotism is more euphemistically and perhaps +more accurately described by Talfourd,[3] 'an intense consciousness of +his own individual being.' The word egotism in our rough estimates of +character is too easily confounded with selfishness. Hazlitt might have +been the person who, as one making a strange confession, assured a +friend that he took a deep interest in his own concerns. He was, one +would say, decidedly unselfish, if by selfishness is meant a disposition +to feather one's own nest without regard for other people's wants. Still +less was he selfish in the sense of preferring solid bread and butter to +the higher needs of mind and spirit. His sentiments are always generous, +and if scorn is too familiar a mood, it is scorn of the base and +servile. But his peculiarity is that these generous feelings are always +associated with some special case. He sees every abstract principle by +the concrete instance. He hates insolence in the abstract, but his +hatred flames into passion when it is insolence to Hazlitt. He resembles +that good old lady who wrote on the margin of her 'Complete Duty of Man' +the name of that neighbour who most conspicuously sinned against the +precept in the opposite text. Tyranny with Hazlitt is named Pitt, party +spite is Gifford, apostasy is Southey, and fidelity may be called +Cobbett or Godwin; though he finds names for the vices much more easily +than for the virtues. And thus, if he cannot be condemned for +selfishness, one must be charitable not to put down a good many of his +offences to its sister jealousy. The personal and the public sentiments +are so invariably blended in his mind that neither he nor anybody else +could have analysed their composition. He was apt to be the more moody +and irritable because his resentments clothed themselves spontaneously +in the language of some nobler emotion. If his friends are cold, he +bewails the fickleness of humanity; if they are successful, it is not +envy that prompts his irritation, but the rarity of the correspondence +between merit and reward. Such a man is more faithful to his dead than +to his living friends. The dead cannot change; they always come back to +his memory in their old colours; their names recall the old tender +emotion placed above all change and chance. But who can tell that our +dearest living friend may not come into awkward collision with us before +he has left the room? It is as well to be on our guard! It is curious +how the two feelings alternate in Hazlitt's mind in regard to the +friends who are at once dead and living; how fondly he dwells upon the +Coleridge of Wem and Nether Stowey where he first listened to the +enchanter's voice, and with what bitterness, which is yet but soured +affection, he turns upon the Coleridge who defended war-taxes in the +'Friend.' He hacks and hews at Southey through several furious Essays, +and ends with a groan. 'We met him unexpectedly the other day in St. +Giles's,' he says, 'were sorry we had passed him without speaking to an +old friend, turned and looked after him for some time as to a tale of +other days--sighing, as we walked on, Alas, poor Southey!' He fancies +himself to be in the mood of Brutus murdering Cćsar. It is patriotism +struggling with old associations of friendship; if there is any personal +element in the hostility, no one is less conscious of it than the +possessor. To the whole Lake school his attitude is always the +same--justice done grudgingly in spite of anger, or satire tempered by +remorse. No one could say nastier things of that very different egotist, +Wordsworth; nor could anyone, outside the sacred clique, pay him +heartier compliments. Nobody, indeed, can dislike egotism like an +egotist. 'Wordsworth,' says Hazlitt, 'sees nothing but himself and the +universe; he hates all greatness and all pretensions to it but his own. +His egotism is in this respect a madness, for he scorns even the +admiration of himself, thinking it a presumption in anyone to suppose +that he has taste or sense enough to understand him. He hates all +science and all art: he hates chemistry, he hates conchology, he hates +Sir Isaac Newton, he hates logic, he hates metaphysics,' and so on +through a long list of hatreds, ending with the inimitable Napoleon, +whom Wordsworth hates, it seems, 'to get rid of the idea of anything +greater, or thought to be greater, than himself.' Hazlitt might have +made out a tolerable list of his own antipathies; though, to do him +justice, of antipathies balanced by ardent enthusiasm, especially for +the dead or the distant. + +Hazlitt, indeed, was incapable of the superlative self-esteem here +attributed to Wordsworth. His egotism is a curious variety of that +Protean passion, compounded as skilfully as the melancholy of Jaques. It +is not the fascinating and humorous egotism of Lamb, who disarms us +beforehand by a smile at his own crotchets. Hazlitt is too serious to be +playful. Nor is it like the amusing egotism of Boswell, combined with a +vanity which evades our contempt, because it asks so frankly for +sympathy. Hazlitt is too proud and too bitter. Neither is it the +misanthropic egotism of Byron, which, through all its affectation, +implies a certain aristocratic contempt of the world and its laws. +Hazlitt has not the sweep and continuity of Byron's passion. His +egotism--be it said without offence--is dashed with something of the +feeling common amongst his dissenting friends. He feels the awkwardness +which prevails amongst a clique branded by a certain social stigma, and +despises himself for his awkwardness. He resents neglect and scorns to +ask for patronage. His egotism is a touchy and wayward feeling which +takes the mask of misanthropy. He is always meditating upon his own +qualities, but not in the spirit of the conceited man who plumes himself +upon his virtues, nor of the ascetic who broods over his vices. He +prefers the apparently self-contradictory attitude (but human nature is +illogical) of meditating with remorse upon his own virtues. What in +others is complacency, becomes with him, ostensibly at least, +self-reproach. He affects--but it is hard to say where the affectation +begins--to be annoyed by the contemplation of his own merits. He is +angry with the world for preferring commonplace to genius, and rewarding +stupidity by success; but in form at least, he mocks at his own folly +for expecting better things. If he is vain at bottom, his vanity shows +itself indirectly by depreciating his neighbours. He is too proud to +dwell upon his own virtues, but he has been convinced by impartial +observation that the world at large is in a conspiracy against merit. +Thus he manages to transform his self-consciousness into the semblance +of proud humility, and extracts a bitter and rather morbid pleasure from +dwelling upon his disappointments and failures. Half-a-dozen of his best +Essays give expression to this mood, which is rather bitter than +querulous. He enlarges cordially on the 'disadvantages of intellectual +superiority.' An author--Hazlitt, to wit--is not allowed to relax into +dulness; if he is brilliant he is not understood, and if he professes an +interest in common things it is assumed that then he must be a fool. And +yet in the midst of these grumblings he is forced to admit a touch of +weakness, and tells us how it pleases him to hear a man ask in the Fives +Court, 'Which is Mr. Hazlitt?' He, the most idiosyncratic of men, and +most proud of it at bottom, declares how 'he hates his style to be +known, as he hates all idiosyncrasy.' At the next moment he purrs with +complacency at the recollection of having been forced into an avowal of +his authorship of an article in the 'Edinburgh Review.' Most generally +he eschews these naďve lapses into vanity. He dilates on the old text of +the 'shyness of scholars.' The learned are out of place in competition +with the world. They are not and ought not to fancy themselves fitted +for the vulgar arena. They can never enjoy their old privileges. 'Fool +that it (learning) was, ever to forego its privileges and loosen the +strong hold it had on opinion in bigotry and superstition!' The same +tone of disgust pronounces itself more cynically in an Essay 'on the +pleasure of hating.' Hatred is, he admits, a poisonous ingredient in all +our passions, but it is that which gives reality to them. Patriotism +means hatred of the French, and virtue is a hatred of other people's +faults to atone for our own vices. All things turn to hatred. 'We hate +old friends, we hate old books, we hate old opinions, and at last we +come to hate ourselves.' Summing up all his disappointments, the broken +friendships, and disappointed ambitions, and vanished illusions, he +asks, in conclusion, whether he has not come to hate and despise +himself? 'Indeed, I do,' he answers, 'and chiefly for not having hated +and despised the world enough.' + +This is an outbreak of temporary spleen. Nobody loved his old books and +old opinions better. Hazlitt is speaking in the character of Timon, +which indeed fits him rather too easily. But elsewhere the same strain +of cynicism comes out in more natural and less extravagant form. Take, +for example, the Essay on the 'Conduct of Life.' It is a piece of _bonâ +fide_ advice addressed to his boy at school, and gives in a sufficiently +edifying form the commonplaces which elders are accustomed to address to +their juniors. Honesty, independence, diligence, and temperance are +commended in good set terms, though with an earnestness which, as is +often the case with Hazlitt, imparts some reality to outworn formulć. +When, however, he comes to the question of marriage, the true man breaks +out. Don't trust, he says, to fine sentiments: they will make no more +impression on these delicate creatures than on a piece of marble. Love +in women is vanity, interest, or fancy. Women care nothing about talents +or virtue--about poets or philosophers or politicians. They judge by the +eye. 'No true woman ever regarded anything but her lover's person and +address.' The author has no chance; for he lives in a dream, he feels +nothing spontaneously, his metaphysical refinements are all thrown away. +'Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the +fire in your eye; adorn your person; maintain your health, your beauty, +and your animal spirits; for if you once lapse into poetry and +philosophy you will want an eye to show you, a hand to guide you, a +bosom to love--and will stagger into your grave old before your time, +unloved and unlovely.' 'A spider,' he adds, 'the meanest creature that +crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow, but a scholar has no mate or +fellow.' Mrs. Hazlitt, Miss Sarah Walker, and several other ladies, +thought Hazlitt surly and cared nothing for his treatise on human +nature. Therefore (it is true Hazlittian logic) no woman cares for +sentiment. The sex which despised him must be despicable. Equally +characteristic is his profound belief that his failure in another line +is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most +characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. +He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, +and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does +not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, +with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not +being a Government tool. He wrote a charming character of Congreve's +Millamant, but it was unnoticed because he was not a Government tool. +Gifford would not relish his account of Dekkar's Orlando +Friscobaldo--because he was not a Government tool. He wrote admirable +table-talks--for once, as they are nearly finished, he will venture to +praise himself. He could swear (were they not his) that the thoughts in +them were 'founded as the rock, free as the air, the hue like an Italian +picture.' But, had the style been like polished steel, as firm and as +bright, it would have availed him nothing, for he was not a Government +tool. The world hated him, we see, for his merits. It is a bad world, he +says; but don't think that it is my vanity which has taken offence, for +I am remarkable for modesty, and therefore I know that my virtues are +faults of which I ought to be ashamed. Is this pride or vanity, or +humility, or cynicism, or self-reproach for wasted talents, or an +intimate blending of passions for which there is no precise name? Who +can unravel the masks within masks of a cunning egotism? + +To one virtue, however, that of political constancy, Hazlitt lays claim +in the most emphatic terms. If he quarrels with all his friends--'most +of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or +cold, uncomfortable acquaintance'--it is, of course, their fault. A +thoroughgoing egotist must think himself the centre of gravity of the +world, and all change of relations must mean that others have moved away +from him. Politically, too, all who have given up his opinions are +deserters, and generally from the worst of motives. He accuses Burke of +turning against the Revolution from--of all motives in the +world!--jealousy of Rousseau; a theory still more impossible than Mr. +Buckle's hypothesis of madness. Court favour supplies in most cases a +simpler explanation of the general demoralisation. Hazlitt could not +give credit to men like Southey and Coleridge for sincere alarm at the +French Revolution. Such a sentiment would be too unreasonable, for he +had not been alarmed himself. His constancy, indeed, would be admirable +if it did not suggest doubts of his wisdom. A man whose opinions at +fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If +his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by +experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. +To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write +yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what +Hazlitt called his opinions were really his feelings. He could argue +very ingeniously, as appears from his remarks on Coleridge and Malthus, +but his logic was the slave, not the ruler, of his emotions. His +politics were simply the expression, in a generalised form, of his +intense feeling of personality. They are a projection upon the modern +political world of that heroic spirit of individual self-respect which +animated his Puritan forefathers. One question, and only one question, +he frequently tells us, is of real importance. All the rest is mere +verbiage. The single dogma worth attacking or defending is the divine +right of kings. Are men, in the old phrase, born saddled and bridled, +and other men ready booted and spurred, or are they not? That is the +single shibboleth which distinguishes true men from false. Others, he +says, bowed their heads to the image of the beast. 'I spit upon it, and +buffeted it, and pointed at it, and drew aside the veil that then half +concealed it.' This passionate denial of the absolute right of men over +their fellows is but vicarious pride, if you please to call it so, or a +generous recognition of the dignity of human nature translated into +political terms. Hazlitt's character did not change, however much his +judgment of individuals might change; and therefore the principles which +merely reflected his character remained rooted and unshaken. And yet his +politics changed curiously enough in another sense. The abstract truth, +in Hazlitt's mind, must always have a concrete symbol. He chose to +regard Napoleon as the antithesis to the divine right of kings. That was +the vital formula of Napoleon, his essence, and the true meaning of his +policy. The one question in abstract politics was typified for Hazlitt +by the contrast between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance. To prove that +Napoleon could trample on human rights as roughly as any legitimate +sovereign was for him mere waste of time. Napoleon's tyranny meant a +fair war against the evil principle. Had Hazlitt lived in France, and +come into collision with press laws, it is likely enough that his +sentiments would have changed. But Napoleon was far enough off to serve +as a mere poetical symbol; his memory had got itself entwined in those +youthful associations on which Hazlitt always dwelt so fondly; and, +moreover, to defend 'Boney' was to quarrel with most of his countrymen, +and even of his own party. What more was wanted to make him one of +Hazlitt's superstitions? No more ardent devotee of the Napoleonic legend +ever existed, and Hazlitt's last years were employed in writing a book +which is a political pamphlet as much as a history. He worships the +eldest Napoleon with the fervour of a corporal of the Old Guard, and +denounces the great conspiracy of kings and nobles with the energy of +Cobbett; but he had none of the special knowledge which alone could give +permanent value to such a performance. He seems to have consulted only +the French authorities; and it is refreshing for once to find an +Englishman telling the story of Waterloo entirely from the French side, +and speaking, for example, of left and right as if he had been--as in +imagination he was--by the side of Napoleon instead of Wellington. Even +M. Victor Hugo can see more merit in the English army and its commander. +A radical, who takes Napoleon for his polar star, must change some of +his theories, though he disguises the change from himself; but a change +of a different kind came over Hazlitt as he grew older. + +The enthusiasm of the Southeys and Wordsworths for the French Revolution +changed--whatever their motives--into enthusiasm for the established +order. Hazlitt's enthusiasm remained, but became the enthusiasm of +regret instead of hope. As one by one the former zealots dropped off he +despised them as renegades, and clasped his old creed the more firmly to +his bosom. But the change did not draw him nearer to the few who +remained faithful. They perversely loved the wrong side of the right +cause, or loved it for the wrong reason. He liked the Whigs no better +than the Tories; the 'Edinburgh' and the 'Quarterly' were opposition +coaches, making a great dust and spattering each other with mud, but +travelling by the same road to the same end. A Whig, he said, was a +trimmer who dared neither to be a rogue nor an honest man, but was 'a +sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning +negation of the two.' And the true genuine radical reformers? To them, +as represented by the school of Bentham, Hazlitt entertained an aversion +quite as hearty as his aversion for Whigs and Tories. If, he says, the +Whigs are too finical to join heartily with the popular advocates, the +Reformers are too cold. They hated literature, poetry, and romance; +nothing gives them pleasure that does not give others pain; +utilitarianism means prosaic, hard-hearted, narrow-minded dogmatism. +Indeed, his pet essay on the principles of human nature was simply an +assault on what he took to be their fundamental position. He fancied +that the school of Bentham regarded man as a purely selfish and +calculating animal; and his whole philosophy was an attempt to prove the +natural disinterestedness of man, and to indicate for the imagination +and the emotions their proper place beside the calculating faculty. Few +were those who did not come under one or other clause of this sweeping +denunciation. He assailed Shelley, who was neither Whig, Tory, nor +Utilitarian, so cuttingly as to provoke a dispute with Leigh Hunt, and +had some of his sharp criticisms for his friend Godwin. His general +moral, indeed, is the old congenial one. The reformer is as unfit for +this world as the scholar. He is the only wise man, but, as things go, +wisdom is the worst of follies. The reformer, he says, is necessarily a +marplot; he does not know what he would be at; if he did, he does not +much care for it; and, moreover, he is 'governed habitually by a spirit +of contradiction, and is always wise beyond what is practicable.' Upon +this text Hazlitt dilates with immense spirit, satirising the crotchety +and impracticable race, and contrasting them with the disciplined +phalanx of Toryism, brilliantly and bitterly enough to delight Gifford; +and yet he is writing a preface to a volume of radical Essays. He is +consoling himself for being in a minority of one by proving that two +virtuous men must always disagree. Hazlitt is no genuine democrat. He +hates 'both mobs,' or, in other words, the great mass of the human race. +He would sympathise with Coriolanus more easily than with the Tribunes. +He laughs at the perfectibility of the species, and holds that 'all +things move, not in progress but in a ceaseless round.' The glorious +dream is fled: + + The radiance which was once so bright + Is now for ever taken from our sight; + +and his only consolation is to live over in memory the sanguine times of +his youth, before Napoleon had fallen and the Holy Alliance restored the +divine right of kings; to cherish eternal regret for the hopes that have +departed, and hatred and scorn equally enduring for those who blasted +them. 'Give me back,' he exclaims, 'one single evening at Boxhill, after +a stroll in the deep empurpled woods, before Bonaparte was yet beaten, +with "wine of Attic taste," when wit, beauty, friendship presided at +the board.' The personal blends with the political regret. + +Hazlitt, the politician, was soured. He fed his morbid egotism by +indignantly chewing the cud of disappointment, and scornfully rejecting +comfort. He quarrelled with his wife and with most of his friends, even +with the gentle Lamb, till Lamb regained his affections by the brief +quarrel with Southey. Certainly, he might call himself, with some +plausibility, 'the king of good haters.' But, after all, Hazlitt's +cynicism is the souring of a generous nature; and when we turn from the +politician to the critic and the essayist, our admiration for his powers +is less frequently jarred by annoyance at their wayward misuse. His +egotism--for he is still an egotist--here takes a different shape. His +criticism is not of the kind which is now most popular. He lived before +the days of philosophers who talk about the organism and its +environment, and of the connoisseurs who boast of an eclectic taste for +all the delicate essences of art. He never thought of showing that a +great writer was only the product of his time, race, and climate; and he +had not learnt to use such terms of art as 'supreme,' 'gracious,' +'tender,' 'bitter,' and 'subtle,' in which a good deal of criticism now +consists. Lamb, says Hazlitt, tried old authors 'on his palate as +epicures taste olives;' and the delicacy of discrimination which makes +the process enjoyable is perhaps the highest qualification of a good +critic. Hazlitt's point of view was rather different, nor can we ascribe +to him without qualification that exquisite appreciation of purely +literary charm which is so rare and so often affected. Nobody, indeed, +loved some authors more heartily or understood them better; his love is +so hearty that he cannot preserve the true critical attitude. Instead of +trying them on his palate, he swallows them greedily. His judgment of +an author seems to depend upon two circumstances. He is determined in +great measure by his private associations, and in part by his sympathy +for the character of the writer. His interest in this last sense is, one +may say, rather psychological than purely critical. He thinks of an +author not as the exponent of a particular vein of thought or emotion, +nor as an artistic performer on the instrument of language, but as a +human being to be loved or hated, or both, like Napoleon or Gifford or +Southey. + +Hazlitt's favourite authors were, for the most part, the friends of his +youth. He had pored over their pages till he knew them by heart; their +phrases were as familiar to his lips as texts of Scripture to preachers +who know but one book; the places where he had read them became sacred +to him, and a glory of his early enthusiasm was still reflected from the +old pages. Rousseau was his beloved above all writers. They had a +natural affinity. What Hazlitt says of Rousseau may be partly applied to +himself. Of Hazlitt it might be said almost as truly as of Rousseau, +that 'he had the most intense consciousness of his own existence. No +object that had once made an impression upon him was ever after +effaced.' In Rousseau's 'Confessions' and 'Nouvelle Héloďse,' Hazlitt +saw the reflections of his own passions. He spent, he declares, two +whole years in reading these two books; and they were the happiest years +of his life. He marks with a white stone the days on which he read +particular passages. It was on April 10, 1798--as he tells us some +twenty years later--that he sat down to a volume of the 'New Héloďse,' +at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. He +tells us which passage he read and what was the view before his bodily +eyes. His first reading of 'Paul and Virginia' is associated with an inn +at Bridgewater; and at another old-fashioned inn he tells how the rustic +fare and the quaint architecture gave additional piquancy to Congreve's +wit. He remembers, too, the spot at which he first read Mrs. Inchbald's +'Simple Story;' how he walked out to escape from one of the tenderest +parts, in order to return again with double relish. + +'An old crazy hand-organ,' he adds, 'was playing "Robin Adair," a summer +shower dropped manna on my head, and slaked my feverish thirst of +happiness.' He looks back to his first familiarity with his favourites +as an old man may think of his honeymoon. The memories of his own +feelings, of his author's poetry, and of the surrounding scenery, are +inextricably fused together. The sight of an old volume, he says, +sometimes shakes twenty years off his life; he sees his old friends +alive again, the place where he read the book, the day when he got it, +the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky. To these old favourites he +remained faithful, except that he seems to have tired of the glitter of +Junius. Burke's politics gave him some severe twinges. He says, in one +place, that he always tests the sense and candour of a Liberal by his +willingness to admit the greatness of Burke. He adds, as a note to the +Essay in which this occurs, that it was written in a 'fit of extravagant +candour,' when he thought that he could be more than just to an enemy +without betraying a cause. He oscillates between these views as his +humour changes. He is absurdly unjust to Burke the politician; but he +does not waver in his just recognition of the marvellous power of the +greatest--I should almost say the only great--political writer in the +language. The first time he read a passage from Burke, he said, This is +true eloquence. Johnson immediately became shelved, and Junius 'shrunk +up into little antithetic points and well-tuned sentences. But Burke's +style was forked and playful like the lightning, crested like the +serpent.' He is never weary of Burke, as he elsewhere says; and, in +fact, he is man enough to recognise genuine power when he meets it. To +another great master he yields with a reluctance which is an involuntary +compliment. The one author whom he admitted into his Pantheon after his +youthful enthusiasm had cooled was unluckily the most consistent of +Tories. Who is there, he asks, that admires the author of 'Waverley' +more than I do? Who is there that despises Sir Walter Scott more? The +Scotch novels, as they were then called, fairly overpowered him. The +imaginative force, the geniality and the wealth of picturesque incident +of the greatest of novelists, disarmed his antipathy. It is curious to +see how he struggles with himself. He blesses and curses in a breath. He +applies to Scott Pope's description of Bacon, 'the greatest, wisest, +meanest of mankind,' and asks-- + + Who would not laugh if such a man there be? + Who would not weep if "Waverley" were he? + +He crowns a torrent of abuse by declaring that Scott has encouraged the +lowest panders of a venal press, 'deluging and nauseating the public +mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang;' +and presently he calls Scott--by way, it is true, of lowering +Byron--'one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived.' He +invents a theory, to which he returns more than once, to justify the +contrast. Scott, he says, is much such a writer as the Duke of +Wellington (the hated antithesis of Napoleon, whose 'foolish face' he +specially detests) is a general. The one gets 100,000 men together, and +'leaves it to them to fight out the battle, for if he meddled with it +he might spoil sport; the other gets an innumerable quantity of facts +together, and lets them tell their story as they may. The facts are +stubborn in the last instance as the men are in the first, and in +neither case is the broth spoiled by the cook.' Both heroes show modesty +and self-knowledge, but 'little boldness or inventiveness of genius.' On +the strength of this doctrine he even compares Scott disadvantageously +with Godwin and Mrs. Inchbald, who had, it seems, more invention though +fewer facts. Hazlitt was not bound to understand strategy, and devoutly +held that Wellington's armies succeeded because their general only +looked on. But he should have understood his own trade a little better. +Putting aside this grotesque theory, he feels Scott's greatness truly, +and admits it generously. He enjoys the broth, to use his own phrase, +though he is determined to believe that it somehow made itself. + +Lamb said that Hazlitt was a greater authority when he praised than when +he abused, a doctrine which may be true of others than Hazlitt. The true +distinction is rather that Hazlitt, though always unsafe as a judge, is +admirable as an advocate in his own cause, and poor when merely speaking +from his brief. Of Mrs. Inchbald I must say what Hazlitt shocked his +audience by saying of Hannah More; that she has written a good deal +which I have not read, and I therefore cannot deny that her novels might +have been written by Venus; but I cannot admit that Wycherley's brutal +'Plain-dealer' is as good as ten volumes of sermons. 'It is curious to +see,' says Hazlitt, rather naďvely, 'how the same subject is treated by +two such different authors as Shakespeare and Wycherley.' Macaulay's +remark about the same coincidence is more to the point. 'Wycherley +borrows Viola,' says that vigorous moralist, 'and Viola forthwith +becomes a pander of the basest sort.' That is literally true. Indeed, +Hazlitt's love for the dramatists of the Restoration is something of a +puzzle, except so far as it is explained by early associations. Even +then it is hard to explain the sympathy which Hazlitt, the lover of +Rousseau and sentiment, feels for Congreve, whose speciality it is that +a touch of sentiment is as rare in his painfully-witty dialogues as a +drop of water in the desert. Perhaps a contempt for the prejudices of +respectable people gave zest to Hazlitt's enjoyment of a literature, +representative of a social atmosphere, most propitious to his best +feelings. And yet, though I cannot take Hazlitt's judgment, I would +frankly admit that Hazlitt's enthusiasm brings out Congreve's real +merits with a force of which a calmer judge would be incapable. His warm +praises of 'The Beggar's Opera,' his assault upon Sidney's 'Arcadia,' +his sarcasms against Tom Moore, are all excellent in their way, whether +we do or do not agree with his final result. Whenever Hazlitt writes +from his own mind, in short, he writes what is well worth reading. +Hazlitt learnt something in his later years from Lamb. He prefers, he +says, those papers of Elia in which there is the least infusion of +antiquated language; and, in fact, Lamb never inoculated him with his +taste for the old English literature. Hazlitt gave a series of lectures +upon the Elizabethan dramatists, and carelessly remarks some time +afterwards that he has only read about a quarter of Beaumont and +Fletcher's plays, and intends to read the rest when he has a chance. It +is plain, indeed, that the lectures, though written at times with great +spirit, are the work of a man who has got them up for the occasion. And +in his more ambitious and successful essays upon Shakespeare the same +want of reading appears in another way. He is more familiar with +Shakespeare's text than many better scholars. His familiarity is proved +by a habit of quotation of which it has been disputed whether it is a +merit or a defect. What phrenologists would call the adhesiveness of +Hazlitt's mind, its extreme retentiveness for any impression which has +once been received, tempts him to a constant repetition of familiar +phrases and illustrations. He has, too, a trick of working in patches of +his old essays, which he expressly defends on the ground that a book +which has not reached a second edition may be considered by its author +as manuscript. This self-plagiarism sometimes worries us, as we are +worried by a man whose conversation runs in ruts. But his quotations +from other authors, where used in moderation, often give a pleasant +richness to his style. Shakespeare, in particular, seems to be a +storehouse into which he can always dip for an appropriate turn of +phrase, and his love of Shakespeare is of a characteristic kind. He has +not counted syllables nor weighed various readings. He does not throw a +new light upon delicate indications of thought and sentiment, nor +philosophise after the manner of Coleridge and the Germans, nor regard +Shakespeare as the representative of his age according to the sweeping +method of M. Taine. Neither does he seem to love Shakespeare himself as +he loves Rousseau or Richardson. He speaks contemptuously of the Sonnets +and Poems, and, though I respect his sincerity, I think that such a +verdict necessarily indicates indifference to the most Shakespearian +parts of Shakespeare. The calm assertion that the qualities of the Poems +are the reverse of the qualities of the plays is unworthy of Hazlitt's +general acuteness. That which really attracts Hazlitt is sufficiently +indicated by the title of his book; he describes the characters of +Shakespeare's plays. It is Iago, and Timon, and Coriolanus, and Anthony, +and Cleopatra, who really interest him. He loves and hates them as if +they were his own contemporaries; he gives the main outlines of their +character with a spirited touch. And yet one somehow feels that Hazlitt +is not at his best in Shakespearian criticism; his eulogies savour of +commonplace, and are wanting in spontaneity. There is not that warm glow +of personal feeling which gives light and warmth to his style whenever +he touches upon his early favourites. Perhaps he is a little daunted by +the greatness of his task, and perhaps there is something in the +Shakespearian width of sympathy and in the Shakespearian humour which +lies beyond Hazlitt's sphere. His criticism of Hamlet is feeble; he does +not do justice to Mercutio or to Jaques; but he sympathises more +heartily with the tremendous passion of Lear and Othello, and finds +something congenial to his taste in Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. It +is characteristic, too, that he evidently understands Shakespeare better +on the stage than in the closet. When he can associate Iago and Shylock +with the visible presence of Kean, he can introduce that personal +element which is so necessary to his best writing. + +The best, indeed, of Hazlitt's criticisms--if the word may be so far +extended--are his criticisms of living men. The criticism of +contemporary portraits called the 'Spirit of the Age' is one of the +first of those series which have now become popular, as it is certainly +one of the very best. The descriptions of Bentham, and Godwin, and +Coleridge, and Horne Tooke are masterpieces in their way. They are, of +course, unfair; but that is part of their charm. One would no more take +for granted Hazlitt's valuation of Wordsworth than Timon's judgment of +Alcibiades. Hazlitt sees through coloured glasses, but his vision is not +the less penetrating. The vulgar satirist is such a one as Hazlitt +somewhere mentioned who called Wordsworth a dunce. Hazlitt was quite +incapable of such a solecism. He knew, nobody better, that a telling +caricature must be a good likeness. If he darkens the shades, and here +and there exaggerates an ungainly feature, we still know that the shade +exists and that the feature is not symmetrical. De Quincey reports the +saying of some admiring friend of Hazlitt, who confessed to a shudder +whenever Hazlitt used his habitual gesture of placing his hand within +his waistcoat. The hand might emerge armed with a dagger. Whenever, said +the same friend (Heaven preserve us from our friends!), Hazlitt had been +distracted for a moment from the general conversation, he looked round +with a mingled air of suspicion and defiance, as though some +objectionable phrase might have evaded his censure in the interval. The +traits recur to us when we read Hazlitt's descriptions of the men he had +known. We seem to see the dark sardonic man, watching the faces and +gestures of his friends, ready to take sudden offence at any affront to +his cherished prejudices, and yet hampered by a kind of nervous timidity +which makes him unpleasantly conscious of his own awkwardness. He +remains silent, till somebody unwittingly contradicts his unspoken +thoughts--the most irritating kind of contradiction to some people!--and +perhaps heaps indiscriminating praise on an old friend, a term nearly +synonymous with an old enemy. Then the dagger suddenly flashes out, and +Hazlitt strikes two or three rapid blows, aimed with unerring accuracy +at the weak points of the armour which he knows so well. And then, as he +strikes, a relenting comes over him; he remembers old days with a +sudden gush of fondness, and puts in a touch of scorn for his allies or +himself. Coleridge may deserve a blow, but the applause of Coleridge's +enemies awakes his self-reproach. His invective turns into panegyric, +and he warms for a time into hearty admiration, which proves that his +irritation arises from an excess, not from a defect, of sensibility; but +finding that he has gone a little too far, he lets his praise slide into +equivocal description, and, with some parting epigram, he relapses into +silence. The portraits thus drawn are never wanting in piquancy nor in +fidelity. Brooding over his injuries and his desertions, Hazlitt has +pondered almost with the eagerness of a lover upon the qualities of his +intimates. Suspicion, unjust it may be, has given keenness to his +investigation. He has interpreted in his own fashion every mood and +gesture. He has watched his friends as a courtier watches a royal +favourite. He has stored in his memory, as we fancy, the good retorts +which his shyness or unreadiness smothered at the propitious moment, and +brings them out in the shape of a personal description. When such a man +sits at our tables, silent and apparently self-absorbed, and yet shrewd +and sensitive, we may well be afraid of the dagger, though it may not be +drawn till after our death, and may write memoirs instead of piercing +flesh. And yet Hazlitt is no mean assassin of reputations; nor is his +enmity as a rule more than the seamy side of friendship. Gifford, +indeed, and Croker, 'the talking potato,' are treated as outside the +pale of human rights. + +Excellent as Hazlitt can be as a dispenser of praise and blame, he seems +to me to be at his best in a different capacity. The first of his +performances which attracted much attention was the Round Table, +designed by Leigh Hunt (who contributed a few papers), on the old +'Spectator' model. In the essays afterwards collected in the volumes +called 'Table Talk' and the 'Plain Speaker,' he is still better, because +more certain of his position. It would, indeed, be difficult to name any +writer, from the days of Addison to those of Lamb, who has equalled +Hazlitt's best performances of this kind. Addison is too unlike to +justify a comparison; and, to say the truth, though he has rather more +in common with Lamb, the contrast is much more obvious than the +resemblance. Each wants the other's most characteristic vein; Hazlitt +has hardly a touch of humour, and Lamb is incapable of Hazlitt's caustic +scorn for the world and himself. They have indeed in common, besides +certain superficial tastes, a love of pathetic brooding over the past. +But the sentiment exerted is radically different. Lamb forgets himself +when brooding over an old author or summing up the 'old familiar faces.' +His melancholy and his mirth cast delightful cross-lights upon the +topics of which he converses, and we do not know, until we pause to +reflect, that it is not the intrinsic merit of the objects, but Lamb's +own character, which has caused our pleasure. They would be dull, that +is, in other hands; but the feeling is embodied in the object described, +and not made itself the source of our interest. With Hazlitt, it is the +opposite. He is never more present than when he is dwelling upon the +past. Even in criticising a book or a man, his favourite mode is to tell +us how he came to love or to hate him; and in the non-critical Essays he +is always appealing to us, directly or indirectly, for sympathy with his +own personal emotions. He tells us how passionately he is yearning for +the days of his youth; he is trying to escape from his pressing +annoyances; wrapping himself in sacred associations against the fret +and worry of surrounding cares; repaying himself for the scorn of women +or Quarterly Reviewers by retreating into some imaginary hermitage; and +it is the delight of dreaming upon which he dwells more than upon the +beauty of the visions revealed to his inward eye. The force with which +this sentiment is presented gives a curious fascination to some of his +essays. Take, for example, the essay in 'Table Talk,' 'On Living to +One's self,'--an essay written, as he is careful to tell us, on a mild +January day in the country, whilst the fire is blazing on the hearth and +a partridge getting ready for his supper. There he expatiates in happy +isolation on the enjoyments of living as 'a silent spectator of the +mighty scheme of things;' as being in the world, and not of it; watching +the clouds and the stars, poring over a book, or gazing at a picture +without a thought of becoming an author or an artist. He has drifted +into a quiet little backwater, and congratulates himself in all +sincerity on his escape from the turbulent stream outside. He drinks in +the delight of rest at every pore; reduces himself for the time to the +state of a polyp drifting on the warm ocean stream, and becomes a +voluptuous hermit. He calls up the old days when he acted up to his +principles, and found pleasure enough in endless meditation and quiet +observation of nature. He preaches most edifyingly on the +disappointments, the excitements, the rough impacts of hard facts upon +sensitive natures, which haunt the world outside, and declares, in all +sincerity, 'this sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it +to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets.' He is sincere, and therefore +eloquent; and we need not, unless we please, add the remark that he +enjoys rest because it is a relief from toil; and that he will curse the +country as heartily as any man if doomed to entire rest. This meditation +on the phenomena of his own sensations leads him often into interesting +reflections of a psychological kind. He analyses his own feelings with +constant eagerness, as he analyses the character of his enemies. A good +specimen is the essay 'On Antiquity' in the 'Plain Speaker,' which +begins with some striking remarks on the apparently arbitrary mode in +which some objects and periods seem older to us than others, in defiance +of chronology. The monuments of the Middle Ages seem more antique than +the Greek statues and temples with their immortal youth. 'It is not the +full-grown, articulated, thoroughly accomplished periods of the world +that we regard with the pity or reverence due to age, so much as those +imperfect, unformed, uncertain periods which seem to totter on the verge +of non-existence, to shrink from the grasp of our feeble imagination, as +they crawl out of, or retire into the womb of time, of which our utmost +assurance is to doubt whether they ever were or not.' And then, as +usual, he passes to his own experience, and meditates on the changed +aspect of the world in youth and maturer life. The petty, personal +emotions pass away, whilst the grand and ideal 'remains with us +unimpaired in its lofty abstraction from age to age.' Therefore, though +the inference is not quite clear, he can never forget the first time he +saw Mrs. Siddons act, or the appearance of Burke's 'Letter to a Noble +Lord.' And then, in a passage worthy of Sir Thomas Browne, he describes +the change produced as our minds are stereotyped, as our most striking +thoughts become truisms, and we lose the faculty of admiration. In our +youth 'art woos us; science tempts us with her intricate labyrinths; +each step presents unlooked-for vistas, and closes upon us our backward +path. Our onward road is strange, obscure, and infinite. We are +bewildered in a shadow, lost in a dream. Our perceptions have the +brightness and indistinctness of a trance. Our continuity of +consciousness is broken, crumbles, and falls to pieces. We go on +learning and forgetting every hour. Our feelings are chaotic, confused, +strange to each other and ourselves.' But in time we learn by rote the +lessons which we had to spell out in our youth. 'A very short period +(from 15 to 25 or 30) includes the whole map and table of contents of +human life. From that time we may be said to live our lives over again, +repeat ourselves--the same thoughts return at stated intervals, like the +tunes of a barrel-organ; and the volume of the universe is no more than +a form of words, a book of reference.' + +From such musings Hazlitt can turn to describe any fresh impression +which has interested him, in spite of his occasional weariness, with a +freshness and vivacity which proves that his eye had not grown dim, nor +his temperament incapable of enjoyment. He fell in love with Miss Sarah +Wilson at the tolerably ripe age of 43; and his desire to live in the +past is not to be taken more seriously than his contempt for his +literary reputation. It lasts only till some vivid sensation occurs in +the present. In congenial company he could take a lively share in +conversation, as is proved not only by external evidence, but by his +very amusing book of conversations with Northcote--an old cynic out of +whom it does not seem that anybody else could strike many sparks,--or +from the essay, partly historical, it is to be supposed, in which he +records his celebrated discussion with Lamb, on persons whom one would +wish to have seen. But perhaps some of his most characteristic +performances in this line are those in which he anticipates the modern +taste for muscularity. His wayward disposition to depreciate ostensibly +his own department of action, leads him to write upon the 'disadvantages +of intellectual superiority,' and to maintain the thesis that the glory +of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And +perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the +physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives--in +which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his +last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau--and +still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill +Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, and we +are pretty well ashamed of the last flicker of enthusiasm created by +Sayers and Heenan. We may therefore enjoy without remorse the prose-poem +in which Hazlitt kindles with genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful +glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising +of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We +condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the +old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way +home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle Héloďse,' admit +for a moment that 'Love of the Fancy is,' as the historian assures us, +'compatible with a cultivation of sentiment.' If Hazlitt had thrown as +much into his description of the Battle of Waterloo, and had taken the +English side, he would have been a popular writer. But even Hazlitt +cannot quite embalm the memories of Cribb, Belcher, and Gully. + +It is time, however, to stop. More might be said by a qualified writer +of Hazlitt's merits as a judge of pictures or of the stage. The same +literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, +condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man +can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, +capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow +that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and +Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; +nor, on the other hand, has he the plain homespun force of Swift and +Cobbett. And yet readers who do not insist upon measuring all prose by +the same standard, will probably agree that if Hazlitt is not a great +rhetorician, if he aims at no gorgeous effects of complex harmony, he +has yet an eloquence of his own. It is indeed an eloquence which does +not imply quick sympathy with many moods of feeling, or an intellectual +vision at once penetrating and comprehensive. It is the eloquence +characteristic of a proud and sensitive nature, which expresses a very +keen if narrow range of feeling, and implies a powerful grasp of one, if +only one side of the truth. Hazlitt harps a good deal upon one string; +but that string vibrates forcibly. His best passages are generally an +accumulation of short, pithy sentences, shaped in strong feeling, and +coloured by picturesque association; but repeating, rather than +corroborating, each other. The last blow goes home, but each falls on +the same place. He varies the phrase more than the thought; and +sometimes he becomes obscure, because he is so absorbed in his own +feelings that he forgets the very existence of strangers who require +explanation. Read through Hazlitt, and this monotony becomes a little +tiresome; but dip into him at intervals, and you will often be +astonished that so vigorous a writer has not left some more enduring +monument of his remarkable powers. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] In the excellent Essay prefixed to 'Hazlitt's Literary Remains.' + + + + +_DISRAELI'S NOVELS_[4] + + +It is a commonplace with men of literary eminence to extol the man of +deeds above the man of words. Scott was half ashamed of scribbling +novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true +prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the +shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in +masters of the art to depreciate their own peculiar function. People who +have less personal interest in the matter need not be so modest. I will +confess, at any rate, to preferring the men who have sown some new seed +of thought above the heroes whose names mark epochs in history. I would +rather make the nation's ballads than give its laws, dictate principles +than carry them into execution, and leaven a country with new ideas than +translate them into facts, inevitably mangling and distorting them in +the process. And therefore I would rather have written 'Hamlet' than +defeated the Spanish Armada; or 'Paradise Lost,' than have turned out +the Long Parliament; or 'Gray's Elegy,' than have stormed the heights of +Abram; or the Waverley Novels, than have won Waterloo or even Trafalgar. +I would rather have been Voltaire or Goethe than Frederick or Napoleon; +and I suspect that when the poor historian of the nineteenth century +begins his superhuman work, he will, as a thorough philosopher, +attribute more importance to two or three recent English writers than to +all the English statesmen who have been strutting and fretting their +little hour at Westminster. And therefore, too, I wish that Disraeli +could have stuck to his novels instead of rising to be Prime Minister of +England. This opinion is, of course, entirely independent of any +judgment which may be passed upon Disraeli's political career. Granting +that his cause has always been the right one, granting that he has +rendered it essential services, I should still wish that his brilliant +literary ability had been allowed to ripen undisturbed by all the +worries and distractions of parliamentary existence. Persons who think +the creation of a majority in the House of Commons a worthy reward for +the labours of a lifetime will, of course, differ from this conclusion. +Disraeli, at any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck +off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more +alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have +gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby +and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they +embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little +propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still +survives, must have lost many illusions; he must have herded with the +Tapers and Tadpoles, and prompted Rigby to write slashing articles on +his behalf in the quarterlies. He must have felt that his intellect was +cruelly wasted in talking claptrap and platitude to suit the thick +comprehensions of his party; and the huge dead weight of the invincible +impenetrability to ideas of ordinary mankind must have lain heavy upon +his soul. How many Tadpoles, one would like to know, still haunt the +Carlton Club, or throng the ministerial benches, and how many Rigbys +have forced their way into the Cabinet? That is one of the state secrets +which will hardly be divulged by the only competent observer. But at any +rate it is sad that the critic, who applied the lash so skilfully, +should have been so unequally yoked with the objects of his contempt. +Disraeli's talents for entertaining fiction may not indeed have been +altogether wasted in his official career; but he at least may pardon +admirers of his writing, who regret that he should have squandered +powers of imagination, capable of true creative work, upon that +alternation of truckling and blustering which is called governing the +country. + +The qualities which are of rather equivocal value in a minister of state +may be admirable in the domain of literature. It is hardly desirable +that the followers of a political leader should be haunted by an +ever-recurring doubt as to whether his philosophical utterances express +deep convictions, or the extemporised combinations of a fertile fancy, +and be uncertain whether he is really putting their clumsy thoughts into +clearer phrases, or foisting showy nonsense upon them for his own +purposes, or simply laughing at them in his sleeve. But, in a purely +literary sense, this ambiguous hovering between two meanings, this +oscillation between the ironical and the serious, is always amusing, and +sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in +literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air +of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in +earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a +standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that +the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments +of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright +sarcasm, as unmistakable in its meaning as the cut of a whip across your +face; and elsewhere we have passages which aim unmistakably, and +sometimes with unmistakable success, at rhetorical excellence. But, +between the two, there is a wide field where we may interpret his +meaning as we please. The philosophical theory may imply a genuine +belief, or may be a mere bit of conventional filling in, or perhaps a +parody of his friends or himself. The gorgeous passages may be +intentionally over-coloured, or may really represent his most sincere +taste. His homage may be genuine or a biting mockery. His extravagances +are kept precisely at such a pitch that it is equally fair to argue that +a satirist must have meant them to be absurd, or to argue only that he +would have seen their absurdity in anybody else. The unfortunate critic +feels himself in a position analogous to that of the suitors in the +'Merchant of Venice.' He may blunder grievously, whatever alternative he +selects. If he pronounces a passage to be pure gold, it may turn out to +be merely the mask of a bitter sneer; or he may declare it to be +ingenious burlesque when put forward in the most serious earnest; or may +ridicule it as overstrained bombast, and find that it was never meant to +be anything else. It is wiser to admit that perhaps the author was not +very clear himself, or possibly enjoyed that ambiguous attitude which +might be interpreted according to the taste of his readers and the +development of events. A man who deals in oracular utterances acquires +instinctively a mode of speech which may shift its colour with every +change of light. The texture of Disraeli's writings is so ingeniously +shot with irony and serious sentiment that each tint may predominate by +turns. It is impossible to suppose that the weaver of so cunning a web +should never have intended the effects which he produces; but +frequently, too, they must be the spontaneous and partly unconscious +results of a peculiar intellectual temperament. Delight in blending the +pathetic with the ludicrous is the characteristic of the true humorist. +Disraeli is not exactly a humorist, but something for which the rough +nomenclature of critics has not yet provided a distinctive name. His +pathos is not sufficiently tender, nor his laughter quite genial enough. +The quality which results is homologous to, though not identical with, +genuine humour: for the smile we must substitute a sneer, and the +element which enters into combination with the satire is something more +distantly allied to poetical unction than to glittering rhetoric. The +Disraelian irony thus compounded is hitherto a unique product of +intellectual chemistry. + +Most of Disraeli's novels are intended to set forth what, for want of a +better name, must be called a religious or political creed. To grasp its +precise meaning, or to determine the precise amount of earnestness with +which it is set forth, is of course hopeless. Its essence is to be +mysterious, and half the preacher's delight is in tantalising his +disciples. At moments he cannot quite suppress the amusement with which +he mocks their hopeless bewilderment. When Coningsby is on the point of +entering public life, he reads a speech of one of the initiated, +'denouncing the Venetian constitution, to the amazement of several +thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown +danger, now first introduced to their notice.' What more amusing than +suddenly to reveal to good easy citizens that what they took for +wholesome food is deadly poison, and to watch their hopeless incapacity +to understand whether you are really announcing a truth or launching an +epigram! + +Disraeli, undoubtedly, has certain fixed beliefs which underlie and +which, indeed, explain the superficial versatility of his teaching. +Amongst the various doctrines with which he plays more or less +seriously, two at least are deeply rooted in his mind. He holds, with a +fervour in every way honourable, a belief in the marvellous endowments +of his race, and connected with this belief is an almost romantic +admiration for every manifestation of intellectual power. Vivian Grey, +in a bit of characteristic bombast, describes himself as 'one who has +worshipped the empire of the intellect;' and his career is simply an +attempt to act out the principle that the world belongs of right to the +cleverest. Of Sidonia, after every superlative in the language has been +lavished upon his marvellous acquirements, we are told that 'the only +human quality that interested him was intellect.' Intellect is equally, +if not quite as exclusively, interesting to the creator of Sidonia. He +admires it in all its forms--in a Jesuit or a leader of the +International, in a charlatan or a statesman, or perhaps even more in +one who combines the two characters; but the most interesting of all +objects to Disraeli, if one may judge from his books, is a precocious +youth, whose delight in the sudden consciousness of great abilities has +not yet been dashed by experience. In some other writers we may learn +the age of the author by the age of his hero. A novelist who adopts the +common practice of painting from himself naturally finds out the merits +of middle age in his later works. But in every one of Disraeli's works, +from 'Vivian Grey' to 'Lothair,' the central figure is a youth, who is +frequently a statesman at school, and astonishes the world before he has +reached his majority. The change in the author's position is, indeed, +equally marked in a different way. The youthful heroes of Disraeli's +early novels are creative; in his later they become chiefly receptive. +Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming show their genius by insubordination; +Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of Sidonia; +and Lothair reduces himself so completely to a mere 'passive bucket' to +be pumped into by every variety of teacher, that he is unpleasantly like +a fool. Disraeli still loves ingenuous youth; but he has gained quite a +new perception of the value of docility. Here and there, of course, +there is a gentle gibe at juvenile vanity. 'My opinions are already +formed on every subject,' says Lothair; 'that is, on every subject of +importance; and, what is more, they will never change.' But such vanity +has nothing offensive. The audacity with which a lad of twenty solves +all the problems of the universe, excites in Disraeli genuine and really +generous sympathy. Sidonia converts the sentiment into a theory. +Experience, he says, is less than nothing to a creative mind. 'Almost +everything that is great has been done by youth.' The greatest captains, +the greatest poets, artists, statesmen, and religious reformers of the +world, have done their best work by middle life. All theories upon all +subjects can be proved from history; and the great Sidonia is not to be +pinned down by too literal an interpretation. But at least he is +expressing Disraeli's admiration for intellect which has the fervour, +rapidity, and reckless audacity of youth, which trusts its intuitions +instead of its calculations, and takes its crudest guesses for flashes +of inspiration. The exuberant buoyancy of his youthful heroes gives a +certain contagious charm to Disraeli's pages, which is attractive even +when verging upon extravagance. Our popular novelists have learned to +associate high spirits with muscularity; their youthful heroes are +either athletes destined to put on flesh in later days, or premature +prigs with serious convictions and a tendency to sermons and blue-books. +After a course of such books, Disraeli's genuine love of talent is +refreshing. He dwells fondly upon the effervescence of genius which +drives men to kick over the traces of respectability and strike out +short cuts to fame. If at bottom his heroes are rather eccentric than +original, they have at least a righteous hatred of all bores and +Philistines, and despise orthodoxy, political economy, and sound +information generally. They can provide you with new theories of +politics and history, as easily as Mercutio could pour out a string of +similes; and we have scarcely the heart to ask whether this vivacious +ebullition implies the process of fermentation by which a powerful mind +clears its crude ideas, or only an imitation of the process by which +superlative cleverness apes true genius. Intellect, as it becomes +sobered by middle age and by scholastic training, is no longer so +charming. When its guesses ossify into fixed opinions, and its arrogance +takes the airs of scientific dogmatism, it is always a tiresome and may +be a dangerous quality. Some indication of what Disraeli means by +intellect may be found in the preface to 'Lothair.' Speaking of the +conflict between science and the old religions, he says that it is a +most flagrant fallacy to suppose that modern ages have a monopoly of +scientific discovery. The greatest discoveries are not those of modern +ages. 'No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a +discovery as writing, or algebra, or language. What are the most +brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of +fire and the metals?' Hipparchus ranks with the Keplers and Newtons; and +Copernicus was but the champion of Pythagoras. To say nothing of the +characteristic assumption that somebody 'discovered' language and fire +in the same sense as modern chemists discovered spectrum analysis, the +argument is substantially that, because Hipparchus was as great a genius +as Newton, the views of the ancients upon religious or historical +questions deserve just as much respect as those of the moderns. In other +words, the accumulated knowledge of ages has taught us nothing. 'What is +conveniently called progress' is merely a polite name for change; and +one clever man's guess is as good as another, whatever the period at +which he lived. This theory is the correlative of Sidonia's assertion, +that experience is useless to the man of genius. The experience of the +race is just as valueless. Modern criticism is nothing but an +intellectual revolt of the Teutonic races against the Semitic +revelation, as the French revolution was a political revolt of the +Celtic races. The disturbance will pass away; and we shall find that +Abraham and Moses knew more about the universe than Hegel or Comte. The +prophets of the sacred race were divinely endowed with an esoteric +knowledge concealed from the vulgar behind mystic symbols and +ceremonies. If the old oracles are dumb, some gleams of the same power +still remain, and in the language of mere mortals are called genius. We +find it in perfection only amongst the Semites, whose finer +organisation, indicated by their musical supremacy, enables them to +catch the still small voice inaudible to our grosser ears. The Aryans, +indeed, have some touches of a cognate power, but it is dulled by a more +sensuous temperament. They can enter the court of the Gentiles; but +their mortal vesture is too muddy for admission into the holy of holies. +If ever they catch a glimpse of the truth, it is in their brilliant +youth, when, still uncorrupted by worldly politics, they can induce some +Sidonia partly to draw aside the veil. + +The intellect, then, as Disraeli conceives it, is not the faculty +denounced by theologians, which delights in systematic logical inquiry, +and hopes to attain truth by the unrestricted conflict of innumerable +minds. It is an abnormal power of piercing mysteries granted only to a +few distinguished seers. It does not lead to an earthly science, +expressible in definite formulas, and capable of being taught in Sunday +schools. The knowledge cannot be fully communicated to the profane, and +is at most to be shadowed forth in dim oracular utterances. Disraeli's +instinctive affinity for some kind of mystic teaching is indicated by +Vivian Grey's first request to his father. 'I wish,' he exclaims, 'to +make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want Plotinus and +Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrianus, and Mosanius Tyrius, and +Pericles, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damasenis!' But Vivian +Grey, as we know, wanted also to conquer the Marquis of Carabas; and the +odd combination between a mystic philosopher and a mere political +charlatan displays Disraeli's peculiar irony. Intellect with him is a +double-edged weapon: it is at once the faculty which reads the dark +riddle of the universe, and the faculty which makes use of Tapers and +Tadpoles. Our modern Daniel is also a shrewd electioneering agent. +Cynics, indeed, have learned in these later days to regard mystery as +too often synonymous with nonsense. The difficulty of interpreting +esoteric doctrines to the vulgar generally consists in this--that the +doctrines are mere collections of big words which collapse, instead of +becoming lucid, when put into plain English. The mystagogue is but too +closely allied to the charlatan. He may be straining to utter some +secret too deep for human utterance, or he is looking wise to conceal +absolute vacuity of thought. And at other times he must surely be +laughing at the youthful audacity which fancies that speculation is to +be carried on by a series of sudden inspirations, instead of laborious +accumulation of rigorously-tested reasonings. + +The three novels, 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' published from +1844 to 1847, form, as their author has told us, a trilogy intended to +set forth his views of political, social, and religious problems. Each +of them exhibits, in one form or other, this peculiar train of thought. +'Coningsby,' if I am not mistaken, is by far the ablest, and probably +owes its pre-eminence to the simple fact that it deals with the topics +in which its author felt the keenest interest. The social speculations +of 'Sybil' savour too much of the politician getting up a telling case; +and the religious speculations of 'Tancred' are pushed to the extreme +verge of the grotesque. But 'Coningsby' wants little but a greater +absence of purpose to be a first-rate novel. If Disraeli had confined +himself to the merely artistic point of view, he might have drawn a +picture of political society worthy of comparison with 'Vanity Fair.' +Lord Monmouth is evidently related to the Marquis of Steyne; and Rigby +is a masterpiece, though perhaps rather too suggestive of a direct study +from nature. Lord Monmouth is the ideal type of the 'Venetian' +aristocracy; and Rigby, like his historical namesake, of the corrupt +wire-pullers who flourished under their shade. The consistent +Epicureanism of the noble, in whom a sense of duty is only represented +by a vague instinct that he ought to preserve his political influence as +part of his personal splendour, and as an insurance against possible +incendiarism, is admirably contrasted by the coarser selfishness of +Rigby, who relieves his patron of all dirty work on consideration of +feathering his own nest, and fancying himself to be a statesman. The +whole background, in short, is painted with inimitable spirit and +fidelity. The one decided failure amongst the subsidiary characters is +Lucian Grey, the professional parasite, who earns his dinners by his +witty buffoonery. Somehow, his fun is terribly dreary on paper; perhaps +because, as a parasite, he is not allowed to indulge in the cutting +irony which animates all Disraeli's best sayings. The simple buffoonery +of exuberant animal spirits is not in Disraeli's line. When he can +neither be bitter nor rhetorical, he is apt to drop into mere mechanical +flatness. But nobody has described more vigorously all the meaner forms +of selfishness, stupidity, and sycophancy engendered under 'that fatal +drollery,' as Tancred describes it, 'called a parliamentary government.' +The pompous dulness which affects philosophical gravity, the appetite +for the mere dry husks and bran of musty constitutional platitude which +takes the airs of political wisdom, the pettifogging cunning which +supposes the gossips of lobbies and smoking-rooms to be the embodiment +of statesmanship, the selfishness which degrades political warfare into +a branch of stock-jobbing, and takes a great principle to be useful in +suggesting electioneering cries, as Telford thought that navigable +rivers were created to feed canals,--these and other tendencies favoured +by party government are hit off to the life. 'The man they called Dizzy' +can despise a miserable creature having the honour to be as heartily as +Carlyle himself, and, if his theories are serious, sometimes took our +blessed Constitution to be a mere shelter for such vermin as the Tapers +and Tadpoles. Two centuries of a parliamentary monarchy and a +parliamentary Church, says Coningsby, have made government detested, and +religion disbelieved. 'Political compromises,' says the omniscient +Sidonia, 'are not to be tolerated except at periods of rude transition. +An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariat of what is called +representative government. Your House of Commons, that has absorbed all +other powers in the State, will in all probability fall more rapidly +than it rose.' In short, the press will take its place. This is one of +those impromptu theories of history which are not to be taken too +literally. Indeed, the satirical background is intended to throw into +clearer relief a band of men of genius to whom has been granted some +insight into the great political mystery. Who, then, are the true +antithesis to the Tapers and Tadpoles? Should we compare them with a +Cromwell, who has a creed as well as a political platform; and contrast +'our young Queen and our old institutions' with some new version of the +old war cry, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon'? Or may we at least +have a glimpse of a Chatham, wakening the national spirit to sweep aside +the Newcastles and Bubb Dodingtons of the present day? Or, if Cromwells +and Chathams be too old-fashioned, and translate the Semitic principle +into a narrow English Protestantism, may we not have some genuine +revolutionary fanatic, a Cimourdain or a Gauvain, to burn up all this +dry chaff of mouldy politics with the fire of a genuine human passion? +Such a contrast, however effective, would have been a little awkward in +the year 1844. Young England had an ideal standard of its own, and +Disraeli must be the high priest of its peculiar hero-worship. Whether, +in this case, political trammels injured his artistic sense, or whether +his peculiar artistic tendencies injured his political career, is a +question rather for the historian than the critic. + +Certain it is, at any rate, that the _cénacle_ of politicians, whose +interests are to be thrown in relief against this mass of grovelling +corruption, forms but a feeble contrast, even in the purely artistic +sense. We have no right to doubt that Disraeli thought that Coningsby +and his friends represented the true solution of the difficulty; yet if +anybody had wished to demonstrate that a genuine belief might sometimes +make a man more contemptible than hypocritical selfishness, he could +scarcely have defended the paradox more ingeniously. 'Unconscious +cerebration' has become a popular explanation of many phenomena; and it +would hardly be fanciful to assume that one lobe of Disraeli's brain is +in the habit of secreting bitter satire unknown to himself, and +cunningly inserting it behind the thin veil of sentiment unconsciously +elaborated by the other. We are prepared, indeed, to accept the new +doctrine, as cleverly as Balzac could have inoculated us with a +provisional belief in animal magnetism, to heighten our interest in a +thrilling story of wonder. We have judicious hints of esoteric political +doctrine, which has been partially understood by great men at various +periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the +opening pages of 'Sybil.' The most remarkable thing about our popular +history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is 'a complete +mystification;' many of the principal characters never appear, as, for +example, Major Wildman, who was 'the soul of English politics from 1640 +to 1688.' It is not surprising, therefore, that two of our three chief +statesmen in later times should be systematically depreciated. The +younger Pitt, indeed, has been extolled, though on wrong grounds. But +Bolingbroke and Shelburne, our two finest political geniuses, are passed +over with contempt by ordinary historians. A historian might amuse +himself by tracing the curious analogy between the most showy +representatives of the old race of statesmen and the modern successor +who delights to sing his praises. The Patriot King is really to some +extent an anticipation of Disraeli's peculiar democratic Toryism. But +the chief merit of Shelburne would seem to be that the qualities which +earned for him the nickname of Malagrida made him convenient as a +hypothetical depository of some esoteric scheme of politics. For the +purposes of fiction, at any rate, we may believe that English politics +are a riddle of which only three men have guessed the true solution +since the 'financial' revolution of 1688. Pitt was only sound so far as +he was the pupil of Shelburne; but Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Disraeli +possessed the true key, and fully understood, for example, that Charles +I. was the 'holocaust of direct taxation.' But frankly to expound this +theory would be to destroy its charm, and to cast pearls before +political economists. And, therefore, its existence is dimly adumbrated +rather than its meaning revealed; and we have hints that there are +wheels within wheels, and that in the lowest deep of mystery there is a +yet deeper mystery. Coningsby and his associates, the brilliant +Buckhurst and the rich Catholic country gentleman, Eustace Lyle, are but +unripe neophytes, feeling after the true doctrine, but not yet fully +initiated. The superlative Sidonia, the man who by thirty has exhausted +all the sources of human knowledge, become master of the learning of +every nation, of all tongues, dead or living, and of every literature, +western and oriental; who has pursued all the speculations of science to +their last term; who has lived in all orders of society, and observed +man in every phase of civilisation; who has a penetrative intellect +which enables him to follow as by intuition the most profound of all +questions, and a power of communicating with precision the most abstruse +ideas; whose wealth would make Monte Cristo seem a pauper; who is so far +above his race that woman seems to him a toy, and man a machine,--this +thrice miraculous Sidonia, who can yet stoop from his elevation to win a +steeplechase from the Gentiles, or return their hospitality by an +exquisite dinner, is the fitting depository of the precious secret. No +one can ever accuse Disraeli of a want of audacity. He does not, like +weaker men, shrink from introducing men of genius because he is afraid +that he will not be able to make them talk in character; and when, in +'Venetia,' he introduces Byron and Shelley, he is kind enough to write +poetry for them, which produces as great an effect as the original. + +And now having a true prophet, having surrounded him with a band of +disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our +mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery. +Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle +the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be +satisfied. There is not any secret doctrine in politics. Bolingbroke may +have been a very clever man, but he could not see through a stone wall. +The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright +prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the +imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be +pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as +we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some +magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give +us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to +be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to +believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical +efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the +inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something +to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It +was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might +have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into +that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might +possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with +his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which +are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against +politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a +newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical +millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal +skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer +air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by +slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of +burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the +ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain +_aplomb_; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the +spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His +last book of 'Coningsby' opens with a Christmas scene worthy of an +illustrated keepsake. We have buttery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and +red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar's head +with a canticle. + + Caput apri defero, + Reddens laudes Domino, + +sing the noble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli +blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise +the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament. +He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a +passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that +the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert +hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be +trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to +this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, +and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies, +'The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?' It would, indeed, +be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of +Manchester. After dilating, in 'Tancred,' upon the vitality of Damascus, +he observes, 'As yet the disciples of progress have not been able +exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great +faith in the future of Birkenhead.' Perhaps the true sentiment is that +the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles, +look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan +civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but +admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the +moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant. +The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes of +Sidonia. The world--at least the Gentile world--is a farce. Ninety-nine +men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and +make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and +imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly. +As for the hundredth man--the youthful Coningsby or Tancred--his +enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his +game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is +almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success. +Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need +not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may +heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a +serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in +solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite +forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a +real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a +latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from +becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however +misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a +genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a +subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition +would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh, +but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the +consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest +degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite +utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical +colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, +but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant and +perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms +melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain +twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, +if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of +'Coningsby.' + +The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in +different proportions. 'Sybil' is chiefly devoted to what its author +calls 'an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period +in our social history.' We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is +enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself +capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists +who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into +sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer +purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand +impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to +tabulate in blue-books,--if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense +in which Miss Brontë knew them, and still less in the sense in which +Scott knew the Borderers--he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the +effects of trades' unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might +excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in 'Tancred' we again come +upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli's special +idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in +'Coningsby.' Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led +into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the +mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer +satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager +to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all +theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He +is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural +machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet, +intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the +satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words +and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous +air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be +solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous +picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must +be admitted that Tancred's own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even +more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that +'inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality,' and that God can +only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine--a theory which has +afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, God +can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this +belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great +Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us. +He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he +himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo +Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the +later learning--a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew, +and still retains some of the 'magnetic influence'--this great man, in +whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And +thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find +ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great +revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there +is 'absolutely no sport of any kind' near Jerusalem; and follow Tancred +where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before +the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into +ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration. +Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful +young woman comes straight out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and asks the +insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews +had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised +by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, +indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary +pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or +Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible +propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is +introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those +of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely +satirical one of interpreting Tancred's lofty dreams into political +intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are +convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the +strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion. +Can they be the guardians of the 'Asian mystery'? To our amazement it +turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phoebus of 'Lothair.' They +have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely +cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall +prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or +Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most +solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which +appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was +still untouched by time; a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet +lustrous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke +from the pensive passion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead +glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his +majestic forehead.' After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia, +this person told Tancred to 'announce the sublime and solacing doctrine +of Theocratic Equality.' But when Tancred, after his startling +adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the +Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of +bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after +him--Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the +novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. 'Out laughs the stern +philosopher,' or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, 'What, +ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth.' +Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering +cry. + +Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amusement? +Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the +passages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a +genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was +he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to +apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his +satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies. +Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear +in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept +the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only +solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution, +by accepting the theory of a double consciousness, and resolving to +pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes +us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either +aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of +fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener +enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed +lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we +had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are +blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria +of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew +doctors and classical artists, medićval monks and Anglican bishops, +perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from +Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws +dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley +actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as +arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking +cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and +original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest +realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere +mystification. + +But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to +observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge +into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was +composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic +tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian +Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in +which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the +'Wondrous Tale of Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited +attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels--except +Scott's and Kingsley's--are a weariness to the flesh, and when the +history is so remote from any association with modern feeling, even Mr. +Disraeli's vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An +opposite error disturbs one's appreciation of 'Venetia.' Byron and +Shelley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of +fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord +Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their +prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. 'Henrietta Temple' +and 'Contarini Fleming' may count as Mr. Disraeli's most satisfactory +performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and +has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, +but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of +a poetic nature--a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative +literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of +Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple' +professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are +certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli's art be not +the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The +same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this +different field it does not produce quite the same results. One +prominent tendency connects all his stories. When 'Lothair' made its +appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the +seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter. +Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates, +distributed with such reckless profusion amongst the characters, +intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth, +or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would +apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every +ducal millionaire, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven.' Vast landed +estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go +together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter +of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. 'If the youth who bears this +requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the +right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king; +and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that +is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat.' The +theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or +less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though +no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is +most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in +simple splendour, in 'ropes of pearls,' in priceless diamonds, gorgeous +clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not +uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an +infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience +of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early +admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour +insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar, +as to call his admiration for dukes snobbish; but the passion is too +sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for +the society of dukes, or take a child's pleasure in bright colours for +their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a +dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is +thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy +concessions, it ought not to be offensive. + +Disraeli's pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in +their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a +frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the +ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said +parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific +type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely +fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are +members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet, +Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a +Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet +incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped +by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to +such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli's modes of +representing passion. He has frankly explained his theory. The +peasant-noble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love 'in huts where poor +men lie,' and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in +support of the principle. That is not Disraeli's view. 'Love,' he says, +'that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a +ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount +with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as +its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is +placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate +the passion that is breathed in palaces, amid the ennobling creations +of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst +perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods'--woods, +that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All +Disraeli's passionate lovers--and they are very passionate--are provided +with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of +exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of +a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can +detect at once the stamp of noble blood in every gesture, and a coronet +is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make +love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced +gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the +background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled +with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery +state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence +by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is +suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5] +says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such +beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as +wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural +needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; +or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable +beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of +genii. The passion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to +stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash +and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects. + +In the 'Arabian Nights' the lover repeats a passage of poetry and then +faints from emotion, and Disraeli's lovers are apt to be as +demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity +makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example, +the model love-story in 'Henrietta Temple.' Told by a cold and +unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:--Ferdinand +Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army, +he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength +of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich nobleman. The +grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine's cousin, Katherine +Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the +property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement. +Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first +sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his +engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She +fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels +are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though +Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough +to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not +ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the +strength of it--a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on +false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at +last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured +of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the +greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from +Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover's +misfortunes. And then a 'happy thought' occurs to the two pairs of +lovers. If Miss Temple's wealth had come earlier, she might have married +Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an +exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom +marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand +Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The +moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at +the sponging-house. 'It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and +their hundreds that are ever done up,' says this keen observer. 'A nob +was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall. +Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing.' + +This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives +Disraeli's secret. His 'nobs' are so splendid in their surroundings, +such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown +upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be +hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be +questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues? +The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling +complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her +dark and lustrous locks. Love for such a being is the 'transcendent and +surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy.' It is a rapture +and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what +sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine, +'pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming +spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious +and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a +big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam played upon his lip.' +But 'the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories, +the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild +order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity +succeeded--a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circumambient +happiness.' In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love +which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some +warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the +domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms +of passion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as +plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to +gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is +that, while other men assume that the commonest things will take a +splendid colour as seen through a lover's eyes, Disraeli takes care that +whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring. + +Once more, if we consent for the time to take our author's view--and +that is the necessary condition for enjoying most literature--we must +admit the vivacity and, at times, the real eloquence of Disraeli's +rhetoric. In 'Contarini Fleming' he takes a still more ambitious flight, +and with considerable success. Fleming, the embodiment of the poetic +character, is, we might almost say, to other poets what Armine is to +other lovers. He has the same love of brilliant effects, and the same +absence of genuine tenderness. But one other qualification must be made. +We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that +amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, +and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But +his genius is so versatile that we doubt its true destination. His +first literary performance is to write a version of 'Vivian Grey,' a +reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put +himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by +Schiller's Robbers to emulate the career of Moor; his greatest feat is a +sudden stroke of diplomacy which enables him to defeat the plans of more +veteran statesmen. And when he has gone through his initiation, wooed +and won his marvellous beauty, and lost her in an ideal island, the +final shape of his aspirations is curiously characteristic. Having +become rich quite unexpectedly--for he did not know that he was to be +the hero of one of Disraeli's novels--he resolved to 'create a +paradise.' He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful +gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace +full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes +to 'create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in +extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most +accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity.' He has already laid +the foundation of a tower which is to rise to a height of at least a +hundred and fifty feet, and is to equal in solidity and design the most +celebrated works of antiquity. Certainly the scheme is magnificent; but +it is scarcely the ambition which one might have expected from a poet. +Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic +temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible +memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with +profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary +complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the +splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a +cultivated imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a +series of brilliant travellers' sketches, is no mean master of what may +be called poetical prose. His pictures of life and scenery are +vivacious, rapid, and decisive. In later years, the habit of +parliamentary oratory seems to have injured Disraeli's style. In +'Lothair' there is a good deal of slipshod verbiage. But in these +earlier stories the style is generally excellent till it becomes too +ambitious. It has a kind of metallic glitter, brilliant, sparkling with +numerous flashes of wit and fancy, and never wanting in sharpness of +effect, though it may be deficient in delicacy. Yet the author, who is +of necessity to be partly identified with the hero of 'Contarini +Fleming,' is distinctly not a poet; and the incapacity is most evident +when he endeavours to pass the inexorable limits. The distinction +between poetry and rhetoric is as profound as it is undefinable. A true +poet, as possessing an exquisite sensibility to the capacities of his +instrument, does not try to get the effects of metre when he is writing +without its restrictions and its advantages. Disraeli shows occasionally +a want of this delicacy of perception by breaking into a kind of +compromise between the two which can only be called Ossianesque. The +effect, for example, of such a passage as the following is, to my taste +at least, simply grotesque:-- + +'Still the courser onward rushes; still his mighty heart supports him. +Season and space, the glowing soil, the burning ray, yield to the +tempest of his frame, the thunder of his nerves, and lightning of his +veins. + +'Food or water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise +with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that +hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the +jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with +snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful +snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This is +their sole society.' + +And so on. Some great writers have made prose as melodious as verse; and +Disraeli can at times follow their example successfully. But one likes +to know what one is reading; and the effect of this queer expression is +as if, in the centre of a solemn march, were incorporated a few +dancing-steps, _ŕ propos_ to nothing, and then subsiding into a regular +pace. Milton wrote grand prose and grand verse; but you are never +uncertain whether a fragment of 'Paradise Lost' may or may not have been +inserted by mere accident in the 'Areopagitica.' + +Not to dwell upon such minor defects, nobody can read 'Contarini +Fleming' or 'Henrietta Temple' without recognising the admirable talent +and exuberant vitality of the author. They have the faults of juvenile +performances; they are too gaudy; the author has been tempted to turn +aside too frequently in search of some brilliant epigram; he has +mistaken bombast for eloquence, and mere flowery brilliance for warmth +of emotion. But we might hope that longer experience and more earnest +purpose might correct such defects. Alas! in the year of their +publication, Disraeli first entered Parliament. His next works comprised +the trilogy, where the artistic aim has become subordinate to the +political or biological; and some thirty years of parliamentary labours +led to 'Lothair,' of which it is easiest to assume that it is a +practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon +Disraeli's own youthful performances. May one not lament the degradation +of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] Perhaps I ought to substitute 'Lord Beaconsfield' for Disraeli; but +I am writing of the author of 'Coningsby,' rather than of the author of +'Endymion:' and I will therefore venture to preserve the older name. + +[5] 'He never loved that loved not at first sight,' says Marlowe, and +Shakespeare after him. I cannot say whether this be an undesigned +literary coincidence or an appropriation. Disraeli, we know, was skilful +in the art of annexation. One or two instances may be added. Here is a +clear case of borrowing. Fuller says in the character of the good +sea-captain in the 'Holy State'--'Who first taught the water to imitate +the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, +the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the +sea is the ape of the land?' Essper George, in 'Vivian Grey,' says to +the sea: 'O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, +but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of +hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more +doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents +as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought +to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but +here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The +writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were +made of the ----government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain +of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, "call it _blunderment_ or +_plunderment_ or what you like--only not a _government_!"'--Coleridge's +'Essays on his own Times,' p. 893. Disraeli is sometimes credited with +the epigram in 'Lothair' about critics being authors who have failed. I +know not who said this first; but it was certainly not Disraeli. Landor +makes Porson tell Southey: 'Those who have failed as writers turn +reviewers.' The classical passage is in Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, he says, +said somewhere of a sculptor who had become discouraged: 'Redevenu +artiste _in partibus_, il avait beaucoup de succčs dans les salons, il +était consulté par beaucoup d'amateurs; _il passa critique comme tous +les impuissants qui mentent ŕ leurs débuts_.' Sainte-Beuve, naturally +indignant at a phrase aimed against his craft, if not against himself, +says that this may be true of a sculptor or painter who deserts his art +in order to talk; 'mais, dans l'ordre de la pensée, cette parole de M. +de Balzac qui revient souvent sous la plume de toute une école de jeunes +littérateurs, est ŕ la fois (je leur en demande pardon) une injustice et +une erreur.'--'Causeries du Lundi,' vol. ii. p. 455. A very similar +phrase is to be found in a book where one would hardly look for such +epigrams, Marryat's 'King's Own.' But to trace such witticisms to their +first source is a task for 'Notes and Queries.' + + + + +_MASSINGER_ + + +In one of the best of his occasional essays, Kingsley held a brief for +the plaintiffs in the old case of Puritans _versus_ Playwrights. The +litigation in which this case represents a minor issue has lasted for a +period far exceeding that of the most pertinacious lawsuit, and is not +likely to come to an end within any assignable limits of time. When the +discussion is pressed home, it is seen to involve fundamentally +different conceptions of human life and its purposes; and it can only +cease when we have discovered the grounds of a permanent conciliation +between the ethical and the ćsthetic elements of human nature. The +narrower controversy between the stage and the Church has itself a long +history. It has left some curious marks upon English literature. The +prejudice which uttered itself through the Puritan Prynne was inherited, +in a later generation, by the High-Churchmen Collier and William Law. +The attack, it is true, may be ostensibly directed--as in Kingsley's +essay--against the abuse of the stage rather than against the stage +itself. Kingsley pays the usual tribute to Shakespeare whilst denouncing +the whole literature of which Shakespeare's dramas are the most +conspicuous product. But then, everybody always distinguishes in terms +between the use and the abuse; and the line of demarcation generally +turns out to be singularly fluctuating and uncertain. You can hardly +demolish Beaumont and Fletcher without bringing down some of the +outlying pinnacles, if not shaking the very foundations, of the temple +sacred to Shakespeare. + +It would be regrettable, could one stop to regret the one-sided and +illogical construction of the human mind, that a fair judgment in such +matters seems to require incompatible qualities. Your impartial critic +or historian is generally a man who leaves out of account nothing but +the essential. His impartiality means sympathy with the commonplace, and +incapacity for understanding heroic faith and overpowering enthusiasm. +He fancies that a man or a book can be judged by balancing a list of +virtues and vices as if they were separate entities lying side by side +in a box, instead of different aspects of a vital force. On the other +hand, the vivid imagination which restores dead bones to life makes its +possessor a partisan in extinct quarrels, and as short-sighted and +unfair a partisan as the original actors. Roundheads and Cavaliers have +been dead these two centuries. + + Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; + Dreamfooted as the shadow of a cloud, + They flit across the ear. + +Yet few even amongst modern writers are capable of doing justice to both +sides without first making both sides colourless. Hallam judges men in +the throes of a revolution as though they were parties in a lawsuit to +be decided by precedents and parchments, and Carlyle cannot appreciate +Cromwell's magnificent force of character without making him all but +infallible and impeccable. Critics of the early drama are equally +one-sided. The exquisite literary faculty of Charles Lamb revelled in +detecting beauties which had been covered with the dust of oblivion +during the reign of Pope. His appreciation was intensified by that charm +of discovery which finds its typical utterance in Keats's famous sonnet. +He was scarcely a more impartial judge of Fletcher or Ford than 'Stout +Cortes' of the new world revealed by his enterprise. We may willingly +defer to his judgment of the relative value of the writers whom he +discusses, but we must qualify his judgment of their intrinsic +excellence by the recollection that he speaks as a lover. To him and +other thoroughgoing admirers of the old drama the Puritanical onslaught +upon the stage presented itself as the advent of a gloomy superstition, +ruthlessly stamping out all that was beautiful in art and literature. +Kingsley, an admirable hater, could perceive only the opposite aspect of +the phenomena. To him the Puritan protest appears as the voice of the +enlightened conscience; the revolution means the troubling of the turbid +waters at the descent of the angel; Prynne's 'Histriomastix' is the +blast of the trumpet at which the rotten and polluted walls of Jericho +are to crumble into dust. The stage, which represented the tone of +aristocratic society, rightfully perished with the order which it +flattered. Courtiers had learnt to indulge in a cynical mockery of +virtue, or to find an unholy attraction in the accumulation of +extravagant horrors. The English drama, in short, was one of those evil +growths which are fostered by deeply-seated social corruption, and are +killed off by the breath of a purer air. That such phenomena occur at +times is undeniable. Mr. Symonds has recently shown us, in his history +of the Renaissance, how the Italian literature to which our English +dramatists owed so many suggestions was the natural fruit of a society +poisoned at the roots. Nor, when we have shaken off that spirit of +slavish adulation in which modern antiquarians and critics have regarded +the so-called Elizabethan dramatists, can we deny that there are +symptoms of a similar mischief in their writings. Some of the most +authoritative testimonials have a suspicious element. Praise has been +lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama. +Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human +passion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible +for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the +straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the +author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of +revolting motives. Such adulation ought to have disappeared with the +first fervour of rehabilitation. Much that has been praised in the old +drama is rubbish, and some of it disgusting rubbish. + +The question, however, remains, how far we ought to adopt either view of +the situation? Are we bound to cast aside the later dramas of the school +as simply products of corruption? It may be of interest to consider the +light thrown upon this question by the works of Massinger, nearly the +last of the writers who can really claim a permanent position in +literature. Massinger, born in 1584, died in 1639. His surviving works +were composed, with one exception, after 1620. They represent, +therefore, the tastes of the playgoing classes during the rapid +development of the great struggle which culminated in the rebellion. In +a literary sense it is the period when the imaginative impulse +represented by the great dramatists was running low. It is curious to +reflect that, if Shakespeare had lived out his legitimate allowance of +threescore years and ten, he might have witnessed the production, not +only of the first, but of nearly all the best works of his school; had +his life been prolonged for ten years more, he would have witnessed its +final extinction. Within these narrow limits of time the drama had +undergone a change corresponding to the change in the national mood. The +difference, for example, between Marlowe and Massinger at the opening +and the close of the period--though their births were separated by only +twenty years--corresponds to the difference between the temper of the +generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation +which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of +Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit +perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse +which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great +Queen. But it has led also to writers being too summarily classed +together who really represent very different phases in a remarkable +evolution. After making all allowances for personal idiosyncrasies, we +can still see how profoundly the work of Massinger is coloured by the +predominant sentiment of the later epoch. + +As little is known of Massinger's life as of the lives of most of the +contemporary dramatists who had the good or ill fortune to be born +before the days of the modern biographical mania. It is known that he, +like most of his brethren, suffered grievously from impecuniosity; and +he records in one of his dedications his obligations to a patron without +whose bounty he would for many years have 'but faintly subsisted.' His +father had been employed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke; but Massinger, +though acknowledging a certain debt of gratitude to the Herbert family, +can hardly have received from them any effective patronage. Whatever +their relations may have been, it has been pointed out by Professor +Gardiner[6] that Massinger probably sympathised with the political views +represented by the two sons of his father's patron, who were +successively Earls of Pembroke during the reigns of the first James and +Charles. On two occasions he got into trouble with the licenser for +attacks, real or supposed, upon the policy of the Government. More than +one of his plays contain, according to Professor Gardiner, references to +the politics of the day as distinct as those conveyed by a cartoon in +'Punch.' The general result of his argument is to show that Massinger +sympathised with the views of an aristocratic party who looked with +suspicion upon the despotic tendencies of Charles's Government, and +thought that they could manage refractory parliaments by adopting a more +spirited foreign policy. Though in reality weak and selfish enough, they +affected to protest against the materialising and oppressive policy of +the extreme Royalists. How far these views represented any genuine +convictions, and how far Massinger's adhesion implied a complete +sympathy with them, or might indicate that kind of delusion which often +leads a mere literary observer to see a lofty intention in the schemes +of a selfish politician, are questions which I am incompetent to +discuss, and which obviously do not admit of a decided answer. They +confirm, as far as they go, the general impression as to Massinger's +point of view which we should derive from his writings without special +interpretation. 'Shakespeare,' says Coleridge, 'gives the permanent +politics of human nature' (whatever they may be!), 'and the only +predilection which appears shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the +populace. Massinger is a decided Whig; Beaumont and Fletcher +high-flying, passive-obedience Tories.' The author of 'Coriolanus,' one +would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, +though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to +systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the +sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not +explicitly pronounced upon issues hardly revealed even to + + The prophetic soul + Of the wide world dreaming of things to come. + +The sense of national unity evolved in the great struggle with Spain had +not yet been lost in the discord of the rising generation. The other +classifications may be accepted with less reserve. The dramatists +represented the views of their patrons. The drama reflected in the main +the sentiments of an aristocratic class alarmed by the growing vigour of +the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a +thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in 'Valentinian' are, to follow the +same guidance, so 'very slavish and reptile' that it is a trial of +charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge's rather needless +surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the +duty to God should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days +was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a +bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right +may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The +difference between Fletcher and Massinger, who were occasional +collaborators and apparently close friends (Massinger, it is said, was +buried in Fletcher's grave), was probably due to difference of +temperament as much as to the character of Massinger's family +connection. Massinger's melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of +his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must +have beset the more thoughtful members of his party, as Fletcher +represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Massinger is +given to expatiating upon the text that + + Subjects' lives + Are not their prince's tennis-balls, to be bandied + In sport away. + +The high-minded Pulcheria, in the 'Emperor of the East,' administers a +bitter reproof to a slavish 'projector' who + + Roars out + All is the King's, his will above the laws; + +who whispers in his ear that nobody should bring a salad from his garden +without paying 'gabel,' or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that, +if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a +city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance. + + Is this the way + To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans + Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds + Be wash'd with widows' and wrong'd orphans' tears, + Or his power grow contemptible? + +Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were +written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the +vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of +Massinger's view of the political situation of the time. We see what +were the topics that were beginning to occupy men's minds. + +Dryden made the remark, often quoted for purposes of indignant +reprobation by modern critics, that Beaumont and Fletcher 'understood +and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better' (than +Shakespeare); 'whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartees +no poet can ever paint as they did.' It is, of course, easy enough to +reply that in the true sense of the word 'gentleman' Shakespeare's +heroes are incomparably superior to those of his successors; but then +this is just the sense in which Dryden did not use the word. His real +meaning indicates a very sound piece of historical criticism. Fletcher +describes a new social type; the 'King's Young Courtier' who is +deserting the good old ways of his father, the 'old courtier of the +Queen.' The change is but one step in that continuous process which has +substituted the modern gentleman for the old feudal noble; but the step +taken at that period was great and significant. The chivalrous type, +represented in Sidney's life and Spenser's poetry, is beginning to be +old-fashioned and out of place as the industrial elements of society +become more prominent. The aristocrat in the rising generation finds +that his occupation is going. He takes to those 'wild debaucheries' +which Dryden oddly reckons among the attributes of a true gentleman; and +learns the art of 'quick repartee' in the courtly society which has time +enough on its hands to make a business of amusement. The euphuism and +allied affectations of the earlier generation had a certain grace, as +the external clothing of a serious chivalrous sentiment; but it is +rapidly passing into a silly coxcombry to be crushed by Puritanism or +snuffed out by the worldly cynicism of the new generation. Shakespeare's +Henry or Romeo may indulge in wild freaks or abandon themselves to the +intense passions of vigorous youth; but they will settle down into good +statesmen and warriors as they grow older. Their love-making is a phase +in their development, not the business of their lives. Fletcher's heroes +seem to be not only occupied for the moment, but to make a permanent +profession of what with their predecessors was a passing phase of +youthful ebullience. It is true that we have still a long step to make +before we sink to the mere _roué_, the shameless scapegrace and cynical +man about town of the Restoration. To make a Wycherley you must distil +all the poetry out of a Fletcher. Fletcher is a true poet; and the +graceful sentiment, though mixed with a coarse alloy, still repels that +unmitigated grossness which, according to Burke's famous aphorism, is +responsible for half the evil of vice. He is still alive to generous and +tender emotions, though it can scarcely be said that his morality has +much substance in it. It is a sentiment, not a conviction, and covers +without quenching many ugly and brutal emotions. + +In Fletcher's wild gallants, still adorned by a touch of the chivalrous; +reckless, immoral, but scarcely cynical; not sceptical as to the +existence of virtue, but only admitting morality by way of parenthesis +to the habitual current of their thoughts, we recognise the kind of +stuff from which to frame the Cavaliers who will follow Rupert and be +crushed by Cromwell. A characteristic sentiment which occurs constantly +in the drama of the period represents the soldier out of work. We are +incessantly treated to lamentations upon the ingratitude of the +comfortable citizens who care nothing for the men to whom they owed +their security. The political history of the times explains the +popularity of such complaints. Englishmen were fretting under their +enforced abstinence from the exciting struggles on the Continent. There +was no want of Dugald Dalgettys returning from the wars to afford models +for the military braggart or the bluff honest soldier, both of whom go +swaggering through so many of the plays of the time. Clarendon in his +Life speaks of the temptations which beset him from mixing with the +military society of the time. There was a large and increasing class, +no longer finding occupation in fighting Spaniards and searching for +Eldorado, and consequently, in the Yankee phrase, 'spoiling for a +fight.' When the time comes, they will be ready enough to fight +gallantly, and to show an utter incapacity for serious discipline. They +will meet the citizens, whom they have mocked so merrily, and find that +reckless courage and spasmodic chivalry do not exhaust the +qualifications for military success. + +Massinger represents a different turn of sentiment which would be +encouraged in some minds by the same social conditions. Instead of +abandoning himself frankly to the stream of youthful sentiment, he feels +that it has a dangerous aspect. The shadow of coming evils was already +dark enough to suggest various forebodings. But he is also a moraliser +by temperament. Mr. Ward says that his strength is owing in a great +degree to his appreciation of the great moral forces; and the remark is +only a confirmation of the judgment of most of his critics. It is, of +course, not merely that he is fond of adding little moral tags of +questionable applicability to the end of his plays. 'We are taught,' he +says in the 'Fatal Dowry,' + + By this sad precedent, how just soever + Our reasons are to remedy our wrongs, + We are yet to leave them to their will and power + That to that purpose have authority. + +But it is, to say the least, doubtful whether anybody would have that +judicious doctrine much impressed upon him by seeing the play itself. +Nor can one rely much upon the elaborate and very eloquent defence of +his art in the 'Roman Actor.' Paris, the actor, sets forth very +vigorously that the stage tends to lay bare the snares to which youth is +exposed and to inflame a noble ambition by example. If the discharge of +such a function deserves reward from the Commonwealth-- + + Actors may put in for as large a share + As all the sects of the philosophers;-- + They with cold precepts--perhaps seldom read-- + Deliver what an honourable thing + The active virtue is; but does that fire + The blood, or swell the veins with emulation + To be both good and great, equal to that + Which is presented in our theatres? + +Massinger goes on to show, after the fashion of Jaques in 'As You Like +It,' that the man who chooses to put on the cap is responsible for the +application of the satire. He had good reasons, as we have seen, for +feeling sensitive as to misunderstandings--or, rather, too thorough +understandings--of this kind. + +To some dramatists of the time, who should put forward such a plea, one +would be inclined to answer in the sensible words of old Fuller. 'Two +things,' he says, 'are set forth to us in stage plays; some grave +sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vicious examples: and +with these desperate oaths, lustful talk, and riotous acts, are so +personated to the life, that wantons are tickled with delight, and feed +their palates upon them. It seems the goodness is not portrayed with +equal accents of liveliness as the wicked things are; otherwise men +would be deterred from vicious courses, with seeing the woful success +which follows them'--a result scarcely to be claimed by the actors of +the day. Massinger, however, shows more moral feeling than is expended +in providing sentiments to be tacked on as an external appendage, or +satisfied by an obedience to the demands of poetic justice. He is not +content with knocking his villains on the head--a practice in which he, +like his contemporaries, indulges with only too much complacency. The +idea which underlies most of his plays is a struggle of virtue assailed +by external or inward temptations. He is interested by the ethical +problems introduced in the play of conflicting passions, and never more +eloquent than in uttering the emotions of militant or triumphant virtue. +His view of life, indeed, is not only grave, but has a distinct +religious colouring. From various indications, it is probable that he +was a Roman Catholic. Some of these are grotesque enough. The +'Renegado,' for example, not only shows that Massinger was, for dramatic +purposes at least, an ardent believer in baptismal regeneration, but +includes--what one would scarcely have sought in such a place--a +discussion as to the validity of lay-baptism. The first of his surviving +plays, the 'Virgin Martyr' (in which he was assisted by Dekker), is +simply a dramatic version of an ecclesiastical legend. Though it seems +to have been popular at the time, the modern reader will probably think +that, in this case at least, the religious element is a little out of +place. An angel and a devil take an active part in the performance; +miracles are worked on the stage; the unbelievers are so shockingly +wicked, and the Christians so obtrusively good, that we--the +worldly-minded--are sensible of a little recalcitration, unless we are +disarmed by the simplicity of the whole performance. Religious tracts of +all ages and in all forms are apt to produce this ambiguous effect. +Unless we are quite in harmony with their assumptions, we feel that they +deal too much in conventional rose-colour. The angelic and diabolic +elements are not so clearly discriminated in this world, and should show +themselves less unequivocally on the stage, which ought to be its +mirror. Such art was not congenial to the English atmosphere; it might +be suitable in Madrid; but when forcibly transplanted to the London +stage, we feel that the performance has not the simple earnestness by +which alone it can be justified. The sentiment has a certain unreality, +and the _naďveté_ suggests affectation. The implied belief is got up for +the moment and has a hollow ring. And therefore, the whole work, in +spite of some eloquence, is nothing better than a curiosity, as an +attempt at the assimilation of a heterogeneous form of art. + +A similar vein of sentiment, though not showing itself in so undiluted a +form, runs through most of Massinger's plays. He is throughout a +sentimentalist and a rhetorician. He is not, like the greatest men, +dominated by thoughts and emotions which force him to give them external +embodiment in life-like symbols. He is rather a man of much real feeling +and extraordinary facility of utterance, who finds in his stories +convenient occasions for indulging in elaborate didactic utterances upon +moral topics. It is probably this comparative weakness of the higher +imaginative faculty which makes Lamb speak of him rather disparagingly. +He is too self-conscious and too anxious to enforce downright moral +sentiments to satisfy a critic by whom spontaneous force and direct +insight were rightly regarded as the highest poetic qualities. A single +touch in Shakespeare, or even in Webster or Ford, often reveals more +depth of feeling than a whole scene of Massinger's facile and often +deliberately forensic eloquence. His temperament is indicated by the +peculiarities of his style. It is, as Coleridge says, poetry +differentiated by the smallest possible degree from prose. The greatest +artists of blank verse have so complete a mastery of their language that +it is felt as a fibre which runs through and everywhere strengthens the +harmony, and is yet in complete subordination to the sentiment. With a +writer of the second order, such as Fletcher, the metre becomes more +prominent, and at times produces a kind of monotonous sing-song, which +begins to remind us unpleasantly of the still more artificial tone +characteristic of the rhymed tragedies of the next generation. Massinger +diverges in the opposite direction. The metre is felt enough and only +just enough to give a more stately step to rather florid prose. It is +one of his marks that a line frequently ends by some insignificant 'of' +or 'from,' so as to exclude the briefest possible pause in reading. +Thus, to take an example pretty much at random, the following instance +might be easily read without observing that it was blank verse at all:-- + +'Your brave achievements in the war, and what you did for me, unspoken, +because I would not force the sweetness of your modesty to a blush, are +written here; and that there might be nothing wanting to sum up my +numerous engagements (never in my hopes to be cancelled), the great +duke, our mortal enemy, when my father's country lay open to his fury +and the spoil of the victorious army, and I brought into his power, hath +shown himself so noble, so full of honour, temperance, and all virtues +that can set off a prince; that, though I cannot render him that respect +I would, I am bound in thankfulness to admire him.' + +Such a style is suitable to a man whose moods do not often hurry him +into impetuous, or vivacious, or epigrammatic utterance. As the Persian +poet says of his country: his warmth is not heat, and his coolness is +not cold. He flows on in a quiet current, never breaking into foam or +fury, but vigorous, and invariably lucid. As a pleader before a +law-court--the character in which, as Mr. Ward observes, he has a +peculiar fondness for presenting himself--he would carry his audience +along with him, but scarcely hold them in spell-bound astonishment or +hurry them into fits of excitement. Melancholy resignation or dignified +dissatisfaction will find in him a powerful exponent, but scarcely +despair, or love, or hatred, or any social phase of pure unqualified +passion. + +The natural field for the display of such qualities is the romantic +drama, which Massinger took from the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher, and +endowed with greater dignity and less poetic fervour. For the vigorous +comedy of real life, as Jonson understood it, he has simply no capacity; +and in his rare attempts at humour, succeeds only in being at once dull +and dirty. His stage is generally occupied with dignified lords and +ladies, professing the most chivalrous sentiments, which are +occasionally too high-flown and overstrained to be thoroughly effective, +but which are yet uttered with sufficient sincerity. They are not mere +hollow pretences, consciously adopted to conceal base motives; but one +feels the want of an occasional infusion of the bracing air of common +sense. It is the voice of a society still inspired with the traditional +sentiments of honour and self-respect, but a little afraid of contact +with the rough realities of life. Its chivalry is a survival from a past +epoch, not a spontaneous outgrowth of the most vital elements of +contemporary development. In another generation, such a tone will be +adopted by a conscious and deliberate artifice, and be reflected in mere +theatrical rant. In the past, it was the natural expression of a +high-spirited race, full of self-confidence and pride in its own +vigorous audacity. In this transitional period it has a certain hectic +flush, symptomatic of approaching decay; anxious to give a wide berth +to realities, and most at home in the border land where dreams are only +half dispelled by the light of common day. 'Don Quixote' had sounded the +knell of the old romance, but something of the old spirit still lingers, +and can tinge with an interest, not yet wholly artificial, the lives and +passions of beings who are thus hovering on the outskirts of the living +world. The situations most characteristic of Massinger's tendency are in +harmony with this tone of sentiment. They are romances taken from a +considerable variety of sources, developed in a clearly connected series +of scenes. They are wanting in the imaginative unity of the great plays, +which show that a true poet has been profoundly moved by some profound +thought embodied in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare, +seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his +imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity +of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and +wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English +plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in +order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's +plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following +intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many +eloquent observations, though not developments of one master-thought. We +often feel that, if external circumstances had been propitious, he would +have expressed himself more naturally in the form of a prose romance +than in a drama. Nor, again, does he often indulge in those exciting and +horrible situations which possess such charms for his contemporaries. +There are occasions, it is true, in which this element is not wanting. +In the 'Unnatural Combat,' for example, we have a father killing his son +in a duel, by the end of the second act; and when, after a succession +of horrors of the worst kind, we are treated to a ghost, 'full of +wounds, leading in the shadow of a lady, her face leprous,' and the +worst criminal is killed by a flash of lightning, we feel that we were +fully entitled to such a catastrophe. We can only say, in Massinger's +words,-- + + May we make use of + This great example, and learn from it that + There cannot be a want of power above + To punish murder and unlawful love! + +The 'Duke of Milan' again culminates with a horrible scene, rivalling, +though with less power, the grotesque horrors of Webster's 'Duchess of +Malfi.' Other instances might be given of concessions to that +blood-and-thunder style of dramatic writing for which our ancestors had +a never-failing appetite. But, as a rule, Massinger inclines, as far as +contemporary writers will allow him, to the side of mercy. Instead of +using slaughter so freely that a new set of actors has to be introduced +to bury the old--a misfortune which sometimes occurs in the plays of the +time--he generally tends to a happy solution, and is disposed not only +to dismiss his virtuous characters to felicity, but even to make his +villains virtuous. We have not been excited to that pitch at which our +passions can only be harmonised by an effusion of blood, and a mild +solution is sufficient for the calmer feelings which have been aroused. + +This tendency illustrates Massinger's conception of life in another +sense. Nothing is more striking in the early stage than the vigour of +character of most of these heroes. Individual character, as it is said, +takes the place in the modern of fate in the ancient drama. Every man is +run in a mould of iron, and may break, but cannot bend. The fitting +prologue to the whole literature is provided by Marlowe's Tamburlaine, +with his superhuman audacity and vast bombastic rants, the incarnation +of a towering ambition which scorns all laws but its own devouring +passion. Faustus, braving all penalties, human and divine, is another +variety of the same type: and when we have to do with a weak character +like Edward II., we feel that it is his natural destiny to be confined +in a loathsome dungeon, with mouldy bread to eat and ditch-water to +drink. The world is for the daring; and though daring may be pushed to +excess, weakness is the one unpardonable offence. A thoroughgoing +villain is better than a trembling saint. If Shakespeare's instinctive +taste revealed the absurdity of the bombastic exaggeration of such +tendencies, his characters are equally unbending. His villains die, like +Macbeth and Iago, with their teeth set, and scorn even a deathbed +repentance. Hamlet exhibits the unfitness for a world of action of the +man who is foolish enough to see two sides to every question. So again, +Chapman, the writer who in fulness and fire of thought approaches most +nearly to Shakespeare, is an ardent worshipper of pure energy of +character. His Bussy d'Ambois cannot be turned from his purpose even by +the warnings of the ghost of his accomplice, and a mysterious spirit +summoned expressly to give advice. An admirably vigorous phrase from one +of the many declamations of his hero Byron--another representative of +the same haughty strength of will--gives his theory of character:-- + + Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea + Loves t' have his sail filled with a lusty wind, + Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack, + And his rapt ship run on her side so low + That she drinks water, and her keel plows air. + +Pure, undiluted energy, stern force of will, delight in danger for its +own sake, contempt for all laws but the self-imposed, those are the +cardinal virtues, and challenge our sympathy even when they lead their +possessor to destruction. The psychology implied in Jonson's treating of +'humour' is another phase of the same sentiment. The side by which +energetic characters lend themselves to comedy is the exaggeration of +some special trait which determines their course as tyrannically as +ambition governs the character suited for tragedy. + +When we turn to Massinger, this boundless vigour has disappeared. The +blood has grown cool. The tyrant no longer forces us to admiration by +the fulness of his vitality, and the magnificence of his contempt for +law. Whether for good or bad, he is comparatively a poor creature. He +has developed an uneasy conscience, and even whilst affecting to defy +the law, trembles at the thought of an approaching retribution. His +boasts have a shrill, querulous note in them. His creator does not fully +sympathise with his passion. Massinger cannot throw himself into the +situation; and is anxious to dwell upon the obvious moral considerations +which prove such characters to be decidedly inconvenient members of +society for their tamer neighbours. He is of course the more in +accordance with a correct code of morality, but fails correspondingly in +dramatic force and brilliance of colour. To exhibit a villain truly, +even to enable us to realise the true depth of his villainy, one must be +able for a moment to share his point of view, and therefore to +understand the true law of his being. It is a very sound rule in the +conduct of life, that we should not sympathise with scoundrels. But the +morality of the poet, as of the scientific psychologist, is founded upon +the unflinching veracity which sets forth all motives with absolute +impartiality. Some sort of provisional sympathy with the wicked there +must be, or they become mere impossible monsters or the conventional +scarecrows of improving tracts. + +This is Massinger's weakest side. His villains want backbone, and his +heroes are deficient in simple overmastering passion, or supplement +their motives by some overstrained and unnatural crotchet. Impulsiveness +takes the place of vigour, and indicates the want of a vigorous grasp of +the situation. Thus, for example, the 'Duke of Milan,' which is +certainly amongst the more impressive of Massinger's plays, may be +described as a variation upon the theme of 'Othello.' To measure the +work of any other writer by its relation to that masterpiece is, of +course, to apply a test of undue severity. Of comparison, properly +speaking, there can be no question. The similarity of the situation, +however, may bring out Massinger's characteristics. The Duke, who takes +the place of Othello, is, like his prototype, a brave soldier. The most +spirited and effective passage in the play is the scene in which he is +brought as a prisoner before Charles V., and not only extorts the +admiration of his conqueror, but wins his liberty by a dignified avowal +of his previous hostility, and avoidance of any base compliance. The +Duke shows himself to be a high-minded gentleman, and we are so far +prepared to sympathise with him when exposed to the wiles of +Francisco--the Iago of the piece. But, unfortunately, the scene is not +merely a digression in a constructive sense, but involves a +psychological inconsistency. The gallant soldier contrives to make +himself thoroughly contemptible. He is represented as excessively +uxorious, and his passion takes the very disagreeable turn of posthumous +jealousy. He has instructed Francisco to murder the wife whom he adores, +in case of his own death during the war, and thus to make sure that she +could not marry anybody else. On his return, the wife, who has been +informed by the treachery of Francisco of this pleasant arrangement, is +naturally rather cool to him; whereupon he flies into a rage and swears +that he will + + Never think of curs'd Marcelia more. + +His affection returns in another scene, but only in order to increase +his jealousy, and on hearing Francisco's slander he proceeds to stab his +wife out of hand. It is the action of a weak man in a passion, not of a +noble nature tortured to madness. Finding out his mistake, he of course +repents again, and expresses himself with a good deal of eloquence which +would be more effective if we could forget the overpowering pathos of +the parallel scene in 'Othello.' Much sympathy, however, is impossible +for a man whose whole conduct is so flighty, and so obviously determined +by the immediate demands of successive situations of the play, and not +the varying manifestation of a powerfully conceived character. Francisco +is a more coherent villain, and an objection made by Hazlitt to his +apparent want of motive is at least equally valid against Iago; but he +is of course but a diluted version of that superlative villain, as +Marcelia is a rather priggish and infinitely less tender Desdemona. The +failure, however, of the central figure to exhibit any fixity of +character is the real weakness of the play; and the horrors of the last +scene fail to atone for the want of the vivid style which reveals an +'intense and gloomy mind.' + +This kind of versatility and impulsiveness of character is revealed by +the curious convertibility--if one may use the word--of his characters. +They are the very reverse of the men of iron of the previous generation. +They change their state of mind as easily as the characters of the +contemporary drama put on disguises. We are often amazed at the +simplicity which enables a whole family to suppose the brother and +father to whom they have been speaking ten minutes before to be an +entire stranger, because he has changed his coat or talks broken +English. The audience must have been easily satisfied in such cases; but +it requires almost equal simplicity to accept some of Massinger's +transformations. In such a play as the 'Virgin Martyr,' a religious +conversion is a natural part of the scheme. Nor need we be surprised at +the amazing facility with which a fair Mohammedan is converted in the +'Renegado' by the summary assertion that the 'juggling Prophet' is a +cheat, and taught a pigeon to feed in his ear. Can there be strength, it +is added, in that religion which allows us to fear death? 'This is +unanswerable,' exclaims the lady, 'and there is something tells me I err +in my opinion.' This is almost as good as the sudden thought of swearing +eternal friendship in the 'Anti-Jacobin.' The hardened villain of the +first act in the same play falls into despair in the third, and, with +the help of an admirable Jesuit, becomes a most useful and exemplary +convert by the fifth. But such catastrophes may be regarded as more or +less miraculous. The versatility of character is more singular when +religious conversions are not in question. 'I am certain,' says Philanax +in the 'Emperor of the East,' + + 'A prince so soon in his disposition altered + Was never heard nor read of.' + +That proves that Philanax was not familiar with Massinger's plays. The +disposition of princes and of subjects is there constantly altered with +the most satisfactory result. It is not merely that, as often happens +elsewhere, the villains are summarily forced to repent at the end of a +play, like Angelo in 'Measure for Measure,' in order to allow the +curtain to fall upon a prospect of happiness. Such forced catastrophes +are common, if clumsy enough. But there is something malleable in the +very constitution of Massinger's characters. They repent half-way +through the performance, and see the error of their ways with a facility +which we could wish to be imitated in common life. The truth seems to be +that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is +more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be +irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal +to the feelings for a change of character. Thus, for example, in the +'Picture'--a characteristic, though not a very successful play--we have +a story founded upon the temptations of a separated husband and wife. +The husband carries with him a magical picture, which grows dark or +bright according to the behaviour of the wife, whom it represents. The +husband is tempted to infidelity by a queen, herself spoilt by the +flatteries of an uxorious husband; and the wife by a couple of +courtiers, who have all the vices of Fletcher's worst heroes without any +of their attractions. The interest of the play, such as it is, depends +upon the varying moods of the chief actors, who become so eloquent under +a sense of wrong or a reflection upon the charms of virtue, that they +approach the bounds of vice, and then gravitate back to respectability. +Everybody becomes perfectly respectable before the end of the play is +reached, and we are to suppose that they will remain respectable ever +afterwards. They avoid tragic results by their want of the overmastering +passions which lead to great crimes or noble actions. They are really +eloquent, but even more moved by their eloquence than the spectators can +be. They form the kind of audience which would be most flattering to an +able preacher, but in which a wise preacher would put little confidence. +And, therefore, besides the fanciful incident of the picture, they give +us an impression of unreality. They have no rich blood in their veins; +and are little better than lay figures taking up positions as it may +happen, in order to form an effective tableau illustrative of an +unexceptionable moral. + +There is, it is true, one remarkable exception to the general weakness +of Massinger's characters. The vigour with which Sir Giles Overreach is +set forth has made him the one well-known figure in Massinger's gallery, +and the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts' showed, in consequence, more vitality +than any of his other plays. Much praise has been given, and not more +than enough, to the originality and force of the conception. The +conventional miser is elevated into a great man by a kind of inverse +heroism, and made terrible instead of contemptible. But it is equally +plain that here, too, Massinger fails to project himself fairly into his +villain. His rants are singularly forcible, but they are clearly what +other people would think about him, not what he would really think, +still less what he would say, of himself. Take, for example, the very +fine speech in which he replies to the question of the virtuous +nobleman, whether he is not frightened by the imprecations of his +victims:-- + + Yes, as rocks are + When foaming billows split themselves against + Their flinty sides; or as the moon is moved + When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness. + I am of a solid temper, and, like these, + Steer on a constant course; with mine own sword, + If called into the field, I can make that right + Which fearful enemies murmur at as wrong. + Now, for those other piddling complaints + Breath'd out in bitterness, as when they call me + Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder + On my poor neighbour's rights or grand incloser + Of what was common to my private use, + Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries, + And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold, + I only think what 'tis to have my daughter + Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm + Makes me insensible to remorse or pity, + Or the least sting of conscience. + +Put this into the third person; read 'he' for 'I,' and 'his' for 'my,' +and it is an admirable bit of denunciation of a character probably +intended as a copy from life. It is a description of a wicked man from +outside; and wickedness seen from outside is generally unreasonable and +preposterous. When it is converted, by simple alteration of pronouns, +into the villain's own account of himself, the internal logic which +serves as a pretext disappears, and he becomes a mere monster. It is for +this reason that, as Hazlitt says, Massinger's villains--and he was +probably thinking especially of Overreach and Luke in 'A City +Madam'--appear like drunkards or madmen. His plays are apt to be a +continuous declamation, cut up into fragments, and assigned to the +different actors; and the essential unfitness of such a method to +dramatic requirements needs no elaborate demonstration. The villains +will have to denounce themselves, and will be ready to undergo +conversion at a moment's notice, in order to spout openly on behalf of +virtue as vigorously as they have spouted in transparent disguise on +behalf of vice. + +There is another consequence of Massinger's romantic tendency, which is +more pleasing. The chivalrous ideal of morality involves a reverence for +women, which may be exaggerated or affected, but which has at least a +genuine element in it. The women on the earlier stage have comparatively +a bad time of it amongst their energetic companions. Shakespeare's women +are undoubtedly most admirable and lovable creatures; but they are +content to take a subordinate part, and their highest virtue generally +includes entire submission to the will of their lords and masters. Some, +indeed, have an abundant share of the masculine temperament, like +Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth; but then they are by no means model +characters. Iago's description of the model woman is a cynical version +of the true Shakespearian theory. Women's true sphere, according to him, +or according to the modern slang, is domestic life; and if circumstances +force a Cordelia, an Imogen, a Rosalind, or a Viola, to take a more +active share in life, they take good care to let us know that they have +a woman's heart under their man's doublet. The weaker characters in +Massinger give a higher place to women, and justify it by a sentiment of +chivalrous devotion. The excess, indeed, of such submissiveness is often +satirised. In the 'Roman Actor,' the 'Emperor of the East,' the 'Duke of +Milan,' the 'Picture,' and elsewhere, we have various phases of uxorious +weakness, which suggest a possible application to the Court of Charles +I. Elsewhere, as in the 'Maid of Honour' and the 'Bashful Lover,' we are +called upon to sympathise with manifestations of a highflown devotion to +feminine excellence. Thus, the bashful lover, who is the hero of one of +his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself +scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her +he exclaims-- + + As Moors salute + The rising sun with joyful superstition, + I could fall down and worship.--O my heart! + Like Phoebe breaking through an envious cloud, + Or something which no simile can express, + She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended + With wonder and astonishment, does possess me. + +When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is +liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to +any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her +through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of +this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow +himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two +lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky +enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her +interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright +cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the +offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He +resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of +Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this +catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds +that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world +as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would +involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better +provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by +Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the +advantage of poor Mariana, whose reunion with her hypocritical husband +certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to +intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded +as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate, +in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who +has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot, +consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature +of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not +look out for others. She may permit herself for once to return the +affection of a worthy lover; but, when he fails, she must not condescend +again to love. That would be to admit that love was a necessity of her +life, not a special act of favour for some exceptional proofs of +worthiness. Given the general tone of sentiment, I confess that, to my +taste, Massinger's solution has the merit, not only of originality, but +of harmony. It may, of course, be held that a jilted lady should, in a +perfectly healthy state of society, have some other alternative besides +a convent or an unworthy marriage. Some people, for example, may hold +that she should be able to take to active life as a lawyer or a +professor of medicine; or they may hold that love ought not to hold so +prominent a part even in a woman's life that disappointed passion should +involve, as a necessary consequence, the entire abandonment of the +world. But, taking the romantic point of view, of which it is the very +essence to set an extravagant value upon love, and remembering that +Massinger had not heard of modern doctrines of woman's rights, one must +admit, I think, that he really shows, by the best means in his power, a +strong sense of the dignity of womanhood, and that his catastrophe is +more satisfactory than the violent death or the consignment to an +inferior lover which would have commended themselves to most Elizabethan +dramatists. + +The same vein of chivalrous sentiment gives a fine tone to some of +Massinger's other plays; to the 'Bondman,' for example, and the 'Great +Duke of Florence,' in both of which the treatment of lover's devotion +shows a higher sense of the virtue of feminine dignity and purity than +is common in the contemporary stage. There is, of course, a want of +reality, an admission of extravagant motives, and an absence of dramatic +concentration, which indicate an absence of high imaginative power. +Chivalry, at its best, is not very reconcilable with common-sense; and +the ideal hero is divided, as Cervantes shows, by very narrow +distinctions from the downright madman. What was absurd in the more +vigorous manifestations of the spirit does not vanish when its energy is +lowered, and the rhetorician takes the place of the poet. But the +sentiment is still genuine, and often gives real dignity to Massinger's +eloquent speeches. It is true that, in apparent inconsistency with this +excellence, passages of Massinger are even more deeply stained than +usual with revolting impurities. Not only are his bad men and women apt +to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed +out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the +indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy +explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity, +nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong +religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with +considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch, +according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he +suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with +the most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the +centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once +dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst +ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be +accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two +Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected. +But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are +superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the +structure of his plays. + +I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which +would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all +doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple +product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or +overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as +an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The +dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his +moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes +in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most +willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a +certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration. +But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say +honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays? +Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company, +say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is +clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt +to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic +affection? Is there not rather a sense that we have been all the time +in an unnatural region, where, it is true, a sense of honour and other +good qualities come in for much eloquent praise, but where, above +everything, there is a marked absence of downright wholesome +common-sense? Of course the effect is partly due to the region in which +the old dramatists generally sought for their tragic situations. We are +never quite at home in this fictitious cloudland, where the springs of +action are strange, unaccountable, and altogether different from those +with which we have to do in the workaday world. A great poet, indeed, +weaves a magic mirror out of these dream-like materials, in which he +shows us the great passions, love, and jealousy, and ambition, reflected +upon a gigantic scale. But, in weaker hands, the characters become +eccentric instead of typical: his vision simply distorts instead of +magnifying the fundamental truths of human nature. The liberty which +could be used by Shakespeare becomes dangerous for his successors. +Instead of a legitimate idealisation, we have simply an abandonment of +any basis in reality. + +The admission that Massinger is moral must therefore be qualified by the +statement that he is unnatural; or, in other words, that his morality is +morbid. The groundwork of all the virtues, we are sometimes told, is +strength. A strong nature may be wicked, but a weak one cannot attain +any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that +the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid +perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has +that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see +illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly +that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be plausible, +or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist +admits that vice is often pleasant, and that wicked men flourish like a +green bay-tree. He cannot be over-anxious to preach, for he feels that +the intrinsic charm of high qualities can dispense with any artificial +attempts to bolster them up by sham rhetoric, or to slur over the hard +facts of life. He will describe Iago as impartially as Desdemona, and, +having given us the facts, leave us to make what we please of them. It +is the mark of a more sickly type of morality, that it must always be +distorting the plain truth. It becomes sentimental, because it wishes to +believe that what is pleasant must be true. It makes villains condemn +themselves, because such a practice would save so much trouble to judges +and moralists. Not appreciating the full force of passions, it allows +the existence of grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a +little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and +represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial +examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes +necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest +position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is +possible is a very different one from our own. + +The decline of the great poetic impulse does not yet reveal itself by +sheer blindness to moral distinctions, or downright subservience to +vice. A lowered vitality does not necessarily imply disease, though it +is favourable to the development of vicious germs. The morality which +flourishes in an exhausted soil is not a plant of hardy growth and tough +fibre, nourished by rough common-sense, flourishing amongst the fierce +contests of vigorous passions, and delighting in the open air and the +broad daylight. It loves the twilight of romance, and creates heroes +impulsive, eccentric, extravagant in their resolves, servile in their +devotion, and whose very natures are more or less allied to weakness and +luxurious self-indulgence. Massinger, indeed, depicts with much sympathy +the virtues of the martyr and the penitent; he can illustrate the +paradox that strength can be conquered by weakness, and violence by +resignation. His good women triumph by softening the hearts of their +persecutors. Their purity is more attractive than the passions of their +rivals. His deserted King shows himself worthy of more loyalty than his +triumphant persecutors. His Roman actor atones for his weakness by +voluntarily taking part in his own punishment. + +Such passive virtues are undoubtedly most praiseworthy; but they may +border upon qualities not quite so praiseworthy. It is a melancholy +truth that your martyr is apt to be a little sanctimonious, and that a +penitent is generally a bit of a sneak. Resignation and self-restraint +are admirable qualities, but admirable in proportion to the force of the +opposing temptation. The strong man curbing his passions, the weak woman +finding strength in patient suffering, are deserving of our deepest +admiration; but in Massinger we feel that the triumph of virtue implies +rather a want of passion than a power of commanding it, and that +resignation is comparatively easy when it connotes an absence of active +force. The general lowering of vitality, the want of rigid dramatic +colouring, deprive his martyrs of that background of vigorous reality +against which their virtues would be forcibly revealed. His pathos is +not vivid and penetrating. Truly pathetic power is produced only when we +see that it is a sentiment wrung from a powerful intellect by keen +sympathy with the wrongs of life. We are affected by the tears of a +strong man; but the popular preacher who enjoys weeping produces in us +nothing but contempt. Massinger's heroes and heroines have not, we may +say, backbone enough in them to make us care very deeply for their +sorrows. And they moralise rather too freely. We do not want sermons, +but sympathy, when we are in our deepest grief; and we do not feel that +anyone feels very keenly who can take his sorrows for a text, and preach +in his agony upon the vanity of human wishes or the excellence of +resignation. + +Massinger's remarkable flow of genuine eloquence, his real dignity of +sentiment, his sympathy for virtuous motive, entitle him to respect; but +we cannot be blind to the defect which keeps his work below the level of +his greatest contemporaries. It is, in one word, a want of vital force. +His writing is pitched in too low a key. He is not invigorating, +stimulating, capable of fascinating us by the intensity of his +conceptions. His highest range is a dignified melancholy or a certain +chivalrous recognition of the noble side of human nature. The art which +he represents is still a genuine and spontaneous growth instead of an +artificial manufacture. He is not a mere professor of deportment, or +maker of fine phrases. The days of mere affection have not yet arrived; +but, on the other hand, there is an absence of that grand vehemence of +soul which breathes in the spontaneous, if too lawless, vigour of the +older race. There is something hollow under all this stately rhetoric; +there are none of those vivid phrases which reveal minds moved by strong +passions and excited by new aspects of the world. The sails of his verse +are not, in Chapman's phrase, 'filled with a lusty wind,' but moving at +best before a steady breath of romantic sentiment, and sometimes +flapping rather ominously for want of true impulse. High thinking may +still be there, but it is a little self-conscious, and in need of +artificial stimulant. The old strenuous spirit has disappeared, or gone +elsewhere--perhaps to excite a Puritan imagination, and create another +incarnation of the old type of masculine vigour in the hero of 'Paradise +Lost.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] _Contemporary Review_ for August 1876. + + + + +_FIELDING'S NOVELS_ + + +A double parallel has often been pointed out between the two pairs of +novelists who were most popular in the middle of our own and of the +preceding century. The intellectual affinity which made Smollett the +favourite author of Dickens is scarcely so close as that which commended +Fielding to Thackeray. The resemblance between 'Pickwick' and 'Humphrey +Clinker,' or between 'David Copperfield' and 'Roderick Random,' consists +chiefly in the exuberance of animal spirits, the keen eye for external +oddity, the consequent tendency to substitute caricature for portrait, +and the vivid transformation of autobiography into ostensible fiction, +which are characteristic of both authors. Between Fielding and Thackeray +the resemblance is closer. The peculiar irony of 'Jonathan Wild' has its +closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' +of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's +burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong +to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent since the days +of Lady Bellaston, but the costume of the actors has changed more than +their nature. Rawdon Crawley would not have been surprised to meet +Captain Booth in a spunging-house; Shandon and his friends preserved the +old traditions of Fielding's Grub Street; Lord Steyne and Major +Pendennis were survivals from the more congenial period of Lord Fellamar +and Colonel James; and the two Amelias represent cognate ideals of +female excellence. Or, to take an instance of similarity in detail, +might not this anecdote from 'The Covent Garden Journal' have rounded +off a paragraph in the 'Snob Papers?' A friend of Fielding saw a dirty +fellow in a mud-cart lash another with his whip, saying, with an oath, +'I will teach you manners to your betters.' Fielding's friend wondered +what could be the condition of this social inferior of a mud-cart +driver, till he found him to be the owner of a dust-cart driven by +asses. The great butt of Fielding's satire is, as he tells us, +affectation; the affectation which he specially hates is that of +straitlaced morality; Thackeray's satire is more generally directed +against the particular affectation called snobbishness; but the evil +principle attacked by either writer is merely one avatar of the demon +assailed by the other. + +The resemblance, which extends in some degree to style, might perhaps be +shown to imply a very close intellectual affinity. I am content, +however, to notice the literary genealogy as illustrative of the fact +that Fielding was the ancestor of one great race of novelists. 'I am,' +he says expressly in 'Tom Jones,' 'the founder of a new province of +writing.' Richardson's 'Clarissa'[7] and Smollett's 'Roderick Random' +were indeed published before 'Tom Jones;' but the provinces over which +Richardson and Smollett reigned were distinct from the contiguous +province of which Fielding claimed to be the first legislator. Smollett +(who comes nearest) professed to imitate 'Gil Blas' as Fielding +professed to imitate Cervantes. Smollett's story inherits from its +ancestry a reckless looseness of construction. It is a series of +anecdotes strung together by the accident that they all happen to the +same person. 'Tom Jones,' on the contrary, has a carefully constructed +plot, if not, as Coleridge asserts, one of the three best plots in +existence (its rivals being 'Oedipus Tyrannus' and 'The Alchemist'). Its +excellence depends upon the skill with which it is made subservient to +the development of character and the thoroughness with which the working +motives of the persons involved have been thought out. Fielding +claims--even ostentatiously--that he is writing a history, not a +romance; a history not the less true because all the facts are +imaginary, for the fictitious incidents serve to exhibit the most +general truths of human character. It is by this seriousness of purpose +that his work is distinguished from the old type of novel, developed by +Smollett, which is but a collection of amusing anecdotes; or from such +work as De Foe's, in which the external facts are given with an almost +provoking indifference to display of character and passion. Fielding's +great novels have a true organic unity as well as a consecutive story, +and are intended in our modern jargon as genuine studies in +psychological analysis.[8] + +Johnson, no mean authority when in his own sphere and free from personal +bias, expressly traversed this claim; he declared that there was more +knowledge of the human heart in a letter of 'Clarissa' than in the whole +of 'Tom Jones;' and said more picturesquely, that Fielding could tell +the hour by looking at the dial-plate, whilst Richardson knew how the +clock was made.[9] It is tempting to set this down as a Johnsonian +prejudice, and to deny or retort the comparison. Fielding, we might say, +paints flesh and blood; whereas Richardson consciously constructs his +puppets out of frigid abstractions. Lovelace is a bit of mechanism; Tom +Jones a human being. In fact, however, such comparisons are misleading. +Nothing is easier than to find an appropriate ticket for the objects of +our criticism, and summarily pigeon-hole Richardson as an idealist and +Fielding as a realist; Richardson as subjective and morbid, Fielding as +objective and full of coarse health; or to attribute to either of them +the deepest knowledge of the human heart. These are the mere banalities +of criticism; and I can never hear them without a suspicion that a +professor of ćsthetics is trying to hoodwink me by a bit of technical +platitude. The cant phrases which have been used so often by panegyrists +too lazy to define their terms, have become almost as meaningless as the +complimentary formulć of society. + +Knowledge of the human heart in particular is a phrase which covers very +different states of mind. It may mean that power by which the novelist +or dramatist identifies himself with his characters; sees through their +eyes and feels with their senses; it is the product of a rich nature, a +vivid imagination, and great powers of sympathy, and draws a +comparatively small part of its resources from external experience. The +novelist knows how his characters would feel under given conditions, +because he feels it himself; he sees from within, not from without; and +is almost undergoing an actual experience instead of condensing his +observations on life. This is the power in which Shakespeare is supreme; +which Richardson proved himself, in his most powerful passages, to +possess in no small degree; and which in Balzac seems to have generated +fits of absolute hallucination. + +Fielding's novels are not without proof of this power, as no great +imaginative work can be possible without it; but the knowledge for which +he is specially conspicuous differs almost in kind. This knowledge is +drawn from observation rather than intuitive sympathy. It consists in +great part of those weighty maxims which a man of keen powers of +observation stores up in his passage through a varied experience. It is +the knowledge of Ulysses, who has known + + Cities of men + And manners, climates, councils, governments; + +the knowledge of a Machiavelli, who has looked behind the screen of +political hypocrisies; the knowledge of which the essence is distilled +in Bacon's 'Essays;' or the knowledge of which Polonius seems to have +retained many shrewd scraps even when he had fallen into his dotage. +In reading 'Clarissa' or 'Eugénie Grandet' we are aware that the soul +of Richardson or Balzac has transmigrated into another shape; that the +author is projected into his character, and is really giving us one +phase of his own sentiments. In reading Fielding we are listening to +remarks made by a spectator instead of an actor; we are receiving the +pithy recollections of the man about town; the prodigal who has been +with scamps in gambling-houses, and drunk beer in pothouses and punch +with country squires; the keen observer who has judged all characters, +from Sir Robert Walpole down to Betsy Canning;[10] who has fought the +hard battle of life with unflagging spirit, though with many falls; +and who, in spite of serious stains, has preserved the goodness of his +heart and the soundness of his head. The experience is generally given +in the shape of typical anecdotes rather than in explicit maxims; but +it is not the less distinctly the concentrated essence of observation, +rather than the spontaneous play of a vivid imagination. Like Balzac, +Fielding has portrayed the 'Comédie Humaine;' but his imagination has +never overpowered the coolness of his judgment. He shows a superiority +to his successor in fidelity almost as marked as his inferiority in +vividness. And, therefore, it may be said in passing, it is refreshing +to read Fielding at a time when this element of masculine observation +is the one thing most clearly wanting in modern literature. Our novels +give us the emotions of young ladies, which, in their way, are very +good things; they reflect the sentimental view of life, and the +sensational view, and the commonplace view, and the high philosophical +view. One thing they do not tell us. What does the world look like to +a shrewd police-magistrate, with a keen eye in his head and a sound +heart in his bosom? It might be worth knowing. Perhaps (who can tell?) +it would still look rather like Fielding's world. + +The peculiarity is indicated by Fielding's method. Scott, who, like +Fielding, generally describes from the outside, is content to keep +himself in the background. 'Here,' he says to his readers, 'are the +facts; make what you can of them.' Fielding will not efface himself; he +is always present as chorus; he tells us what moral we ought to draw; he +overflows with shrewd remarks, given in their most downright shape, +instead of obliquely suggested through the medium of anecdotes; he likes +to stop us as we pass through his portrait gallery; to take us by the +button-hole and expound his views of life and his criticisms on things +in general. His remarks are often so admirable that we prefer the +interpolations to the main current of narrative. Whether this plan is +the best must depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the author; but it goes +some way to explain one problem, over which Scott puzzles +himself--namely, why Fielding's plays are so inferior to his novels. +There are other reasons, external and internal; but it is at least clear +that a man who can never retire behind his puppets is not in the +dramatic frame of mind. He is always lecturing where a dramatist must be +content to pull the wires. Shakespeare is really as much present in his +plays as Fielding in his novels; but he does not let us know it; whereas +the excellent Fielding seems to be quite incapable of hiding his broad +shoulders and lofty stature behind his little puppet-show. + +There are, of course, actors in Fielding's world who can be trusted to +speak for themselves. Tom Jones, at any rate, who is Fielding in his +youth, or Captain Booth, who is the Fielding of later years, are drawn +from within. Their creator's sympathy is so close and spontaneous that +he has no need of his formulć and precedents. But elsewhere he betrays +his method by his desire to produce his authority. You will find the +explanation of a certain line of conduct, he says, in 'human nature, +page almost the last.' He is a little too fond of taking down that +volume with a flourish; of exhibiting his familiarity with its pages, +and referring to the passages which justify his assertions. Fielding has +an odd touch of the pedant. He is fond of airing his classical +knowledge; and he is equally fond of quoting this imaginary code which +he has had to study so thoroughly and painfully. The effect, however, is +to give an air of artificiality to some of his minor characters. They +show the traces of deliberate composition too distinctly, though the +blemish may be forgiven in consideration of the genuine force and +freshness of his thinking. If manufactured articles, they are not +second-hand manufactures. His knowledge, unlike that of the good Parson +Adams, comes from life, not books. + +The worldly wisdom for which Fielding is so conspicuous had indeed been +gathered in doubtful places, and shows traces of its origin. He had been +forced, as he said, to choose between the positions of a hackney +coachman and of a hackney writer. 'His genius,' said Lady M. W. Montagu, +who records the saying, 'deserves a better fate.' Whether it would have +been equally fertile, if favoured by more propitious surroundings, is +one of those fruitless questions which belong to the boundless history +of the might-have-beens. But one fact requires to be emphasised. +Fielding's critics and biographers have dwelt far too exclusively upon +the uglier side of his Bohemian life. They have presented him as +yielding to all the temptations which can mislead keen powers of +enjoyment, when the purse is one day at the lowest ebb and the next +overflowing with the profits of some lucky hit at the theatre. Those +unfortunate yellow liveries which contributed to dissipate his little +fortune have scandalised posterity as they scandalised his country +neighbours.[11] But it is essential to remember that the history of the +Fielding of later years, of the Fielding to whom we owe the novels, is +the record of a manful and persistent struggle to escape from the mire +of Grub Street. During that period he was studying the law with the +energy of a young student; redeeming the office of magistrate from the +discredit into which it had fallen in the hands of fee-hunting +predecessors; considering seriously, and making practical proposals to +remedy, the evils which then made the lowest social strata a hell upon +earth; sacrificing his last chances of health and life to put down with +a strong hand the robbers who infested the streets of London; and +clinging with affection to his wife and children. He never got fairly +clear of that lamentable slough of despond into which his follies had +plunged him. His moral tone lost what delicacy it had once possessed; he +had not the strength which enabled Johnson to gain elevation even from +the temptations which then beset the unlucky 'author by profession.' +Some literary hacks of the day escaped only by selling themselves, body +and soul; others sank into misery and vice, like poor Boyce, a fragment +of whose poem has been preserved by Fielding, and who appears in +literary history scribbling for pay in a sack arranged to represent a +shirt. Fielding never let go his hold of the firm land, though he must +have felt through life like one whose feet are always plunging into a +hopeless quagmire. To describe him as a mere reckless Bohemian, is to +overlook the main facts of his story. He was manly to the last, not in +the sense in which man means animal; but with the manliness of one who +struggles bravely to redeem early errors, and who knows the value of +independence, purity, and domestic affection. The scanty anecdotes which +do duty for his biography reveal little of his true life. We know, +indeed, from a spiteful and obviously exaggerated story of Horace +Walpole's, that he once had a very poor supper in doubtful company; and +from another anecdote, of slightly apocryphal flavour, that he once gave +to 'friendship' the money which ought to have been given to the +collector of rates. But really to know the man, we must go to his books. + +What did Fielding learn of the world which had treated him so roughly? +That the world must be composed of fools because it did not bow before +his genius, or of knaves because it did not reward his honesty? Men of +equal ability have drawn both those and the contradictory conclusions +from experience. Human nature, as philosophers assure us, varies little +from age to age; but the pictures drawn by the best observers vary so +strangely as to convince us that a portrait depends as much upon the +artist as upon the sitter. One can see nothing but the baser, and +another nothing but the nobler, passions. To one the world is like a +masque representing the triumph of vice; and another placidly assures us +that virtue is always rewarded by peace of mind, and that even the +temporary prosperity of the wicked is an illusion. On one canvas we see +a few great heroes stand out from a multitude of pygmies; on its rival, +giants and dwarfs appear to have pretty much the same stature. The world +is a scene of unrestrained passions impelling their puppets into +collision or alliance without intelligible design; or a scene of +domestic order, where an occasional catastrophe interferes as little +with ordinary lives as a comet with the solar system. Blind fate governs +one world of the imagination, and beneficent Providence another. The +theories embodied in poetry vary as widely as the philosophies on which +they are founded; and to philosophise is to declare the fundamental +assumptions of half the wise men of the world to be transparent +fallacies. + +We need not here attempt to reconcile these apparent contradictions. As +little need we attempt to settle Fielding's philosophy, for it resembles +the snakes in Iceland. It seems to have been his opinion that philosophy +is, as a rule, a fine word for humbug. That was a common conviction of +his day; but his acceptance of it doubtless indicates the limits of his +power. In his pages we have the shrewdest observation of man in his +domestic relations; but we scarcely come into contact with man as he +appears in presence of the infinite, and therefore with the deepest +thoughts and loftiest imaginings of the great poets and philosophers. +Fielding remains inflexibly in the regions of common-sense and everyday +experience. But he has given an emphatic opinion of that part of the +world which was visible to him, and it is one worth knowing. In a +remarkable conversation, reported in Boswell, Burke and Johnson, two of +the greatest of Fielding's contemporaries, seem to have agreed that they +had found men less just and more generous than they could have imagined. +People begin by judging the world from themselves, and it is therefore +natural that two men of great intellectual power should have expected +from their fellows a more than average adherence to settled principles. +Thus Johnson and Burke discovered that reason, upon which justice +depends, has less influence than a young reasoner is apt to fancy. On +the other hand, they discovered that the blind instincts by which the +mass is necessarily guided are not so bad as they are represented by the +cynics. The Rochefoucauld or Mandeville who passes off his smart +sayings upon the public as serious, knows better than anybody that a man +must be a fool to take them literally. The wisdom which he affects is +very easily learnt, and is more often the product of the premature +sagacity dear to youth than of a ripened judgment. Good-hearted men, at +least, like Johnson and Burke, shake off cynicism whilst others are +acquiring it. + +Fielding's verdict seems to differ at first sight. He undoubtedly lays +great stress upon the selfishness of mankind. He seldom admits of an +apparently generous action without showing its alloy of selfish motive, +and sometimes showing that it is a mere cloak for selfish motives. In a +characteristic passage of his 'Voyage to Lisbon' he applies his theory +to his own case. When the captain falls on his knees, he will not suffer +a brave man and an old man to remain for a moment in that posture, but +forgives him at once. He hastens, however, utterly to disclaim all +praise, on the ground that his true motive was simply the convenience of +forgiveness. 'If men were wiser,' he adds, 'they would be oftener +influenced by that motive.' This kind of inverted hypocrisy, which may +be graceful in a man's own case (for nobody will doubt that Fielding was +less guided by calculation than he asserts), is not so graceful when +applied to his neighbours. And perhaps some readers may hold that +Fielding pitches the average strain of human motive too low. I should +rather surmise that he substantially agrees with Johnson and Burke. The +fact that most men attend a good deal to their own interests is one of +the primary data of life. It is a thing at which we have no more right +to be astonished than at the fact that even saints and martyrs have to +eat and drink like other persons, or that a sound digestion is the +foundation of much moral excellence. It is one of those facts which +people of a romantic turn of mind may choose to overlook, but which no +honest observer of life can seriously deny. Our conduct is determined +through some thirty points of the compass by our own interest; and, +happily, through at least nine-and-twenty of those points is rightfully +so determined. Each man is forced, by an unavoidable necessity, to look +after his own and his children's bread and butter, and to spend most of +his efforts on that innocent end. So long as he does not pursue his +interests wrongfully, nor remain dead to other calls when they happen, +there is little cause for complaint, and certainly there is none for +surprise. + +Fielding recognises, but never exaggerates, this homely truth. He has a +hearty and generous belief in the reality of good impulses, and the +existence of thoroughly unselfish men. The main actors in his world are +not, as in Balzac's, mere hideous incarnations of selfishness. The +superior sanity of his mind keeps him from nightmares, if its calmness +is unfavourable to lofty visions. With Balzac, women like Lady Bellaston +become the rule instead of the exception, and their evil passions are +the dominant forces in society. Fielding, though he recognises their +existence, tells us plainly that they are exceptional. Society, he says, +is as moral as ever it was, and given more to frivolity than to +vice[12]--a statement judiciously overlooked by some of the critics who +want to make graphic history out of his novels. Fielding's mind had +gathered coarseness, but it had not been poisoned. He sees how many ugly +things are covered by the superficial gloss of fashion, but he does not +condescend to travesty the facts in order to gratify a morbid taste for +the horrible. When he wants a good man or woman he knows where to find +them, and paints from Allen or his own wife with obvious sincerity and +hearty sympathy. He is less anxious to exhibit human selfishness than to +show us that an alloy of generosity is to be found even amidst base +motives. Some of his happiest touches are illustrations of this +doctrine. His villains (with a significant exception) are never +monsters. They have some touch of human emotion. No desert, according to +him, is so bare but that some sweet spring blends with its brackish +waters. His grasping landladies have genuine movements of sympathy; and +even the scoundrelly Black George, the game-keeper, is anxious to do Tom +Jones a good turn, without risk, of course, to his own comfort, by way +of compensation for previous injuries. It is this impartial insight into +the ordinary texture of human motive that gives a certain solidity and +veracity to Fielding's work. We are always made to feel that the actions +spring fairly and naturally from the character of his persons, not from +the exigencies of his story or the desire to be effective. The one great +difficulty in 'Tom Jones' is the assumption that the excellent Allworthy +should have been deceived for years by the hypocrite Blifil, and blind +to the substantial kindliness of his ward. Here we may fancy that +Fielding has been forced to be unnatural by his plot. Yet he suggests a +satisfactory solution with admirable skill. Allworthy is prejudiced in +favour of Blifil by the apparently unjust prejudice of Blifil's mother +in favour of the jovial Tom. A generous man may easily become blind to +the faults of a supposed victim of maternal injustice; and even here +Fielding fairly escapes from the blame due to ordinary novelists, who +invent impossible misunderstandings in order to bring about intricate +perplexities. + +Blifil is perhaps the one case (for 'Jonathan Wild' is a satire, not a +history, or, as M. Taine fancies, a tract) in which Fielding seems to +lose his unvarying coolness of judgment; and the explanation is obvious. +The one fault to which he is, so to speak, unjust, is hypocrisy. +Hypocrisy, indeed, cannot well be painted too black, but it should not +be made impossible. When Fielding has to deal with such a character, he +for once loses his self-command, and, like inferior writers, begins to +be angry with his creatures. Instead of analysing and explaining, he +simply reviles and leaves us in presence of a moral anomaly. Blifil is +not more wicked than Iago, but we seem to understand the psychical +chemistry by which an Iago is compounded; whereas Blifil can only be +regarded as a devil (if the word be not too dignified) who does not +really belong to this world at all. The error, though characteristic of +a man whose great intellectual merit is his firm grasp of realities, and +whose favourite virtue is his downright sincerity, is not the less a +blemish. Hatred of pedantry too easily leads to hatred of culture, and +hatred of hypocrisy to distrust of the more exalted virtues. Fielding +cannot be just to motives lying rather outside his ordinary sphere of +thought. He can mock heartily and pleasantly enough at the affectation +of philosophy, as in the case where Parson Adams, urging poor Joseph +Andrews, by considerations drawn from the Bible and from Seneca, to be +ready to resign his Fanny 'peaceably, quietly, and contentedly,' +suddenly hears of the supposed loss of his own little child, and is +called upon to act instead of preaching. But his satire upon all +characters and creeds which embody the more exalted strains of feeling +is apt to be indiscriminate. A High Churchman, according to him, is a +Pharisee who prefers orthodoxy to virtue; a Methodist a mere +mountebank, who counterfeits spiritual raptures to impose upon dupes; a +Freethinker is a man who weaves a mask of fine phrases, under which to +cover his aversion to the restraints of religion. Fielding's religion +consists chiefly of a solid homespun morality, and he is more suspicious +of an excessive than of a defective zeal. Similarly he is a hearty Whig, +but no revolutionist. He has as hearty a contempt for the cant about +liberty[13] as Dr. Johnson himself, and has very stringent remedies to +propose for regulating the mob. The bailiff in 'Amelia,' who, whilst he +brutally maltreats the unlucky prisoners for debt, swaggers about the +British Constitution, and swears that he is 'all for liberty,' recalls +the boatman who ridiculed French slavery to Voltaire, and was carried +off next day by a pressgang. Fielding, indeed, is no fanatical adherent +of our blessed Constitution, which, as he says, has been pronounced by +some of our wisest men to be too perfect to be altered in any +particular, and which a number of the said wisest men have been mending +ever since. He hates cant on all sides impartially, though, as a sound +Whig, he specially hates Papists and Jacobites as the most offensive of +all Pharisees, marked for detestation by their taste for frogs and +French wine in preference to punch and roast beef. He is a patriotic +Briton, whose patriotism takes the genuine shape of a hearty growl at +English abuses, with a tacit assumption that things are worse elsewhere. + +The reflection of this quality of solid good sense, absolutely scorning +any ailment except that of solid facts, is the so-called realism of +Fielding's novels. He is, indeed, as hearty a realist as Hogarth, whose +congenial art he is never tired of praising with all the cordiality of +his nature, and to whom he refers his readers for portraits of several +characters in 'Tom Jones.' His scenery is as realistic as a photograph. +Tavern kitchens, spunging-house parlours, the back-slums of London +streets, are drawn from the realities with unflinching vigour. We see +the stains of beer-pots and smell the fumes of stale tobacco as +distinctly as in Hogarth's engravings. He shrinks neither from the +coarse nor the absolutely disgusting. It is enough to recall the female +boxing or scratching matches which are so frequent in his pages. On one +such occasion his language seems to imply that he had watched such +battles in the spirit of a connoisseur in our own day watching less +inexpressibly disgusting prize-fights. Certainly we could wish that, if +such scenes were to be depicted, there might have been a clearer proof +that the artist had a nose and eyes capable of feeling offence. + +But the nickname 'realist' slides easily into another sense. The realist +is sometimes supposed to be more shallow as well as more prosaic than +the idealist; to be content with the outside where the idealist pierces +to the heart. He gives the bare fact, where his rival gives the idea +symbolised by the fact, and therefore rendering it attractive to the +higher intellect. Fielding's view of his own art is instructive in this +as in other matters. Poetic invention, he says, is generally taken to be +a creative faculty; and if so, it is the peculiar property of the +romance-writers, who frankly take leave of the actual and possible. +Fielding disavows all claim to this faculty; he writes histories, not +romances. But, in his sense, poetic invention means, not creation, but +'discovery;' that is, 'a quick, sagacious penetration into the true +essence of all objects of our contemplation.' Perhaps we may say that it +is chiefly a question of method whether a writer should portray men or +angels--the beings, that is, of everyday life--or beings placed under a +totally different set of circumstances. The more vital question is +whether, by one method or the other, he shows us a man's heart or only +his clothes; whether he appeals to our intellects or imaginations, or +amuses us by images which do not sink below the eye. In scientific +writings a man may give us the true law of a phenomenon, whether he +exemplifies it in extreme or average cases, in the orbit of a comet or +the fall of an apple. The romance-writer should show us what real men +would be in dreamland, the writer of 'histories' what they are on the +knifeboard of an omnibus. True insight may be shown in either case, or +may be absent in either, according as the artist deals with the deepest +organic laws or the more external accidents. The 'Ancient Mariner' is an +embodiment of certain simple emotional phases and moral laws amidst the +phantasmagoric incidents of a dream, and De Foe does not interpret them +better because he confines himself to the most prosaic incidents. When +romance becomes really arbitrary, and is parted from all basis of +observation, it loses its true interest and deserves Fielding's +condemnation. Fielding conscientiously aims at discharging the highest +function. He describes, as he says in 'Joseph Andrews,' 'not men, but +manners; not an individual, but a species.' His lawyer, he tells us, has +been alive for the last four thousand years, and will probably survive +four thousand more. Mrs. Tow-wouse lives wherever turbulent temper, +avarice, and insensibility are united; and her sneaking husband wherever +a good inclination has glimmered forth, eclipsed by poverty of spirit +and understanding. But the type which shows best the force and the +limits of Fielding's genius is Parson Adams. He belongs to a +distinguished family, whose members have been portrayed by the greatest +historians. He is a collateral descendant of Don Quixote, for whose +creation Fielding felt a reverence exceeded only by his reverence for +Shakespeare.[14] The resemblance is, of course, distant, and consists +chiefly in this, that the parson, like the knight, lives in an ideal +world, and is constantly shocked by harsh collision with facts. He +believes in his sermons instead of his sword, and his imagination is +tenanted by virtuous squires and model parsons instead of Arcadian +shepherds, or knight-errants and fair ladies. His imagination is not +exalted beyond the limits of sanity, but only colours the prosaic +realities in accordance with the impulses of a tranquil benevolence. If +the theme be fundamentally similar, it is treated with a far less daring +hand. + +Adams is much more closely related to Sir Roger de Coverley, the Vicar +of Wakefield, or Uncle Toby. Each of these lovable beings invites us at +once to sympathise with and to smile at the unaffected simplicity which, +seeing no evil, becomes half ludicrous and half pathetic in this corrupt +world. Adams stands out from his brethren by his intense reality. If he +smells too distinctly of beer and tobacco, we believe in him more firmly +than in the less full-blooded creations of Sterne and Goldsmith. Parson +Adams, indeed, has a startling vigour of organisation. Not merely the +hero of a modern ritualist novel, but Amyas Leigh or Guy Livingstone +himself, might have been amazed at his athletic prowess. He stalks ahead +of the stage-coach (favoured doubtless by the bad roads of the period) +as though he had accepted the modern principle about fearing God and +walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours. His mutton fist and the +crabtree cudgel which swings so freely round his clerical head would +have daunted the contemporary gladiators, Slack and Broughton. He shows +his Christian humility not merely by familiarity with his poorest +parishioners, but in sitting up whole nights in tavern kitchens, +drinking unlimited beer, smoking inextinguishable pipes, and revelling +in a ceaseless flow of gossip. We smile at the good man's intense +delight in a love-story, at the simplicity which makes him see a good +Samaritan in Parson Trulliber, at the absence of mind which makes him +pitch his Ćschylus into the fire, or walk a dozen miles in profound +oblivion of the animal which should have been between his knees; but his +contemporaries were provoked to a horse-laugh, and when we remark the +tremendous practical jokes which his innocence suggests to them, we +admit that he requires his whole athletic vigour to bring so tender a +heart safely through so rough a world. + +If the ideal hero is always to live in fancy-land and talk in blank +verse, Adams has clearly no right to the title; nor, indeed, has Don +Quixote. But the masculine portraiture of the coarse realities is not +only indicative of intellectual vigour, but artistically appropriate. +The contrast between the world and its simple-minded inhabitant is the +more forcible in proportion to the firmness and solidity of Fielding's +touch. Uncle Toby proves that Sterne had preserved enough tenderness to +make an exquisite plaything of his emotions. The Vicar of Wakefield +proves that Goldsmith had preserved a childlike innocence of +imagination, and could retire from duns and publishers to an idyllic +world of his own. Joseph Andrews proves that Fielding was neither a +child nor a sentimentalist, but that he had learnt to face facts as they +are, and set a true value on the best elements of human life. In the +midst of vanity and vexation of spirit he could find some comfort in +pure and strong domestic affection. He can indulge his feelings without +introducing the false note of sentimentalism, or condescending to tone +his pictures with rose-colour. He wants no illusions. The exemplary Dr. +Harrison in 'Amelia' held no action unworthy of him which could protect +an innocent person or 'bring a rogue to the gallows.' Good Parson Adams +could lay his cudgel on the back of a villain with hearty goodwill. He +believes too easily in human goodness, but there is not a maudlin fibre +in his whole body. He would not be the man to cry over a dead donkey +whilst children are in want of bread. He would be slower than the +excellent Dr. Primrose to believe in the reformation of a villain by +fine phrases, and if he fell into such a weakness, his biographer would +not, like Goldsmith, be inclined to sanction the error. A villain is +induced to reform, indeed, by the sight of Amelia's excellence, but +Fielding is careful to tell us that the change was illusory, and that +the villain ended on a gallows. We are made sensible that if Adams had +his fancies they were foibles, and therefore sources of misfortune. We +are to admire the childlike character, but not to share its illusions. +The world is not made of moonshine. Hypocrisy, cruelty, avarice, and +lust have to be stamped out by hard blows, not cured by delicate +infusion of graceful sentimentalisms. + +So far Fielding's portrait of an ideal character is all the better for +his masculine grasp of fact. It must, however, be admitted that he fails +a little on the other side of the contrast. He believes in a good heart, +but scarcely in very lofty motive. He tells us in 'Tom Jones'[15] that +he has painted no perfect character, because he never happened to meet +one. His stories, like 'Vanity Fair,' may be described as novels without +a hero. It is not merely that his characters are imperfect, but that +they are deficient in the finer ingredients which go to make up the +nearest approximations of our imperfect natures to heroism. Colonel +Newcome was not perhaps so good a man as Parson Adams, but he had a +certain delicacy of sentiment which led him, as we may remember, to be +rather hard upon Tom Jones, and which Fielding (as may be gathered from +Bath in 'Amelia') would have been inclined to ridicule. Parson Adams is +simple enough to become a laughing-stock to the brutal, but he never +consciously rebels against the dictates of the plainest common-sense. +His theology comes from Tillotson and Hoadly; he has no eye for the +romantic side of his creed, and would be apt to condemn a mystic as +simply a fool. His loftiest aspiration is not to reform the world or any +part of it, but to get a modest bit of preferment (he actually receives +it, we are happy to think, in 'Amelia'), enough to pay for his tobacco +and his children's schooling. Fielding's dislike to the romantic makes +him rather blind to the elevated. He will not only start from the +actual, but does not conceive the possibility of an infusion of loftier +principles. The existing standard of sound sense prescribes an +impassable limit to his imagination. Parson Adams is an admirable +incarnation of certain excellent and honest impulses. He sets forth the +wisdom of the heart and the beauty of the simple instincts of an +affectionate nature. But we are forced to admit that he is not the +highest type conceivable, and might, for example, learn something from +his less robust colleague Dr. Primrose. + +This remark suggests the common criticism, expounded with his usual +brilliancy by M. Taine. Fielding, he tells us, loves nature, but he does +not love it 'like the great impartial artists, Shakespeare and Goethe.' +He moralises incessantly--which is wrong. Moreover, his morality appears +to be very questionable. It consists in preferring instinct to reason. +The hero is the man who is born generous as a dog is born affectionate. +And this, says M. Taine, might be all very well were it not for a great +omission. Fielding has painted nature, but nature without refinement, +poetry and chivalry. He can only describe the impetuosity of the senses, +not the nervous exaltation and the poetic rapture. Man is with him 'a +good buffalo; and perhaps he is the hero required by a people which is +itself called John Bull.' In all which there is an undoubted vein of +truth. Fielding's want of refinement, for example, is one of those +undeniable facts which must be taken for granted. But, without seeking +to set right some other statements implied in M. Taine's judgment, it is +worth while to consider a little more fully the moral aspect of +Fielding's work. Much has been said upon this point by some who, with M. +Taine, take Fielding for a mere 'buffalo,' and by others who, like +Coleridge--a safer and more sympathetic critic--hold 'Tom Jones' to be, +on the whole, a sound exposition of healthy morality. + +Fielding, on the 'buffalo' view, is supposed to be simply taking one +side in one of those perpetual controversies which has occupied many +generations and never approaches a settlement. He prefers nature to law, +instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against +Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee +without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and +despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such +a doctrine--so absolutely stated--is rather a negation of all morality +than a lax morality. If it implies a love of generous instincts, it +denies that a man should have any regard for moral rules, which are +needed precisely in order to control our spontaneous instincts. Virtue +is amiable, but ceases to be meritorious. Nothing would be easier than +to quote passages in which Fielding expressly repudiates such a theory; +but, of course, a writer's morality must be judged by the conceptions +embodied in his work, not by the maxims scattered through it. Nor, for +the same reason, can we pay much attention to Fielding's express +assertion that he is writing in the interests of virtue; for Smollett, +and less scrupulous writers than Smollett, have found their account in +similar protestations. Yet anybody, I think, who will compare 'Joseph +Andrews' with that intentionally most moral work, 'Pamela,' will admit +that Fielding's morality goes deeper than this. Fielding at least makes +us love virtue, and is incapable of the solecism which Richardson +commits in substantially preaching that virtue means standing out for a +higher price. That Fielding's reckless heroes have a genuine sensibility +to the claims of virtue, appears still more unmistakably when we compare +them with the heartless fine gentlemen of the Congreve school and of his +own early plays, or put the faulty Captain Booth beside such an +unredeemed scamp as Peregrine Pickle. + +It is clear, in short, that the aim of Fielding (whether he succeeds or +not) is the very reverse of that attributed to him by M. Taine. 'Tom +Jones' and 'Amelia' have, ostensibly at least, a most emphatic moral +attached to them; and not only attached to them, but borne in mind and +even too elaborately preached throughout. That moral is the one which +Fielding had learnt in the school of his own experience. It is the moral +that dissipation bears fruit in misery. The remorse, it is true, which +was generated in Fielding and in his heroes was not the remorse which +drives a man to a cloister, or which even seriously poisons his +happiness. The offences against morality are condoned too easily, and +the line between vice and virtue drawn in accordance with certain +distinctions which even Parson Adams could scarcely have approved. Vice, +he seems to say, is altogether objectionable only when complicated by +cruelty or hypocrisy. But if Fielding's moral sense is not very +delicate, it is vigorous. He hates most heartily what he sees to be +wrong, though his sight might easily be improved in delicacy of +discrimination. The truth is simply that Fielding accepted that moral +code which the better men of the world in his time really acknowledged, +as distinguished from that by which they affected to be bound. That so +wide a distinction should generally exist between these codes is a +matter for deep regret. That Fielding in his hatred for humbug should +have condemned purity as puritanical is clearly lamentable. The +confusion, however, was part of the man, and, as already noticed, shows +itself in one shape or other throughout his work. But it would be unjust +to condemn him upon that ground as antagonistic or indifferent to +reasonable morality. His morality is at the superior antipodes from the +cynicism of a Wycherley; and far superior to the prurient sentimentalism +of Sterne or the hot-pressed priggishness of Richardson, or even the +reckless Bohemianism of Smollett. + +There is a deeper question, however, beneath this discussion. The +morality of those 'great impartial artists' of whom M. Taine speaks +differs from Fielding's in a more serious sense. The highest morality of +a great work of art depends upon the power with which the essential +beauty and ugliness of virtue and vice are exhibited by an impartial +observer. The morality, for example, of Goethe and Shakespeare appears +in the presentation of such characters as Iago and Mephistopheles. The +insight of true genius shows us by such examples what is the true +physiology of vice; what is the nature of the man who has lost all faith +in virtue and all sympathy with purity and nobility of character. The +artist of inferior rank tries to make us hate vice by showing that it +comes to a bad end precisely because he has an adequate perception of +its true nature. He can see that a drunkard generally gets into debt or +incurs an attack of _delirium tremens_, but he does not exhibit the +moral disintegration which is the underlying cause of the misfortune, +and which may be equally fatal, even if it happens to evade the penalty. +The distinction depends upon the power of the artist to fulfil +Fielding's requirement of penetrating to the essence of the objects of +his contemplation. It corresponds to the distinction in philosophy +between a merely prudential system of ethics--the system of the gallows +and the gaol--and the system which recognises the deeper issues +perceptible to a fine moral sense. + +Now, in certain matters, Fielding's morality is of the merely prudential +kind. It resembles Hogarth's simple doctrine that the good apprentice +will be Lord Mayor and the bad apprentice get into Newgate. So shrewd an +observer was indeed well aware, and could say very forcibly,[16] that +virtue in this world might sometimes lead to poverty, contempt, and +imprisonment. He does not, like some novelists, assume the character of +a temporal Providence, and knock his evildoers on the head at the end of +the story. He shows very forcibly that the difficulties which beset poor +Jones and Booth are not to be fairly called accidents, but are the +difficulties to which bad conduct generally leads a man, and which are +all the harder when not counterbalanced by a clear conscience. He can +even describe with sympathy such a character as poor Atkinson in +'Amelia,' whose unselfish love brings him more blows than favours of +fortune. But it is true that he is a good deal more sensible to what are +called the prudential sanctions of virtue, at least of a certain +category of virtues, than to its essential beauty. So far the want of +refinement of which M. Taine speaks does, in fact, lower, and lower very +materially, his moral perception. A man of true delicacy could never +have dragged Tom Jones into his lowest degradation without showing more +forcibly his abhorrence of his loose conduct. This is, as Colonel +Newcome properly points out, the great and obvious blot upon the story, +which no critics have missed, and we cannot even follow the leniency of +Coleridge, who thinks that a single passage introduced to express +Fielding's real judgment would have remedied the mischief. It is too +obvious to be denied without sophistry that Tom, though he has many good +feelings, and can preach very edifying sermons to his less scrupulous +friend Nightingale, requires to be cast in a different mould. His whole +character should have been strung to a higher pitch to make us feel that +such degradation would not merely have required punishment to restore +his self-complacency, but have left a craving for some thorough moral +ablution. + +Granting unreservedly all that may be urged upon this point, we may +still agree with the judgment pronounced by the most congenial critics. +Fielding's pages reek too strongly of tobacco; they are apt to turn +delicate stomachs; but the atmosphere is, on the whole, healthy and +bracing. No man can read them without prejudice and fail to recognise +the fact that he has been in contact with something much higher than a +'good buffalo.' He has learnt to know a man, not merely full of animal +vigour, not merely stored with various experience of men and manners, +but also in the main sound and unpoisoned by the mephitic vapours which +poisoned the atmosphere of his police-office. If the scorn of hypocrisy +is too fully emphasised, and the sensitiveness to ugly and revolting +objects too much deadened by a rough life, yet nobody could be more +heartily convinced of the beauty and value of those solid domestic +instincts on which human happiness must chiefly depend. Put Fielding +beside the modern would-be satirists who make society--especially French +society[17]--a mere sink of nastiness, or beside the more virtuous +persons whose favourite affectation is simplicity, and who labour most +spasmodically to be masculine, and his native vigour, his massive +common-sense, his wholesome views of men and manners, stand out in solid +relief. Certainly he was limited in perception, and not so elevated in +tone as might be desired; but he is a fitting representative of the +stalwart vigour and the intellectual shrewdness evident in the best men +of his time. The English domestic life of the period was certainly far +from blameless, and anything but refined; but if we have gained in some +ways, we are hardly entitled to look with unqualified disdain upon the +rough vigour of our beer-drinking, beef-eating ancestors. + +We have felt, indeed, the limitations of Fielding's art more clearly +since English fiction found a new starting-point in Scott. Scott made us +sensible of many sources of interest to which Fielding was naturally +blind. He showed us especially that a human being belonged to a society +going through a long course of historical development, and renewed the +bonds with the past which had been rudely snapped in Fielding's period. +Fielding only deals, it may be roughly said, with men as members of a +little family circle, whereas Scott shows them as members of a nation +rich in old historical traditions, related to the past and the future, +and to the external nature in which it has been developed. A wider set +of forces is introduced into our conception of humanity, and the +romantic element, which Fielding ignored, comes again to life. Scott, +too, was a greater man than Fielding, of wider sympathy, loftier +character, and, not the least, with an incomparably keener ear for the +voices of the mountains, the sea, and the sky. The more Scott is +studied, the higher, I believe, the opinion that we shall form of some +of his powers. But in one respect Fielding is his superior. It is a kind +of misnomer which classifies all Scott's books as novels. They are +embodied legends and traditions, descriptions of men, and races, and +epochs of history; but many of them are novels, as it were, by accident, +and modern readers are often disappointed because the name suggests +misleading associations. They expect to sympathise with Scott's heroes, +whereas the heroes are generally dropped in from without, just to give +ostensible continuity to the narrative. The apparent accessories are +really the main substance. The Jacobites and not Waverley, the +Borderers, not Mr. Van Beest Brown, the Covenanters, not Morton or Lord +Evandale, are the real subject of Scott's best romances. Now Fielding is +really a novelist in the more natural sense. We are interested, that is, +by the main characters, though they are not always the most attractive +in themselves. We are really absorbed by the play of their passions and +the conflict of their motives, and not merely taking advantage of the +company to see the surrounding scenery or phases of social life. In this +sense Fielding's art is admirable, and surpassed that of all his English +predecessors as of most of his successors. If the light is concentrated +in a narrow focus, it is still healthy daylight. So long as we do not +wish to leave his circle of ideas, we see little fault in the vigour +with which he fulfils his intention. And therefore, whatever Fielding's +other faults, he is beyond comparison the most faithful and profound +mouthpiece of the passions and failings of a society which seems at once +strangely remote and yet strangely near to us. When seeking to solve +that curious problem which is discussed in one of Hazlitt's best +essays--what characters one would most like to have met?--and running +over the various claims of a meeting at the Mermaid with Shakespeare and +Jonson, a 'neat repast of Attic taste' with Milton, a gossip at Button's +with Addison and Steele, a club-dinner with Johnson and Burke, a supper +with Lamb, or (certainly the least attractive) an evening at Holland +House, I sometimes fancy that, after all, few things would be pleasanter +than a pipe and a bowl of punch with Fielding and Hogarth. It is true +that for such a purpose I provide myself in imagination with a new set +of sturdy nerves, and with a digestion such as that which was once equal +to the horrors of an undergraduates' 'wine party.' But, having made that +trifling assumption, I fancy that there would be few places where one +would hear more good motherwit, shrewder judgments of men and things, or +a sounder appreciation of those homely elements of which human life is +in fact chiefly composed. Common-sense in the highest degree--whether we +choose to identify it or contrast it with genius--is at least one of the +most enduring and valuable of qualities in literature as everywhere +else; and Fielding is one of its best representatives. But perhaps one +is unduly biassed by the charm of a complete escape in imagination from +the thousand and one affectations which have grown up since Fielding +died and we have all become so much wiser and more learned than all +previous generations. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Richardson wrote the first part of 'Pamela' between November 10, +1739, and January 10, 1740. 'Joseph Andrews' appeared in 1742. The first +four volumes of 'Clarissa Harlowe' and 'Roderick Random' appeared in the +beginning of 1748; 'Tom Jones' in 1749. + +[8] See some appreciative remarks upon this in Scott's preface to the +_Monastery_. + +[9] It is rather curious that Richardson uses the same comparison to +Miss Fielding. He assures her that her brother only knew the outside of +a clock, whilst she knew all the finer springs and movements of its +inside. See _Richardson's Correspondence_, ii. 105. + +[10] Fielding blundered rather strangely in the celebrated Betsy Canning +case, as Balzac did in the 'Affaire Peytel'; but the story is too long +for repetition in this place. The trials of Miss Canning and her +supposed kidnappers are amongst the most amusing in the great collection +of State Trials. See vol. xix. of the 8vo edition. Fielding's defence of +his own conduct in the matter is reprinted in his 'Miscellanies and +Poems,' being the supplementary volume of the last collected edition of +his works. + +[11] They were really the property not of Fielding but of the once +famous '_beau_ Fielding.' See _Dictionary of National Biography_. + +[12] See _Tom Jones_, book xiv. chap. i. + +[13] See _Voyage to Lisbon_ (July 21) for some very good remarks upon +this word, which, as he says, no two men understand in the same sense. + +[14] In his interesting Life of Godwin, Mr. Paul claims for his hero (I +dare say rightly) that he was the first English writer to give a +'lengthy and appreciative notice' of 'Don Quixote.' But when he infers +that Godwin was also the first English writer who recognised in +Cervantes a great humourist, satirist, moralist, and artist, he seems to +me to overlook Fielding and others. So Warton in his essay on 'Pope' +calls 'Don Quixote' the 'most original and unrivalled work of modern +times.' The book must have been popular in England from its publication, +as we know from the preface to Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the +Burning Castle'; and numerous translations and imitations show that +Cervantes was always enjoyed, if not criticised. Fielding's frequent +references to 'Don Quixote' (to say nothing of his play, 'Don Quixote in +England') imply an admiration fully as warm as that of Godwin. 'Don +Quixote,' says Fielding, is more worthy the name of history than +Mariana, and he always speaks of Cervantes in the tone of an +affectionate disciple. Fielding, I will add, seems to me to have admired +Shakespeare more heartily and intelligently than ninety-nine out of a +hundred modern supporters of Shakespeare societies; though these +gentlemen are never happier than when depreciating English +eighteenth-century critics to exalt vapid German philosophising. +Fielding's favourite play seems from his quotations to have been +'Othello.' + +[15] Book x. chap. i. + +[16] _Tom Jones_, book xv. chap. i. + +[17] For Fielding's view of the French novels of his day see _Tom +Jones_, book xiii. chap. ix. + + + + +_COWPER AND ROUSSEAU_ + + +Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Cowper--considered as the type of domestic +poets--has recently been translated for the benefit of English readers. +It is interesting to know on the highest authority what are the +qualities which may recommend a writer, so strongly tinged by local +prejudices, to the admiration of a different race and generation. The +gulf which separates the Olney of a century back from modern Paris is +wide enough to give additional value to the generous appreciation of the +critic. I have not the presumption to supplement or correct any part of +his judgment. It is enough to remark briefly that Cowper's immediate +popularity was, as is usually the case, due in part to qualities which +have little to do with his more enduring reputation. Sainte-Beuve dwells +with special fondness upon his pictures of domestic and rural life. He +notices, of course, the marvellous keenness of his pathetic poems; and +he touches, though with some hint that national affinity is necessary to +its full appreciation, upon the playful humour which immortalised John +Gilpin, and lights up the poet's most charming letters. Something, +perhaps, might still be said by a competent critic upon the singular +charm of Cowper's best style. A poet, for example, might perhaps tell +us, though a prosaic person cannot, what is the secret of the impression +made by such a poem as the 'Wreck of the Royal George.' Given an +ordinary newspaper paragraph about wreck or battle, turn it into the +simplest possible language, do not introduce a single metaphor or figure +of speech, indulge in none but the most obvious of all reflections--as, +for example, that when a man is once drowned he won't win any more +battles--and produce as the result a copy of verses which nobody can +ever read without instantly knowing them by heart. How Cowper managed to +perform such a feat, and why not one poet even in a hundred can perform +it, are questions which might lead to some curious critical speculation. + +The qualities, however, which charm the purely literary critic do not +account for the whole of Cowper's influence. A great part of his +immediate, and some part of his more enduring success, have been clearly +owing to a different cause. On reading Johnson's 'Lives,' Cowper +remarked, rather uncharitably, that there was scarcely one good man +amongst the poets. Few poets, indeed, shared those religious views which +commended him more than any literary excellence to a large class of +readers. Religious poetry is generally popular out of all proportion to +its ćsthetic merits. Young was but a second-rate Pope in point of +talent; but probably the 'Night Thoughts' have been studied by a dozen +people for one who has read the 'Essay on Man' or the 'Imitations of +Horace.' In our own day, nobody, I suppose, would hold that the +popularity of the 'Christian Year' has been strictly proportioned to its +poetical excellence; and Cowper's vein of religious meditation has +recommended him to thousands who, if biassed at all, were quite +unconsciously biassed by the admirable qualities which endeared him to +such a critic as Sainte-Beuve. His own view was frequently and +unequivocally expressed. He says over and over again--and his entire +sincerity lifts him above all suspicion of the affected +self-depreciation of other writers--that he looked upon his poetical +work as at best innocent trifling, except so far as his poems were +versified sermons. His intention was everywhere didactic--sometimes +annoyingly didactic--and his highest ambition was to be a useful +auxiliary to the prosaic exhortations of Doddridge, Watts, or his friend +Newton. His religion, said some people, drove him mad. Even a generous +critic like Mr. Stopford Brooke cannot refrain from hinting that his +madness was in some part due to the detested influence of Calvinism. In +fact, it may be admitted that Newton--who is half inclined to boast that +he has a name for driving people mad--scarcely showed his judgment in +setting a man who had already been in confinement to write hymns which +at times are the embodiment of despair. But it is obviously contrary to +the plainest facts to say that Cowper was driven mad by his creed. His +first attack preceded his religious enthusiasm; and a gentleman who +tries to hang himself because he has received a comfortable appointment +for life, is in a state of mind which may be explained without reference +to his theological views. It would be truer to say that when Cowper's +intellect was once unhinged, he found a congenial expression for the +tortures of his soul in the imagery provided by the sternest of +Christian sects. But neither can this circumstance be alleged as in +itself disparaging to the doctrines thus misapplied. A religious belief +which does not provide language for the darkest moods of the human mind, +for profound melancholy, torturing remorse and gloomy foreboding, is a +religion not calculated to lay a powerful grasp upon the imaginations of +mankind. Had Cowper been a Roman Catholic, the same anguish of mind +might have driven him to seek relief in the recesses of some austere +monastery. Had he, like Rousseau, been a theoretical optimist, he would, +like Rousseau, have tortured himself with the conflict between theory +and fact--between the world as it might be and the corrupt and tyrannous +world as it is--and have held that all men were in a conspiracy to rob +him of his peace. The chief article of Rousseau's rather hazy creed was +the duty of universal philanthropy, and Rousseau fancied himself to be +the object of all men's hatred. Similarly, Cowper, who held that the +first duty of man was the love of God, fancied that some mysterious +cause had made him the object of the irrevocable hatred of his Creator. +With such fancies, reason and creeds which embody reason have nothing to +do except to give shape to the instruments of self-torture. The cause of +the misery is the mind diseased. You can no more raze out its rooted +troubles by arguing against the reality of the phantoms which it +generates than cure any other delirium by the most irrefragable logic. + +Sainte-Beuve makes some remarks upon this analogy between Rousseau and +Cowper. The comparison suggests some curious considerations as to the +contrast and likeness of the two cases represented. Some personal +differences are, of course, profound and obvious. Cowper was as +indisputably the most virtuous man, as Rousseau the greatest +intellectual power. Cowper's domestic life was as beautiful as +Rousseau's was repulsive. Rousseau, moreover, was more decidedly a +sentimentalist than Cowper, if by sentimentalism we mean that +disposition which makes a luxury of grief, and delights in poring over +its own morbid emotions. Cowper's tears are always wrung from him by +intense anguish of soul, and never, as is occasionally the case with +Rousseau, suggests that the weeper is proud of his excessive tenderness. +Nevertheless, it is probably true, as Mr. Lowell says, that Cowper is +the nearest congener of Rousseau in our language. The two men, of +course, occupy in one respect an analogous literary position. We +habitually assign to Cowper an important place--though of course a +subordinate place to Rousseau--in bringing about the reaction against +the eighteenth-century code of taste and morality. In each case it would +generally be said that the change indicated was a return to nature and +passion from the artificial coldness of the dominant school. That +reaction, whatever its precise nature, took characteristically different +forms in England and in France; and it is as illustrating one of the +most important distinctions that I propose to say a few words upon the +contrast thus exhibited. + +Return to Nature! That was the war-cry which animated the Lake school in +their assault upon the then established authority. Pope, as they held, +had tied the hands of English poets by his jingling metres and frigid +conventionalities. The muse--to make use of the old-fashioned +phrase--had been rouged and bewigged, and put into high-heeled boots, +till she had lost the old majestic freedom of gait and energy of action. +Let us go back to our ancient school, to Milton and Shakespeare and +Spenser and Chaucer, and break the ignoble fetters imported from the +pseudo-classicists of France. These and similar phrases, repeated and +varied in a thousand forms, have become part of the stock-in-trade of +literary historians, and are put forward so fluently that we sometimes +forget to ask what it is precisely that they mean. Down to Milton, it is +assumed, we were natural; then we became artificial; and with the +Revolution we became natural again. That a theory so generally received +and so consciously adopted by the leaders of the new movement must have +in it a considerable amount of truth, is not to be disputed. But it is +sometimes not easy to interpret it into very plain language. The method +of explaining great intellectual and social movements by the phrase +'reaction' is a very tempting one, for the simple reason that it enables +us to effect a great saving of thought. The change is made to explain +itself. History becomes a record of oscillations; we are always swinging +backwards and forwards, pendulum fashion, from one extreme to another. +The courtiers of Charles II. were too dissolute because the Puritans +were too strict; Addison and Steele were respectable because Congreve +and Wycherley were licentious; Wesley was zealous because the Church had +become indifferent; the Revolution of 1789 was a reaction against the +manners of the last century, and the Revolution in running its course +set up a reaction against itself. Now it is easy enough to admit that +there is some truth in this theory. Every great man who moves his race +profoundly is of necessity protesting against the worst evils of the +time, and it is as true as a copy-book that zeal leads to extremes, and +one extreme to its opposite. A river flowing through a nearly level +plain turns its concavity alternately to the east and west, and we may +fairly explain each bend by the fact that the previous bend was in the +opposite direction. But that does not explain why the river flows +down-hill, nor show which direction tends downwards. We may account for +trifling oscillations, not for the main current. Nor does it seem at +first a self-evident proposition that vice, for example, necessarily +generates over-strictness. A man is not always a Pharisee because his +father has been a sinner. In fact, the people who talk so fluently about +reaction fall back whenever it suits them upon the inverse theory. If a +process happens to be continuous, the reason is as simple and +satisfactory as in the opposite case. A man is dissolute, they will tell +us, because his father was dissolute; just as they will tell us, in the +opposite case, that he was dissolute because his father was strict. +Obviously, the mere statement of a reaction is not by itself +satisfactory. We want to know why there should have been a reaction; why +the code of morals which satisfied one generation did not satisfy its +successors; why the coming man was repelled rather than attracted; what +it was that made Pope array himself in a wig instead of appreciating the +noble freedom of his predecessors; and why, again, at a given period men +became tired of the old wig business. When we have solved, or +approximated to a solution of, that problem, we shall generally find, I +suspect, that the action and reaction are generally more superficial +phenomena than we suppose, and that the great processes of evolution are +going on beneath the surface comparatively undisturbed by the changes +which first attract our notice. Every man naturally exaggerates the +share of his education due to himself. He fancies that he has made a +wonderful improvement upon his father's views, perhaps by reversing the +improvement made by the father on the grandfather's. He does not see, +what is plain enough to a more distant generation, that in reality each +generation is most closely bound to its nearest predecessors. + +There is, too, a special source of ambiguity in the catchword used by +the revolutionary school. They spoke of a return to nature. What, to ask +once more a very troublesome question, is meant by nature? Does it mean +inanimate nature? If so, is a love of nature clearly good or 'natural?' +Was Wordsworth justifiable _primâ facie_ for telling us to study +mountains rather than Pope for announcing that + + The proper study of mankind is man? + +Is it not more natural to be interested in men than in mountains? Does +nature include man in his natural state? If so, what is the natural +state of man? Is the savage the man of nature, or the unsophisticated +peasant, or the man whose natural powers are developed to the highest +pitch? Is a native of the Andaman Islands the superior of Socrates? If +you admit that Socrates is superior to the savage, where do you draw the +line between the natural and the artificial? If a coral reef is natural +and beautiful because it is the work of insects, and a town artificial +and ugly because made by man, we must reject as unnatural all the best +products of the human race. If you distinguish between different works +of man, the distinction becomes irrelevant, for the products to which we +most object are just as natural, in any assignable sense of the word, as +those which we most admire. The word natural may indeed be used as +equivalent simply to beneficial or healthy; but then it loses all value +as an implicit test of what is and what is not beneficial. Probably, +indeed, some such sense was floating before the minds of most who have +used the term. We shall generally find a vague recognition of the fact +that there is a continuous series of integrating and disintegrating +processes; that some charges imply a normal development of the social or +individual organism leading to increased health and strength, whilst +others are significant of disease and ultimate obliteration or decay of +structure. Thus the artificial style of the Pope school, the appeals to +the muse, the pastoral affectation, and so forth, may be called +unnatural, because the philosophy of that style is the retention of +obsolete symbols after all vitality has departed, and when they +consequently become mere obstructions, embarrassing the free flow of +emotion which they once stimulated. + +But, however this may be, it is plain that the very different senses +given to the word nature by different schools of thought were +characteristic of profoundly different conceptions of the world and its +order. There is a sense in which it may be said with perfect accuracy +that the worship of nature, so far from being a fresh doctrine of the +new school, was the most characteristic tenet of the school from which +it dissented. All the speculative part of the English literature in the +first half of the eighteenth century is a prolonged discussion as to the +meaning and value of the law of nature, the religion of nature, and the +state of nature. The deist controversy, which occupied every one of the +keenest thinkers of the time, turned essentially upon this problem: +granting that there is an ascertainable and absolutely true religion of +nature, what is its relation to revealed religion? That, for example, is +the question explicitly discussed in Butler's typical book, which gives +the pith of the whole orthodox argument, and the same speculation +suggested the theme of Pope's 'Essay on Man,' which, in its occasional +strength and its many weaknesses, is perhaps the most characteristic, +though far from the most valuable product of the time. The religion of +nature undoubtedly meant something very different with Butler or Pope +from what it would have meant with Wordsworth or Coleridge--something so +different, indeed, that we might at first say that the two creeds had +nothing in common but the name. But we may see from Rousseau that there +was a real and intimate connection. Rousseau's philosophy, in fact, is +taken bodily from the teaching of his English predecessors. His +celebrated profession of faith through the lips of the Vicaire Savoyard, +which delighted Voltaire and profoundly influenced the leaders of the +French Revolution, is in fact the expression of a deism identical with +that of Pope's essay.[18] The political theories of the Social Contract +are founded upon the same base which served Locke and the English +political theorists of 1688; and are applied to sanction the attempt to +remodel existing societies in accordance with what they would have +called the law of nature. It is again perfectly true that Rousseau drew +from his theory consequences which inspired Robespierre, and would have +made Locke's hair stand on end; and that Pope would have been +scandalised at the too open revelation of his religious tendencies. It +is also true that Rousseau's passion was of infinitely greater +importance than his philosophy. But it remains true that the logical +framework into which his theories were fitted came to him straight from +the same school of thought which was dominant in England during the +preceding period. The real change effected by Rousseau was that he +breathed life into the dead bones. The English theorists, as has been +admirably shown by Mr. Morley in his 'Rousseau,' acted after their +national method. They accepted doctrines which, if logically developed, +would have led to a radical revolution, and therefore refused to develop +them logically. They remained in their favourite attitude of compromise, +and declined altogether to accommodate practice to theory. Locke's +political principles fairly carried out implied universal suffrage, the +absolute supremacy of the popular will, and the abolition of class +privileges. And yet it never seems to have occurred to him that he was +even indirectly attacking that complex structure of the British +Constitution, rooted in history, marked in every detail by special +conditions of growth, and therefore anomalous to the last degree when +tried by _ŕ priori_ reasoning, of which Burke's philosophical eloquence +gives the best explanation and apology. Similarly, Clarke's theology is +pure deism, embodied in a series of propositions worked out on the model +of a mathematical text-book, and yet in his eyes perfectly consistent +with an acceptance of the orthodox dogmas which repose upon traditional +authority. This attitude of mind, so intelligible on this side of the +Channel, was utterly abhorrent to Rousseau's logical instincts. +Englishmen were content to keep their abstract theories for the closet +or the lecture-room, and dropped them as soon as they were in the pulpit +or in Parliament. Rousseau could give no quarter to any doctrine which +could not be fitted into a symmetrical edifice of abstract reasoning. He +carried into actual warfare the weapons which his English teachers had +kept for purposes of mere scholastic disputation. A monarchy, an order +of privileged nobility, a hierarchy claiming supernatural authority, +were not logically justifiable on the accepted principles. Never mind, +was the English answer, they work very well in practice; let us leave +them alone. Down with them to the ground! was Rousseau's passionate +retort. Realise the ideal; force practice into conformity with theory; +the voice of the poor and the oppressed is crying aloud for vengeance; +the divergence of the actual from the theoretical is no mere trifle to +be left to the slow action of time; it means the misery of millions and +the corruption of their rulers. The doctrine which had amused +philosophers was to become the war-cry of the masses; the men of '89 +were at no loss to translate into precepts suited for the immediate +wants of the day the doctrines which found their first utterance in the +glow of his voluminous eloquence; and the fall of the Bastille showed +the first vibrations of the earthquake which is still shaking the soil +of Europe. + +It is easy, then, to give a logical meaning to Rousseau's return to +nature. The whole inanimate world, so ran his philosophy, is perfect, +and shows plainly the marks of the Divine workmanship. All evil really +comes from man's abuse of freewill. Mountains, and forests, and seas, +all objects which have not suffered from his polluting touch, are +perfect and admirable. Let us fall down and worship. Man, too, himself, +as he came from his Creator's hands, is perfect. His 'natural'--that is, +original--impulses are all good; and in all men, in all races and +regions of the earth, we find a conscience which unerringly +distinguishes good from evil, and a love of his fellows which causes man +to obey the dictates of his conscience. And yet the world, as we see it, +is a prison or a lazar-house. Disease and starvation make life a burden, +and poison the health of the coming generations; those whom fortune has +placed above the masses make use of their advantages to harden their +hearts, and extract means of selfish enjoyment from the sufferings of +their fellow-creatures. What is the source of this heartrending discord? +The abuse of men's freewill; that is, of the mysterious power which +enables us to act contrary to the dictates of nature. What is the best +name for the disease which it generates? Luxury and corruption--the two +cant objects of denunciations which were as popular in the +pre-revolutionary generation as attacks upon sensationalism and +over-excitement at the present day. And what, then, is the mode of +cure? The return to nature. We are to make history run backwards, to +raze to its foundations the whole social and intellectual structure that +has been erected by generations of corrupt and selfish men. Everything +by which the civilised man differs from some theoretical pretension is +tainted with a kind of original sin. Political institutions, as they +exist, are conveniences for enabling the rich to rob the poor, and +churches contrivances by which priests make ignorance and superstition +play into the hands of selfish authority. Level all the existing order, +and build up a new one on principles of pure reason; give up all the +philosophical and theological dogmas, which have been the work of +designing priests and bewildered speculators, and revert to that pure +and simple religion which is divinely implanted in the heart of every +uncorrupted human being. The Savoyard vicar, if you have any doubts, +will tell you what is the true creed; and if you don't believe it, is +Rousseau's rather startling corollary, you ought to be put to death. + +That final touch shows the arbitrary and despotic spirit characteristic +of the relentless theorist. I need not here inquire what relation may be +borne by Rousseau's theories to any which could now be accepted by +intelligent thinkers. It is enough to say that there would be, to put it +gently, some slight difficulty in settling the details of this pure +creed common to all unsophisticated minds, and in seeing what would be +left when we had destroyed all institutions alloyed by sin and +selfishness. The meaning, however, in this connection of his love of +nature, taking the words in their mere common-sense, is in harmony with +his system. The mountains, whose worship he was the first to adumbrate, +if not actually to institute, were the symbols of the great natural +forces free from any stain of human interference. Greed and cruelty had +not stained the pure waters of his lovely lake, or dimmed the light to +which his vicar points as in the early morning it grazes the edges of +the mighty mountain buttresses. Whatever symbolism may be found in the +Alps, suggesting emotions of awe, wonder, and softened melancholy, came +unstained by the association with the vices of a complex civilisation. +If poets and critics have not quite analysed the precise nature of our +modern love of mountain scenery, the sentiment may at least be +illustrated by a modern parallel. The most eloquent writer who, in our +day, has transferred to his pages the charm of Alpine beauties, shares +in many ways Rousseau's antipathy for the social order. Mr. Ruskin would +explain better than anyone why the love of the sublimest scenery should +be associated with a profound conviction that all things are out of +joint, and that society can only be regenerated by rejecting all the +achievements upon which the ordinary optimist plumes himself. After all, +it is not surprising that those who are most sick of man as he is should +love the regions where man seems smallest. When Swift wished to express +his disgust for his race, he showed how absurd our passions appear in a +creature six inches high; and the mountains make us all Liliputians. In +other mouths Rousseau's sentiment, more fully interpreted, became +unequivocally misanthropical. Byron, if any definite logical theory were +to be fixed upon him, excluded the human race at large from his +conception of nature. He loved, or talked as though he loved, the +wilderness precisely because it was a wilderness; the sea because it +sent men 'shivering to their gods,' and the mountains because their +avalanches crush the petty works of human industry. Rousseau was less +anti-social than his disciple. The mountains with him were the great +barriers which kept civilisation and all its horrors at bay. They were +the asylums for liberty and simplicity. There the peasant, unspoilt as +yet by _trinkgelds_, not oppressed by the great, nor corrupted by the +rich, could lead that idyllic life upon which his fancy delighted. In a +passage quoted, as Sainte-Beuve notices, by Cowper, Rousseau describes, +with his usual warmth of sentiment, the delightful _matinée anglaise_ +passed in sight of the Alps by the family which had learnt the charms of +simplicity, and regulated its manners and the education of its children +by the unsophisticated laws of nature. It is doubtless a charming +picture, though the virtuous persons concerned are a little +over-conscious of their virtue, and it indicates a point of coincidence +between the two men. Rousseau, as Mr. Morley says, could appreciate as +well as Cowper the charms of a simple and natural life. Nobody could be +more eloquent on the beauty of domesticity; no one could paint better +the happiness of family life, where the main occupation was the +primitive labour of cultivating the ground, where no breath of +unhallowed excitement penetrated from the restless turmoil of the +outside world, where the mother knew her place, and kept to her placid +round of womanly duties, and where the children were taught with a +gentle firmness which developed every germ of reason and affection, +without undue stimulus or undue repression. And yet one must doubt +whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of +the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to +listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with +cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'[19] would have been a little +scandalised by some of the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, +and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. Cowper +and Mrs. Unwin, and even their more fashionable friend, Lady Austen, +would have felt their respectable prejudices shocked by contact with the +new Héloďse; and the views of life taken by their teacher, the converted +slaveholder, John Newton, were as opposite as possible to those of +Rousseau's imaginary vicar. Indeed, Rousseau's ideal families have that +stain of affectation from which Cowper is so conspicuously free. The +rose-colour is laid on too thickly. They are too fond of taking credit +for universal admiration of the fine feelings which invariably animate +their breasts; their charitable sentiments are apt to take the form of +very easy condonation of vice; and if they repudiate the world, we +cannot believe that they are really unconscious of its existence. +Perhaps this dash of self-consciousness was useful in recommending them +to the taste of the jaded and weary society, sickening of a strange +disease which it could not interpret to itself, and finding for the +moment a new excitement in the charms of ancient simplicity. The real +thing might have palled upon it. But Rousseau's artificial and +self-conscious simplicity expressed that vague yearning and spirit of +unrest which could generate a half-sensual sentimentalism, but could be +repelled by genuine sentiment. Perhaps it not uncommonly happens that +those who are more or less tainted with a morbid tendency can denounce +it most effectually. The most effective satirist is the man who has +escaped with labour and pains, and not without some grievous stains, +from the slough in which others are still mired. The perfectly pure has +sometimes too little sympathy with his weaker brethren to place himself +at their point of view. Indeed, as we shall have occasion to remark, +Cowper is an instance of a thinker too far apart from the great world to +apply the lash effectually. + +Rousseau's view of the world and its evils was thus coherent enough, +however unsatisfactory in its basis, and was a development of, not a +reaction against, the previously dominant philosophy; and, though using +a different dialect and confined by different conditions, Cowper's +attack upon the existing order harmonises with much of Rousseau's +language. The first volume of poems, in which he had not yet discovered +the secret of his own strength, is in form a continuation of the satires +of the Pope school, and in substance a religious version of Rousseau's +denunciations of luxury. Amongst the first symptoms of the growing +feeling of uneasy discontent had been the popularity of Brown's +now-forgotten 'Estimate.' + + The inestimable estimate of Brown + Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town, + +says Cowper; and he proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious +administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the +country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and +lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' +'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all +turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or +simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of +meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the +coarse-fibred friend of his youth, we have a sad strain of lamentation +over the growing luxury and effeminacy of the age. It is a continued +anticipation of the lines in the 'Task,' which seem to express his most +serious and sincere conviction. + + The course of human ills, from good to ill, + From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. + Increase of power begets increase of wealth, + Wealth luxury, and luxury excess: + Excess the scrofulous and itchy plague, + That seizes first the opulent, descends + To the next rank contagious, and in time + Taints downwards all the graduated scale + Of order, from the chariot to the plough. + +That is his one unvariable lesson, set in different lights, but +associated more or less closely with every observation. The world is +ripening or rotting; and, as with Rousseau, luxury is the most +significant name of the absorbing evil. That such a view should commend +itself to a mind so clouded with melancholy would not be at any time +surprising, but it fell in with a widely spread conviction. Cowper had +not, indeed, learnt the most effective mode of touching men's hearts. +Separated by a retirement of twenty years from the world, with which he +had never been very familiar, and at which he only 'peeped through the +loopholes of retreat,' his satire wanted the brilliance, the quickness +of illustration from actual life, which alone makes satire readable. His +tone of feeling too frequently suggests that the critic represents the +querulous comments of old ladies gossiping about the outside world over +their tea-cups, easily scandalised by very simple things. Mrs. Unwin was +an excellent old lady, and Newton a most zealous country clergyman. +Probably they were intrinsically superior to the fine ladies and +gentlemen who laughed at them. But a mind acclimatised to the atmosphere +which they breathed inevitably lost its nervous tone. There was true +masculine vigour underlying Cowper's jeremiads; but it was natural that +many people should only see in him an amiable valetudinarian, not +qualified for a censorship of statesmen and men of the world. The man +who fights his way through London streets can't stop to lament over +every splash and puddle which might shock poor Cowper's nervous +sensibility. + +The last poem of the series, however, 'Retirement,' showed that Cowper +had a more characteristic and solacing message to mankind than a mere +rehearsal of the threadbare denunciations of luxury. The 'Task' revealed +his genuine power. There appeared those admirable delineations of +country scenery and country thoughts which Sainte-Beuve detaches so +lovingly from the mass of serious speculation in which they are +embedded. What he, as a purely literary critic, passed over as +comparatively uninteresting, gives the exposition of Cowper's +intellectual position. The poem is in fact a political, moral, and +religious disquisition interspersed with charming vignettes, which, +though not obtrusively moralised, illustrate the general thesis. The +poetical connoisseur may separate them from their environment, as a +collector of engravings might cut out the illustrations from the now +worthless letterpress. The poor author might complain that the most +important moral was thus eliminated from his book. But the author is +dead, and his opinions don't much matter. To understand Cowper's mind, +however, we must take the now obsolete meditation with the permanently +attractive pictures. To know why he so tenderly loved the slow windings +of the sinuous Ouse, we must see what he thought of the great Babel +beyond. It is the distant murmur of the great city that makes his little +refuge so attractive. The general vein of thought which appears in every +book of the poem is most characteristically expressed in the fifth, +called 'A Winter Morning Walk.' Cowper strolls out at sunrise in his +usual mood of tender playfulness, smiles at the vast shadow cast by the +low winter sun, as he sees upon the cottage wall the + + Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. + +He remarks, with a passing recollection of his last sermon, that we are +all shadows; but turns to note the cattle cowering behind the fences; +the labourer carving the haystack; the woodman going to work, followed +by his half-bred cur, and cheered by the fragrance of his short pipe. He +watches the marauding sparrows, and thinks with tenderness of the fate +of less audacious birds; and then pauses to examine the strange fretwork +erected at the mill-dam by the capricious freaks of the frost. Art, it +suggests to him, is often beaten by Nature; and his fancy goes off to +the winter palace of ice erected by the Russian empress. His friend +Newton makes use of the same easily allegorised object in one of his +religious writings; though I know not whether the poet or the divine +first turned it to account. Cowper, at any rate, is immediately diverted +into a meditation on 'human grandeur and the courts of kings.' The +selfishness and folly of the great give him an obvious theme for a +dissertation in the true Rousseau style. He tells us how 'kings were +first invented'--the ordinary theory of the time being that +political--deists added religious--institutions were all somehow +'invented' by knaves to impose upon fools. 'War is a game,' he says, in +the familiar phrase, + + 'Which were their subjects wise + Kings would not play at.' + +But, unluckily, their subjects are fools. In England indeed--for Cowper, +by virtue of his family traditions, was in theory a sound Whig--we know +how far to trust our kings; and he rises into a warmth on behalf of +liberty for which he thinks it right to make a simple-minded apology in +a note. The sentiment suggests a vigorous and indeed prophetic +denunciation of the terrors of the Bastille, and its 'horrid towers and +dungeons.' + + There's not an English heart that would not leap + To hear that ye were fallen at last! + +Within five or six years English hearts were indeed welcoming the event +thus foretold as the prospect of a new era of liberty. Liberty, says +Cowper, is the one thing which makes England dear. Were that boon lost, + + I would at least bewail it under skies + Milder, amongst a people less austere; + In scenes which, having never known me free, + Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.[20] + +So far Cowper was but expressing the sentiments of Rousseau, omitting, +of course, Rousseau's hearty dislike for England. But liberty suggests +to Cowper a different and more solemn vein of thought. There are worse +dungeons, he remembers, than the Bastille, and a slavery compared with +which that of the victims of French tyranny is a trifle-- + + There is yet a liberty unsung + By poets, and by senators unpraised, + Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power + Of earth and hell confederate take away. + +The patriot is lower than the martyr, though more highly prized by the +world; and Cowper changes his strain of patriotic fervour into a +prolonged devotional comment upon the text, + + He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, + And all are slaves besides. + +Who would have thought that we could glide so easily into so solemn a +topic from looking at the quaint freaks of morning shadows? But the +charm of the 'Task' is its sincerity; and in Cowper's mind the most +trivial objects really are connected by subtle threads of association +with the most solemn thoughts. He begins with mock heroics on the sofa, +and ends with a glowing vision of the millennium. No dream of human +perfectibility, but the expected advent of the true Ruler of the earth, +is the relief to the palpable darkness of the existing world. The +'Winter Walk' traces the circle of thought through which his mind +invariably revolves. + +It would be a waste of labour to draw out in definite formula the +systems adopted, from emotional sympathy, rather than from any logical +speculation, by Cowper and Rousseau. Each in some degree owed his +power--though Rousseau in a far higher degree than Cowper--to his +profound sensitiveness to the heavy burden of the time. Each of them +felt like a personal grief, and exaggerated in a distempered +imagination, the weariness and the forebodings more dimly present to +contemporaries. In an age when old forms of government had grown rigid +and obsolete, when the stiffened crust of society was beginning to heave +with new throes, when ancient faiths had left mere husks of dead formulć +to cramp the minds of men, when even superficial observers were startled +by vague omens of a coming crash, or expected some melodramatic +regeneration of the world, it was perhaps not strange that two men, +tottering on the verge of madness, should be amongst the most +impressive prophets. The truth of Butler's speculation, that nations, +like individuals, might go mad, was about to receive an apparent +confirmation. Cowper, like Rousseau, might see the world through the +distorting haze of a disordered fancy, but the world at large was itself +strangely disordered, and the smouldering discontent of the inarticulate +masses found an echo in their passionate utterances. Their voices were +like the moan of a coming earthquake. + +The difference, however, so characteristic of the two countries, is +reflected by the national representatives. Nobody could be less of a +revolutionist than Cowper. His whiggism was little more than a +tradition. Though he felt bound to denounce kings, to talk about Hampden +and Sidney, and to sympathise with Mrs. Macaulay's old-fashioned +republicanism, there was not a more loyal subject of George III., or one +more disposed, when he could turn his mind from his pet hares to the +concerns of the empire, to lament the revolt of the American colonies. +The awakening of England from the pleasant slumbers of the eighteenth +century--for it seems pleasant in these more restless times--took place +in a curiously sporadic and heterogeneous fashion. In France the +spiritual and temporal were so intricately welded together, the +interests of the State were so deeply involved in maintaining the faith +of the Church, that conservatism and orthodoxy naturally went together. +Philosophers rejected with equal fervour the established religious and +the political creed. The new volume of passionate feeling, no longer +satisfied with the ancient barriers, poured itself in both cases into +the revolutionary channel. In England no such plain and simple issue +existed. We had our usual system of compromises in practice, and hybrid +combinations of theory. There were infidel conservatives and radical +believers. The man who more than any other influenced English history +during that century was John Wesley. Wesley was to the full as deeply +impressed as Rousseau with the moral and social evils of the time. We +may doubt whether Cowper's denunciations of luxury owed most to +Rousseau's sentimental eloquence or to the matter-of-fact vigour of +Wesley's 'Appeals.' Cowper's portrait of Whitefield--'Leuconomus,' as he +calls him, to evade the sneers of the cultivated--and his frequent +references to the despised sect of Methodists reveal the immediate +source of much of his indignation. So far as those evils were caused by +the intellectual and moral conditions common to Europe at large, Wesley +and Rousseau might be called allies. Both of them gave satisfaction to +the need for a free play of unsatisfied emotions. Their solutions of the +problem were of course radically different; and Cowper only speaks the +familiar language of his sect when he taunts the philosopher with his +incapacity to free man from his bondage: + + Spend all the powers + Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise, + Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, + And with poetic trappings grace thy prose + Till it outmantle all the pride of verse; + +where he was possibly, as Sainte-Beuve suggests, thinking of Rousseau, +though Shaftesbury was the more frequent butt of such denunciations. The +difference in the solution of the great problem of moral regeneration +was facilitated by the difference of the environment. Rousseau, though +he shows a sentimental tenderness for Christianity, could not be +orthodox without putting himself on the side of the oppressors. Wesley, +though feeling profoundly the social discords of the time, could take +the side of the poor without the need of breaking in pieces a rigid +system of class-privilege. The evil which he had to encounter did not +present itself as tyranny oppressing helplessness, but as a general +neglect of reciprocal duties verging upon license. On the whole, +therefore, he took the conservative side of political questions. When +the American war gave the first signal of coming troubles, the +combinations of opinion were significant of the general state of mind. +Wesley and Johnson denounced the rebels from the orthodox point of view +with curious coincidence of language. The only man of equal intellectual +calibre who took the same side unequivocally was the arch-infidel +Gibbon. The then sleepy Established Church was too tolerant or too +indifferent to trouble him: why should he ally himself with Puritans and +enthusiasts to attack the Government which at once supported and tied +its hands? On the other side, we find such lovers of the established +religious order as Burke associated with free-thinkers like Tom Paine +and Horne Tooke. Tooke might agree with Voltaire in private, but he +could not air his opinions to a party which relied in no small measure +on the political zeal of sound dissenters. Dissent, in fact, meant +something like atheism combined with radicalism in France; in England it +meant desire for the traditional liberties of Englishmen, combined with +an often fanatical theological creed. + +Cowper, brought up amidst such surroundings, had no temptation to adopt +Rousseau's sweeping revolutionary fervour. His nominal whiggism was not +warmed into any subversive tendency. The labourers with whose sorrows he +sympathised might be ignorant, coarse, and drunken; he saw their faults +too clearly to believe in Rousseau's idyllic conventionalities, and +painted the truth as realistically as Crabbe: they required to be kept +out of the public-house, not to be liberated from obsolete feudal +disqualifications; a poacher, such as he described, was not the victim +of a brutal aristocracy, but simply a commonplace variety of thief. And, +on the other hand, when he denounces the laziness and selfishness of the +Establishment, the luxurious bishops, the sycophantic curates, the +sporting and the fiddling and the card-playing parson, he has no thought +of the enmity to Christianity which such satire would have suggested to +a French reformer, but is mentally contrasting the sleepiness of the +bishops with the virtues of Newton or Whitefield. + + 'Where dwell these matchless saints?' old Curio cries. + 'Even at your side, sir, and before your eyes, + The favour'd few, the enthusiasts you despise.' + +And whatever be thought of Cowper's general estimate of the needs of his +race, it must be granted that in one respect his philosophy was more +consequent than Rousseau's. Rousseau, though a deist in theory, rejected +the deist conclusion, that whatever is, is right; and consequently the +problem of how it can be that men, who are naturally so good, are in +fact so vile, remained a difficulty, only slurred over by his fluent +metaphysics about freewill. Cowper's belief in the profound corruption +of human nature supplied him with a doctrine less at variance with his +view of facts. He has no illusions about the man of nature. The savage, +he tells us, was a drunken beast till rescued from his bondage by the +zeal of the Moravian missionaries; and the poor are to be envied, not +because their lives are actually much better, but because they escape +the temptations and sophistries of the rich and learned. + +But how should this sentiment fit in with Cowper's love of nature? In +the language of his sect, nature is generally opposed to grace. It is +applied to a world in which not only the human inhabitants, but the +whole creation, is tainted with a mysterious evil. Why should Cowper +find relief in contemplating a system in which waste and carnage play so +conspicuous a part? Why, when he rescued his pet hares from the general +fate of their race, did he not think of the innumerable hares who +suffered not only from guns and greyhounds, but from the general +annoyances incident to the struggle for existence? Would it not have +been more logical if he had placed his happiness altogether in another +world, where the struggles and torments of our everyday life are +unknown? Indeed, though Cowper, as an orthodox Protestant, held that +ascetic practices ministered simply to spiritual conceit, was he not +bound to a sufficiently galling form of asceticism? His friends +habitually looked askance upon all those pleasures of the intellect and +the imagination which are not directly subservient to the religious +emotions. They had grave doubts of the expediency of his studies of the +pagan Homer. They looked with suspicion upon the slightest indulgence in +social amusements. And Cowper fully shared their sentiments. A taste for +music, for example, generally suggests to him a parson fiddling when he +ought to be praying; and following once more the lead of Newton, he +remarks upon the Handel celebration as a piece of grotesque profanity. +The name of science calls up to him a pert geologist, declaring after an +examination of the earth + + That He who made it, and revealed its date + To Moses, was mistaken in its age. + +Not only is the great bulk of his poetry directly religious or +devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has +admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to +Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, _Vive la +bagatelle!_ as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have +said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because +he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very +different. Nothing is more melancholy than Swift's elaborate triflings, +because they represent the efforts of a powerful intellect passing into +madness under enforced inaction, to kill time by childish occupation. +And the diagnosis of Cowper's case is similar. He trifles, he says, +because he is reduced to it by necessity. His most ludicrous verses have +been written in his saddest mood. It would be, he adds, 'but a shocking +vagary' if the sailors on a ship in danger relieved themselves 'by +fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such a part act I.' His love of +country sights and pleasures is so intense because it is the most +effectual relief. 'Oh!' he exclaims, 'I could spend whole days and +nights in gazing upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as +they flow.' And he adds, in his characteristic vein of thought, 'if +every human being upon earth could feel as I have done for many years, +there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an +unawakened one could be found from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle.' +The earth and the sun itself are, he says, but 'baubles;' but they are +the baubles which alone can distract his attention from more awful +prospects. His little garden and greenhouse are playthings lent to him +for a time, and soon to be left. He 'never framed a wish or formed a +plan,' as he says in the 'Task,' of which the scene was not laid in the +country; and when the gloomiest forebodings unhinged his mind, his love +became a passion. He is like his own prisoner in the Bastille playing +with spiders. All other avenues of delight are closed to him; he +believes, whenever his dark hour of serious thought returns, that he is +soon to be carried off to unspeakable torments; all ordinary methods of +human pleasure seem to be tainted with some corrupting influence; but +whilst playing with his spaniel, or watching his cucumbers, or walking +with Mrs. Unwin in the fields, he can for a moment distract his mind +with purely innocent pleasures. The awful background of his visions, +never quite absent, though often, we may hope, far removed from actual +consciousness, throws out these hours of delight into more prominent +relief. The sternest of his monitors, John Newton himself, could hardly +grudge this cup of cold water presented, as it were, to the lips of a +man in a self-made purgatory. + +This is the peculiar turn which gives so characteristic a tone to +Cowper's loving portraits of scenery. He is like the Judas seen by St. +Brandan on the iceberg; he is enjoying a momentary relaxation between +the past of misery and the future of anticipated torment. Such a +sentiment must, fortunately, be in some sense exceptional and +idiosyncratic. And yet, once more, it fell in with the prevailing +current of thought. Cowper agrees with Rousseau in finding that the +contemplation of scenery, unpolluted by human passion, and the enjoyment +of a calm domestic life is the best anodyne for a spirit wearied with +the perpetual disorders of a corrupt social order. He differs from him, +as we have seen, in the conviction that a deeper remedy is wanting than +any mere political change; in a more profound sense of human wickedness, +and, on the other hand, in a narrower estimate of the conditions of +human life. His definition of Nature, to put it logically, would exclude +that natural man in whose potential existence Rousseau more or less +believed. The passionate love of scenery was enough to distinguish him +from the poets of the preceding school, whose supposed hatred of Nature +meant simply that they were thoroughly immersed in the pleasures of a +society then first developed in its modern form, and not yet undermined +by the approach of a new revolution. The men of Pope and Addison's time +looked upon country squires as bores incapable of intellectual pleasure, +and, therefore, upon country life as a topic for gentle ridicule, or +more frequently as an unmitigated nuisance. Probably their estimate was +a very sound one. When a true poet like Thomson really enjoyed the fresh +air, his taste did not become a passion, and the scenery appeared to him +as a pleasant background to his Castle of Indolence. Cowper's peculiar +religious views prevented him again from anticipating the wider and more +philosophical sentiment of Wordsworth. Like Pope and Wordsworth, indeed, +he occasionally uses language which has a pantheistic sound. He +expresses his belief that + + There lives and works + A soul in all things, and that soul is God. + +But when Pope uses a similar phrase, it is the expression of a decaying +philosophy which never had much vitality, or passed from the sphere of +intellectual speculation to affect the imagination and the emotions. It +is a dogma which he holds sincerely, it may be, but not firmly enough to +colour his habitual sentiments. With Wordsworth, whatever its precise +meaning, it is an expression of an habitual and abiding sentiment, which +rises naturally to his lips whenever he abandons himself to his +spontaneous impulses. With Cowper, as is the case with all Cowper's +utterances, it is absolutely sincere for the time; but it is a doctrine +not very easily adapted to his habitual creed, and which drops out of +his mind whenever he passes from external nature to himself or his +fellows. The indwelling divinity whom he recognises in every 'freckle, +streak, or stain' on his favourite flowers, seems to be hopelessly +removed from his own personal interests. An awful and mysterious decree +has separated him for ever from the sole source of consolation. + +This is not the place to hint at any judgment upon Cowper's theology, or +to inquire how far a love of nature, in his sense of the words, can be +logically combined with a system based upon the fundamental dogma of the +corruption of man. Certainly a similar anticipation of the poetical +pantheism of Wordsworth may be found in that most logical of Calvinists, +Jonathan Edwards. Cowper, too, could be at no loss for scriptural +precedents, when recognising the immediate voice of God in thunder and +earthquakes, or in the calmer voices of the waterbrooks and the meadows. +His love of nature, at any rate, is at once of a narrower and sincerer +kind than that which Rousseau first made fashionable. He has no tendency +to the misanthropic or cynical view which induces men of morbid or +affected minds to profess a love of savage scenery simply because it is +savage. Neither does he rise to the more philosophical view which sees +in the seas and the mountains the most striking symbols of the great +forces of the universe to which we must accommodate ourselves, and which +might therefore rightfully be associated by a Wordsworth with the +deepest emotions of reverential awe. Nature is to him but a collection +of 'baubles,' soon to be taken away, and he seeks in its contemplation +a temporary relief from anguish, not a permanent object of worship. He +would dread that sentiment as a deistical form of idolatry; and he is +equally far from thinking that the natural man, wherever that vague +person might be found, could possibly be a desirable object of +imitation. His love of nature, in short, keen as it might be, was not +the reflection of any philosophical, religious, or political theory. But +it was genuine enough to charm many who might regard his theological +sentiments as a mere recrudescence of an obsolete form of belief. Mr. +Mill tells us how Wordsworth's poetry, little as he sympathised with +Wordsworth's opinions, solaced an intellect wearied with premature Greek +and over-doses of Benthamism. Such a relief must have come to many +readers of Cowper, who would put down his religion as rank fanaticism, +and his satire as anile declamation. Men suffered even then--though +Cowper was a predecessor of Miss Austen--from existing forms of 'life at +high pressure.' If life was not then so overcrowded, the evils under +which men were suffering appeared to be even more hopeless. The great +lesson of the value of intervals of calm retreat, of silence and +meditation, was already needed, if it is now still more pressing. Cowper +said, substantially, Leave the world, as Rousseau said, Upset the world. +The reformer, to say nothing of his greater intellectual power, +naturally interested the world which he threatened more than the recluse +whom it frightened. Limited within a narrower circle of ideas, and +living in a society where the great issues of the time were not +presented in so naked a form, Cowper's influence ran in a more confined +channel. He felt the incapacity of the old order to satisfy the +emotional wants of mankind, but was content to revive the old forms of +belief instead of seeking a more radical remedy in some subversive or +reconstructive system of thought. But the depth and sincerity of feeling +which explains his marvellous intensity of pathos is sometimes a +pleasant relief to the sentimentalism of his greater predecessor. Nor is +it hard to understand why his passages of sweet and melancholy musing by +the quiet Ouse should have come like a breath of fresh air to the jaded +generation waiting for the fall of the Bastille--and of other things. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] Rousseau himself seems to refer to Clarke, the leader of the +English rationalising school, as the best expounder of his theory, and +defended Pope's Essay against the criticisms of Voltaire. + +[19] A phrase by the way, which Cowper, though little given to +borrowing, took straight from Berkeley's 'Siris.' + +[20] Lord Tennyson suggests the same consolation in the lines ending-- + + Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, + Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky; + And I will see before I die + The palms and temples of the South. + + + + +_THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS_ + + +When browsing at random in a respectable library, one is pretty sure to +hit upon the early numbers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and prompted in +consequence to ask oneself the question, What are the intrinsic merits +of writing which produced so great an effect upon our grandfathers? The +'Review,' we may say, has lived into a third generation. The last +survivor of the original set has passed away; and there are but few +relics even of that second galaxy of authors amongst whom Macaulay was +the most brilliant star. One may speak, therefore, without shocking +existing susceptibilities, of the 'Review' in its first period, when +Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham were the most prominent names. A man +may still call himself middle-aged and yet have a distinct memory of +Brougham courting, rather too eagerly, the applause of the Social +Science Association; or Jeffrey, as he appeared in his kindly old age, +when he could hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet; and even of the +last outpourings of the irrepressible gaiety of Sydney Smith. But the +period of their literary activity is already so distant as to have +passed into the domain of history. It is the same thing to say that it +already belongs in some degree to the neighbouring or overlapping domain +of fiction. + +There is, in fact, already a conventional history of the early +'Edinburgh Review,' repeated without hesitation in all literary +histories and assumed in a thousand allusions, which becomes a little +incredible when we take down the dusty old volumes, where dingy calf has +replaced the original splendours of the blue and yellow, and which have +inevitably lost much of their savour during more than half a century's +repose. The story of the original publication has been given by the +chief founders. Edinburgh, at the beginning of the century, was one of +those provincial centres of intellectual activity which have an +increasing difficulty in maintaining themselves against metropolitan +attractions. In the last half of the eighteenth century, such +philosophical activity as existed in the country seemed to have taken +refuge in the northern half of the island. A set of brilliant young men, +living in a society still proud of the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith, +Reid, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and other northern luminaries, might +naturally be susceptible to the stimulus of literary ambition. In +politics the most rampant Conservatism, rendered bitter by the recent +experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more +undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger +men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an +organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever +lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23) +met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth') +story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation. +The first number appeared in October 1802, and produced, we are told, an +'electrical' effect. Its old humdrum rivals collapsed before it. Its +science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its +politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight +of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn, a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon, +suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political +principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism, +unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we +must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of +reforms, now familiar to us all, were still regarded as startling +innovations. The Catholics were not emancipated, nor the game-laws +softened, nor the Court of Chancery reformed, nor the slave-trade +abolished. Cruel punishment still disgraced the criminal code, libel was +put down with vindictive severity, prisoners were not allowed counsel in +capital cases, and many other grievances now wholly or partially +redressed were still flourishing in full force. + +Were they put down solely by the 'Edinburgh Review?' That, of course, +would not be alleged by its most ardent admirers; though Sydney Smith +certainly holds that the attacks of the 'Edinburgh' were amongst the +most efficient causes of the many victories which followed. I am not +concerned to dispute the statement; nor in fact do I doubt that it +contains much truth. But if we look at the 'Review' simply as literary +connoisseurs, and examine its volumes expecting to be edified by such +critical vigour and such a plentiful outpouring of righteous indignation +in burning language as might correspond to this picture of a great organ +of liberal opinion, we shall, I fear, be cruelly disappointed. Let us +speak the plain truth at once. Everyone who turns from the periodical +literature of the present day to the original 'Edinburgh Review' will be +amazed at its inferiority. It is generally dull, and, when not dull, +flimsy. The vigour has departed; the fire is extinct. To some extent, of +course, this is inevitable. Even the magnificent eloquence of Burke has +lost some of its early gloss. We can read, comparatively unmoved, +passages that would have once carried us off our legs in the exuberant +torrent of passionate invective. But, making all possible allowance for +the fading of all things human, I think that every reader who is frank +will admit his disappointment. Here and there, of course, amusing +passages illuminated by Sydney Smith's humour or Jeffrey's slashing and +swaggering retain a few sparks of fire. The pertness and petulance of +the youthful critics are amusing, though hardly in the way intended by +themselves. But, as a rule, one may most easily characterise the +contents by saying that few of the articles would have a chance of +acceptance by the editor of a first-rate periodical to-day; and that the +majority belong to an inferior variety of what is now called +'padding'--mere perfunctory bits of work, obviously manufactured by the +critic out of the book before him. + +The great political importance of the 'Edinburgh Review' belongs to a +later period. When the Whigs began to revive after the long reign of +Tory principles, and such questions as Roman Catholic Emancipation and +Parliamentary Reform were seriously coming to the front, the 'Review' +grew to be a most effective organ of the rising party. Even in earlier +years, it was doubtless a matter of real moment that the ablest +periodical of the day should manifest sympathies with the cause then so +profoundly depressed. But in those years there is nothing of that +vehement and unsparing advocacy of Whig principles which we might expect +from a band of youthful enthusiasts. So far indeed was the 'Review' from +unhesitating partisanship that the sound Tory Scott contributed to its +pages for some years; and so late as the end of 1807 invited Southey, +then developing into fiercer Toryism, as became a 'renegade' or a +'convert,' to enlist under Jeffrey. Southey, it is true, was prevented +from joining by scruples shared by his correspondent, but it was not for +another year that the breach became irreparable. The final offence was +given by the 'famous article upon Cevallos,' which appeared in October +1808. Even at that period Scott understood some remarks of Jeffrey's as +an offer to suppress the partisan tendencies of his 'Review.' Jeffrey +repudiated this interpretation; but the statement is enough to show +that, for six years after its birth, the 'Review' had not been conducted +in such a way as to pledge itself beyond all redemption in the eyes of +staunch Tories.[21] + +The Cevallos article, the work in uncertain proportions of Brougham and +Jeffrey, was undoubtedly calculated to give offence. It contained an +eloquent expression of foreboding as to the chances of the war in +Spain. The Whigs, whose policy had been opposed to the war, naturally +prophesied its ill-success, and, until this period, facts had certainly +not confuted their auguries. It was equally natural that their opponents +should be scandalised by their apparent want of patriotism. Scott's +indignation was characteristic. The 'Edinburgh Review,' he says, 'tells +you coolly, "We foresee a revolution in this country as well as Mr. +Cobbett;" and, to say the truth, by degrading the person of the +sovereign, exalting the power of the French armies and the wisdom of +their counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be +purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable +to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years +past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own +prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel +family _can_ pretend to be without it,' and it contains the only +valuable literary criticism of the day. The antidote was to be supplied +by the foundation of the 'Quarterly.' The Cevallos article, as Brougham +says, 'first made the Reviewers conspicuous as Liberals.' + +Jeffrey and his friends were in fact in the very difficult position of +all middle parties during a period of intense national and patriotic +excitement. If they attacked Perceval or Canning or Castlereagh in one +direction, they were equally opposed to the rough-and-ready democracy of +Cobbett or Burdett, and to the more philosophical radicalism of men like +Godwin or Bentham. They were generally too young to have been infected +by the original Whig sympathy for the French Revolution, or embittered +by the reaction. They condemned the principles of '89 as decidedly if +not as heartily as the Tories. The difference, as Sydney Smith said to +his imaginary Tory, Abraham Plymley, is 'in the means, not in the end. +We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and abhor the French.' +Only, as the difference about the means was diametrical, Tories +naturally held them to be playing into the hands of destructives, though +more out of cowardice than malignity. In such a position it is not +surprising if the Reviewers generally spoke in apologetic terms and with +bated breath. They could protest against the dominant policy as rash and +bigoted, but could not put forwards conflicting principles without +guarding themselves against the imputation of favouring the common +enemy. The Puritans of Radicalism set down this vacillation to a total +want of fixed principle, if not to baser motives. The first volume of +the 'Westminster Review' (1824) contains a characteristic assault upon +the 'see-saw' system of the 'Edinburgh' by the two Mills. The +'Edinburgh' is sternly condemned for its truckling to the aristocracy, +its cowardice, political immorality, and (of all things!) its +sentimentalism. In after years J. S. Mill contributed to its pages +himself; but the opinion of his fervid youth was that of the whole +Bentham school.[22] It is plain, however, that the 'Review,' even when +it had succeeded, did not absorb the activities of its contributors so +exclusively as is sometimes suggested. They rapidly dispersed to enter +upon different careers. Even before the first number appeared, Jeffrey +complains that almost all his friends are about to emigrate to London; +and the prediction was soon verified. Sydney Smith left to begin his +career as a clergyman in London; Horner and Brougham almost immediately +took to the English bar, with a view to pushing into public life; Allen +joined Lord Holland; Charles Bell set up in a London practice; two other +promising contributors took offence, and deserted the 'Review' in its +infancy; and Jeffrey was left almost alone, though still a centre of +attraction to the scattered group. He himself only undertook the +editorship on the understanding that he might renounce it as soon as he +could do without it; and always guarded himself most carefully against +any appearance of deserting a legal for a literary career. Although the +Edinburgh _cénacle_ was not dissolved, its bonds were greatly loosened; +the chief contributors were in no sense men who looked upon literature +as a principal occupation; and Jeffrey, as much as Brougham and Horner, +would have resented, as a mischievous imputation, the suggestion that +his chief energies were devoted to the 'Review.' In some sense this +might be an advantage. An article upon politics or philosophy is, of +course, better done by a professed statesman and thinker than by a +literary hack; but, on the other hand, a man who turns aside from +politics or philosophy to do mere hackwork, does it worse than the +professed man of letters. Work, taken up at odd hours to satisfy +editorial importunity or add a few pounds to a narrow income, is apt to +show the characteristic defects of all amateur performances. A very +large part of the early numbers is amateurish in this objectionable +sense. It is mere hand-to-mouth information, and is written, so to +speak, with the left hand. A clever man has turned over the last new +book of travels or poetry, or made a sudden incursion into foreign +literature or into some passage of history entirely fresh to him, and +has given his first impressions with an audacity which almost disarms +one by its extraordinary _naďveté_. The standard of such disquisitions +was then so low that writing which would now be impossible passed muster +without an objection. When, in later years, Macaulay discussed Hampden +or Chatham, the book which he ostensibly reviewed was a mere pretext for +producing the rich stores of a mind trained by years of previous +historical study. Jeffrey wrote about Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoirs' and +Pepys's 'Diary' as though the books had for the first time revealed to +him the existence of Puritans or of courtiers under the Restoration. The +author of an article upon German metaphysics at the present day would +think it necessary to show that if he had not the portentous learning +which Sir William Hamilton embodied in his 'Edinburgh' articles, he had +at least read the book under review, and knew something of the language. +The author (Thomas Brown--a man who should have known better) of a +contemptuous review of Kant, in an early number of the 'Edinburgh,' +makes it even ostentatiously evident that he has never read a line of +the original, and that his whole knowledge is derived from what (by his +own account) is a very rambling and inadequate French essay. The young +gentlemen who wrote in those days have a jaunty mode of pronouncing upon +all conceivable topics without even affecting to have studied the +subject, which is amusing in its way, and which fully explains the +flimsy nature of their performance. + +The authors, in fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely +ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long +afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney +Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that +time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the +republication was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing +even the most serious books through the pages of a periodical has become +so common that such modesty would now imply the emptiest affectation. +The collections of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith will give a sufficient +impression of the earlier numbers of the 'Review.' The only contributors +of equal reputation were Horner and Brougham. Horner, so far as one can +judge, was a typical representative of those solid, indomitable +Scotchmen whom one knows not whether to respect for their energy or to +dread as the most intolerable of bores. He plodded through legal, +metaphysical, scientific, and literary studies like an elephant forcing +his way through a jungle; and laboured as resolutely and systematically +to acquire graces of style as to master the intricacies of the 'dismal +science.' At an early age, and with no advantages of position, he had +gained extraordinary authority in Parliament. Sydney Smith said of him +that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face, and looked so +virtuous that he might commit any crime with impunity. His death +probably deprived us of a most exemplary statesman and first-rate +Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it can hardly have been a great loss to +literature. Passages from Horner's journals, given in his 'Memoirs,' are +quaint illustrations of the frame of mind generally inculcated in +manuals for the use of virtuous young men. At the age of twenty-eight, +he resolves one day to meditate upon various topics, distributed under +nine heads, including the society to be frequented in the metropolis; +the characters to be studied; the scale of intimacies; the style of +conversation; the use of other men's minds in self-education; the +regulation of ambition, of political sentiments, connections, and +conduct; the importance of 'steadily systematising all plans and aims +of life, and so providing against contingencies as to put happiness at +least out of the reach of accident,' and the cultivation of moral +feelings by 'dignified sentiments and pleasing associations' derived +from poets, moralists, or actual life. Sydney Smith, in a very lively +portrait, says that Horner was the best, kindest, simplest, and most +incorruptible of mankind; but intimates sufficiently that his +impenetrability to the facetious was something almost unexampled. A jest +upon an important subject was, it seems, the only affliction which his +strength of principle would not enable him to bear with patience. His +contributions gave some solid economical speculation to the 'Review,' +but were neither numerous nor lively. Brougham's amazing vitality wasted +itself in a different way. His multifarious energy, from early boyhood +to the borders of old age, would be almost incredible, if we had not the +good fortune to be contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone. His share in the +opening numbers of the 'Review' is another of the points upon which +there is an odd conflict of testimony.[23] But from a very early period +he was the most voluminous and, at times, the most valuable of +contributors. It has been said that he once wrote a whole number, +including articles upon lithotomy and Chinese music. It is more +authentic that he contributed six articles to one number at the very +crisis of his political career, and at the same period he boasts of +having written a fifth of the whole 'Review' to that time. He would sit +down in a morning and write off twenty pages at a single effort. Jeffrey +compares his own editorial authority to that of a feudal monarch over +some independent barons. When Jeffrey gave up the 'Review,' this 'baron' +aspired to something more like domination than independence. He made the +unfortunate editor's life a burden to him. He wrote voluminous letters, +objurgating, entreating, boasting of past services, denouncing rival +contributors, declaring that a regard for the views of any other man was +base subservience to a renegade Ministry, or foolish attention to the +hints of understrappers; threatening, if he was neglected, to set up a +rival Review, and generally hectoring, bullying, and declaiming in a +manner which gives one the highest opinion of the diplomatic skill of +the editor, who managed, without truckling, to avoid a breach with his +tremendous contributor. Brougham, indeed, was not quite blind to the +fact that the 'Review' was as useful to him as he could be to the +'Review,' and was therefore more amenable than might have been expected, +in the last resort. But he was in every relation one of those men who +are nearly as much hated and dreaded by their colleagues as by the +adversary--a kind of irrepressible rocket, only too easy to discharge, +but whose course defied prediction. + +It is, however, admitted by everyone that the literary results of this +portentous activity were essentially ephemeral. His writings are +hopelessly commonplace in substance and slipshod in style. His garden +offers a bushel of potatoes instead of a single peach. Much of +Brougham's work was up to the level necessary to give effect to the +manifesto of an active politician. It was a forcible exposition of the +arguments common at the time; but it has nowhere that stamp of +originality in thought or brilliance in expression which could confer +upon it a permanent vitality. + +Jeffrey and Sydney Smith deserve more respectful treatment. Macaulay +speaks of his first editor with respectful enthusiasm. He says of the +collected contributions that the 'variety and fertility of Jeffrey's +mind' seem more extraordinary than ever. Scarcely could any three men +have produced such 'diversified excellence.' 'When I compare him with +Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his +range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer. But +he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great +judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius +than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much +as Brougham affects the character.' Macaulay hated Brougham, and was, +perhaps, a little unjust to him. But what are we to say of the writings +upon which this panegyric is pronounced? + +Jeffrey's collected articles include about eighty out of two hundred +reviews, nearly all contributed to the 'Edinburgh' within its first +period of twenty-five years. They fill four volumes, and are distributed +under the seven heads--general literature, history, poetry, metaphysics, +fiction, politics, and miscellaneous. Certainly there is versatility +enough implied in such a list, and we may be sure that he has ample +opportunity for displaying whatever may be in him. It is, however, easy +to dismiss some of these divisions. Jeffrey knew history as an English +gentleman of average cultivation knew it; that is to say, not enough to +justify him in writing about it. He knew as much of metaphysics as a +clever lad was likely to pick up at Edinburgh during the reign of Dugald +Stewart; his essays in that kind, though they show some aptitude and +abundant confidence, do not now deserve serious attention. His chief +speculative performance was an essay upon Beauty contributed to the +'Encyclopćdia Britannica,' of which his biographer says quaintly that it +is 'as sound as the subject admits of.' It is crude and meagre in +substance. The principal conclusion is the rather unsatisfactory one for +a professional critic, that there are no particular rules about beauty, +and consequently that one taste is about as good as another. Nobody, +however, could be less inclined to apply this over-liberal theory to +questions of literary taste. There, he evidently holds there is most +decidedly a right and wrong, and everybody is very plainly in the wrong +who differs from himself. + +Jeffrey's chief fame--or, should we say, notoriety?--was gained, and his +merit should be tested by his success in this department. The greatest +triumph that a literary critic can win is the early recognition of +genius not yet appreciated by his contemporaries. The next test of his +merit is his capacity for pronouncing sound judgment upon controversies +which are fully before the public; and, finally, no inconsiderable merit +must be allowed to any critic who has a vigorous taste of his own--not +hopelessly eccentric or silly--and expresses it with true literary +force. If not a judge, he may in that case be a useful advocate. + +What can we say for Jeffrey upon this understanding? Did he ever +encourage a rising genius? The sole approach to such a success is an +appreciative notice of Keats, which would be the more satisfactory if +poor Keats had not been previously assailed by the Opposition journal. +The other judgments are for the most part pronounced upon men already +celebrated; and the single phrase which has survived is the celebrated +'This will never do,' directed against Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Every +critic has a sacred and inalienable right to blunder at times: but +Jeffrey's blundering is amazingly systematic and comprehensive. In the +last of his poetical critiques (October 1829) he sums up his critical +experience. He doubts whether Mrs. Hemans, whom he is reviewing at the +time, will be immortal. 'The tuneful quartos of Southey,' he says, 'are +already little better than lumber; and the rich melodies of Keats and +Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth, and the plebeian +pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the field of vision. The novels +of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are +fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to +immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from +its place of pride.' Who survive this general decay? Not Coleridge, who +is not even mentioned; nor is Mrs. Hemans secure. The two who show least +marks of decay are--of all people in the world--Rogers and Campbell! It +is only to be added that this summary was republished in 1843, by which +time the true proportions of the great reputations of the period were +becoming more obvious to an ordinary observer. It seems almost +incredible now that any sane critic should pick out the poems of Rogers +and Campbell as the sole enduring relics from the age of Wordsworth, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Byron. + +Doubtless a critic should rather draw the moral of his own fallibility +than of his superiority to Jeffrey. Criticism is a still more perishable +commodity than poetry. Jeffrey was a man of unusual intelligence and +quickness of feeling; and a follower in his steps should think twice +before he ventures to cast the first stone. If all critics who have +grossly blundered are therefore to be pronounced utterly incompetent, we +should, I fear, have to condemn nearly everyone who has taken up the +profession. Not only Dennis and Rymer, but Dryden, Pope, Addison, +Johnson, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, and even Coleridge, down to the last +new critic in the latest and most fashionable journals, would have to be +censured. Still there are blunders and blunders; and some of Jeffrey's +sins in that kind are such as it is not very easy to forgive. If he +attacked great men, it has been said in his defence, he attacked those +parts of their writings which were really objectionable. And, of course, +nobody will deny that (for example) Wordsworth's wilful and ostentatious +inversion of accepted rules presented a very tempting mark to the +critic. But--to say nothing of Jeffrey's failure to discharge adequately +the correlative duty of generous praise--it must be admitted that his +ridicule seems to strike pretty much at random. He picks out Southey, +certainly the least eminent of the so-called school of Wordsworth, +Coleridge, and Lamb, as the one writer of the set whose poetry deserves +serious consideration; and, besides attacking Wordsworth's faults, his +occasional flatness and childishness, selects some of his finest poems +(e.g. the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality) as flagrant specimens +of the hopelessly absurd. + +The 'White Doe of Rylstone' may not be Wordsworth's best work, but a man +who begins a review of it by proclaiming it to be 'the very worst poem +ever imprinted in a quarto volume,' who follows up this remark by +unmixed and indiscriminating abuse, and who publishes the review +twenty-eight years later as expressing his mature convictions, is +certainly proclaiming his own gross incompetence. Or, again, Jeffrey +writes about 'Wilhelm Meister' (in 1824), knowing its high reputation in +Germany, and finds in it nothing but a text for a dissertation upon the +amazing eccentricity of national taste which can admire 'sheer +nonsense,' and at length proclaims himself tired of extracting 'so much +trash.' There is a kind of indecency, a wanton disregard of the general +consensus of opinion, in such treatment of a contemporary classic (then +just translated by Carlyle, and so brought within Jeffrey's sphere) +which one would hope to be now impossible. It is true that Jeffrey +relents a little at the end, admits that Goethe has 'great talent,' and +would like to withdraw some of his censure. Whilst, therefore, he +regards the novel as an instance of that diversity of national taste +which makes a writer idolised in one country who would not be tolerated +in another, he would hold it out rather as an object of wonder than +contempt. Though the greater part 'would not be endured, and, indeed, +could not have been written in England,' there are many passages of +which any country might naturally be proud. Truly this is an +illustration of Jeffrey's fundamental principle, that taste has no laws, +and is a matter of accidental caprice. + +It may be said that better critics have erred with equal recklessness. +De Quincey, who could be an admirable critic where his indolent +prejudices were not concerned, is even more dead to the merits of +Goethe. Byron's critical remarks are generally worth reading, in spite +of his wilful eccentricity; and he spoke of Wordsworth and Southey still +more brutally than Jeffrey, and admired Rogers as unreasonably. In such +cases we may admit the principle already suggested, that even the most +reckless criticism has a kind of value when it implies a genuine (even +though a mistaken) taste. So long as a man says sincerely what he +thinks, he tells us something worth knowing. + +Unluckily, this is just where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects +to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put +up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable +tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because +admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the +general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some not +too judicious criticism; preferring, for example, the sham romantic +business of the 'Lay' to the incomparable vigour of the rough +moss-troopers, + + Who sought the beeves that made their broth + In Scotland and in England both-- + +terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his +judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is +passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But, +unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals, +it would seem, resemble the old-fashioned squires who kept a badger +ready to be baited whenever a little amusement was desirable. The rising +school of Lake poets, with their austere professions and real +weaknesses, was just the game to show a little sport; and, accordingly, +poor Jeffrey blundered into grievous misapprehensions, and has survived +chiefly by his worst errors. The simple fact is, that he accepted +whatever seemed to a hasty observer to be the safest opinion, that which +was current in the most orthodox critical circles, and expressed it with +rather more point than his neighbours. But his criticism implies no +serious thought or any deeper sentiment than pleasure at having found a +good laughing-stock. The most unmistakable bit of genuine expression of +his own feelings in Jeffrey's writings is, I think, to be found in his +letters to Dickens. 'Oh! my dear, dear Dickens!' he exclaims, 'what a +No. 5' (of 'Dombey and Son') 'you have now given us. I have so cried and +sobbed over it last night and again this morning, and felt my heart +purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed +them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since that divine Nelly +was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has +been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul in the summer +sunshine of that lofty room.' The emotion is a little senile, and most +of us think it exaggerated; but at least it is genuine. The earlier +thunders of the 'Edinburgh Review' have lost their terrors, because they +are in fact mere echoes of commonplace opinion. They are often clever +enough, and have all the air of judicial authority, but we feel that +they are empty shams, concealing no solid core of strong personal +feeling even of the perverse variety. The critic has been asking +himself, not 'What do I feel?' but 'What is the correct remark to make?' + +Jeffrey's political writing suggests, I think, in some respects a higher +estimate of his merits. He has not, it is true, very strong convictions, +but his sentiments are liberal in the better sense of the word, and he +has a more philosophical tone than is usual with English publicists. He +appreciates the truths, now become commonplace, that the political +constitution of the country should be developed so as to give free play +for the underlying social forces without breaking abruptly with the old +traditions. He combats with dignity the narrow prejudices which led to a +policy of rigid repression, and which, in his opinion, could only lead +to revolution. But the effect of his principles is not a little marred +by a certain timidity both of character and intellect. Hopefulness +should be the mark of an ardent reformer, and Jeffrey seems to be always +decided by his fears. His favourite topic is the advantage of a strong +middle party, for he is terribly afraid of a collision between the two +extremes; he can only look forward to despotism if the Tories triumph, +and a sweeping revolution if they are beaten. Meanwhile, for many years +he thinks it most probable that both parties will be swallowed up by the +common enemy. Never was there such a determined croaker. In 1808 he +suspects that Bonaparte will be in Dublin in about fifteen months, when +he, if he survives, will try to go to America. In 1811 he expects +Bonaparte to be in Ireland in eighteen months, and asks how England can +then be kept, and whether it would be worth keeping? France is certain +to conquer the Continent, and our interference will only 'exasperate and +accelerate.' Bonaparte's invasion of Russia in 1813 made him still more +gloomy. He rejoiced at the French defeat as one delivered from a great +terror, but the return of the Emperor dejects him again. All he can say +of the war (just before Waterloo) is that he is 'mortally afraid of it,' +and that he hates Bonaparte 'because he makes me more afraid than +anybody else.' In 1829 he anticipates 'tragical scenes' and a sanguinary +revolution; in 1821 he thinks as ill as ever 'of the state and prospects +of the country,' though with less alarm of speedy mischief; and in 1822 +he looks forward to revolutionary wars all over the Continent, from +which we may possibly escape by reason of our 'miserable poverty;' +whilst it is probable that our old tyrannies and corruptions will last +for some 4,000 or 5,000 years longer. + +A stalwart politician, Whig or Tory, is rarely developed out of a Mr. +Much-Afraid or a Mr. Despondency; they are too closely related to Mr. +Facing-both-Ways. Jeffrey thinks it generally a duty to conceal his +fears and affect a confidence which he does not feel; but perhaps the +best piece of writing in his essays is that in which he for once gives +full expression to his pessimist sentiment. It occurs in a review of a +book in which Madame de Staël maintains the doctrine of human +perfectibility. Jeffrey explains his more despondent view in a really +eloquent passage. He thinks that the increase of educated intelligence +will not diminish the permanent causes of human misery. War will be as +common as ever, wealth will be used with at least equal selfishness, +luxury and dissipation will increase, enthusiasm will diminish, +intellectual originality will become rarer, the division of labour will +make men's lives pettier and more mechanical, and pauperism grow with +the development of manufactures. When republishing his essays Jeffrey +expresses his continued adherence to these views, and they are more +interesting than most of his work, because they have at least the merits +of originality and sincerity. Still, one cannot help observing that if +the 'Edinburgh Review' was an efficient organ of progress, it was not +from any ardent faith in progress entertained by its chief conductor. + +It is a relief to turn from Jeffrey to Sydney Smith. The highest epithet +applicable to Jeffrey is 'clever,' to which we may prefix some modest +intensitive. He is a brilliant, versatile, and at bottom liberal and +kindly man of the world; but he never gets fairly beyond the border-line +which irrevocably separates lively talent from original power. There are +dozens of writers who could turn out work on the same pattern and about +equally good. Smith, on the other hand, stamps all his work with his +peculiar characteristics. It is original and unmistakable; and in a +certain department--not, of course, a very high one--he has almost +unique merits. I do not think that the 'Plymley Letters' can be +surpassed by anything in the language as specimens of the terse, +effective treatment of a great subject in language suitable for popular +readers. Of course they have no pretence to the keen polish of Junius, +or the weight of thought of Burke, or the rhetorical splendours of +Milton; but their humour, freshness, and spirit are inimitable. The +'Drapier Letters,' to which they have often been compared, were more +effective at the moment; but no fair critic can deny, I think, that +Sydney Smith's performance is now more interesting than Swift's. + +The comparison between the Dean and the Canon is an obvious one, and has +often been made. There is a likeness in the external history of the two +clergymen who both sought for preferment through politics, and were +both, even by friends, felt to have sinned against professional +proprieties, and were put off with scanty rewards in consequence. Both, +too, were masters of a vigorous style, and original humourists. But the +likeness does not go very deep. Swift had the most powerful intellect +and the strongest passion as undeniably as Smith had the sweetest +nature. The admirable good-humour with which Smith accepted his position +and devoted himself to honest work in an obscure country parish, is the +strongest contrast with Swift's misanthropical seclusion; and nothing +can be less like than Smith's admirable domestic history and the +mysterious love affairs with Stella and Vanessa. Smith's character +reminds us more closely of Fuller, whose peculiar humour is much of the +same stamp; and who, falling upon hard times, and therefore tinged by a +more melancholy sentiment, yet showed the same unconquerable +cheerfulness and intellectual vivacity. + +Most of Sydney Smith's 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight +texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of +characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded +kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic. +Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a review of Waterton's +'Wanderings:'-- + + How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To + what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of + Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a + puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? To be sure, the + toucan might retort, To what purpose were gentlemen in Bond + Street created? To what purpose were certain members of + Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with + their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the + country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not + enter into the metaphysics of the toucan. + +Smith's humour is most aptly used to give point to the vigorous logic of +a thoroughly healthy nature, contemptuous of all nonsense, full of +shrewd common-sense, and righteously indignant in the presence of all +injustice and outworn abuse. It would be difficult to find anywhere a +more brilliant assault upon the prejudices which defend established +grievances than the inimitable 'Noodle's Oration,' into which Smith has +compressed the pith of Bentham's 'Book of Fallacies.' There is a certain +resemblance between the logic of Smith and Macaulay, both of whom, it +must be admitted, are rather given to proving commonplaces and inclined +to remain on the surface of things. Smith, like Macaulay, fully +understands the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract, and +hammering obvious truths into men's heads by dint of homely +explanation. Smith's memory does not supply so vast a store of parallels +as that upon which Macaulay could draw so freely; but his humorous +illustrations are more amusing and effective. There could not be a +happier way of putting the argument for what may be called the lottery +system of endowments than the picture of the respectable baker driving +past Northumberland House to St. Paul's Churchyard, and speculating on +the chance of elevating his 'little muffin-faced son' to a place among +the Percies or the highest seat in the Cathedral. Macaulay would have +enforced his reasoning by a catalogue of successful ecclesiastics. The +folly of alienating Catholic sympathies, during our great struggle, by +maintaining the old disabilities, is brought out with equal skill by the +apologue in the 'Plymley Letters' of the orthodox captain of a frigate +in a dangerous action, securing twenty or thirty of his crew, who +happened to be Papists, under a Protestant guard; reminding his sailors, +in a bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorting +the Episcopal gunner to distrust the Presbyterian quartermaster; rushing +through blood and brains to examine his men in the Thirty-nine Articles, +and forbidding anyone to spunge or ram who has not taken the sacrament +according to the rites of the Church of England. It is quite another +question whether Smith really penetrates to the bottom of the dispute; +but the only fault to be found with his statement of the case, as he saw +it, is that it makes it rather too clear. The arguments are never all on +one side in any political question, and the writer who sees absolutely +no difficulty, suggests to a wary reader that he is ignoring something +relevant. Still, this is hardly an objection to a popular advocate, and +it is fair to add that Smith's logic is not more admirable than the +hearty generosity of his sympathy with the oppressed Catholic. The +appeal to cowardice is lost in the appeal to true philanthropic +sentiment. + +With all his merits, there is a less favourable side to Smith's +advocacy. When he was condemned as being too worldly and facetious for a +priest, it was easy to retort that humour is not of necessity +irreligious. It might be added that in his writings it is strictly +subservient to solid argument. In a London party he might throw the +reins upon the neck of his fancy and go on playing with a ludicrous +image till his audience felt the agony of laughter to be really painful. +In his writings he aims almost as straight at his mark as Swift, and is +never diverted by the spirit of pure fun. The humour always illuminates +well-strung logic. But the scandal was not quite groundless. When he +directs his powers against sheer obstruction and antiquated +prejudice--against abuses in prisons, or the game-laws, or education--we +can have no fault to find; nor is it fair to condemn a reviewer because +in all these questions he is a follower rather than a leader. It is +enough if he knows a good cause when he sees it, and does his best to +back up reformers in the press, though hardly a working reformer, and +certainly not an originator of reform. But it is less easy to excuse his +want of sympathy for the reformers themselves. + +If there is one thing which Sydney Smith dreads and dislikes, it is +enthusiasm. Nobody would deny, at the present day, that the zeal which +supplied the true leverage for some of the greatest social reforms of +the time was to be found chiefly amongst the so-called Evangelicals and +Methodists. For them Smith has nothing but the heartiest aversion. He is +always having a quiet jest at the religious sentiments of Perceval or +Wilberforce, and his most prominent articles in the 'Review' were a +series of inexcusably bitter attacks upon the Methodists. He is +thoroughly alarmed and disgusted by their progress. He thinks them +likely to succeed, and says that, if they succeed, 'happiness will be +destroyed, reason degraded, and sound religion banished from the world,' +and that a reign of fanaticism will be succeeded by 'a long period of +the grossest immorality, atheism, and debauchery.' He is not sure that +any remedy or considerable palliative is possible, but he suggests, as +hopeful, the employment of ridicule, and applies it himself most +unsparingly. When the Methodists try to convert the Hindoos, he attacks +them furiously for endangering the empire. They naturally reply that a +Christian is bound to propagate his belief. The answer, says Smith, is +short: 'It is not Christianity which is introduced (into India), but the +debased nonsense and mummery of the Methodists, which has little more to +do with the Christian religion than it has to do with the religion of +China.' The missionaries, he says, are so foolish, 'that the natives +almost instinctively duck and pelt them,' as, one cannot help +remembering, missionaries of an earlier Christian era had been ducked +and pelted. He pronounces the enterprise to be hopeless and cruel, and +clenches his argument by a statement which sounds strangely enough in +the mouth of a sincere Christian:-- + + Let us ask (he says), if the Bible is universally diffused + in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives + to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal--we + who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few + acres about Madras over the whole peninsula and sixty + millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct + every crime of which human nature is capable? What matchless + impudence, to follow up such practice with such precepts! If + we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and + tell them that Machiavel is our prophet and the god of the + Manichćans our god. + +We are to make our practice consistent by giving up our virtues instead +of our vices. Of course, Smith ends his article by a phrase about 'the +slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christianity;' but the +Methodists might well feel that the 'matchless impudence' was not all on +their side, and that this Christian priest, had he lived some centuries +earlier, would have sympathised a good deal more with Gallio than with +St. Paul. + +It is a question which I need not here discuss how far Smith could be +justified in his ridicule of men who, with all their undeniable +absurdity, were at least zealous believers in the creed which he--as is +quite manifest--held in all sincerity. But one remark is obvious; the +Edinburgh Reviewers justify, to a certain point, the claim put forward +by Sydney Smith; they condemned many crying abuses, and condemned them +heartily. They condemned them, as thoroughly sensible men of the world, +animated partly by a really generous sentiment, partly by a tacit +scepticism as to the value of the protected interests, and above all by +the strong conviction that it was quite essential for the middle +party--that is, for the bulk of the respectable well-bred classes--to +throw overboard gross abuses which afforded so many points of attack to +thoroughgoing radicals. On the other hand, they were quite indifferent +or openly hostile to most of the new forces which stirred men's minds. +They patronised political economy because Malthus began by opposing the +revolutionary dreams of Godwin and his like. But every one of the great +impulses of the time was treated by them in an antagonistic spirit. They +savagely ridiculed Coleridge, the great seminal mind of one +philosophical school; they fiercely attacked Bentham and James Mill, the +great leaders of the antagonist school; they were equally opposed to +the Evangelicals who revered Wilberforce, and, in later times, to the +religious party, of which Dr. Newman was the great ornament: in poetry +they clung, as long as they could, to the safe old principles +represented by Crabbe and Rogers: they, covered Wordsworth and Coleridge +with almost unmixed ridicule, ignored Shelley, and were only tender to +Byron and Scott because Scott and Byron were fashionable idols. The +truth is, that it is a mistake to suppose that the eighteenth century +ended with the year 1800. It lasted in the upper currents of opinion +till at least 1832. Sydney Smith's theology is that of Paley and the +common-sense divines of the previous period. Jeffrey's politics were but +slightly in advance of the true old Whigs, who still worshipped +according to the tradition of their fathers in Holland House. The ideal +of the party was to bring the practice of the country up to the theory +whose main outlines had been accepted in the Revolution of 1688; and +they studiously shut their eyes to any newer intellectual and social +movements. + +I do not say this by way of simple condemnation; for we have daily more +reason to acknowledge the immense value of calm, clear common-sense, +which sees the absurd side of even the best impulses. But it is +necessary to bear the fact in mind when estimating such claims as those +put forward by Sydney Smith. The truth seems to be that the 'Edinburgh +Review' enormously raised the tone of periodical literature at the time, +by opening an arena for perfectly independent discussion. Its great +merit, at starting, was that it was no mere publisher's organ, like its +rivals, and that it paid contributors well enough to attract the most +rising talent of the day. As the 'Review' progressed, its capacities +became more generally understood, and its writers, as they rose to +eminence and attracted new allies, put more genuine work into articles +certain to obtain a wide circulation and to come with great authority. +This implies a long step towards the development of the present system, +whose merits and defects would deserve a full discussion--the system +according to which much of the most solid and original work of the time +first appears in periodicals. The tone of periodicals has been +enormously raised, but the effect upon general literature may be more +questionable. But the 'Edinburgh' was not in its early years a journal +with a mission, or the organ of an enthusiastic sect. Rather it was the +instrument used by a number of very clever young men to put forward the +ideas current in the more liberal section of the upper classes, with +much occasional vigour and a large infusion of common-sense, but also +with abundant flippancy and superficiality, and, in a literary sense, +without that solidity of workmanship which is essential for enduring +vitality. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] Scott's letter, stating that this overture had been made by Jeffrey +under terror of the 'Quarterly,' was first published in Lockhart's 'Life +of Scott.' Jeffrey denied that he could ever have made the offer, both +because his contributors were too independent and because he had always +considered politics to be (as he remembered to have told Scott) the +'right leg' of the 'Review.' Undoubtedly, though Scott's letter was +written at the time and Jeffrey's contradiction many years afterwards, +it seems that Scott must have exaggerated. And yet in Horner's 'Memoirs' +we find a letter from Jeffrey which goes far to show that there was more +than might be supposed to confirm Scott's statement. Jeffrey begs for +Horner's assistance in the 'day of need,' caused by the Cevallos article +and the threatened 'Quarterly.' He tells Horner that he may write upon +any subject he pleases--'only no party politics, and nothing but +exemplary moderation and impartiality on all politics. I have allowed +too much mischief to be done from my mere indifference and love of +sport; but it would be inexcusable to spoil the powerful instrument we +have got hold of for the sake of teasing and playing tricks.'--Horner's +_Memoirs_, i. 439. It was on the occasion of the Cevallos article that +the Earl of Buchan solemnly kicked the 'Review' from his study into the +street--a performance which he supposed would be fatal to its +circulation. + +[22] See Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 92, for an interesting account of +these articles. + +[23] It would appear, from one of Jeffrey's statements, that Brougham +selfishly hung back till after the third number of the 'Review,' and its +'assured success' (Horner's _Memoirs_, i. p. 186, and Macvey Napier's +_Correspondence_, p. 422); from another, that Brougham, though anxious +to contribute, was excluded by Sydney Smith, from prudential motives. On +the other hand, Brougham in his autobiography claims (by name) seven +articles in the first number, five in the second, eight in the third, +and five in the fourth; in five of which he had a collaborator. His +hesitation, he says, ended before the appearance of the first number, +and was due to doubts as to Jeffrey's possession of sufficient editorial +power. + + + + +_WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS_ + + +Under every poetry, it has been said, there lies a philosophy. Rather, +it may almost be said, every poetry is a philosophy. The poet and the +philosopher live in the same world and are interested in the same +truths. What is the nature of man and the world in which he lives, and +what, in consequence, should be our conduct? These are the great +problems, the answers to which may take a religious, a poetical, a +philosophical, or an artistic form. The difference is that the poet has +intuitions, while the philosopher gives demonstrations; that the thought +which in one mind is converted into emotion, is in the other resolved +into logic; and that a symbolic representation of the idea is +substituted for a direct expression. The normal relation is exhibited in +the case of the anatomist and the sculptor. The artist intuitively +recognises the most perfect form; the man of science analyses the +structural relations by which it is produced. Though the two provinces +are concentric, they are not coincident. The reasoner is interested in +many details which have no immediate significance for the man of +feeling; and the poetic insight, on the other hand, is capable of +recognising subtle harmonies and discords of which our crude instruments +of weighing and measuring are incapable of revealing the secret. But the +connection is so close that the greatest works of either kind seem to +have a double nature. A philosophy may, like Spinoza's, be apparelled +in the most technical and abstruse panoply of logic, and yet the total +impression may stimulate a religious sentiment as effectively as any +poetic or theosophic mysticism. Or a great imaginative work, like +Shakespeare's, may present us with the most vivid concrete symbols, and +yet suggest, as forcibly as the formal demonstrations of a +metaphysician, the idealist conviction that the visible and tangible +world is a dream-woven tissue covering infinite and inscrutable +mysteries. In each case the highest intellectual faculty manifests +itself in the vigour with which certain profound conceptions of the +world and life have been grasped and assimilated. In each case that man +is greatest who soars habitually to the highest regions and gazes most +steadily upon the widest horizons of time and space. The logical +consistency which frames all dogmas into a consistent whole, is but +another aspect of the imaginative power which harmonises the strongest +and subtlest emotions excited. + +The task, indeed, of deducing the philosophy from the poetry, of +inferring what a man thinks from what he feels, may at times perplex the +acutest critic. Nor, if it were satisfactorily accomplished, could we +infer that the best philosopher is also the best poet. Absolute +incapacity for poetical expression may be combined with the highest +philosophic power. All that can safely be said is that a man's thoughts, +whether embodied in symbols or worked out in syllogisms, are more +valuable in proportion as they indicate greater philosophical insight; +and therefore that, _ceteris paribus_, that man is the greater poet +whose imagination is most transfused with reason; who has the deepest +truths to proclaim as well as the strongest feelings to utter. + +Some theorists implicitly deny this principle by holding substantially +that the poet's function is simply the utterance of a particular mood, +and that, if he utters it forcibly and delicately, we have no more to +ask. Even so, we should not admit that the thoughts suggested to a wise +man by a prospect of death and eternity are of just equal value, if +equally well expressed, with the thoughts suggested to a fool by the +contemplation of a good dinner. But, in practice, the utterance of +emotions can hardly be dissociated from the assertion of principles. +Psychologists have shown, ever since the days of Berkeley, that when a +man describes (as he thinks) a mere sensation, and says, for example, 'I +see a house,' he is really recording the result of a complex logical +process. A great painter and the dullest observer may have the same +impressions of coloured blotches upon their retina. The great man infers +the true nature of the objects which produce his sensations, and can +therefore represent the objects accurately. The other sees only with his +eyes, and can therefore represent nothing. There is thus a logic implied +even in the simplest observation, and one which can be tested by +mathematical rules as distinctly as a proposition in geometry. + +When we have to find a language for our emotions instead of our +sensations, we generally express the result of an incomparably more +complex set of intellectual operations. The poet, in uttering his joy or +sadness, often implies, in the very form of his language, a whole +philosophy of life or of the universe. The explanation is given at the +end of Shakespeare's familiar passage about the poet's eye:-- + + Such tricks hath strong imagination, + That, if it would but apprehend some joy, + It comprehends some bringer of that joy; + Or in the night, imagining some fear, + How easy is a bush supposed a bear! + +The _ap_prehension of the passion, as Shakespeare logically says, is a +_com_prehension of its cause. The imagination reasons. The bare faculty +of sight involves thought and feeling. The symbol which the fancy +spontaneously constructs, implies a whole world of truth or error, of +superstitious beliefs or sound philosophy. The poetry holds a number of +intellectual dogmas in solution; and it is precisely due to these +general dogmas, which are true and important for us as well as for the +poet, that his power over our sympathies is due. If his philosophy has +no power in it, his emotions lose their hold upon our minds, or interest +us only as antiquarians and lovers of the picturesque. But in the +briefest poems of a true thinker we read the essence of the life-long +reflections of a passionate and intellectual nature. Fears and hopes +common to all thoughtful men have been coined into a single phrase. Even +in cases where no definite conviction is expressed or even implied, and +the poem is simply, like music, an indefinite utterance of a certain +state of the emotions, we may discover an intellectual element. The +rational and the emotional nature have such intricate relations that one +cannot exist in great richness and force without justifying an inference +as to the other. From a single phrase, as from a single gesture, we can +often go far to divining the character of a man's thoughts and feelings. +We know more of a man from five minutes' talk than from pages of what is +called 'psychological analysis.' From a passing expression on the face, +itself the result of variations so minute as to defy all analysis, we +instinctively frame judgments as to a man's temperament and habitual +modes of thought and conduct. Indeed, such judgments, if erroneous, +determine us only too exclusively in the most important relations of +life. + +Now the highest poetry is that which expresses the richest, most +powerful, and most susceptible emotional nature, and the most versatile, +penetrative, and subtle intellect. Such qualities may be stamped upon +trifling work. The great artist can express his power within the limits +of a coin or a gem. The great poet will reveal his character through a +sonnet or a song. Shakespeare, or Milton, or Burns, or Wordsworth can +express his whole mode of feeling within a few lines. An ill-balanced +nature reveals itself by a discord, as an illogical mind by a fallacy. A +man need not compose an epic on a system of philosophy to write himself +down an ass. And, inversely, a great mind and a noble nature may show +itself by impalpable but recognisable signs within the 'sonnet's scanty +plot of ground.' Once more, the highest poetry must be that which +expresses not only the richest but the healthiest nature. Disease means +an absence or a want of balance of certain faculties, and therefore +leads to false reasoning or emotional discord. The defect of character +betrays itself in some erroneous mode of thought or baseness of +sentiment. And since morality means obedience to those rules which are +most essential to the spiritual health, vicious feeling indicates some +morbid tendency, and is so far destructive of the poetical faculty. An +immoral sentiment is the sign either of a false judgment of the world +and of human nature, or of a defect in the emotional nature which shows +itself by a discord or an indecorum, and leads to a cynicism or +indecency which offends the reason through the taste. What is called +immorality does not indeed always imply such defects. Sound moral +intuitions may be opposed to the narrow code prevalent at the time; or a +protest against puritanical or ascetic perversions of the standard may +hurry the poet into attacks upon true principles. And, again, the keen +sensibility which makes a man a poet, undoubtedly exposes him to certain +types of disease. He is more likely than his thick-skinned neighbour to +be vexed by evil, and to be drawn into distorted views of life by an +excess of sympathy or indignation. Injudicious admirers prize the +disease instead of the strength from which it springs; and value the +cynicism or the despair instead of the contempt for heartless +commonplace or the desire for better things with which it was +unfortunately connected. A strong moral sentiment has a great value, +even when forced into an unnatural alliance. Nay, even when it is, so to +speak, inverted, it often receives a kind of paradoxical value from its +efficacy against some opposite form of error. It is only a complete +absence of the moral faculty which is irredeemably bad. The poet in whom +it does not exist is condemned to the lower sphere, and can only deal +with the deepest feelings on penalty of shocking us by indecency or +profanity. A man who can revel in 'Epicurus' stye' without even the +indirect homage to purity of remorse and bitterness, can do nothing but +gratify our lowest passions. They, perhaps, have their place, and the +man who is content with such utterances may not be utterly worthless. +But to place him on a level with his betters is to confound every sound +principle of criticism. + +It follows that a kind of collateral test of poetical excellence may be +found by extracting the philosophy from the poetry. The test is, of +course, inadequate. A good philosopher may be an execrable poet. Even +stupidity is happily not inconsistent with sound doctrine, though +inconsistent with a firm grasp of ultimate principles. But the vigour +with which a man grasps and assimilates a deep moral doctrine is a test +of the degree in which he possesses one essential condition of the +higher poetical excellence. A continuous illustration of this principle +is given in the poetry of Wordsworth, who, indeed, has expounded his +ethical and philosophical views so explicitly, one would rather not say +so ostentatiously, that great part of the work is done to our hands. +Nowhere is it easier to observe the mode in which poetry and philosophy +spring from the same root and owe their excellence to the same +intellectual powers. So much has been said by the ablest critics of the +purely poetical side of Wordsworth's genius, that I may willingly +renounce the difficult task of adding or repeating. I gladly take for +granted--what is generally acknowledged--that Wordsworth in his best +moods reaches a greater height than any other modern Englishman. The +word 'inspiration' is less forced when applied to his loftiest poetry +than when used of any of his contemporaries. With defects too obvious to +be mentioned, he can yet pierce furthest behind the veil; and embody +most efficiently the thoughts and emotions which come to us in our most +solemn and reflective moods. Other poetry becomes trifling when we are +making our inevitable passages through the Valley of the Shadow of +Death. Wordsworth's alone retains its power. We love him the more as we +grow older and become more deeply impressed with the sadness and +seriousness of life; we are apt to grow weary of his rivals when we have +finally quitted the regions of youthful enchantment. And I take the +explanation to be that he is not merely a melodious writer, or a +powerful utterer of deep emotion, but a true philosopher. His poetry +wears well because it has solid substance. He is a prophet and a +moralist, as well as a mere singer. His ethical system, in particular, +is as distinctive and capable of systematic exposition as that of +Butler. By endeavouring to state it in plain prose, we shall see how the +poetical power implies a sensitiveness to ideas which, when extracted +from the symbolical embodiment, fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought. + +There are two opposite types to which all moral systems tend. They +correspond to the two great intellectual families to which every man +belongs by right of birth. One class of minds is distinguished by its +firm grasp of facts, by its reluctance to drop solid substance for the +loveliest shadows, and by its preference of concrete truths to the most +symmetrical of theories. In ethical questions the tendency of such minds +is to consider man as a being impelled by strong but unreasonable +passions towards tangible objects. He is a loving, hating, thirsting, +hungering--anything but a reasoning--being. As Swift--a typical example +of this intellectual temperament--declared, man is not an _animal +rationale_, but at most _capax rationis_. At bottom, he is a machine +worked by blind instincts. Their tendency cannot be deduced by _ŕ +priori_ reasoning, though reason may calculate the consequences of +indulging them. The passions are equally good, so far as equally +pleasurable. Virtue means that course of conduct which secures the +maximum of pleasure. Fine theories about abstract rights and +correspondence to eternal truths are so many words. They provide decent +masks for our passions; they do not really govern them, or alter their +nature, but they cover the ugly brutal selfishness of mankind, and +soften the shock of conflicting interests. Such a view has something in +it congenial to the English love of reality and contempt for shams. It +may be represented by Swift or Mandeville in the last century; in poetry +it corresponds to the theory attributed by some critics to Shakespeare; +in a tranquil and reasoning mind it leads to the utilitarianism of +Bentham; in a proud, passionate, and imaginative mind it manifests +itself in such a poem as 'Don Juan.' Its strength is in its grasp of +fact; its weakness, in its tendency to cynicism. Opposed to this is the +school which starts from abstract reason. It prefers to dwell in the +ideal world, where principles may be contemplated apart from the +accidents which render them obscure to vulgar minds. It seeks to deduce +the moral code from eternal truths without seeking for a groundwork in +the facts of experience. If facts refuse to conform to theories, it +proposes that facts should be summarily abolished. Though the actual +human being is, unfortunately, not always reasonable, it holds that pure +reason must be in the long run the dominant force, and that it reveals +the laws to which mankind will ultimately conform. The revolutionary +doctrine of the 'rights of man' expressed one form of this doctrine, and +showed in the most striking way a strength and weakness, which are the +converse of those exhibited by its antagonist. It was strong as +appealing to the loftier motives of justice and sympathy; and weak as +defying the appeal to experience. The most striking example in English +literature is in Godwin's 'Political Justice.' The existing social order +is to be calmly abolished because founded upon blind prejudice; the +constituent atoms called men are to be rearranged in an ideal order as +in a mathematical diagram. Shelley gives the translation of this theory +into poetry. The 'Revolt of Islam' or the 'Prometheus Unbound,' with all +its unearthly beauty, wearies the imagination which tries to soar into +the thin air of Shelley's dreamworld; just as the intellect, trying to +apply the abstract formulć of political metaphysics to any concrete +problem, feels as though it were under an exhausted receiver. In both +cases we seem to have got entirely out of the region of real human +passions and senses into a world, beautiful perhaps, but certainly +impalpable. + +The great aim of moral philosophy is to unite the disjoined element, to +end the divorce between reason and experience, and to escape from the +alternative of dealing with empty but symmetrical formulć or concrete +and chaotic facts. No hint can be given here as to the direction in +which a final solution must be sought. Whatever the true method, +Wordsworth's mode of conceiving the problem shows how powerfully he +grasped the questions at issue. If his doctrines are not systematically +expounded, they all have a direct bearing upon the real difficulties +involved. They are stated so forcibly in his noblest poems that we might +almost express a complete theory in his own language. But, without +seeking to make a collection of aphorisms from his poetry, we may +indicate the cardinal points of his teaching.[24] + +The most characteristic of all his doctrines is that which is embodied +in the great ode upon the 'Intimations of Immortality.' The doctrine +itself--the theory that the instincts of childhood testify to the +pre-existence of the soul--sounds fanciful enough; and Wordsworth took +rather unnecessary pains to say that he did not hold it as a serious +dogma. We certainly need not ask whether it is reasonable or orthodox to +believe that 'our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.' The fact +symbolised by the poetic fancy--the glory and freshness of our childish +instincts--is equally noteworthy, whatever its cause. Some modern +reasoners would explain its significance by reference to a very +different kind of pre-existence. The instincts, they would say, are +valuable, because they register the accumulated and inherited experience +of past generations. Wordsworth's delight in wild scenery is regarded by +them as due to the 'combination of states that were organised in the +race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were +amongst the mountains, woods, and waters.' In childhood we are most +completely under the dominion of these inherited impulses. The +correlation between the organism and its medium is then most perfect, +and hence the peculiar theme of childish communion with nature. + +Wordsworth would have repudiated the doctrine with disgust. He would +have been 'on the side of the angels.' No memories of the savage and the +monkey, but the reminiscences of the once-glorious soul could explain +his emotions. Yet there is this much in common between him and the men +of science whom he denounced with too little discrimination. The fact of +the value of these primitive instincts is admitted, and admitted for the +same purpose. Man, it is agreed, is furnished with sentiments which +cannot be explained as the result of his individual experience. They may +be intelligible, according to the evolutionist, when regarded as +embodying the past experience of the race; or, according to Wordsworth, +as implying a certain mysterious faculty imprinted upon the soul. The +scientific doctrine, whether sound or not, has modified the whole mode +of approaching ethical problems; and Wordsworth, though with a very +different purpose, gives a new emphasis to the facts, upon a +recognition of which, according to some theorists, must be based the +reconciliation of the great rival schools--the intuitionists and the +utilitarians. The parallel may at first sight seem fanciful; and it +would be too daring to claim for Wordsworth the discovery of the most +remarkable phenomenon which modern psychology must take into account. +There is, however, a real connection between the two doctrines, though +in one sense they are almost antithetical. Meanwhile we observe that the +same sensibility which gives poetical power is necessary to the +scientific observer. The magic of the ode, and of many other passages in +Wordsworth's poetry, is due to his recognition of this mysterious +efficacy of our childish instincts. He gives emphasis to one of the most +striking facts of our spiritual experience, which had passed with little +notice from professed psychologists. He feels what they afterwards tried +to explain. + +The full meaning of the doctrine comes out as we study Wordsworth more +thoroughly. Other poets--almost all poets--have dwelt fondly upon +recollections of childhood. But not feeling so strongly, and therefore +not expressing so forcibly, the peculiar character of the emotion, they +have not derived the same lessons from their observation. The Epicurean +poets are content with Herrick's simple moral-- + + Gather ye rosebuds while ye may-- + +and with his simple explanation-- + + That age is best which is the first, + When youth and blood are warmer. + +Others more thoughtful look back upon the early days with the passionate +regret of Byron's verses: + + There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, + When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; + 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. + +Such painful longings for the 'tender grace of a day that is dead' are +spontaneous and natural. Every healthy mind feels the pang in proportion +to the strength of its affections. But it is also true that the regret +resembles too often the maudlin meditation of a fast young man over his +morning's soda-water. It implies, that is, a non-recognition of the +higher uses to which the fading memories may still be put. A different +tone breathes in Shelley's pathetic but rather hectic moralisings, and +his lamentations over the departure of the 'spirit of delight.' Nowhere +has it found more exquisite expression than in the marvellous 'Ode to +the West Wind.' These magical verses--his best, as it seems to +me--describe the reflection of the poet's own mind in the strange stir +and commotion of a dying winter's day. They represent, we may say, the +fitful melancholy which oppresses a noble spirit when it has recognised +the difficulty of forcing facts into conformity with the ideal. He still +clings to the hope that his 'dead thoughts' may be driven over the +universe, + + Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth. + +But he bows before the inexorable fate which has cramped his energies: + + A heavy weight of years has chained and bowed + One too like thee; tameless and swift and proud. + +Neither Byron nor Shelley can see any satisfactory solution, and +therefore neither can reach a perfect harmony of feeling. The world +seems to them to be out of joint, because they have not known how to +accept the inevitable, nor to conform to the discipline of facts. And, +therefore, however intense the emotion, and however exquisite its +expression, we are left in a state of intellectual and emotional +discontent. Such utterances may suit us in youth, when we can afford to +play with sorrow. As we grow older we feel a certain emptiness in them. +A true man ought not to sit down and weep with an exhausted debauchee. +He cannot afford to confess himself beaten with the idealist who has +discovered that Rome was not built in a day, nor revolutions made with +rose-water. He has to work as long as he has strength; to work in spite +of, even by strength of, sorrow, disappointment, wounded vanity, and +blunted sensibilities; and therefore he must search for some profounder +solution for the dark riddle of life. + +This solution it is Wordsworth's chief aim to supply. In the familiar +verses which stand as a motto to his poems-- + + The child is father to the man, + And I could wish my days to be + Bound each to each by natural piety-- + +the great problem of life, that is, as he conceives it, is to secure a +continuity between the period at which we are guided by half-conscious +instincts, and that in which a man is able to supply the place of these +primitive impulses by reasoned convictions. This is the thought which +comes over and over again in his deepest poems, and round which all his +teaching centred. It supplies the great moral, for example, of the +'Leech-gatherer:' + + My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, + As if life's business were a summer mood: + As if all needful things would come unsought + To genial faith still rich in genial good. + +When his faith is tried by harsh experience, the leech-gatherer comes, + + Like a man from some far region sent + To give me human strength by apt admonishment; + +for he shows how the 'genial faith' may be converted into permanent +strength by resolution and independence. The verses most commonly +quoted, such as-- + + We poets in our youth begin in gladness, + But thereof come in the end despondency and sadness, + +give the ordinary view of the sickly school. Wordsworth's aim is to +supply an answer worthy not only of a poet, but a man. The same +sentiment again is expressed in the grand 'Ode to Duty,' where the + + Stern daughter of the voice of God + +is invoked to supply that 'genial sense of youth' which has hitherto +been a sufficient guidance; or in the majestic morality of the 'Happy +Warrior;' or in the noble verses on 'Tintern Abbey;' or, finally, in the +great ode which gives most completely the whole theory of that process +by which our early intuitions are to be transformed into settled +principles of feeling and action. + +Wordsworth's philosophical theory, in short, depends upon the asserted +identity between our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The +doctrine of a state of pre-existence, as it appears in other +writers--as, for example, in the Cambridge Platonists[25]--was connected +with an obsolete metaphysical system, and the doctrine--exploded in its +old form--of innate ideas. Wordsworth does not attribute any such +preternatural character to the 'blank misgivings' and 'shadowy +recollections' of which he speaks. They are invaluable data of our +spiritual experience; but they do not entitle us to lay down dogmatic +propositions independently of experience. They are spontaneous products +of a nature in harmony with the universe in which it is placed, and +inestimable as a clear indication that such a harmony exists. To +interpret and regulate them belongs to the reasoning faculty and the +higher imagination of later years. If he does not quite distinguish +between the province of reason and emotion--the most difficult of +philosophical problems--he keeps clear of the cruder mysticism, because +he does not seek to elicit any definite formulć from those admittedly +vague forebodings which lie on the border-land between the two sides of +our nature. With his invariable sanity of mind, he more than once +notices the difficulty of distinguishing between that which nature +teaches us and the interpretations which we impose upon nature.[26] He +carefully refrains from pressing the inference too far. + +The teaching, indeed, assumes that view of the universe which is implied +in his pantheistic language. The Divinity really reveals Himself in the +lonely mountains and the starry heavens. By contemplating them we are +able to rise into that 'blessed mood' in which for a time the burden of +the mystery is rolled off our souls, and we can 'see into the life of +things.' And here we must admit that Wordsworth is not entirely free +from the weakness which generally besets thinkers of this tendency. Like +Shaftesbury in the previous century, who speaks of the universal harmony +as emphatically though not as poetically as Wordsworth, he is tempted to +adopt a too facile optimism. He seems at times to have overlooked that +dark side of nature which is recognised in theological doctrines of +corruption, or in the scientific theories about the fierce struggle for +existence. Can we in fact say that these early instincts prove more than +the happy constitution of the individual who feels them? Is there not a +teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a +complacent brooding over soothing thoughts? Do not the mountains which +Wordsworth loved so well, speak of decay and catastrophe in every line +of their slopes? Do they not suggest the helplessness and narrow +limitations of man, as forcibly as his possible exaltation? The awe +which they strike into our souls has its terrible as well as its amiable +side; and in moods of depression the darker aspect becomes more +conspicuous than the brighter. Nay, if we admit that we have instincts +which are the very substance of all that afterwards becomes ennobling, +have we not also instincts which suggest a close alliance with the +brutes? If the child amidst his newborn blisses suggests a heavenly +origin, does he not also show sensual and cruel instincts which imply at +least an admixture of baser elements? If man is responsive to all +natural influences, how is he to distinguish between the good and the +bad, and, in short, to frame a conscience out of the vague instincts +which contain the germs of all the possible developments of the future? + +To say that Wordsworth has not given a complete answer to such +difficulties, is to say that he has not explained the origin of evil. It +may be admitted, however, that he does to a certain extent show a +narrowness of conception. The voice of nature, as he says, resembles an +echo; but we 'unthinking creatures' listen to 'voices of two different +natures.' We do not always distinguish between the echo of our lower +passions and the 'echoes from beyond the grave.' Wordsworth sometimes +fails to recognise the ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The +'blessed mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the world, is too +easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it. +He finds lonely meditation so inspiring that he is too indifferent to +the troubles of less self-sufficing or clear-sighted human beings. The +ambiguity makes itself felt in the sphere of morality. The ethical +doctrine that virtue consists in conformity to nature becomes ambiguous +with him, as with all its advocates, when we ask for a precise +definition of nature. How are we to know which natural forces make for +us and which fight against us? + +The doctrine of the love of nature, generally regarded as Wordsworth's +great lesson to mankind, means, as interpreted by himself and others, a +love of the wilder and grander objects of natural scenery; a passion for +the 'sounding cataract,' the rock, the mountain, and the forest; a +preference, therefore, of the country to the town, and of the simpler to +the more complex forms of social life. But what is the true value of +this sentiment? The unfortunate Solitary in the 'Excursion' is beset by +three Wordsworths; for the Wanderer and the Pastor are little more (as +Wordsworth indeed intimates) than reflections of himself, seen in +different mirrors. The Solitary represents the anti-social lessons to be +derived from communion with nature. He has become a misanthrope, and has +learnt from 'Candide' the lesson that we clearly do not live in the best +of all possible worlds. Instead of learning the true lesson from nature +by penetrating its deeper meanings, he manages to feed + + Pity and scorn and melancholy pride + +by accidental and fanciful analogies, and sees in rock pyramids or +obelisks a rude mockery of human toils. To confute this sentiment, to +upset 'Candide,' + + This dull product of a scoffer's pen, + +is the purpose of the lofty poetry and versified prose of the long +dialogues which ensue. That Wordsworth should call Voltaire dull is a +curious example of the proverbial blindness of controversialists; but +the moral may be equally good. It is given most pithily in the lines-- + + We live by admiration, hope, and love; + And even as these are well and wisely fused, + The dignity of being we ascend. + +'But what is Error?' continues the preacher; and the Solitary replies by +saying, 'somewhat haughtily,' that love, admiration, and hope are 'mad +fancy's favourite vassals.' The distinction between fancy and +imagination is, in brief, that fancy deals with the superficial +resemblances, and imagination with the deeper truths which underlie +them. The purpose, then, of the 'Excursion,' and of Wordsworth's poetry +in general, is to show how the higher faculty reveals a harmony which we +overlook when, with the Solitary, we + + Skim along the surfaces of things. + +The rightly prepared mind can recognise the divine harmony which +underlies all apparent disorder. The universe is to its perceptions like +the shell whose murmur in a child's ear seems to express a mysterious +union with the sea. But the mind must be rightly prepared. Everything +depends upon the point of view. One man, as he says in an elaborate +figure, looking upon a series of ridges in spring from their northern +side, sees a waste of snow, and from the south a continuous expanse of +green. That view, we must take it, is the right one which is illuminated +by the 'ray divine.' But we must train our eyes to recognise its +splendour; and the final answer to the Solitary is therefore embodied +in a series of narratives, showing by example how our spiritual vision +may be purified or obscured. Our philosophy must be finally based, not +upon abstract speculation and metaphysical arguments, but on the +diffused consciousness of the healthy mind. As Butler sees the universe +by the light of conscience, Wordsworth sees it through the wider +emotions of awe, reverence, and love, produced in a sound nature. + +The pantheistic conception, in short, leads to an unsatisfactory +optimism in the general view of nature, and to an equal tolerance of all +passions as equally 'natural.' To escape from this difficulty we must +establish some more discriminative mode of interpreting nature. Man is +the instrument played upon by all impulses, good or bad. The music which +results may be harmonious or discordant. When the instrument is in tune, +the music will be perfect; but when is it in tune, and how are we to +know that it is in tune? That problem once solved, we can tell which are +the authentic utterances and which are the accidental discords. And by +solving it, or by saying what is the right constitution of human beings, +we shall discover which is the true philosophy of the universe, and what +are the dictates of a sound moral sense. Wordsworth implicitly answers +the question by explaining, in his favourite phrase, how we are to build +up our moral being. + +The voice of nature speaks at first in vague emotions, scarcely +distinguishable from mere animal buoyancy. The boy, hooting in mimicry +of the owls, receives in his heart the voice of mountain torrents and +the solemn imagery of rocks, and woods, and stars. The sportive girl is +unconsciously moulded into stateliness and grace by the floating clouds, +the bending willow, and even by silent sympathy with the motions of the +storm. Nobody has ever shown, with such exquisite power as Wordsworth, +how much of the charm of natural objects in later life is due to early +associations, thus formed in a mind not yet capable of contemplating its +own processes. As old Matthew says in the lines which, however familiar, +can never be read without emotion-- + + My eyes are dim with childish tears, + My heart is idly stirred; + For the same sound is in my ears + Which in those days I heard. + +And the strangely beautiful address to the cuckoo might be made into a +text for a prolonged commentary by an ćsthetic philosopher upon the +power of early association. It curiously illustrates, for example, the +reason of Wordsworth's delight in recalling sounds. The croak of the +distant raven, the bleat of the mountain lamb, the splash of the leaping +fish in the lonely tarn, are specially delightful to him, because the +hearing is the most spiritual of our senses; and these sounds, like the +cuckoo's cry, seem to convert the earth into an 'unsubstantial fairy +place.' The phrase 'association' indeed implies a certain arbitrariness +in the images suggested, which is not quite in accordance with +Wordsworth's feeling. Though the echo depends partly upon the hearer, +the mountain voices are specially adapted for certain moods. They have, +we may say, a spontaneous affinity for the nobler affections. If some +early passage in our childhood is associated with a particular spot, a +house or a street will bring back the petty and accidental details: a +mountain or a lake will revive the deeper and more permanent elements of +feeling. If you have made love in a palace, according to Mr. Disraeli's +prescription, the sight of it will recall the splendour of the object's +dress or jewellery; if, as Wordsworth would prefer, with a background of +mountains, it will appear in later days as if they had absorbed, and +were always ready again to radiate forth, the tender and hallowing +influences which then for the first time entered your life. The +elementary and deepest passions are most easily associated with the +sublime and beautiful in nature. + + The primal duties shine aloft like stars; + The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, + Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers. + +And, therefore, if you have been happy enough to take delight in these +natural and universal objects in the early days, when the most permanent +associations are formed, the sight of them in later days will bring back +by pre-ordained and divine symbolism whatever was most ennobling in your +early feelings. The vulgarising associations will drop off of +themselves, and what was pure and lofty will remain. + +From this natural law follows another of Wordsworth's favourite +precepts. The mountains are not with him a symbol of anti-social +feelings. On the contrary, they are in their proper place as the +background of the simple domestic affections. He loves his native hills, +not in the Byronic fashion, as a savage wilderness, but as the +appropriate framework in which a healthy social order can permanently +maintain itself. That, for example, is, as he tells us, the thought +which inspired the 'Brothers,' a poem which excels all modern idylls in +weight of meaning and depth of feeling, by virtue of the idea thus +embodied. The retired valley of Ennerdale, with its grand background of +hills, precipitous enough to be fairly called mountains, forces the two +lads into closer affection. Shut in by these 'enormous barriers,' and +undistracted by the ebb and flow of the outside world, the mutual love +becomes concentrated. A tie like that of family blood is involuntarily +imposed upon the little community of dalesmen. The image of sheep-tracks +and shepherds clad in country grey is stamped upon the elder brother's +mind, and comes back to him in tropical calms; he hears the tones of his +waterfalls in the piping shrouds; and when he returns, recognises every +fresh scar made by winter storms on the mountain sides, and knows by +sight every unmarked grave in the little churchyard. The fraternal +affection sanctifies the scenery, and the sight of the scenery brings +back the affection with overpowering force upon his return. This is +everywhere the sentiment inspired in Wordsworth by his beloved hills. It +is not so much the love of nature pure and simple, as of nature seen +through the deepest human feelings. The light glimmering in a lonely +cottage, the one rude house in the deep valley, with its 'small lot of +life-supporting fields and guardian rocks,' are necessary to point the +moral and to draw to a definite focus the various forces of sentiment. +The two veins of feeling are inseparably blended. The peasant noble, in +the 'Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,' learns equally from men and +nature:-- + + Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; + His daily teachers had been woods and hills, + The silence that is in the starry skies, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + +Without the love, the silence and the sleep would have had no spiritual +meaning. They are valuable as giving intensity and solemnity to the +positive emotion. + +The same remark is to be made upon Wordsworth's favourite teaching of +the advantages of the contemplative life. He is fond of enforcing the +doctrine of the familiar lines, that we can feed our minds 'in a wise +passiveness,' and that + + One impulse from the vernal wood + Can teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good, + Than all the sages can. + +And, according to some commentators, this would seem to express the +doctrine that the ultimate end of life is the cultivation of tender +emotions without reference to action. The doctrine, thus absolutely +stated, would be immoral and illogical. To recommend contemplation in +preference to action is like preferring sleeping to waking; or saying, +as a full expression of the truth, that silence is golden and speech +silvern. Like that familiar phrase, Wordsworth's teaching is not to be +interpreted literally. The essence of such maxims is to be one-sided. +They are paradoxical in order to be emphatic. To have seasons of +contemplation, of withdrawal from the world and from books, of calm +surrendering of ourselves to the influences of nature, is a practice +commended in one form or other by all moral teachers. It is a sanitary +rule, resting upon obvious principles. The mind which is always occupied +in a multiplicity of small observations, or the regulation of practical +details, loses the power of seeing general principles and of associating +all objects with the central emotions of 'admiration, hope, and love.' +The philosophic mind is that which habitually sees the general in the +particular, and finds food for the deepest thought in the simplest +objects. It requires, therefore, periods of repose, in which the +fragmentary and complex atoms of distracted feeling which make up the +incessant whirl of daily life may have time to crystallise round the +central thoughts. But it must feed in order to assimilate; and each +process implies the other as its correlative. A constant interest, +therefore, in the joys and sorrows of our neighbours is as essential as +quiet, self-centred rumination. It is when the eye 'has kept watch o'er +man's mortality,' and by virtue of the tender sympathies of 'the human +heart by which we live,' that to us + + The meanest flower which blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. + +The solitude which implies severance from natural sympathies and +affections is poisonous. The happiness of the heart which lives alone, + + Housed in a dream, an outcast from the kind, + + * * * * * + + Is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind. + +Wordsworth's meditations upon flowers or animal life are impressive +because they have been touched by this constant sympathy. The sermon is +always in his mind, and therefore every stone may serve for a text. His +contemplation enables him to see the pathetic side of the small pains +and pleasures which we are generally in too great a hurry to notice. +There are times, of course, when this moralising tendency leads him to +the regions of the namby-pamby or sheer prosaic platitude. On the other +hand, no one approaches him in the power of touching some rich chord of +feeling by help of the pettiest incident. The old man going to the +fox-hunt with a tear on his cheek, and saying to himself, + + The key I must take, for my Helen is dead; + +or the mother carrying home her dead sailor's bird; the village +schoolmaster, in whom a rift in the clouds revives the memory of his +little daughter; the old huntsman unable to cut through the stump of +rotten wood--touch our hearts at once and for ever. The secret is given +in the rather prosaic apology for not relating a tale about poor Simon +Lee: + + O reader! had you in your mind + Such stores as silent thought can bring, + O gentle reader! you would find + A tale in everything. + +The value of silent thought is so to cultivate the primitive emotions +that they may flow spontaneously upon every common incident, and that +every familiar object becomes symbolic of them. It is a familiar remark +that a philosopher or man of science who has devoted himself to +meditation upon some principle or law of nature, is always finding new +illustrations in the most unexpected quarters. He cannot take up a novel +or walk across the street without hitting upon appropriate instances. +Wordsworth would apply the principle to the building up of our 'moral +being.' Admiration, hope, and love should be so constantly in our +thoughts, that innumerable sights and sounds which are meaningless to +the world should become to us a language incessantly suggestive of the +deepest topics of thought. + +This explains his dislike to science, as he understood the word, and his +denunciations of the 'world.' The man of science is one who cuts up +nature into fragments, and not only neglects their possible significance +for our higher feelings, but refrains on principle from taking it into +account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification, +and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance +as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead +and spiritless,' we are thus really waging + + An impious warfare with the very life + Of our own souls. + +We are putting the letter in place of the spirit, and dealing with +nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem. When we have learnt to +associate every object with some lesson + + Of human suffering or of human joy; + +when we have thus obtained the 'glorious habit,' + + By which sense is made + Subservient still to moral purposes, + Auxiliar to divine; + +the 'dull eye' of science will light up; for, in observing natural +processes, it will carry with it an incessant reference to the spiritual +processes to which they are allied. Science, in short, requires to be +brought into intimate connection with morality and religion. If we are +forced for our immediate purpose to pursue truth for itself, regardless +of consequences, we must remember all the more carefully that truth is a +whole, and that fragmentary bits of knowledge become valuable as they +are incorporated into a general system. The tendency of modern times to +specialism brings with it a characteristic danger. It requires to be +supplemented by a correlative process of integration. We must study +details to increase our knowledge; we must accustom ourselves to look at +the detail in the light of the general principles in order to make it +fruitful. + +The influence of that world which 'is too much with us late and soon' is +of the same kind. The man of science loves barren facts for their own +sake. The man of the world becomes devoted to some petty pursuit without +reference to ultimate ends. He becomes a slave to money, or power, or +praise, without caring for their effect upon his moral character. As +social organisation becomes more complete, the social unit becomes a +mere fragment instead of being a complete whole in himself. Man becomes + + The senseless member of a vast machine, + Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel. + +The division of labour, celebrated with such enthusiasm by Adam +Smith,[27] tends to crush all real life out of its victims. The soul of +the political economist may rejoice when he sees a human being devoting +his whole faculties to the performance of one subsidiary operation in +the manufacture of a pin. The poet and the moralist must notice with +anxiety the contrast between the old-fashioned peasant who, if he +discharged each particular function clumsily, discharged at least many +functions, and found exercise for all the intellectual and moral +faculties of his nature, and the modern artisan doomed to the incessant +repetition of one petty set of muscular expansions and contractions, and +whose soul, if he has one, is therefore rather an encumbrance than +otherwise. This is the evil which is constantly before Wordsworth's +eyes, as it has certainly not become less prominent since his time. The +danger of crushing the individual is a serious one according to his +view; not because it implies the neglect of some abstract political +rights, but from the impoverishment of character which is implied in the +process. Give every man a vote, and abolish all interference with each +man's private tastes, and the danger may still be as great as ever. The +tendency to 'differentiation'--as we call it in modern phraseology--the +social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's +sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon +processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, therefore, be +cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, or by the negative remedy +of removing old barriers. It requires to be met by profounder moral and +religious teaching. Men must be taught what is the really valuable part +of their natures, and what is the purest happiness to be extracted from +life, as well as allowed to gratify fully their own tastes; for who can +say that men encouraged by all their surroundings and appeals to the +most obvious motives to turn themselves into machines, will not +deliberately choose to be machines? Many powerful thinkers have +illustrated Wordsworth's doctrine more elaborately, but nobody has gone +more decisively to the root of the matter. + +One other side of Wordsworth's teaching is still more significant and +original. Our vague instincts are consolidated into reason by +meditation, sympathy with our fellows, communion with nature, and a +constant devotion to 'high endeavours.' If life run smoothly, the +transformation may be easy, and our primitive optimism turn +imperceptibly into general complacency. The trial comes when we make +personal acquaintance with sorrow, and our early buoyancy begins to +fail. We are tempted to become querulous or to lap ourselves in +indifference. Most poets are content to bewail our lot melodiously, and +admit that there is no remedy unless a remedy be found in 'the luxury of +grief.' Prosaic people become selfish, though not sentimental. They +laugh at their old illusions, and turn to the solid consolations of +comfort. Nothing is more melancholy than to study many biographies, and +note--not the failure of early promise, which may mean merely an aiming +above the mark--but the progressive deterioration of character which so +often follows grief and disappointment. If it be not true that most men +grow worse as they grow old, it is surely true that few men pass +through the world without being corrupted as much as purified. + +Now Wordsworth's favourite lesson is the possibility of turning grief +and disappointment into account. He teaches in many forms the necessity +of 'transmuting' sorrow into strength. One of the great evils is a lack +of power, + + An agonising sorrow to transmute. + +The Happy Warrior is, above all, the man who in face of all human +miseries can + + Exercise a power + Which is our human nature's highest dower; + Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves + Of their bad influence, and their good receives; + +who is made more compassionate by familiarity with sorrow, more placable +by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.[28] It +is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to +the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who +will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an +impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we +may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an +intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far +at least as this world is concerned, can really be called consolatory. +None of the ordinary commonplaces will serve, or serve at most as +indications of human sympathy. But there is some consolation in the +thought that even death may bind the survivors closer, and leave as a +legacy enduring motives to noble action. It is easy to say this; but +Wordsworth has the merit of feeling the truth in all its force, and +expressing it by the most forcible images. In one shape or another the +sentiment is embodied in most of his really powerful poetry. It is +intended, for example, to be the moral of the 'White Doe of Rylstone.' +There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is +external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral +and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it +grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem. +Emily, the heroine, is to become a soul + + By force of sorrows high + Uplifted to the purest sky + Of undisturbed serenity. + +The 'White Doe' is one of those poems which make many readers inclined +to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's dogged insensibility; and I +confess that I am not one of its warm admirers. The sentiment seems to +be unduly relaxed throughout; there is a want of sympathy with heroism +of the rough and active type, which is, after all, at least as worthy of +admiration as the more passive variety of the virtue; and the defect is +made more palpable by the position of the chief actors. These rough +borderers, who recall William of Deloraine and Dandie Dinmont, are +somehow out of their element when preaching the doctrines of quietism +and submission to circumstances. But, whatever our judgment of this +particular embodiment of Wordsworth's moral philosophy, the inculcation +of the same lesson gives force to many of his finest poems. It is +enough to mention the 'Leech-gatherer,' the 'Stanzas on Peele Castle,' +'Michael,' and, as expressing the inverse view of the futility of idle +grief, 'Laodamia,' where he has succeeded in combining his morality with +more than his ordinary beauty of poetical form. The teaching of all +these poems falls in with the doctrine already set forth. All moral +teaching, I have sometimes fancied, might be summed up in the one +formula, 'Waste not.' Every element of which our nature is composed may +be said to be good in its proper place; and therefore every vicious +habit springs out of the misapplication of forces which might be turned +to account by judicious training. The waste of sorrow is one of the most +lamentable forms of waste. Sorrow too often tends to produce bitterness +or effeminacy of character. But it may, if rightly used, serve only to +detach us from the lower motives, and give sanctity to the higher. That +is what Wordsworth sees with unequalled clearness, and he therefore sees +also the condition of profiting. The mind in which the most valuable +elements have been systematically strengthened by meditation, by +association of deep thought with the most universal presences, by +constant sympathy with the joys and sorrows of its fellows, will be +prepared to convert sorrow into a medicine instead of a poison. Sorrow +is deteriorating so far as it is selfish. The man who is occupied with +his own interests makes grief an excuse for effeminate indulgence in +self-pity. He becomes weaker and more fretful. The man who has learnt +habitually to think of himself as part of a greater whole, whose conduct +has been habitually directed to noble ends, is purified and strengthened +by the spiritual convulsion. His disappointment, or his loss of some +beloved object, makes him more anxious to fix the bases of his +happiness widely and deeply, and to be content with the consciousness of +honest work, instead of looking for what is called success. + +But I must not take to preaching in the place of Wordsworth. The whole +theory is most nobly summed up in the grand lines already noticed on the +character of the Happy Warrior. There Wordsworth has explained in the +most forcible and direct language the mode in which a grand character +can be formed; how youthful impulses may change into manly purpose; how +pain and sorrow may be transmuted into new forces; how the mind may be +fixed upon lofty purposes; how the domestic affections--which give the +truest happiness--may also be the greatest source of strength to the man +who is + + More brave for this, that he has much to lose; + +and how, finally, he becomes indifferent to all petty ambition-- + + Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; + And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws + His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. + This is the Happy Warrior, this is he + Whom every man in arms should wish to be. + +We may now see what ethical theory underlies Wordsworth's teaching of +the transformation of instinct into reason. We must start from the +postulate that there is in fact a Divine order in the universe; and that +conformity to this order produces beauty as embodied in the external +world, and is the condition of virtue as regulating our character. It is +by obedience to the 'stern lawgiver,' Duty, that flowers gain their +fragrance, and that 'the most ancient heavens' preserve their freshness +and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in +abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are +precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and +emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not +a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are +not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering +their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been +implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds +to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to +experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the +assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it, +though we could not deduce it by an _ŕ priori_ method. + +The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and +may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern +teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy +natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great +primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume. +Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and +endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the +primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights +of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;' +and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for +furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite +treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early +happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief +produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on +petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and +pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing the +noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its +instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature, +and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know +how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised +are the laws of morality. + +To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode +of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You +must love him,' as he says of the poet, + + Ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love. + +The doctrine corresponds to the _crede ut intelligas_ of the divine; or +to the philosophic theory that we must start from the knowledge already +constructed within us by instincts which have not yet learnt to reason. +And, finally, if a persistent reasoner should ask why--even admitting +the facts--the higher type should be preferred to the lower, Wordsworth +may ask, Why is bodily health preferable to disease? If a man likes weak +lungs and a bad digestion, reason cannot convince him of his error. The +physician has done enough when he has pointed out the sanitary laws +obedience to which generates strength, long life, and power of +enjoyment. The moralist is in the same position when he has shown how +certain habits conduce to the development of a type superior to its +rivals in all the faculties which imply permanent peace of mind and +power of resisting the shocks of the world without disintegration. Much +undoubtedly remains to be said. Wordsworth's teaching, profound and +admirable as it may be, has not the potency to silence the scepticism +which has gathered strength since his day, and assailed fundamental--or +what to him seemed fundamental--tenets of his system. No one can yet +say what transformation may pass upon the thoughts and emotions for +which he found utterance in speaking of the Divinity and sanctity of +nature. Some people vehemently maintain that the words will be emptied +of all meaning if the old theological conceptions to which he was so +firmly attached should disappear with the development of new modes of +thought. Nature, as regarded by the light of modern science, will be the +name of a cruel and wasteful, or at least of a purely neutral and +indifferent power, or perhaps as merely an equivalent for the +Unknowable, to which the conditions of our intellect prevent us from +ever attaching any intelligible predicate. Others would say that in +whatever terms we choose to speak of the mysterious darkness which +surrounds our little island of comparative light, the emotion generated +in a thoughtful mind by the contemplation of the universe will remain +unaltered or strengthen with clearer knowledge; and that we shall +express ourselves in a new dialect without altering the essence of our +thought. The emotions to which Wordsworth has given utterance will +remain, though the system in which he believed should sink into +oblivion; as, indeed, all human systems have found different modes of +symbolising the same fundamental feelings. But it is enough vaguely to +indicate considerations not here to be developed. + +It only remains to be added once more that Wordsworth's poetry derives +its power from the same source as his philosophy. It speaks to our +strongest feelings because his speculation rests upon our deepest +thoughts. His singular capacity for investing all objects with a glow +derived from early associations; his keen sympathy with natural and +simple emotions; his sense of the sanctifying influences which can be +extracted from sorrow, are of equal value to his power over our +intellects and our imaginations. His psychology, stated systematically, +is rational; and, when expressed passionately, turns into poetry. To be +sensitive to the most important phenomena is the first step equally +towards a poetical or a scientific exposition. To see these truly is the +condition of making the poetry harmonious and the philosophy logical. +And it is often difficult to say which power is most remarkable in +Wordsworth. It would be easy to illustrate the truth by other than moral +topics. His sonnet, noticed by De Quincey, in which he speaks of the +abstracting power of darkness, and observes that as the hills pass into +twilight we see the same sight as the ancient Britons, is impressive as +it stands, but would be equally good as an illustration in a +metaphysical treatise. Again, the sonnet beginning + + With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide, + +is at once, as he has shown in a commentary of his own, an illustration +of a curious psychological law--of our tendency, that is, to introduce +an arbitrary principle of order into a random collection of +objects--and, for the same reason, a striking embodiment of the +corresponding mood of feeling. The little poem called 'Stepping +Westward' is in the same way at once a delicate expression of a specific +sentiment and an acute critical analysis of the subtle associations +suggested by a single phrase. But such illustrations might be multiplied +indefinitely. As he has himself said, there is scarcely one of his poems +which does not call attention to some moral sentiment, or to a general +principle or law of thought, of our intellectual constitution. + +Finally, we might look at the reverse side of the picture, and endeavour +to show how the narrow limits of Wordsworth's power are connected with +certain moral defects; with the want of quick sympathy which shows +itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which +caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather +commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he +assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many +thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would +be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to +console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy +happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to +think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;' +and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest +exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has +expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and +Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in +acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist. + +[25] The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this +connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint. + +[26] As, for example, in the _Lines on Tintern Abbey_: 'If this be but a +vain belief.' + +[27] See Wordsworth's reference to the _Wealth of Nations_, in the +_Prelude_, book xiii. + +[28] So, too, in the _Prelude_:-- + + Then was the truth received into my heart, + That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, + If from the affliction somewhere do not grow + Honour which could not else have been, a faith, + An elevation, and a sanctity; + If new strength be not given, nor old restored, + The fault is ours, not Nature's. + + + + +_LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS_ + + +When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works, +the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part +any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and +were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a +definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an +attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most +striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of +opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general +public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish +applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It +is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer literary palate than is +possessed by the vulgar herd are really so keenly appreciative as the +innocent reader of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in matters +of taste--whether of the literal or metaphorical kind--is the commonest +of vices. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are +more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed. I have heard very good +judges whisper in private that they have found Landor dull; and the rare +citations made from his works often betray a very perfunctory study of +them. Not long ago, for example, an able critic quoted a passage from +one of the 'Imaginary Conversations' to prove that Landor admired +Milton's prose, adding the remark that it might probably be taken as an +expression of his real sentiments, although put in the mouth of a +dramatic person. To anyone who has read Landor with ordinary attention, +it seems as absurd to speak in this hypothetical manner as it would be +to infer from some incidental allusion that Mr. Ruskin admires Turner. +Landor's adoration for Milton is one of the most conspicuous of his +critical propensities. There are, of course, many eulogies upon Landor +of undeniable weight. They are hearty, genuine, and from competent +judges. Yet the enthusiasm of such admirable critics as Mr. Emerson and +Mr. Lowell may be carped at by some who fancy that every American enjoys +a peculiar sense of complacency when rescuing an English genius from the +neglect of his own countrymen. If Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne have +been conspicuous in their admiration, it might be urged that neither of +them has too strong a desire to keep to that beaten highroad of the +commonplace, beyond which even the best guides meet with pitfalls. +Southey's praises of Landor were sincere and emphatic; but it must be +added that they provoke a recollection of one of Johnson's shrewd +remarks. 'The reciprocal civility of authors,' says the Doctor, 'is one +of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.' One forgives poor +Southey indeed for the vanity which enabled him to bear up so bravely +against anxiety and repeated disappointment; and if both he and Landor +found that 'reciprocal civility' helped them to bear the disregard of +contemporaries, one would not judge them harshly. It was simply a tacit +agreement to throw their harmless vanity into a common stock. Of Mr. +Forster, Landor's faithful friend and admirer, one can only say that in +his writing about Landor, as upon other topics, we are distracted +between the respect due to his strong feeling for the excellent in +literature, and the undeniable facts that his criticisms have a very +blunt edge, and that his eulogies are apt to be indiscriminate. + +Southey and Wordsworth had a simple method of explaining the neglect of +a great author. According to them, contemporary neglect affords a +negative presumption in favour of permanent reputation. No lofty poet +has honour in his own generation. Southey's conviction that his +ponderous epics would make the fortune of his children is a pleasant +instance of self-delusion. But the theory is generally admitted in +regard to Wordsworth; and Landor accepted and defended it with +characteristic vigour. 'I have published,' he says in the conversation +with Hare, 'five volumes of "Imaginary Conversations:" cut the worst of +them through the middle, and there will remain in the decimal fraction +enough to satisfy my appetite for fame. I shall dine late; but the +dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.' He recurs +frequently to the doctrine. 'Be patient!' he says, in another character. +'From the higher heavens of poetry it is long before the radiance of the +brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out +one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and +instruments on the poet's grave. The worms must have eaten us before we +rightly know what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are +boxed and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so! I shall not be tired +of waiting.' Conscious, as he says in his own person, that in 2,000 +years there have not been five volumes of prose (the work of one author) +equal to his 'Conversations,' he could indeed afford to wait: if +conscious of earthly things, he must be waiting still. + +This superlative self-esteem strikes one, to say the truth, as part of +Landor's abiding boyishness. It is only in schoolboy themes that we are +still inclined to talk about the devouring love of fame. Grown-up men +look rightly with some contempt upon such aspirations. What work a man +does is really done in, or at least through, his own generation; and the +posthumous fame which poets affect to value means, for the most part, +being known by name to a few antiquarians, schoolmasters, or secluded +students. When the poet, to adopt Landor's metaphor, has become a +luminous star, his superiority to those which have grown dim by distance +is indeed for the first time clearly demonstrated. We can still see him, +though other bodies of his system have vanished into the infinite depths +of oblivion. But he has also ceased to give appreciable warmth or light +to ordinary human beings. He is a splendid name, but not a living +influence. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to any +such statements, but I have a suspicion that even Shakespeare's chief +work may have been done in the Globe Theatre, to living audiences, who +felt what they never thought of criticising, and were quite unable to +measure; and that, spite of all ćsthetic philosophers and minute +antiquarians and judicious revivals, his real influence upon men's minds +has been for the most part declining as his fame has been spreading. To +defend or fully expound this heretical dogma would take too much space. +The 'late-dinner' theory, however, as held by Wordsworth and Landor, is +subject to one less questionable qualification. It is an utterly +untenable proposition that great men have been generally overlooked in +their own day. + +If we run over the chief names of our literature, it would be hard to +point to one which was not honoured, and sometimes honoured to excess, +during its proprietor's lifetime. It is, indeed, true that much +ephemeral underwood has often hidden in part the majestic forms which +now stand out as sole relics of the forest. It is true also that the +petty spite and jealousy of contemporaries, especially of their ablest +contemporaries, has often prevented the full recognition of great men. +And there have been some whose fame, like that of Bunyan and De Foe, has +extended amongst the lower sphere of readers before receiving the +ratification of constituted judges. But such irregularities in the +distribution of fame do not quite meet the point. I doubt whether one +could mention a single case in which an author, overlooked at the time +both by the critics and the mass, has afterwards become famous; and the +cases are very rare in which a reputation once decayed has again taken +root and shown real vitality. The experiment of resuscitation has been +tried of late years with great pertinacity. The forgotten images of our +seventeenth-century ancestors have been brought out of the lumber-room +amidst immense flourishes of trumpets, but they are terribly worm-eaten; +and all efforts to make their statues once more stand firmly on their +pedestals have generally failed. Landor himself refused to see the +merits of the mere 'mushrooms,' as he somewhere called them, which grew +beneath the Shakespearian oak; and though such men as Chapman, Webster, +and Ford have received the warmest eulogies of Lamb and other able +successors, their vitality is spasmodic and uncertain. We generally read +them, if we read them, at the point of the critic's bayonet. + +The case of Wordsworth is no precedent for Landor. Wordsworth's fame +was for a long time confined to a narrow sect, and he did all in his +power to hinder its spread by wilful disregard of the established +canons--even when founded in reason. A reformer who will not court the +prejudices even of his friends is likely to be slow in making converts. +But it is one thing to be slow in getting a hearing, and another in +attracting men who are quite prepared to hear. Wordsworth resembled a +man coming into a drawing-room with muddy boots and a smock-frock. He +courted disgust, and such courtship is pretty sure of success. But +Landor made his bow in full court-dress. In spite of the difficulty of +his poetry, he had all the natural graces which are apt to propitiate +cultivated readers. His prose has merits so conspicuous and so dear to +the critical mind, that one might have expected his welcome from the +connoisseurs to be warm even beyond the limit of sincerity. To praise +him was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and +there can be no greater stimulus to critical enthusiasm. One might have +guessed that he would be a favourite with all who set up for a +discernment superior to that of the vulgar; though the causes which must +obstruct a wide recognition of his merits are sufficiently obvious. It +may be interesting to consider the cause of his ill-success with some +fulness; and it is a comfort to the critic to reflect that in such a +case even obtuseness is in some sort a qualification; for it will enable +one to sympathise with the vulgar insensibility to the offered delicacy, +if only to substitute articulate rejection for simple stolid silence. + +I do not wish, indeed, to put forward such a claim too unreservedly. I +will merely take courage to confess that Landor very frequently bores +me. So do a good many writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage +be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon +Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever +spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, +almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser +continuously. Even Milton in Landor's hands, in defiance of his known +opinions, is made to speak contemptuously of 'The Faery Queen.' 'There +is scarcely a poet of the same eminence,' says Porson, obviously +representing Landor in this case, 'whom I have found it so delightful to +read in, and so hard to read through.' What Landor here says of Spenser, +I should venture to say of Landor. There are few books of the kind into +which one may dip with so great a certainty of finding much to admire as +the 'Imaginary Conversations,' and few of any high reputation which are +so certain to become wearisome after a time. And yet, upon thinking of +the whole five volumes so emphatically extolled by their author, one +feels the necessity of some apology for this admission of inadequate +sympathy. There is a vigour of feeling, an originality of character, a +fineness of style which makes one understand, if not quite agree to, the +audacious self-commendation. Part of the effect is due simply to the +sheer quantity of good writing. Take any essay separately, and one must +admit that--to speak only of his contemporaries--there is a greater +charm in passages of equal length by Lamb, De Quincey, or even Hazlitt. +None of them gets upon such stilts, or seems so anxious to keep the +reader at arm's length. But, on the other hand, there is something +imposing in so continuous a flow of stately and generally faultless +English, with so many weighty aphorisms rising spontaneously, without +splashing or disturbance, to the surface of talk, and such an easy +felicity of theme unmarred by the flash and glitter of the modern +epigrammatic style. Lamb is both sweeter and more profound, to say +nothing of his incomparable humour; but then Lamb's flight is short and +uncertain. De Quincey's passages of splendid rhetoric are too often +succeeded by dead levels of verbosity and laboured puerilities which +make annoyance alternate with enthusiasm. Hazlitt is often spasmodic, +and his intrusive egotism is pettish and undignified. But so far at +least as his style is concerned, Landor's unruffled abundant stream of +continuous harmony excites one's admiration the more the longer one +reads. Hardly anyone who has written so much has kept so uniformly to a +high level, and so seldom descended to empty verbosity or to downright +slipshod. It is true that the substance does not always correspond to +the perfection of the form. There are frequent discontinuities of +thought where the style is smoothest. He reminds one at times of those +Alpine glaciers where an exquisitely rounded surface of snow conceals +yawning crevasses beneath; and if one stops for a moment to think, one +is apt to break through the crust with an abrupt and annoying jerk. + +The excellence of Landor's style has, of course, been universally +acknowledged, and it is natural that it should be more appreciated by +his fellow-craftsmen than by general readers less interested in +technical questions. The defects are the natural complements of its +merits. When accused of being too figurative, he had a ready reply. +'Wordsworth,' he says in one of his 'Conversations,' 'slithers on the +soft mud, and cannot stop himself until he comes down. In his poetry +there is as much of prose as there is of poetry in the prose of Milton. +But prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the +other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose, +and neither fan nor burnt feather can bring her to herself again.' The +remark about the relations of prose and poetry was originally made in a +real conversation with Wordsworth in defence of Landor's own luxuriance. +Wordsworth, it is said, took it to himself, and not without reason, as +appears by its insertion in this 'Conversation.' The retort, however +happy, is no more conclusive than other cases of the _tu quoque_. We are +too often inclined to say to Landor as Southey says to Porson in another +place: 'Pray leave these tropes and metaphors.' His sense suffers from a +superfetation of figures, or from the undue pursuit of a figure, till +the 'wind of the poor phrase is cracked.' In the phrase just quoted, for +example, we could dispense with the 'fan and burnt feather,' which have +very little relation to the thought. So, to take an instance of the +excessively florid, I may quote the phrase in which Marvell defends his +want of respect for the aristocracy of his day. 'Ever too hard upon +great men, Mr. Marvell!' says Bishop Parker; and Marvell replies:-- + + Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows because + our sun is setting; the men so little and the places so + lofty that, casting my pebble, I only show where they stand. + They would be less contented with themselves, if they had + obtained their preferment honestly. Luck and dexterity + always give more pleasure than intellect and knowledge; + because they fill up what they fall on to the brim at once; + and people run to them with acclamations at the splash. + Wisdom is reserved and noiseless, contented with hard + earnings, and daily letting go some early acquisition to + make room for better specimens. But great is the exultation + of a worthless man when he receives for the chips and + raspings of his Bridewell logwood a richer reward than the + best and wisest for extensive tracts of well-cleared truths! + Even he who has sold his country-- + +'Forbear, good Mr. Marvell,' says Bishop Parker; and one is inclined to +sympathise with the poor man drowned under this cascade of tropes. It is +certainly imposing, but I should be glad to know the meaning of the +metaphor about 'luck and dexterity.' Passages occur, again, in which we +are tempted to think that Landor is falling into an imitation of an +obsolete model. Take, for example, the following:-- + + A narrow mind cannot be enlarged, nor can a capacious one be + contracted. Are we angry with a phial for not being a flask; + or do we wonder that the skin of an elephant sits uneasily + on a squirrel? + +Or this, in reference to Wordsworth:-- + + Pastiness and flatness are the qualities of a pancake, and + thus far he attained his aim: but if he means it for me, let + him place the accessories on the table, lest what is insipid + and clammy ... grow into duller accretion and moister + viscidity the more I masticate it. + +Or a remark given to Newton:-- + + Wherever there is vacuity of mind, there must either be + flaccidity or craving; and this vacuity must necessarily be + found in the greater part of princes, from the defects of + their education, from the fear of offending them in its + progress by interrogations and admonitions, from the habit + of rendering all things valueless by the facility with which + they are obtained, and transitory by the negligence with + which they are received and holden. + +Should we not remove the names of Porson and Newton from these +sentences, and substitute Sam Johnson? The last passage reads very like +a quotation from the 'Rambler.' Johnson was, in my opinion and in +Landor's, a great writer in spite of his mannerism; but the mannerism is +always rather awkward, and in such places we seem to see--certainly not +a squirrel--but, say, a thoroughbred horse invested with the skin of an +elephant. + +These lapses into the inflated are of course exceptional with Landor. +There can be no question of the fineness of his perception in all +matters of literary form. To say that his standard of style is classical +is to repeat a commonplace too obvious for repetition, except to add a +doubt whether he is not often too ostentatious and self-conscious in his +classicism. He loves and often exhibits a masculine simplicity, and +speaks with enthusiasm of Locke and Swift in their own departments. +Locke is to be 'revered;' he is 'too simply grand for admiration;' and +no one, he thinks, ever had such a power as Swift of saying forcibly and +completely whatever he meant to say. But for his own purposes he +generally prefers a different model. The qualities which he specially +claims seem to be summed up in the conversation upon Bacon's Essays +between Newton and Barrow. Cicero and Bacon, says Barrow, have more +wisdom between them than all the philosophers of antiquity. Newton's +review of the Essays, he adds, 'hath brought back to my recollection so +much of shrewd judgment, so much of rich imagery, such a profusion of +truths so plain as (without his manner of exhibiting them) to appear +almost unimportant, that in various high qualities of the human mind I +must acknowledge not only Cicero, but every prose writer among the +Greeks, to stand far below him. Cicero is least valued for his highest +merits, his fulness, and his perspicuity. Bad judges (and how few are +not so!) desire in composition the concise and obscure; not knowing that +the one most frequently arises from paucity of materials, and the other +from inability to manage and dispose them.' Landor aims, like Bacon, at +rich imagery, at giving to thoughts which appear plain more value by +fineness of expression, and at compressing shrewd judgments into weighty +aphorisms. He would equally rival Cicero in fulness and perspicuity; +whilst a severe rejection of everything slovenly or superfluous would +save him from ever deviating into the merely florid. So far as style can +be really separated from thought, we may admit unreservedly that he has +succeeded in his aim, and has attained a rare harmony of tone and +colouring. + +There may, indeed, be some doubt as to his perspicuity. Southey said +that Landor was obscure, whilst adding that he could not explain the +cause of the obscurity. Causes enough may be suggested. Besides his +incoherency, his love of figures which sometimes become half detached +from the underlying thought, and an over-anxiety to avoid mere smartness +which sometimes leads to real vagueness, he expects too much from his +readers, or perhaps despises them too much. He will not condescend to +explanation if you do not catch his drift at half a word. He is so +desirous to round off his transitions gracefully, that he obliterates +the necessary indications of the main divisions of the subject. When +criticising Milton or Dante, he can hardly keep his hand off the finest +passages in his desire to pare away superfluities. Treating himself in +the same fashion, he leaves none of those little signs which, like the +typographical hand prefixed to a notice, are extremely convenient, +though strictly superfluous. It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard +framework of logical divisions showing too distinctly in an argument, or +to have a too elaborate statement of dates and places and external +relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may be removed too +freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffolding. +Faults of this kind, however, will not explain Landor's failure to get a +real hold upon a large body of readers. Writers of far greater obscurity +and much more repellent blemishes of style to set against much lower +merits, have gained a far wider popularity. The want of sympathy between +so eminent a literary artist and his time must rest upon some deeper +divergence of sentiment. Landor's writings present the same kind of +problem as his life. We are told, and we can see for ourselves, that he +was a man of many very high and many very amiable qualities. He was full +of chivalrous feeling; capable of the most flowing and delicate +courtesy; easily stirred to righteous indignation against every kind of +tyranny and bigotry; capable, too, of a tenderness pleasantly contrasted +with his outbursts of passing wrath; passionately fond of children, and +a true lover of dogs. But with all this, he could never live long at +peace with anybody. He was the most impracticable of men, and every +turning-point in his career was decided by some vehement quarrel. He had +to leave school in consequence of a quarrel, trifling in itself, but +aggravated by 'a fierce defiance of all authority and a refusal to ask +forgiveness.' He got into a preposterous scrape at Oxford, and forced +the authorities to rusticate him. This branched out into a quarrel with +his father. When he set up as a country gentleman at Llanthony Abbey, he +managed to quarrel with his neighbours and his tenants, until the +accumulating consequences to his purse forced him to go to Italy. On the +road thither he began the first of many quarrels with his wife, which +ultimately developed into a chronic quarrel and drove him back to +England. From England he was finally dislodged by another quarrel which +drove him back to Italy. Intermediate quarrels of minor importance are +intercalated between those which provoked decisive crises. The +lightheartedness which provoked all these difficulties is not more +remarkable than the ease with which he threw them off his mind. Blown +hither and thither by his own gusts of passion, he always seems to fall +on his feet, and forgets his trouble as a schoolboy forgets yesterday's +flogging. On the first transitory separation from his wife, he made +himself quite happy by writing Latin verses; and he always seems to have +found sufficient consolation in such literary occupation for vexations +which would have driven some people out of their mind. He would not, he +writes, encounter the rudeness of a certain lawyer to save all his +property; but he adds, 'I have chastised him in my Latin poetry now in +the press.' Such a mode of chastisement seems to have been as completely +satisfactory to Landor as it doubtless was to the lawyer. + +His quarrels do not alienate us, for it is evident that they did not +proceed from any malignant passion. If his temper was ungovernable, his +passions were not odious, or, in any low sense, selfish. In many, if not +all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of +right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive +insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people +who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing +to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense +of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against +stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance of shrewd +sense which fully appreciates Falstaff's theory of honour. Scott himself +managed to combine the two qualities; but poor Landor seems to have had +Hotspur's readiness to quarrel on the tenth part of a hair without the +redeeming touch of common-sense. In a slightly different social sphere, +he must, one would fancy, have been the mark of a dozen bullets before +he had grown up to manhood; it is not quite clear how, even as it was, +he avoided duels, unless because he regarded the practice as a Christian +barbarism to which the ancients had never condescended. + +His position and surroundings tended to aggravate his incoherencies of +statement. Like his own Peterborough, he was a man of aristocratic +feeling, with a hearty contempt for aristocrats. The expectation that he +would one day join the ranks of the country gentlemen unsettled him as a +scholar; and when he became a landed proprietor he despised his fellow +'barbarians' with a true scholar's contempt. He was not forced into the +ordinary professional groove, and yet did not fully imbibe the +prejudices of the class who can afford to be idle, and the natural +result is an odd mixture of conflicting prejudices. He is classical in +taste and cosmopolitan in life, and yet he always retains a certain +John-Bull element. His preference of Shakespeare to Racine is associated +with, if not partly prompted by, a mere English antipathy to foreigners. +He never becomes Italianised so far as to lose his contempt for men +whose ideas of sport rank larks with the orthodox partridge. He abuses +Castlereagh and poor George III. to his heart's content, and so far +flies in the face of British prejudice; but it is by no means as a +sympathiser with foreign innovations. His republicanism is strongly +dashed with old-fashioned conservatism, and he is proud of a doubtful +descent from old worthies of the true English type. Through all his +would-be paganism we feel that at bottom he is after all a true-born +and wrong-headed Englishman. He never, like Shelley, pushed his quarrel +with the old order to the extreme, but remained in a solitary cave of +Adullam. 'There can be no great genius,' says Penn to Peterborough, +'where there is not profound and continued reasoning.' The remark is too +good for Penn; and yet it would be dangerous in Landor's own mouth; for +certainly the defect which most strikes us, both in his life and his +writings, is just the inconsistency which leaves most people as the +reasoning powers develop. His work was marred by the unreasonableness of +a nature so impetuous and so absorbed by any momentary gust of passion +that he could never bring his thoughts or his plans to a focus, or +conform them to a general scheme. His prejudices master him both in +speculation and practice. He cannot fairly rise above them, or govern +them by reference to general principles or the permanent interests of +his life. In the vulgar phrase, he is always ready to cut off his nose +to spite his face. He quarrels with his schoolmaster or his wife. In an +instant he is all fire and fury, runs amuck at his best friends, and +does irreparable mischief. Some men might try to atone for such offences +by remorse. Landor, unluckily for himself, could forget the past as +easily as he could ignore the future. He lives only in the present, and +can throw himself into a favourite author or compose Latin verses or an +imaginary conversation as though schoolmasters or wives, or duns or +critics, had no existence. With such a temperament, reasoning, which +implies patient contemplation and painful liberation from prejudice, has +no fair chance; his principles are not the growth of thought, but the +translation into dogmas of intense likes and dislikes, which have grown +up in his mind he scarcely knows how, and gathered strength by sheer +force of repetition instead of deliberate examination. + +His writings reflect--and in some ways only too faithfully--these +idiosyncrasies. Southey said that his temper was the only explanation of +his faults. 'Never did man represent himself in his writings so much +less generous, less just, less compassionate, less noble in all respects +than he really is. I certainly,' he adds, 'never knew anyone of brighter +genius or of kinder heart.' Southey, no doubt, was in this case +resenting certain attacks of Landor's upon his most cherished opinions; +and, truly, nothing but continuous separation could have preserved the +friendship between two men so peremptorily opposed upon so many +essential points. Southey's criticism, though sharpened by such latent +antagonisms, has really much force. The 'Conversations' give much that +Landor's friends would have been glad to ignore; and yet they present +such a full-length portrait of the man, that it is better to dwell upon +them than upon his poetry, which, moreover, with all its fine qualities, +is (I cannot help thinking) of less intrinsic value. The ordinary +reader, however, is repelled from the 'Conversations' not only by mere +inherent difficulties, but by comments which raise a false expectation. +An easy-going critic is apt to assume of any book that it exactly +fulfils the ostensible aim of the author. So we are told of +'Shakespeare's Examination' (and on the high authority of Charles Lamb), +that no one could have written it except Landor or Shakespeare himself. +When Bacon is introduced, we are assured that the aphorisms introduced +are worthy of Bacon himself. What Cicero is made to say is exactly what +he would have said, 'if he could;' and the dialogue between Walton, +Cotton, and Oldways is, of course, as good as a passage from the +'Complete Angler.' In the same spirit we are told that the dialogues +were to be 'one-act dramas;' and we are informed how the great +philosophers, statesmen, poets, and artists of all ages did in fact pass +across the stage, each represented to the life, and each discoursing in +his most admirable style. + +All this is easy to say, but unluckily represents what the +'Conversations' would have been had they been perfect. To say that they +are very far from perfect is only to say that they were the compositions +of a man; but Landor was also a man to whom his best friends would +hardly attribute a remarkable immunity from fault. The dialogue, it need +hardly be remarked, is one of the most difficult of all forms of +composition. One rule, however, would be generally admitted. Landor +defends his digressions on the ground that they always occur in real +conversations. If we 'adhere to one point,' he says (in Southey's +person), 'it is a disquisition, not a conversation.' And he adds, with +one of his wilful back-handed blows at Plato, that most writers of +dialogue plunge into abstruse questions, and 'collect a heap of +arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiff of some rhetorical +charlatan tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons for the occasion.' +Possibly! but for all that, the perfect dialogue ought not, we should +say, to be really incoherent. It should include digressions, but the +digressions ought to return upon the main subject. The art consists in +preserving real unity in the midst of the superficial deviations +rendered easy by this form of composition. The facility of digression is +really a temptation, not a privilege. Anybody can write blank verse of a +kind, because it so easily slips into prose; and that is why good blank +verse is so rare. And so anybody can write a decent dialogue if you +allow him to ramble as we all do in actual talk. The finest +philosophical dialogues are those in which a complete logical framework +underlies the dramatic structure. They are a perfect fusion of logic and +imagination. Instead of harsh divisions and cross-divisions of the +subject, and a balance of abstract arguments, we have vivid portraits of +human beings, each embodying a different line of thought. But the logic +is still seen, though the more carefully hidden the more exquisite the +skill of the artist. And the purely artistic dialogue which describes +passion or the emotions arising from a given situation should in the +same way set forth a single idea, and preserve a dramatic unity of +conception at least as rigidly as a full-grown play. So far as Landor +used his facilities as an excuse for rambling, instead of so skilfully +subordinating them to the main purpose as to reproduce new variations on +the central theme, he is clearly in error, or is at least aiming at a +lower kind of excellence. And this, it may be said at once, seems to be +the most radical defect in point of composition of Landor's +'Conversations.' They have the fault which his real talk is said to have +exemplified. We are told that his temperament 'disqualified him for +anything like sustained reasoning, and he instinctively backed away from +discussion or argument.' Many of the written dialogues are a prolonged +series of explosions; when one expects a continuous development of a +theme, they are monotonous thunder-growls. Landor undoubtedly had a +sufficient share of dramatic power to write short dialogues expressing a +single situation with most admirable power, delicacy, and firmness of +touch. Nor, again, does the criticism just made refer to those longer +dialogues which are in reality a mere string of notes upon poems or +proposals for reforms in spelling. The slight dramatic form binds +together his pencillings from the margins of 'Paradise Lost' or +Wordsworth's poems very pleasantly, and enables him to give additional +effect to vivacious outbursts of praise or censure. But the more +elaborate dialogues suffer grievously from this absence of a true unity. +There is not that skilful evolution of a central idea without the rigid +formality of scientific discussion which we admire in the real +masterpieces of the art. We have a conglomerate, not an organic growth; +a series of observations set forth with never-failing elegance of style, +and often with singular keenness of perception; but they do not take us +beyond the starting-point. When Robinson Crusoe crossed the Pyrenees, +his guide led him by such dexterous windings and gradual ascents that he +found himself across the mountains before he knew where he was. With +Landor it is just the opposite. After many digressions and ramblings we +find ourselves back on the same side of the original question. We are +marking time with admirable gracefulness, but somehow we are not +advancing. Naturally flesh and blood grow weary when there is no +apparent end to a discussion, except that the author must in time be +wearied of performing variations upon a single theme. + +We are more easily reconciled to some other faults which are rather due +to expectations raised by his critics than to positive errors. No one, +for example, would care to notice an anachronism, if Landor did not +occasionally put in a claim for accuracy. I have no objection whatever +to allow Hooker to console Bacon for his loss of the chancellorship, in +calm disregard of the fact that Hooker died some twenty years before +Bacon rose to that high office. The fault can be amended by substituting +any other name for Hooker's. Nor do I at all wish to find in Landor +that kind of archćological accuracy which is sought by some composers of +historical romances. Were it not that critics have asserted the +opposite, it would be hardly worth while to say that Landor's style +seldom condescends to adapt itself to the mouth of the speaker, and that +from Demosthenes to Porson every interlocutor has palpably the true +Landorian trick of speech. Here and there, it is true, the effect is +rather unpleasant. Pericles and Aspasia are apt to indulge in criticism +of English customs, and no weak regard for time and place prevents +Eubulides from denouncing Canning to Demosthenes. The classical dress +becomes so thin on such occasions, that even the small degree of +illusion which one may fairly desiderate is too rudely interrupted. The +actor does not disguise his voice enough for theatrical purposes. It is +perhaps a more serious fault that the dialogue constantly lapses into +monologue. We might often remove the names of the talkers as useless +interruptions. Some conversations might as well be headed, in legal +phraseology, Landor _v._ Landor, or at most Landor _v._ Landor and +another--the other being some wretched man of straw or Guy Faux effigy +dragged in to be belaboured with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive +nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the +name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be +made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his +philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two to represent +his smashing retorts. + +There is yet another criticism or two to be added. The extreme +scrupulosity with which Landor polishes his style and removes +superfluities from poetical narrative, smoothing them at times till we +can hardly grasp them, might have been applied to some of the wanton +digressions in which the dialogues abound. We should have been glad if +he had ruthlessly cut out two-thirds of the conversation between +Richelieu and others, in which some charming English pastorals are mixed +up with a quantity of unmistakable rubbish. But, for the most part, we +can console ourselves by a smile. When Landor lowers his head and +charges bull-like at the phantom of some king or priest, we are prepared +for, and amused by, his impetuosity. Malesherbes discourses with great +point and vigour upon French literature, and may fairly diverge into a +little politics; but it is certainly comic when he suddenly remembers +one of Landor's pet grievances, and the unlucky Rousseau has to discuss +a question for which few people could be more ludicrously unfit--the +details of a plan for reforming the institution of English justices of +the peace. The grave dignity with which the subject is introduced gives +additional piquancy to the absurdity. An occasional laugh at Landor is +the more valuable because, to say the truth, one is not very likely to +laugh with him. Nothing is more difficult for an author--as Landor +himself observes in reference to Milton--than to decide upon his own +merits as a wit or humorist. I am not quite sure that this is true; for +I have certainly found authors distinctly fallible in judging of their +own merits as poets and philosophers. But it is undeniable that many a +man laughs at his own wit who has to laugh alone. I will not take upon +myself to say that Landor was without humour; he has certainly a +delicate gracefulness which may be classed with the finer kinds of +humour; but if anybody (to take one instance) will read the story which +Chaucer tells to Boccaccio and Petrarch and pronounce it to be amusing, +I can only say that his notions of humour differ materially from mine. +Some of his wrathful satire against kings and priests has a vigour which +is amusing; but the tact which enables him to avoid errors of taste of a +different kind often fails him when he tries the facetious. + +Blemishes such as these go some way, perhaps, to account for Landor's +unpopularity. But they are such as might be amply redeemed by his +vigour, his fulness, and unflagging energy of style. There is no equally +voluminous author of great power who does not fall short of his own +highest achievements in a large part of his work, and who is not open to +the remark that his achievements are not all that we could have wished. +It is doubtless best to take what we can get, and not to repine if we do +not get something better, the possibility of which is suggested by the +actual accomplishment. If Landor had united to his own powers those of +Scott or Shakespeare, he would have been improved. Landor, repenting a +little for some censures of Milton, says to Southey, 'Are we not +somewhat like two little beggar-boys who, forgetting that they are in +tatters, sit noticing a few stains and rents in their father's raiment?' +'But they love him,' replies Southey, and we feel the apology to be +sufficient. + +Can we make it in the case of Landor? Is he a man whom we can take to +our hearts, treating his vagaries and ill-humours as we do the testiness +of a valued friend? Or do we feel that he is one whom it is better to +have for an acquaintance than for an intimate? The problem seems to have +exercised those who knew him best in life. Many, like Southey or Napier, +thought him a man of true nobility and tenderness of character, and +looked upon his defects as mere superficial blemishes. If some who came +closer seem to have had a rather different opinion, we must allow that +a man's personal defects are often unimportant in his literary capacity. +It has been laid down as a general rule that poets cannot get on with +their wives; and yet they are poets in virtue of being lovable at the +core. Landor's domestic troubles need not indicate an incapacity for +meeting our sympathies any more than the domestic troubles of +Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Burns, Byron, Shelley, or many others. In +his poetry a man should show his best self; and defects, important in +the daily life which is made up of trifles, may cease to trouble us when +admitted to the inmost recesses of his nature. + +Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved +unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the +form to the substance--from the manner in which his message is delivered +to the message itself--we find that the superficial defects rise from +very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we +find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. He +has pronounced himself upon a wide range of subjects; there is much +criticism, some of it of a very rare and admirable order; much +theological and political disquisition; and much exposition, in various +forms, of the practical philosophy which every man imbibes according to +his faculties in his passage through the world. It would be undesirable +to discuss seriously his political or religious notions. To say the +truth, they are not really worth discussing, for they are little more +than vehement explosions of unreasoning prejudice. I do not know whether +Landor would have approved the famous aspiration about strangling the +last of kings with the entrails of the last priest, but some such +sentiment seems to sum up all that he really has to say. His doctrine +so far coincides with that of Diderot and other revolutionists, though +he has no sympathy with their social aspirations. His utterances, +however, remind us too much--in substance, though not in form--of the +rhetoric of debating societies. They are as factitious as the +old-fashioned appeals to the memory of Brutus. They would doubtless make +a sensation at the Union. Diogenes tells us that 'all nations, all +cities, all communities, should combine in one great hunt, like that of +the Scythians at the approach of winter, and follow it' (the kingly +power, to wit) 'up, unrelentingly to its perdition. The diadem should +designate the victim; all who wear it, all who offer it, all who bow to +it, should perish.' Demosthenes, in less direct language, announces the +same plan to Eubulides as the one truth, far more important than any +other, and 'more conducive to whatever is desirable to the well-educated +and free.' We laugh, not because the phrase is overstrained, or intended +to have a merely dramatic truth, for Landor puts similar sentiments into +the mouths of all his favourite speakers, but simply because we feel it +to be a mere form of swearing. The language would have been less +elegant, but the meaning just the same, if he had rapped out a good +mouth-filling oath whenever he heard the name of king. When, in +reference to some such utterances, Carlyle said that 'Landor's principle +is mere rebellion,' Landor was much nettled, and declared himself to be +in favour of authority. He despised American republicanism and regarded +Venice as the pattern State. He sympathised in this, as in much else, +with the theorists of Milton's time, and would have been approved by +Harrington or Algernon Sidney; but, for all that, Carlyle seems pretty +well to have hit the mark. Such republicanism is in reality nothing +more than the political expression of intense pride, or, if you prefer +the word, self-respect. It is the sentiment of personal dignity, which +could not bear the thought that he, Landor, should have to bow the knee +to a fool like George III.; or that Milton should have been regarded as +the inferior of such a sneak as Charles I. But the same feeling would +have been just as much shocked by the claim of a demagogue to override +high-spirited gentlemen. Mobs were every whit as vile as kings. He might +have stood for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, if Coriolanus had not an +unfortunate want of taste in his language. Landor, indeed, being never +much troubled as to consistency, is fond of dilating on the absurdity of +any kind of hereditary rank; but he sympathises, to his last fibre, with +the spirit fostered by the existence of an aristocratic caste, and +producible, so far as our experience has gone, in no other way. He is +generous enough to hate all oppression in every form, and therefore to +hate the oppression exercised by a noble as heartily as oppression +exercised by a king. He is a big boy ready to fight anyone who bullies +his fag; but with no doubts as to the merits of fagging. But then he +never chooses to look at the awkward consequences of his opinion. When +talking of politics, an aristocracy full of virtue and talent, ruling on +generous principles a people sufficiently educated to obey its natural +leaders, is the ideal which is vaguely before his mind. To ask how it is +to be produced without hereditary rank, or to be prevented from +degenerating into a tyrannical oligarchy, or to be reconciled at all +with modern principles, is simply to be impertinent. He answers all such +questions by putting himself in imagination into the attitude of a +Pericles or Demosthenes or Milton, fulminating against tyrants and +keeping the mob in its place by the ascendency of genius. To recommend +Venice as a model is simply to say that you have nothing but contempt +for all politics. It is as if a lad should be asked whether he preferred +to join a cavalry or an infantry regiment, and should reply that he +would only serve under Leonidas. + +His religious principles are in the same way little more than the +assertion that he will not be fettered in mind or body by any priest on +earth. The priest is to him what he was to the deists and materialists +of the eighteenth century--a juggling impostor who uses superstition as +an instrument for creeping into the confidence of women and cowards, and +burning brave men; but he has no dreams of the advent of a religion of +reason. He ridicules the notion that truth will prevail: it never has +and it never will. At bottom he prefers paganism to Christianity because +it was tolerant and encouraged art, and allowed philosophers to enjoy as +much privilege as they can ever really enjoy--that of living in peace +and knowing that their neighbours are harmless fools. After a fashion he +likes his own version of Christianity, which is superficially that of +many popular preachers: Be tolerant, kindly, and happy, and don't worry +your head about dogmas, or become a slave to priests. But then one also +feels that humility is generally regarded as an essential part of +Christianity, and that in Landor's version it is replaced by something +like its antithesis. You should do good, too, as you respect yourself +and would be respected by men; but the chief good is the philosophic +mind, which can wrap itself in its own consciousness of worth, and enjoy +the finest pleasures of life without superstitious asceticism. Let the +vulgar amuse themselves with the playthings of their creed, so long as +they do not take to playing with faggots. Stand apart and enjoy your +own superiority with good-natured contempt. + +One of his longest and, in this sense, most characteristic dialogues, is +that between Penn and Peterborough. Peterborough is the ideal aristocrat +with a contempt for the actual aristocracy; and Penn represents the +religion of common-sense. 'Teach men to calculate rightly and thou wilt +have taught them to live religiously,' is Penn's sentiment, and perhaps +not too unfaithful to the original. No one could have a more thorough +contempt for the mystical element in Quakerism than Landor; but he loves +Quakers as sober, industrious, easy-going people, who regard good-humour +and comfort as the ultimate aim of religious life, and who manage to do +without lawyers or priests. Peterborough, meanwhile, represents his +other side--the haughty, energetic, cultivated aristocrat, who, on the +ground of their common aversions, can hold out a friendly hand to the +quiet Quaker. Landor, of course, is both at once. He is the noble who +rather enjoys giving a little scandal at times to his drab-suited +companion; but, on the whole, thinks that it would be an excellent world +if the common people would adopt this harmless form of religion, which +tolerates other opinions and does not give any leverage to kings, +insolvent aristocrats, or intriguing bishops. + +Landor's critical utterances reveal the same tendencies. Much of the +criticism has of course an interest of its own. It is the judgment of a +real master of language upon many technical points of style, and the +judgment, moreover, of a poet who can look even upon classical poets as +one who breathes the same atmosphere at an equal elevation, and who +speaks out like a cultivated gentleman, not as a schoolmaster or a +specialist. But putting aside this and the crotchets about spelling, +which have been dignified with the name of philological theories, the +general direction of his sympathies is eminently characteristic. Landor +of course pays the inevitable homage to the great names of Plato, Dante, +and Shakespeare, and yet it would be scarcely unfair to say that he +hates Plato, that Dante gives him far more annoyance than pleasure, and +that he really cares little for Shakespeare. The last might be denied on +the ground of isolated expressions. 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says, +'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born +ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and +seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes +brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is +dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of +'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be +pacified by the fairly-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed +plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakespeare.' That is his genuine +impression. Some readers may appeal to that 'Examination of Shakespeare' +which (as we have seen) was held by Lamb to be beyond the powers of any +other writer except its hero. I confess that, in my opinion, Lamb could +have himself drawn a far more sympathetic portrait of Shakespeare, and +that Scott would have brought out the whole scene with incomparably +greater vividness. Call it a morning in an English country-house in the +sixteenth century, and it will be full of charming passages along with +some laborious failures. But when we are forced to think of Slender and +Shallow, and Sir Hugh Evans, and the Shakespearian method of +portraiture, the personages in Landor's talk seem half asleep and +terribly given to twaddle. His view of Dante is less equivocal. In the +whole 'Inferno,' Petrarca (evidently representing Landor) finds nothing +admirable but the famous descriptions of Francesca and Ugolino. They are +the 'greater and lesser oases' in a vast desert. And he would pare one +of these fine passages to the quick, whilst the other provokes the +remark ('we must whisper it') that Dante is 'the great master of the +disgusting.' He seems really to prefer Boccaccio and Ovid, to say +nothing of Homer and Virgil. Plato is denounced still more unsparingly. +From Aristotle and Diogenes down to Lord Chatham, assailants are set on +to worry him, and tear to pieces his gorgeous robes with just an +occasional perfunctory apology. Even Lady Jane Grey is deprived of her +favourite. She consents on Ascham's petition to lay aside books, but she +excepts Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Polybius: the 'others I do +resign;' they are good for the arbour and garden walk, but not for the +fireside or pillow. This is surely to wrong the poor soul; but Landor is +intolerant in his enthusiasm for his philosophical favourites. Epicurus +is the teacher whom he really delights to honour, and Cicero is forced +to confess in his last hours that he has nearly come over to the camp of +his old adversary. + +It is easy to interpret the meaning of these prejudices. Landor hates +and despises the romantic and the mystic. He has not the least feeling +for the art which owes its powers to suggestions of the infinite, or to +symbols forced into grotesqueness by the effort to express that for +which no thought can be adequate. He refuses to bother himself with +allegory or dreamy speculation, and, unlike Sir T. Browne, hates to lose +himself in an 'O Altitudo!' He cares nothing for Dante's inner thoughts, +and sees only a hideous chamber of horrors in the 'Inferno.' Plato is a +mere compiler of idle sophistries, and contemptible to the common-sense +and worldly wisdom of Locke and Bacon. In the same spirit he despised +Wordsworth's philosophising as heartily as Jeffrey, and, though he tried +to be just, could really see nothing in him except the writer of good +rustic idylls, and of one good piece of paganism, the 'Laodamia.'[29] +From such a point of view he ranks him below Burns, Scott, and Cowper, +and makes poor Southey consent--Southey who ranked Wordsworth with +Milton! + +These tendencies are generally summed up by speaking of Landor's +objectivity and Hellenism. I have no particular objection to those words +except that they seem rather vague and to leave our problem untouched. A +man may be as 'objective' as you please in a sense, and as thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of Greek art, and yet may manage to fall in with +the spirit of our own times. The truth is, I fancy, that a simpler name +may be given to Landor's tastes, and that we may find them exemplified +nearer home. There is many a good country gentleman who rides well to +hounds, and is most heartily 'objective' in the sense of hating +metaphysics and elaborate allegory and unintelligible art, and +preferring a glass of wine and a talk with a charming young lady to +mystic communings with the world-spirit; and as for Landor's Hellenism, +that surely ought not to be an uncommon phenomenon in the region of +English public schools. It is an odd circumstance that we should be so +much puzzled by the very man who seems to realise precisely that ideal +of culture upon which our most popular system of education is apparently +moulded. Here at last is a man who is really simple-minded enough to +take the habit of writing Latin verses seriously; making it a +consolation in trouble as well as an elegant amusement. He hopes to rest +his fame upon it, and even by a marvellous _tour de force_ writes a +great deal of English poetry which for all the world reads exactly like +a first-rate copy of modern Greek Iambics. For once we have produced +just what the system ought constantly to produce, and yet we cannot make +him out. + +The reason for our not producing more Landors is indeed pretty simple. +Men of real poetic genius are exceedingly rare at all times, and it is +still rarer to find such a man who remains a schoolboy all his life. +Landor is precisely a glorified and sublime edition of the model +sixth-form lad, only with an unusually strong infusion of schoolboy +perversion. Perverse lads, indeed, generally kick over the traces at an +earlier point: and refuse to learn anything. Boys who take kindly to the +classical system are generally good--that is to say, docile. They +develop into prosaic tutors and professors; or, when the cares of life +begin to press, they start their cargo of classical lumber and fill the +void with law or politics. Landor's peculiar temperament led him to kick +against authority, whilst he yet imbibed the spirit of the teaching +fully, and in some respects rather too fully. He was a rebel against the +outward form, and yet more faithful in spirit than most of the obedient +subjects. + +The impatient and indomitable temper which made quiet or continuous +meditation impossible, and the accidental circumstances of his life, +left him in possession of qualities which are in most men subdued or +expelled by the hard discipline of life. Brought into impulsive +collision with all kinds of authorities, he set up a kind of schoolboy +republicanism, and used all his poetic eloquence to give it an air of +reality. But he never cared to bring it into harmony with any definite +system of thought, or let his outbursts of temper transport him into +settled antagonism with accepted principles. He troubled himself just as +little about theological as about political theories; he was as utterly +impervious as the dullest of squires to the mystic philosophy imported +by Coleridge, and found the world quite rich enough in sources of +enjoyment without tormenting himself about the unseen, and the ugly +superstitions which thrive in mental twilight. But he had quarrelled +with parsons as much as with lawyers, and could not stand the thought of +a priest interfering with his affairs or limiting his amusements. And so +he set up as a tolerant and hearty disciple of Epicurus. Chivalrous +sentiment and an exquisite perception of the beautiful saved him from +any gross interpretation of his master's principles; although, to say +the truth, he shows an occasional laxity on some points which savours of +the easy-going pagan, or perhaps of the noble of the old school. As he +grew up he drank deep of English literature, and sympathised with the +grand republican pride of Milton--as sturdy a rebel as himself, and a +still nobler because more serious rhetorician. He went to Italy, and, as +he imbibed Italian literature, sympathised with the joyous spirit of +Boccaccio and the eternal boyishness of classical art. Medićvalism and +all mystic philosophies remained unintelligible to this true-born +Englishman. Irritated rather than humbled by his incapacity, he cast +them aside, pretty much as a schoolboy might throw a Plato at the head +of a pedantic master. + +The best and most attractive dialogues are those in which he can give +free play to this Epicurean sentiment; forget his political mouthing, +and inoculate us for the moment with the spirit of youthful enjoyment. +Nothing can be more perfectly charming in its way than Epicurus in his +exquisite garden, discoursing on his pleasant knoll, where, with +violets, cyclamens, and convolvuluses clustering round, he talks to his +lovely girl-disciples upon the true theory of life--temperate enjoyment +of all refined pleasures, forgetfulness of all cares, and converse with +true chosen spirits far from the noise of the profane vulgar: of the +art, in short, by which a man of fine cultivation may make the most of +this life, and learn to take death as a calm and happy subsidence into +oblivion. Nor far behind is the dialogue in which Lucullus entertains +Cćsar in his delightful villa, and illustrates by example, as well as +precept, Landor's favourite doctrine of the vast superiority of the +literary to the active life. Politics, as he makes even Demosthenes +admit, are the 'sad refuge of restless minds, averse from business and +from study.' And certainly there are moods in which we could ask nothing +better than to live in a remote villa, in which wealth and art have done +everything in their power to give all the pleasures compatible with +perfect refinement and contempt of the grosser tastes. Only it must be +admitted that this is not quite a gospel for the million. And probably +the highest triumph is in the Pentameron, where the whole scene is so +vividly coloured by so many delicate touches, and such charming little +episodes of Italian life, that we seem almost to have seen the fat, +wheezy poet hoisting himself on to his pampered steed, to have listened +to the village gossip, and followed the little flirtations in which the +true poets take so kindly an interest; and are quite ready to pardon +certain useless digressions and critical vagaries, and to overlook +complacently any little laxity of morals. + +These, and many of the shorter and more dramatic dialogues, have a rare +charm, and the critic will return to analyse, if he can, their technical +qualities. But little explanation can be needed, after reading them, of +Landor's want of popularity. If he had applied one-tenth part of his +literary skill to expand commonplace sentiment; if he had talked that +kind of gentle twaddle by which some recent essayists edify their +readers, he might have succeeded in gaining a wide popularity. Or if he +had been really, as some writers seem to fancy, a deep and systematic +thinker as well as a most admirable artist, he might have extorted a +hearing even while provoking dissent. But his boyish waywardness has +disqualified him from reaching the deeper sympathies of either class. We +feel that the most superhuman of schoolboys has really a rather shallow +view of life. His various outbursts of wrath amuse us at best when they +do not bore, even though they take the outward form of philosophy or +statesmanship. He has really no answer or vestige of answer for any +problems of his, nor indeed of any other time, for he has no basis of +serious thought. All he can say is, ultimately, that he feels himself in +a very uncongenial atmosphere, from which it is delightful to retire, in +imagination, to the society of Epicurus, or the study of a few literary +masterpieces. That may be very true, but it can be interesting only to a +few men of similar taste; and men of profound insight, whether of the +poetic or the philosophic temperament, are apt to be vexed by his hasty +dogmatism and irritable rejection of much which deserved his sympathy. +His wanton quarrel with the world has been avenged by the world's +indifference. We may regret the result when we see what rare qualities +have been cruelly wasted, but we cannot fairly shut our eyes to the fact +that the world has a very strong case. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[29] De Quincey gets into a curious puzzle about Landor's remarks in his +essay on Milton _versus_ Southey and Landor. He cannot understand to +which of Wordsworth's poems Landor is referring, and makes some oddly +erroneous guesses. + + + + +_MACAULAY_ + + +Lord Macaulay was pre-eminently a fortunate man; and his good fortune +has survived him. Few, indeed, in the long line of English authors whom +he loved so well, have been equally happy in a biographer. Most official +biographies are a mixture of bungling and indiscretion. It is only in +virtue of some happy coincidence that the one or two people who alone +have the requisite knowledge can produce also the requisite skill and +discretion. Mr. Trevelyan is one of the exceptions to the rule. His book +is such a piece of thorough literary workmanship as would have delighted +its subject. By a rare felicity, the almost filial affection of the +narrator conciliates the reader instead of exciting a distrust of the +narrative. We feel that Macaulay's must have been a lovable character to +excite such warmth of feeling, and a noble character to enable one who +loved him to speak so frankly. The ordinary biographer's idolatry is not +absent, but it becomes a testimony to the hero's excellence instead of +introducing a disturbing element into our estimate of his merits. + +No reader of Macaulay's works will be surprised at the manliness which +is stamped not less plainly upon them than upon his whole career. But +few who were not in some degree behind the scenes would be prepared for +the tenderness of nature which is equally conspicuous. We all recognised +in Macaulay a lover of truth and political honour. We find no more than +we expected, when we are told that the one circumstance upon which he +looked back with some regret was the unauthorised publication by a +constituent of a letter in which he had spoken too frankly of a +political ally. That is indeed an infinitesimal stain upon the character +of a man who rose without wealth or connection, by sheer force of +intellect, to a conspicuous position amongst politicians. But we find +something more than we expected in the singular beauty of Macaulay's +domestic life. In his relations to his father, his sisters, and the +younger generation, he was admirable. The stern religious principle and +profound absorption in philanthropic labours of old Zachary Macaulay +must have made the position of his brilliant son anything but an easy +one. He could hardly read a novel, or contribute to a worldly magazine, +without calling down something like a reproof. The father seems to have +indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip +about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed +culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen +satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of +praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of +royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such +paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive of +anything like mutual confidence. Macaulay seems, in spite of all, to +have been on the most cordial terms with his father to the last. Some +suppression of his sentiments must indeed have been necessary; and we +cannot avoid tracing certain peculiarities of the son's intellectual +career to his having been condemned from an early age to habitual +reticence upon the deepest of all subjects of thought. + +Macaulay's relations to his sisters are sufficiently revealed in a long +series of charming letters, showing, both in their playfulness and in +their literary and political discussions, the unreserved respect and +confidence which united them. One of them writes upon his death: 'We +have lost the light of our home, the most tender, loving, generous, +unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can +tell? What a world of love he poured out upon me and mine!' Reading +these words at the close of the biography, we do not wonder at the +glamour of sisterly affection; but admit them to be the natural +expression of a perfectly sincere conviction. Can there be higher +praise? His relation to children is equally charming. 'He was beyond +comparison the best of playfellows,' writes Mr. Trevelyan; 'unrivalled +in the invention of games, and never weary of repeating them.' He wrote +long letters to his favourites; he addressed pretty little poems to them +on their birthdays, and composed long nursery rhymes for their +edification; whilst overwhelmed with historical labours, and grudging +the demands of society, he would dawdle away whole mornings with them, +and spend the afternoon in taking them to sights; he would build up a +den with newspapers behind the sofa, and act the part of tiger or +brigand; he would take them to the Tower, or Madame Tussaud's, or the +Zoological Gardens, make puns to enliven the Polytechnic, and tell +innumerable anecdotes to animate the statues in the British Museum; nor, +as they grew older, did he neglect the more dignified duty of +inoculating them with the literary tastes which had been the consolation +of his life. Obviously he was the ideal uncle--the uncle of optimistic +fiction, but with qualifications for his task such as few fictitious +uncles can possess. It need hardly be added that Macaulay was a man of +noble liberality in money matters, that he helped his family when they +were in difficulties, and was beloved by the servants who depended upon +him. In his domestic relations he had, according to his nephew, only one +serious fault--he did not appreciate canine excellence; but no man is +perfect. + +The thorough kindliness of the man reconciles us even to his good +fortune. He was an infant phenomenon; the best boy at school; in his +college days, 'ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out' at Bowood, +formed a circle to hear him talk, from breakfast to dinner-time; he was +famous as an author at twenty-five; accepted as a great parliamentary +orator at thirty; and, as a natural consequence, caressed with effusion +by editors, politicians, Whig magnates, and the clique of Holland House; +by thirty-three he had become a man of mark in society, literature, and +politics, and had secured his fortune by gaining a seat in the Indian +Council. His later career was a series of triumphs. He had been the main +support of the greatest literary organ of his party, and the 'Essays' +republished from its pages became at once a standard work. The 'Lays of +Ancient Rome' sold like Scott's most popular poetry; the 'History' +caused an excitement almost unparalleled in literary annals. Not only +was the first sale enormous, but it has gone on ever since increasing. +The popular author was equally popular in Parliament. The benches were +crammed to listen to the rare treat of his eloquence; and he had the far +rarer glory of more than once turning the settled opinion of the House +by a single speech. It is a more vulgar but a striking testimony to his +success that he made 20,000_l._ in one year by literature. Other authors +have had their heads turned by less triumphant careers; they have +descended to lower ambition, and wasted their lives in spasmodic +straining to gain worthless applause. Macaulay remained faithful to his +calling. He worked his hardest to the last, and became a more unsparing +critic of his own performances as time went on. We do not feel even a +passing symptom of a grudge against his good fortune. Rather we are +moved by that kind of sentiment which expresses itself in the schoolboy +phrase, 'Well done our side!' We are glad to see the hearty, kindly, +truthful man crowned with all appropriate praise, and to think that for +once one of our race has got so decidedly the best of it in the hard +battle with the temptations and the miseries of life. + +Certain shortcomings have been set off against these virtues by critics +of Macaulay's life. He was, it has been said, too good a hater. At any +rate, he hated vice, meanness, and charlatanism. It is easier to hate +such things too little than too much. But it must be admitted that his +likes and dislikes indicate a certain rigidity and narrowness of nature. +'In books, as in people and places,' says Mr. Trevelyan, 'he loved that, +and loved that only, to which he had been accustomed from boyhood +upwards.' The faults of which this significant remark reveals one cause, +are marked upon his whole literary character. Macaulay was converted to +Whiggism when at college. The advance from Toryism to Whiggism is not +such as to involve a very violent wrench of the moral and intellectual +nature. Such as it was, it was the only wrench from which Macaulay +suffered. What he was as a scholar of Trinity, he was substantially as a +peer of the realm. He made, it would seem, few new friends, though he +grappled his old ones as 'with hooks of steel.' The fault is one which +belongs to many men of strong natures, and so long as we are +considering Macaulay's life we shall not be much disposed to quarrel +with his innate conservatism. Strong affections are so admirable a +quality that we can pardon the man who loves well though not widely; and +if Macaulay had not a genuine fervour of regard for the little circle of +his intimates, there is no man who deserves such praise. + +It is when we turn from Macaulay's personal character to attempt an +estimate of his literary position, that these faults acquire more +importance. His intellectual force was extraordinary within certain +limits; beyond those limits the giant became a child. He assimilated a +certain set of ideas as a lad, and never acquired a new idea in later +life. He accumulated vast stores of knowledge, but they all fitted into +the old framework of theory. Whiggism seemed to him to provide a +satisfactory solution for all political problems when he was sending his +first article to 'Knight's Magazine,' and when he was writing the last +page of his 'History.' 'I entered public life a Whig,' as he said in +1849, 'and a Whig I am determined to remain.' And what is meant by +Whiggism in Macaulay's mouth? It means substantially that creed which +registers the experience of the English upper classes during the four or +five generations previous to Macaulay. It represents, not the reasoning, +but the instinctive convictions generated by the dogged insistence upon +their privileges of a stubborn, high-spirited, and individually +short-sighted race. To deduce it as a symmetrical doctrine from abstract +propositions would be futile. It is only reasonable so far as a creed, +felt out by the collective instinct of a number of more or less stupid +people, becomes impressed with a quasi-rational unity, not from their +respect for logic, but from the uniformity of the mode of development. +Hatred to pure reason is indeed one of its first principles. A doctrine +avowedly founded on logic instead of instinct becomes for that very +reason suspect to it. Common-sense takes the place of philosophy. At +times this mass of sentiment opposes itself under stress of +circumstances to the absolute theories of monarchy, and then calls +itself Whiggism. At other times it offers an equally dogged resistance +to absolute theories of democracy, and then becomes nominally Tory. In +Macaulay's youth the weight of opinion had been slowly swinging round +from the Toryism generated by dread of revolution, to Whiggism generated +by the accumulation of palpable abuses. The growing intelligence and +more rapidly growing power of the middle classes gave it at the same +time a more popular character than before. Macaulay's 'conversion' was +simply a process of swinging with the tide. The Clapham Sect, amongst +whom he had been brought up, was already more than half Whig, in virtue +of its attack upon the sacred institution of slavery by means of popular +agitation. Macaulay--the most brilliant of its young men--naturally cast +in his lot with the brilliant men, a little older than himself, who +fought under the blue and yellow banner of the 'Edinburgh Review.' No +great change of sentiment was necessary, though some of the old Clapham +doctrines died out in his mind as he was swept into the political +current. + +Macaulay thus early became a thoroughgoing Whig. Whiggism seemed to him +the _ne plus ultra_ of progress: the pure essence of political wisdom. +He was never fully conscious of the vast revolution in thought which was +going on all around him. He was saturated with the doctrines of 1832. He +stated them with unequalled vigour and clearness. Anybody who disputed +them from either side of the question seemed to him to be little better +than a fool. Southey and Mr. Gladstone talked arrant nonsense when they +disputed the logical or practical value of the doctrines laid down by +Locke. James Mill deserved the most contemptuous language for daring to +push those doctrines beyond the sacred line. When Macaulay attacks an +old non-juror or a modern Tory, we can only wonder how opinions which, +on his showing, are so inconceivably absurd, could ever have been held +by any human being. Men are Whigs or not-Whigs, and the not-Whig is less +a heretic to be anathematised than a blockhead beneath the reach of +argument. All political wisdom centres in Holland House, and the +'Edinburgh Review' is its prophet. There is something in the absolute +confidence of Macaulay's political dogmatism which varies between the +sublime and the ridiculous. We can hardly avoid laughing at this +superlative self-satisfaction, and yet we must admit that it is +indicative of a real political force not to be treated with simple +contempt. Belief is power, even when belief is most unreasonable. + +To define a Whig and to define Macaulay is pretty much the same thing. +Let us trace some of the qualities which enabled one man to become so +completely the type of a vast body of his compatriots. + +The first and most obvious power in which Macaulay excelled his +neighbours was his portentous memory. He could assimilate printed pages, +says his nephew, more quickly than others could glance over them. +Whatever he read was stamped upon his mind instantaneously and +permanently, and he read everything. In the midst of severe labours in +India, he read enough classical authors to stock the mind of an ordinary +professor. At the same time he framed a criminal code and devoured +masses of trashy novels. From the works of the ancient Fathers of the +Church to English political pamphlets and to modern street ballads, no +printed matter came amiss to his omnivorous appetite. All that he had +read could be reproduced at a moment's notice. Every fool, he said, can +repeat his Archbishops of Canterbury backwards; and he was as familiar +with the Cambridge Calendar as the most devout Protestant with the +Bible. He could have re-written 'Sir Charles Grandison' from memory if +every copy had been lost. Now it might perhaps be plausibly maintained +that the possession of such a memory is unfavourable to a high +development of the reasoning powers. The case of Pascal, indeed, who is +said never to have forgotten anything, shows that the two powers may +co-exist; and other cases might of course be mentioned. But it is true +that a powerful memory may enable a man to save himself the trouble of +reasoning. It encourages the indolent propensity of deciding +difficulties by precedent instead of principles. Macaulay, for example, +was once required to argue the point of political casuistry as to the +degree of independent action permissible to members of a Cabinet. An +ordinary mind would have to answer by striking a rough balance between +the conveniences and inconveniences likely to arise. It would be forced, +that is to say, to reason from the nature of the case. But Macaulay had +at his fingers' end every instance from the days of Walpole to his own +in which Ministers had been allowed to vote against the general policy +of the Government. By quoting them, he seemed to decide the point by +authority, instead of taking the troublesome and dangerous road of +abstract reasoning. Thus to appeal to experience is with him to appeal +to the stores of a gigantic memory; and is generally the same thing as +to deny the value of all general rules. This is the true Whig doctrine +of referring to precedent rather than to theory. Our popular leaders +were always glad to quote Hampden and Sidney instead of venturing upon +the dangerous ground of abstract rights. + +Macaulay's love of deciding all points by an accumulation of appropriate +instances is indeed characteristic of his mind. It is connected with a +curious defect of analytical power. It appears in his literary criticism +as much as in his political speculations. In an interesting letter to +Mr. Napier, he states the case himself as an excuse for not writing upon +Scott. 'Hazlitt used to say, "I am nothing if not critical." The case +with me,' says Macaulay, 'is precisely the reverse. I have a strong and +acute enjoyment of works of the imagination, but I have never habituated +myself to dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly for that +very reason. Such books as Lessing's "Laocoon," such passages as the +criticism on "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," fill me with wonder and +despair.' If we take any of Macaulay's criticisms, we shall see how +truly he had gauged his own capacity. They are either random discharges +of superlatives or vigorous assertions of sound moral principles. He +compliments some favourite author with an emphatic repetition of the +ordinary eulogies, or shows conclusively that Montgomery was a sham +poet, and Wycherley a corrupt ribald. Nobody can hit a haystack with +more certainty, but he is not so good at a difficult mark. He never +makes a fine suggestion as to the secrets of the art whose products he +admires or describes. His mode, for example, of criticising Bunyan is to +give a list of the passages which he remembers, and of course he +remembers everything. He observes, what is tolerably clear, that +Bunyan's allegory is as vivid as a concrete history, though strangely +comparing him in this respect to Shelley--the least concrete of poets; +and he makes the discovery, which did not require his vast stores of +historical knowledge, 'that it is impossible to doubt that' Bunyan's +trial of Christian and Faithful is meant to satirise the judges of the +time of Charles II. That is as plain as the intention of the last +cartoon in 'Punch.' Macaulay can draw a most vivid portrait, so far as +that can be done by a picturesque accumulation of characteristic facts, +but he never gets below the surface, or details the principles whose +embodiment he describes from without. + +The defect is connected with further peculiarities, in which Macaulay is +the genuine representative of the true Whig type. The practical value of +adherence to precedent is obvious. It may be justified by the assertion +that all sound political philosophy must be based upon experience: and +no one will deny that assertion to contain a most important truth. But +in Macaulay's mind this sound doctrine seems to be confused with the +very questionable doctrine that in political questions there is no +philosophy at all. To appeal to experience may mean either to appeal to +facts so classified and systematically arranged as to illustrate general +truths, or to appeal to a mere mass of observations, without taking the +trouble to elicit their true significance, or even to believe that they +can be resolved into particular cases of a general truth. This is the +difference between an experimental philosophy and a crude empiricism. +Macaulay takes the lower alternative. The vigorous attack upon James +Mill, which he very properly suppressed during his life on account of +its juvenile arrogance, curiously illustrates his mode of thought. No +one can deny, I think, that he makes some very good points against a +very questionable system of political dogmatism. But when we ask what +are Macaulay's own principles, we are left at a stand. He ought, by all +his intellectual sympathies, to be a utilitarian. Yet he treats +utilitarianism with the utmost contempt, though he has no alternative +theory to suggest. He ends his first Essay against Mill by one of his +customary purple patches about Baconian induction. He tells us, in the +second, how to apply it. Bacon proposed to discover the principle of +heat by observing in what qualities all hot bodies agreed, and in what +qualities all cold bodies. Similarly, we are to make a list of all +constitutions which have produced good or bad government, and to +investigate their points of agreement and difference. This sounds +plausible to the uninstructed, but is a mere rhetorical flourish. +Bacon's method is admittedly inadequate for reasons which I leave to men +of science to explain, and Macaulay's method is equally hopeless in +politics. It is hopeless for the simple reason that the complexity of +the phenomena makes it impracticable. We cannot find out what +constitution is best after this fashion, simply because the goodness or +badness of a constitution depends upon a thousand conditions of social, +moral, and intellectual development. When stripped of its pretentious +phraseology, Macaulay's teaching comes simply to this: the only rule in +politics is the rule of thumb. All general principles are wrong or +futile. We have found out in England that our constitution, constructed +in absolute defiance of all _ŕ priori_ reasoning, is the best in the +world: it is the best for providing us with the maximum of bread, beef, +beer, and means of buying bread, beer, and beef: and we have got it +because we have never--like those publicans the French--trusted to fine +sayings about truth and justice and human rights, but blundered on, +adding a patch here and knocking a hole there, as our humour prompted +us. + +This sovereign contempt of all speculation--simply as +speculation--reaches its acme in the Essay on Bacon. The curious naďveté +with which Macaulay denounces all philosophy in that vigorous production +excites a kind of perverse admiration. How can one refuse to admire the +audacity which enables a man explicitly to identify philosophy with +humbug? It is what ninety-nine men out of a hundred think, but not one +in a thousand dares to say. Goethe says somewhere that he likes +Englishmen because English fools are the most thoroughgoing of fools. +English 'Philistines,' as represented by Macaulay, the prince of +Philistines, according to Matthew Arnold, carry their contempt of the +higher intellectual interests to a pitch of real sublimity. Bacon's +theory of induction, says Macaulay, in so many words, was valueless. +Everybody could reason before it as well as after. But Bacon really +performed a service of inestimable value to mankind; and it consisted +precisely in this, that he called their attention from philosophy to the +pursuit of material advantages. The old philosophers had gone on +bothering about theology, ethics, and the true and beautiful, and such +other nonsense. Bacon taught us to work at chemistry and mechanics, to +invent diving-bells and steam-engines and spinning-jennies. We could +never, it seems, have found out the advantages of this direction of our +energies without a philosopher, and so far philosophy is negatively +good. It has written up upon all the supposed avenues to inquiry, 'No +admission except on business;' that is, upon the business of direct +practical discovery. We English have taken the hint, and we have +therefore lived to see when a man can breakfast in London and dine in +Edinburgh, and may look forward to a day when the tops of Ben-Nevis and +Helvellyn will be cultivated like flower-gardens, and when machines +constructed on principles yet to be discovered will be in every house. + +The theory which underlies this conclusion is often explicitly stated. +All philosophy has produced mere futile logomachy. Greek sages and Roman +moralists and medićval schoolmen have amassed words, and amassed nothing +else. One distinct discovery of a solid truth, however humble, is worth +all their labours. This condemnation applies not only to philosophy, but +to the religious embodiment of philosophy. No satisfactory conclusion +ever has been reached or ever will be reached in theological disputes. +On all such topics, he tells Mr. Gladstone, there has always been the +widest divergence of opinion. Nor are there better hopes for the future. +The ablest minds, he says in the Essay upon Ranke, have believed in +transubstantiation; that is, according to him, in the most ineffable +nonsense. There is no certainty that men will not believe to the end of +time the doctrines which imposed upon so able a man as Sir Thomas More. +Not only, that is, have men been hitherto wandering in a labyrinth +without a clue, but there is no chance that any clue will ever be found. +The doctrine, so familiar to our generation, of laws of intellectual +development, never even occurs to him. The collective thought of +generations marks time without advancing. A guess of Sir Thomas More is +as good or as bad as the guess of the last philosopher. This theory, if +true, implies utter scepticism. And yet Macaulay was clearly not a +sceptic. His creed was hidden under a systematic reticence, and he +resisted every attempt to raise the veil with rather superfluous +indignation. When a constituent dared to ask about his religious views, +he denounced the rash inquirer in terms applicable to an agent of the +Inquisition. He vouchsafed, indeed, the information that he was a +Christian. We may accept the phrase, not only on the strength of his +invariable sincerity, but because it falls in with the general turn of +his arguments. He denounces the futility of the ancient moralists, but +he asserts the enormous social value of Christianity. + +His attitude, in fact, is equally characteristic of the man and his +surroundings. The old Clapham teaching had faded in his mind: it had not +produced a revolt. He retained the old hatred for slavery; and he +retained, with the whole force of his affectionate nature, reverence for +the school of Wilberforce, Thornton, and his own father. He estimated +most highly, not perhaps more highly than they deserved, the value of +the services rendered by them in awakening the conscience of the nation. +In their persistent and disinterested labours he recognised a +manifestation of the great social force of Christianity. But a belief +that Christianity is useful, and even that it is true, may consist with +a profound conviction of the futility of the philosophy with which it +has been associated. Here again Macaulay is a true Whig. The Whig love +of precedent, the Whig hatred for abstract theories, may consist with a +Tory application. But the true Whig differed from the Tory in adding to +these views an invincible suspicion of parsons. The first Whig battles +were fought against the Church as much as against the King. From the +struggle with Sacheverell down to the struggle for Catholic +emancipation, Toryism and High-Church principles were associated against +Whigs and Dissenters. By that kind of dumb instinct which outruns +reason, the Whig had learnt that there was some occult bond of union +between the claims of a priesthood and the claims of a monarchy. The +old maxim, 'No bishop, no king,' suggested the opposite principle that +you must keep down the clergy if you would limit the monarchy. The +natural interpretation of this prejudice into political theory, is that +the Church is extremely useful as an ally of the constable, but +possesses a most dangerous explosive power if allowed to claim +independent authority. In practice we must resist all claims of the +Church to dictate to the State. In theory we must deny the foundation +upon which such claims can alone be founded. Dogmatism must be +pronounced to be fundamentally irrational. Nobody knows anything about +theology; or what is the same thing, no two people agree. As they don't +agree, they cannot claim to impose their beliefs upon others. + +This sentiment comes out curiously in the characteristic Essay just +mentioned. Macaulay says, in reply to Mr. Gladstone, that there is no +more reason for the introduction of religious questions into State +affairs than for introducing them into the affairs of a Canal Company. +He puts his argument with an admirable vigour and clearness which blinds +many readers to the fact that he is begging the question by evading the +real difficulty. If, in fact, Government had as little to do as a Canal +Company with religious opinion, we should have long ago learnt the great +lesson of toleration. But that is just the very _crux_. Can we draw the +line between the spiritual and the secular? Nothing, replies Macaulay, +is easier; and his method has been already indicated. We all agree that +we don't want to be robbed or murdered: we are by no means all agreed +about the doctrine of Trinity. But, says a churchman, a certain creed is +necessary to men's moral and spiritual welfare, and therefore of the +utmost importance even for the prevention of robbery and murder. This +is what Macaulay implicitly denies. The whole of dogmatic theology +belongs to that region of philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever you +please to call it, in which men are doomed to dispute for ever without +coming any nearer to a decision. All that the statesman has to do with +such matters is to see that if men are fools enough to speculate, they +shall not be allowed to cut each other's throats when they reach, as +they always must reach, contradictory results. If you raise a difficult +point--such, for example, as the education question--Macaulay replies, +as so many people have replied before and since, Teach the people 'those +principles of morality which are common to all the forms of +Christianity.' That is easier said than done! The plausibility of the +solution in Macaulay's mouth is due to the fundamental assumption that +everything except morality is hopeless ground of inquiry. Once get +beyond the Ten Commandments and you will sink in a bottomless morass of +argument, counterargument, quibble, logomachy, superstition, and +confusion worse confounded. + +In Macaulay's teaching, as in that of his party, there is doubtless much +that is noble. He has a righteous hatred of oppression in all shapes and +disguises. He can tear to pieces with great logical power many of the +fallacies alleged by his opponents. Our sympathies are certainly with +him as against men who advocate persecution on any grounds, and he is +fully qualified to crush his ordinary opponents. But it is plain that +his whole political and (if we may use the word) philosophical teaching +rests on something like a downright aversion to the higher order of +speculation. He despises it. He wants something tangible and +concrete--something in favour of which he may appeal to the immediate +testimony of the senses. He must feel his feet planted on the solid +earth. The pain of attempting to soar into higher regions is not +compensated to him by the increased width of horizon. And in this +respect he is but the type of most of his countrymen, and reflects what +has been (as I should say) erroneously called their 'unimaginative' view +of things in general. + +Macaulay, at any rate, distinctly belongs to the imaginative class of +minds, if only in virtue of his instinctive preference of the concrete +to the abstract, and his dislike, already noticed, to analysis. He has a +thirst for distinct and vivid images. He reasons by examples instead of +appealing to formulć. There is a characteristic account in Mr. +Trevelyan's volumes of his habit of rambling amongst the older parts of +London, his fancy teeming with stories attached to the picturesque +fragments of antiquity, and carrying on dialogues between imaginary +persons as vivid, if not as forcible, as those of Scott's novels. To +this habit--rather inverting the order of cause and effect--he +attributes his accuracy of detail. We should rather say that the +intensity of the impressions generated both the accuracy and the +day-dreams. A philosopher would be arguing in his daily rambles where an +imaginative mind is creating a series of pictures. But Macaulay's +imagination is as definitely limited as his speculation. The genuine +poet is also a philosopher. He sees intuitively what the reasoner +evolves by argument. The greatest minds in both classes are equally +marked by their naturalisation in the lofty regions of thought, +inaccessible or uncongenial to men of inferior stamp. It is tempting in +some ways to compare Macaulay to Burke. Burke's superiority is marked by +this, that he is primarily a philosopher, and therefore instinctively +sees the illustration of a general law in every particular fact. +Macaulay, on the contrary, gets away from theory as fast as possible, +and tries to conceal his poverty of thought under masses of ingenious +illustration. + +His imaginative narrowness would come out still more clearly by a +comparison with Carlyle. One significant fact must be enough. Everyone +must have observed how powerfully Carlyle expresses the emotion +suggested by the brief appearance of some little waif from past history. +We may remember, for example, how the usher, De Brézé, appears for a +moment to utter the last shriek of the old monarchical etiquette, and +then vanishes into the dim abysses of the past. The imagination is +excited by the little glimpse of light flashing for a moment upon some +special point in the cloudy phantasmagoria of human history. The image +of a past existence is projected for a moment upon our eyes, to make us +feel how transitory is life, and how rapidly one visionary existence +expels another. We are such stuff as dreams are made of:-- + + None other than a moving row + Of visionary shapes that come and go + Around the sun-illumined lantern held + In midnight by the master of the show. + +Every object is seen against the background of eternal mystery. In +Macaulay's pages this element is altogether absent. We see a figure from +the past as vividly as if he were present. We observe the details of his +dress, the odd oaths with which his discourse is interlarded, the minute +peculiarities of his features or manner. We laugh or admire as we should +do at a living man; and we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But +the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into oblivion, +that our little island of daylight will soon be shrouded in the +gathering mist, and that we tread at every instant on the dust of +forgotten continents. We treat the men of past ages quite at our ease. +We applaud and criticise Hampden or Chatham as we should applaud Peel or +Cobden. There is no atmospheric effect--no sense of the dim march of +ages, or of the vast procession of human life. It is doubtless a great +feat to make the past present. It is a greater to emancipate us from the +tyranny of the present, and to raise us to a point at which we feel that +we too are almost as dreamlike as the men of old time. To gain clearness +and definition Macaulay has dropped the element of mystery. He sees +perfectly whatever can be seen by the ordinary lawyer, or politician, or +merchant; he is insensible to the visions which reveal themselves only +to minds haunted by thoughts of eternity, and delighting to dwell in the +border-land where dreams blend with realities. Mysticism is to him +hateful, and historical figures form groups of individuals, not symbols +of forces working behind the veil. + +Macaulay, therefore, can be no more a poet in the sense in which the +word is applied to Spenser, or to Wordsworth, both of whom he holds to +be simply intolerable bores, than he can be a metaphysician or a +scientific thinker. In common phraseology, he is a Philistine--a word +which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher +intellectual interests. The word may also be defined, however, as the +name applied by prigs to the rest of their species. And I hold that the +modern fashion of using it as a common term of abuse amounts to a +literary nuisance. It enables intellectual coxcombs to brand men with an +offensive epithet for being a degree more manly than themselves. There +is much that is good in your Philistine; and when we ask what Macaulay +was, instead of showing what he was not, we shall perhaps find that the +popular estimate is not altogether wrong. + +Macaulay was not only a typical Whig, but the prophet of Whiggism to his +generation. Though not a poet or a philosopher, he was a born +rhetorician. His parliamentary career proves his capacity sufficiently, +though want of the physical qualifications, and of exclusive devotion to +political success, prevented him, as perhaps a want of subtlety or +flexibility of mind would have always prevented him, from attaining +excellence as a debater. In everything that he wrote, however, we see +the true rhetorician. He tells us that Fox wrote debates, whilst +Mackintosh spoke essays. Macaulay did both. His compositions are a +series of orations on behalf of sound Whig views, whatever their +external form. Given a certain audience--and every orator supposes a +particular audience--their effectiveness is undeniable. Macaulay's may +be composed of ordinary Englishmen, with a moderate standard of +education. His arguments are adapted to the ordinary Cabinet Minister, +or, what is much the same, to the person who is willing to pay a +shilling to hear an evening lecture. He can hit an audience composed of +such materials--to quote Burke's phrase about George Grenville--'between +wind and water.' He uses the language, the logic, and the images which +they can fully understand; and though his hearer, like his schoolboy, is +ostensibly credited at times with a portentous memory, Macaulay always +takes excellent care to put him in mind of the facts which he is assumed +to remember. The faults and the merits of his style follow from his +resolute determination to be understood of the people. He was specially +delighted, as his nephew tells us, by a reader at Messrs. +Spottiswoode's, who said that in all the 'History' there was only one +sentence the meaning of which was not obvious to him at first sight. We +are more surprised that there was one such sentence. Clearness is the +first of the cardinal virtues of style; and nobody ever wrote more +clearly than Macaulay. He sacrifices much, it is true, in order to +obtain it. He proves that two and two make four with a pertinacity which +would make him dull, if it were not for his abundance of brilliant +illustration. He always remembers the principle which should guide a +barrister in addressing a jury. He has not merely to exhibit his proofs, +but to hammer them into the heads of his audience by incessant +repetition. It is no small proof of artistic skill that a writer who +systematically adopts this method should yet be invariably lively. He +goes on blacking the chimney with a persistency which somehow amuses us +because he puts so much heart into his work. He proves the most obvious +truths again and again; but his vivacity never flags. This tendency +undoubtedly leads to great defects of style. His sentences are +monotonous and mechanical. He has a perfect hatred of pronouns, and for +fear of a possible entanglement between 'hims' and 'hers' and 'its,' he +will repeat not merely a substantive, but a whole group of substantives. +Sometimes, to make his sense unmistakable, he will repeat a whole +formula, with only a change in the copula. For the same reason, he hates +all qualifications and parentheses. Each thought must be resolved into +its constituent parts; each argument must be expressed as a simple +proposition: and his paragraphs are rather aggregates of independent +atoms than possessed of a continuous unity. His writing--to use a +favourite formula of his own--bears the same relation to a style of +graceful modulation that a bit of mosaic work bears to a picture. Each +phrase has its distinct hue, instead of melting into its neighbours. +Here we have a black patch and there a white. There are no half tones, +no subtle interblending of different currents of thought. It is partly +for this reason that his descriptions of character are often so +unsatisfactory. He likes to represent a man as a bundle of +contradictions, because it enables him to obtain startling contrasts. He +heightens a vice in one place, a virtue in another, and piles them +together in a heap, without troubling himself to ask whether nature can +make such monsters, or preserve them if made. To anyone given to +analysis, these contrasts are actually painful. There is a story of the +Duke of Wellington having once stated that the rats got into his bottles +in Spain. 'They must have been very large bottles or very small rats,' +said somebody. 'On the contrary,' replied the Duke, 'the rats were very +large and the bottles very small.' Macaulay delights in leaving us face +to face with such contrasts in more important matters. Boswell must, we +would say, have been a clever man or his biography cannot have been so +good as you say. On the contrary, says Macaulay, he was the greatest of +fools and the best of biographers. He strikes a discord and purposely +fails to resolve it. To men of more delicate sensibility the result is +an intolerable jar. + +For the same reason, Macaulay's genuine eloquence is marred by the +symptoms of malice prepense. When he sews on a purple patch, he is +resolved that there shall be no mistake about it; it must stand out from +a radical contrast of colours. The emotion is not to swell by degrees, +till you find yourself carried away in the torrent which set out as a +tranquil stream. The transition is deliberately emphasised. On one side +of a full stop you are listening to a matter-of-fact statement; on the +other, there is all at once a blare of trumpets and a beating of drums, +till the crash almost deafens you. He regrets in one of his letters that +he has used up the celebrated, and, it must be confessed, really +forcible passage about the impeachment scene in Westminster Hall. It +might have come in usefully in the 'History,' which, as he then hoped, +would reach the time of Warren Hastings. The regret is unpleasantly +suggestive of that deliberation in the manufacture of eloquence which +stamps it as artificial. + +Such faults may annoy critics, even of no very sensitive fibre. What is +it that redeems them? The first answer is, that the work is impressive +because it is thoroughly genuine. The stream, it is true, comes forth by +spasmodic gushes, when it ought to flow in a continuous current; but it +flows from a full reservoir instead of being pumped from a shallow +cistern. The knowledge and, what is more, the thoroughly-assimilated +knowledge, is enormous. Mr. Trevelyan has shown in detail what we had +all divined for ourselves, how much patient labour is often employed in +a paragraph or the turn of a phrase. To accuse Macaulay of +superficiality is, in this sense, altogether absurd. His speculation may +be meagre, but his store of information is simply inexhaustible. Mill's +writing was impressive, because one often felt that a single argument +condensed the result of a long process of reflection. Macaulay has the +lower but similar merit that a single picturesque touch implies +incalculable masses of knowledge. It is but an insignificant part of the +building which appears above ground. Compare a passage with the assigned +authority, and you are inclined to accuse him--sometimes it may be +rightfully--of amplifying and modifying. But more often the particular +authority is merely the nucleus round which a whole volume of other +knowledge has crystallised. A single hint is significant to a +properly-prepared mind of a thousand facts not explicitly contained in +it. Nobody, he said, could judge of the accuracy of one part of his +'History' who had not 'soaked his mind with the transitory literature of +the day.' His real authority was not this or that particular passage, +but a literature. And for this reason alone, Macaulay's historical +writings have a permanent value which will prevent them from being +superseded even by more philosophical thinkers, whose minds have not +undergone the 'soaking' process. + +It is significant again that imitations of Macaulay are almost as +offensive as imitations of Carlyle. Every great writer has his +parasites. Macaulay's false glitter and jingle, his frequent flippancy +and superficiality of thought, are more easily caught than his virtues; +but so are all faults. Would-be followers of Carlyle catch the strained +gestures without the rapture of his inspiration. Would-be followers of +Mill fancied themselves to be logical when they were only hopelessly +unsympathetic and unimaginative; and would-be followers of some other +writers can be effeminate and foppish without being subtle or graceful. +Macaulay's thoroughness of work has, perhaps, been less contagious than +we could wish. Something of the modern raising of the standard of +accuracy in historical inquiry may be set down to his influence. The +misfortune is that, if some writers have learnt from him to be flippant +without learning to be laborious, others have caught the accuracy +without the liveliness. In the later volumes of his 'History,' his +vigour began to be a little clogged by the fulness of his knowledge; and +we can observe symptoms of the tendency of modern historians to grudge +the sacrifice of sifting their knowledge. They read enough, but instead +of giving us the results, they tumble out the accumulated mass of raw +materials upon our devoted heads, till they make us long for a fire in +the State Paper Office. + +Fortunately, Macaulay did not yield to this temptation in his earlier +writings, and the result is that he is, for the ordinary reader, one of +the two authorities for English history, the other being Shakespeare. +Without comparing their merits, we must admit that the compression of so +much into a few short narratives shows intensity as well as compass of +mind. He could digest as well as devour, and he tried his digestion +pretty severely. It is fashionable to say that part of his practical +force is due to the training of parliamentary life. Familiarity with the +course of affairs doubtless strengthened his insight into history, and +taught him the value of downright common-sense in teaching an average +audience. Speaking purely from the literary point of view, I cannot +agree further in the opinion suggested. I suspect the 'History' would +have been better if Macaulay had not been so deeply immersed in all the +business of legislation and electioneering. I do not profoundly +reverence the House of Commons' tone--even in the House of Commons; and +in literature it easily becomes a nuisance. Familiarity with the actual +machinery of politics tends to strengthen the contempt for general +principles, of which Macaulay had an ample share. It encourages the +illusion of the fly upon the wheel, the doctrine that the dust and din +of debate and the worry of lobbies and committee-rooms are not the +effect but the cause of the great social movement. The historian of the +Roman Empire, as we know, owed something to the captain of Hampshire +Militia; but years of life absorbed in parliamentary wrangling and in +sitting at the feet of the philosophers of Holland House were not +likely to widen a mind already disposed to narrow views of the world. + +For Macaulay's immediate success, indeed, the training was undoubtedly +valuable. As he carried into Parliament the authority of a great writer, +so he wrote books with the authority of the practical politician. He has +the true instinct of affairs. He knows what are the immediate motives +which move masses of men; and is never misled by fanciful analogies or +blindfolded by the pedantry of official language. He has seen +flesh-and-blood statesmen--at any rate, English statesmen--and +understands the nature of the animal. Nobody can be freer from the +dominion of crotchets. All his reasoning is made of the soundest common +sense, and represents, if not the ultimate forces, yet forces with which +we have to reckon. And he knows, too, how to stir the blood of the +average Englishman. He understands most thoroughly the value of +concentration, unity, and simplicity. Every speech or essay forms an +artistic whole, in which some distinct moral is vigorously driven home +by a succession of downright blows. This strong rhetorical instinct is +shown conspicuously in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which, whatever we +might say of them as poetry, are an admirable specimen of rhymed +rhetoric. We know how good they are when we see how incapable are modern +ballad-writers in general of putting the same swing and fire into their +verses. Compare, for example, Aytoun's 'Lays of the Cavaliers,' as the +most obvious parallel:-- + + Not swifter pours the avalanche + Adown the steep incline, + That rises o'er the parent springs + Of rough and rapid Rhine, + +than certain Scotch heroes over an entrenchment. Place this mouthing by +any parallel passage in Macaulay:-- + + Now, by our sire Quirinus, + It was a goodly sight + To see the thirty standards + Swept down the tide of flight. + So flies the spray in Adria + When the black squall doth blow. + So corn-sheaves in the flood time + Spin down the whirling Po. + +And so on in verses which innumerable schoolboys of inferior pretensions +to Macaulay's know by heart. And in such cases the verdict of the +schoolboy is perhaps more valuable than that of the literary +connoisseur. There are, of course, many living poets who can do +tolerably something of far higher quality which Macaulay could not do at +all. But I don't know who, since Scott, could have done this particular +thing. Possibly Mr. Kingsley might have approached it, or the poet, if +he would have condescended so far, who sang the bearing of the good news +from Ghent to Aix. In any case, the feat is significant of Macaulay's +true power. It looks easy; it involves no demands upon the higher +reasoning or imaginative powers: but nobody will believe it to be easy +who observes the extreme rarity of a success in a feat so often +attempted. + +A similar remark is suggested by Macaulay's 'Essays.' Read such an essay +as that upon Clive, or Warren Hastings, or Chatham. The story seems to +tell itself. The characters are so strongly marked, the events fall so +easily into their places, that we fancy that the narrator's business has +been done to his hand. It wants little critical experience to discover +that this massive simplicity is really indicative of an art not, it may +be, of the highest order, but truly admirable for its purpose. It +indicates not only a gigantic memory, but a glowing mind, which has +fused a crude mass of materials into unity. If we do not find the sudden +touches which reveal the philosophical sagacity or the imaginative +insight of the highest order of intellects, we recognise the true +rhetorical instinct. The outlines may be harsh, and the colours too +glaring; but the general effect has been carefully studied. The details +are wrought in with consummate skill. We indulge in an intercalary pish! +here and there; but we are fascinated and we remember. The actual amount +of intellectual force which goes to the composition of such written +archives is immense, though the quality may leave something to be +desired. Shrewd common-sense may be an inferior substitute for +philosophy, and the faculty which brings remote objects close to the eye +of an ordinary observer for the loftier faculty which tinges everyday +life with the hues of mystic contemplation. But when the common +faculties are present in so abnormal a degree, they begin to have a +dignity of their own. + +It is impossible in such matters to establish any measure of comparison. +No analysis will enable us to say how much pedestrian capacity may be +fairly regarded as equivalent to a small capacity for soaring above the +solid earth, and therefore the question as to the relative value of +Macaulay's work and that of some men of loftier aims and less perfect +execution must be left to individual taste. We can only say that it is +something so to have written the history of many national heroes as to +make their faded glories revive to active life in the memory of their +countrymen. So long as Englishmen are what they are--and they don't seem +to change as rapidly as might be wished--they will turn to Macaulay's +pages to gain a vivid impression of our greatest achievements during an +important period. + +Nor is this all. The fire which glows in Macaulay's history, the intense +patriotic feeling, the love of certain moral qualities, is not +altogether of the highest kind. His ideal of national and individual +greatness might easily be criticised. But the sentiment, as far as it +goes, is altogether sound and manly. He is too fond, it has been said, +of incessant moralising. From a scientific point of view the moralising +is irrelevant. We want to study the causes and the nature of great +social movements; and when we are stopped in order to inquire how far +the prominent actors in them were hurried beyond ordinary rules, we are +transported into a different order of thought. It would be as much to +the purpose if we approved an earthquake for upsetting a fort, and +blamed it for moving the foundations of a church. Macaulay can never +understand this point of view. With him, history is nothing more than a +sum of biographies. And even from a biographical point of view his +moralising is often troublesome. He not only insists upon transporting +party prejudice into his estimates, and mauls poor James II. as he +mauled the Tories in 1832; but he applies obviously inadequate tests. It +is absurd to call upon men engaged in a life-and-death wrestle to pay +scrupulous attention to the ordinary rules of politeness. There are +times when judgments guided by constitutional precedent become +ludicrously out of place, and when the best man is he who aims +straightest at the heart of his antagonist. But, in spite of such +drawbacks, Macaulay's genuine sympathy for manliness and force of +character generally enables him to strike pretty nearly the true note. +To learn the true secret of Cromwell's character we must go to Carlyle, +who can sympathise with deep currents of religious enthusiasm. Macaulay +retains too much of the old Whig distrust for all that it calls +fanaticism fully to recognise the grandeur beneath the grotesque outside +of the Puritan. But Macaulay tells us most distinctly why Englishmen +warm at the name of the great Protector. We, like the banished +Cavaliers, 'glow with an emotion of national pride' at his animated +picture of the unconquerable Ironsides. One phrase may be sufficiently +illustrative. After quoting Clarendon's story of the Scotch nobleman who +forced Charles to leave the field of Naseby by seizing his horse's +bridle, 'no man,' says Macaulay, 'who had much value for his life would +have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day for Oliver +Cromwell.' + +Macaulay, in short, always feels, and therefore communicates, a hearty +admiration for sheer manliness. And some of his portraits of great men +have therefore a genuine power, and show the deeper insight which comes +from true sympathy. He estimates the respectable observer of +constitutional proprieties too highly; he is unduly repelled by the +external oddities of the truly masculine and noble Johnson; but his +enthusiasm for his pet hero, William, or for Chatham or Clive, carries +us along with him. And at moments when he is narrating their exploits, +and can forget his elaborate argumentations and refrain from bits of +deliberate bombast, the style becomes graphic in the higher sense of a +much-abused word, and we confess that we are listening to genuine +eloquence. Putting aside for the moment recollection of foibles, almost +too obvious to deserve the careful demonstration which they have +sometimes received, we are glad to surrender ourselves to the charm of +his straightforward, clear-headed, hard-hitting declamation. There is no +writer with whom it is easier to find fault, or the limits of whose +power may be more distinctly defined; but within his own sphere he goes +forward, as he went through life, with a kind of grand confidence in +himself and his cause, which is attractive, and at times even +provocative of sympathetic enthusiasm. + +Macaulay said, in his Diary, that he wrote his 'History' with an eye to +a remote past and a remote future. He meant to erect a monument more +enduring than brass, and the ambition at least stimulated him to +admirable thoroughness of workmanship. How far his aim was secured must +be left to the decision of a posterity which will not trouble itself +about the susceptibilities of candidates for its favour. In one sense, +however, Macaulay must be interesting so long as the type which he so +fully represents continues to exist. Whig has become an old-fashioned +phrase, and is repudiated by modern Liberals and Radicals, who think +themselves wiser than their fathers. The decay of the old name implies a +remarkable political change; but I doubt whether it implies more than a +very superficial change in the national character. New classes and new +ideas have come upon the stage; but they have a curious family likeness +to the old. The Whiggism whose peculiarities Macaulay reflected so +faithfully represents some of the most deeply-seated tendencies of the +national character. It has, therefore, both its ugly and its honourable +side. Its disregard, or rather its hatred, for pure reason, its +exaltation of expediency above truth and precedent above principle, its +instinctive dread of strong religious or political faiths, are of course +questionable qualities. Yet even they have their nobler side. There is +something almost sublime about the grand unreasonableness of the average +Englishman. His dogged contempt for all foreigners and philosophers, +his intense resolution to have his own way and use his own eyes, to see +nothing that does not come within his narrow sphere of vision, and to +see it quite clearly before he acts upon it, are of course abhorrent to +thinkers of a different order. But they are great qualities in the +struggle for existence which must determine the future of the world. The +Englishman, armed in his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts +with unequalled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, +but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the +universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is +not to be trifled with. Macaulay's sympathy with these qualities led to +some annoying peculiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a +commonness, sometimes a vulgarity, of style which is easily criticised. +But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always +comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is +nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colours resolutely +and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and +spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never +knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He +is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine +love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with +unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which +he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be +narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the +manliness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his +countrymen. He is proud of the healthy vigorous stock from which he +springs; and the fervour of his enthusiasm, though it may shock a +delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue +to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at +bottom--indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud. + + +END OF THE SECOND VOLUME + + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE +LONDON + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Page 31: illlustrations amended to illustrations | + | Page 38: Single quote mark removed from end of excerpt. | + | ("And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!") | + | Page 81: idiosyncracy amended to idiosyncrasy | + | Page 117: Single quote mark in front of "miserable" | + | removed. ("'The man they called Dizzy' can despise a | + | miserable creature ...") | + | Page 131: sweatmeats amended to sweetmeats | + | Page 143: aristocractic amended to aristocratic | + | Page 147: sentiment amended to sentiments | + | Page 163: Mahommedan amended to Mohammedan | + | Page 181: Macchiavelli amended to Machiavelli | + | Page 241: Full stop added after "third generation." | + | Page 247: Comma added after "We both love the | + | Constitution...." | + | Page 325: chartalan amended to charlatan | + | Page 368: Shakspeare amended to Shakespeare | + | | + | Italicisation and hyphenation have been standardised. | + | However, where there is an equal number of instances of | + | a hyphenated and unhyphenated word, both have been | + | retained: dreamlike/dream-like; evildoers/evil-doers; | + | highflown/high-flown; jogtrot/jog-trot; | + | overdoses/over-doses; textbook/text-book. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOURS IN A LIBRARY *** + +***** This file should be named 30336-8.txt or 30336-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/3/30336/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hours in a Library + New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) + +Author: Leslie Stephen + +Release Date: October 25, 2009 [EBook #30336] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOURS IN A LIBRARY *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="transnote"><h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3> + +<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in +this text. For a complete list, please see <a href="#TN">the bottom of +this document</a>.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2>HOURS IN A LIBRARY</h2> + +<h4>VOL. II.</h4> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + + +<h1>HOURS IN A LIBRARY</h1> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>LESLIE STEPHEN</h2> + +<h3><i>NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS</i></h3> + +<h3>IN THREE VOLUMES</h3> + +<h2>VOL. II.</h2> + +<p class="frontend">LONDON<br /> +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE<br /> +1892<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS<br /> +OF<br /> +THE SECOND VOLUME</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC"> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Dr. Johnson's Writings</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Crabbe</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">William Hazlitt</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Disraeli's Novels</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Massinger</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fielding's Novels</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cowper and Rousseau</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The First Edinburgh Reviewers</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Wordsworth's Ethics</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Landor's Imaginary Conversations</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Macaulay</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p> +<h1>HOURS IN A LIBRARY</h1> + + +<h2><i>DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS</i></h2> + + +<p>A book appeared not long ago of which it was the professed object to +give to the modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell's +immortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain from +discussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may be +made in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcome +must, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, to +say the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always mangle +some people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they may +display, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of the +great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an +intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic, +retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon +those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original, +the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There +remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but +not extinct, can be titillated by the promise that they shall not have +the trouble of making their own selection. Let us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> wish them good +digestions, and, in spite of modern changes of fashion, more robust +taste for the future. I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell. A man, indeed, may +be a good Christian, and an excellent father of a family, without loving +Johnson or Boswell, for a sense of humour is not one of the primary +virtues. But Boswell's is one of the very few books which, after many +years of familiarity, will still provoke a hearty laugh even in the +solitude of a study; and the laughter is of that kind which does one +good.</p> + +<p>I do not wish, however, to pronounce one more eulogy upon an old friend, +but to say a few words on a question which he sometimes suggests. +Macaulay's well-known but provoking essay is more than usually lavish in +overstrained paradoxes. He has explicitly declared that Boswell wrote +one of the most charming of books because he was one of the greatest of +fools. And his remarks suggest, if they do not implicitly assert, that +Johnson wrote some of the most unreadable of books, although, if not +because, he possessed one of the most vigorous intellects of the time. +Carlyle has given a sufficient explanation of the first paradox; but the +second may justify a little further inquiry. As a general rule, the talk +of a great man is the reflection of his books. Nothing is so false as +the common saying that the presence of a distinguished writer is +generally disappointing. It exemplifies a very common delusion. People +are so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> impressed by the disparity which sometimes occurs, that they +take the exception for the rule. It is, of course, true that a man's +verbal utterances may differ materially from his written utterances. He +may, like Addison, be shy in company; he may, like many retired +students, be slow in collecting his thoughts; or he may, like Goldsmith, +be over-anxious to shine at all hazards. But a patient observer will +even then detect the essential identity under superficial differences; +and in the majority of cases, as in that of Macaulay himself, the +talking and the writing are palpably and almost absurdly similar. The +whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who +is partially revealed to us in his spoken or his written words. Whatever +the means of communication, the problem is the same. The two methods of +inquiry may supplement each other; but their substantial agreement is +the test of their accuracy. If Johnson, as a writer, appears to us to be +a mere windbag and manufacturer of sesquipedalian verbiage, whilst, as a +talker, he appears to be one of the most genuine and deeply feeling of +men, we may be sure that our analysis has been somewhere defective. The +discrepancy is, of course, partly explained by the faults of Johnson's +style; but the explanation only removes the difficulty a degree further. +'The style is the man' is a very excellent aphorism, though some eminent +writers have lately pointed out that Buffon's original remark was <i>le +style c'est de l'homme</i>. That only proves that, like many other good +sayings, it has been polished and brought to perfection by the process +of attrition in numerous minds, instead of being struck out at a blow by +a solitary thinker. From a purely logical point of view, Buffon may be +correct; but the very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration +which makes it more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> biting whilst less rigidly accurate. According to +Buffon, the style might belong to a man as an acquisition rather than to +natural growth. There are parasitical writers who, in the old phrase, +have 'formed their style,' by the imitation of accepted models, and who +have, therefore, possessed it only by right of appropriation. Boswell +has a discussion as to the writers who may have served Johnson in this +capacity. But, in fact, Johnson, like all other men of strong +idiosyncrasy, formed his style as he formed his legs. The peculiarities +of his limbs were in some degree the result of conscious efforts in +walking, swimming, and 'buffeting with his books.' This development was +doubtless more fully determined by the constitution which he brought +into the world, and the circumstances under which he was brought up. And +even that queer Johnsonese, which Macaulay supposes him to have adopted +in accordance with a more definite literary theory, will probably appear +to be the natural expression of certain innate tendencies, and of the +mental atmosphere which he breathed from youth. To appreciate fairly the +strangely cumbrous form of his written speech, we must penetrate more +deeply than may at first sight seem necessary beneath the outer rind of +this literary Behemoth. The difficulty of such spiritual dissection is, +indeed, very great; but some little light may be thrown upon the subject +by following out such indications as we possess.</p> + +<p>The talking Johnson is sufficiently familiar to us. So far as Boswell +needs an interpreter, Carlyle has done all that can be done. He has +concentrated and explained what is diffused, and often unconsciously +indicated in Boswell's pages. When reading Boswell, we are half ashamed +of his power over our sympathies. It is like turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>ing over a portfolio +of sketches, caricatured, inadequate, and each giving only some +imperfect aspect of the original. Macaulay's smart paradoxes only +increase our perplexity by throwing the superficial contrasts into +stronger relief. Carlyle, with true imaginative insight, gives us at +once the essence of Johnson; he brings before our eyes the luminous body +of which we had previously been conscious only by a series of imperfect +images refracted through a number of distorting media. To render such a +service effectually is the highest triumph of criticism; and it would be +impertinent to say again in feebler language what Carlyle has expressed +so forcibly. We may, however, recall certain general conclusions by way +of preface to the problem which he has not expressly considered, how far +Johnson succeeded in expressing himself through his writings.</p> + +<p>The world, as Carlyle sees it, is composed, we all know, of two classes: +there are 'the dull millions, who, as a dull flock, roll hither and +thither, whithersoever they are led,' and there are a few superior +natures who can see and can will. There are, in other words, the heroes, +and those whose highest wisdom is to be hero-worshippers. Johnson's +glory is that he belonged to the sacred band, though he could not claim +within it the highest, or even a very high, rank. In the current +dialect, therefore, he was 'nowise a clothes-horse or patent digester, +but a genuine man.' Whatever the accuracy of the general doctrine, or of +certain corollaries which are drawn from it, the application to Johnson +explains one main condition of his power. Persons of colourless +imagination may hold—nor will we dispute their verdict—that Carlyle +overcharges his lights and shades, and brings his heroes into too +startling a contrast with the vulgar herd. Yet it is undeniable that +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> great bulk of mankind are transmitters rather than originators of +spiritual force. Most of us are necessarily condemned to express our +thoughts in formulas which we have learnt from others and can but +slightly tinge with our feeble personality. Nor, as a rule, are we even +consistent disciples of any one school of thought. What we call our +opinions are mere bundles of incoherent formulæ, arbitrarily stitched +together because our reasoning faculties are too dull to make +inconsistency painful. Of the vast piles of books which load our +libraries, ninety-nine hundredths and more are but printed echoes: and +it is the rarest of pleasures to say, Here is a distinct record of +impressions at first hand. We commonplace beings are hurried along in +the crowd, living from hand to mouth on such slices of material and +spiritual food as happen to drift in our direction, with little more +power of taking an independent course, or of forming any general theory, +than the polyps which are carried along by an oceanic current. Ask any +man what he thinks of the world in which he is placed: whether, for +example, it is on the whole a scene of happiness or misery, and he will +either answer by some cut-and-dried fragments of what was once wisdom, +or he will confine himself to a few incoherent details. He had a good +dinner to-day and a bad toothache yesterday, and a family affliction or +blessing the day before. But he is as incapable of summing up his +impressions as an infant of performing an operation in the differential +calculus. It is as rare as it is refreshing to find a man who can stand +on his own legs and be conscious of his own feelings, who is sturdy +enough to react as well as to transmit action, and lofty enough to raise +himself above the hurrying crowd and have some distinct belief as to +whence it is coming and whither it is going. Now Johnson, as one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> the +sturdiest of mankind, had the power due to a very distinct sentiment, if +not to a very clear theory, about the world in which he lived. It had +buffeted him severely enough, and he had formed a decisive estimate of +its value. He was no man to be put off with mere phrases in place of +opinions, or to accept doctrines which were not capable of expressing +genuine emotion. To this it must be added that his emotions were as deep +and tender as they were genuine. How sacred was his love for his old and +ugly wife; how warm his sympathy wherever it could be effective; how +manly the self-respect with which he guarded his dignity through all the +temptations of Grub Street, need not be once more pointed out. Perhaps, +however, it is worth while to notice the extreme rarity of such +qualities. Many people, we think, love their fathers. Fortunately, that +is true; but in how many people is filial affection strong enough to +overpower the dread of eccentricity? How many men would have been +capable of doing penance in Uttoxeter market years after their father's +death for a long-passed act of disobedience? Most of us, again, would +have a temporary emotion of pity for an outcast lying helplessly in the +street. We should call the police, or send her in a cab to the +workhouse, or, at least, write to the <i>Times</i> to denounce the defective +arrangements of public charity. But it is perhaps better not to ask how +many good Samaritans would take her on their shoulders to their own +homes, care for her wants, and put her into a better way of life.</p> + +<p>In the lives of most eminent men we find much good feeling and +honourable conduct; but it is an exception, even in the case of good +men, when we find that a life has been shaped by other than the ordinary +conventions, or that emotions have dared to overflow the well-worn +channels of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> respectability. The love which we feel for Johnson is due +to the fact that the pivots upon which his life turned are invariably +noble motives, and not mere obedience to custom. More than one modern +writer has expressed a fraternal affection for Addison, and it is +justified by the kindly humour which breathes through his 'Essays.' But +what anecdote of that most decorous and successful person touches our +hearts or has the heroic ring of Johnson's wrestlings with adverse +fortune? Addison showed how a Christian could die—when his life has run +smoothly through pleasant places, secretaryships of state, and marriages +with countesses, and when nothing—except a few overdoses of port +wine—has shaken his nerves or ruffled his temper. A far deeper emotion +rises at the deathbed of the rugged old pilgrim, who has fought his way +to peace in spite of troubles within and without, who has been jeered in +Vanity Fair and has descended into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, +and escaped with pain and difficulty from the clutches of Giant Despair. +When the last feelings of such a man are tender, solemn, and simple, we +feel ourselves in a higher presence than that of an amiable gentleman +who simply died, as he lived, with consummate decorum.</p> + +<p>On turning, however, from Johnson's life to his writings, from Boswell +to the 'Rambler,' it must be admitted that the shock is trying to our +nerves. The 'Rambler' has, indeed, high merits. The impression which it +made upon his own generation proves the fact; for the reputation, +however temporary, was not won by a concession to the fashions of the +day, but to the influence of a strong judgment uttering itself through +uncouth forms. The melancholy which colours its pages is the melancholy +of a noble nature. The tone of thought reminds us of Bishop Butler,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> +whose writings, defaced by a style even more tiresome, though less +pompous than Johnson's, have owed their enduring reputation to a +philosophical acuteness in which Johnson was certainly very deficient. +Both of these great men, however, impress us by their deep sense of the +evils under which humanity suffers, and their rejection of the +superficial optimism of the day. Butler's sadness, undoubtedly, is that +of a recluse, and Johnson's that of a man of the world; but the +sentiment is fundamentally the same. It may be added, too, that here, as +elsewhere, Johnson speaks with the sincerity of a man drawing upon his +own experience. He announces himself as a scholar thrust out upon the +world rather by necessity than choice; and a large proportion of the +papers dwell upon the various sufferings of the literary class. Nobody +could speak more feelingly of those sufferings, as no one had a closer +personal acquaintance with them. But allowing to Johnson whatever credit +is due to the man who performs one more variation on the old theme, +<i>Vanitas vanitatum</i>, we must in candour admit that the 'Rambler' has the +one unpardonable fault: it is unreadable.</p> + +<p>What an amazing turn it shows for commonplaces! That life is short, that +marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men +are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, +that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from +detraction;—these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon +which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. +Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an +unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no man from this time,' is the comment in +one of his stories, 'suffer his felicity to depend on the death of his +aunt.' Every actor, of course, uses the same dialect. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> gay young +gentleman tells us that he used to amuse his companions by giving them +notice of his friends' oddities. 'Every man,' he says, 'has some +habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which +never fails to excite mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By +premonition of these particularities, I secured our pleasantry.' The +feminine characters, Flirtillas, and Cleoras, and Euphelias, and +Penthesileas, are, if possible, still more grotesque. Macaulay remarks +that he wears the petticoat with as ill a grace as Falstaff himself. The +reader, he thinks, will cry out with Sir Hugh, 'I like not when a 'oman +has a great peard! I spy a great peard under her muffler.' Oddly enough +Johnson gives the very same quotation; and goes on to warn his supposed +correspondents that Phyllis must send no more letters from the Horse +Guards; and that Belinda must 'resign her pretensions to female elegance +till she has lived three weeks without hearing the politics of Button's +Coffee House.' The Doctor was probably sensible enough of his own +defects. And yet there is a still more wearisome set of articles. In +emulation of the precedent set by Addison, Johnson indulges in the +dreariest of allegories. Criticism, we are told, was the eldest daughter +of Labour and Truth, but at last resigned in favour of Time, and left +Prejudice and False Taste to reign in company with Fraud and Mischief. +Then we have the genealogy of Wit and Learning, and of Satire, the Son +of Wit and Malice, and an account of their various quarrels, and the +decision of Jupiter. Neither are the histories of such semi-allegorical +personages as Almamoulin, the son of Nouradin, or of Anningait and Ayut, +the Greenland lovers, much more refreshing to modern readers. That +Johnson possessed humour of no mean order, we know from Boswell; but no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> +critic could have divined his power from the clumsy gambols in which he +occasionally recreates himself. Perhaps his happiest effort is a +dissertation upon the advantage of living in garrets; but the humour +struggles and gasps dreadfully under the weight of words. 'There are,' +he says, 'some who would continue blockheads' (the Alpine Club was not +yet founded), 'even on the summit of the Andes or the Peak of Teneriffe. +But let not any man be considered as unimprovable till this potent +remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was found to be great only in a +garret, as the joiner of Aretæus was rational in no other place but his +own shop.'</p> + +<p>How could a man of real power write such unendurable stuff? Or how, +indeed, could any man come to embody his thoughts in the style of which +one other sentence will be a sufficient example? As it is afterwards +nearly repeated, it may be supposed to have struck his fancy. The +remarks of the philosophers who denounce temerity are, he says, 'too +just to be disputed and too salutary to be rejected; but there is +likewise some danger lest timorous prudence should be inculcated till +courage and enterprise are wholly repressed and the mind congested in +perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.' Is +there not some danger, we ask, that the mind will be benumbed into +perpetual torpidity by the influence of this soporific sapience? It is +still true, however, that this Johnsonese, so often burlesqued and +ridiculed, was, as far as we can judge, a genuine product. Macaulay says +that it is more offensive than the mannerism of Milton or Burke, because +it is a mannerism adopted on principle and sustained by constant effort. +Facts do not confirm the theory. Milton's prose style seems to be the +result of a conscious effort to run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> English into classical moulds. +Burke's mannerism does not appear in his early writings, and we can +trace its development from the imitation of Bolingbroke to the last +declamation against the Revolution. But Johnson seems to have written +Johnsonese from his cradle. In his first original composition, the +preface to Father Lobo's 'Abyssinia,' the style is as distinctive as in +the 'Rambler.' The Parliamentary reports in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' +make Pitt and Fox<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> express sentiments which are probably their own in +language which is as unmistakably Johnson's. It is clear that his style, +good or bad, was the same from his earliest efforts. It is only in his +last book, the 'Lives of the Poets,' that the mannerism, though equally +marked, is so far subdued as to be tolerable. What he himself called his +habit of using 'too big words and too many of them' was no affectation, +but as much the result of his special idiosyncrasy as his queer +gruntings and twitchings. Sir Joshua Reynolds indeed maintained, and we +may believe so attentive an observer, that his strange physical +contortions were the result of bad habit, not of actual disease. +Johnson, he said, could sit as still as other people when his attention +was called to it. And possibly, if he had tried, he might have avoided +the fault of making 'little fishes talk like whales.' But how did the +bad habits arise? According to Boswell, Johnson professed to have +'formed his style' partly upon Sir W. Temple, and on 'Chambers's +Proposal for his Dictionary.' The statement was obviously +misinterpreted: but there is a glimmering of truth in the theory that +the 'style was formed'—so far as those words have any meaning—on the +'giants of the seventeenth century,' and especially upon Sir Thomas +Browne. Johnson's taste,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> in fact, had led him to the study of writers +in many ways congenial to him. His favourite book, as we know, was +Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' The pedantry of the older school did +not repel him; the weighty thought rightly attracted him; and the more +complex structure of sentence was perhaps a pleasant contrast to an ear +saturated with the Gallicised neatness of Addison and Pope. Unluckily, +the secret of the old majestic cadence was hopelessly lost. Johnson, +though spiritually akin to the giants, was the firmest ally and subject +of the dwarfish dynasty which supplanted them. The very faculty of +hearing seems to change in obedience to some mysterious law at different +stages of intellectual development; and that which to one generation is +delicious music is to another a mere droning of bagpipes or the grinding +of monotonous barrel-organs.</p> + +<p>Assuming that a man can find perfect satisfaction in the versification +of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that +'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in +blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout +the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid +satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of +alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more +or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work +with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's +harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was +'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for +'lavishing much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.' Moreover, +the poor man did his best by introducing sounding proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> names, even +when they 'added little music to his poem:' an example of this feeble, +though well-meant expedient, being the passage about the moon, which—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">The Tuscan artist views,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At evening, from the top of Fiesole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, &c.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This profanity passed at the time for orthodoxy. But the misfortune was, +that Johnson, unhesitatingly subscribing to the rules of Queen Anne's +critics, is always instinctively feeling after the grander effects of +the old school. Nature prompts him to the stateliness of Milton, whilst +Art orders him to deal out long and short syllables alternately, and to +make them up in parcels of ten, and then tie the parcels together in +pairs by the help of a rhyme. The natural utterance of a man of strong +perceptions, but of unwieldy intellect, of a melancholy temperament, and +capable of very deep, but not vivacious emotions, would be in stately +and elaborate phrases. His style was not more distinctly a work of art +than the style of Browne or Milton, but, unluckily, it was a work of bad +art. He had the misfortune, not so rare as it may sound, to be born in +the wrong century; and is, therefore, a giant in fetters; the amplitude +of stride is still there, but it is checked into mechanical regularity. +A similar phenomenon is observable in other writers of the time. The +blank verse of Young, for example, is generally set to Pope's tune with +the omission of the rhymes, whilst Thomson, revolting more or less +consciously against the canons of his time, too often falls into mere +pompous mouthing. Shaftesbury, in the previous generation, trying to +write poetical prose, becomes as pedantic as Johnson, though in a +different style; and Gibbon's mannerism is a familiar example of a +similar escape from a monotonous simplicity into awkward com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>plexity. +Such writers are like men who have been chilled by what Johnson would +call the 'frigorifick' influence of the classicism of their fathers, and +whose numbed limbs move stiffly and awkwardly in a first attempt to +regain the old liberty. The form, too, of the 'Rambler' is unfortunate. +Johnson has always Addison before his eyes; to whom it was formerly the +fashion to compare him for the same excellent reason which has recently +suggested comparisons between Dickens and Thackeray—namely, that their +works were published in the same external shape. Unluckily, Johnson gave +too much excuse for the comparison by really imitating Addison. He has +to make allegories, and to give lively sketches of feminine +peculiarities, and to ridicule social foibles of which he was, at most, +a distant observer. The inevitable consequence is, that though here and +there we catch a glimpse of the genuine man, we are, generally, too much +provoked by the awkwardness of his costume to be capable of enjoying, or +even reading him.</p> + +<p>In many of his writings, however, Johnson manages, almost entirely, to +throw off these impediments. In his deep capacity for sympathy and +reverence, we recognise some of the elements that go to the making of a +poet. He is always a man of intuitions rather than of discursive +intellect; often keen of vision, though wanting in analytical power. For +poetry, indeed, as it is often understood now, or even as it was +understood by Pope, he had little enough qualification. He had not the +intellectual vivacity implied in the marvellously neat workmanship of +Pope, and still less the delight in all natural and artistic beauty +which we generally take to be essential to poetic excellence. His +contempt for 'Lycidas' is sufficiently significant upon that head. Still +more characteristic is the incapacity to under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>stand Spenser, which +comes out incidentally in his remarks upon some of those imitations, +which even in the middle of the eighteenth century showed that +sensibility to the purest form of poetry was not by any means extinct +amongst us. But there is a poetry, though we sometimes seem to forget +it, which is the natural expression of deep moral sentiment; and of this +Johnson has written enough to reveal very genuine power. The touching +verses upon the death of Levett are almost as pathetic as Cowper; and +fragments of the two imitations of Juvenal have struck deep enough to be +not quite forgotten. We still quote the lines about pointing a moral and +adorning a tale, which conclude a really noble passage. We are too often +reminded of his melancholy musings over the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fears of the brave and follies of the wise,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and a few of the concluding lines of the 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' in +which he answers the question whether man must of necessity</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>in helplessness and ignorance, may have something of a familiar ring. We +are to give thanks, he says,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For love, which scarce collective man can fill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counts death kind nature's signal for retreat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These goods for man, the laws of heaven ordain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And makes the happiness she does not find.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These lines, and many others which might be quoted, are noble in +expression, as well as lofty and tender in feeling. Johnson, like +Wordsworth, or even more deeply than Words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>worth, had felt all the +'heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world;' and, +though he stumbles a little in the narrow limits of his versification, +he bears himself nobly, and manages to put his heart into his poetry. +Coleridge's paraphrase of the well-known lines, 'Let observation with +extensive observation, observe mankind from China to Peru,' would +prevent us from saying that he had thrown off his verbiage. He has not +the felicity of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' though he wrote one of the best +couplets in that admirable poem; but his ponderous lines show genuine +vigour, and can be excluded from poetry only by the help of an arbitrary +classification.</p> + +<p>The fullest expression, however, of Johnson's feeling is undoubtedly to +be found in 'Rasselas.' The inevitable comparison with Voltaire's +'Candide,' which, by an odd coincidence, appeared almost simultaneously, +suggests some curious reflections. The resemblance between the moral of +the two books is so strong that, as Johnson remarked, it would have been +difficult not to suppose that one had given a hint to the other but for +the chronological difficulty. The contrast, indeed, is as marked as the +likeness. 'Candide' is not adapted for family reading, whereas +'Rasselas' might be a textbook for young ladies studying English in a +convent. 'Candide' is a marvel of clearness and vivacity; whereas to +read 'Rasselas' is about as exhilarating as to wade knee-deep through a +sandy desert. Voltaire and Johnson, however, the great sceptic and the +last of the true old Tories, coincide pretty well in their view of the +world, and in the remedy which they suggest. The world is, they agree, +full of misery, and the optimism which would deny the reality of the +misery is childish. <i>Il faut cultiver notre jardin</i> is the last word of +'Candide,' and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> Johnson's teaching, both here and elsewhere, may be +summed up in the words 'Work, and don't whine.' It need not be +considered here, nor, perhaps, is it quite plain, what speculative +conclusions Voltaire meant to be drawn from his teaching. The +peculiarity of Johnson is, that he is apparently indifferent to any such +conclusion. A dogmatic assertion, that the world is on the whole a scene +of misery, may be pressed into the service of different philosophies. +Johnson asserted the opinion resolutely, both in writing and in +conversation, but apparently never troubled himself with any inferences +but such as have a directly practical tendency. He was no +'speculatist'—a word which now strikes us as having an American twang, +but which was familiar to the lexicographer. His only excursion to the +borders of such regions was in the very forcible review of Soane Jenyns, +who had made a jaunty attempt to explain the origin of evil by the help +of a few of Pope's epigrams. Johnson's sledge-hammer smashes his flimsy +platitudes to pieces with an energy too good for such a foe. For +speculation, properly so called, there was no need. The review, like +'Rasselas,' is simply a vigorous protest against the popular attempt to +make things pleasant by a feeble dilution of the most watery kind of +popular teaching. He has no trouble in remarking that the evils of +poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that +there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered +consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country +gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it +was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks +facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he +tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in +denying it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the +papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue to a +comedy with the words—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surveys the general toil of human kind.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the 'Life of Savage' he makes the common remark that the lives of +many of the greatest teachers of mankind have been miserable. The +explanation to which he inclines is that they have not been more +miserable than their neighbours, but that their misery has been more +conspicuous. His melancholy view of life may have been caused simply by +his unfortunate constitution; for everybody sees in the disease of his +own liver a disorder of the universe; but it was also intensified by the +natural reaction of a powerful nature against the fluent optimism of the +time, which expressed itself in Pope's aphorism, Whatever is, is right. +The strongest men of the time revolted against that attempt to cure a +deep-seated disease by a few fine speeches. The form taken by Johnson's +revolt is characteristic. His nature was too tender and too manly to +incline to Swift's misanthropy. Men might be wretched, but he would not +therefore revile them as filthy Yahoos. He was too reverent and cared +too little for abstract thought to share the scepticism of Voltaire. In +this miserable world the one worthy object of ambition is to do one's +duty, and the one consolation deserving the name is to be found in +religion. That Johnson's religious opinions sometimes took the form of +rather grotesque superstition may be true; and it is easy enough to +ridicule some of its manifestations. He took the creed of his day +without much examination of the evidence upon which its dogmas rested; +but a writer must be thoughtless indeed who should be more inclined to +laugh at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> his superficial oddities, than to admire the reverent spirit +and the brave self-respect with which he struggled through a painful +life. The protest of 'Rasselas' against optimism is therefore widely +different from the protest of Voltaire. The deep and genuine feeling of +the Frenchman is concealed under smart assaults upon the dogmas of +popular theology; the Englishman desires to impress upon us the futility +of all human enjoyments, with a view to deepen the solemnity of our +habitual tone of thought. It is true, indeed, that the evil is dwelt +upon more forcibly than the remedy. The book is all the more impressive. +We are almost appalled by the gloomy strength which sees so forcibly the +misery of the world and rejects so unequivocally all the palliatives of +sentiment and philosophy. The melancholy is intensified by the ponderous +style, which suggests a man weary of a heavy burden. The air seems to be +filled with what Johnson once called 'inspissated gloom.' 'Rasselas,' +one may say, has a narrow escape of being a great book, though it is ill +calculated for the hasty readers of to-day. Indeed, the defects are +serious enough. The class of writing to which it belongs demands a +certain dramatic picturesqueness to point the moral effectively. Not +only the long-winded sentences, but the slow evolution of thought and +the deliberation with which he works out his pictures of misery, make +the general effect dull beside such books as 'Candide' or 'Gulliver's +Travels.' A touch of epigrammatic exaggeration is very much needed; and +yet anybody who has the courage to read it through will admit that +Johnson is not an unworthy guide into those gloomy regions of +imagination which we all visit sometimes, and which it is as well to +visit in good company.</p> + +<p>After his fashion, Johnson is a fair representative of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> Greatheart. His +melancholy is distinguished from that of feebler men by the strength of +the conviction that 'it will do no good to whine.' We know his view of +the great prophet of the Revolutionary school. 'Rousseau,' he said, to +Boswell's astonishment, 'is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a +sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from +the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in +the plantations.' That is a fine specimen of the good Johnsonese +prejudices of which we hear so much; and, of course, it is easy to infer +that Johnson was an ignorant bigot, who had not in any degree taken the +measure of the great moving forces of his time. Nothing, indeed, can be +truer than that Johnson cared very little for the new gospel of the +rights of man. His truly British contempt for all such fancies ('for +anything I see,' he once said, 'foreigners are fools') is one of his +strongest characteristics. Now, Rousseau and his like took a view of the +world as it was quite as melancholy as Johnson's. They inferred that it +ought to be turned upside down, assured that the millennium would begin +as soon as a few revolutionary dogmas were accepted. All their remedies +appeared to the excellent Doctor as so much of that cant of which it was +a man's first duty to clear his mind. The evils of life were far too +deeply seated to be caused or cured by kings or demagogues. One of the +most popular commonplaces of the day was the mischief of luxury. That we +were all on the high road to ruin on account of our wealth, our +corruption, and the growth of the national debt, was the text of any +number of political agitators. The whole of this talk was, to his mind, +so much whining and cant. Luxury did no harm, and the mass of the +people, as indeed was in one sense obvious enough, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> only too little +of it. The pet 'state of nature' of theorists was a silly figment. The +genuine savage was little better than an animal; and a savage woman, +whose contempt for civilised life had prompted her to escape to the +forest, was simply a 'speaking cat.' The natural equality of mankind was +mere moonshine. So far is it from being true, he says, that no two +people can be together for half an hour without one acquiring an evident +superiority over the other. Subordination is an essential element of +human happiness. A Whig stinks in his nostrils because to his eye modern +Whiggism is 'a negation of all principles.' As he said of Priestley's +writings, it unsettles everything and settles nothing. 'He is a cursed +Whig, a <i>bottomless</i> Whig as they all are now,' was his description +apparently of Burke. Order, in fact, is a vital necessity; what +particular form it may take matters comparatively little; and therefore +all revolutionary dogmas were chimerical as an attack upon the +inevitable conditions of life, and mischievous so far as productive of +useless discontent. We need not ask what mixture of truth and falsehood +there may be in these principles. Of course, a Radical, or even a +respectable Whig, like Macaulay, who believed in the magical efficacy of +the British Constitution, might shriek or laugh at such doctrine. +Johnson's political pamphlets, besides the defects natural to a writer +who was only a politician by accident, advocate the most retrograde +doctrines. Nobody at the present day thinks that the Stamp Act was an +admirable or justifiable measure; or would approve of telling the +Americans that they ought to have been grateful for their long exemption +instead of indignant at the imposition. 'We do not put a calf into the +plough; we wait till he is an ox'—was not a judicious taunt. He was +utterly wrong; and, if everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> who is utterly wrong in a political +controversy deserves unmixed contempt, there is no more to be said for +him. We might indeed argue that Johnson was in some ways entitled to the +sympathy of enlightened people. His hatred of the Americans was +complicated by his hatred of slave-owners. He anticipated Lincoln in +proposing the emancipation of the negroes as a military measure. His +uniform hatred for the slave trade scandalised poor Boswell, who held +that its abolition would be equivalent to 'shutting the gates of mercy +on mankind.' His language about the blundering tyranny of the English +rule in Ireland would satisfy Mr. Froude, though he would hardly have +loved a Home Ruler. He denounces the frequency of capital punishment and +the harshness of imprisonment for debt, and he invokes a compassionate +treatment of the outcasts of our streets as warmly as the more +sentimental Goldsmith. His conservatism may be at times obtuse, but it +is never of the cynical variety. He hates cruelty and injustice as +righteously as he hates anarchy. Indeed, Johnson's contempt for mouthing +agitators of the Wilkes and Junius variety is one which may be shared by +most thinkers who would not accept his principles. There is a vigorous +passage in the 'False Alarm' which is scarcely unjust to the patriots of +the day. He describes the mode in which petitions are generally got up. +They are sent from town to town, and the people flock to see what is to +be sent to the king. 'One man signs because he hates the Papists; +another because he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes; one because +it will vex the parson; another because he owes his landlord nothing; +one because he is rich; another because he is poor; one to show that he +is not afraid, and another to show that he can write.' The people, he +thinks, are as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> off as they are likely to be under any form of +government; and grievances about general warrants or the rights of +juries in libel cases are not really felt so long as they have enough to +eat and drink and wear. The error, we may probably say, was less in the +contempt for a very shallow agitation than in the want of perception +that deeper causes of discontent were accumulating in the background. +Wilkes in himself was a worthless demagogue; but Wilkes was the straw +carried by the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment, to which Johnson +was entirely blind. Yet whatever we may think of his political +philosophy, the value of these solid sturdy prejudices is undeniable. To +the fact that Johnson was the typical representative of a large class of +Englishmen, we owe it that the Society of Rights did not develop into a +Jacobin Club. The fine phrases on which Frenchmen became intoxicated +never turned the heads of men impervious to abstract theories and +incapable of dropping substances for shadows. There are evils in each +temperament; but it is as well that some men should carry into politics +that rooted contempt for whining which lay so deep in Johnson's nature. +He scorned the sickliness of the Rousseau school as, in spite of his +constitutional melancholy, he scorned valetudinarianism whether of the +bodily or the spiritual order. He saw evil enough in the world to be +heartily, at times too roughly, impatient of all fine ladies who made a +luxury of grief or of demagogues who shrieked about theoretical +grievances which did not sensibly affect the happiness of one man in a +thousand. The lady would not have time to nurse her sorrows if she had +been a washerwoman; the grievances with which the demagogues yelled +themselves hoarse could hardly be distinguished amidst the sorrows of +the vast majority condemned to keep starvation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> at bay by unceasing +labour. His incapacity for speculation makes his pamphlets worthless +beside Burke's philosophical discourses; but the treatment, if wrong and +defective on the theoretical side, is never contemptible. Here, as +elsewhere, he judges by his intuitive aversions. He rejects too hastily +whatever seems insipid or ill-flavoured to his spiritual appetite. Like +all the shrewd and sensible part of mankind he condemns as mere +moonshine what may be really the first faint dawn of a new daylight. But +then his intuitions are noble, and his fundamental belief is the vital +importance of order, of religion, and of morality, coupled with a +profound conviction, surely not erroneous, that the chief sources of +human suffering lie far deeper than any of the remedies proposed by +constitution-mongers and fluent theorists. The literary version of these +prejudices or principles is given most explicitly in the 'Lives of the +Poets'—the book which is now the most readable of Johnson's +performances, and which most frequently recalls his conversational +style. Indeed, it is a thoroughly admirable book, and but for one or two +defects might enjoy a much more decided popularity. It is full of shrewd +sense and righteous as well as keen estimates of men and things. The +'Life of Savage,' written in earlier times, is the best existing +portrait of that large class of authors who, in Johnson's phrase, 'hung +loose upon society' in the days of the Georges. The Lives of Pope, +Dryden, and others have scarcely been superseded, though much fuller +information has since come to light; and they are all well worth +reading. But the criticism, like the politics, is woefully out of date. +Johnson's division between the shams and the realities deserves all +respect in both cases, but in both cases he puts many things on the +wrong side of the dividing line. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> hearty contempt for sham pastorals +and sham love-poetry will be probably shared by modern readers. 'Who +will hear of sheep and goats and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets +through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of +literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be for the most +part thrown away as men grow wise and nations grow learned.' But +elsewhere he blunders into terrible misapprehensions. Where he errs by +simply repeating the accepted rules of the Pope school, he for once +talks mere second-hand nonsense. But his independent judgments are +interesting even when erroneous. His unlucky assault upon 'Lycidas,' +already noticed, is generally dismissed with a pitying shrug of the +shoulders. 'Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phœbus, Neptune and Æolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can +less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a +shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone; how +one god asks another god what has become of Lycidas, and how neither god +can tell. He who thus grieves can excite no sympathy; he who thus +praises will confer no honour.'</p> + +<p>Of course every tyro in criticism has his answer ready; he can discourse +about the æsthetic tendencies of the <i>Renaissance</i> period, and explain +the necessity of placing one's self at a writer's point of view, and +entering into the spirit of the time. He will add, perhaps, that +'Lycidas' is a test of poetical feeling, and that he who does not +appreciate its exquisite melody has no music in his soul. The same +writer who will tell us all this, and doubtless with perfect truth, +would probably have adopted Pope or Johnson's theory with equal +confidence if he had lived in the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> century. 'Lycidas' repelled +Johnson by incongruities, which, from his point of view, were certainly +offensive. Most modern readers, I will venture to suggest, feel the same +annoyances, though they have not the courage to avow them freely. If +poetry is to be judged exclusively by the simplicity and force with +which it expresses sincere emotion, 'Lycidas' would hardly convince us +of Milton's profound sorrow for the death of King, and must be condemned +accordingly. To the purely pictorial or musical effects of a poem +Johnson was nearly blind; but that need not suggest a doubt as to the +sincerity of his love for the poetry which came within the range of his +own sympathies. Every critic is in effect criticising himself as well as +his author; and I confess that to my mind an obviously sincere record of +impressions, however one-sided they may be, is infinitely refreshing, as +revealing at least the honesty of the writer. The ordinary run of +criticism generally implies nothing but the extreme desire of the author +to show that he is open to the very last new literary fashion. I should +welcome a good assault upon Shakespeare which was not prompted by a love +of singularity; and there are half-a-dozen popular idols—I have not the +courage to name them—a genuine attack upon whom I could witness with +entire equanimity, not to say some complacency. If Johnson's blunder in +this case implied sheer stupidity, one can only say that honest +stupidity is a much better thing than clever insincerity or fluent +repetition of second-hand dogmas. But, in fact, this dislike of +'Lycidas,' and a good many instances of critical incapacity might be +added, is merely a misapplication of a very sound principle. The hatred +of cant and humbug and affectation of all vanity is a most salutary +ingredient even in poetical criticism. Johnson, with his natural +ignorance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> that historical method, the exaltation of which threatens +to become a part of our contemporary cant, made the pardonable blunder +of supposing that what would have been gross affectation in Gray must +have been affectation in Milton. His ear had been too much corrupted by +the contemporary school to enable him to recognise beauties which would +even have shone through some conscious affectation. He had the rare +courage—for, even then, Milton was one of the tabooed poets—to say +what he thought as forcibly as he could say it; and he has suffered the +natural punishment of plain speaking. It must, of course, be admitted +that a book embodying such principles is doomed to become more or less +obsolete, like his political pamphlets. And yet, as significant of the +writer's own character, as containing many passages of sound judgment, +expressed in forcible language, it is still, if not a great book, really +impressive within the limits of its capacity.</p> + +<p>After this imperfect survey of Johnson's writings, it only remains to be +noticed that all the most prominent peculiarities are the very same +which give interest to his spoken utterances. The doctrine is the same, +though the preacher's manner has changed. His melancholy is not so +heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of +excitement; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and +unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts +into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. His hearty love of +truth, and uncompromising hatred of cant in all its innumerable +transmutations, prompt half his most characteristic sayings. His queer +prejudices take a humorous form, and give a delightful zest to his +conversation. His contempt for abstract speculation comes out when he +vanquishes Berkeley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> not with a grin, but by 'striking his foot with +mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem +to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous +thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down +with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they +compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions +of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous +rather than witty. He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that +all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. As +Boswell says, he is through your body in an instant without any +preliminary parade; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill +of fence. 'We know we are free and there's an end of it,' is his +characteristic summary of a perplexed bit of metaphysics; and he would +evidently have no patience to wander through the labyrinths in which men +like Jonathan Edwards delighted to perplex themselves. We should have +been glad to see a fuller report of one of those conversations in which +Burke 'wound into a subject like a serpent,' and contrast his method +with Johnson's downright hitting. Boswell had not the power, even if he +had the will, to give an adequate account of such a 'wit combat.'</p> + +<p>That such a mind should express itself most forcibly in speech is +intelligible enough. Conversation was to him not merely a contest, but a +means of escape from himself. 'I may be cracking my joke,' he said to +Boswell,'and cursing the sun: Sun, how I hate thy beams!' The phrase +sounds exaggerated, but it was apparently his settled conviction that +the only remedy for melancholy, except indeed the religious remedy, was +in hard work or in the rapture of conversational strife. His little +circle of friends called forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> his humour as the House of Commons +excited Chatham's eloquence; and both of them were inclined to mouth too +much when deprived of the necessary stimulus. Chatham's set speeches +were as pompous as Johnson's deliberate writing. Johnson and Chatham +resemble the chemical bodies which acquire entirely new properties when +raised beyond a certain degree of temperature. Indeed, we frequently +meet touches of the conversational Johnson in his controversial writing. +'Taxation no Tyranny' is at moments almost as pithy as Swift, though the +style is never so simple. The celebrated Letter to Chesterfield, and the +letter in which he tells MacPherson that he will not be 'deterred from +detecting what he thinks a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian,' are as +good specimens of the smashing repartee as anything in Boswell's +reports. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often +as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous +phrases into simple words without losing some of their meaning. The +structure of the sentences is compact, though they are too elaborately +balanced and stuffed with superfluous antitheses. The language might be +simpler, but it is not a mere sham aggregation of words. His written +style, however faulty in other respects, is neither slipshod nor +ambiguous, and passes into his conversational style by imperceptible +degrees. The radical identity is intelligible, though the superficial +contrast is certainly curious. We may perhaps say that his century, +unfavourable to him as a writer, gave just what he required for talking. +If, as is sometimes said, the art of conversation is disappearing, it is +because society has become too large and diffuse. The good talker, as +indeed the good artist of every kind, depends upon the tacit +co-operation of the social medium. The chorus, as Johnson has himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> +shown very well in one of the 'Ramblers,' is quite as essential as the +main performer. Nobody talks well in London, because everybody has +constantly to meet a fresh set of interlocutors, and is as much put out +as a musician who has to be always learning a new instrument. A literary +dictator has ceased to be a possibility, so far as direct personal +influence is concerned. In the club, Johnson knew how every blow would +tell, and in the rapid thrust and parry dropped the heavy style which +muffled his utterances in print. He had to deal with concrete +illustrations, instead of expanding into platitudinous generalities. The +obsolete theories which impair the value of his criticism and his +politics, become amusing in the form of pithy sayings, though they weary +us when asserted in formal expositions. His greatest literary effort, +the 'Dictionary,' has of necessity become antiquated in use, and, in +spite of the intellectual vigour indicated, can hardly be commended for +popular reading. And thus but for the inimitable Boswell, it must be +admitted that Johnson would probably have sunk very deeply into +oblivion. A few good sayings would have been preserved by Mrs. Thrale +and others, or have been handed down by tradition, and doubtless +assigned in process of time to Sydney Smith and other conversational +celebrities. A few couplets from the 'Vanity of Human Wishes' would not +yet have been submerged, and curious readers would have recognised the +power of 'Rasselas,' and been delighted with some shrewd touches in the +'Lives of the Poets.' But with all desire to magnify critical insight, +it must be admitted that that man would have shown singular penetration, +and been regarded as an eccentric commentator, who had divined the +humour and the fervour of mind which lay hid in the remains of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> huge +lexicographer. And yet when we have once recognised his power, we can +see it everywhere indicated in his writings, though by an unfortunate +fatality the style or the substance was always so deeply affected by the +faults of the time, that the product is never thoroughly sound. His +tenacious conservatism caused him to cling to decaying materials for the +want of anything better, and he has suffered the natural penalty. He was +a great force half wasted, so far as literature was concerned, because +the fashionable costume of the day hampered the free exercises of his +powers, and because the only creeds to which he could attach himself +were in the phase of decline and inanition. A century earlier or later +he might have succeeded in expressing himself through books as well as +through his talk; but it is not given to us to choose the time of our +birth, and some very awkward consequences follow.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See, for example, the great debate on February 13, 1741.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span></p> +<h2><i>CRABBE</i></h2> + + +<p>It is nearly a century since George Crabbe, then a young man of +five-and-twenty, put three pounds in his pocket and started from his +native town of Aldborough, with a box of clothes and a case of surgical +instruments, to make his fortune in London. Few men have attempted that +adventure with less promising prospects. Any sensible adviser would have +told him to prefer starvation in his native village to starvation in the +back lanes of London. The adviser would, perhaps, have been vexed, but +would not have been confuted, by Crabbe's good fortune. We should still +recommend a youth not to jump into a river, though, of a thousand who +try the experiment, one may happen to be rescued by a benevolent +millionaire, and be put in the road to fortune. The chances against +Crabbe were enormous. Literature, considered as a trade, is a good deal +better at the present day than it was towards the end of the last +century, and yet anyone who has an opportunity of comparing the failures +with the successes, would be more apt to quote Chatterton than Crabbe as +a precedent for youthful aspirants. Crabbe, indeed, might say for +himself that literature was the only path open to him. His father was +collector of salt duties at Aldborough, a position, as one may imagine, +of no very great emolument. He had, however, given his son the chance of +acquiring a smattering of 'scholarship,' in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> sense in which that +word is used by the less educated lower classes. To the slender store of +learning acquired in a cheap country school, the lad managed to add such +medical training as could be picked up during an apprenticeship in an +apothecary's shop. With this provision of knowledge he tried to obtain +practice in his native town. He failed to get any patients of the paying +variety. Crabbe was clumsy and absent-minded to the end of his life. He +had, moreover, a taste for botany, and the shrewd inhabitants of +Aldborough, with that perverse tendency to draw inferences which is +characteristic of people who cannot reason, argued that as he picked up +his samples in the ditches, he ought to sell the medicines presumably +compounded from them for nothing. In one way or other, poor Crabbe had +sunk to the verge of distress. Of course, under these circumstances, he +had fallen in love and engaged himself at the age of eighteen to a young +lady, apparently as poor as himself. Of course, too, he called Miss Elmy +'Mira,' and addressed her in verses which occasionally appeared in the +poet's corner of a certain 'Wheble's Magazine.' My Mira, said the young +surgeon, in a style which must have been rather antiquated even in +Aldborough—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My Mira, shepherds, is as fair<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As sylvan nymphs who haunt the vale;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As sylphs who dwell in purest air,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As fays who skim the dusky dale.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Moreover, he won a prize for a poem on Hope, and composed an +'Allegorical Fable' and a piece called 'The Atheist reclaimed;' and, in +short, added plentifully to the vast rubbish-heap of old-world verses, +now decayed beyond the industry of the most persevering of Dryasdusts. +Nay,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> he even succeeded by some mysterious means in getting one of his +poems published separately. It was called 'Inebriety,' and was an +unblushing imitation of Pope. Here is a couplet by way of sample:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Champagne the courtier drinks the spleen to chase,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The colonel Burgundy, and Port his Grace.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>From the satirical the poet diverges into the mock heroic:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">See Inebriety! her wand she waves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The interstices of the box of clothing which went with him from +Aldborough to London were doubtless crammed with much waste paper +scribbled over with these feeble echoes of Pope's Satires, and with +appeals to nymphs, muses, and shepherds. Crabbe was one of those men who +are born a generation after their natural epoch, and was as little +accessible to the change of fashion in poetry as in costume. When, +therefore, he finally resolved to hazard his own fate and Mira's upon +the results of his London adventure, the literary goods at his disposal +were already somewhat musty in character. The year 1780, in which he +reached London, marks the very nadir of English poetry. From the days of +Elizabeth to our own there has never been so absolutely barren a period. +People had become fairly tired of the jingle of Pope's imitators, and +the new era had not dawned. Goldsmith and Gray, both recently dead, +serve to illustrate the condition in which the most exquisite polish and +refinement of language has been developed until there is a danger of +sterility. The 'Elegy' and the 'Deserted Village' are in their way +inimitable poems: but we feel that the intellectual fibre of the poets +has become dangerously delicate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span> The critical faculty could not be +stimulated further without destroying all spontaneous impulse. The +reaction to a more masculine and passionate school was imminent; and if +the excellent Crabbe could have put into his box a few of Burns's +lyrics, or even a copy of Cowper's 'Task,' one might have augured better +for his prospects. But what chance was there for a man who could still +be contentedly invoking the muse and stringing together mechanic echoes +of Pope's couplets? How could he expect to charm the jaded faculties of +a generation which was already beginning to heave and stir with a +longing for some fresh excitement? For a year the fate which has +overtaken so many rash literary adventurers seemed to be approaching +steadily. One temporary gleam of good fortune cheered him for a time. He +persuaded an enterprising publisher to bring out a poem called 'The +Candidate,' which had some faint success, though ridiculed by the +reviewers. Unluckily the publisher became bankrupt and Crabbe was thrown +upon his resources—the poor three pounds and box of surgical +instruments aforesaid. How he managed to hold out for a year is a +mystery. It was lucky for him, as he intimates, that he had never heard +of the fate of Chatterton, who had poisoned himself just ten years +before. A Journal which he wrote for Mira is published in his Life, and +gives an account of his feelings during three months of his cruel +probation. He applies for a situation as amanuensis offered in an +advertisement, and comforts himself on failing with the reflection that +the advertiser was probably a sharper. He writes piteous letters to +publishers, and gets, of course, the stereotyped reply with which the +most amiable of publishers must damp the ardour of aspiring genius. The +disappointment is not much softened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> by the publisher's statement that +'he does not mean by this to insinuate any want of merit in the poem, +but rather a want of attention in the public.' Bit by bit his surgical +instruments go to the pawnbroker. When one publisher sends his polite +refusal poor Crabbe has only sixpence-farthing in the world, which, by +the purchase of a pint of porter, is reduced to fourpence-halfpenny. The +exchequer fills again by the disappearance of his wardrobe and his +watch; but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of +Dryden for three-and-sixpence, and on coming home tears his only coat, +which he manages to patch tolerably with a borrowed needle and thread, +pretending, with a pathetic shift, that they are required to stitch +together manuscripts instead of broadcloth. And so for a year the wolf +creeps nearer the door, whilst Crabbe gallantly keeps up appearances and +spirits, and yet he tries to preserve a show of good spirits in the +Journal to Mira, and continues to labour at his versemaking. Perhaps, +indeed, it may be regarded as a bad symptom that he is reduced to +distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is +nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he +thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of +deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the +desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and +comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather +commonplace in expression, but when read by the light of the distresses +he was enduring, show a brave unembittered spirit, not to be easily +respected too highly. Starvation seemed to be approaching; or, at least, +the only alternative was the abandonment of his ambition, and +acceptance, if he could get it, of the post of druggist's assis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>tant. He +had but one resource left; and that not of the most promising kind. +Crabbe, amongst his other old-fashioned notions, had a strong belief in +the traditional patron. Johnson might have given him some hints upon the +subject; but luckily, as it turned out, he pursued what Chesterfield's +correspondent would have thought the most hopeless of all courses. He +wrote to Lord North, who was at that moment occupied in contemplating +the final results of the ingenious policy by which America was lost to +England, and probably consigned Crabbe's letter to the waste-paper +basket. Then he tried the effect of a copy of verses, beginning:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">T' adorn a rich or save a sinking State.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He added a letter saying that, as Lord North had not answered him, Lord +Shelburne would probably be glad to supply the needs of a starving +apothecary turned poet. Another copy of verses was enclosed, pointing +out that Shelburne's reputed liberality would be repaid in the usual +coin:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then shall my grateful strains his ear rejoice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His name harmonious thrilled on Mira's voice;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the reviving bays new sweets shall spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nobody can blame North and Shelburne for not acting the part of Good +Samaritans. He, at least, may throw the first stone who has always taken +the trouble to sift the grain from the chaff amidst all the begging +letters which he has received, and who has never lamented that his +benevolence outran his discretion. But there was one man in England at +the time who had the rare union of qualities necessary for Crabbe's +purpose. Burke is a name never to be mentioned without reverence; not +only because Burke was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> incomparably the greatest of all English +political writers, and a standing refutation of the theory which couples +rhetorical excellence with intellectual emptiness, but also because he +was a man whose glowing hatred of all injustice and sympathy for all +suffering never evaporated in empty words. His fine literary perception +enabled him to detect the genuine excellence which underlay the +superficial triviality of Crabbe's verses. He discovered the genius +where men like North and Shelburne might excusably see nothing but the +mendicant versifier; and a benevolence still rarer than his critical +ability forbade him to satisfy his conscience by the sacrifice of a +five-pound note. When, by the one happy thought of his life, Crabbe +appealed to Burke's sympathy, the poet was desperately endeavouring to +get a poem through the press. But he owed fourteen pounds, and every +application to friends as poor as himself, and to patrons upon whom he +had no claims, had been unsuccessful. Nothing but ruin was before him. +After writing to Burke he spent the night in pacing Westminster Bridge. +The letter on which his fate hung is the more pathetic because it is +free from those questionable poetical flourishes which had failed to +conciliate his former patrons. It tells his story frankly and forcibly. +Burke, however, was not a rich man, and was at one of the most exciting +periods of his political career. His party was at last fighting its way +to power by means of the general resentment against the gross +mismanagement of their antagonists. A perfunctory discharge of the duty +of charity would have been pardonable; but from the moment when Crabbe +addressed Burke the poor man's fortune was made. Burke's glory rests +upon services of much more importance to the world at large than even +the preservation to the country of a man of genuine power.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> Yet there +are few actions on which he could reflect with more unalloyed +satisfaction; and the case is not a solitary one in Burke's history. A +political triumph may often be only hastened a year or two by the +efforts of even a great leader; but the salvage of a genius which would +otherwise have been hopelessly wrecked in the deep waters of poverty is +so much clear gain to mankind. One circumstance may be added as oddly +characteristic of Crabbe. He always spoke of his benefactor with +becoming gratitude: and many years afterwards Moore and Rogers thought +that they might extract some interesting anecdotes of the great author +from the now celebrated poet. Burke, as we know, was a man whom you +would discover to be remarkable if you stood with him for five minutes +under a haystack in a shower. Crabbe stayed in his house for months +under circumstances most calculated to be impressive. Burke was at the +height of his power and reputation; he was the first man of any +distinction whom the poet had ever seen; the two men had long and +intimate conversations, and Crabbe, it may be added, was a very keen +observer of character. And yet all that Rogers and Moore could extract +from him was a few 'vague generalities.' Moore suggests some +explanation; but the fact seems to be that Crabbe was one of those +simple, homespun characters, whose interests are strictly limited to +their own peculiar sphere. Burke, when he pleased, could talk of oxen as +well as politics, and doubtless adapted his conversation to the taste of +the young poet. Probably, much more was said about the state of Burke's +farm than about the prospects of the Whig party. Crabbe's powers of +vision were as limited as they were keen, and the great qualities to +which Burke owed his reputation could only exhibit themselves in a +sphere to which Crabbe never rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> His attempt to draw a likeness of +Burke under the name of 'Eugenius,' in the 'Borough,' is open to the +objection that it would be nearly as applicable to Wilberforce, Howard, +or Dr. Johnson. It is a mere complimentary daub, in which every +remarkable feature of the original is blurred or altogether omitted.</p> + +<p>The inward Crabbe remained to the end of his days what nature and +education had already made him; the outward Crabbe, by the help of +Burke, rapidly put on a more prosperous appearance. His poems were +published and achieved success. He took orders and found patrons. +Thurlow gave him £100, and afterwards presented him to two small +livings, growling out with an oath that he was 'as like Parson Adams as +twelve to a dozen.' The Duke of Rutland appointed him chaplain, a +position in which he seems to have been singularly out of his element. +Further patronage, however, made him independent, and he married his +Mira and lived very happily ever afterwards. Perhaps, with his +old-fashioned ideas, he would not quite have satisfied some clerical +critics of the present day. His views about non-residence and +pluralities seem to have been lax for the time; and his hearty dislike +for dissent was coupled with a general dislike for enthusiasm of all +kinds. He liked to ramble about after flowers and fossils, and to hammer +away at his poems in a study where chaos reigned supreme. For twenty-two +years after his first success as an author, he never managed to get a +poem into a state fit for publication, though periodical conflagrations +of masses of manuscript—too vast to be burnt in the chimney—testified +to his continuous industry. His reappearance seems to have been caused +chiefly by his desire to send a son to the University. His success was +repeated, though a new school had arisen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> which knew not Pope. The youth +who had been kindly received by Burke, Reynolds, and Johnson, came back +from his country retreat to be lionised at Holland House, and be petted +by Brougham and Moore, and Rogers and Campbell, and all the rising +luminaries. He paid a visit to Scott contemporaneously with George IV., +and pottered about the queer old wynds and closes of Edinburgh, which he +preferred to the New Town, and apparently to Arthur's Seat, with a +judicious <i>caddie</i> following to keep him out of mischief. A more +tangible kind of homage was the receipt of £3,000 from Murray for his +'Tales of the Hall,' which so delighted him that he insisted on carrying +the bills loose in his pocket till he could show them 'to his son John' +in the country.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> There, no doubt, he was most at home; and his +parishioners gradually became attached to their 'Parson Adams,' in spite +of his quaintnesses and some manful defiance of their prejudices. All +women and children loved him, and he died at a good old age in 1832, +having lived into a new order in many things, and been as little +affected by the change as most men. The words with which he concludes +the sketch of the Vicar in his 'Borough' are not inappropriate to +himself:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nor one so old has left this world of sin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More like the being that he entered in.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The peculiar homeliness of Crabbe's character and poetry is excellently +hit off in the 'Rejected Addresses,' and the lines beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">John Richard William Alexander Dwyer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>are probably more familiar to the present generation than any of the +originals. 'Pope in the worsted stockings' is the title hit off for him +by Horace Smith, and has about the same degree of truth as most smart +sayings of the kind. The 'worsted stockings' at least are +characteristic. Crabbe's son and biographer indicates some of the +surroundings of his father's early life in a description of the uncle, a +Mr. Tovell, with whom the poet's wife, the Mira of his Journal, passed +her youth. He was a sturdy yeoman, living in an old house with a moat, a +rookery, and fishponds. The hall was paved with black and white marble, +and the staircase was of black oak, slippery as ice, with a chiming +clock and a barrel-organ on the landing-places. The handsome +drawing-room and dining-rooms were only used on grand occasions, such as +the visit of a neighbouring peer. Mrs. Tovell jealously reserved for +herself the duty of scrubbing these state apartments, and sent any +servant to the right-about who dared to lay unhallowed hands upon them. +The family sat habitually in the old-fashioned kitchen, by a huge open +chimney, where the blaze of a whole pollard sometimes eclipsed the +feeble glimmer of the single candle in an iron candlestick, intended to +illuminate Mrs. Tovell's labours with the needle. Masters and servants, +with any travelling tinker or ratcatcher, all dined together, and the +nature of their meals has been described by Crabbe himself:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But when the men beside their station took,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The maidens with them, and with these the cook;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When one huge wooden bowl before them stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bacon, mass saline, where never lean<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When from a single horn the party drew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>then, the poet goes on to intimate, squeamish persons might feel a +little uncomfortable. After dinner followed a nap of precisely one hour. +Then bottles appeared on the table, and neighbouring farmers, with faces +rosy with brandy, drifted in for a chat. One of these heroes never went +to bed sober, but scandalised all teetotallers by retaining all his +powers and coursing after he was ninety. Bowl after bowl of punch was +emptied, and the conversation took so convivial a character that Crabbe +generally found it expedient to withdraw, though his son, who records +these performances, was held to be too young to be injured, and the +servants were too familiar for their presence to be a restraint.</p> + +<p>It was in this household that the poet found his Mira. Crabbe's own +father was apparently at a lower point of the social scale; and during +his later years took to drinking and to flinging dishes about the room +whenever he was out of temper. Crabbe always drew from the life; most of +his characters might have joined in his father's drinking bouts, or told +stories over Mr. Tovell's punchbowls. Doubtless a social order of the +same kind survived till a later period in various corners of the island. +The Tovells of to-day get their fashions from London, and their +labourers, instead of dining with them in their kitchen, have taken to +forming unions and making speeches about their rights. If, here and +there, in some remote nooks we find an approximation to the coarse, +hearty patriarchal mode of life, we regard it as a naturalist regards a +puny modern reptile, the representative of gigantic lizards of old +geological epochs. A sketch or two of its peculiarities, sufficiently +softened and idealised to suit modern tastes, forms a picturesque +background to a modern picture. Some of Miss Brontë's rough +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>Yorkshiremen would have drunk punch with Mr. Tovell; and the farmers in +the 'Mill on the Floss' are representatives of the same race, slightly +degenerate, in so far as they are just conscious that a new cause of +disturbance is setting into the quiet rural districts. Dandie Dinmont +again is a relation of Crabbe's heroes, though the fresh air of the +Cheviots and the stirring traditions of the old border life have +conferred upon him a more poetical colouring. To get a realistic picture +of country life as Crabbe saw it, we must go back to Squire Western, or +to some of the roughly-hewn masses of flesh who sat to Hogarth. Perhaps +it may be said that Miss Austen's delicate portrait of the more polished +society, which took the waters at Bath, and occasionally paid a visit to +London, implies a background of coarser manners and more brutal +passions, which lay outside her peculiar province. The question +naturally occurs to social philosophers, whether the improvement in the +external decencies of life and the wider intellectual horizon of modern +days prove a genuine advance over the rude and homely plenty of an +earlier generation. I refer to such problems only to remark that Crabbe +must be consulted by those who wish to look upon the seamy side of the +time which he describes. He very soon dropped his nymphs and shepherds, +and ceased to invoke the idyllic muse. In his long portrait gallery +there are plenty of virtuous people, and some people intended to be +refined; but features indicative of coarse animal passions, brutality, +selfishness, and sensuality are drawn to the life, and the development +of his stories is generally determined by some of the baser elements of +human nature. 'Jesse and Colin' are described in one of the Tales; but +they are not the Jesse and Colin of Dresden china. They are such rustics +as ate fat bacon and drank 'heavy ale and new;'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> not the imaginary +personages who exchanged amatory civilities in the old-fashioned +pastorals ridiculed by Pope and Gay.</p> + +<p>Crabbe's rough style is indicative of his general temper. It is in +places at least the most slovenly and slipshod that was ever adopted by +any true poet. The authors of the 'Rejected Addresses' had simply to +copy, without attempting the impossible task of caricaturing. One of +their familiar couplets, for example, runs thus:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Emmanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And here is the original Crabbe:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Swallow, a poor attorney, brought his boy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up at his desk, and gave him his employ.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When boy cannot be made to rhyme with employ, Crabbe is very fond of +dragging in a hoy. In the 'Parish Register' he introduces a narrative +about a village grocer and his friend in these lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aged were both, that Dawkins, Ditchem this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who much of marriage thought and much amiss.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or to quote one more opening of a story:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Counter and Clubb were men in trade, whose pains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Credit, and prudence, brought them constant gains;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Partners and punctual, every friend agreed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counter and Clubb were men who must succeed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But of such gems anyone may gather as many as he pleases by simply +turning over Crabbe's pages. In one sense, they are rather pleasant than +otherwise. They are so characteristic and put forward with such absolute +simplicity that they have the same effect as a good old provincialism in +the mouth of a genuine countryman. It must, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> be admitted that +Crabbe's careful study of Pope had not initiated him in some of his +master's secrets. The worsted stockings were uncommonly thick. If Pope's +brilliance of style savours too much of affectation, Crabbe never +manages to hit off an epigram in the whole of his poetry. The language +seldom soars above the style which would be intelligible to the merest +clodhopper; and we can understand how, when in his later years Crabbe +was introduced to wits and men of the world, he generally held his +peace, or, at most, let fall some bit of dry quiet humour. At rare +intervals he remembers that a poet ought to indulge in a figure of +speech, and laboriously compounds a simile which appears in his poetry +like a bit of gold lace on a farmer's homespun coat. He confessed as +much in answer to a shrewd criticism of Jeffrey's, saying that he +generally thought of such illustrations and inserted them after he had +finished his tale. Here is one of these deliberately-concocted +ornaments, intended to explain the remark that the difference between +the character of two brothers came out when they were living together +quietly:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As various colours in a painted ball,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While it has rest are seen distinctly all;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, whirl'd around by some exterior force,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They all are blended in the rapid course;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So in repose and not by passion swayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We saw the difference by their habits made;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, tried by strong emotions, they became<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled with one love, and were in heart the same.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The conceit is ingenious enough in one sense, but painfully ingenious. +It requires some thought to catch the likeness suggested, and then it +turns out to be purely superficial. The resemblance of such a writer to +Pope obviously does not go deep. Crabbe imitates Pope because everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> +imitated him at that day. He adopted Pope's metre because it had come to +be almost the only recognised means of poetical expression. He stuck to +it after his contemporaries had introduced new versification, partly +because he was old-fashioned to the backbone and partly because he had +none of those lofty inspirations which naturally generate new forms of +melody. He seldom trusts himself to be lyrical, and when he does his +versification is nearly as monotonous as it is in his narrative poetry. +We must not expect to soar with Crabbe into any of the loftier regions; +to see the world 'apparelled in celestial light,' or to descry</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such forms as glitter in the muses' ray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We shall find no vehement outbursts of passion, breaking loose from the +fetters of sacred convention. Crabbe is perfectly content with the +British Constitution, with the Thirty-nine Articles, and all +respectabilities in Church and State, and therefore he is quite content +also with the good old jogtrot of the recognised metres; his language, +halting invariably, and for the most part clumsy enough, is sufficiently +differentiated from prose by the mould into which it is run, and he +never wants to kick over the traces with his more excitable +contemporaries.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The good old rule<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sufficeth him, the simple plan<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>that each verse should consist of ten syllables, with an occasional +Alexandrine to accommodate a refractory epithet, and should rhyme +peaceably with its neighbour.</p> + +<p>From all which it may be too harshly inferred that Crabbe is merely a +writer in rhyming prose, and deserving of no attention from the more +enlightened adherents of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> later school. The inference, I say, would be +hasty, for it is impossible to read Crabbe patiently without receiving a +very distinct and original impression. If some pedants of æsthetic +philosophy should declare that we ought not to be impressed because +Crabbe breaks all their rules, we can only reply they are mistaking +their trade. The true business of the critic is to discover from +observation what are the conditions under which a book appeals to our +sympathies, and, if he finds an apparent exception to his rules, to +admit that he has made an oversight, and not to condemn the facts which +persist in contradicting his theories. It may, indeed, be freely granted +that Crabbe has suffered seriously by his slovenly methods and his +insensibility to the more exquisite and ethereal forms of poetical +excellence. But however he may be classified, he possesses the essential +mark of genius, namely, that his pictures, however coarse the +workmanship, stamp themselves on our minds indelibly and +instantaneously. His pathos is here and there clumsy, but it goes +straight to the mark. His characteristic qualities were first distinctly +shown in the 'Village,' which was partly composed under Burke's eye, and +was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after +Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective, +to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank +facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two +is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then +listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too +exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities about +agricultural bliss. If his 'Auburn' is rather idealised, the most +prosaic of critics cannot object to the glow thrown by the memory of the +poet over the scene of now ruined happiness, and, moreover,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> Goldsmith's +delicate humour guards him instinctively from laying on his rose-colour +too thickly. Crabbe, however, will have nothing to do with rose-colour, +thick or thin. There is one explicit reference in the poem to his +predecessor's work, and it is significant. Everybody remembers, or ought +to remember, Goldsmith's charming pastor, to whom it can only be +objected that he has not the fear of political economists before his +eyes. This is Crabbe's retort after describing a dying pauper in need of +spiritual consolation:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And does not he, the pious man, appear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, 'passing rich with forty pounds a year?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far unlike him, feeds this little flock:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As much as God or man can fairly ask;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rest he gives to loves and labours light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fields the morning, and to feasts the night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None better skilled the noisy pack to guide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To urge their chase, to cheer them, or to chide;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This fox-hunting parson (of whom Cowper has described a duplicate) lets +the pauper die as he pleases; and afterwards allows him to be buried +without attending, performing the funerals, it seems, in a lump upon +Sundays. Crabbe admits in a note that such negligence was uncommon, but +adds that it is not unknown. The flock is, on the whole, worthy of the +shepherd. The old village sports have died out in favour of smuggling +and wrecking. The poor are not, as rich men fancy, healthy and well fed. +Their work makes them premature victims to ague and rheumatism; their +food is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Homely, not wholesome, plain, not plenteous, such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As you who praise would never deign to touch.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The ultimate fate of the worn-out labourer is the poorhouse, described +in lines of which it is enough to say that Scott and Wordsworth learnt +them by heart, and the melancholy deathbed already noticed. Are we +reading a poem or a Blue Book done into rhyme? may possibly be the +question of some readers. The answer should perhaps be that a good many +Blue Books contain an essence which only requires to be properly +extracted and refined to become genuine poetry. If Crabbe's verses +retain rather too much of the earthly elements, he is capable of +transmuting his minerals into genuine gold, as well as of simply +collecting them. Nothing, for example, is more characteristic than the +mode in which the occasional descriptions of nature are harmoniously +blended with the human life in his poetry. Crabbe is an ardent lover of +a certain type of scenery, to which justice has not often been done. We +are told how, after a long absence from Suffolk, he rode sixty miles +from his house to have a dip in the sea. Some of his poems appear to be +positively impregnated with a briny, or rather perhaps a tarry, odour. +The sea which he loved was by no means a Byronic sea. It has no grandeur +of storm, and still less has it the Mediterranean blue. It is the +sluggish muddy element which washes the flat shores of his beloved +Suffolk. He likes even the shelving beach, with fishermen's boats and +decaying nets and remnants of stale fish. He loves the dreary estuary, +where the slow tide sways backwards and forwards, and whence</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">High o'er the restless deep, above the reach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of gunner's hope, vast flocks of wildfowl stretch.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The coming generation of poets took to the mountains; but Crabbe +remained faithful to the dismal and yet, in his hands, the impressive +scenery of his native salt-marshes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> His method of description suits the +country. His verses never become melodramatic, nor does he ever seem to +invest nature with the mystic life of Wordsworth's poetry. He gives the +plain prosaic facts which impress us because they are in such perfect +harmony with the sentiment. Here, for example, is a fragment from the +'Village,' which is simply a description of the neighbourhood of +Aldborough:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From thence a length of burning sand appears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to the ragged infant threaten war;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The writer is too obviously a botanist; but the picture always remains +with us as the only conceivable background for the poverty-stricken +population whom he is about to describe. The actors in the 'Borough' are +presented to us in a similar setting; and it may be well to put a +sea-piece beside this bit of barren common. Crabbe's range of +descriptive power is pretty well confined within the limits so defined. +He is scarcely at home beyond the tide-marks:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be it the summer noon; a sandy space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ebbing tide has left upon its place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then just the hot and stony beach above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light twinkling streams in bright confusion move;<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There the broad bosom of the ocean keeps<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> +<span class="i0">An equal motion; swelling as it sleeps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then slowly sinking; curling to the strand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faint lazy waves o'ercreep the ridgy sand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And back return in silence, smooth and slow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ships in the calm seem anchored: for they glide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the still sea, urged slowly by the tide:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Art thou not present, this calm scene before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where all beside is pebbly length of shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far as eye can reach, it can discern no more?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I have omitted a couplet which verges on the scientific; for Crabbe is +unpleasantly anxious to leave nothing unexplained. The effect is, in its +way, perfect. Anyone who pleases may compare it with Wordsworth's calm +in the verses upon Peele Castle, where the sentiment is given without +the minute statement of facts, and where, too, we have the inevitable +quotation about the 'light that never was on sea or land,' and is pretty +nearly as rare in Crabbe's poetry. What he sees we can all see, though +not so intensely, and his art consists in selecting the precise elements +that tell most forcibly towards bringing us into the required frame of +mind. To enjoy Crabbe fully, we ought perhaps to be acclimatised on the +coast of the Eastern Counties; we should become sensitive to the +plaintive music of the scenery, which is now generally drowned by the +discordant sounds of modern watering-places, and would seem insipid to a +generation which values excitement in scenery as in fiction. Readers, +who measure the beauty of a district by its average height above the +sea-level, and who cannot appreciate the charm of a 'waste enormous +marsh,' may find Crabbe uncongenial.</p> + +<p>The human character is determined, as Mr. Buckle and other philosophers +have assured us, by the climate and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> soil. A little ingenuity, such +as those philosophers display in accommodating facts to theory, might +discover a parallel between the type of Crabbe's personages and the +fauna and flora of his native district. Declining a task which might +lead to fanciful conclusions, I may assume that the East Anglian +character is sufficiently familiar, whatever the causes by which it has +been determined. To define Crabbe's poetry we have simply to imagine +ourselves listening to the stories of his parishioners, told by a +clergyman brought up amongst the lower rank of the middle classes, +scarcely elevated above their prejudices, and not willingly leaving +their circle of ideas. We must endow him with that simplicity of +character which gives us frequent cause to smile at its proprietor, but +which does not disqualify him from seeing a great deal further into his +neighbours than they are apt to give him credit for doing. Such insight, +in fact, is due not to any great subtlety of intellect, but to the +possession of deep feeling and sympathy. Crabbe saw little more of Burke +than would have been visible to an ordinary Suffolk farmer. When +transplanted to a ducal mansion, he only drew the pretty obvious +inference, embodied in a vigorous poem, that a patron is a very +disagreeable and at times a very mischievous personage. The joys and +griefs which really interest him are of the very tangible and solid kind +which affect men and women to whom the struggle for existence is a stern +reality. Here and there his good-humoured but rather clumsy ridicule may +strike some lady to whom some demon has whispered 'have a taste;' and +who turns up her nose at the fat bacon on Mr. Tovell's table. He pities +her squeamishness, but thinks it rather unreasonable. He satirises too +the heads of the rustic aristocracy; the brutal squire who bullies his +nephew the clergyman for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> preaching against his vices, and corrupts the +whole neighbourhood; or the speculative banker who cheats old maids +under pretence of looking after their investments. If the squire does +not generally appear in Crabbe in the familiar dramatic character of a +rural Lovelace, it is chiefly because Crabbe has no great belief in the +general purity of the inferior ranks of rural life. But his most +powerful stories deal with the tragedies—only too life-like—of the +shop and the farm. He describes the temptations which lead the small +tradesman to adulterate his goods, or the parish clerk to embezzle the +money subscribed in the village church, and the evil influence of +dissenting families in fostering a spiritual pride which leads to more +unctuous hypocrisy; for, though he says of the wicked squire that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">His worship ever was a Churchman true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And held in scorn the Methodistic crew,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the scorn is only objectionable to him in so far as it is a cynical +cloak for scorn of good morals. He tells how boys run away to sea, or +join strolling players, and have in consequence to beg their bread at +the end of their days. The almshouse or the county gaol is the natural +end of his villains, and he paints to the life the evil courses which +generally lead to such a climax. Nobody describes better the process of +going to the dogs. And most of all, he sympathises with the village +maiden who has listened too easily to the voice of the charmer, in the +shape of a gay sailor or a smart London footman, and has to reap the +bitter consequences of her too easy faith. Most of his stories might be +paralleled by the experience of any country clergyman who has entered +into the life of his parishioners. They are as commonplace and as +pathetic as the things which are happening round us every day, and which +fill a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> neglected paragraph in a country newspaper. The treatment varies +from the purely humorous to the most deep and genuine pathos; though it +never takes us into the regions of the loftier imagination.</p> + +<p>The more humorous of these performances may be briefly dismissed. Crabbe +possesses the faculty, but not in any eminent degree; his hand is a +little heavy, and one must remember that Mr. Tovell and his like were of +the race who require to have a joke driven into their heads with a +sledge-hammer. Once or twice we come upon a sketch which may help to +explain Miss Austen's admiration. There is an old maid devoted to Mira, +and rejoicing in stuffed puppies and parrots, who might have been +ridiculed by Emma Woodhouse, and a parson who would have suited the +Eltons admirably:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fiddling and fishing were his arts; at times<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He altered sermons and he aimed at rhymes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his fair friends, not yet intent on cards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oft he amused with riddles and charades.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such sketches are a pleasant relief to his more sombre portraiture; but +it is in the tragic elements that his true power comes out. The motives +of his stories may be trivial, but never the sentiment. The deep manly +emotion makes us forget not only the frequent clumsiness of his style +but the pettiness of the incident, and what is more difficult, the +rather bread-and-butter tone of morality. If he is a little too fond of +bringing his villains to the gallows, he is preoccupied less by the +external consequences than by the natural working of evil passions. With +him sin is not punished by being found out, but by disintegrating the +character and blunting the higher sensibilities. He shows—and the +moral, if not new, is that which possesses the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> really intellectual +interest—how evil-doers are tortured by the cravings of desires that +cannot be satisfied, and the lacerations inflicted by ruined +self-respect. And therefore there is a truth in Crabbe's delineations +which is quite independent of his more or less rigid administration of +poetical justice. His critics used to accuse him of having a low opinion +of human nature. It is quite true that he assigns to selfishness and +brutal passion a very large part in carrying on the machinery of the +world. Some readers may infer that he was unlucky in his experience, and +others that he loved facts too unflinchingly. His stories sometimes +remind one of Balzac's in the descriptions of selfishness triumphant +over virtue. One, for example, of his deeply pathetic poems is called +'The Brothers;' and repeats the old contrast given in Fielding's Tom +Jones and Blifil. The shrewd sly hypocrite has received all manner of +kindnesses from the generous and simple sailor, and when, at last, the +poor sailor is ruined in health and fortune, he comes home expecting to +be supported by the gratitude of the brother, who has by this time made +money and is living at his ease. Nothing can be more pathetic or more in +the spirit of some of Balzac's stories than the way in which the rich +man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal +feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; +till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the +kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his +only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into +hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is not to be corrupted by +the coarse language of his poor old uncle. The rich brother suspects +that the sailor has broken this rule, and is reviling him for his +ingratitude, when suddenly he discovers that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> is abusing a corpse. +The old sailor's heart is broken at last; and his brother repents too +late. He tries to comfort his remorse by cross-examining the boy, who +was the cause of the last quarrel:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Did he not curse me, child?' 'He never cursed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But could not breathe, and said his heart would burst.'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'And so will mine'——'But, father, you must pray;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My uncle said it took his pains away.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Praying, however, cannot bring back the dead; and the fratricide, for +such he feels himself to be, is a melancholy man to the end of his days. +In Balzac's hands repentance would have had no place, and selfishness +have been finally triumphant and unabashed. We need not ask which would +be the most effective or the truest treatment; though I must put in a +word for the superior healthiness of Crabbe's mind. There is nothing +morbid about him. Still it would be absurd to push such a comparison +far. Crabbe's portraits are only spirited vignettes compared with the +elaborate full-lengths drawn by the intense imagination of the French +novelist; and Crabbe's whole range of thought is incomparably narrower. +The two writers have a real resemblance only in so far as in each case a +powerful accumulation of life-like details enables them to produce a +pathos, powerful by its vivid reality.</p> + +<p>The singular power of Crabbe is in some sense more conspicuous in the +stories where the incidents are almost audaciously trifling. One of them +begins with this not very impressive and very ungrammatical couplet:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With our late Vicar, and his age the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His clerk, hight Jachin, to his office came.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Jachin is a man of oppressive respectability; so oppressive, indeed, +that some of the scamps of the borough try to get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> him into scrapes by +temptations of a very inartificial kind, which he is strong enough to +resist. At last, however, it occurs to Jachin that he can easily +embezzle part of the usual monthly offerings while saving his character +in his own eyes by some obvious sophistry. He is detected and dismissed, +and dies after coming upon the parish. These materials for a tragic poem +are not very promising; and I do not mean to say that the sorrows of +poor Jachin affect us as deeply as those of Gretchen or Desdemona. The +parish clerk is perhaps a fit type of all that was least poetical in the +old social order of the country, and virtue which succumbs to the +temptation of taking two shillings out of a plate scarcely wants a +Mephistopheles to overcome it. We may perhaps think that the apologetic +note which the excellent Crabbe inserts at the end of his poem, to the +effect that he did not mean by it to represent mankind as 'puppets of an +overpowering destiny,' or 'to deny the doctrine of seducing spirits,' is +a little superfluous. The fact that a parish-clerk has taken to petty +pilfering can scarcely justify those heterodox conclusions. But when we +have smiled at Crabbe's philosophy, we begin to wonder at the force of +his sentiment. A blighted human soul is a pathetic object, however +paltry the temptation to which it has succumbed. Jachin has the dignity +of despair, though he is not quite a fallen archangel; and Crabbe's +favourite scenery harmonises with his agony.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In each lone place, dejected and dismayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or to the restless sea and roaring wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gave the strong yearnings of a ruined mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the broad beach, the silent summer day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stretched on some wreck, he wore his life away;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +<span class="i0">Or where the river mingles with the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or on the mud-bank by the elder tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or by the bounding marsh-dyke, there was he.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nor would he have been a more pitiable object if he had betrayed a +nation or sold his soul for a Garter instead of the pillage of a +subscription plate. Poor old Jachin's story may seem to be borrowed from +a commonplace tract; but the detected pilferer, though he has only lost +the respect of the parson, the overseer, and the beadle, touches us as +deeply as the Byronic hero who has fallen out with the whole system of +the world.</p> + +<p>If we refuse to sympathise with the pang due to so petty a +catastrophe—though our sympathy should surely be proportioned to the +keenness of the suffering rather than the absolute height of the +fall—we may turn to tragedy of a deeper dye. Peter Grimes, as his name +indicates, was a ruffian from his infancy. He once knocked down his poor +old father, who warned him of the consequences of his brutality:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This he revolved, and drank for his relief.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Adopting such a remedy, he sank from bad to worse, and gradually became +a thief, a smuggler, and a social outlaw. In those days, however, as is +proved by the history of Mrs. Brownrigg, parish authorities practised +the 'boarding-out system' after a reckless fashion. Peter was allowed to +take two or three apprentices in succession, whom he bullied, starved, +and maltreated, and who finally died under suspicious circumstances. The +last was found dead in Peter's fishing-boat after a rough voyage: and +though nothing could be proved, the Mayor told him that he should have +no more slaves to belabour. Peter, pursuing his trade in solitude, +gradually became morbid and depressed. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> melancholy estuary became +haunted by ghostly visions. He had to groan and sweat with no vent for +his passion:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus by himself compelled to live each day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the same time the same dull views to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water only, when the tides were high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Peter grew more sullen, and the scenery became more weird and +depressing. The few who watched him remarked that there were three +places where Peter seemed to be more than usually moved. For a time he +hurried past them, whistling as he rowed; but gradually he seemed to be +fascinated. The idle loungers in the summer saw a man and boat lingering +in the tideway, apparently watching the gliding waves without casting a +net or looking at the wildfowl. At last his delirium becoming stronger, +he is carried to the poorhouse, and tells his story to the clergyman. +Nobody has painted with greater vigour that kind of externalised +conscience which may still survive in a brutalised mind. Peter Grimes, +of course, sees his victims' spirits and hates them. He fancies that his +father torments him out of spite, characteristically forgetting that the +ghost had some excuse for his anger:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No living being had I lately seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I paddled up and down and dipped my net,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A father's pleasure, when his toil was done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To plague and torture thus an only son!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> +<span class="i0">And so I sat and looked upon the stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How it ran on, and felt as in a dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But dream it was not; no!—I fixed my eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw my father on the water stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hold a thin pale boy in either hand;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there they glided ghastly on the top<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the salt flood, and never touched a drop;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would have struck them, but they knew the intent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And smiled upon the oar, and down they went.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Remorse in Peter's mind takes the shape of bitter hatred for his +victims; and with another characteristic confusion, he partly attributes +his sufferings to some evil influence intrinsic in the locality:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There were three places, where they ever rose—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole long river has not such as those—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Places accursed, where, if a man remain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll see the things which strike him to the brain.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And then the malevolent ghosts forced poor Peter to lean on his oars, +and showed him visions of coming horrors. Grimes dies impenitent, and +fancying that his tormentors are about to seize him. Of all haunted men +in fiction, it is not easy to think of a case where the horror is more +terribly realised. The blood-boulter'd Banquo tortured a noble victim, +but scarcely tortured him more effectually. Peter Grimes was doubtless a +close relation of Peter Bell. Bell having the advantage of Wordsworth's +interpretation, leads us to many thoughts which lie altogether beyond +Crabbe's reach; but, looking simply at the sheer tragic force of the two +characters, Grimes is to Bell what brandy is to small beer. He would +never have shown the white feather like his successor, who,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">After ten months' melancholy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Became a good and honest man.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If, in some sense, Peter Grimes is the most effective of Crabbe's +heroes, he would, if taken alone, give a very distorted impression of +the general spirit of the poetry. It is only at intervals that he +introduces us to downright criminals. There is, indeed, a description of +a convicted felon, which, according to Macaulay, has made 'many a rough +and cynical reader cry like a child,' and which, if space were +unlimited, would make a striking pendant to the agony of the burdened +Grimes. But, as a rule, Crabbe can find motives enough for tenderness in +sufferings which have nothing to do with the criminal law, and of which +the mere framework of the story is often interesting enough. His +peculiar power is best displayed in so presenting to us the sorrows of +commonplace characters as to make us feel that a shabby coat and a +narrow education, and the most unromantic of characters, need not cut +off our sympathies with a fellow-creature; and that the dullest +tradesman who treads on our toes in an omnibus may want only a power of +articulate expression to bring before us some of the deepest of all +problems. The parish clerk and the grocer—or whatever may be the +proverbial epitome of human dulness—may swell the chorus of lamentation +over the barrenness and the hardships and the wasted energies and the +harsh discords of life which is always 'steaming up' from the world, and +to which it is one, though perhaps not the highest, of the poet's +functions to make us duly sensible. Crabbe, like all realistic writers, +must be studied at full length, and therefore quotations are necessarily +unjust. It will be sufficient if I refer—pretty much at random—to the +short story of 'Phœbe Dawson' in the 'Parish Register,' to the more +elaborate stories of 'Edward Shore' and the 'Parting Hour' in the +'Tales,' or to the story of 'Ruth' in the 'Tales of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> the Hall,' where +again the dreary pathos is strangely heightened by Crabbe's favourite +seaport scenery, to prove that he might be called as truly as Goldsmith +<i>affectuum potens</i>, though scarcely <i>lenis, dominator</i>.</p> + +<p>It is time, however, to conclude with a word or two as to Crabbe's +peculiar place in the history of English literature. I said that, unlike +his contemporaries, Cowper and Burns, he adhered rigidly to the form of +the earlier eighteenth-century school, and partly for this reason +excited the wayward admiration of Byron, who always chose to abuse the +bridge which carried him to fame. But Crabbe's clumsiness of expression +makes him a very inadequate successor of Pope or of Goldsmith, and his +claims are really founded on the qualities which led Byron to call him +'nature's sternest painter, yet her best.' On this side he is connected +with some tendencies of the school which supplanted his early models. So +far as Wordsworth and his followers represented the reaction from the +artificial to a love of unsophisticated nature, Crabbe is entirely at +one with them. He did not share that unlucky taste for the namby-pamby +by which Wordsworth annoyed his contemporaries, and spoilt some of his +earlier poems. Its place was filled in Crabbe's mind by an even more +unfortunate disposition for the simply humdrum and commonplace, which, +it must be confessed, makes it almost as hard to read a good many of his +verses as to consume large quantities of suet pudding, and has probably +destroyed his popularity with the present generation. Still, Crabbe's +influence was powerful as against the old conventionality. He did not, +like his predecessors, write upon the topics which interested 'persons +of quality,' and never gives us the impression of having composed his +rhymes in a full-bottomed wig or even in a Grub Street<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> garret. He has +gone out into country fields and village lanes, and paints directly from +man and nature, with almost a cynical disregard of the accepted code of +propriety. But the points on which he parts company with his more +distinguished contemporaries is equally obvious. Mr. Stopford Brooke has +lately been telling us with great eloquence what is the theology which +underlies the poetical tendencies of the last generation of poets. Of +that creed, a sufficiently vague one, it must be admitted, Crabbe was by +no means an apostle. Rather one would say he was as indifferent as a +good old-fashioned clergyman could very well be to the existence of any +new order of ideas in the world. The infidels, whom he sometimes +attacks, read Bolingbroke, and Chubb, and Mandeville, and have only +heard by report even of the existence of Voltaire. The Dissenters, whom +he so heartily detests, have listened to Whitefield and Wesley, or +perhaps to Huntington, S.S.—that is, as it may now be necessary to +explain, Sinner Saved. Every newer development of thought was still far +away from the quiet pews of Aldborough, and the only form of Church +restoration of which he has heard is the objectionable practice of +painting a new wall to represent a growth of lichens. Crabbe appreciates +the charm of the picturesque, but has never yet heard of our elaborate +methods of creating modern antiques. Lapped in such ignorance, and with +a mind little given to speculation, it is only in character that Crabbe +should be totally insensible to the various moods of thought represented +by Wordsworth's pantheistic conceptions of nature, or by Shelley's +dreamy idealism, or Byron's fierce revolutionary impulses. Still less, +if possible, could he sympathise with that love of beauty, pure and +simple, of which Keats was the first prophet. He might, indeed, be +briefly described<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> by saying that he is at the very opposite pole from +Keats. The more bigoted admirers of Keats—for there are bigots in +matters of taste or poetry as well as in science or theology or +politics—would refuse the title of poet to Crabbe altogether on the +strength of the absence of this element from his verses. Like his most +obvious parallels in painting, he is too fond of boors and pothouses to +be allowed the quality of artistic perception. I will not argue the +point, which is, perhaps, rather a question of classification than of +intrinsic merit; but I will venture to suggest a test which will, I +think, give Crabbe a very firm, though, it may be, not a very lofty +place. Though I should be unwilling to be reckoned as one of Macaulay's +'rough and cynical readers,' I admit that I can read the story of the +convicted felon, or of Peter Grimes, without indulging in downright +blubbering. Most readers, I fear, can in these days get through pathetic +poems and novels without absolutely using their pocket-handkerchiefs. +But though Crabbe may not prompt such outward and visible signs of +emotion, I think that he produces a more distinct tendency to tears than +almost any poet of his time. True, he does not appeal to emotions, +accessible only through the finer intellectual perceptions, or to the +thoughts which 'lie too deep for tears.' That prerogative belongs to men +of more intense character, greater philosophical power, and more +delicate instincts. But the power of touching readers by downright +pictures of homespun griefs and sufferings is one which, to my mind, +implies some poetical capacity, and which clearly belongs to Crabbe.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> It seems, one is sorry to add, that Murray made a very bad bargain +in this case.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span></p> +<h2><i>WILLIAM HAZLITT</i></h2> + + +<p>There are few great books or great men that do not sadden us by a sense +of incompleteness. The writer, we feel, is better than his work. His +full power only reveals itself by flashes. There are blemishes in his +design, due to mere oversight or indolence; his energy has flagged, or +he has alloyed his pure gold to please the mob; or some burst of wayward +passion has disturbed the fair proportions of his work, and the man +himself is a half-finished or half-ruined fragment. The rough usage of +the world leaves its mark on the spiritual constitution of even the +strongest and best amongst us; and perhaps the finest natures suffer +more than others in virtue of their finer sympathies. 'Hamlet' is a +pretty good performance, if we make allowances; but what would it have +been if Shakespeare could have been at his highest level all through, +and if every element of strength in him had been purified from every +weakness? What would it have been, shall we say, if he could have had +the advantage of reading a few modern lectures on æsthetics? We may, +perhaps, be content with Shakespeare as circumstances left him; but in +reading our modern poets, the sentiment of regret is stronger. If Byron +had not been driven into his wild revolt against the world; if Shelley +had been judiciously treated from his youth; if Keats had had healthier +lungs; if Wordsworth had not grown rusty in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> solitude; if Scott had +not been tempted into publisher's speculations; if Coleridge had never +taken to opium—what great poems might not have opened the new era of +literature, where now we have but incomplete designs, and listen to +harmonies half destroyed by internal discord? The regret, however, is +less when a man has succeeded in uttering the thought that was in him, +though it may never have found a worthy expression. Wordsworth could +have told us little more, though the 'Excursion' had been as complete a +work as 'Paradise Lost;' and if Scott might have written more +'Waverleys' and 'Antiquaries' and 'Old Mortalities,' he could hardly +have written better ones. But the works of some other writers suggest +possibilities which never even approached fulfilment. If the opinion +formed by his contemporaries of Coleridge be anywhere near the truth, we +lost in him a potential philosopher of a very high order, as we more +clearly lost a poet of singular fascination. Coleridge naturally +suggests the name of De Quincey, whose works are as often tantalising as +satisfying. And to make, it is true, a considerable drop from the +greatest of these names, we often feel when we take up one of Hazlitt's +glowing Essays, that here, too, was a man who might have made a far more +enduring mark as a writer of English prose. At their best, his writings +are admirable; they have the true stamp; the thought is masculine and +the expression masterly; phrases engrave themselves on the memory; and +we catch glimpses of a genuine thinker and no mere manufacturer of +literary commonplace. On a more prolonged study, it is true, we become +conscious of many shortcomings, and the general effect is somehow rather +cloying, though hardly from an excess of sweetness. And yet he deserves +the study both of the critic and the student of character.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span></p> + +<p>The story of Hazlitt's life has been told by his grandson; but there is +a rather curious defect of materials for so recent a biography. He kept, +it seems, no letters,—a weakness, if it be a weakness, for which one is +rather apt to applaud him in these days: but, on the other hand, nobody +ever indulged more persistently in the habit of washing his dirty linen +in public. Not even his idol Rousseau could be more demonstrative of his +feelings and recollections. His Essays are autobiographical, sometimes +even offensively; and after reading them we are even more familiar than +his contemporaries with many points of his character. He loved to pour +himself out in his Essays</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">as plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He has laid bare for the most careless reader the main elements of his +singular composition. Like some others of his revolutionary friends, +Godwin, for example, Leigh Hunt, and Tom Paine, he represents the old +dissenting spirit in a new incarnation. The grandfather a stern +Calvinist, the father a Unitarian, the son a freethinker; those were the +gradations through which more than one family passed during the closing +years of the last century and the opening of this. One generation still +clung to the old Puritan traditions and Jonathan Edwards; the next +followed Priestley; and the third joined the little band of radicals who +read Cobbett, scorned Southey as a deserter, and refused to be +frightened by the French Revolution. The outside crust of opinion may be +shed with little change to the inner man. Hazlitt was a dissenter to his +backbone. He was born to be in a minority; to be a living protest +against the dominant creed and constitution. He recognised and +denounced, but he never shook off, the faults characteristic of small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> +sects. A want of wide intellectual culture, and a certain sourness of +temper, cramped his powers and sometimes marred his writing. But from +his dissenting forefathers Hazlitt inherited something better. Beside +the huge tomes of controversial divinity on his father's shelves, the +'Patres Poloni,' Pripscovius, Crellius and Cracovius, Lardner and +Doddridge, and Baxter and Bates, and Howe, were the legends of the +Puritan hagiology. The old dissenters, he tells us, had Neale's 'History +of the Puritans' by heart, and made their children read Calamy's account +of the 2,000 ejected ministers along with the stories of Daniel in the +Lion's Den and Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Sympathy for the +persecuted, unbending resistance to the oppressor, was the creed which +had passed into their blood. 'This covenant they kept as the stars keep +their courses; this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better, +as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it does not +wither in their decay.... It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, +smiles in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to +the grave. This'—for in Hazlitt lies a personal application in all his +moralising—'This is better than the whirligig life of a court +poet'—such, for example, as Robert Southey.</p> + +<p>But Hazlitt's descent was not pure. If we could trace back the line of +his ancestry we should expect to find that by some freak of fortune, one +of the rigid old Puritans had married a descendant of some great Flemish +or Italian painter. Love of graceful forms and bright colouring and +voluptuous sensations had been transmitted to their descendants, though +hitherto repressed by the stern discipline of British nonconformity. As +the discipline relaxed, the Hazlitts reverted to the ancestral type. +Hazlitt himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> his brother and his sister, were painters by instinct. +The brother became a painter of miniatures by profession; and Hazlitt to +the end of his days revered Titian almost as much as he revered his +great idol Napoleon. An odd pair of idols, one thinks, for a youth +brought up upon Pripscovius and his brethren! A keen delight in all +artistic and natural beauty was an awkward endowment for a youth +intended for the ministry. Keats was scarcely more out of place in a +surgery than Hazlitt would have been in a Unitarian pulpit of those +days, and yet from that pulpit, oddly enough, came the greatest impulse +to Hazlitt. It came from a man who, like Hazlitt himself, though in a +higher degree than Hazlitt, combined the artistic and the philosophic +temperament. Coleridge, as Hazlitt somewhere says, threw a great stone +into the standing pool of contemporary thought; and it was in January +1798—one of the many dates in his personal history to which he recurs +with unceasing fondness—that Hazlitt rose before daylight and walked +ten miles in the mud to hear Coleridge preach. He has told, in his +graphic manner, how the voice of the preacher 'rose like a stream of +rich distilled perfumes;' how he launched into his subject, after giving +out the text, 'like an eagle dallying with the wind;' and how his young +hearer seemed to be listening to the music of the spheres, to see the +union of poetry and philosophy; and behold truth and genius embracing +under the eye of religion. His description of the youthful Coleridge has +a fit pendant in the wonderful description of the full-blown philosopher +in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling;' where, indeed, one or two touches are +taken from Hazlitt's Essays. It is Hazlitt who remarked, even at this +early meeting, that the dreamy poet philosopher could never decide on +which side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> footpath he should walk; and Hazlitt, who struck out +the epigram that Coleridge was an excellent talker if allowed to start +from no premisses and come to no conclusion. The glamour of Coleridge's +theosophy never seems to have fascinated Hazlitt's stubborn intellect. +At this time, indeed, Coleridge had not yet been inoculated with German +mysticism. In after years, the disciple, according to his custom, +renounced his master and assailed him with half-regretful anger. But the +intercourse and kindly encouragement of so eminent a man seem to have +roused Hazlitt's ambition. His poetical and his speculative intellect +were equally stirred. The youth was already longing to write a +philosophical treatise. The two elements of his nature thus roused to +action led him along a 'strange diagonal.' He would be at once a painter +and a metaphysician. Some eight years of artistic labour convinced him +that he could not be a Titian or a Raphael, and he declined to be a mere +Hazlitt junior. His metaphysical studies, on the contrary, convinced him +that he might be a Hume or a Berkeley; but unluckily they convinced +himself alone. The tiny volume which contained their results was +neglected by everybody but the author, who, to the end of his days, +loved it with the love of a mother for a deformed child. It is written, +to say the truth, in a painful and obscure style; it is the work of a +man who has brooded over his own thoughts in solitude till he cannot +appreciate the need of a clear exposition. The narrowness of his reading +had left him in ignorance of the new aspects under which the eternal +problems were presenting themselves to the new generation; and a +metaphysical discussion in antiquated phraseology is as useless as a +lady's dress in the last year's fashion. Hazlitt, in spite of this +double failure, does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> seem to have been much disturbed by +impecuniosity; but the most determined Bohemian has to live. For some +years he strayed about the purlieus of literature, drudging, +translating, and doing other cobbler's work. Two of his performances, +however, were characteristic; he wrote an attack upon Malthus, and he +made an imprudent marriage. Even Malthusians must admit that imprudent +marriages may have some accidental good consequences. When a man has +fairly got his back to the wall, he is forced to fight; and Hazlitt, at +the age of thirty-four, with a wife and a son, at last discovered the +great secret of the literary profession, that a clever man can write +when he has to write or starve. To compose had been labour and grief to +him, so long as he could potter round a thought indefinitely; but with +the printer's devil on one side and the demands of a family on the +other, his ink began to flow freely, and during the last fifteen or +seventeen years of his life he became a voluminous though fragmentary +author. Several volumes of essays, lectures, and criticisms, besides his +more ambitious 'Life of Napoleon,' and a great deal of anonymous +writing, attest his industry. He died in 1830, at the age of fifty-two; +leaving enough to show that he could have done more and a good deal of a +rare, if not of the highest kind of excellence.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, as I have said, is everywhere autobiographical. Besides that +secret, that a man can write if he must, he had discovered the further +secret that the easiest of all topics is his own feelings. It is an +apparent paradox, though the explanation is not far to seek, that +Hazlitt, though shy with his friends, was the most unreserved of +writers. Indeed he takes the public into his confidence with a facility +which we cannot easily forgive. Biographers of late have been guilty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> of +flagrant violations of the unwritten code which should protect the +privacies of social life from the intrusions of public curiosity. But +the most unscrupulous of biographers would hardly have dared to tear +aside the veil so audaciously as Hazlitt, in one conspicuous instance at +least, chose to do for himself. His idol Rousseau had indeed gone +further; but when Rousseau told the story of his youth, it was at least +seen through a long perspective of years, and his own personality might +seem to be scarcely interested. Hazlitt chose, in the strange book +called the 'New Pygmalion,' or 'Liber Amoris,' to invite the British +public at large to look on at a strange tragi-comedy, of which the last +scene was scarcely finished. Hazlitt had long been unhappy in his family +life. His wife appears to have been a masculine woman, with no talent +for domesticity; completely indifferent to her husband's pursuits, and +inclined to despise him for so fruitless an employment of his energies. +They had already separated, it seems, when Hazlitt fell desperately in +love with Miss Sarah Walker, the daughter of his lodging-house keeper. +The husband and wife agreed to obtain a divorce under the Scotch law, +after which they might follow their own paths, and Sarah Walker become +the second Mrs. Hazlitt. Some months had to be spent by Mr. and Mrs. +Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's +journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly +resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and +imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all +pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, +takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some +picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has +made a fool of him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>self, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a +troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved +pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his +friends letters which seem to be throbbing with unrestrainable passion. +He is raving as Romeo at Mantua might have raved about Juliet. To hear +Miss Walker called his wife will be music to his ears, such as they +never heard. But it seems doubtful whether, after all, his Juliet will +have him. He shrieks mere despair and suicide. Nothing is left in the +world to give him a drop of comfort. The breeze does not cool him nor +the blue sky delight him. He will never lie down at night nor rise up of +a morning in peace, nor even behold his little boy's face with pleasure, +unless he is restored to her favour. And Mrs. Hazlitt reports, after +acknowledging the receipt of £10, that Mr. Hazlitt was so much +'enamoured' of one of these letters that he pulled it out of his pocket +twenty times a day, wanted to read it to his companions, and ranted and +gesticulated till people took him for a madman. The 'Liber Amoris' is +made out of these letters—more or less altered and disguised, with some +reports of conversations with the lovely Sarah. 'It was an explosion of +frenzy,' says De Quincey; his reckless mode of relieving his bosom of +certain perilous stuff, with little care whether it produced scorn or +sympathy. A passion which urges its victim to such improprieties should +be, at least, deep and genuine. One would have liked him better if he +had not taken his frenzy to market. The 'Liber Amoris' tells us +accordingly that the author, Hazlitt's imaginary double, died abroad, +'of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of mind.' +The hero, in short, breaks his heart when the lady marries somebody +else. Hazlitt's heart was more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> elastic. Miss Sarah Walker married, and +Hazlitt next year married a widow lady 'of some property,' made a tour +with her on the Continent, and then—quarrelled with her also. It is not +a pretty story. Hazlitt's biographer informs us, by way of excuse, that +his grandfather was 'physically incapable'—whatever that may mean—'of +fixing his affection upon a single object.' He 'comprehended,' indeed, +'the worth of constancy' and other virtues as well as most men, and +could have written about them better than most men; but somehow 'a +sinister influence or agency,' a periphrasis for a sensuous temperament, +was perpetually present, which confined his virtues to the sphere of +theory. An apology sometimes is worse than a satire. The case, however, +seems to be sufficiently plain. We need not suspect that Hazlitt was +consciously acting a part and nursing his 'frenzy' because he thought +that it would make a startling book. He was an egotist and a man of +impulse. His impressions were for the time overpowering; but they were +transient. His temper was often stronger than his passions. A gust of +anger would make him quarrel with his oldest friends. Every emotion +justified itself for the time, because it was his. He always did well, +whether it pleased him for the moment to be angry, to be in love, to be +cynical, or to be furiously indignant. The end, therefore, of his life +exhibits a series of short impetuous fits of passionate endeavour, +rather than devotion to a single overruling purpose; and all his +writings are brief outbursts of eloquent feeling, where neither the +separate fragments nor the works considered as a whole obey any law of +logical development. And yet, in some ways, Hazlitt boasted, and boasted +plausibly enough, of his constancy. He has the same ideas to the end of +his life that he had at fourteen. He would, he remarks, be an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> excellent +man on a jury; he would say little, but would starve the eleven other +obstinate fellows out. Amongst politicians he was a faithful Abdiel, +when all others had deserted the cause. He loved the books of his +boyhood, the fields where he had walked, the gardens where he had drunk +tea, and, to a rather provoking extent, the old quotations and old +stories which he had used from his first days of authorship. The +explanation of the apparent paradox gives the clue to Hazlitt's singular +character.</p> + +<p>What I have called Hazlitt's egotism is more euphemistically and perhaps +more accurately described by Talfourd,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> 'an intense consciousness of +his own individual being.' The word egotism in our rough estimates of +character is too easily confounded with selfishness. Hazlitt might have +been the person who, as one making a strange confession, assured a +friend that he took a deep interest in his own concerns. He was, one +would say, decidedly unselfish, if by selfishness is meant a disposition +to feather one's own nest without regard for other people's wants. Still +less was he selfish in the sense of preferring solid bread and butter to +the higher needs of mind and spirit. His sentiments are always generous, +and if scorn is too familiar a mood, it is scorn of the base and +servile. But his peculiarity is that these generous feelings are always +associated with some special case. He sees every abstract principle by +the concrete instance. He hates insolence in the abstract, but his +hatred flames into passion when it is insolence to Hazlitt. He resembles +that good old lady who wrote on the margin of her 'Complete Duty of Man' +the name of that neighbour who most conspicuously sinned against the +precept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> in the opposite text. Tyranny with Hazlitt is named Pitt, party +spite is Gifford, apostasy is Southey, and fidelity may be called +Cobbett or Godwin; though he finds names for the vices much more easily +than for the virtues. And thus, if he cannot be condemned for +selfishness, one must be charitable not to put down a good many of his +offences to its sister jealousy. The personal and the public sentiments +are so invariably blended in his mind that neither he nor anybody else +could have analysed their composition. He was apt to be the more moody +and irritable because his resentments clothed themselves spontaneously +in the language of some nobler emotion. If his friends are cold, he +bewails the fickleness of humanity; if they are successful, it is not +envy that prompts his irritation, but the rarity of the correspondence +between merit and reward. Such a man is more faithful to his dead than +to his living friends. The dead cannot change; they always come back to +his memory in their old colours; their names recall the old tender +emotion placed above all change and chance. But who can tell that our +dearest living friend may not come into awkward collision with us before +he has left the room? It is as well to be on our guard! It is curious +how the two feelings alternate in Hazlitt's mind in regard to the +friends who are at once dead and living; how fondly he dwells upon the +Coleridge of Wem and Nether Stowey where he first listened to the +enchanter's voice, and with what bitterness, which is yet but soured +affection, he turns upon the Coleridge who defended war-taxes in the +'Friend.' He hacks and hews at Southey through several furious Essays, +and ends with a groan. 'We met him unexpectedly the other day in St. +Giles's,' he says, 'were sorry we had passed him without speaking to an +old friend, turned and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> looked after him for some time as to a tale of +other days—sighing, as we walked on, Alas, poor Southey!' He fancies +himself to be in the mood of Brutus murdering Cæsar. It is patriotism +struggling with old associations of friendship; if there is any personal +element in the hostility, no one is less conscious of it than the +possessor. To the whole Lake school his attitude is always the +same—justice done grudgingly in spite of anger, or satire tempered by +remorse. No one could say nastier things of that very different egotist, +Wordsworth; nor could anyone, outside the sacred clique, pay him +heartier compliments. Nobody, indeed, can dislike egotism like an +egotist. 'Wordsworth,' says Hazlitt, 'sees nothing but himself and the +universe; he hates all greatness and all pretensions to it but his own. +His egotism is in this respect a madness, for he scorns even the +admiration of himself, thinking it a presumption in anyone to suppose +that he has taste or sense enough to understand him. He hates all +science and all art: he hates chemistry, he hates conchology, he hates +Sir Isaac Newton, he hates logic, he hates metaphysics,' and so on +through a long list of hatreds, ending with the inimitable Napoleon, +whom Wordsworth hates, it seems, 'to get rid of the idea of anything +greater, or thought to be greater, than himself.' Hazlitt might have +made out a tolerable list of his own antipathies; though, to do him +justice, of antipathies balanced by ardent enthusiasm, especially for +the dead or the distant.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, indeed, was incapable of the superlative self-esteem here +attributed to Wordsworth. His egotism is a curious variety of that +Protean passion, compounded as skilfully as the melancholy of Jaques. It +is not the fascinating and humorous egotism of Lamb, who disarms us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> +beforehand by a smile at his own crotchets. Hazlitt is too serious to be +playful. Nor is it like the amusing egotism of Boswell, combined with a +vanity which evades our contempt, because it asks so frankly for +sympathy. Hazlitt is too proud and too bitter. Neither is it the +misanthropic egotism of Byron, which, through all its affectation, +implies a certain aristocratic contempt of the world and its laws. +Hazlitt has not the sweep and continuity of Byron's passion. His +egotism—be it said without offence—is dashed with something of the +feeling common amongst his dissenting friends. He feels the awkwardness +which prevails amongst a clique branded by a certain social stigma, and +despises himself for his awkwardness. He resents neglect and scorns to +ask for patronage. His egotism is a touchy and wayward feeling which +takes the mask of misanthropy. He is always meditating upon his own +qualities, but not in the spirit of the conceited man who plumes himself +upon his virtues, nor of the ascetic who broods over his vices. He +prefers the apparently self-contradictory attitude (but human nature is +illogical) of meditating with remorse upon his own virtues. What in +others is complacency, becomes with him, ostensibly at least, +self-reproach. He affects—but it is hard to say where the affectation +begins—to be annoyed by the contemplation of his own merits. He is +angry with the world for preferring commonplace to genius, and rewarding +stupidity by success; but in form at least, he mocks at his own folly +for expecting better things. If he is vain at bottom, his vanity shows +itself indirectly by depreciating his neighbours. He is too proud to +dwell upon his own virtues, but he has been convinced by impartial +observation that the world at large is in a conspiracy against merit. +Thus he manages to transform his self-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>consciousness into the semblance +of proud humility, and extracts a bitter and rather morbid pleasure from +dwelling upon his disappointments and failures. Half-a-dozen of his best +Essays give expression to this mood, which is rather bitter than +querulous. He enlarges cordially on the 'disadvantages of intellectual +superiority.' An author—Hazlitt, to wit—is not allowed to relax into +dulness; if he is brilliant he is not understood, and if he professes an +interest in common things it is assumed that then he must be a fool. And +yet in the midst of these grumblings he is forced to admit a touch of +weakness, and tells us how it pleases him to hear a man ask in the Fives +Court, 'Which is Mr. Hazlitt?' He, the most idiosyncratic of men, and +most proud of it at bottom, declares how 'he hates his style to be +known, as he hates all idiosyncrasy.' At the next moment he purrs with +complacency at the recollection of having been forced into an avowal of +his authorship of an article in the 'Edinburgh Review.' Most generally +he eschews these naïve lapses into vanity. He dilates on the old text of +the 'shyness of scholars.' The learned are out of place in competition +with the world. They are not and ought not to fancy themselves fitted +for the vulgar arena. They can never enjoy their old privileges. 'Fool +that it (learning) was, ever to forego its privileges and loosen the +strong hold it had on opinion in bigotry and superstition!' The same +tone of disgust pronounces itself more cynically in an Essay 'on the +pleasure of hating.' Hatred is, he admits, a poisonous ingredient in all +our passions, but it is that which gives reality to them. Patriotism +means hatred of the French, and virtue is a hatred of other people's +faults to atone for our own vices. All things turn to hatred. 'We hate +old friends, we hate old books, we hate old opinions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> and at last we +come to hate ourselves.' Summing up all his disappointments, the broken +friendships, and disappointed ambitions, and vanished illusions, he +asks, in conclusion, whether he has not come to hate and despise +himself? 'Indeed, I do,' he answers, 'and chiefly for not having hated +and despised the world enough.'</p> + +<p>This is an outbreak of temporary spleen. Nobody loved his old books and +old opinions better. Hazlitt is speaking in the character of Timon, +which indeed fits him rather too easily. But elsewhere the same strain +of cynicism comes out in more natural and less extravagant form. Take, +for example, the Essay on the 'Conduct of Life.' It is a piece of <i>bonâ +fide</i> advice addressed to his boy at school, and gives in a sufficiently +edifying form the commonplaces which elders are accustomed to address to +their juniors. Honesty, independence, diligence, and temperance are +commended in good set terms, though with an earnestness which, as is +often the case with Hazlitt, imparts some reality to outworn formulæ. +When, however, he comes to the question of marriage, the true man breaks +out. Don't trust, he says, to fine sentiments: they will make no more +impression on these delicate creatures than on a piece of marble. Love +in women is vanity, interest, or fancy. Women care nothing about talents +or virtue—about poets or philosophers or politicians. They judge by the +eye. 'No true woman ever regarded anything but her lover's person and +address.' The author has no chance; for he lives in a dream, he feels +nothing spontaneously, his metaphysical refinements are all thrown away. +'Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the +fire in your eye; adorn your person; maintain your health, your beauty, +and your animal spirits; for if you once lapse into poetry and +philo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>sophy you will want an eye to show you, a hand to guide you, a +bosom to love—and will stagger into your grave old before your time, +unloved and unlovely.' 'A spider,' he adds, 'the meanest creature that +crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow, but a scholar has no mate or +fellow.' Mrs. Hazlitt, Miss Sarah Walker, and several other ladies, +thought Hazlitt surly and cared nothing for his treatise on human +nature. Therefore (it is true Hazlittian logic) no woman cares for +sentiment. The sex which despised him must be despicable. Equally +characteristic is his profound belief that his failure in another line +is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most +characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. +He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, +and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does +not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, +with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not +being a Government tool. He wrote a charming character of Congreve's +Millamant, but it was unnoticed because he was not a Government tool. +Gifford would not relish his account of Dekkar's Orlando +Friscobaldo—because he was not a Government tool. He wrote admirable +table-talks—for once, as they are nearly finished, he will venture to +praise himself. He could swear (were they not his) that the thoughts in +them were 'founded as the rock, free as the air, the hue like an Italian +picture.' But, had the style been like polished steel, as firm and as +bright, it would have availed him nothing, for he was not a Government +tool. The world hated him, we see, for his merits. It is a bad world, he +says; but don't think that it is my vanity which has taken offence, for +I am remarkable for modesty, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> therefore I know that my virtues are +faults of which I ought to be ashamed. Is this pride or vanity, or +humility, or cynicism, or self-reproach for wasted talents, or an +intimate blending of passions for which there is no precise name? Who +can unravel the masks within masks of a cunning egotism?</p> + +<p>To one virtue, however, that of political constancy, Hazlitt lays claim +in the most emphatic terms. If he quarrels with all his friends—'most +of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or +cold, uncomfortable acquaintance'—it is, of course, their fault. A +thoroughgoing egotist must think himself the centre of gravity of the +world, and all change of relations must mean that others have moved away +from him. Politically, too, all who have given up his opinions are +deserters, and generally from the worst of motives. He accuses Burke of +turning against the Revolution from—of all motives in the +world!—jealousy of Rousseau; a theory still more impossible than Mr. +Buckle's hypothesis of madness. Court favour supplies in most cases a +simpler explanation of the general demoralisation. Hazlitt could not +give credit to men like Southey and Coleridge for sincere alarm at the +French Revolution. Such a sentiment would be too unreasonable, for he +had not been alarmed himself. His constancy, indeed, would be admirable +if it did not suggest doubts of his wisdom. A man whose opinions at +fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If +his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by +experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. +To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write +yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what +Hazlitt called his opinions were really his feelings. He could argue +very in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>geniously, as appears from his remarks on Coleridge and Malthus, +but his logic was the slave, not the ruler, of his emotions. His +politics were simply the expression, in a generalised form, of his +intense feeling of personality. They are a projection upon the modern +political world of that heroic spirit of individual self-respect which +animated his Puritan forefathers. One question, and only one question, +he frequently tells us, is of real importance. All the rest is mere +verbiage. The single dogma worth attacking or defending is the divine +right of kings. Are men, in the old phrase, born saddled and bridled, +and other men ready booted and spurred, or are they not? That is the +single shibboleth which distinguishes true men from false. Others, he +says, bowed their heads to the image of the beast. 'I spit upon it, and +buffeted it, and pointed at it, and drew aside the veil that then half +concealed it.' This passionate denial of the absolute right of men over +their fellows is but vicarious pride, if you please to call it so, or a +generous recognition of the dignity of human nature translated into +political terms. Hazlitt's character did not change, however much his +judgment of individuals might change; and therefore the principles which +merely reflected his character remained rooted and unshaken. And yet his +politics changed curiously enough in another sense. The abstract truth, +in Hazlitt's mind, must always have a concrete symbol. He chose to +regard Napoleon as the antithesis to the divine right of kings. That was +the vital formula of Napoleon, his essence, and the true meaning of his +policy. The one question in abstract politics was typified for Hazlitt +by the contrast between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance. To prove that +Napoleon could trample on human rights as roughly as any legitimate +sovereign was for him mere waste<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> of time. Napoleon's tyranny meant a +fair war against the evil principle. Had Hazlitt lived in France, and +come into collision with press laws, it is likely enough that his +sentiments would have changed. But Napoleon was far enough off to serve +as a mere poetical symbol; his memory had got itself entwined in those +youthful associations on which Hazlitt always dwelt so fondly; and, +moreover, to defend 'Boney' was to quarrel with most of his countrymen, +and even of his own party. What more was wanted to make him one of +Hazlitt's superstitions? No more ardent devotee of the Napoleonic legend +ever existed, and Hazlitt's last years were employed in writing a book +which is a political pamphlet as much as a history. He worships the +eldest Napoleon with the fervour of a corporal of the Old Guard, and +denounces the great conspiracy of kings and nobles with the energy of +Cobbett; but he had none of the special knowledge which alone could give +permanent value to such a performance. He seems to have consulted only +the French authorities; and it is refreshing for once to find an +Englishman telling the story of Waterloo entirely from the French side, +and speaking, for example, of left and right as if he had been—as in +imagination he was—by the side of Napoleon instead of Wellington. Even +M. Victor Hugo can see more merit in the English army and its commander. +A radical, who takes Napoleon for his polar star, must change some of +his theories, though he disguises the change from himself; but a change +of a different kind came over Hazlitt as he grew older.</p> + +<p>The enthusiasm of the Southeys and Wordsworths for the French Revolution +changed—whatever their motives—into enthusiasm for the established +order. Hazlitt's enthusiasm remained, but became the enthusiasm of +regret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> instead of hope. As one by one the former zealots dropped off he +despised them as renegades, and clasped his old creed the more firmly to +his bosom. But the change did not draw him nearer to the few who +remained faithful. They perversely loved the wrong side of the right +cause, or loved it for the wrong reason. He liked the Whigs no better +than the Tories; the 'Edinburgh' and the 'Quarterly' were opposition +coaches, making a great dust and spattering each other with mud, but +travelling by the same road to the same end. A Whig, he said, was a +trimmer who dared neither to be a rogue nor an honest man, but was 'a +sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning +negation of the two.' And the true genuine radical reformers? To them, +as represented by the school of Bentham, Hazlitt entertained an aversion +quite as hearty as his aversion for Whigs and Tories. If, he says, the +Whigs are too finical to join heartily with the popular advocates, the +Reformers are too cold. They hated literature, poetry, and romance; +nothing gives them pleasure that does not give others pain; +utilitarianism means prosaic, hard-hearted, narrow-minded dogmatism. +Indeed, his pet essay on the principles of human nature was simply an +assault on what he took to be their fundamental position. He fancied +that the school of Bentham regarded man as a purely selfish and +calculating animal; and his whole philosophy was an attempt to prove the +natural disinterestedness of man, and to indicate for the imagination +and the emotions their proper place beside the calculating faculty. Few +were those who did not come under one or other clause of this sweeping +denunciation. He assailed Shelley, who was neither Whig, Tory, nor +Utilitarian, so cuttingly as to provoke a dispute with Leigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> Hunt, and +had some of his sharp criticisms for his friend Godwin. His general +moral, indeed, is the old congenial one. The reformer is as unfit for +this world as the scholar. He is the only wise man, but, as things go, +wisdom is the worst of follies. The reformer, he says, is necessarily a +marplot; he does not know what he would be at; if he did, he does not +much care for it; and, moreover, he is 'governed habitually by a spirit +of contradiction, and is always wise beyond what is practicable.' Upon +this text Hazlitt dilates with immense spirit, satirising the crotchety +and impracticable race, and contrasting them with the disciplined +phalanx of Toryism, brilliantly and bitterly enough to delight Gifford; +and yet he is writing a preface to a volume of radical Essays. He is +consoling himself for being in a minority of one by proving that two +virtuous men must always disagree. Hazlitt is no genuine democrat. He +hates 'both mobs,' or, in other words, the great mass of the human race. +He would sympathise with Coriolanus more easily than with the Tribunes. +He laughs at the perfectibility of the species, and holds that 'all +things move, not in progress but in a ceaseless round.' The glorious +dream is fled:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The radiance which was once so bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is now for ever taken from our sight;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and his only consolation is to live over in memory the sanguine times of +his youth, before Napoleon had fallen and the Holy Alliance restored the +divine right of kings; to cherish eternal regret for the hopes that have +departed, and hatred and scorn equally enduring for those who blasted +them. 'Give me back,' he exclaims, 'one single evening at Boxhill, after +a stroll in the deep empurpled woods, before Bonaparte was yet beaten, +with "wine of Attic taste," when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> wit, beauty, friendship presided at +the board.' The personal blends with the political regret.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, the politician, was soured. He fed his morbid egotism by +indignantly chewing the cud of disappointment, and scornfully rejecting +comfort. He quarrelled with his wife and with most of his friends, even +with the gentle Lamb, till Lamb regained his affections by the brief +quarrel with Southey. Certainly, he might call himself, with some +plausibility, 'the king of good haters.' But, after all, Hazlitt's +cynicism is the souring of a generous nature; and when we turn from the +politician to the critic and the essayist, our admiration for his powers +is less frequently jarred by annoyance at their wayward misuse. His +egotism—for he is still an egotist—here takes a different shape. His +criticism is not of the kind which is now most popular. He lived before +the days of philosophers who talk about the organism and its +environment, and of the connoisseurs who boast of an eclectic taste for +all the delicate essences of art. He never thought of showing that a +great writer was only the product of his time, race, and climate; and he +had not learnt to use such terms of art as 'supreme,' 'gracious,' +'tender,' 'bitter,' and 'subtle,' in which a good deal of criticism now +consists. Lamb, says Hazlitt, tried old authors 'on his palate as +epicures taste olives;' and the delicacy of discrimination which makes +the process enjoyable is perhaps the highest qualification of a good +critic. Hazlitt's point of view was rather different, nor can we ascribe +to him without qualification that exquisite appreciation of purely +literary charm which is so rare and so often affected. Nobody, indeed, +loved some authors more heartily or understood them better; his love is +so hearty that he cannot preserve the true critical attitude. Instead of +trying them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> on his palate, he swallows them greedily. His judgment of +an author seems to depend upon two circumstances. He is determined in +great measure by his private associations, and in part by his sympathy +for the character of the writer. His interest in this last sense is, one +may say, rather psychological than purely critical. He thinks of an +author not as the exponent of a particular vein of thought or emotion, +nor as an artistic performer on the instrument of language, but as a +human being to be loved or hated, or both, like Napoleon or Gifford or +Southey.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt's favourite authors were, for the most part, the friends of his +youth. He had pored over their pages till he knew them by heart; their +phrases were as familiar to his lips as texts of Scripture to preachers +who know but one book; the places where he had read them became sacred +to him, and a glory of his early enthusiasm was still reflected from the +old pages. Rousseau was his beloved above all writers. They had a +natural affinity. What Hazlitt says of Rousseau may be partly applied to +himself. Of Hazlitt it might be said almost as truly as of Rousseau, +that 'he had the most intense consciousness of his own existence. No +object that had once made an impression upon him was ever after +effaced.' In Rousseau's 'Confessions' and 'Nouvelle Héloïse,' Hazlitt +saw the reflections of his own passions. He spent, he declares, two +whole years in reading these two books; and they were the happiest years +of his life. He marks with a white stone the days on which he read +particular passages. It was on April 10, 1798—as he tells us some +twenty years later—that he sat down to a volume of the 'New Héloïse,' +at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. He +tells us which passage he read and what was the view before his bodily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +eyes. His first reading of 'Paul and Virginia' is associated with an inn +at Bridgewater; and at another old-fashioned inn he tells how the rustic +fare and the quaint architecture gave additional piquancy to Congreve's +wit. He remembers, too, the spot at which he first read Mrs. Inchbald's +'Simple Story;' how he walked out to escape from one of the tenderest +parts, in order to return again with double relish.</p> + +<p>'An old crazy hand-organ,' he adds, 'was playing "Robin Adair," a summer +shower dropped manna on my head, and slaked my feverish thirst of +happiness.' He looks back to his first familiarity with his favourites +as an old man may think of his honeymoon. The memories of his own +feelings, of his author's poetry, and of the surrounding scenery, are +inextricably fused together. The sight of an old volume, he says, +sometimes shakes twenty years off his life; he sees his old friends +alive again, the place where he read the book, the day when he got it, +the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky. To these old favourites he +remained faithful, except that he seems to have tired of the glitter of +Junius. Burke's politics gave him some severe twinges. He says, in one +place, that he always tests the sense and candour of a Liberal by his +willingness to admit the greatness of Burke. He adds, as a note to the +Essay in which this occurs, that it was written in a 'fit of extravagant +candour,' when he thought that he could be more than just to an enemy +without betraying a cause. He oscillates between these views as his +humour changes. He is absurdly unjust to Burke the politician; but he +does not waver in his just recognition of the marvellous power of the +greatest—I should almost say the only great—political writer in the +language. The first time he read a passage from Burke, he said, This is +true eloquence. Johnson immediately became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> shelved, and Junius 'shrunk +up into little antithetic points and well-tuned sentences. But Burke's +style was forked and playful like the lightning, crested like the +serpent.' He is never weary of Burke, as he elsewhere says; and, in +fact, he is man enough to recognise genuine power when he meets it. To +another great master he yields with a reluctance which is an involuntary +compliment. The one author whom he admitted into his Pantheon after his +youthful enthusiasm had cooled was unluckily the most consistent of +Tories. Who is there, he asks, that admires the author of 'Waverley' +more than I do? Who is there that despises Sir Walter Scott more? The +Scotch novels, as they were then called, fairly overpowered him. The +imaginative force, the geniality and the wealth of picturesque incident +of the greatest of novelists, disarmed his antipathy. It is curious to +see how he struggles with himself. He blesses and curses in a breath. He +applies to Scott Pope's description of Bacon, 'the greatest, wisest, +meanest of mankind,' and asks—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who would not laugh if such a man there be?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who would not weep if "Waverley" were he?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He crowns a torrent of abuse by declaring that Scott has encouraged the +lowest panders of a venal press, 'deluging and nauseating the public +mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang;' +and presently he calls Scott—by way, it is true, of lowering +Byron—'one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived.' He +invents a theory, to which he returns more than once, to justify the +contrast. Scott, he says, is much such a writer as the Duke of +Wellington (the hated antithesis of Napoleon, whose 'foolish face' he +specially detests) is a general. The one gets 100,000 men together, and +'leaves it to them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> fight out the battle, for if he meddled with it +he might spoil sport; the other gets an innumerable quantity of facts +together, and lets them tell their story as they may. The facts are +stubborn in the last instance as the men are in the first, and in +neither case is the broth spoiled by the cook.' Both heroes show modesty +and self-knowledge, but 'little boldness or inventiveness of genius.' On +the strength of this doctrine he even compares Scott disadvantageously +with Godwin and Mrs. Inchbald, who had, it seems, more invention though +fewer facts. Hazlitt was not bound to understand strategy, and devoutly +held that Wellington's armies succeeded because their general only +looked on. But he should have understood his own trade a little better. +Putting aside this grotesque theory, he feels Scott's greatness truly, +and admits it generously. He enjoys the broth, to use his own phrase, +though he is determined to believe that it somehow made itself.</p> + +<p>Lamb said that Hazlitt was a greater authority when he praised than when +he abused, a doctrine which may be true of others than Hazlitt. The true +distinction is rather that Hazlitt, though always unsafe as a judge, is +admirable as an advocate in his own cause, and poor when merely speaking +from his brief. Of Mrs. Inchbald I must say what Hazlitt shocked his +audience by saying of Hannah More; that she has written a good deal +which I have not read, and I therefore cannot deny that her novels might +have been written by Venus; but I cannot admit that Wycherley's brutal +'Plain-dealer' is as good as ten volumes of sermons. 'It is curious to +see,' says Hazlitt, rather naïvely, 'how the same subject is treated by +two such different authors as Shakespeare and Wycherley.' Macaulay's +remark about the same coincidence is more to the point. 'Wycherley +borrows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> Viola,' says that vigorous moralist, 'and Viola forthwith +becomes a pander of the basest sort.' That is literally true. Indeed, +Hazlitt's love for the dramatists of the Restoration is something of a +puzzle, except so far as it is explained by early associations. Even +then it is hard to explain the sympathy which Hazlitt, the lover of +Rousseau and sentiment, feels for Congreve, whose speciality it is that +a touch of sentiment is as rare in his painfully-witty dialogues as a +drop of water in the desert. Perhaps a contempt for the prejudices of +respectable people gave zest to Hazlitt's enjoyment of a literature, +representative of a social atmosphere, most propitious to his best +feelings. And yet, though I cannot take Hazlitt's judgment, I would +frankly admit that Hazlitt's enthusiasm brings out Congreve's real +merits with a force of which a calmer judge would be incapable. His warm +praises of 'The Beggar's Opera,' his assault upon Sidney's 'Arcadia,' +his sarcasms against Tom Moore, are all excellent in their way, whether +we do or do not agree with his final result. Whenever Hazlitt writes +from his own mind, in short, he writes what is well worth reading. +Hazlitt learnt something in his later years from Lamb. He prefers, he +says, those papers of Elia in which there is the least infusion of +antiquated language; and, in fact, Lamb never inoculated him with his +taste for the old English literature. Hazlitt gave a series of lectures +upon the Elizabethan dramatists, and carelessly remarks some time +afterwards that he has only read about a quarter of Beaumont and +Fletcher's plays, and intends to read the rest when he has a chance. It +is plain, indeed, that the lectures, though written at times with great +spirit, are the work of a man who has got them up for the occasion. And +in his more ambitious and successful essays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> upon Shakespeare the same +want of reading appears in another way. He is more familiar with +Shakespeare's text than many better scholars. His familiarity is proved +by a habit of quotation of which it has been disputed whether it is a +merit or a defect. What phrenologists would call the adhesiveness of +Hazlitt's mind, its extreme retentiveness for any impression which has +once been received, tempts him to a constant repetition of familiar +phrases and illustrations. He has, too, a trick of working in patches of +his old essays, which he expressly defends on the ground that a book +which has not reached a second edition may be considered by its author +as manuscript. This self-plagiarism sometimes worries us, as we are +worried by a man whose conversation runs in ruts. But his quotations +from other authors, where used in moderation, often give a pleasant +richness to his style. Shakespeare, in particular, seems to be a +storehouse into which he can always dip for an appropriate turn of +phrase, and his love of Shakespeare is of a characteristic kind. He has +not counted syllables nor weighed various readings. He does not throw a +new light upon delicate indications of thought and sentiment, nor +philosophise after the manner of Coleridge and the Germans, nor regard +Shakespeare as the representative of his age according to the sweeping +method of M. Taine. Neither does he seem to love Shakespeare himself as +he loves Rousseau or Richardson. He speaks contemptuously of the Sonnets +and Poems, and, though I respect his sincerity, I think that such a +verdict necessarily indicates indifference to the most Shakespearian +parts of Shakespeare. The calm assertion that the qualities of the Poems +are the reverse of the qualities of the plays is unworthy of Hazlitt's +general acuteness. That which really attracts Hazlitt is sufficiently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> +indicated by the title of his book; he describes the characters of +Shakespeare's plays. It is Iago, and Timon, and Coriolanus, and Anthony, +and Cleopatra, who really interest him. He loves and hates them as if +they were his own contemporaries; he gives the main outlines of their +character with a spirited touch. And yet one somehow feels that Hazlitt +is not at his best in Shakespearian criticism; his eulogies savour of +commonplace, and are wanting in spontaneity. There is not that warm glow +of personal feeling which gives light and warmth to his style whenever +he touches upon his early favourites. Perhaps he is a little daunted by +the greatness of his task, and perhaps there is something in the +Shakespearian width of sympathy and in the Shakespearian humour which +lies beyond Hazlitt's sphere. His criticism of Hamlet is feeble; he does +not do justice to Mercutio or to Jaques; but he sympathises more +heartily with the tremendous passion of Lear and Othello, and finds +something congenial to his taste in Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. It +is characteristic, too, that he evidently understands Shakespeare better +on the stage than in the closet. When he can associate Iago and Shylock +with the visible presence of Kean, he can introduce that personal +element which is so necessary to his best writing.</p> + +<p>The best, indeed, of Hazlitt's criticisms—if the word may be so far +extended—are his criticisms of living men. The criticism of +contemporary portraits called the 'Spirit of the Age' is one of the +first of those series which have now become popular, as it is certainly +one of the very best. The descriptions of Bentham, and Godwin, and +Coleridge, and Horne Tooke are masterpieces in their way. They are, of +course, unfair; but that is part of their charm. One would no more take +for granted Hazlitt's valuation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> Wordsworth than Timon's judgment of +Alcibiades. Hazlitt sees through coloured glasses, but his vision is not +the less penetrating. The vulgar satirist is such a one as Hazlitt +somewhere mentioned who called Wordsworth a dunce. Hazlitt was quite +incapable of such a solecism. He knew, nobody better, that a telling +caricature must be a good likeness. If he darkens the shades, and here +and there exaggerates an ungainly feature, we still know that the shade +exists and that the feature is not symmetrical. De Quincey reports the +saying of some admiring friend of Hazlitt, who confessed to a shudder +whenever Hazlitt used his habitual gesture of placing his hand within +his waistcoat. The hand might emerge armed with a dagger. Whenever, said +the same friend (Heaven preserve us from our friends!), Hazlitt had been +distracted for a moment from the general conversation, he looked round +with a mingled air of suspicion and defiance, as though some +objectionable phrase might have evaded his censure in the interval. The +traits recur to us when we read Hazlitt's descriptions of the men he had +known. We seem to see the dark sardonic man, watching the faces and +gestures of his friends, ready to take sudden offence at any affront to +his cherished prejudices, and yet hampered by a kind of nervous timidity +which makes him unpleasantly conscious of his own awkwardness. He +remains silent, till somebody unwittingly contradicts his unspoken +thoughts—the most irritating kind of contradiction to some people!—and +perhaps heaps indiscriminating praise on an old friend, a term nearly +synonymous with an old enemy. Then the dagger suddenly flashes out, and +Hazlitt strikes two or three rapid blows, aimed with unerring accuracy +at the weak points of the armour which he knows so well. And then, as he +strikes, a relenting comes over him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> he remembers old days with a +sudden gush of fondness, and puts in a touch of scorn for his allies or +himself. Coleridge may deserve a blow, but the applause of Coleridge's +enemies awakes his self-reproach. His invective turns into panegyric, +and he warms for a time into hearty admiration, which proves that his +irritation arises from an excess, not from a defect, of sensibility; but +finding that he has gone a little too far, he lets his praise slide into +equivocal description, and, with some parting epigram, he relapses into +silence. The portraits thus drawn are never wanting in piquancy nor in +fidelity. Brooding over his injuries and his desertions, Hazlitt has +pondered almost with the eagerness of a lover upon the qualities of his +intimates. Suspicion, unjust it may be, has given keenness to his +investigation. He has interpreted in his own fashion every mood and +gesture. He has watched his friends as a courtier watches a royal +favourite. He has stored in his memory, as we fancy, the good retorts +which his shyness or unreadiness smothered at the propitious moment, and +brings them out in the shape of a personal description. When such a man +sits at our tables, silent and apparently self-absorbed, and yet shrewd +and sensitive, we may well be afraid of the dagger, though it may not be +drawn till after our death, and may write memoirs instead of piercing +flesh. And yet Hazlitt is no mean assassin of reputations; nor is his +enmity as a rule more than the seamy side of friendship. Gifford, +indeed, and Croker, 'the talking potato,' are treated as outside the +pale of human rights.</p> + +<p>Excellent as Hazlitt can be as a dispenser of praise and blame, he seems +to me to be at his best in a different capacity. The first of his +performances which attracted much attention was the Round Table, +designed by Leigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> Hunt (who contributed a few papers), on the old +'Spectator' model. In the essays afterwards collected in the volumes +called 'Table Talk' and the 'Plain Speaker,' he is still better, because +more certain of his position. It would, indeed, be difficult to name any +writer, from the days of Addison to those of Lamb, who has equalled +Hazlitt's best performances of this kind. Addison is too unlike to +justify a comparison; and, to say the truth, though he has rather more +in common with Lamb, the contrast is much more obvious than the +resemblance. Each wants the other's most characteristic vein; Hazlitt +has hardly a touch of humour, and Lamb is incapable of Hazlitt's caustic +scorn for the world and himself. They have indeed in common, besides +certain superficial tastes, a love of pathetic brooding over the past. +But the sentiment exerted is radically different. Lamb forgets himself +when brooding over an old author or summing up the 'old familiar faces.' +His melancholy and his mirth cast delightful cross-lights upon the +topics of which he converses, and we do not know, until we pause to +reflect, that it is not the intrinsic merit of the objects, but Lamb's +own character, which has caused our pleasure. They would be dull, that +is, in other hands; but the feeling is embodied in the object described, +and not made itself the source of our interest. With Hazlitt, it is the +opposite. He is never more present than when he is dwelling upon the +past. Even in criticising a book or a man, his favourite mode is to tell +us how he came to love or to hate him; and in the non-critical Essays he +is always appealing to us, directly or indirectly, for sympathy with his +own personal emotions. He tells us how passionately he is yearning for +the days of his youth; he is trying to escape from his pressing +annoyances; wrapping himself in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> sacred associations against the fret +and worry of surrounding cares; repaying himself for the scorn of women +or Quarterly Reviewers by retreating into some imaginary hermitage; and +it is the delight of dreaming upon which he dwells more than upon the +beauty of the visions revealed to his inward eye. The force with which +this sentiment is presented gives a curious fascination to some of his +essays. Take, for example, the essay in 'Table Talk,' 'On Living to +One's self,'—an essay written, as he is careful to tell us, on a mild +January day in the country, whilst the fire is blazing on the hearth and +a partridge getting ready for his supper. There he expatiates in happy +isolation on the enjoyments of living as 'a silent spectator of the +mighty scheme of things;' as being in the world, and not of it; watching +the clouds and the stars, poring over a book, or gazing at a picture +without a thought of becoming an author or an artist. He has drifted +into a quiet little backwater, and congratulates himself in all +sincerity on his escape from the turbulent stream outside. He drinks in +the delight of rest at every pore; reduces himself for the time to the +state of a polyp drifting on the warm ocean stream, and becomes a +voluptuous hermit. He calls up the old days when he acted up to his +principles, and found pleasure enough in endless meditation and quiet +observation of nature. He preaches most edifyingly on the +disappointments, the excitements, the rough impacts of hard facts upon +sensitive natures, which haunt the world outside, and declares, in all +sincerity, 'this sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it +to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets.' He is sincere, and therefore +eloquent; and we need not, unless we please, add the remark that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +enjoys rest because it is a relief from toil; and that he will curse the +country as heartily as any man if doomed to entire rest. This meditation +on the phenomena of his own sensations leads him often into interesting +reflections of a psychological kind. He analyses his own feelings with +constant eagerness, as he analyses the character of his enemies. A good +specimen is the essay 'On Antiquity' in the 'Plain Speaker,' which +begins with some striking remarks on the apparently arbitrary mode in +which some objects and periods seem older to us than others, in defiance +of chronology. The monuments of the Middle Ages seem more antique than +the Greek statues and temples with their immortal youth. 'It is not the +full-grown, articulated, thoroughly accomplished periods of the world +that we regard with the pity or reverence due to age, so much as those +imperfect, unformed, uncertain periods which seem to totter on the verge +of non-existence, to shrink from the grasp of our feeble imagination, as +they crawl out of, or retire into the womb of time, of which our utmost +assurance is to doubt whether they ever were or not.' And then, as +usual, he passes to his own experience, and meditates on the changed +aspect of the world in youth and maturer life. The petty, personal +emotions pass away, whilst the grand and ideal 'remains with us +unimpaired in its lofty abstraction from age to age.' Therefore, though +the inference is not quite clear, he can never forget the first time he +saw Mrs. Siddons act, or the appearance of Burke's 'Letter to a Noble +Lord.' And then, in a passage worthy of Sir Thomas Browne, he describes +the change produced as our minds are stereotyped, as our most striking +thoughts become truisms, and we lose the faculty of admiration. In our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +youth 'art woos us; science tempts us with her intricate labyrinths; +each step presents unlooked-for vistas, and closes upon us our backward +path. Our onward road is strange, obscure, and infinite. We are +bewildered in a shadow, lost in a dream. Our perceptions have the +brightness and indistinctness of a trance. Our continuity of +consciousness is broken, crumbles, and falls to pieces. We go on +learning and forgetting every hour. Our feelings are chaotic, confused, +strange to each other and ourselves.' But in time we learn by rote the +lessons which we had to spell out in our youth. 'A very short period +(from 15 to 25 or 30) includes the whole map and table of contents of +human life. From that time we may be said to live our lives over again, +repeat ourselves—the same thoughts return at stated intervals, like the +tunes of a barrel-organ; and the volume of the universe is no more than +a form of words, a book of reference.'</p> + +<p>From such musings Hazlitt can turn to describe any fresh impression +which has interested him, in spite of his occasional weariness, with a +freshness and vivacity which proves that his eye had not grown dim, nor +his temperament incapable of enjoyment. He fell in love with Miss Sarah +Wilson at the tolerably ripe age of 43; and his desire to live in the +past is not to be taken more seriously than his contempt for his +literary reputation. It lasts only till some vivid sensation occurs in +the present. In congenial company he could take a lively share in +conversation, as is proved not only by external evidence, but by his +very amusing book of conversations with Northcote—an old cynic out of +whom it does not seem that anybody else could strike many sparks,—or +from the essay, partly historical, it is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> be supposed, in which he +records his celebrated discussion with Lamb, on persons whom one would +wish to have seen. But perhaps some of his most characteristic +performances in this line are those in which he anticipates the modern +taste for muscularity. His wayward disposition to depreciate ostensibly +his own department of action, leads him to write upon the 'disadvantages +of intellectual superiority,' and to maintain the thesis that the glory +of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And +perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the +physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives—in +which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his +last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau—and +still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill +Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, and we +are pretty well ashamed of the last flicker of enthusiasm created by +Sayers and Heenan. We may therefore enjoy without remorse the prose-poem +in which Hazlitt kindles with genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful +glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising +of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We +condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the +old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way +home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle Héloïse,' admit +for a moment that 'Love of the Fancy is,' as the historian assures us, +'compatible with a cultivation of sentiment.' If Hazlitt had thrown as +much into his description of the Battle of Waterloo, and had taken the +English side, he would have been a popular writer. But even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> Hazlitt +cannot quite embalm the memories of Cribb, Belcher, and Gully.</p> + +<p>It is time, however, to stop. More might be said by a qualified writer +of Hazlitt's merits as a judge of pictures or of the stage. The same +literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, +condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man +can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, +capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow +that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and +Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; +nor, on the other hand, has he the plain homespun force of Swift and +Cobbett. And yet readers who do not insist upon measuring all prose by +the same standard, will probably agree that if Hazlitt is not a great +rhetorician, if he aims at no gorgeous effects of complex harmony, he +has yet an eloquence of his own. It is indeed an eloquence which does +not imply quick sympathy with many moods of feeling, or an intellectual +vision at once penetrating and comprehensive. It is the eloquence +characteristic of a proud and sensitive nature, which expresses a very +keen if narrow range of feeling, and implies a powerful grasp of one, if +only one side of the truth. Hazlitt harps a good deal upon one string; +but that string vibrates forcibly. His best passages are generally an +accumulation of short, pithy sentences, shaped in strong feeling, and +coloured by picturesque association; but repeating, rather than +corroborating, each other. The last blow goes home, but each falls on +the same place. He varies the phrase more than the thought; and +sometimes he becomes obscure, because he is so absorbed in his own +feelings that he forgets the very existence of strangers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> who require +explanation. Read through Hazlitt, and this monotony becomes a little +tiresome; but dip into him at intervals, and you will often be +astonished that so vigorous a writer has not left some more enduring +monument of his remarkable powers.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In the excellent Essay prefixed to 'Hazlitt's Literary Remains.'</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span></p> +<h2><i>DISRAELI'S NOVELS</i><a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h2> + + +<p>It is a commonplace with men of literary eminence to extol the man of +deeds above the man of words. Scott was half ashamed of scribbling +novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true +prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the +shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in +masters of the art to depreciate their own peculiar function. People who +have less personal interest in the matter need not be so modest. I will +confess, at any rate, to preferring the men who have sown some new seed +of thought above the heroes whose names mark epochs in history. I would +rather make the nation's ballads than give its laws, dictate principles +than carry them into execution, and leaven a country with new ideas than +translate them into facts, inevitably mangling and distorting them in +the process. And therefore I would rather have written 'Hamlet' than +defeated the Spanish Armada; or 'Paradise Lost,' than have turned out +the Long Parliament; or 'Gray's Elegy,' than have stormed the heights of +Abram; or the Waverley Novels, than have won Waterloo or even Trafalgar. +I would rather have been Voltaire or Goethe than Frederick or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> Napoleon; +and I suspect that when the poor historian of the nineteenth century +begins his superhuman work, he will, as a thorough philosopher, +attribute more importance to two or three recent English writers than to +all the English statesmen who have been strutting and fretting their +little hour at Westminster. And therefore, too, I wish that Disraeli +could have stuck to his novels instead of rising to be Prime Minister of +England. This opinion is, of course, entirely independent of any +judgment which may be passed upon Disraeli's political career. Granting +that his cause has always been the right one, granting that he has +rendered it essential services, I should still wish that his brilliant +literary ability had been allowed to ripen undisturbed by all the +worries and distractions of parliamentary existence. Persons who think +the creation of a majority in the House of Commons a worthy reward for +the labours of a lifetime will, of course, differ from this conclusion. +Disraeli, at any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck +off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more +alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have +gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby +and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they +embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little +propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still +survives, must have lost many illusions; he must have herded with the +Tapers and Tadpoles, and prompted Rigby to write slashing articles on +his behalf in the quarterlies. He must have felt that his intellect was +cruelly wasted in talking claptrap and platitude to suit the thick +comprehensions of his party; and the huge dead weight of the invincible +impenetrability to ideas of ordinary mankind must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> have lain heavy upon +his soul. How many Tadpoles, one would like to know, still haunt the +Carlton Club, or throng the ministerial benches, and how many Rigbys +have forced their way into the Cabinet? That is one of the state secrets +which will hardly be divulged by the only competent observer. But at any +rate it is sad that the critic, who applied the lash so skilfully, +should have been so unequally yoked with the objects of his contempt. +Disraeli's talents for entertaining fiction may not indeed have been +altogether wasted in his official career; but he at least may pardon +admirers of his writing, who regret that he should have squandered +powers of imagination, capable of true creative work, upon that +alternation of truckling and blustering which is called governing the +country.</p> + +<p>The qualities which are of rather equivocal value in a minister of state +may be admirable in the domain of literature. It is hardly desirable +that the followers of a political leader should be haunted by an +ever-recurring doubt as to whether his philosophical utterances express +deep convictions, or the extemporised combinations of a fertile fancy, +and be uncertain whether he is really putting their clumsy thoughts into +clearer phrases, or foisting showy nonsense upon them for his own +purposes, or simply laughing at them in his sleeve. But, in a purely +literary sense, this ambiguous hovering between two meanings, this +oscillation between the ironical and the serious, is always amusing, and +sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in +literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air +of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in +earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a +standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> +the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments +of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright +sarcasm, as unmistakable in its meaning as the cut of a whip across your +face; and elsewhere we have passages which aim unmistakably, and +sometimes with unmistakable success, at rhetorical excellence. But, +between the two, there is a wide field where we may interpret his +meaning as we please. The philosophical theory may imply a genuine +belief, or may be a mere bit of conventional filling in, or perhaps a +parody of his friends or himself. The gorgeous passages may be +intentionally over-coloured, or may really represent his most sincere +taste. His homage may be genuine or a biting mockery. His extravagances +are kept precisely at such a pitch that it is equally fair to argue that +a satirist must have meant them to be absurd, or to argue only that he +would have seen their absurdity in anybody else. The unfortunate critic +feels himself in a position analogous to that of the suitors in the +'Merchant of Venice.' He may blunder grievously, whatever alternative he +selects. If he pronounces a passage to be pure gold, it may turn out to +be merely the mask of a bitter sneer; or he may declare it to be +ingenious burlesque when put forward in the most serious earnest; or may +ridicule it as overstrained bombast, and find that it was never meant to +be anything else. It is wiser to admit that perhaps the author was not +very clear himself, or possibly enjoyed that ambiguous attitude which +might be interpreted according to the taste of his readers and the +development of events. A man who deals in oracular utterances acquires +instinctively a mode of speech which may shift its colour with every +change of light. The texture of Disraeli's writings is so ingeniously +shot with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> irony and serious sentiment that each tint may predominate by +turns. It is impossible to suppose that the weaver of so cunning a web +should never have intended the effects which he produces; but +frequently, too, they must be the spontaneous and partly unconscious +results of a peculiar intellectual temperament. Delight in blending the +pathetic with the ludicrous is the characteristic of the true humorist. +Disraeli is not exactly a humorist, but something for which the rough +nomenclature of critics has not yet provided a distinctive name. His +pathos is not sufficiently tender, nor his laughter quite genial enough. +The quality which results is homologous to, though not identical with, +genuine humour: for the smile we must substitute a sneer, and the +element which enters into combination with the satire is something more +distantly allied to poetical unction than to glittering rhetoric. The +Disraelian irony thus compounded is hitherto a unique product of +intellectual chemistry.</p> + +<p>Most of Disraeli's novels are intended to set forth what, for want of a +better name, must be called a religious or political creed. To grasp its +precise meaning, or to determine the precise amount of earnestness with +which it is set forth, is of course hopeless. Its essence is to be +mysterious, and half the preacher's delight is in tantalising his +disciples. At moments he cannot quite suppress the amusement with which +he mocks their hopeless bewilderment. When Coningsby is on the point of +entering public life, he reads a speech of one of the initiated, +'denouncing the Venetian constitution, to the amazement of several +thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown +danger, now first introduced to their notice.' What more amusing than +suddenly to reveal to good easy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> citizens that what they took for +wholesome food is deadly poison, and to watch their hopeless incapacity +to understand whether you are really announcing a truth or launching an +epigram!</p> + +<p>Disraeli, undoubtedly, has certain fixed beliefs which underlie and +which, indeed, explain the superficial versatility of his teaching. +Amongst the various doctrines with which he plays more or less +seriously, two at least are deeply rooted in his mind. He holds, with a +fervour in every way honourable, a belief in the marvellous endowments +of his race, and connected with this belief is an almost romantic +admiration for every manifestation of intellectual power. Vivian Grey, +in a bit of characteristic bombast, describes himself as 'one who has +worshipped the empire of the intellect;' and his career is simply an +attempt to act out the principle that the world belongs of right to the +cleverest. Of Sidonia, after every superlative in the language has been +lavished upon his marvellous acquirements, we are told that 'the only +human quality that interested him was intellect.' Intellect is equally, +if not quite as exclusively, interesting to the creator of Sidonia. He +admires it in all its forms—in a Jesuit or a leader of the +International, in a charlatan or a statesman, or perhaps even more in +one who combines the two characters; but the most interesting of all +objects to Disraeli, if one may judge from his books, is a precocious +youth, whose delight in the sudden consciousness of great abilities has +not yet been dashed by experience. In some other writers we may learn +the age of the author by the age of his hero. A novelist who adopts the +common practice of painting from himself naturally finds out the merits +of middle age in his later works. But in every one of Disraeli's works, +from 'Vivian Grey' to 'Lothair,' the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> central figure is a youth, who is +frequently a statesman at school, and astonishes the world before he has +reached his majority. The change in the author's position is, indeed, +equally marked in a different way. The youthful heroes of Disraeli's +early novels are creative; in his later they become chiefly receptive. +Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming show their genius by insubordination; +Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of Sidonia; +and Lothair reduces himself so completely to a mere 'passive bucket' to +be pumped into by every variety of teacher, that he is unpleasantly like +a fool. Disraeli still loves ingenuous youth; but he has gained quite a +new perception of the value of docility. Here and there, of course, +there is a gentle gibe at juvenile vanity. 'My opinions are already +formed on every subject,' says Lothair; 'that is, on every subject of +importance; and, what is more, they will never change.' But such vanity +has nothing offensive. The audacity with which a lad of twenty solves +all the problems of the universe, excites in Disraeli genuine and really +generous sympathy. Sidonia converts the sentiment into a theory. +Experience, he says, is less than nothing to a creative mind. 'Almost +everything that is great has been done by youth.' The greatest captains, +the greatest poets, artists, statesmen, and religious reformers of the +world, have done their best work by middle life. All theories upon all +subjects can be proved from history; and the great Sidonia is not to be +pinned down by too literal an interpretation. But at least he is +expressing Disraeli's admiration for intellect which has the fervour, +rapidity, and reckless audacity of youth, which trusts its intuitions +instead of its calculations, and takes its crudest guesses for flashes +of inspiration. The exuberant buoyancy of his youthful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> heroes gives a +certain contagious charm to Disraeli's pages, which is attractive even +when verging upon extravagance. Our popular novelists have learned to +associate high spirits with muscularity; their youthful heroes are +either athletes destined to put on flesh in later days, or premature +prigs with serious convictions and a tendency to sermons and blue-books. +After a course of such books, Disraeli's genuine love of talent is +refreshing. He dwells fondly upon the effervescence of genius which +drives men to kick over the traces of respectability and strike out +short cuts to fame. If at bottom his heroes are rather eccentric than +original, they have at least a righteous hatred of all bores and +Philistines, and despise orthodoxy, political economy, and sound +information generally. They can provide you with new theories of +politics and history, as easily as Mercutio could pour out a string of +similes; and we have scarcely the heart to ask whether this vivacious +ebullition implies the process of fermentation by which a powerful mind +clears its crude ideas, or only an imitation of the process by which +superlative cleverness apes true genius. Intellect, as it becomes +sobered by middle age and by scholastic training, is no longer so +charming. When its guesses ossify into fixed opinions, and its arrogance +takes the airs of scientific dogmatism, it is always a tiresome and may +be a dangerous quality. Some indication of what Disraeli means by +intellect may be found in the preface to 'Lothair.' Speaking of the +conflict between science and the old religions, he says that it is a +most flagrant fallacy to suppose that modern ages have a monopoly of +scientific discovery. The greatest discoveries are not those of modern +ages. 'No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a +discovery as writing, or algebra, or language.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> What are the most +brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of +fire and the metals?' Hipparchus ranks with the Keplers and Newtons; and +Copernicus was but the champion of Pythagoras. To say nothing of the +characteristic assumption that somebody 'discovered' language and fire +in the same sense as modern chemists discovered spectrum analysis, the +argument is substantially that, because Hipparchus was as great a genius +as Newton, the views of the ancients upon religious or historical +questions deserve just as much respect as those of the moderns. In other +words, the accumulated knowledge of ages has taught us nothing. 'What is +conveniently called progress' is merely a polite name for change; and +one clever man's guess is as good as another, whatever the period at +which he lived. This theory is the correlative of Sidonia's assertion, +that experience is useless to the man of genius. The experience of the +race is just as valueless. Modern criticism is nothing but an +intellectual revolt of the Teutonic races against the Semitic +revelation, as the French revolution was a political revolt of the +Celtic races. The disturbance will pass away; and we shall find that +Abraham and Moses knew more about the universe than Hegel or Comte. The +prophets of the sacred race were divinely endowed with an esoteric +knowledge concealed from the vulgar behind mystic symbols and +ceremonies. If the old oracles are dumb, some gleams of the same power +still remain, and in the language of mere mortals are called genius. We +find it in perfection only amongst the Semites, whose finer +organisation, indicated by their musical supremacy, enables them to +catch the still small voice inaudible to our grosser ears. The Aryans, +indeed, have some touches of a cognate power, but it is dulled by a more +sensuous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> temperament. They can enter the court of the Gentiles; but +their mortal vesture is too muddy for admission into the holy of holies. +If ever they catch a glimpse of the truth, it is in their brilliant +youth, when, still uncorrupted by worldly politics, they can induce some +Sidonia partly to draw aside the veil.</p> + +<p>The intellect, then, as Disraeli conceives it, is not the faculty +denounced by theologians, which delights in systematic logical inquiry, +and hopes to attain truth by the unrestricted conflict of innumerable +minds. It is an abnormal power of piercing mysteries granted only to a +few distinguished seers. It does not lead to an earthly science, +expressible in definite formulas, and capable of being taught in Sunday +schools. The knowledge cannot be fully communicated to the profane, and +is at most to be shadowed forth in dim oracular utterances. Disraeli's +instinctive affinity for some kind of mystic teaching is indicated by +Vivian Grey's first request to his father. 'I wish,' he exclaims, 'to +make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want Plotinus and +Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrianus, and Mosanius Tyrius, and +Pericles, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damasenis!' But Vivian +Grey, as we know, wanted also to conquer the Marquis of Carabas; and the +odd combination between a mystic philosopher and a mere political +charlatan displays Disraeli's peculiar irony. Intellect with him is a +double-edged weapon: it is at once the faculty which reads the dark +riddle of the universe, and the faculty which makes use of Tapers and +Tadpoles. Our modern Daniel is also a shrewd electioneering agent. +Cynics, indeed, have learned in these later days to regard mystery as +too often synonymous with nonsense. The difficulty of interpreting +esoteric doctrines to the vulgar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> generally consists in this—that the +doctrines are mere collections of big words which collapse, instead of +becoming lucid, when put into plain English. The mystagogue is but too +closely allied to the charlatan. He may be straining to utter some +secret too deep for human utterance, or he is looking wise to conceal +absolute vacuity of thought. And at other times he must surely be +laughing at the youthful audacity which fancies that speculation is to +be carried on by a series of sudden inspirations, instead of laborious +accumulation of rigorously-tested reasonings.</p> + +<p>The three novels, 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' published from +1844 to 1847, form, as their author has told us, a trilogy intended to +set forth his views of political, social, and religious problems. Each +of them exhibits, in one form or other, this peculiar train of thought. +'Coningsby,' if I am not mistaken, is by far the ablest, and probably +owes its pre-eminence to the simple fact that it deals with the topics +in which its author felt the keenest interest. The social speculations +of 'Sybil' savour too much of the politician getting up a telling case; +and the religious speculations of 'Tancred' are pushed to the extreme +verge of the grotesque. But 'Coningsby' wants little but a greater +absence of purpose to be a first-rate novel. If Disraeli had confined +himself to the merely artistic point of view, he might have drawn a +picture of political society worthy of comparison with 'Vanity Fair.' +Lord Monmouth is evidently related to the Marquis of Steyne; and Rigby +is a masterpiece, though perhaps rather too suggestive of a direct study +from nature. Lord Monmouth is the ideal type of the 'Venetian' +aristocracy; and Rigby, like his historical namesake, of the corrupt +wire-pullers who flourished under their shade. The consistent +Epicureanism of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> the noble, in whom a sense of duty is only represented +by a vague instinct that he ought to preserve his political influence as +part of his personal splendour, and as an insurance against possible +incendiarism, is admirably contrasted by the coarser selfishness of +Rigby, who relieves his patron of all dirty work on consideration of +feathering his own nest, and fancying himself to be a statesman. The +whole background, in short, is painted with inimitable spirit and +fidelity. The one decided failure amongst the subsidiary characters is +Lucian Grey, the professional parasite, who earns his dinners by his +witty buffoonery. Somehow, his fun is terribly dreary on paper; perhaps +because, as a parasite, he is not allowed to indulge in the cutting +irony which animates all Disraeli's best sayings. The simple buffoonery +of exuberant animal spirits is not in Disraeli's line. When he can +neither be bitter nor rhetorical, he is apt to drop into mere mechanical +flatness. But nobody has described more vigorously all the meaner forms +of selfishness, stupidity, and sycophancy engendered under 'that fatal +drollery,' as Tancred describes it, 'called a parliamentary government.' +The pompous dulness which affects philosophical gravity, the appetite +for the mere dry husks and bran of musty constitutional platitude which +takes the airs of political wisdom, the pettifogging cunning which +supposes the gossips of lobbies and smoking-rooms to be the embodiment +of statesmanship, the selfishness which degrades political warfare into +a branch of stock-jobbing, and takes a great principle to be useful in +suggesting electioneering cries, as Telford thought that navigable +rivers were created to feed canals,—these and other tendencies favoured +by party government are hit off to the life. 'The man they called Dizzy' +can despise a miserable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> creature having the honour to be as heartily as +Carlyle himself, and, if his theories are serious, sometimes took our +blessed Constitution to be a mere shelter for such vermin as the Tapers +and Tadpoles. Two centuries of a parliamentary monarchy and a +parliamentary Church, says Coningsby, have made government detested, and +religion disbelieved. 'Political compromises,' says the omniscient +Sidonia, 'are not to be tolerated except at periods of rude transition. +An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariat of what is called +representative government. Your House of Commons, that has absorbed all +other powers in the State, will in all probability fall more rapidly +than it rose.' In short, the press will take its place. This is one of +those impromptu theories of history which are not to be taken too +literally. Indeed, the satirical background is intended to throw into +clearer relief a band of men of genius to whom has been granted some +insight into the great political mystery. Who, then, are the true +antithesis to the Tapers and Tadpoles? Should we compare them with a +Cromwell, who has a creed as well as a political platform; and contrast +'our young Queen and our old institutions' with some new version of the +old war cry, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon'? Or may we at least +have a glimpse of a Chatham, wakening the national spirit to sweep aside +the Newcastles and Bubb Dodingtons of the present day? Or, if Cromwells +and Chathams be too old-fashioned, and translate the Semitic principle +into a narrow English Protestantism, may we not have some genuine +revolutionary fanatic, a Cimourdain or a Gauvain, to burn up all this +dry chaff of mouldy politics with the fire of a genuine human passion? +Such a contrast, however effective, would have been a little awkward in +the year 1844. Young England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> had an ideal standard of its own, and +Disraeli must be the high priest of its peculiar hero-worship. Whether, +in this case, political trammels injured his artistic sense, or whether +his peculiar artistic tendencies injured his political career, is a +question rather for the historian than the critic.</p> + +<p>Certain it is, at any rate, that the <i>cénacle</i> of politicians, whose +interests are to be thrown in relief against this mass of grovelling +corruption, forms but a feeble contrast, even in the purely artistic +sense. We have no right to doubt that Disraeli thought that Coningsby +and his friends represented the true solution of the difficulty; yet if +anybody had wished to demonstrate that a genuine belief might sometimes +make a man more contemptible than hypocritical selfishness, he could +scarcely have defended the paradox more ingeniously. 'Unconscious +cerebration' has become a popular explanation of many phenomena; and it +would hardly be fanciful to assume that one lobe of Disraeli's brain is +in the habit of secreting bitter satire unknown to himself, and +cunningly inserting it behind the thin veil of sentiment unconsciously +elaborated by the other. We are prepared, indeed, to accept the new +doctrine, as cleverly as Balzac could have inoculated us with a +provisional belief in animal magnetism, to heighten our interest in a +thrilling story of wonder. We have judicious hints of esoteric political +doctrine, which has been partially understood by great men at various +periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the +opening pages of 'Sybil.' The most remarkable thing about our popular +history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is 'a complete +mystification;' many of the principal characters never appear, as, for +example, Major Wildman, who was 'the soul of English politics from 1640 +to 1688.' It is not surprising,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> therefore, that two of our three chief +statesmen in later times should be systematically depreciated. The +younger Pitt, indeed, has been extolled, though on wrong grounds. But +Bolingbroke and Shelburne, our two finest political geniuses, are passed +over with contempt by ordinary historians. A historian might amuse +himself by tracing the curious analogy between the most showy +representatives of the old race of statesmen and the modern successor +who delights to sing his praises. The Patriot King is really to some +extent an anticipation of Disraeli's peculiar democratic Toryism. But +the chief merit of Shelburne would seem to be that the qualities which +earned for him the nickname of Malagrida made him convenient as a +hypothetical depository of some esoteric scheme of politics. For the +purposes of fiction, at any rate, we may believe that English politics +are a riddle of which only three men have guessed the true solution +since the 'financial' revolution of 1688. Pitt was only sound so far as +he was the pupil of Shelburne; but Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Disraeli +possessed the true key, and fully understood, for example, that Charles +I. was the 'holocaust of direct taxation.' But frankly to expound this +theory would be to destroy its charm, and to cast pearls before +political economists. And, therefore, its existence is dimly adumbrated +rather than its meaning revealed; and we have hints that there are +wheels within wheels, and that in the lowest deep of mystery there is a +yet deeper mystery. Coningsby and his associates, the brilliant +Buckhurst and the rich Catholic country gentleman, Eustace Lyle, are but +unripe neophytes, feeling after the true doctrine, but not yet fully +initiated. The superlative Sidonia, the man who by thirty has exhausted +all the sources of human knowledge, become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> master of the learning of +every nation, of all tongues, dead or living, and of every literature, +western and oriental; who has pursued all the speculations of science to +their last term; who has lived in all orders of society, and observed +man in every phase of civilisation; who has a penetrative intellect +which enables him to follow as by intuition the most profound of all +questions, and a power of communicating with precision the most abstruse +ideas; whose wealth would make Monte Cristo seem a pauper; who is so far +above his race that woman seems to him a toy, and man a machine,—this +thrice miraculous Sidonia, who can yet stoop from his elevation to win a +steeplechase from the Gentiles, or return their hospitality by an +exquisite dinner, is the fitting depository of the precious secret. No +one can ever accuse Disraeli of a want of audacity. He does not, like +weaker men, shrink from introducing men of genius because he is afraid +that he will not be able to make them talk in character; and when, in +'Venetia,' he introduces Byron and Shelley, he is kind enough to write +poetry for them, which produces as great an effect as the original.</p> + +<p>And now having a true prophet, having surrounded him with a band of +disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our +mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery. +Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle +the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be +satisfied. There is not any secret doctrine in politics. Bolingbroke may +have been a very clever man, but he could not see through a stone wall. +The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright +prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the +imagination, if not for the reason.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> Some mystic formula might be +pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as +we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some +magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give +us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to +be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to +believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical +efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the +inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something +to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It +was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might +have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into +that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might +possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with +his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which +are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against +politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a +newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical +millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal +skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer +air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by +slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of +burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the +ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain +<i>aplomb</i>; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the +spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His +last book of 'Coningsby' opens with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> Christmas scene worthy of an +illustrated keepsake. We have buttery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and +red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar's head +with a canticle.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Caput apri defero,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reddens laudes Domino,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>sing the noble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli +blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise +the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament. +He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a +passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that +the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert +hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be +trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to +this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, +and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies, +'The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?' It would, indeed, +be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of +Manchester. After dilating, in 'Tancred,' upon the vitality of Damascus, +he observes, 'As yet the disciples of progress have not been able +exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great +faith in the future of Birkenhead.' Perhaps the true sentiment is that +the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles, +look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan +civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but +admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the +moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant. +The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> of +Sidonia. The world—at least the Gentile world—is a farce. Ninety-nine +men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and +make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and +imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly. +As for the hundredth man—the youthful Coningsby or Tancred—his +enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his +game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is +almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success. +Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need +not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may +heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a +serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in +solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite +forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a +real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a +latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from +becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however +misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a +genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a +subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition +would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh, +but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the +consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest +degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite +utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical +colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, +but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> and +perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms +melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain +twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, +if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of +'Coningsby.'</p> + +<p>The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in +different proportions. 'Sybil' is chiefly devoted to what its author +calls 'an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period +in our social history.' We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is +enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself +capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists +who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into +sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer +purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand +impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to +tabulate in blue-books,—if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense +in which Miss Brontë knew them, and still less in the sense in which +Scott knew the Borderers—he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the +effects of trades' unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might +excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in 'Tancred' we again come +upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli's special +idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in +'Coningsby.' Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led +into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the +mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer +satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager +to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> +theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He +is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural +machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet, +intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the +satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words +and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous +air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be +solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous +picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must +be admitted that Tancred's own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even +more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that +'inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality,' and that God can +only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine—a theory which has +afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, God +can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this +belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great +Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us. +He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he +himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo +Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the +later learning—a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew, +and still retains some of the 'magnetic influence'—this great man, in +whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And +thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find +ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great +revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there +is 'absolutely no sport of any kind' near Jerusalem; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> follow Tancred +where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before +the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into +ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration. +Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful +young woman comes straight out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and asks the +insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews +had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised +by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, +indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary +pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or +Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible +propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is +introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those +of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely +satirical one of interpreting Tancred's lofty dreams into political +intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are +convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the +strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion. +Can they be the guardians of the 'Asian mystery'? To our amazement it +turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phœbus of 'Lothair.' They +have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely +cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall +prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or +Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most +solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which +appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was +still untouched by time;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet +lustrous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke +from the pensive passion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead +glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his +majestic forehead.' After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia, +this person told Tancred to 'announce the sublime and solacing doctrine +of Theocratic Equality.' But when Tancred, after his startling +adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the +Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of +bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after +him—Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the +novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. 'Out laughs the stern +philosopher,' or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, 'What, +ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth.' +Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering +cry.</p> + +<p>Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amusement? +Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the +passages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a +genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was +he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to +apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his +satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies. +Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear +in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept +the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only +solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution, +by accepting the theory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> of a double consciousness, and resolving to +pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes +us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either +aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of +fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener +enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed +lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we +had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are +blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria +of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew +doctors and classical artists, mediæval monks and Anglican bishops, +perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from +Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws +dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley +actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as +arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking +cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and +original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest +realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere +mystification.</p> + +<p>But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to +observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge +into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was +composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic +tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian +Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in +which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the +'Wondrous Tale of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited +attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels—except +Scott's and Kingsley's—are a weariness to the flesh, and when the +history is so remote from any association with modern feeling, even Mr. +Disraeli's vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An +opposite error disturbs one's appreciation of 'Venetia.' Byron and +Shelley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of +fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord +Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their +prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. 'Henrietta Temple' +and 'Contarini Fleming' may count as Mr. Disraeli's most satisfactory +performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and +has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, +but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of +a poetic nature—a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative +literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of +Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple' +professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are +certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli's art be not +the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The +same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this +different field it does not produce quite the same results. One +prominent tendency connects all his stories. When 'Lothair' made its +appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the +seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter. +Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates, +distributed with such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> reckless profusion amongst the characters, +intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth, +or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would +apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every +ducal millionaire, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven.' Vast landed +estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go +together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter +of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. 'If the youth who bears this +requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the +right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king; +and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that +is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat.' The +theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or +less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though +no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is +most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in +simple splendour, in 'ropes of pearls,' in priceless diamonds, gorgeous +clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not +uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an +infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience +of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early +admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour +insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar, +as to call his admiration for dukes snobbish; but the passion is too +sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for +the society of dukes, or take a child's pleasure in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> bright colours for +their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a +dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is +thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy +concessions, it ought not to be offensive.</p> + +<p>Disraeli's pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in +their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a +frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the +ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said +parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific +type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely +fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are +members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet, +Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a +Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet +incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped +by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to +such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli's modes of +representing passion. He has frankly explained his theory. The +peasant-noble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love 'in huts where poor +men lie,' and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in +support of the principle. That is not Disraeli's view. 'Love,' he says, +'that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a +ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount +with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as +its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is +placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate +the passion that is breathed in palaces,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> amid the ennobling creations +of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst +perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods'—woods, +that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All +Disraeli's passionate lovers—and they are very passionate—are provided +with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of +exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of +a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can +detect at once the stamp of noble blood in every gesture, and a coronet +is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make +love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced +gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the +background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled +with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery +state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence +by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is +suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> +says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such +beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as +wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural +needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; +or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable +beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of +genii. The passion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to +stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash +and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects.</p> + +<p>In the 'Arabian Nights' the lover repeats a passage of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> poetry and then +faints from emotion, and Disraeli's lovers are apt to be as +demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity +makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example, +the model love-story in 'Henrietta Temple.' Told by a cold and +unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:—Ferdinand +Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army, +he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength +of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich nobleman. The +grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine's cousin, Katherine +Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the +property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement. +Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first +sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his +engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She +fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels +are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though +Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough +to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not +ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the +strength of it—a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on +false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at +last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured +of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the +greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from +Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover's +misfortunes. And then a 'happy thought'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> occurs to the two pairs of +lovers. If Miss Temple's wealth had come earlier, she might have married +Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an +exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom +marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand +Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The +moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at +the sponging-house. 'It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and +their hundreds that are ever done up,' says this keen observer. 'A nob +was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall. +Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing.'</p> + +<p>This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives +Disraeli's secret. His 'nobs' are so splendid in their surroundings, +such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown +upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be +hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be +questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues? +The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling +complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her +dark and lustrous locks. Love for such a being is the 'transcendent and +surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy.' It is a rapture +and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what +sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine, +'pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming +spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious +and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a +big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> played upon his lip.' +But 'the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories, +the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild +order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity +succeeded—a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circumambient +happiness.' In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love +which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some +warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the +domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms +of passion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as +plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to +gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is +that, while other men assume that the commonest things will take a +splendid colour as seen through a lover's eyes, Disraeli takes care that +whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring.</p> + +<p>Once more, if we consent for the time to take our author's view—and +that is the necessary condition for enjoying most literature—we must +admit the vivacity and, at times, the real eloquence of Disraeli's +rhetoric. In 'Contarini Fleming' he takes a still more ambitious flight, +and with considerable success. Fleming, the embodiment of the poetic +character, is, we might almost say, to other poets what Armine is to +other lovers. He has the same love of brilliant effects, and the same +absence of genuine tenderness. But one other qualification must be made. +We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that +amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, +and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But +his genius is so versatile that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> doubt its true destination. His +first literary performance is to write a version of 'Vivian Grey,' a +reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put +himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by +Schiller's Robbers to emulate the career of Moor; his greatest feat is a +sudden stroke of diplomacy which enables him to defeat the plans of more +veteran statesmen. And when he has gone through his initiation, wooed +and won his marvellous beauty, and lost her in an ideal island, the +final shape of his aspirations is curiously characteristic. Having +become rich quite unexpectedly—for he did not know that he was to be +the hero of one of Disraeli's novels—he resolved to 'create a +paradise.' He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful +gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace +full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes +to 'create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in +extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most +accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity.' He has already laid +the foundation of a tower which is to rise to a height of at least a +hundred and fifty feet, and is to equal in solidity and design the most +celebrated works of antiquity. Certainly the scheme is magnificent; but +it is scarcely the ambition which one might have expected from a poet. +Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic +temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible +memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with +profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary +complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the +splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a +cultivated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a +series of brilliant travellers' sketches, is no mean master of what may +be called poetical prose. His pictures of life and scenery are +vivacious, rapid, and decisive. In later years, the habit of +parliamentary oratory seems to have injured Disraeli's style. In +'Lothair' there is a good deal of slipshod verbiage. But in these +earlier stories the style is generally excellent till it becomes too +ambitious. It has a kind of metallic glitter, brilliant, sparkling with +numerous flashes of wit and fancy, and never wanting in sharpness of +effect, though it may be deficient in delicacy. Yet the author, who is +of necessity to be partly identified with the hero of 'Contarini +Fleming,' is distinctly not a poet; and the incapacity is most evident +when he endeavours to pass the inexorable limits. The distinction +between poetry and rhetoric is as profound as it is undefinable. A true +poet, as possessing an exquisite sensibility to the capacities of his +instrument, does not try to get the effects of metre when he is writing +without its restrictions and its advantages. Disraeli shows occasionally +a want of this delicacy of perception by breaking into a kind of +compromise between the two which can only be called Ossianesque. The +effect, for example, of such a passage as the following is, to my taste +at least, simply grotesque:—</p> + +<p>'Still the courser onward rushes; still his mighty heart supports him. +Season and space, the glowing soil, the burning ray, yield to the +tempest of his frame, the thunder of his nerves, and lightning of his +veins.</p> + +<p>'Food or water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise +with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that +hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the +jackal's felon cry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with +snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful +snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This is +their sole society.'</p> + +<p>And so on. Some great writers have made prose as melodious as verse; and +Disraeli can at times follow their example successfully. But one likes +to know what one is reading; and the effect of this queer expression is +as if, in the centre of a solemn march, were incorporated a few +dancing-steps, <i>à propos</i> to nothing, and then subsiding into a regular +pace. Milton wrote grand prose and grand verse; but you are never +uncertain whether a fragment of 'Paradise Lost' may or may not have been +inserted by mere accident in the 'Areopagitica.'</p> + +<p>Not to dwell upon such minor defects, nobody can read 'Contarini +Fleming' or 'Henrietta Temple' without recognising the admirable talent +and exuberant vitality of the author. They have the faults of juvenile +performances; they are too gaudy; the author has been tempted to turn +aside too frequently in search of some brilliant epigram; he has +mistaken bombast for eloquence, and mere flowery brilliance for warmth +of emotion. But we might hope that longer experience and more earnest +purpose might correct such defects. Alas! in the year of their +publication, Disraeli first entered Parliament. His next works comprised +the trilogy, where the artistic aim has become subordinate to the +political or biological; and some thirty years of parliamentary labours +led to 'Lothair,' of which it is easiest to assume that it is a +practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon +Disraeli's own youthful performances. May one not lament the degradation +of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Perhaps I ought to substitute 'Lord Beaconsfield' for Disraeli; but +I am writing of the author of 'Coningsby,' rather than of the author of +'Endymion:' and I will therefore venture to preserve the older name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'He never loved that loved not at first sight,' says Marlowe, and +Shakespeare after him. I cannot say whether this be an undesigned +literary coincidence or an appropriation. Disraeli, we know, was skilful +in the art of annexation. One or two instances may be added. Here is a +clear case of borrowing. Fuller says in the character of the good +sea-captain in the 'Holy State'—'Who first taught the water to imitate +the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, +the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the +sea is the ape of the land?' Essper George, in 'Vivian Grey,' says to +the sea: 'O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, +but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of +hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more +doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents +as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought +to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but +here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The +writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were +made of the —— government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain +of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, "call it <i>blunderment</i> or +<i>plunderment</i> or what you like—only not a <i>government</i>!"'—Coleridge's +'Essays on his own Times,' p. 893. Disraeli is sometimes credited with +the epigram in 'Lothair' about critics being authors who have failed. I +know not who said this first; but it was certainly not Disraeli. Landor +makes Porson tell Southey: 'Those who have failed as writers turn +reviewers.' The classical passage is in Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, he says, +said somewhere of a sculptor who had become discouraged: 'Redevenu +artiste <i>in partibus</i>, il avait beaucoup de succès dans les salons, il +était consulté par beaucoup d'amateurs; <i>il passa critique comme tous +les impuissants qui mentent à leurs débuts</i>.' Sainte-Beuve, naturally +indignant at a phrase aimed against his craft, if not against himself, +says that this may be true of a sculptor or painter who deserts his art +in order to talk; 'mais, dans l'ordre de la pensée, cette parole de M. +de Balzac qui revient souvent sous la plume de toute une école de jeunes +littérateurs, est à la fois (je leur en demande pardon) une injustice et +une erreur.'—'Causeries du Lundi,' vol. ii. p. 455. A very similar +phrase is to be found in a book where one would hardly look for such +epigrams, Marryat's 'King's Own.' But to trace such witticisms to their +first source is a task for 'Notes and Queries.'</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span></p> +<h2><i>MASSINGER</i></h2> + + +<p>In one of the best of his occasional essays, Kingsley held a brief for +the plaintiffs in the old case of Puritans <i>versus</i> Playwrights. The +litigation in which this case represents a minor issue has lasted for a +period far exceeding that of the most pertinacious lawsuit, and is not +likely to come to an end within any assignable limits of time. When the +discussion is pressed home, it is seen to involve fundamentally +different conceptions of human life and its purposes; and it can only +cease when we have discovered the grounds of a permanent conciliation +between the ethical and the æsthetic elements of human nature. The +narrower controversy between the stage and the Church has itself a long +history. It has left some curious marks upon English literature. The +prejudice which uttered itself through the Puritan Prynne was inherited, +in a later generation, by the High-Churchmen Collier and William Law. +The attack, it is true, may be ostensibly directed—as in Kingsley's +essay—against the abuse of the stage rather than against the stage +itself. Kingsley pays the usual tribute to Shakespeare whilst denouncing +the whole literature of which Shakespeare's dramas are the most +conspicuous product. But then, everybody always distinguishes in terms +between the use and the abuse; and the line of demarcation generally +turns out to be singularly fluctuating and uncertain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> You can hardly +demolish Beaumont and Fletcher without bringing down some of the +outlying pinnacles, if not shaking the very foundations, of the temple +sacred to Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>It would be regrettable, could one stop to regret the one-sided and +illogical construction of the human mind, that a fair judgment in such +matters seems to require incompatible qualities. Your impartial critic +or historian is generally a man who leaves out of account nothing but +the essential. His impartiality means sympathy with the commonplace, and +incapacity for understanding heroic faith and overpowering enthusiasm. +He fancies that a man or a book can be judged by balancing a list of +virtues and vices as if they were separate entities lying side by side +in a box, instead of different aspects of a vital force. On the other +hand, the vivid imagination which restores dead bones to life makes its +possessor a partisan in extinct quarrels, and as short-sighted and +unfair a partisan as the original actors. Roundheads and Cavaliers have +been dead these two centuries.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreamfooted as the shadow of a cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They flit across the ear.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet few even amongst modern writers are capable of doing justice to both +sides without first making both sides colourless. Hallam judges men in +the throes of a revolution as though they were parties in a lawsuit to +be decided by precedents and parchments, and Carlyle cannot appreciate +Cromwell's magnificent force of character without making him all but +infallible and impeccable. Critics of the early drama are equally +one-sided. The exquisite literary faculty of Charles Lamb revelled in +detecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> beauties which had been covered with the dust of oblivion +during the reign of Pope. His appreciation was intensified by that charm +of discovery which finds its typical utterance in Keats's famous sonnet. +He was scarcely a more impartial judge of Fletcher or Ford than 'Stout +Cortes' of the new world revealed by his enterprise. We may willingly +defer to his judgment of the relative value of the writers whom he +discusses, but we must qualify his judgment of their intrinsic +excellence by the recollection that he speaks as a lover. To him and +other thoroughgoing admirers of the old drama the Puritanical onslaught +upon the stage presented itself as the advent of a gloomy superstition, +ruthlessly stamping out all that was beautiful in art and literature. +Kingsley, an admirable hater, could perceive only the opposite aspect of +the phenomena. To him the Puritan protest appears as the voice of the +enlightened conscience; the revolution means the troubling of the turbid +waters at the descent of the angel; Prynne's 'Histriomastix' is the +blast of the trumpet at which the rotten and polluted walls of Jericho +are to crumble into dust. The stage, which represented the tone of +aristocratic society, rightfully perished with the order which it +flattered. Courtiers had learnt to indulge in a cynical mockery of +virtue, or to find an unholy attraction in the accumulation of +extravagant horrors. The English drama, in short, was one of those evil +growths which are fostered by deeply-seated social corruption, and are +killed off by the breath of a purer air. That such phenomena occur at +times is undeniable. Mr. Symonds has recently shown us, in his history +of the Renaissance, how the Italian literature to which our English +dramatists owed so many suggestions was the natural fruit of a society +poisoned at the roots. Nor, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> we have shaken off that spirit of +slavish adulation in which modern antiquarians and critics have regarded +the so-called Elizabethan dramatists, can we deny that there are +symptoms of a similar mischief in their writings. Some of the most +authoritative testimonials have a suspicious element. Praise has been +lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama. +Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human +passion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible +for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the +straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the +author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of +revolting motives. Such adulation ought to have disappeared with the +first fervour of rehabilitation. Much that has been praised in the old +drama is rubbish, and some of it disgusting rubbish.</p> + +<p>The question, however, remains, how far we ought to adopt either view of +the situation? Are we bound to cast aside the later dramas of the school +as simply products of corruption? It may be of interest to consider the +light thrown upon this question by the works of Massinger, nearly the +last of the writers who can really claim a permanent position in +literature. Massinger, born in 1584, died in 1639. His surviving works +were composed, with one exception, after 1620. They represent, +therefore, the tastes of the playgoing classes during the rapid +development of the great struggle which culminated in the rebellion. In +a literary sense it is the period when the imaginative impulse +represented by the great dramatists was running low. It is curious to +reflect that, if Shakespeare had lived out his legitimate allowance of +threescore years and ten, he might have witnessed the production, not +only of the first, but of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> nearly all the best works of his school; had +his life been prolonged for ten years more, he would have witnessed its +final extinction. Within these narrow limits of time the drama had +undergone a change corresponding to the change in the national mood. The +difference, for example, between Marlowe and Massinger at the opening +and the close of the period—though their births were separated by only +twenty years—corresponds to the difference between the temper of the +generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation +which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of +Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit +perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse +which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great +Queen. But it has led also to writers being too summarily classed +together who really represent very different phases in a remarkable +evolution. After making all allowances for personal idiosyncrasies, we +can still see how profoundly the work of Massinger is coloured by the +predominant sentiment of the later epoch.</p> + +<p>As little is known of Massinger's life as of the lives of most of the +contemporary dramatists who had the good or ill fortune to be born +before the days of the modern biographical mania. It is known that he, +like most of his brethren, suffered grievously from impecuniosity; and +he records in one of his dedications his obligations to a patron without +whose bounty he would for many years have 'but faintly subsisted.' His +father had been employed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke; but Massinger, +though acknowledging a certain debt of gratitude to the Herbert family, +can hardly have received from them any effective patronage. Whatever +their relations may have been, it has been pointed out by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> Professor +Gardiner<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> that Massinger probably sympathised with the political views +represented by the two sons of his father's patron, who were +successively Earls of Pembroke during the reigns of the first James and +Charles. On two occasions he got into trouble with the licenser for +attacks, real or supposed, upon the policy of the Government. More than +one of his plays contain, according to Professor Gardiner, references to +the politics of the day as distinct as those conveyed by a cartoon in +'Punch.' The general result of his argument is to show that Massinger +sympathised with the views of an aristocratic party who looked with +suspicion upon the despotic tendencies of Charles's Government, and +thought that they could manage refractory parliaments by adopting a more +spirited foreign policy. Though in reality weak and selfish enough, they +affected to protest against the materialising and oppressive policy of +the extreme Royalists. How far these views represented any genuine +convictions, and how far Massinger's adhesion implied a complete +sympathy with them, or might indicate that kind of delusion which often +leads a mere literary observer to see a lofty intention in the schemes +of a selfish politician, are questions which I am incompetent to +discuss, and which obviously do not admit of a decided answer. They +confirm, as far as they go, the general impression as to Massinger's +point of view which we should derive from his writings without special +interpretation. 'Shakespeare,' says Coleridge, 'gives the permanent +politics of human nature' (whatever they may be!), 'and the only +predilection which appears shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the +populace. Massinger is a decided Whig; Beaumont and Fletcher +high-flying, passive-obedience Tories.' The author of 'Coriolanus,' one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> +would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, +though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to +systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the +sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not +explicitly pronounced upon issues hardly revealed even to</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">The prophetic soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the wide world dreaming of things to come.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The sense of national unity evolved in the great struggle with Spain had +not yet been lost in the discord of the rising generation. The other +classifications may be accepted with less reserve. The dramatists +represented the views of their patrons. The drama reflected in the main +the sentiments of an aristocratic class alarmed by the growing vigour of +the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a +thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in 'Valentinian' are, to follow the +same guidance, so 'very slavish and reptile' that it is a trial of +charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge's rather needless +surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the +duty to God should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days +was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a +bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right +may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The +difference between Fletcher and Massinger, who were occasional +collaborators and apparently close friends (Massinger, it is said, was +buried in Fletcher's grave), was probably due to difference of +temperament as much as to the character of Massinger's family +connection. Massinger's melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of +his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must +have beset the more thoughtful members<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> of his party, as Fletcher +represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Massinger is +given to expatiating upon the text that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Subjects' lives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are not their prince's tennis-balls, to be bandied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sport away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The high-minded Pulcheria, in the 'Emperor of the East,' administers a +bitter reproof to a slavish 'projector' who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Roars out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All is the King's, his will above the laws;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who whispers in his ear that nobody should bring a salad from his garden +without paying 'gabel,' or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that, +if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a +city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Is this the way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be wash'd with widows' and wrong'd orphans' tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or his power grow contemptible?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were +written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the +vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of +Massinger's view of the political situation of the time. We see what +were the topics that were beginning to occupy men's minds.</p> + +<p>Dryden made the remark, often quoted for purposes of indignant +reprobation by modern critics, that Beaumont and Fletcher 'understood +and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better' (than +Shakespeare); 'whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartees +no poet can ever paint as they did.' It is, of course, easy enough to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> +reply that in the true sense of the word 'gentleman' Shakespeare's +heroes are incomparably superior to those of his successors; but then +this is just the sense in which Dryden did not use the word. His real +meaning indicates a very sound piece of historical criticism. Fletcher +describes a new social type; the 'King's Young Courtier' who is +deserting the good old ways of his father, the 'old courtier of the +Queen.' The change is but one step in that continuous process which has +substituted the modern gentleman for the old feudal noble; but the step +taken at that period was great and significant. The chivalrous type, +represented in Sidney's life and Spenser's poetry, is beginning to be +old-fashioned and out of place as the industrial elements of society +become more prominent. The aristocrat in the rising generation finds +that his occupation is going. He takes to those 'wild debaucheries' +which Dryden oddly reckons among the attributes of a true gentleman; and +learns the art of 'quick repartee' in the courtly society which has time +enough on its hands to make a business of amusement. The euphuism and +allied affectations of the earlier generation had a certain grace, as +the external clothing of a serious chivalrous sentiment; but it is +rapidly passing into a silly coxcombry to be crushed by Puritanism or +snuffed out by the worldly cynicism of the new generation. Shakespeare's +Henry or Romeo may indulge in wild freaks or abandon themselves to the +intense passions of vigorous youth; but they will settle down into good +statesmen and warriors as they grow older. Their love-making is a phase +in their development, not the business of their lives. Fletcher's heroes +seem to be not only occupied for the moment, but to make a permanent +profession of what with their predecessors was a passing phase of +youthful ebullience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> It is true that we have still a long step to make +before we sink to the mere <i>roué</i>, the shameless scapegrace and cynical +man about town of the Restoration. To make a Wycherley you must distil +all the poetry out of a Fletcher. Fletcher is a true poet; and the +graceful sentiment, though mixed with a coarse alloy, still repels that +unmitigated grossness which, according to Burke's famous aphorism, is +responsible for half the evil of vice. He is still alive to generous and +tender emotions, though it can scarcely be said that his morality has +much substance in it. It is a sentiment, not a conviction, and covers +without quenching many ugly and brutal emotions.</p> + +<p>In Fletcher's wild gallants, still adorned by a touch of the chivalrous; +reckless, immoral, but scarcely cynical; not sceptical as to the +existence of virtue, but only admitting morality by way of parenthesis +to the habitual current of their thoughts, we recognise the kind of +stuff from which to frame the Cavaliers who will follow Rupert and be +crushed by Cromwell. A characteristic sentiment which occurs constantly +in the drama of the period represents the soldier out of work. We are +incessantly treated to lamentations upon the ingratitude of the +comfortable citizens who care nothing for the men to whom they owed +their security. The political history of the times explains the +popularity of such complaints. Englishmen were fretting under their +enforced abstinence from the exciting struggles on the Continent. There +was no want of Dugald Dalgettys returning from the wars to afford models +for the military braggart or the bluff honest soldier, both of whom go +swaggering through so many of the plays of the time. Clarendon in his +Life speaks of the temptations which beset him from mixing with the +military society of the time. There was a large and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> increasing class, +no longer finding occupation in fighting Spaniards and searching for +Eldorado, and consequently, in the Yankee phrase, 'spoiling for a +fight.' When the time comes, they will be ready enough to fight +gallantly, and to show an utter incapacity for serious discipline. They +will meet the citizens, whom they have mocked so merrily, and find that +reckless courage and spasmodic chivalry do not exhaust the +qualifications for military success.</p> + +<p>Massinger represents a different turn of sentiment which would be +encouraged in some minds by the same social conditions. Instead of +abandoning himself frankly to the stream of youthful sentiment, he feels +that it has a dangerous aspect. The shadow of coming evils was already +dark enough to suggest various forebodings. But he is also a moraliser +by temperament. Mr. Ward says that his strength is owing in a great +degree to his appreciation of the great moral forces; and the remark is +only a confirmation of the judgment of most of his critics. It is, of +course, not merely that he is fond of adding little moral tags of +questionable applicability to the end of his plays. 'We are taught,' he +says in the 'Fatal Dowry,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By this sad precedent, how just soever<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our reasons are to remedy our wrongs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are yet to leave them to their will and power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That to that purpose have authority.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But it is, to say the least, doubtful whether anybody would have that +judicious doctrine much impressed upon him by seeing the play itself. +Nor can one rely much upon the elaborate and very eloquent defence of +his art in the 'Roman Actor.' Paris, the actor, sets forth very +vigorously that the stage tends to lay bare the snares to which youth is +exposed and to inflame a noble ambition by example. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> the discharge of +such a function deserves reward from the Commonwealth—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Actors may put in for as large a share<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As all the sects of the philosophers;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They with cold precepts—perhaps seldom read—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deliver what an honourable thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The active virtue is; but does that fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blood, or swell the veins with emulation<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be both good and great, equal to that<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which is presented in our theatres?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Massinger goes on to show, after the fashion of Jaques in 'As You Like +It,' that the man who chooses to put on the cap is responsible for the +application of the satire. He had good reasons, as we have seen, for +feeling sensitive as to misunderstandings—or, rather, too thorough +understandings—of this kind.</p> + +<p>To some dramatists of the time, who should put forward such a plea, one +would be inclined to answer in the sensible words of old Fuller. 'Two +things,' he says, 'are set forth to us in stage plays; some grave +sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vicious examples: and +with these desperate oaths, lustful talk, and riotous acts, are so +personated to the life, that wantons are tickled with delight, and feed +their palates upon them. It seems the goodness is not portrayed with +equal accents of liveliness as the wicked things are; otherwise men +would be deterred from vicious courses, with seeing the woful success +which follows them'—a result scarcely to be claimed by the actors of +the day. Massinger, however, shows more moral feeling than is expended +in providing sentiments to be tacked on as an external appendage, or +satisfied by an obedience to the demands of poetic justice. He is not +content with knocking his villains on the head—a practice in which he, +like his contemporaries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> indulges with only too much complacency. The +idea which underlies most of his plays is a struggle of virtue assailed +by external or inward temptations. He is interested by the ethical +problems introduced in the play of conflicting passions, and never more +eloquent than in uttering the emotions of militant or triumphant virtue. +His view of life, indeed, is not only grave, but has a distinct +religious colouring. From various indications, it is probable that he +was a Roman Catholic. Some of these are grotesque enough. The +'Renegado,' for example, not only shows that Massinger was, for dramatic +purposes at least, an ardent believer in baptismal regeneration, but +includes—what one would scarcely have sought in such a place—a +discussion as to the validity of lay-baptism. The first of his surviving +plays, the 'Virgin Martyr' (in which he was assisted by Dekker), is +simply a dramatic version of an ecclesiastical legend. Though it seems +to have been popular at the time, the modern reader will probably think +that, in this case at least, the religious element is a little out of +place. An angel and a devil take an active part in the performance; +miracles are worked on the stage; the unbelievers are so shockingly +wicked, and the Christians so obtrusively good, that we—the +worldly-minded—are sensible of a little recalcitration, unless we are +disarmed by the simplicity of the whole performance. Religious tracts of +all ages and in all forms are apt to produce this ambiguous effect. +Unless we are quite in harmony with their assumptions, we feel that they +deal too much in conventional rose-colour. The angelic and diabolic +elements are not so clearly discriminated in this world, and should show +themselves less unequivocally on the stage, which ought to be its +mirror. Such art was not congenial to the English atmosphere; it might +be suitable in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> Madrid; but when forcibly transplanted to the London +stage, we feel that the performance has not the simple earnestness by +which alone it can be justified. The sentiment has a certain unreality, +and the <i>naïveté</i> suggests affectation. The implied belief is got up for +the moment and has a hollow ring. And therefore, the whole work, in +spite of some eloquence, is nothing better than a curiosity, as an +attempt at the assimilation of a heterogeneous form of art.</p> + +<p>A similar vein of sentiment, though not showing itself in so undiluted a +form, runs through most of Massinger's plays. He is throughout a +sentimentalist and a rhetorician. He is not, like the greatest men, +dominated by thoughts and emotions which force him to give them external +embodiment in life-like symbols. He is rather a man of much real feeling +and extraordinary facility of utterance, who finds in his stories +convenient occasions for indulging in elaborate didactic utterances upon +moral topics. It is probably this comparative weakness of the higher +imaginative faculty which makes Lamb speak of him rather disparagingly. +He is too self-conscious and too anxious to enforce downright moral +sentiments to satisfy a critic by whom spontaneous force and direct +insight were rightly regarded as the highest poetic qualities. A single +touch in Shakespeare, or even in Webster or Ford, often reveals more +depth of feeling than a whole scene of Massinger's facile and often +deliberately forensic eloquence. His temperament is indicated by the +peculiarities of his style. It is, as Coleridge says, poetry +differentiated by the smallest possible degree from prose. The greatest +artists of blank verse have so complete a mastery of their language that +it is felt as a fibre which runs through and everywhere strengthens the +harmony, and is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> yet in complete subordination to the sentiment. With a +writer of the second order, such as Fletcher, the metre becomes more +prominent, and at times produces a kind of monotonous sing-song, which +begins to remind us unpleasantly of the still more artificial tone +characteristic of the rhymed tragedies of the next generation. Massinger +diverges in the opposite direction. The metre is felt enough and only +just enough to give a more stately step to rather florid prose. It is +one of his marks that a line frequently ends by some insignificant 'of' +or 'from,' so as to exclude the briefest possible pause in reading. +Thus, to take an example pretty much at random, the following instance +might be easily read without observing that it was blank verse at all:—</p> + +<p>'Your brave achievements in the war, and what you did for me, unspoken, +because I would not force the sweetness of your modesty to a blush, are +written here; and that there might be nothing wanting to sum up my +numerous engagements (never in my hopes to be cancelled), the great +duke, our mortal enemy, when my father's country lay open to his fury +and the spoil of the victorious army, and I brought into his power, hath +shown himself so noble, so full of honour, temperance, and all virtues +that can set off a prince; that, though I cannot render him that respect +I would, I am bound in thankfulness to admire him.'</p> + +<p>Such a style is suitable to a man whose moods do not often hurry him +into impetuous, or vivacious, or epigrammatic utterance. As the Persian +poet says of his country: his warmth is not heat, and his coolness is +not cold. He flows on in a quiet current, never breaking into foam or +fury, but vigorous, and invariably lucid. As a pleader before a +law-court—the character in which, as Mr. Ward observes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> he has a +peculiar fondness for presenting himself—he would carry his audience +along with him, but scarcely hold them in spell-bound astonishment or +hurry them into fits of excitement. Melancholy resignation or dignified +dissatisfaction will find in him a powerful exponent, but scarcely +despair, or love, or hatred, or any social phase of pure unqualified +passion.</p> + +<p>The natural field for the display of such qualities is the romantic +drama, which Massinger took from the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher, and +endowed with greater dignity and less poetic fervour. For the vigorous +comedy of real life, as Jonson understood it, he has simply no capacity; +and in his rare attempts at humour, succeeds only in being at once dull +and dirty. His stage is generally occupied with dignified lords and +ladies, professing the most chivalrous sentiments, which are +occasionally too high-flown and overstrained to be thoroughly effective, +but which are yet uttered with sufficient sincerity. They are not mere +hollow pretences, consciously adopted to conceal base motives; but one +feels the want of an occasional infusion of the bracing air of common +sense. It is the voice of a society still inspired with the traditional +sentiments of honour and self-respect, but a little afraid of contact +with the rough realities of life. Its chivalry is a survival from a past +epoch, not a spontaneous outgrowth of the most vital elements of +contemporary development. In another generation, such a tone will be +adopted by a conscious and deliberate artifice, and be reflected in mere +theatrical rant. In the past, it was the natural expression of a +high-spirited race, full of self-confidence and pride in its own +vigorous audacity. In this transitional period it has a certain hectic +flush, symptomatic of approaching decay; anxious to give a wide berth +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> realities, and most at home in the border land where dreams are only +half dispelled by the light of common day. 'Don Quixote' had sounded the +knell of the old romance, but something of the old spirit still lingers, +and can tinge with an interest, not yet wholly artificial, the lives and +passions of beings who are thus hovering on the outskirts of the living +world. The situations most characteristic of Massinger's tendency are in +harmony with this tone of sentiment. They are romances taken from a +considerable variety of sources, developed in a clearly connected series +of scenes. They are wanting in the imaginative unity of the great plays, +which show that a true poet has been profoundly moved by some profound +thought embodied in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare, +seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his +imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity +of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and +wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English +plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in +order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's +plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following +intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many +eloquent observations, though not developments of one master-thought. We +often feel that, if external circumstances had been propitious, he would +have expressed himself more naturally in the form of a prose romance +than in a drama. Nor, again, does he often indulge in those exciting and +horrible situations which possess such charms for his contemporaries. +There are occasions, it is true, in which this element is not wanting. +In the 'Unnatural Combat,' for example, we have a father killing his son +in a duel, by the end of the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> act; and when, after a succession +of horrors of the worst kind, we are treated to a ghost, 'full of +wounds, leading in the shadow of a lady, her face leprous,' and the +worst criminal is killed by a flash of lightning, we feel that we were +fully entitled to such a catastrophe. We can only say, in Massinger's +words,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">May we make use of<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This great example, and learn from it that<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There cannot be a want of power above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To punish murder and unlawful love!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The 'Duke of Milan' again culminates with a horrible scene, rivalling, +though with less power, the grotesque horrors of Webster's 'Duchess of +Malfi.' Other instances might be given of concessions to that +blood-and-thunder style of dramatic writing for which our ancestors had +a never-failing appetite. But, as a rule, Massinger inclines, as far as +contemporary writers will allow him, to the side of mercy. Instead of +using slaughter so freely that a new set of actors has to be introduced +to bury the old—a misfortune which sometimes occurs in the plays of the +time—he generally tends to a happy solution, and is disposed not only +to dismiss his virtuous characters to felicity, but even to make his +villains virtuous. We have not been excited to that pitch at which our +passions can only be harmonised by an effusion of blood, and a mild +solution is sufficient for the calmer feelings which have been aroused.</p> + +<p>This tendency illustrates Massinger's conception of life in another +sense. Nothing is more striking in the early stage than the vigour of +character of most of these heroes. Individual character, as it is said, +takes the place in the modern of fate in the ancient drama. Every man is +run in a mould of iron, and may break, but cannot bend. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> fitting +prologue to the whole literature is provided by Marlowe's Tamburlaine, +with his superhuman audacity and vast bombastic rants, the incarnation +of a towering ambition which scorns all laws but its own devouring +passion. Faustus, braving all penalties, human and divine, is another +variety of the same type: and when we have to do with a weak character +like Edward II., we feel that it is his natural destiny to be confined +in a loathsome dungeon, with mouldy bread to eat and ditch-water to +drink. The world is for the daring; and though daring may be pushed to +excess, weakness is the one unpardonable offence. A thoroughgoing +villain is better than a trembling saint. If Shakespeare's instinctive +taste revealed the absurdity of the bombastic exaggeration of such +tendencies, his characters are equally unbending. His villains die, like +Macbeth and Iago, with their teeth set, and scorn even a deathbed +repentance. Hamlet exhibits the unfitness for a world of action of the +man who is foolish enough to see two sides to every question. So again, +Chapman, the writer who in fulness and fire of thought approaches most +nearly to Shakespeare, is an ardent worshipper of pure energy of +character. His Bussy d'Ambois cannot be turned from his purpose even by +the warnings of the ghost of his accomplice, and a mysterious spirit +summoned expressly to give advice. An admirably vigorous phrase from one +of the many declamations of his hero Byron—another representative of +the same haughty strength of will—gives his theory of character:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loves t' have his sail filled with a lusty wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his rapt ship run on her side so low<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Pure, undiluted energy, stern force of will, delight in danger for its +own sake, contempt for all laws but the self-imposed, those are the +cardinal virtues, and challenge our sympathy even when they lead their +possessor to destruction. The psychology implied in Jonson's treating of +'humour' is another phase of the same sentiment. The side by which +energetic characters lend themselves to comedy is the exaggeration of +some special trait which determines their course as tyrannically as +ambition governs the character suited for tragedy.</p> + +<p>When we turn to Massinger, this boundless vigour has disappeared. The +blood has grown cool. The tyrant no longer forces us to admiration by +the fulness of his vitality, and the magnificence of his contempt for +law. Whether for good or bad, he is comparatively a poor creature. He +has developed an uneasy conscience, and even whilst affecting to defy +the law, trembles at the thought of an approaching retribution. His +boasts have a shrill, querulous note in them. His creator does not fully +sympathise with his passion. Massinger cannot throw himself into the +situation; and is anxious to dwell upon the obvious moral considerations +which prove such characters to be decidedly inconvenient members of +society for their tamer neighbours. He is of course the more in +accordance with a correct code of morality, but fails correspondingly in +dramatic force and brilliance of colour. To exhibit a villain truly, +even to enable us to realise the true depth of his villainy, one must be +able for a moment to share his point of view, and therefore to +understand the true law of his being. It is a very sound rule in the +conduct of life, that we should not sympathise with scoundrels. But the +morality of the poet, as of the scientific psychologist, is founded upon +the unflinching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> veracity which sets forth all motives with absolute +impartiality. Some sort of provisional sympathy with the wicked there +must be, or they become mere impossible monsters or the conventional +scarecrows of improving tracts.</p> + +<p>This is Massinger's weakest side. His villains want backbone, and his +heroes are deficient in simple overmastering passion, or supplement +their motives by some overstrained and unnatural crotchet. Impulsiveness +takes the place of vigour, and indicates the want of a vigorous grasp of +the situation. Thus, for example, the 'Duke of Milan,' which is +certainly amongst the more impressive of Massinger's plays, may be +described as a variation upon the theme of 'Othello.' To measure the +work of any other writer by its relation to that masterpiece is, of +course, to apply a test of undue severity. Of comparison, properly +speaking, there can be no question. The similarity of the situation, +however, may bring out Massinger's characteristics. The Duke, who takes +the place of Othello, is, like his prototype, a brave soldier. The most +spirited and effective passage in the play is the scene in which he is +brought as a prisoner before Charles V., and not only extorts the +admiration of his conqueror, but wins his liberty by a dignified avowal +of his previous hostility, and avoidance of any base compliance. The +Duke shows himself to be a high-minded gentleman, and we are so far +prepared to sympathise with him when exposed to the wiles of +Francisco—the Iago of the piece. But, unfortunately, the scene is not +merely a digression in a constructive sense, but involves a +psychological inconsistency. The gallant soldier contrives to make +himself thoroughly contemptible. He is represented as excessively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> +uxorious, and his passion takes the very disagreeable turn of posthumous +jealousy. He has instructed Francisco to murder the wife whom he adores, +in case of his own death during the war, and thus to make sure that she +could not marry anybody else. On his return, the wife, who has been +informed by the treachery of Francisco of this pleasant arrangement, is +naturally rather cool to him; whereupon he flies into a rage and swears +that he will</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Never think of curs'd Marcelia more.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His affection returns in another scene, but only in order to increase +his jealousy, and on hearing Francisco's slander he proceeds to stab his +wife out of hand. It is the action of a weak man in a passion, not of a +noble nature tortured to madness. Finding out his mistake, he of course +repents again, and expresses himself with a good deal of eloquence which +would be more effective if we could forget the overpowering pathos of +the parallel scene in 'Othello.' Much sympathy, however, is impossible +for a man whose whole conduct is so flighty, and so obviously determined +by the immediate demands of successive situations of the play, and not +the varying manifestation of a powerfully conceived character. Francisco +is a more coherent villain, and an objection made by Hazlitt to his +apparent want of motive is at least equally valid against Iago; but he +is of course but a diluted version of that superlative villain, as +Marcelia is a rather priggish and infinitely less tender Desdemona. The +failure, however, of the central figure to exhibit any fixity of +character is the real weakness of the play; and the horrors of the last +scene fail to atone for the want of the vivid style which reveals an +'intense and gloomy mind.'</p> + +<p>This kind of versatility and impulsiveness of character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> is revealed by +the curious convertibility—if one may use the word—of his characters. +They are the very reverse of the men of iron of the previous generation. +They change their state of mind as easily as the characters of the +contemporary drama put on disguises. We are often amazed at the +simplicity which enables a whole family to suppose the brother and +father to whom they have been speaking ten minutes before to be an +entire stranger, because he has changed his coat or talks broken +English. The audience must have been easily satisfied in such cases; but +it requires almost equal simplicity to accept some of Massinger's +transformations. In such a play as the 'Virgin Martyr,' a religious +conversion is a natural part of the scheme. Nor need we be surprised at +the amazing facility with which a fair Mohammedan is converted in the +'Renegado' by the summary assertion that the 'juggling Prophet' is a +cheat, and taught a pigeon to feed in his ear. Can there be strength, it +is added, in that religion which allows us to fear death? 'This is +unanswerable,' exclaims the lady, 'and there is something tells me I err +in my opinion.' This is almost as good as the sudden thought of swearing +eternal friendship in the 'Anti-Jacobin.' The hardened villain of the +first act in the same play falls into despair in the third, and, with +the help of an admirable Jesuit, becomes a most useful and exemplary +convert by the fifth. But such catastrophes may be regarded as more or +less miraculous. The versatility of character is more singular when +religious conversions are not in question. 'I am certain,' says Philanax +in the 'Emperor of the East,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A prince so soon in his disposition altered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was never heard nor read of.'<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That proves that Philanax was not familiar with Massinger's plays. The +disposition of princes and of subjects is there constantly altered with +the most satisfactory result. It is not merely that, as often happens +elsewhere, the villains are summarily forced to repent at the end of a +play, like Angelo in 'Measure for Measure,' in order to allow the +curtain to fall upon a prospect of happiness. Such forced catastrophes +are common, if clumsy enough. But there is something malleable in the +very constitution of Massinger's characters. They repent half-way +through the performance, and see the error of their ways with a facility +which we could wish to be imitated in common life. The truth seems to be +that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is +more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be +irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal +to the feelings for a change of character. Thus, for example, in the +'Picture'—a characteristic, though not a very successful play—we have +a story founded upon the temptations of a separated husband and wife. +The husband carries with him a magical picture, which grows dark or +bright according to the behaviour of the wife, whom it represents. The +husband is tempted to infidelity by a queen, herself spoilt by the +flatteries of an uxorious husband; and the wife by a couple of +courtiers, who have all the vices of Fletcher's worst heroes without any +of their attractions. The interest of the play, such as it is, depends +upon the varying moods of the chief actors, who become so eloquent under +a sense of wrong or a reflection upon the charms of virtue, that they +approach the bounds of vice, and then gravitate back to respectability. +Everybody becomes perfectly respectable before the end of the play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> is +reached, and we are to suppose that they will remain respectable ever +afterwards. They avoid tragic results by their want of the overmastering +passions which lead to great crimes or noble actions. They are really +eloquent, but even more moved by their eloquence than the spectators can +be. They form the kind of audience which would be most flattering to an +able preacher, but in which a wise preacher would put little confidence. +And, therefore, besides the fanciful incident of the picture, they give +us an impression of unreality. They have no rich blood in their veins; +and are little better than lay figures taking up positions as it may +happen, in order to form an effective tableau illustrative of an +unexceptionable moral.</p> + +<p>There is, it is true, one remarkable exception to the general weakness +of Massinger's characters. The vigour with which Sir Giles Overreach is +set forth has made him the one well-known figure in Massinger's gallery, +and the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts' showed, in consequence, more vitality +than any of his other plays. Much praise has been given, and not more +than enough, to the originality and force of the conception. The +conventional miser is elevated into a great man by a kind of inverse +heroism, and made terrible instead of contemptible. But it is equally +plain that here, too, Massinger fails to project himself fairly into his +villain. His rants are singularly forcible, but they are clearly what +other people would think about him, not what he would really think, +still less what he would say, of himself. Take, for example, the very +fine speech in which he replies to the question of the virtuous +nobleman, whether he is not frightened by the imprecations of his +victims:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Yes, as rocks are<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When foaming billows split themselves against<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> +<span class="i0">Their flinty sides; or as the moon is moved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am of a solid temper, and, like these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steer on a constant course; with mine own sword,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If called into the field, I can make that right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which fearful enemies murmur at as wrong.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, for those other piddling complaints<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breath'd out in bitterness, as when they call me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On my poor neighbour's rights or grand incloser<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of what was common to my private use,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I only think what 'tis to have my daughter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Makes me insensible to remorse or pity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the least sting of conscience.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Put this into the third person; read 'he' for 'I,' and 'his' for 'my,' +and it is an admirable bit of denunciation of a character probably +intended as a copy from life. It is a description of a wicked man from +outside; and wickedness seen from outside is generally unreasonable and +preposterous. When it is converted, by simple alteration of pronouns, +into the villain's own account of himself, the internal logic which +serves as a pretext disappears, and he becomes a mere monster. It is for +this reason that, as Hazlitt says, Massinger's villains—and he was +probably thinking especially of Overreach and Luke in 'A City +Madam'—appear like drunkards or madmen. His plays are apt to be a +continuous declamation, cut up into fragments, and assigned to the +different actors; and the essential unfitness of such a method to +dramatic requirements needs no elaborate demonstration. The villains +will have to denounce themselves, and will be ready to undergo +conversion at a moment's notice, in order to spout openly on behalf of +virtue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> as vigorously as they have spouted in transparent disguise on +behalf of vice.</p> + +<p>There is another consequence of Massinger's romantic tendency, which is +more pleasing. The chivalrous ideal of morality involves a reverence for +women, which may be exaggerated or affected, but which has at least a +genuine element in it. The women on the earlier stage have comparatively +a bad time of it amongst their energetic companions. Shakespeare's women +are undoubtedly most admirable and lovable creatures; but they are +content to take a subordinate part, and their highest virtue generally +includes entire submission to the will of their lords and masters. Some, +indeed, have an abundant share of the masculine temperament, like +Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth; but then they are by no means model +characters. Iago's description of the model woman is a cynical version +of the true Shakespearian theory. Women's true sphere, according to him, +or according to the modern slang, is domestic life; and if circumstances +force a Cordelia, an Imogen, a Rosalind, or a Viola, to take a more +active share in life, they take good care to let us know that they have +a woman's heart under their man's doublet. The weaker characters in +Massinger give a higher place to women, and justify it by a sentiment of +chivalrous devotion. The excess, indeed, of such submissiveness is often +satirised. In the 'Roman Actor,' the 'Emperor of the East,' the 'Duke of +Milan,' the 'Picture,' and elsewhere, we have various phases of uxorious +weakness, which suggest a possible application to the Court of Charles +I. Elsewhere, as in the 'Maid of Honour' and the 'Bashful Lover,' we are +called upon to sympathise with manifestations of a highflown devotion to +feminine excellence. Thus, the bashful lover, who is the hero of one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> +his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself +scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her +he exclaims—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">As Moors salute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rising sun with joyful superstition,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I could fall down and worship.—O my heart!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Phœbe breaking through an envious cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or something which no simile can express,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With wonder and astonishment, does possess me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is +liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to +any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her +through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of +this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow +himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two +lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky +enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her +interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright +cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the +offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He +resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of +Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this +catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds +that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world +as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would +involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better +provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by +Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the +advantage of poor Mariana,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> whose reunion with her hypocritical husband +certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to +intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded +as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate, +in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who +has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot, +consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature +of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not +look out for others. She may permit herself for once to return the +affection of a worthy lover; but, when he fails, she must not condescend +again to love. That would be to admit that love was a necessity of her +life, not a special act of favour for some exceptional proofs of +worthiness. Given the general tone of sentiment, I confess that, to my +taste, Massinger's solution has the merit, not only of originality, but +of harmony. It may, of course, be held that a jilted lady should, in a +perfectly healthy state of society, have some other alternative besides +a convent or an unworthy marriage. Some people, for example, may hold +that she should be able to take to active life as a lawyer or a +professor of medicine; or they may hold that love ought not to hold so +prominent a part even in a woman's life that disappointed passion should +involve, as a necessary consequence, the entire abandonment of the +world. But, taking the romantic point of view, of which it is the very +essence to set an extravagant value upon love, and remembering that +Massinger had not heard of modern doctrines of woman's rights, one must +admit, I think, that he really shows, by the best means in his power, a +strong sense of the dignity of womanhood, and that his catastrophe is +more satisfactory than the violent death or the consignment to an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> +inferior lover which would have commended themselves to most Elizabethan +dramatists.</p> + +<p>The same vein of chivalrous sentiment gives a fine tone to some of +Massinger's other plays; to the 'Bondman,' for example, and the 'Great +Duke of Florence,' in both of which the treatment of lover's devotion +shows a higher sense of the virtue of feminine dignity and purity than +is common in the contemporary stage. There is, of course, a want of +reality, an admission of extravagant motives, and an absence of dramatic +concentration, which indicate an absence of high imaginative power. +Chivalry, at its best, is not very reconcilable with common-sense; and +the ideal hero is divided, as Cervantes shows, by very narrow +distinctions from the downright madman. What was absurd in the more +vigorous manifestations of the spirit does not vanish when its energy is +lowered, and the rhetorician takes the place of the poet. But the +sentiment is still genuine, and often gives real dignity to Massinger's +eloquent speeches. It is true that, in apparent inconsistency with this +excellence, passages of Massinger are even more deeply stained than +usual with revolting impurities. Not only are his bad men and women apt +to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed +out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the +indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy +explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity, +nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong +religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with +considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch, +according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he +suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the +centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once +dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst +ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be +accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two +Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected. +But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are +superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the +structure of his plays.</p> + +<p>I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which +would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all +doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple +product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or +overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as +an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The +dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his +moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes +in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most +willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a +certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration. +But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say +honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays? +Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company, +say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is +clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt +to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic +affection?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> Is there not rather a sense that we have been all the time +in an unnatural region, where, it is true, a sense of honour and other +good qualities come in for much eloquent praise, but where, above +everything, there is a marked absence of downright wholesome +common-sense? Of course the effect is partly due to the region in which +the old dramatists generally sought for their tragic situations. We are +never quite at home in this fictitious cloudland, where the springs of +action are strange, unaccountable, and altogether different from those +with which we have to do in the workaday world. A great poet, indeed, +weaves a magic mirror out of these dream-like materials, in which he +shows us the great passions, love, and jealousy, and ambition, reflected +upon a gigantic scale. But, in weaker hands, the characters become +eccentric instead of typical: his vision simply distorts instead of +magnifying the fundamental truths of human nature. The liberty which +could be used by Shakespeare becomes dangerous for his successors. +Instead of a legitimate idealisation, we have simply an abandonment of +any basis in reality.</p> + +<p>The admission that Massinger is moral must therefore be qualified by the +statement that he is unnatural; or, in other words, that his morality is +morbid. The groundwork of all the virtues, we are sometimes told, is +strength. A strong nature may be wicked, but a weak one cannot attain +any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that +the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid +perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has +that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see +illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly +that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> plausible, +or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist +admits that vice is often pleasant, and that wicked men flourish like a +green bay-tree. He cannot be over-anxious to preach, for he feels that +the intrinsic charm of high qualities can dispense with any artificial +attempts to bolster them up by sham rhetoric, or to slur over the hard +facts of life. He will describe Iago as impartially as Desdemona, and, +having given us the facts, leave us to make what we please of them. It +is the mark of a more sickly type of morality, that it must always be +distorting the plain truth. It becomes sentimental, because it wishes to +believe that what is pleasant must be true. It makes villains condemn +themselves, because such a practice would save so much trouble to judges +and moralists. Not appreciating the full force of passions, it allows +the existence of grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a +little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and +represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial +examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes +necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest +position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is +possible is a very different one from our own.</p> + +<p>The decline of the great poetic impulse does not yet reveal itself by +sheer blindness to moral distinctions, or downright subservience to +vice. A lowered vitality does not necessarily imply disease, though it +is favourable to the development of vicious germs. The morality which +flourishes in an exhausted soil is not a plant of hardy growth and tough +fibre, nourished by rough common-sense, flourishing amongst the fierce +contests of vigorous passions, and delighting in the open air and the +broad daylight. It loves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> the twilight of romance, and creates heroes +impulsive, eccentric, extravagant in their resolves, servile in their +devotion, and whose very natures are more or less allied to weakness and +luxurious self-indulgence. Massinger, indeed, depicts with much sympathy +the virtues of the martyr and the penitent; he can illustrate the +paradox that strength can be conquered by weakness, and violence by +resignation. His good women triumph by softening the hearts of their +persecutors. Their purity is more attractive than the passions of their +rivals. His deserted King shows himself worthy of more loyalty than his +triumphant persecutors. His Roman actor atones for his weakness by +voluntarily taking part in his own punishment.</p> + +<p>Such passive virtues are undoubtedly most praiseworthy; but they may +border upon qualities not quite so praiseworthy. It is a melancholy +truth that your martyr is apt to be a little sanctimonious, and that a +penitent is generally a bit of a sneak. Resignation and self-restraint +are admirable qualities, but admirable in proportion to the force of the +opposing temptation. The strong man curbing his passions, the weak woman +finding strength in patient suffering, are deserving of our deepest +admiration; but in Massinger we feel that the triumph of virtue implies +rather a want of passion than a power of commanding it, and that +resignation is comparatively easy when it connotes an absence of active +force. The general lowering of vitality, the want of rigid dramatic +colouring, deprive his martyrs of that background of vigorous reality +against which their virtues would be forcibly revealed. His pathos is +not vivid and penetrating. Truly pathetic power is produced only when we +see that it is a sentiment wrung from a powerful intellect by keen +sympathy with the wrongs of life. We are affected by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> tears of a +strong man; but the popular preacher who enjoys weeping produces in us +nothing but contempt. Massinger's heroes and heroines have not, we may +say, backbone enough in them to make us care very deeply for their +sorrows. And they moralise rather too freely. We do not want sermons, +but sympathy, when we are in our deepest grief; and we do not feel that +anyone feels very keenly who can take his sorrows for a text, and preach +in his agony upon the vanity of human wishes or the excellence of +resignation.</p> + +<p>Massinger's remarkable flow of genuine eloquence, his real dignity of +sentiment, his sympathy for virtuous motive, entitle him to respect; but +we cannot be blind to the defect which keeps his work below the level of +his greatest contemporaries. It is, in one word, a want of vital force. +His writing is pitched in too low a key. He is not invigorating, +stimulating, capable of fascinating us by the intensity of his +conceptions. His highest range is a dignified melancholy or a certain +chivalrous recognition of the noble side of human nature. The art which +he represents is still a genuine and spontaneous growth instead of an +artificial manufacture. He is not a mere professor of deportment, or +maker of fine phrases. The days of mere affection have not yet arrived; +but, on the other hand, there is an absence of that grand vehemence of +soul which breathes in the spontaneous, if too lawless, vigour of the +older race. There is something hollow under all this stately rhetoric; +there are none of those vivid phrases which reveal minds moved by strong +passions and excited by new aspects of the world. The sails of his verse +are not, in Chapman's phrase, 'filled with a lusty wind,' but moving at +best before a steady breath of romantic sentiment, and sometimes +flapping rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> ominously for want of true impulse. High thinking may +still be there, but it is a little self-conscious, and in need of +artificial stimulant. The old strenuous spirit has disappeared, or gone +elsewhere—perhaps to excite a Puritan imagination, and create another +incarnation of the old type of masculine vigour in the hero of 'Paradise +Lost.'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Contemporary Review</i> for August 1876.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span></p> +<h2><i>FIELDING'S NOVELS</i></h2> + + +<p>A double parallel has often been pointed out between the two pairs of +novelists who were most popular in the middle of our own and of the +preceding century. The intellectual affinity which made Smollett the +favourite author of Dickens is scarcely so close as that which commended +Fielding to Thackeray. The resemblance between 'Pickwick' and 'Humphrey +Clinker,' or between 'David Copperfield' and 'Roderick Random,' consists +chiefly in the exuberance of animal spirits, the keen eye for external +oddity, the consequent tendency to substitute caricature for portrait, +and the vivid transformation of autobiography into ostensible fiction, +which are characteristic of both authors. Between Fielding and Thackeray +the resemblance is closer. The peculiar irony of 'Jonathan Wild' has its +closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' +of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's +burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong +to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent since the days +of Lady Bellaston, but the costume of the actors has changed more than +their nature. Rawdon Crawley would not have been surprised to meet +Captain Booth in a spunging-house; Shandon and his friends preserved the +old traditions of Fielding's Grub Street; Lord Steyne and Major<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> +Pendennis were survivals from the more congenial period of Lord Fellamar +and Colonel James; and the two Amelias represent cognate ideals of +female excellence. Or, to take an instance of similarity in detail, +might not this anecdote from 'The Covent Garden Journal' have rounded +off a paragraph in the 'Snob Papers?' A friend of Fielding saw a dirty +fellow in a mud-cart lash another with his whip, saying, with an oath, +'I will teach you manners to your betters.' Fielding's friend wondered +what could be the condition of this social inferior of a mud-cart +driver, till he found him to be the owner of a dust-cart driven by +asses. The great butt of Fielding's satire is, as he tells us, +affectation; the affectation which he specially hates is that of +straitlaced morality; Thackeray's satire is more generally directed +against the particular affectation called snobbishness; but the evil +principle attacked by either writer is merely one avatar of the demon +assailed by the other.</p> + +<p>The resemblance, which extends in some degree to style, might perhaps be +shown to imply a very close intellectual affinity. I am content, +however, to notice the literary genealogy as illustrative of the fact +that Fielding was the ancestor of one great race of novelists. 'I am,' +he says expressly in 'Tom Jones,' 'the founder of a new province of +writing.' Richardson's 'Clarissa'<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> and Smollett's 'Roderick Random' +were indeed published before 'Tom Jones;' but the provinces over which +Richardson and Smollett reigned were distinct from the contiguous +province of which Fielding claimed to be the first legislator.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> Smollett +(who comes nearest) professed to imitate 'Gil Blas' as Fielding +professed to imitate Cervantes. Smollett's story inherits from its +ancestry a reckless looseness of construction. It is a series of +anecdotes strung together by the accident that they all happen to the +same person. 'Tom Jones,' on the contrary, has a carefully constructed +plot, if not, as Coleridge asserts, one of the three best plots in +existence (its rivals being 'Œ dipus Tyrannus' and 'The Alchemist'). Its +excellence depends upon the skill with which it is made subservient to +the development of character and the thoroughness with which the working +motives of the persons involved have been thought out. Fielding +claims—even ostentatiously—that he is writing a history, not a +romance; a history not the less true because all the facts are +imaginary, for the fictitious incidents serve to exhibit the most +general truths of human character. It is by this seriousness of purpose +that his work is distinguished from the old type of novel, developed by +Smollett, which is but a collection of amusing anecdotes; or from such +work as De Foe's, in which the external facts are given with an almost +provoking indifference to display of character and passion. Fielding's +great novels have a true organic unity as well as a consecutive story, +and are intended in our modern jargon as genuine studies in +psychological analysis.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>Johnson, no mean authority when in his own sphere and free from personal +bias, expressly traversed this claim; he declared that there was more +knowledge of the human heart in a letter of 'Clarissa' than in the whole +of 'Tom Jones;' and said more picturesquely, that Fielding could tell +the hour by looking at the dial-plate, whilst Richardson knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> how the +clock was made.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> It is tempting to set this down as a Johnsonian +prejudice, and to deny or retort the comparison. Fielding, we might say, +paints flesh and blood; whereas Richardson consciously constructs his +puppets out of frigid abstractions. Lovelace is a bit of mechanism; Tom +Jones a human being. In fact, however, such comparisons are misleading. +Nothing is easier than to find an appropriate ticket for the objects of +our criticism, and summarily pigeon-hole Richardson as an idealist and +Fielding as a realist; Richardson as subjective and morbid, Fielding as +objective and full of coarse health; or to attribute to either of them +the deepest knowledge of the human heart. These are the mere banalities +of criticism; and I can never hear them without a suspicion that a +professor of æsthetics is trying to hoodwink me by a bit of technical +platitude. The cant phrases which have been used so often by panegyrists +too lazy to define their terms, have become almost as meaningless as the +complimentary formulæ of society.</p> + +<p>Knowledge of the human heart in particular is a phrase which covers very +different states of mind. It may mean that power by which the novelist +or dramatist identifies himself with his characters; sees through their +eyes and feels with their senses; it is the product of a rich nature, a +vivid imagination, and great powers of sympathy, and draws a +comparatively small part of its resources from external experience. The +novelist knows how his characters would feel under given conditions, +because he feels it himself; he sees from within, not from without; and +is almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> undergoing an actual experience instead of condensing his +observations on life. This is the power in which Shakespeare is supreme; +which Richardson proved himself, in his most powerful passages, to +possess in no small degree; and which in Balzac seems to have generated +fits of absolute hallucination.</p> + +<p>Fielding's novels are not without proof of this power, as no great +imaginative work can be possible without it; but the knowledge for which +he is specially conspicuous differs almost in kind. This knowledge is +drawn from observation rather than intuitive sympathy. It consists in +great part of those weighty maxims which a man of keen powers of +observation stores up in his passage through a varied experience. It is +the knowledge of Ulysses, who has known</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Cities of men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And manners, climates, councils, governments;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the knowledge of a Machiavelli, who has looked behind the screen of +political hypocrisies; the knowledge of which the essence is distilled +in Bacon's 'Essays;' or the knowledge of which Polonius seems to have +retained many shrewd scraps even when he had fallen into his dotage. +In reading 'Clarissa' or 'Eugénie Grandet' we are aware that the soul +of Richardson or Balzac has transmigrated into another shape; that the +author is projected into his character, and is really giving us one +phase of his own sentiments. In reading Fielding we are listening to +remarks made by a spectator instead of an actor; we are receiving the +pithy recollections of the man about town; the prodigal who has been +with scamps in gambling-houses, and drunk beer in pothouses and punch +with country squires; the keen observer who has judged all characters, +from Sir Robert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> Walpole down to Betsy Canning;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> who has fought the +hard battle of life with unflagging spirit, though with many falls; +and who, in spite of serious stains, has preserved the goodness of his +heart and the soundness of his head. The experience is generally given +in the shape of typical anecdotes rather than in explicit maxims; but +it is not the less distinctly the concentrated essence of observation, +rather than the spontaneous play of a vivid imagination. Like Balzac, +Fielding has portrayed the 'Comédie Humaine;' but his imagination has +never overpowered the coolness of his judgment. He shows a superiority +to his successor in fidelity almost as marked as his inferiority in +vividness. And, therefore, it may be said in passing, it is refreshing +to read Fielding at a time when this element of masculine observation +is the one thing most clearly wanting in modern literature. Our novels +give us the emotions of young ladies, which, in their way, are very +good things; they reflect the sentimental view of life, and the +sensational view, and the commonplace view, and the high philosophical +view. One thing they do not tell us. What does the world look like to +a shrewd police-magistrate, with a keen eye in his head and a sound +heart in his bosom? It might be worth knowing. Perhaps (who can tell?) +it would still look rather like Fielding's world.</p> + +<p>The peculiarity is indicated by Fielding's method. Scott,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> who, like +Fielding, generally describes from the outside, is content to keep +himself in the background. 'Here,' he says to his readers, 'are the +facts; make what you can of them.' Fielding will not efface himself; he +is always present as chorus; he tells us what moral we ought to draw; he +overflows with shrewd remarks, given in their most downright shape, +instead of obliquely suggested through the medium of anecdotes; he likes +to stop us as we pass through his portrait gallery; to take us by the +button-hole and expound his views of life and his criticisms on things +in general. His remarks are often so admirable that we prefer the +interpolations to the main current of narrative. Whether this plan is +the best must depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the author; but it goes +some way to explain one problem, over which Scott puzzles +himself—namely, why Fielding's plays are so inferior to his novels. +There are other reasons, external and internal; but it is at least clear +that a man who can never retire behind his puppets is not in the +dramatic frame of mind. He is always lecturing where a dramatist must be +content to pull the wires. Shakespeare is really as much present in his +plays as Fielding in his novels; but he does not let us know it; whereas +the excellent Fielding seems to be quite incapable of hiding his broad +shoulders and lofty stature behind his little puppet-show.</p> + +<p>There are, of course, actors in Fielding's world who can be trusted to +speak for themselves. Tom Jones, at any rate, who is Fielding in his +youth, or Captain Booth, who is the Fielding of later years, are drawn +from within. Their creator's sympathy is so close and spontaneous that +he has no need of his formulæ and precedents. But elsewhere he betrays +his method by his desire to produce his authority. You will find the +explanation of a certain line of conduct,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> he says, in 'human nature, +page almost the last.' He is a little too fond of taking down that +volume with a flourish; of exhibiting his familiarity with its pages, +and referring to the passages which justify his assertions. Fielding has +an odd touch of the pedant. He is fond of airing his classical +knowledge; and he is equally fond of quoting this imaginary code which +he has had to study so thoroughly and painfully. The effect, however, is +to give an air of artificiality to some of his minor characters. They +show the traces of deliberate composition too distinctly, though the +blemish may be forgiven in consideration of the genuine force and +freshness of his thinking. If manufactured articles, they are not +second-hand manufactures. His knowledge, unlike that of the good Parson +Adams, comes from life, not books.</p> + +<p>The worldly wisdom for which Fielding is so conspicuous had indeed been +gathered in doubtful places, and shows traces of its origin. He had been +forced, as he said, to choose between the positions of a hackney +coachman and of a hackney writer. 'His genius,' said Lady M. W. Montagu, +who records the saying, 'deserves a better fate.' Whether it would have +been equally fertile, if favoured by more propitious surroundings, is +one of those fruitless questions which belong to the boundless history +of the might-have-beens. But one fact requires to be emphasised. +Fielding's critics and biographers have dwelt far too exclusively upon +the uglier side of his Bohemian life. They have presented him as +yielding to all the temptations which can mislead keen powers of +enjoyment, when the purse is one day at the lowest ebb and the next +overflowing with the profits of some lucky hit at the theatre. Those +unfortunate yellow liveries which contributed to dissipate his little +fortune have scandalised posterity as they scandalised his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> country +neighbours.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But it is essential to remember that the history of the +Fielding of later years, of the Fielding to whom we owe the novels, is +the record of a manful and persistent struggle to escape from the mire +of Grub Street. During that period he was studying the law with the +energy of a young student; redeeming the office of magistrate from the +discredit into which it had fallen in the hands of fee-hunting +predecessors; considering seriously, and making practical proposals to +remedy, the evils which then made the lowest social strata a hell upon +earth; sacrificing his last chances of health and life to put down with +a strong hand the robbers who infested the streets of London; and +clinging with affection to his wife and children. He never got fairly +clear of that lamentable slough of despond into which his follies had +plunged him. His moral tone lost what delicacy it had once possessed; he +had not the strength which enabled Johnson to gain elevation even from +the temptations which then beset the unlucky 'author by profession.' +Some literary hacks of the day escaped only by selling themselves, body +and soul; others sank into misery and vice, like poor Boyce, a fragment +of whose poem has been preserved by Fielding, and who appears in +literary history scribbling for pay in a sack arranged to represent a +shirt. Fielding never let go his hold of the firm land, though he must +have felt through life like one whose feet are always plunging into a +hopeless quagmire. To describe him as a mere reckless Bohemian, is to +overlook the main facts of his story. He was manly to the last, not in +the sense in which man means animal; but with the manliness of one who +struggles bravely to redeem early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> errors, and who knows the value of +independence, purity, and domestic affection. The scanty anecdotes which +do duty for his biography reveal little of his true life. We know, +indeed, from a spiteful and obviously exaggerated story of Horace +Walpole's, that he once had a very poor supper in doubtful company; and +from another anecdote, of slightly apocryphal flavour, that he once gave +to 'friendship' the money which ought to have been given to the +collector of rates. But really to know the man, we must go to his books.</p> + +<p>What did Fielding learn of the world which had treated him so roughly? +That the world must be composed of fools because it did not bow before +his genius, or of knaves because it did not reward his honesty? Men of +equal ability have drawn both those and the contradictory conclusions +from experience. Human nature, as philosophers assure us, varies little +from age to age; but the pictures drawn by the best observers vary so +strangely as to convince us that a portrait depends as much upon the +artist as upon the sitter. One can see nothing but the baser, and +another nothing but the nobler, passions. To one the world is like a +masque representing the triumph of vice; and another placidly assures us +that virtue is always rewarded by peace of mind, and that even the +temporary prosperity of the wicked is an illusion. On one canvas we see +a few great heroes stand out from a multitude of pygmies; on its rival, +giants and dwarfs appear to have pretty much the same stature. The world +is a scene of unrestrained passions impelling their puppets into +collision or alliance without intelligible design; or a scene of +domestic order, where an occasional catastrophe interferes as little +with ordinary lives as a comet with the solar system. Blind fate governs +one world of the imagination, and beneficent Providence another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> The +theories embodied in poetry vary as widely as the philosophies on which +they are founded; and to philosophise is to declare the fundamental +assumptions of half the wise men of the world to be transparent +fallacies.</p> + +<p>We need not here attempt to reconcile these apparent contradictions. As +little need we attempt to settle Fielding's philosophy, for it resembles +the snakes in Iceland. It seems to have been his opinion that philosophy +is, as a rule, a fine word for humbug. That was a common conviction of +his day; but his acceptance of it doubtless indicates the limits of his +power. In his pages we have the shrewdest observation of man in his +domestic relations; but we scarcely come into contact with man as he +appears in presence of the infinite, and therefore with the deepest +thoughts and loftiest imaginings of the great poets and philosophers. +Fielding remains inflexibly in the regions of common-sense and everyday +experience. But he has given an emphatic opinion of that part of the +world which was visible to him, and it is one worth knowing. In a +remarkable conversation, reported in Boswell, Burke and Johnson, two of +the greatest of Fielding's contemporaries, seem to have agreed that they +had found men less just and more generous than they could have imagined. +People begin by judging the world from themselves, and it is therefore +natural that two men of great intellectual power should have expected +from their fellows a more than average adherence to settled principles. +Thus Johnson and Burke discovered that reason, upon which justice +depends, has less influence than a young reasoner is apt to fancy. On +the other hand, they discovered that the blind instincts by which the +mass is necessarily guided are not so bad as they are represented by the +cynics. The Rochefoucauld or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> Mandeville who passes off his smart +sayings upon the public as serious, knows better than anybody that a man +must be a fool to take them literally. The wisdom which he affects is +very easily learnt, and is more often the product of the premature +sagacity dear to youth than of a ripened judgment. Good-hearted men, at +least, like Johnson and Burke, shake off cynicism whilst others are +acquiring it.</p> + +<p>Fielding's verdict seems to differ at first sight. He undoubtedly lays +great stress upon the selfishness of mankind. He seldom admits of an +apparently generous action without showing its alloy of selfish motive, +and sometimes showing that it is a mere cloak for selfish motives. In a +characteristic passage of his 'Voyage to Lisbon' he applies his theory +to his own case. When the captain falls on his knees, he will not suffer +a brave man and an old man to remain for a moment in that posture, but +forgives him at once. He hastens, however, utterly to disclaim all +praise, on the ground that his true motive was simply the convenience of +forgiveness. 'If men were wiser,' he adds, 'they would be oftener +influenced by that motive.' This kind of inverted hypocrisy, which may +be graceful in a man's own case (for nobody will doubt that Fielding was +less guided by calculation than he asserts), is not so graceful when +applied to his neighbours. And perhaps some readers may hold that +Fielding pitches the average strain of human motive too low. I should +rather surmise that he substantially agrees with Johnson and Burke. The +fact that most men attend a good deal to their own interests is one of +the primary data of life. It is a thing at which we have no more right +to be astonished than at the fact that even saints and martyrs have to +eat and drink like other persons, or that a sound digestion is the +foundation of much moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> excellence. It is one of those facts which +people of a romantic turn of mind may choose to overlook, but which no +honest observer of life can seriously deny. Our conduct is determined +through some thirty points of the compass by our own interest; and, +happily, through at least nine-and-twenty of those points is rightfully +so determined. Each man is forced, by an unavoidable necessity, to look +after his own and his children's bread and butter, and to spend most of +his efforts on that innocent end. So long as he does not pursue his +interests wrongfully, nor remain dead to other calls when they happen, +there is little cause for complaint, and certainly there is none for +surprise.</p> + +<p>Fielding recognises, but never exaggerates, this homely truth. He has a +hearty and generous belief in the reality of good impulses, and the +existence of thoroughly unselfish men. The main actors in his world are +not, as in Balzac's, mere hideous incarnations of selfishness. The +superior sanity of his mind keeps him from nightmares, if its calmness +is unfavourable to lofty visions. With Balzac, women like Lady Bellaston +become the rule instead of the exception, and their evil passions are +the dominant forces in society. Fielding, though he recognises their +existence, tells us plainly that they are exceptional. Society, he says, +is as moral as ever it was, and given more to frivolity than to +vice<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>—a statement judiciously overlooked by some of the critics who +want to make graphic history out of his novels. Fielding's mind had +gathered coarseness, but it had not been poisoned. He sees how many ugly +things are covered by the superficial gloss of fashion, but he does not +condescend to travesty the facts in order to gratify a morbid taste for +the horrible. When he wants a good man or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> woman he knows where to find +them, and paints from Allen or his own wife with obvious sincerity and +hearty sympathy. He is less anxious to exhibit human selfishness than to +show us that an alloy of generosity is to be found even amidst base +motives. Some of his happiest touches are illustrations of this +doctrine. His villains (with a significant exception) are never +monsters. They have some touch of human emotion. No desert, according to +him, is so bare but that some sweet spring blends with its brackish +waters. His grasping landladies have genuine movements of sympathy; and +even the scoundrelly Black George, the game-keeper, is anxious to do Tom +Jones a good turn, without risk, of course, to his own comfort, by way +of compensation for previous injuries. It is this impartial insight into +the ordinary texture of human motive that gives a certain solidity and +veracity to Fielding's work. We are always made to feel that the actions +spring fairly and naturally from the character of his persons, not from +the exigencies of his story or the desire to be effective. The one great +difficulty in 'Tom Jones' is the assumption that the excellent Allworthy +should have been deceived for years by the hypocrite Blifil, and blind +to the substantial kindliness of his ward. Here we may fancy that +Fielding has been forced to be unnatural by his plot. Yet he suggests a +satisfactory solution with admirable skill. Allworthy is prejudiced in +favour of Blifil by the apparently unjust prejudice of Blifil's mother +in favour of the jovial Tom. A generous man may easily become blind to +the faults of a supposed victim of maternal injustice; and even here +Fielding fairly escapes from the blame due to ordinary novelists, who +invent impossible misunderstandings in order to bring about intricate +perplexities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span></p> + +<p>Blifil is perhaps the one case (for 'Jonathan Wild' is a satire, not a +history, or, as M. Taine fancies, a tract) in which Fielding seems to +lose his unvarying coolness of judgment; and the explanation is obvious. +The one fault to which he is, so to speak, unjust, is hypocrisy. +Hypocrisy, indeed, cannot well be painted too black, but it should not +be made impossible. When Fielding has to deal with such a character, he +for once loses his self-command, and, like inferior writers, begins to +be angry with his creatures. Instead of analysing and explaining, he +simply reviles and leaves us in presence of a moral anomaly. Blifil is +not more wicked than Iago, but we seem to understand the psychical +chemistry by which an Iago is compounded; whereas Blifil can only be +regarded as a devil (if the word be not too dignified) who does not +really belong to this world at all. The error, though characteristic of +a man whose great intellectual merit is his firm grasp of realities, and +whose favourite virtue is his downright sincerity, is not the less a +blemish. Hatred of pedantry too easily leads to hatred of culture, and +hatred of hypocrisy to distrust of the more exalted virtues. Fielding +cannot be just to motives lying rather outside his ordinary sphere of +thought. He can mock heartily and pleasantly enough at the affectation +of philosophy, as in the case where Parson Adams, urging poor Joseph +Andrews, by considerations drawn from the Bible and from Seneca, to be +ready to resign his Fanny 'peaceably, quietly, and contentedly,' +suddenly hears of the supposed loss of his own little child, and is +called upon to act instead of preaching. But his satire upon all +characters and creeds which embody the more exalted strains of feeling +is apt to be indiscriminate. A High Churchman, according to him, is a +Pharisee who prefers orthodoxy to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> virtue; a Methodist a mere +mountebank, who counterfeits spiritual raptures to impose upon dupes; a +Freethinker is a man who weaves a mask of fine phrases, under which to +cover his aversion to the restraints of religion. Fielding's religion +consists chiefly of a solid homespun morality, and he is more suspicious +of an excessive than of a defective zeal. Similarly he is a hearty Whig, +but no revolutionist. He has as hearty a contempt for the cant about +liberty<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> as Dr. Johnson himself, and has very stringent remedies to +propose for regulating the mob. The bailiff in 'Amelia,' who, whilst he +brutally maltreats the unlucky prisoners for debt, swaggers about the +British Constitution, and swears that he is 'all for liberty,' recalls +the boatman who ridiculed French slavery to Voltaire, and was carried +off next day by a pressgang. Fielding, indeed, is no fanatical adherent +of our blessed Constitution, which, as he says, has been pronounced by +some of our wisest men to be too perfect to be altered in any +particular, and which a number of the said wisest men have been mending +ever since. He hates cant on all sides impartially, though, as a sound +Whig, he specially hates Papists and Jacobites as the most offensive of +all Pharisees, marked for detestation by their taste for frogs and +French wine in preference to punch and roast beef. He is a patriotic +Briton, whose patriotism takes the genuine shape of a hearty growl at +English abuses, with a tacit assumption that things are worse elsewhere.</p> + +<p>The reflection of this quality of solid good sense, absolutely scorning +any ailment except that of solid facts, is the so-called realism of +Fielding's novels. He is, indeed, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> hearty a realist as Hogarth, whose +congenial art he is never tired of praising with all the cordiality of +his nature, and to whom he refers his readers for portraits of several +characters in 'Tom Jones.' His scenery is as realistic as a photograph. +Tavern kitchens, spunging-house parlours, the back-slums of London +streets, are drawn from the realities with unflinching vigour. We see +the stains of beer-pots and smell the fumes of stale tobacco as +distinctly as in Hogarth's engravings. He shrinks neither from the +coarse nor the absolutely disgusting. It is enough to recall the female +boxing or scratching matches which are so frequent in his pages. On one +such occasion his language seems to imply that he had watched such +battles in the spirit of a connoisseur in our own day watching less +inexpressibly disgusting prize-fights. Certainly we could wish that, if +such scenes were to be depicted, there might have been a clearer proof +that the artist had a nose and eyes capable of feeling offence.</p> + +<p>But the nickname 'realist' slides easily into another sense. The realist +is sometimes supposed to be more shallow as well as more prosaic than +the idealist; to be content with the outside where the idealist pierces +to the heart. He gives the bare fact, where his rival gives the idea +symbolised by the fact, and therefore rendering it attractive to the +higher intellect. Fielding's view of his own art is instructive in this +as in other matters. Poetic invention, he says, is generally taken to be +a creative faculty; and if so, it is the peculiar property of the +romance-writers, who frankly take leave of the actual and possible. +Fielding disavows all claim to this faculty; he writes histories, not +romances. But, in his sense, poetic invention means, not creation, but +'discovery;' that is, 'a quick,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> sagacious penetration into the true +essence of all objects of our contemplation.' Perhaps we may say that it +is chiefly a question of method whether a writer should portray men or +angels—the beings, that is, of everyday life—or beings placed under a +totally different set of circumstances. The more vital question is +whether, by one method or the other, he shows us a man's heart or only +his clothes; whether he appeals to our intellects or imaginations, or +amuses us by images which do not sink below the eye. In scientific +writings a man may give us the true law of a phenomenon, whether he +exemplifies it in extreme or average cases, in the orbit of a comet or +the fall of an apple. The romance-writer should show us what real men +would be in dreamland, the writer of 'histories' what they are on the +knifeboard of an omnibus. True insight may be shown in either case, or +may be absent in either, according as the artist deals with the deepest +organic laws or the more external accidents. The 'Ancient Mariner' is an +embodiment of certain simple emotional phases and moral laws amidst the +phantasmagoric incidents of a dream, and De Foe does not interpret them +better because he confines himself to the most prosaic incidents. When +romance becomes really arbitrary, and is parted from all basis of +observation, it loses its true interest and deserves Fielding's +condemnation. Fielding conscientiously aims at discharging the highest +function. He describes, as he says in 'Joseph Andrews,' 'not men, but +manners; not an individual, but a species.' His lawyer, he tells us, has +been alive for the last four thousand years, and will probably survive +four thousand more. Mrs. Tow-wouse lives wherever turbulent temper, +avarice, and insensibility are united; and her sneaking husband wherever +a good inclination has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> glimmered forth, eclipsed by poverty of spirit +and understanding. But the type which shows best the force and the +limits of Fielding's genius is Parson Adams. He belongs to a +distinguished family, whose members have been portrayed by the greatest +historians. He is a collateral descendant of Don Quixote, for whose +creation Fielding felt a reverence exceeded only by his reverence for +Shakespeare.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The resemblance is, of course, distant, and consists +chiefly in this, that the parson, like the knight, lives in an ideal +world, and is constantly shocked by harsh collision with facts. He +believes in his sermons instead of his sword, and his imagination is +tenanted by virtuous squires and model parsons instead of Arcadian +shepherds, or knight-errants and fair ladies. His imagination is not +exalted beyond the limits of sanity, but only colours the prosaic +realities in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> accordance with the impulses of a tranquil benevolence. If +the theme be fundamentally similar, it is treated with a far less daring +hand.</p> + +<p>Adams is much more closely related to Sir Roger de Coverley, the Vicar +of Wakefield, or Uncle Toby. Each of these lovable beings invites us at +once to sympathise with and to smile at the unaffected simplicity which, +seeing no evil, becomes half ludicrous and half pathetic in this corrupt +world. Adams stands out from his brethren by his intense reality. If he +smells too distinctly of beer and tobacco, we believe in him more firmly +than in the less full-blooded creations of Sterne and Goldsmith. Parson +Adams, indeed, has a startling vigour of organisation. Not merely the +hero of a modern ritualist novel, but Amyas Leigh or Guy Livingstone +himself, might have been amazed at his athletic prowess. He stalks ahead +of the stage-coach (favoured doubtless by the bad roads of the period) +as though he had accepted the modern principle about fearing God and +walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours. His mutton fist and the +crabtree cudgel which swings so freely round his clerical head would +have daunted the contemporary gladiators, Slack and Broughton. He shows +his Christian humility not merely by familiarity with his poorest +parishioners, but in sitting up whole nights in tavern kitchens, +drinking unlimited beer, smoking inextinguishable pipes, and revelling +in a ceaseless flow of gossip. We smile at the good man's intense +delight in a love-story, at the simplicity which makes him see a good +Samaritan in Parson Trulliber, at the absence of mind which makes him +pitch his Æschylus into the fire, or walk a dozen miles in profound +oblivion of the animal which should have been between his knees; but his +contemporaries were provoked to a horse-laugh, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> when we remark the +tremendous practical jokes which his innocence suggests to them, we +admit that he requires his whole athletic vigour to bring so tender a +heart safely through so rough a world.</p> + +<p>If the ideal hero is always to live in fancy-land and talk in blank +verse, Adams has clearly no right to the title; nor, indeed, has Don +Quixote. But the masculine portraiture of the coarse realities is not +only indicative of intellectual vigour, but artistically appropriate. +The contrast between the world and its simple-minded inhabitant is the +more forcible in proportion to the firmness and solidity of Fielding's +touch. Uncle Toby proves that Sterne had preserved enough tenderness to +make an exquisite plaything of his emotions. The Vicar of Wakefield +proves that Goldsmith had preserved a childlike innocence of +imagination, and could retire from duns and publishers to an idyllic +world of his own. Joseph Andrews proves that Fielding was neither a +child nor a sentimentalist, but that he had learnt to face facts as they +are, and set a true value on the best elements of human life. In the +midst of vanity and vexation of spirit he could find some comfort in +pure and strong domestic affection. He can indulge his feelings without +introducing the false note of sentimentalism, or condescending to tone +his pictures with rose-colour. He wants no illusions. The exemplary Dr. +Harrison in 'Amelia' held no action unworthy of him which could protect +an innocent person or 'bring a rogue to the gallows.' Good Parson Adams +could lay his cudgel on the back of a villain with hearty goodwill. He +believes too easily in human goodness, but there is not a maudlin fibre +in his whole body. He would not be the man to cry over a dead donkey +whilst children are in want of bread. He would be slower than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> the +excellent Dr. Primrose to believe in the reformation of a villain by +fine phrases, and if he fell into such a weakness, his biographer would +not, like Goldsmith, be inclined to sanction the error. A villain is +induced to reform, indeed, by the sight of Amelia's excellence, but +Fielding is careful to tell us that the change was illusory, and that +the villain ended on a gallows. We are made sensible that if Adams had +his fancies they were foibles, and therefore sources of misfortune. We +are to admire the childlike character, but not to share its illusions. +The world is not made of moonshine. Hypocrisy, cruelty, avarice, and +lust have to be stamped out by hard blows, not cured by delicate +infusion of graceful sentimentalisms.</p> + +<p>So far Fielding's portrait of an ideal character is all the better for +his masculine grasp of fact. It must, however, be admitted that he fails +a little on the other side of the contrast. He believes in a good heart, +but scarcely in very lofty motive. He tells us in 'Tom Jones'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> that +he has painted no perfect character, because he never happened to meet +one. His stories, like 'Vanity Fair,' may be described as novels without +a hero. It is not merely that his characters are imperfect, but that +they are deficient in the finer ingredients which go to make up the +nearest approximations of our imperfect natures to heroism. Colonel +Newcome was not perhaps so good a man as Parson Adams, but he had a +certain delicacy of sentiment which led him, as we may remember, to be +rather hard upon Tom Jones, and which Fielding (as may be gathered from +Bath in 'Amelia') would have been inclined to ridicule. Parson Adams is +simple enough to become a laughing-stock to the brutal, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> never +consciously rebels against the dictates of the plainest common-sense. +His theology comes from Tillotson and Hoadly; he has no eye for the +romantic side of his creed, and would be apt to condemn a mystic as +simply a fool. His loftiest aspiration is not to reform the world or any +part of it, but to get a modest bit of preferment (he actually receives +it, we are happy to think, in 'Amelia'), enough to pay for his tobacco +and his children's schooling. Fielding's dislike to the romantic makes +him rather blind to the elevated. He will not only start from the +actual, but does not conceive the possibility of an infusion of loftier +principles. The existing standard of sound sense prescribes an +impassable limit to his imagination. Parson Adams is an admirable +incarnation of certain excellent and honest impulses. He sets forth the +wisdom of the heart and the beauty of the simple instincts of an +affectionate nature. But we are forced to admit that he is not the +highest type conceivable, and might, for example, learn something from +his less robust colleague Dr. Primrose.</p> + +<p>This remark suggests the common criticism, expounded with his usual +brilliancy by M. Taine. Fielding, he tells us, loves nature, but he does +not love it 'like the great impartial artists, Shakespeare and Goethe.' +He moralises incessantly—which is wrong. Moreover, his morality appears +to be very questionable. It consists in preferring instinct to reason. +The hero is the man who is born generous as a dog is born affectionate. +And this, says M. Taine, might be all very well were it not for a great +omission. Fielding has painted nature, but nature without refinement, +poetry and chivalry. He can only describe the impetuosity of the senses, +not the nervous exaltation and the poetic rapture. Man is with him 'a +good buffalo; and perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> he is the hero required by a people which is +itself called John Bull.' In all which there is an undoubted vein of +truth. Fielding's want of refinement, for example, is one of those +undeniable facts which must be taken for granted. But, without seeking +to set right some other statements implied in M. Taine's judgment, it is +worth while to consider a little more fully the moral aspect of +Fielding's work. Much has been said upon this point by some who, with M. +Taine, take Fielding for a mere 'buffalo,' and by others who, like +Coleridge—a safer and more sympathetic critic—hold 'Tom Jones' to be, +on the whole, a sound exposition of healthy morality.</p> + +<p>Fielding, on the 'buffalo' view, is supposed to be simply taking one +side in one of those perpetual controversies which has occupied many +generations and never approaches a settlement. He prefers nature to law, +instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against +Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee +without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and +despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such +a doctrine—so absolutely stated—is rather a negation of all morality +than a lax morality. If it implies a love of generous instincts, it +denies that a man should have any regard for moral rules, which are +needed precisely in order to control our spontaneous instincts. Virtue +is amiable, but ceases to be meritorious. Nothing would be easier than +to quote passages in which Fielding expressly repudiates such a theory; +but, of course, a writer's morality must be judged by the conceptions +embodied in his work, not by the maxims scattered through it. Nor, for +the same reason, can we pay much attention to Fielding's express +assertion that he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> writing in the interests of virtue; for Smollett, +and less scrupulous writers than Smollett, have found their account in +similar protestations. Yet anybody, I think, who will compare 'Joseph +Andrews' with that intentionally most moral work, 'Pamela,' will admit +that Fielding's morality goes deeper than this. Fielding at least makes +us love virtue, and is incapable of the solecism which Richardson +commits in substantially preaching that virtue means standing out for a +higher price. That Fielding's reckless heroes have a genuine sensibility +to the claims of virtue, appears still more unmistakably when we compare +them with the heartless fine gentlemen of the Congreve school and of his +own early plays, or put the faulty Captain Booth beside such an +unredeemed scamp as Peregrine Pickle.</p> + +<p>It is clear, in short, that the aim of Fielding (whether he succeeds or +not) is the very reverse of that attributed to him by M. Taine. 'Tom +Jones' and 'Amelia' have, ostensibly at least, a most emphatic moral +attached to them; and not only attached to them, but borne in mind and +even too elaborately preached throughout. That moral is the one which +Fielding had learnt in the school of his own experience. It is the moral +that dissipation bears fruit in misery. The remorse, it is true, which +was generated in Fielding and in his heroes was not the remorse which +drives a man to a cloister, or which even seriously poisons his +happiness. The offences against morality are condoned too easily, and +the line between vice and virtue drawn in accordance with certain +distinctions which even Parson Adams could scarcely have approved. Vice, +he seems to say, is altogether objectionable only when complicated by +cruelty or hypocrisy. But if Fielding's moral sense is not very +delicate, it is vigorous. He hates most heartily what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> he sees to be +wrong, though his sight might easily be improved in delicacy of +discrimination. The truth is simply that Fielding accepted that moral +code which the better men of the world in his time really acknowledged, +as distinguished from that by which they affected to be bound. That so +wide a distinction should generally exist between these codes is a +matter for deep regret. That Fielding in his hatred for humbug should +have condemned purity as puritanical is clearly lamentable. The +confusion, however, was part of the man, and, as already noticed, shows +itself in one shape or other throughout his work. But it would be unjust +to condemn him upon that ground as antagonistic or indifferent to +reasonable morality. His morality is at the superior antipodes from the +cynicism of a Wycherley; and far superior to the prurient sentimentalism +of Sterne or the hot-pressed priggishness of Richardson, or even the +reckless Bohemianism of Smollett.</p> + +<p>There is a deeper question, however, beneath this discussion. The +morality of those 'great impartial artists' of whom M. Taine speaks +differs from Fielding's in a more serious sense. The highest morality of +a great work of art depends upon the power with which the essential +beauty and ugliness of virtue and vice are exhibited by an impartial +observer. The morality, for example, of Goethe and Shakespeare appears +in the presentation of such characters as Iago and Mephistopheles. The +insight of true genius shows us by such examples what is the true +physiology of vice; what is the nature of the man who has lost all faith +in virtue and all sympathy with purity and nobility of character. The +artist of inferior rank tries to make us hate vice by showing that it +comes to a bad end precisely because he has an adequate perception of +its true nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> He can see that a drunkard generally gets into debt or +incurs an attack of <i>delirium tremens</i>, but he does not exhibit the +moral disintegration which is the underlying cause of the misfortune, +and which may be equally fatal, even if it happens to evade the penalty. +The distinction depends upon the power of the artist to fulfil +Fielding's requirement of penetrating to the essence of the objects of +his contemplation. It corresponds to the distinction in philosophy +between a merely prudential system of ethics—the system of the gallows +and the gaol—and the system which recognises the deeper issues +perceptible to a fine moral sense.</p> + +<p>Now, in certain matters, Fielding's morality is of the merely prudential +kind. It resembles Hogarth's simple doctrine that the good apprentice +will be Lord Mayor and the bad apprentice get into Newgate. So shrewd an +observer was indeed well aware, and could say very forcibly,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> that +virtue in this world might sometimes lead to poverty, contempt, and +imprisonment. He does not, like some novelists, assume the character of +a temporal Providence, and knock his evildoers on the head at the end of +the story. He shows very forcibly that the difficulties which beset poor +Jones and Booth are not to be fairly called accidents, but are the +difficulties to which bad conduct generally leads a man, and which are +all the harder when not counterbalanced by a clear conscience. He can +even describe with sympathy such a character as poor Atkinson in +'Amelia,' whose unselfish love brings him more blows than favours of +fortune. But it is true that he is a good deal more sensible to what are +called the prudential sanctions of virtue, at least of a certain +category of virtues, than to its essential beauty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> So far the want of +refinement of which M. Taine speaks does, in fact, lower, and lower very +materially, his moral perception. A man of true delicacy could never +have dragged Tom Jones into his lowest degradation without showing more +forcibly his abhorrence of his loose conduct. This is, as Colonel +Newcome properly points out, the great and obvious blot upon the story, +which no critics have missed, and we cannot even follow the leniency of +Coleridge, who thinks that a single passage introduced to express +Fielding's real judgment would have remedied the mischief. It is too +obvious to be denied without sophistry that Tom, though he has many good +feelings, and can preach very edifying sermons to his less scrupulous +friend Nightingale, requires to be cast in a different mould. His whole +character should have been strung to a higher pitch to make us feel that +such degradation would not merely have required punishment to restore +his self-complacency, but have left a craving for some thorough moral +ablution.</p> + +<p>Granting unreservedly all that may be urged upon this point, we may +still agree with the judgment pronounced by the most congenial critics. +Fielding's pages reek too strongly of tobacco; they are apt to turn +delicate stomachs; but the atmosphere is, on the whole, healthy and +bracing. No man can read them without prejudice and fail to recognise +the fact that he has been in contact with something much higher than a +'good buffalo.' He has learnt to know a man, not merely full of animal +vigour, not merely stored with various experience of men and manners, +but also in the main sound and unpoisoned by the mephitic vapours which +poisoned the atmosphere of his police-office. If the scorn of hypocrisy +is too fully emphasised, and the sensitiveness to ugly and revolting +objects too much deadened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> by a rough life, yet nobody could be more +heartily convinced of the beauty and value of those solid domestic +instincts on which human happiness must chiefly depend. Put Fielding +beside the modern would-be satirists who make society—especially French +society<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>—a mere sink of nastiness, or beside the more virtuous +persons whose favourite affectation is simplicity, and who labour most +spasmodically to be masculine, and his native vigour, his massive +common-sense, his wholesome views of men and manners, stand out in solid +relief. Certainly he was limited in perception, and not so elevated in +tone as might be desired; but he is a fitting representative of the +stalwart vigour and the intellectual shrewdness evident in the best men +of his time. The English domestic life of the period was certainly far +from blameless, and anything but refined; but if we have gained in some +ways, we are hardly entitled to look with unqualified disdain upon the +rough vigour of our beer-drinking, beef-eating ancestors.</p> + +<p>We have felt, indeed, the limitations of Fielding's art more clearly +since English fiction found a new starting-point in Scott. Scott made us +sensible of many sources of interest to which Fielding was naturally +blind. He showed us especially that a human being belonged to a society +going through a long course of historical development, and renewed the +bonds with the past which had been rudely snapped in Fielding's period. +Fielding only deals, it may be roughly said, with men as members of a +little family circle, whereas Scott shows them as members of a nation +rich in old historical traditions, related to the past and the future, +and to the external nature in which it has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> developed. A wider set +of forces is introduced into our conception of humanity, and the +romantic element, which Fielding ignored, comes again to life. Scott, +too, was a greater man than Fielding, of wider sympathy, loftier +character, and, not the least, with an incomparably keener ear for the +voices of the mountains, the sea, and the sky. The more Scott is +studied, the higher, I believe, the opinion that we shall form of some +of his powers. But in one respect Fielding is his superior. It is a kind +of misnomer which classifies all Scott's books as novels. They are +embodied legends and traditions, descriptions of men, and races, and +epochs of history; but many of them are novels, as it were, by accident, +and modern readers are often disappointed because the name suggests +misleading associations. They expect to sympathise with Scott's heroes, +whereas the heroes are generally dropped in from without, just to give +ostensible continuity to the narrative. The apparent accessories are +really the main substance. The Jacobites and not Waverley, the +Borderers, not Mr. Van Beest Brown, the Covenanters, not Morton or Lord +Evandale, are the real subject of Scott's best romances. Now Fielding is +really a novelist in the more natural sense. We are interested, that is, +by the main characters, though they are not always the most attractive +in themselves. We are really absorbed by the play of their passions and +the conflict of their motives, and not merely taking advantage of the +company to see the surrounding scenery or phases of social life. In this +sense Fielding's art is admirable, and surpassed that of all his English +predecessors as of most of his successors. If the light is concentrated +in a narrow focus, it is still healthy daylight. So long as we do not +wish to leave his circle of ideas, we see little fault in the vigour +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> which he fulfils his intention. And therefore, whatever Fielding's +other faults, he is beyond comparison the most faithful and profound +mouthpiece of the passions and failings of a society which seems at once +strangely remote and yet strangely near to us. When seeking to solve +that curious problem which is discussed in one of Hazlitt's best +essays—what characters one would most like to have met?—and running +over the various claims of a meeting at the Mermaid with Shakespeare and +Jonson, a 'neat repast of Attic taste' with Milton, a gossip at Button's +with Addison and Steele, a club-dinner with Johnson and Burke, a supper +with Lamb, or (certainly the least attractive) an evening at Holland +House, I sometimes fancy that, after all, few things would be pleasanter +than a pipe and a bowl of punch with Fielding and Hogarth. It is true +that for such a purpose I provide myself in imagination with a new set +of sturdy nerves, and with a digestion such as that which was once equal +to the horrors of an undergraduates' 'wine party.' But, having made that +trifling assumption, I fancy that there would be few places where one +would hear more good motherwit, shrewder judgments of men and things, or +a sounder appreciation of those homely elements of which human life is +in fact chiefly composed. Common-sense in the highest degree—whether we +choose to identify it or contrast it with genius—is at least one of the +most enduring and valuable of qualities in literature as everywhere +else; and Fielding is one of its best representatives. But perhaps one +is unduly biassed by the charm of a complete escape in imagination from +the thousand and one affectations which have grown up since Fielding +died and we have all become so much wiser and more learned than all +previous generations.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Richardson wrote the first part of 'Pamela' between November 10, +1739, and January 10, 1740. 'Joseph Andrews' appeared in 1742. The first +four volumes of 'Clarissa Harlowe' and 'Roderick Random' appeared in the +beginning of 1748; 'Tom Jones' in 1749.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See some appreciative remarks upon this in Scott's preface to the +<i>Monastery</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It is rather curious that Richardson uses the same comparison to +Miss Fielding. He assures her that her brother only knew the outside of +a clock, whilst she knew all the finer springs and movements of its +inside. See <i>Richardson's Correspondence</i>, ii. 105.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Fielding blundered rather strangely in the celebrated Betsy Canning +case, as Balzac did in the 'Affaire Peytel'; but the story is too long +for repetition in this place. The trials of Miss Canning and her +supposed kidnappers are amongst the most amusing in the great collection +of State Trials. See vol. xix. of the 8vo edition. Fielding's defence of +his own conduct in the matter is reprinted in his 'Miscellanies and +Poems,' being the supplementary volume of the last collected edition of +his works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> They were really the property not of Fielding but of the once +famous '<i>beau</i> Fielding.' See <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See <i>Tom Jones</i>, book xiv. chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See <i>Voyage to Lisbon</i> (July 21) for some very good remarks upon +this word, which, as he says, no two men understand in the same sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> In his interesting Life of Godwin, Mr. Paul claims for his hero (I +dare say rightly) that he was the first English writer to give a +'lengthy and appreciative notice' of 'Don Quixote.' But when he infers +that Godwin was also the first English writer who recognised in +Cervantes a great humourist, satirist, moralist, and artist, he seems to +me to overlook Fielding and others. So Warton in his essay on 'Pope' +calls 'Don Quixote' the 'most original and unrivalled work of modern +times.' The book must have been popular in England from its publication, +as we know from the preface to Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the +Burning Castle'; and numerous translations and imitations show that +Cervantes was always enjoyed, if not criticised. Fielding's frequent +references to 'Don Quixote' (to say nothing of his play, 'Don Quixote in +England') imply an admiration fully as warm as that of Godwin. 'Don +Quixote,' says Fielding, is more worthy the name of history than +Mariana, and he always speaks of Cervantes in the tone of an +affectionate disciple. Fielding, I will add, seems to me to have admired +Shakespeare more heartily and intelligently than ninety-nine out of a +hundred modern supporters of Shakespeare societies; though these +gentlemen are never happier than when depreciating English +eighteenth-century critics to exalt vapid German philosophising. +Fielding's favourite play seems from his quotations to have been +'Othello.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Book x. chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Tom Jones</i>, book xv. chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> For Fielding's view of the French novels of his day see <i>Tom +Jones</i>, book xiii. chap. ix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span></p> +<h2><i>COWPER AND ROUSSEAU</i></h2> + + +<p>Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Cowper—considered as the type of domestic +poets—has recently been translated for the benefit of English readers. +It is interesting to know on the highest authority what are the +qualities which may recommend a writer, so strongly tinged by local +prejudices, to the admiration of a different race and generation. The +gulf which separates the Olney of a century back from modern Paris is +wide enough to give additional value to the generous appreciation of the +critic. I have not the presumption to supplement or correct any part of +his judgment. It is enough to remark briefly that Cowper's immediate +popularity was, as is usually the case, due in part to qualities which +have little to do with his more enduring reputation. Sainte-Beuve dwells +with special fondness upon his pictures of domestic and rural life. He +notices, of course, the marvellous keenness of his pathetic poems; and +he touches, though with some hint that national affinity is necessary to +its full appreciation, upon the playful humour which immortalised John +Gilpin, and lights up the poet's most charming letters. Something, +perhaps, might still be said by a competent critic upon the singular +charm of Cowper's best style. A poet, for example, might perhaps tell +us, though a prosaic person cannot, what is the secret of the impression +made by such a poem as the 'Wreck of the Royal George.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> Given an +ordinary newspaper paragraph about wreck or battle, turn it into the +simplest possible language, do not introduce a single metaphor or figure +of speech, indulge in none but the most obvious of all reflections—as, +for example, that when a man is once drowned he won't win any more +battles—and produce as the result a copy of verses which nobody can +ever read without instantly knowing them by heart. How Cowper managed to +perform such a feat, and why not one poet even in a hundred can perform +it, are questions which might lead to some curious critical speculation.</p> + +<p>The qualities, however, which charm the purely literary critic do not +account for the whole of Cowper's influence. A great part of his +immediate, and some part of his more enduring success, have been clearly +owing to a different cause. On reading Johnson's 'Lives,' Cowper +remarked, rather uncharitably, that there was scarcely one good man +amongst the poets. Few poets, indeed, shared those religious views which +commended him more than any literary excellence to a large class of +readers. Religious poetry is generally popular out of all proportion to +its æsthetic merits. Young was but a second-rate Pope in point of +talent; but probably the 'Night Thoughts' have been studied by a dozen +people for one who has read the 'Essay on Man' or the 'Imitations of +Horace.' In our own day, nobody, I suppose, would hold that the +popularity of the 'Christian Year' has been strictly proportioned to its +poetical excellence; and Cowper's vein of religious meditation has +recommended him to thousands who, if biassed at all, were quite +unconsciously biassed by the admirable qualities which endeared him to +such a critic as Sainte-Beuve. His own view was frequently and +unequivocally expressed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> He says over and over again—and his entire +sincerity lifts him above all suspicion of the affected +self-depreciation of other writers—that he looked upon his poetical +work as at best innocent trifling, except so far as his poems were +versified sermons. His intention was everywhere didactic—sometimes +annoyingly didactic—and his highest ambition was to be a useful +auxiliary to the prosaic exhortations of Doddridge, Watts, or his friend +Newton. His religion, said some people, drove him mad. Even a generous +critic like Mr. Stopford Brooke cannot refrain from hinting that his +madness was in some part due to the detested influence of Calvinism. In +fact, it may be admitted that Newton—who is half inclined to boast that +he has a name for driving people mad—scarcely showed his judgment in +setting a man who had already been in confinement to write hymns which +at times are the embodiment of despair. But it is obviously contrary to +the plainest facts to say that Cowper was driven mad by his creed. His +first attack preceded his religious enthusiasm; and a gentleman who +tries to hang himself because he has received a comfortable appointment +for life, is in a state of mind which may be explained without reference +to his theological views. It would be truer to say that when Cowper's +intellect was once unhinged, he found a congenial expression for the +tortures of his soul in the imagery provided by the sternest of +Christian sects. But neither can this circumstance be alleged as in +itself disparaging to the doctrines thus misapplied. A religious belief +which does not provide language for the darkest moods of the human mind, +for profound melancholy, torturing remorse and gloomy foreboding, is a +religion not calculated to lay a powerful grasp upon the imaginations of +mankind. Had Cowper been a Roman Catholic, the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> anguish of mind +might have driven him to seek relief in the recesses of some austere +monastery. Had he, like Rousseau, been a theoretical optimist, he would, +like Rousseau, have tortured himself with the conflict between theory +and fact—between the world as it might be and the corrupt and tyrannous +world as it is—and have held that all men were in a conspiracy to rob +him of his peace. The chief article of Rousseau's rather hazy creed was +the duty of universal philanthropy, and Rousseau fancied himself to be +the object of all men's hatred. Similarly, Cowper, who held that the +first duty of man was the love of God, fancied that some mysterious +cause had made him the object of the irrevocable hatred of his Creator. +With such fancies, reason and creeds which embody reason have nothing to +do except to give shape to the instruments of self-torture. The cause of +the misery is the mind diseased. You can no more raze out its rooted +troubles by arguing against the reality of the phantoms which it +generates than cure any other delirium by the most irrefragable logic.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve makes some remarks upon this analogy between Rousseau and +Cowper. The comparison suggests some curious considerations as to the +contrast and likeness of the two cases represented. Some personal +differences are, of course, profound and obvious. Cowper was as +indisputably the most virtuous man, as Rousseau the greatest +intellectual power. Cowper's domestic life was as beautiful as +Rousseau's was repulsive. Rousseau, moreover, was more decidedly a +sentimentalist than Cowper, if by sentimentalism we mean that +disposition which makes a luxury of grief, and delights in poring over +its own morbid emotions. Cowper's tears are always wrung from him by +intense anguish of soul, and never, as is occasionally the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> case with +Rousseau, suggests that the weeper is proud of his excessive tenderness. +Nevertheless, it is probably true, as Mr. Lowell says, that Cowper is +the nearest congener of Rousseau in our language. The two men, of +course, occupy in one respect an analogous literary position. We +habitually assign to Cowper an important place—though of course a +subordinate place to Rousseau—in bringing about the reaction against +the eighteenth-century code of taste and morality. In each case it would +generally be said that the change indicated was a return to nature and +passion from the artificial coldness of the dominant school. That +reaction, whatever its precise nature, took characteristically different +forms in England and in France; and it is as illustrating one of the +most important distinctions that I propose to say a few words upon the +contrast thus exhibited.</p> + +<p>Return to Nature! That was the war-cry which animated the Lake school in +their assault upon the then established authority. Pope, as they held, +had tied the hands of English poets by his jingling metres and frigid +conventionalities. The muse—to make use of the old-fashioned +phrase—had been rouged and bewigged, and put into high-heeled boots, +till she had lost the old majestic freedom of gait and energy of action. +Let us go back to our ancient school, to Milton and Shakespeare and +Spenser and Chaucer, and break the ignoble fetters imported from the +pseudo-classicists of France. These and similar phrases, repeated and +varied in a thousand forms, have become part of the stock-in-trade of +literary historians, and are put forward so fluently that we sometimes +forget to ask what it is precisely that they mean. Down to Milton, it is +assumed, we were natural; then we became artificial; and with the +Revolution we became natural again. That a theory so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> generally received +and so consciously adopted by the leaders of the new movement must have +in it a considerable amount of truth, is not to be disputed. But it is +sometimes not easy to interpret it into very plain language. The method +of explaining great intellectual and social movements by the phrase +'reaction' is a very tempting one, for the simple reason that it enables +us to effect a great saving of thought. The change is made to explain +itself. History becomes a record of oscillations; we are always swinging +backwards and forwards, pendulum fashion, from one extreme to another. +The courtiers of Charles II. were too dissolute because the Puritans +were too strict; Addison and Steele were respectable because Congreve +and Wycherley were licentious; Wesley was zealous because the Church had +become indifferent; the Revolution of 1789 was a reaction against the +manners of the last century, and the Revolution in running its course +set up a reaction against itself. Now it is easy enough to admit that +there is some truth in this theory. Every great man who moves his race +profoundly is of necessity protesting against the worst evils of the +time, and it is as true as a copy-book that zeal leads to extremes, and +one extreme to its opposite. A river flowing through a nearly level +plain turns its concavity alternately to the east and west, and we may +fairly explain each bend by the fact that the previous bend was in the +opposite direction. But that does not explain why the river flows +down-hill, nor show which direction tends downwards. We may account for +trifling oscillations, not for the main current. Nor does it seem at +first a self-evident proposition that vice, for example, necessarily +generates over-strictness. A man is not always a Pharisee because his +father has been a sinner. In fact, the people who talk so fluently about +reaction fall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> back whenever it suits them upon the inverse theory. If a +process happens to be continuous, the reason is as simple and +satisfactory as in the opposite case. A man is dissolute, they will tell +us, because his father was dissolute; just as they will tell us, in the +opposite case, that he was dissolute because his father was strict. +Obviously, the mere statement of a reaction is not by itself +satisfactory. We want to know why there should have been a reaction; why +the code of morals which satisfied one generation did not satisfy its +successors; why the coming man was repelled rather than attracted; what +it was that made Pope array himself in a wig instead of appreciating the +noble freedom of his predecessors; and why, again, at a given period men +became tired of the old wig business. When we have solved, or +approximated to a solution of, that problem, we shall generally find, I +suspect, that the action and reaction are generally more superficial +phenomena than we suppose, and that the great processes of evolution are +going on beneath the surface comparatively undisturbed by the changes +which first attract our notice. Every man naturally exaggerates the +share of his education due to himself. He fancies that he has made a +wonderful improvement upon his father's views, perhaps by reversing the +improvement made by the father on the grandfather's. He does not see, +what is plain enough to a more distant generation, that in reality each +generation is most closely bound to its nearest predecessors.</p> + +<p>There is, too, a special source of ambiguity in the catchword used by +the revolutionary school. They spoke of a return to nature. What, to ask +once more a very troublesome question, is meant by nature? Does it mean +inanimate nature? If so, is a love of nature clearly good or 'natural?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> +Was Wordsworth justifiable <i>primâ facie</i> for telling us to study +mountains rather than Pope for announcing that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The proper study of mankind is man?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is it not more natural to be interested in men than in mountains? Does +nature include man in his natural state? If so, what is the natural +state of man? Is the savage the man of nature, or the unsophisticated +peasant, or the man whose natural powers are developed to the highest +pitch? Is a native of the Andaman Islands the superior of Socrates? If +you admit that Socrates is superior to the savage, where do you draw the +line between the natural and the artificial? If a coral reef is natural +and beautiful because it is the work of insects, and a town artificial +and ugly because made by man, we must reject as unnatural all the best +products of the human race. If you distinguish between different works +of man, the distinction becomes irrelevant, for the products to which we +most object are just as natural, in any assignable sense of the word, as +those which we most admire. The word natural may indeed be used as +equivalent simply to beneficial or healthy; but then it loses all value +as an implicit test of what is and what is not beneficial. Probably, +indeed, some such sense was floating before the minds of most who have +used the term. We shall generally find a vague recognition of the fact +that there is a continuous series of integrating and disintegrating +processes; that some charges imply a normal development of the social or +individual organism leading to increased health and strength, whilst +others are significant of disease and ultimate obliteration or decay of +structure. Thus the artificial style of the Pope school, the appeals to +the muse, the pastoral affectation, and so forth, may be called +unnatural, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> the philosophy of that style is the retention of +obsolete symbols after all vitality has departed, and when they +consequently become mere obstructions, embarrassing the free flow of +emotion which they once stimulated.</p> + +<p>But, however this may be, it is plain that the very different senses +given to the word nature by different schools of thought were +characteristic of profoundly different conceptions of the world and its +order. There is a sense in which it may be said with perfect accuracy +that the worship of nature, so far from being a fresh doctrine of the +new school, was the most characteristic tenet of the school from which +it dissented. All the speculative part of the English literature in the +first half of the eighteenth century is a prolonged discussion as to the +meaning and value of the law of nature, the religion of nature, and the +state of nature. The deist controversy, which occupied every one of the +keenest thinkers of the time, turned essentially upon this problem: +granting that there is an ascertainable and absolutely true religion of +nature, what is its relation to revealed religion? That, for example, is +the question explicitly discussed in Butler's typical book, which gives +the pith of the whole orthodox argument, and the same speculation +suggested the theme of Pope's 'Essay on Man,' which, in its occasional +strength and its many weaknesses, is perhaps the most characteristic, +though far from the most valuable product of the time. The religion of +nature undoubtedly meant something very different with Butler or Pope +from what it would have meant with Wordsworth or Coleridge—something so +different, indeed, that we might at first say that the two creeds had +nothing in common but the name. But we may see from Rousseau that there +was a real and intimate connection. Rousseau's philosophy, in fact, is +taken bodily from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> teaching of his English predecessors. His +celebrated profession of faith through the lips of the Vicaire Savoyard, +which delighted Voltaire and profoundly influenced the leaders of the +French Revolution, is in fact the expression of a deism identical with +that of Pope's essay.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The political theories of the Social Contract +are founded upon the same base which served Locke and the English +political theorists of 1688; and are applied to sanction the attempt to +remodel existing societies in accordance with what they would have +called the law of nature. It is again perfectly true that Rousseau drew +from his theory consequences which inspired Robespierre, and would have +made Locke's hair stand on end; and that Pope would have been +scandalised at the too open revelation of his religious tendencies. It +is also true that Rousseau's passion was of infinitely greater +importance than his philosophy. But it remains true that the logical +framework into which his theories were fitted came to him straight from +the same school of thought which was dominant in England during the +preceding period. The real change effected by Rousseau was that he +breathed life into the dead bones. The English theorists, as has been +admirably shown by Mr. Morley in his 'Rousseau,' acted after their +national method. They accepted doctrines which, if logically developed, +would have led to a radical revolution, and therefore refused to develop +them logically. They remained in their favourite attitude of compromise, +and declined altogether to accommodate practice to theory. Locke's +political principles fairly carried out implied universal suffrage, the +absolute supremacy of the popular will, and the abolition of class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span> +privileges. And yet it never seems to have occurred to him that he was +even indirectly attacking that complex structure of the British +Constitution, rooted in history, marked in every detail by special +conditions of growth, and therefore anomalous to the last degree when +tried by <i>à priori</i> reasoning, of which Burke's philosophical eloquence +gives the best explanation and apology. Similarly, Clarke's theology is +pure deism, embodied in a series of propositions worked out on the model +of a mathematical text-book, and yet in his eyes perfectly consistent +with an acceptance of the orthodox dogmas which repose upon traditional +authority. This attitude of mind, so intelligible on this side of the +Channel, was utterly abhorrent to Rousseau's logical instincts. +Englishmen were content to keep their abstract theories for the closet +or the lecture-room, and dropped them as soon as they were in the pulpit +or in Parliament. Rousseau could give no quarter to any doctrine which +could not be fitted into a symmetrical edifice of abstract reasoning. He +carried into actual warfare the weapons which his English teachers had +kept for purposes of mere scholastic disputation. A monarchy, an order +of privileged nobility, a hierarchy claiming supernatural authority, +were not logically justifiable on the accepted principles. Never mind, +was the English answer, they work very well in practice; let us leave +them alone. Down with them to the ground! was Rousseau's passionate +retort. Realise the ideal; force practice into conformity with theory; +the voice of the poor and the oppressed is crying aloud for vengeance; +the divergence of the actual from the theoretical is no mere trifle to +be left to the slow action of time; it means the misery of millions and +the corruption of their rulers. The doctrine which had amused +philosophers was to become the war-cry of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> masses; the men of '89 +were at no loss to translate into precepts suited for the immediate +wants of the day the doctrines which found their first utterance in the +glow of his voluminous eloquence; and the fall of the Bastille showed +the first vibrations of the earthquake which is still shaking the soil +of Europe.</p> + +<p>It is easy, then, to give a logical meaning to Rousseau's return to +nature. The whole inanimate world, so ran his philosophy, is perfect, +and shows plainly the marks of the Divine workmanship. All evil really +comes from man's abuse of freewill. Mountains, and forests, and seas, +all objects which have not suffered from his polluting touch, are +perfect and admirable. Let us fall down and worship. Man, too, himself, +as he came from his Creator's hands, is perfect. His 'natural'—that is, +original—impulses are all good; and in all men, in all races and +regions of the earth, we find a conscience which unerringly +distinguishes good from evil, and a love of his fellows which causes man +to obey the dictates of his conscience. And yet the world, as we see it, +is a prison or a lazar-house. Disease and starvation make life a burden, +and poison the health of the coming generations; those whom fortune has +placed above the masses make use of their advantages to harden their +hearts, and extract means of selfish enjoyment from the sufferings of +their fellow-creatures. What is the source of this heartrending discord? +The abuse of men's freewill; that is, of the mysterious power which +enables us to act contrary to the dictates of nature. What is the best +name for the disease which it generates? Luxury and corruption—the two +cant objects of denunciations which were as popular in the +pre-revolutionary generation as attacks upon sensationalism and +over-excitement at the present day. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> what, then, is the mode of +cure? The return to nature. We are to make history run backwards, to +raze to its foundations the whole social and intellectual structure that +has been erected by generations of corrupt and selfish men. Everything +by which the civilised man differs from some theoretical pretension is +tainted with a kind of original sin. Political institutions, as they +exist, are conveniences for enabling the rich to rob the poor, and +churches contrivances by which priests make ignorance and superstition +play into the hands of selfish authority. Level all the existing order, +and build up a new one on principles of pure reason; give up all the +philosophical and theological dogmas, which have been the work of +designing priests and bewildered speculators, and revert to that pure +and simple religion which is divinely implanted in the heart of every +uncorrupted human being. The Savoyard vicar, if you have any doubts, +will tell you what is the true creed; and if you don't believe it, is +Rousseau's rather startling corollary, you ought to be put to death.</p> + +<p>That final touch shows the arbitrary and despotic spirit characteristic +of the relentless theorist. I need not here inquire what relation may be +borne by Rousseau's theories to any which could now be accepted by +intelligent thinkers. It is enough to say that there would be, to put it +gently, some slight difficulty in settling the details of this pure +creed common to all unsophisticated minds, and in seeing what would be +left when we had destroyed all institutions alloyed by sin and +selfishness. The meaning, however, in this connection of his love of +nature, taking the words in their mere common-sense, is in harmony with +his system. The mountains, whose worship he was the first to adumbrate, +if not actually to institute, were the symbols of the great natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> +forces free from any stain of human interference. Greed and cruelty had +not stained the pure waters of his lovely lake, or dimmed the light to +which his vicar points as in the early morning it grazes the edges of +the mighty mountain buttresses. Whatever symbolism may be found in the +Alps, suggesting emotions of awe, wonder, and softened melancholy, came +unstained by the association with the vices of a complex civilisation. +If poets and critics have not quite analysed the precise nature of our +modern love of mountain scenery, the sentiment may at least be +illustrated by a modern parallel. The most eloquent writer who, in our +day, has transferred to his pages the charm of Alpine beauties, shares +in many ways Rousseau's antipathy for the social order. Mr. Ruskin would +explain better than anyone why the love of the sublimest scenery should +be associated with a profound conviction that all things are out of +joint, and that society can only be regenerated by rejecting all the +achievements upon which the ordinary optimist plumes himself. After all, +it is not surprising that those who are most sick of man as he is should +love the regions where man seems smallest. When Swift wished to express +his disgust for his race, he showed how absurd our passions appear in a +creature six inches high; and the mountains make us all Liliputians. In +other mouths Rousseau's sentiment, more fully interpreted, became +unequivocally misanthropical. Byron, if any definite logical theory were +to be fixed upon him, excluded the human race at large from his +conception of nature. He loved, or talked as though he loved, the +wilderness precisely because it was a wilderness; the sea because it +sent men 'shivering to their gods,' and the mountains because their +avalanches crush the petty works of human industry. Rousseau was less +anti-social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> than his disciple. The mountains with him were the great +barriers which kept civilisation and all its horrors at bay. They were +the asylums for liberty and simplicity. There the peasant, unspoilt as +yet by <i>trinkgelds</i>, not oppressed by the great, nor corrupted by the +rich, could lead that idyllic life upon which his fancy delighted. In a +passage quoted, as Sainte-Beuve notices, by Cowper, Rousseau describes, +with his usual warmth of sentiment, the delightful <i>matinée anglaise</i> +passed in sight of the Alps by the family which had learnt the charms of +simplicity, and regulated its manners and the education of its children +by the unsophisticated laws of nature. It is doubtless a charming +picture, though the virtuous persons concerned are a little +over-conscious of their virtue, and it indicates a point of coincidence +between the two men. Rousseau, as Mr. Morley says, could appreciate as +well as Cowper the charms of a simple and natural life. Nobody could be +more eloquent on the beauty of domesticity; no one could paint better +the happiness of family life, where the main occupation was the +primitive labour of cultivating the ground, where no breath of +unhallowed excitement penetrated from the restless turmoil of the +outside world, where the mother knew her place, and kept to her placid +round of womanly duties, and where the children were taught with a +gentle firmness which developed every germ of reason and affection, +without undue stimulus or undue repression. And yet one must doubt +whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of +the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to +listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with +cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> would have been a little +scandalised by some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, +and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. Cowper +and Mrs. Unwin, and even their more fashionable friend, Lady Austen, +would have felt their respectable prejudices shocked by contact with the +new Héloïse; and the views of life taken by their teacher, the converted +slaveholder, John Newton, were as opposite as possible to those of +Rousseau's imaginary vicar. Indeed, Rousseau's ideal families have that +stain of affectation from which Cowper is so conspicuously free. The +rose-colour is laid on too thickly. They are too fond of taking credit +for universal admiration of the fine feelings which invariably animate +their breasts; their charitable sentiments are apt to take the form of +very easy condonation of vice; and if they repudiate the world, we +cannot believe that they are really unconscious of its existence. +Perhaps this dash of self-consciousness was useful in recommending them +to the taste of the jaded and weary society, sickening of a strange +disease which it could not interpret to itself, and finding for the +moment a new excitement in the charms of ancient simplicity. The real +thing might have palled upon it. But Rousseau's artificial and +self-conscious simplicity expressed that vague yearning and spirit of +unrest which could generate a half-sensual sentimentalism, but could be +repelled by genuine sentiment. Perhaps it not uncommonly happens that +those who are more or less tainted with a morbid tendency can denounce +it most effectually. The most effective satirist is the man who has +escaped with labour and pains, and not without some grievous stains, +from the slough in which others are still mired. The perfectly pure has +sometimes too little sympathy with his weaker brethren to place himself +at their point of view. Indeed, as we shall have occasion to remark,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> +Cowper is an instance of a thinker too far apart from the great world to +apply the lash effectually.</p> + +<p>Rousseau's view of the world and its evils was thus coherent enough, +however unsatisfactory in its basis, and was a development of, not a +reaction against, the previously dominant philosophy; and, though using +a different dialect and confined by different conditions, Cowper's +attack upon the existing order harmonises with much of Rousseau's +language. The first volume of poems, in which he had not yet discovered +the secret of his own strength, is in form a continuation of the satires +of the Pope school, and in substance a religious version of Rousseau's +denunciations of luxury. Amongst the first symptoms of the growing +feeling of uneasy discontent had been the popularity of Brown's +now-forgotten 'Estimate.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The inestimable estimate of Brown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Cowper; and he proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious +administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the +country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and +lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' +'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all +turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or +simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of +meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the +coarse-fibred friend of his youth, we have a sad strain of lamentation +over the growing luxury and effeminacy of the age. It is a continued +anticipation of the lines in the 'Task,' which seem to express his most +serious and sincere conviction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The course of human ills, from good to ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Increase of power begets increase of wealth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wealth luxury, and luxury excess:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Excess the scrofulous and itchy plague,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seizes first the opulent, descends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the next rank contagious, and in time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taints downwards all the graduated scale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of order, from the chariot to the plough.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That is his one unvariable lesson, set in different lights, but +associated more or less closely with every observation. The world is +ripening or rotting; and, as with Rousseau, luxury is the most +significant name of the absorbing evil. That such a view should commend +itself to a mind so clouded with melancholy would not be at any time +surprising, but it fell in with a widely spread conviction. Cowper had +not, indeed, learnt the most effective mode of touching men's hearts. +Separated by a retirement of twenty years from the world, with which he +had never been very familiar, and at which he only 'peeped through the +loopholes of retreat,' his satire wanted the brilliance, the quickness +of illustration from actual life, which alone makes satire readable. His +tone of feeling too frequently suggests that the critic represents the +querulous comments of old ladies gossiping about the outside world over +their tea-cups, easily scandalised by very simple things. Mrs. Unwin was +an excellent old lady, and Newton a most zealous country clergyman. +Probably they were intrinsically superior to the fine ladies and +gentlemen who laughed at them. But a mind acclimatised to the atmosphere +which they breathed inevitably lost its nervous tone. There was true +masculine vigour underlying Cowper's jeremiads; but it was natural that +many people should only see in him an amiable valetudinarian, not +qualified for a censorship of statesmen and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> men of the world. The man +who fights his way through London streets can't stop to lament over +every splash and puddle which might shock poor Cowper's nervous +sensibility.</p> + +<p>The last poem of the series, however, 'Retirement,' showed that Cowper +had a more characteristic and solacing message to mankind than a mere +rehearsal of the threadbare denunciations of luxury. The 'Task' revealed +his genuine power. There appeared those admirable delineations of +country scenery and country thoughts which Sainte-Beuve detaches so +lovingly from the mass of serious speculation in which they are +embedded. What he, as a purely literary critic, passed over as +comparatively uninteresting, gives the exposition of Cowper's +intellectual position. The poem is in fact a political, moral, and +religious disquisition interspersed with charming vignettes, which, +though not obtrusively moralised, illustrate the general thesis. The +poetical connoisseur may separate them from their environment, as a +collector of engravings might cut out the illustrations from the now +worthless letterpress. The poor author might complain that the most +important moral was thus eliminated from his book. But the author is +dead, and his opinions don't much matter. To understand Cowper's mind, +however, we must take the now obsolete meditation with the permanently +attractive pictures. To know why he so tenderly loved the slow windings +of the sinuous Ouse, we must see what he thought of the great Babel +beyond. It is the distant murmur of the great city that makes his little +refuge so attractive. The general vein of thought which appears in every +book of the poem is most characteristically expressed in the fifth, +called 'A Winter Morning Walk.' Cowper strolls out at sunrise in his +usual mood of tender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> playfulness, smiles at the vast shadow cast by the +low winter sun, as he sees upon the cottage wall the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Preposterous sight! the legs without the man.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He remarks, with a passing recollection of his last sermon, that we are +all shadows; but turns to note the cattle cowering behind the fences; +the labourer carving the haystack; the woodman going to work, followed +by his half-bred cur, and cheered by the fragrance of his short pipe. He +watches the marauding sparrows, and thinks with tenderness of the fate +of less audacious birds; and then pauses to examine the strange fretwork +erected at the mill-dam by the capricious freaks of the frost. Art, it +suggests to him, is often beaten by Nature; and his fancy goes off to +the winter palace of ice erected by the Russian empress. His friend +Newton makes use of the same easily allegorised object in one of his +religious writings; though I know not whether the poet or the divine +first turned it to account. Cowper, at any rate, is immediately diverted +into a meditation on 'human grandeur and the courts of kings.' The +selfishness and folly of the great give him an obvious theme for a +dissertation in the true Rousseau style. He tells us how 'kings were +first invented'—the ordinary theory of the time being that +political—deists added religious—institutions were all somehow +'invented' by knaves to impose upon fools. 'War is a game,' he says, in +the familiar phrase,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">'Which were their subjects wise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kings would not play at.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But, unluckily, their subjects are fools. In England indeed—for Cowper, +by virtue of his family traditions, was in theory a sound Whig—we know +how far to trust our kings; and he rises into a warmth on behalf of +liberty for which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> thinks it right to make a simple-minded apology in +a note. The sentiment suggests a vigorous and indeed prophetic +denunciation of the terrors of the Bastille, and its 'horrid towers and +dungeons.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's not an English heart that would not leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear that ye were fallen at last!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Within five or six years English hearts were indeed welcoming the event +thus foretold as the prospect of a new era of liberty. Liberty, says +Cowper, is the one thing which makes England dear. Were that boon lost,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I would at least bewail it under skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Milder, amongst a people less austere;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In scenes which, having never known me free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So far Cowper was but expressing the sentiments of Rousseau, omitting, +of course, Rousseau's hearty dislike for England. But liberty suggests +to Cowper a different and more solemn vein of thought. There are worse +dungeons, he remembers, than the Bastille, and a slavery compared with +which that of the victims of French tyranny is a trifle—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is yet a liberty unsung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By poets, and by senators unpraised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of earth and hell confederate take away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The patriot is lower than the martyr, though more highly prized by the +world; and Cowper changes his strain of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> patriotic fervour into a +prolonged devotional comment upon the text,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all are slaves besides.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Who would have thought that we could glide so easily into so solemn a +topic from looking at the quaint freaks of morning shadows? But the +charm of the 'Task' is its sincerity; and in Cowper's mind the most +trivial objects really are connected by subtle threads of association +with the most solemn thoughts. He begins with mock heroics on the sofa, +and ends with a glowing vision of the millennium. No dream of human +perfectibility, but the expected advent of the true Ruler of the earth, +is the relief to the palpable darkness of the existing world. The +'Winter Walk' traces the circle of thought through which his mind +invariably revolves.</p> + +<p>It would be a waste of labour to draw out in definite formula the +systems adopted, from emotional sympathy, rather than from any logical +speculation, by Cowper and Rousseau. Each in some degree owed his +power—though Rousseau in a far higher degree than Cowper—to his +profound sensitiveness to the heavy burden of the time. Each of them +felt like a personal grief, and exaggerated in a distempered +imagination, the weariness and the forebodings more dimly present to +contemporaries. In an age when old forms of government had grown rigid +and obsolete, when the stiffened crust of society was beginning to heave +with new throes, when ancient faiths had left mere husks of dead formulæ +to cramp the minds of men, when even superficial observers were startled +by vague omens of a coming crash, or expected some melodramatic +regeneration of the world, it was perhaps not strange that two men, +tottering on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> verge of madness, should be amongst the most +impressive prophets. The truth of Butler's speculation, that nations, +like individuals, might go mad, was about to receive an apparent +confirmation. Cowper, like Rousseau, might see the world through the +distorting haze of a disordered fancy, but the world at large was itself +strangely disordered, and the smouldering discontent of the inarticulate +masses found an echo in their passionate utterances. Their voices were +like the moan of a coming earthquake.</p> + +<p>The difference, however, so characteristic of the two countries, is +reflected by the national representatives. Nobody could be less of a +revolutionist than Cowper. His whiggism was little more than a +tradition. Though he felt bound to denounce kings, to talk about Hampden +and Sidney, and to sympathise with Mrs. Macaulay's old-fashioned +republicanism, there was not a more loyal subject of George III., or one +more disposed, when he could turn his mind from his pet hares to the +concerns of the empire, to lament the revolt of the American colonies. +The awakening of England from the pleasant slumbers of the eighteenth +century—for it seems pleasant in these more restless times—took place +in a curiously sporadic and heterogeneous fashion. In France the +spiritual and temporal were so intricately welded together, the +interests of the State were so deeply involved in maintaining the faith +of the Church, that conservatism and orthodoxy naturally went together. +Philosophers rejected with equal fervour the established religious and +the political creed. The new volume of passionate feeling, no longer +satisfied with the ancient barriers, poured itself in both cases into +the revolutionary channel. In England no such plain and simple issue +existed. We had our usual system of compromises in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> practice, and hybrid +combinations of theory. There were infidel conservatives and radical +believers. The man who more than any other influenced English history +during that century was John Wesley. Wesley was to the full as deeply +impressed as Rousseau with the moral and social evils of the time. We +may doubt whether Cowper's denunciations of luxury owed most to +Rousseau's sentimental eloquence or to the matter-of-fact vigour of +Wesley's 'Appeals.' Cowper's portrait of Whitefield—'Leuconomus,' as he +calls him, to evade the sneers of the cultivated—and his frequent +references to the despised sect of Methodists reveal the immediate +source of much of his indignation. So far as those evils were caused by +the intellectual and moral conditions common to Europe at large, Wesley +and Rousseau might be called allies. Both of them gave satisfaction to +the need for a free play of unsatisfied emotions. Their solutions of the +problem were of course radically different; and Cowper only speaks the +familiar language of his sect when he taunts the philosopher with his +incapacity to free man from his bondage:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Spend all the powers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with poetic trappings grace thy prose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it outmantle all the pride of verse;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>where he was possibly, as Sainte-Beuve suggests, thinking of Rousseau, +though Shaftesbury was the more frequent butt of such denunciations. The +difference in the solution of the great problem of moral regeneration +was facilitated by the difference of the environment. Rousseau, though +he shows a sentimental tenderness for Christianity, could not be +orthodox without putting himself on the side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> oppressors. Wesley, +though feeling profoundly the social discords of the time, could take +the side of the poor without the need of breaking in pieces a rigid +system of class-privilege. The evil which he had to encounter did not +present itself as tyranny oppressing helplessness, but as a general +neglect of reciprocal duties verging upon license. On the whole, +therefore, he took the conservative side of political questions. When +the American war gave the first signal of coming troubles, the +combinations of opinion were significant of the general state of mind. +Wesley and Johnson denounced the rebels from the orthodox point of view +with curious coincidence of language. The only man of equal intellectual +calibre who took the same side unequivocally was the arch-infidel +Gibbon. The then sleepy Established Church was too tolerant or too +indifferent to trouble him: why should he ally himself with Puritans and +enthusiasts to attack the Government which at once supported and tied +its hands? On the other side, we find such lovers of the established +religious order as Burke associated with free-thinkers like Tom Paine +and Horne Tooke. Tooke might agree with Voltaire in private, but he +could not air his opinions to a party which relied in no small measure +on the political zeal of sound dissenters. Dissent, in fact, meant +something like atheism combined with radicalism in France; in England it +meant desire for the traditional liberties of Englishmen, combined with +an often fanatical theological creed.</p> + +<p>Cowper, brought up amidst such surroundings, had no temptation to adopt +Rousseau's sweeping revolutionary fervour. His nominal whiggism was not +warmed into any subversive tendency. The labourers with whose sorrows he +sympathised might be ignorant, coarse, and drunken; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span> saw their faults +too clearly to believe in Rousseau's idyllic conventionalities, and +painted the truth as realistically as Crabbe: they required to be kept +out of the public-house, not to be liberated from obsolete feudal +disqualifications; a poacher, such as he described, was not the victim +of a brutal aristocracy, but simply a commonplace variety of thief. And, +on the other hand, when he denounces the laziness and selfishness of the +Establishment, the luxurious bishops, the sycophantic curates, the +sporting and the fiddling and the card-playing parson, he has no thought +of the enmity to Christianity which such satire would have suggested to +a French reformer, but is mentally contrasting the sleepiness of the +bishops with the virtues of Newton or Whitefield.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Where dwell these matchless saints?' old Curio cries.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Even at your side, sir, and before your eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The favour'd few, the enthusiasts you despise.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And whatever be thought of Cowper's general estimate of the needs of his +race, it must be granted that in one respect his philosophy was more +consequent than Rousseau's. Rousseau, though a deist in theory, rejected +the deist conclusion, that whatever is, is right; and consequently the +problem of how it can be that men, who are naturally so good, are in +fact so vile, remained a difficulty, only slurred over by his fluent +metaphysics about freewill. Cowper's belief in the profound corruption +of human nature supplied him with a doctrine less at variance with his +view of facts. He has no illusions about the man of nature. The savage, +he tells us, was a drunken beast till rescued from his bondage by the +zeal of the Moravian missionaries; and the poor are to be envied, not +because their lives are actually much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> better, but because they escape +the temptations and sophistries of the rich and learned.</p> + +<p>But how should this sentiment fit in with Cowper's love of nature? In +the language of his sect, nature is generally opposed to grace. It is +applied to a world in which not only the human inhabitants, but the +whole creation, is tainted with a mysterious evil. Why should Cowper +find relief in contemplating a system in which waste and carnage play so +conspicuous a part? Why, when he rescued his pet hares from the general +fate of their race, did he not think of the innumerable hares who +suffered not only from guns and greyhounds, but from the general +annoyances incident to the struggle for existence? Would it not have +been more logical if he had placed his happiness altogether in another +world, where the struggles and torments of our everyday life are +unknown? Indeed, though Cowper, as an orthodox Protestant, held that +ascetic practices ministered simply to spiritual conceit, was he not +bound to a sufficiently galling form of asceticism? His friends +habitually looked askance upon all those pleasures of the intellect and +the imagination which are not directly subservient to the religious +emotions. They had grave doubts of the expediency of his studies of the +pagan Homer. They looked with suspicion upon the slightest indulgence in +social amusements. And Cowper fully shared their sentiments. A taste for +music, for example, generally suggests to him a parson fiddling when he +ought to be praying; and following once more the lead of Newton, he +remarks upon the Handel celebration as a piece of grotesque profanity. +The name of science calls up to him a pert geologist, declaring after an +examination of the earth</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That He who made it, and revealed its date<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Moses, was mistaken in its age.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Not only is the great bulk of his poetry directly religious or +devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has +admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to +Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, <i>Vive la +bagatelle!</i> as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have +said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because +he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very +different. Nothing is more melancholy than Swift's elaborate triflings, +because they represent the efforts of a powerful intellect passing into +madness under enforced inaction, to kill time by childish occupation. +And the diagnosis of Cowper's case is similar. He trifles, he says, +because he is reduced to it by necessity. His most ludicrous verses have +been written in his saddest mood. It would be, he adds, 'but a shocking +vagary' if the sailors on a ship in danger relieved themselves 'by +fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such a part act I.' His love of +country sights and pleasures is so intense because it is the most +effectual relief. 'Oh!' he exclaims, 'I could spend whole days and +nights in gazing upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as +they flow.' And he adds, in his characteristic vein of thought, 'if +every human being upon earth could feel as I have done for many years, +there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an +unawakened one could be found from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle.' +The earth and the sun itself are, he says, but 'baubles;' but they are +the baubles which alone can distract his attention from more awful +prospects. His little garden and greenhouse are playthings lent to him +for a time, and soon to be left. He 'never framed a wish or formed a +plan,' as he says in the 'Task,' of which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> scene was not laid in the +country; and when the gloomiest forebodings unhinged his mind, his love +became a passion. He is like his own prisoner in the Bastille playing +with spiders. All other avenues of delight are closed to him; he +believes, whenever his dark hour of serious thought returns, that he is +soon to be carried off to unspeakable torments; all ordinary methods of +human pleasure seem to be tainted with some corrupting influence; but +whilst playing with his spaniel, or watching his cucumbers, or walking +with Mrs. Unwin in the fields, he can for a moment distract his mind +with purely innocent pleasures. The awful background of his visions, +never quite absent, though often, we may hope, far removed from actual +consciousness, throws out these hours of delight into more prominent +relief. The sternest of his monitors, John Newton himself, could hardly +grudge this cup of cold water presented, as it were, to the lips of a +man in a self-made purgatory.</p> + +<p>This is the peculiar turn which gives so characteristic a tone to +Cowper's loving portraits of scenery. He is like the Judas seen by St. +Brandan on the iceberg; he is enjoying a momentary relaxation between +the past of misery and the future of anticipated torment. Such a +sentiment must, fortunately, be in some sense exceptional and +idiosyncratic. And yet, once more, it fell in with the prevailing +current of thought. Cowper agrees with Rousseau in finding that the +contemplation of scenery, unpolluted by human passion, and the enjoyment +of a calm domestic life is the best anodyne for a spirit wearied with +the perpetual disorders of a corrupt social order. He differs from him, +as we have seen, in the conviction that a deeper remedy is wanting than +any mere political change; in a more profound sense of human wickedness, +and, on the other hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> in a narrower estimate of the conditions of +human life. His definition of Nature, to put it logically, would exclude +that natural man in whose potential existence Rousseau more or less +believed. The passionate love of scenery was enough to distinguish him +from the poets of the preceding school, whose supposed hatred of Nature +meant simply that they were thoroughly immersed in the pleasures of a +society then first developed in its modern form, and not yet undermined +by the approach of a new revolution. The men of Pope and Addison's time +looked upon country squires as bores incapable of intellectual pleasure, +and, therefore, upon country life as a topic for gentle ridicule, or +more frequently as an unmitigated nuisance. Probably their estimate was +a very sound one. When a true poet like Thomson really enjoyed the fresh +air, his taste did not become a passion, and the scenery appeared to him +as a pleasant background to his Castle of Indolence. Cowper's peculiar +religious views prevented him again from anticipating the wider and more +philosophical sentiment of Wordsworth. Like Pope and Wordsworth, indeed, +he occasionally uses language which has a pantheistic sound. He +expresses his belief that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">There lives and works<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soul in all things, and that soul is God.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But when Pope uses a similar phrase, it is the expression of a decaying +philosophy which never had much vitality, or passed from the sphere of +intellectual speculation to affect the imagination and the emotions. It +is a dogma which he holds sincerely, it may be, but not firmly enough to +colour his habitual sentiments. With Wordsworth, whatever its precise +meaning, it is an expression of an habitual and abiding sentiment, which +rises naturally to his lips when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span>ever he abandons himself to his +spontaneous impulses. With Cowper, as is the case with all Cowper's +utterances, it is absolutely sincere for the time; but it is a doctrine +not very easily adapted to his habitual creed, and which drops out of +his mind whenever he passes from external nature to himself or his +fellows. The indwelling divinity whom he recognises in every 'freckle, +streak, or stain' on his favourite flowers, seems to be hopelessly +removed from his own personal interests. An awful and mysterious decree +has separated him for ever from the sole source of consolation.</p> + +<p>This is not the place to hint at any judgment upon Cowper's theology, or +to inquire how far a love of nature, in his sense of the words, can be +logically combined with a system based upon the fundamental dogma of the +corruption of man. Certainly a similar anticipation of the poetical +pantheism of Wordsworth may be found in that most logical of Calvinists, +Jonathan Edwards. Cowper, too, could be at no loss for scriptural +precedents, when recognising the immediate voice of God in thunder and +earthquakes, or in the calmer voices of the waterbrooks and the meadows. +His love of nature, at any rate, is at once of a narrower and sincerer +kind than that which Rousseau first made fashionable. He has no tendency +to the misanthropic or cynical view which induces men of morbid or +affected minds to profess a love of savage scenery simply because it is +savage. Neither does he rise to the more philosophical view which sees +in the seas and the mountains the most striking symbols of the great +forces of the universe to which we must accommodate ourselves, and which +might therefore rightfully be associated by a Wordsworth with the +deepest emotions of reverential awe. Nature is to him but a collection +of 'baubles,' soon to be taken away, and he seeks in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> contemplation +a temporary relief from anguish, not a permanent object of worship. He +would dread that sentiment as a deistical form of idolatry; and he is +equally far from thinking that the natural man, wherever that vague +person might be found, could possibly be a desirable object of +imitation. His love of nature, in short, keen as it might be, was not +the reflection of any philosophical, religious, or political theory. But +it was genuine enough to charm many who might regard his theological +sentiments as a mere recrudescence of an obsolete form of belief. Mr. +Mill tells us how Wordsworth's poetry, little as he sympathised with +Wordsworth's opinions, solaced an intellect wearied with premature Greek +and over-doses of Benthamism. Such a relief must have come to many +readers of Cowper, who would put down his religion as rank fanaticism, +and his satire as anile declamation. Men suffered even then—though +Cowper was a predecessor of Miss Austen—from existing forms of 'life at +high pressure.' If life was not then so overcrowded, the evils under +which men were suffering appeared to be even more hopeless. The great +lesson of the value of intervals of calm retreat, of silence and +meditation, was already needed, if it is now still more pressing. Cowper +said, substantially, Leave the world, as Rousseau said, Upset the world. +The reformer, to say nothing of his greater intellectual power, +naturally interested the world which he threatened more than the recluse +whom it frightened. Limited within a narrower circle of ideas, and +living in a society where the great issues of the time were not +presented in so naked a form, Cowper's influence ran in a more confined +channel. He felt the incapacity of the old order to satisfy the +emotional wants of mankind, but was content to revive the old forms of +belief instead of seeking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> a more radical remedy in some subversive or +reconstructive system of thought. But the depth and sincerity of feeling +which explains his marvellous intensity of pathos is sometimes a +pleasant relief to the sentimentalism of his greater predecessor. Nor is +it hard to understand why his passages of sweet and melancholy musing by +the quiet Ouse should have come like a breath of fresh air to the jaded +generation waiting for the fall of the Bastille—and of other things.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Rousseau himself seems to refer to Clarke, the leader of the +English rationalising school, as the best expounder of his theory, and +defended Pope's Essay against the criticisms of Voltaire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> A phrase by the way, which Cowper, though little given to +borrowing, took straight from Berkeley's 'Siris.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Lord Tennyson suggests the same consolation in the lines ending—</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And I will see before I die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The palms and temples of the South.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p> +<h2><i>THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS</i></h2> + + +<p>When browsing at random in a respectable library, one is pretty sure to +hit upon the early numbers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and prompted in +consequence to ask oneself the question, What are the intrinsic merits +of writing which produced so great an effect upon our grandfathers? The +'Review,' we may say, has lived into a third generation. The last +survivor of the original set has passed away; and there are but few +relics even of that second galaxy of authors amongst whom Macaulay was +the most brilliant star. One may speak, therefore, without shocking +existing susceptibilities, of the 'Review' in its first period, when +Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham were the most prominent names. A man +may still call himself middle-aged and yet have a distinct memory of +Brougham courting, rather too eagerly, the applause of the Social +Science Association; or Jeffrey, as he appeared in his kindly old age, +when he could hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet; and even of the +last outpourings of the irrepressible gaiety of Sydney Smith. But the +period of their literary activity is already so distant as to have +passed into the domain of history. It is the same thing to say that it +already belongs in some degree to the neighbouring or overlapping domain +of fiction.</p> + +<p>There is, in fact, already a conventional history of the early +'Edinburgh Review,' repeated without hesitation in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> all literary +histories and assumed in a thousand allusions, which becomes a little +incredible when we take down the dusty old volumes, where dingy calf has +replaced the original splendours of the blue and yellow, and which have +inevitably lost much of their savour during more than half a century's +repose. The story of the original publication has been given by the +chief founders. Edinburgh, at the beginning of the century, was one of +those provincial centres of intellectual activity which have an +increasing difficulty in maintaining themselves against metropolitan +attractions. In the last half of the eighteenth century, such +philosophical activity as existed in the country seemed to have taken +refuge in the northern half of the island. A set of brilliant young men, +living in a society still proud of the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith, +Reid, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and other northern luminaries, might +naturally be susceptible to the stimulus of literary ambition. In +politics the most rampant Conservatism, rendered bitter by the recent +experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more +undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger +men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an +organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever +lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23) +met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth') +story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation. +The first number appeared in October 1802, and produced, we are told, an +'electrical' effect. Its old humdrum rivals collapsed before it. Its +science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its +politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight +of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon, +suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political +principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism, +unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we +must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of +reforms, now familiar to us all, were still regarded as startling +innovations. The Catholics were not emancipated, nor the game-laws +softened, nor the Court of Chancery reformed, nor the slave-trade +abolished. Cruel punishment still disgraced the criminal code, libel was +put down with vindictive severity, prisoners were not allowed counsel in +capital cases, and many other grievances now wholly or partially +redressed were still flourishing in full force.</p> + +<p>Were they put down solely by the 'Edinburgh Review?' That, of course, +would not be alleged by its most ardent admirers; though Sydney Smith +certainly holds that the attacks of the 'Edinburgh' were amongst the +most efficient causes of the many victories which followed. I am not +concerned to dispute the statement; nor in fact do I doubt that it +contains much truth. But if we look at the 'Review' simply as literary +connoisseurs, and examine its volumes expecting to be edified by such +critical vigour and such a plentiful outpouring of righteous indignation +in burning language as might correspond to this picture of a great organ +of liberal opinion, we shall, I fear, be cruelly disappointed. Let us +speak the plain truth at once. Everyone who turns from the periodical +literature of the present day to the original 'Edinburgh Review' will be +amazed at its inferiority. It is generally dull, and, when not dull, +flimsy. The vigour has departed; the fire is extinct. To some extent, of +course, this is inevitable. Even the magnificent eloquence of Burke has +lost some of its early gloss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> We can read, comparatively unmoved, +passages that would have once carried us off our legs in the exuberant +torrent of passionate invective. But, making all possible allowance for +the fading of all things human, I think that every reader who is frank +will admit his disappointment. Here and there, of course, amusing +passages illuminated by Sydney Smith's humour or Jeffrey's slashing and +swaggering retain a few sparks of fire. The pertness and petulance of +the youthful critics are amusing, though hardly in the way intended by +themselves. But, as a rule, one may most easily characterise the +contents by saying that few of the articles would have a chance of +acceptance by the editor of a first-rate periodical to-day; and that the +majority belong to an inferior variety of what is now called +'padding'—mere perfunctory bits of work, obviously manufactured by the +critic out of the book before him.</p> + +<p>The great political importance of the 'Edinburgh Review' belongs to a +later period. When the Whigs began to revive after the long reign of +Tory principles, and such questions as Roman Catholic Emancipation and +Parliamentary Reform were seriously coming to the front, the 'Review' +grew to be a most effective organ of the rising party. Even in earlier +years, it was doubtless a matter of real moment that the ablest +periodical of the day should manifest sympathies with the cause then so +profoundly depressed. But in those years there is nothing of that +vehement and unsparing advocacy of Whig principles which we might expect +from a band of youthful enthusiasts. So far indeed was the 'Review' from +unhesitating partisanship that the sound Tory Scott contributed to its +pages for some years; and so late as the end of 1807 invited Southey, +then developing into fiercer Toryism, as became a 'renegade'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> or a +'convert,' to enlist under Jeffrey. Southey, it is true, was prevented +from joining by scruples shared by his correspondent, but it was not for +another year that the breach became irreparable. The final offence was +given by the 'famous article upon Cevallos,' which appeared in October +1808. Even at that period Scott understood some remarks of Jeffrey's as +an offer to suppress the partisan tendencies of his 'Review.' Jeffrey +repudiated this interpretation; but the statement is enough to show +that, for six years after its birth, the 'Review' had not been conducted +in such a way as to pledge itself beyond all redemption in the eyes of +staunch Tories.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>The Cevallos article, the work in uncertain proportions of Brougham and +Jeffrey, was undoubtedly calculated to give offence. It contained an +eloquent expression of fore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>boding as to the chances of the war in +Spain. The Whigs, whose policy had been opposed to the war, naturally +prophesied its ill-success, and, until this period, facts had certainly +not confuted their auguries. It was equally natural that their opponents +should be scandalised by their apparent want of patriotism. Scott's +indignation was characteristic. The 'Edinburgh Review,' he says, 'tells +you coolly, "We foresee a revolution in this country as well as Mr. +Cobbett;" and, to say the truth, by degrading the person of the +sovereign, exalting the power of the French armies and the wisdom of +their counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be +purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable +to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years +past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own +prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel +family <i>can</i> pretend to be without it,' and it contains the only +valuable literary criticism of the day. The antidote was to be supplied +by the foundation of the 'Quarterly.' The Cevallos article, as Brougham +says, 'first made the Reviewers conspicuous as Liberals.'</p> + +<p>Jeffrey and his friends were in fact in the very difficult position of +all middle parties during a period of intense national and patriotic +excitement. If they attacked Perceval or Canning or Castlereagh in one +direction, they were equally opposed to the rough-and-ready democracy of +Cobbett or Burdett, and to the more philosophical radicalism of men like +Godwin or Bentham. They were generally too young to have been infected +by the original Whig sympathy for the French Revolution, or embittered +by the reaction. They condemned the principles of '89 as decidedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> if +not as heartily as the Tories. The difference, as Sydney Smith said to +his imaginary Tory, Abraham Plymley, is 'in the means, not in the end. +We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and abhor the French.' +Only, as the difference about the means was diametrical, Tories +naturally held them to be playing into the hands of destructives, though +more out of cowardice than malignity. In such a position it is not +surprising if the Reviewers generally spoke in apologetic terms and with +bated breath. They could protest against the dominant policy as rash and +bigoted, but could not put forwards conflicting principles without +guarding themselves against the imputation of favouring the common +enemy. The Puritans of Radicalism set down this vacillation to a total +want of fixed principle, if not to baser motives. The first volume of +the 'Westminster Review' (1824) contains a characteristic assault upon +the 'see-saw' system of the 'Edinburgh' by the two Mills. The +'Edinburgh' is sternly condemned for its truckling to the aristocracy, +its cowardice, political immorality, and (of all things!) its +sentimentalism. In after years J. S. Mill contributed to its pages +himself; but the opinion of his fervid youth was that of the whole +Bentham school.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> It is plain, however, that the 'Review,' even when +it had succeeded, did not absorb the activities of its contributors so +exclusively as is sometimes suggested. They rapidly dispersed to enter +upon different careers. Even before the first number appeared, Jeffrey +complains that almost all his friends are about to emigrate to London; +and the prediction was soon verified. Sydney Smith left to begin his +career as a clergyman in London; Horner and Brougham<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> almost immediately +took to the English bar, with a view to pushing into public life; Allen +joined Lord Holland; Charles Bell set up in a London practice; two other +promising contributors took offence, and deserted the 'Review' in its +infancy; and Jeffrey was left almost alone, though still a centre of +attraction to the scattered group. He himself only undertook the +editorship on the understanding that he might renounce it as soon as he +could do without it; and always guarded himself most carefully against +any appearance of deserting a legal for a literary career. Although the +Edinburgh <i>cénacle</i> was not dissolved, its bonds were greatly loosened; +the chief contributors were in no sense men who looked upon literature +as a principal occupation; and Jeffrey, as much as Brougham and Horner, +would have resented, as a mischievous imputation, the suggestion that +his chief energies were devoted to the 'Review.' In some sense this +might be an advantage. An article upon politics or philosophy is, of +course, better done by a professed statesman and thinker than by a +literary hack; but, on the other hand, a man who turns aside from +politics or philosophy to do mere hackwork, does it worse than the +professed man of letters. Work, taken up at odd hours to satisfy +editorial importunity or add a few pounds to a narrow income, is apt to +show the characteristic defects of all amateur performances. A very +large part of the early numbers is amateurish in this objectionable +sense. It is mere hand-to-mouth information, and is written, so to +speak, with the left hand. A clever man has turned over the last new +book of travels or poetry, or made a sudden incursion into foreign +literature or into some passage of history entirely fresh to him, and +has given his first impressions with an audacity which almost disarms +one by its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> extraordinary <i>naïveté</i>. The standard of such disquisitions +was then so low that writing which would now be impossible passed muster +without an objection. When, in later years, Macaulay discussed Hampden +or Chatham, the book which he ostensibly reviewed was a mere pretext for +producing the rich stores of a mind trained by years of previous +historical study. Jeffrey wrote about Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoirs' and +Pepys's 'Diary' as though the books had for the first time revealed to +him the existence of Puritans or of courtiers under the Restoration. The +author of an article upon German metaphysics at the present day would +think it necessary to show that if he had not the portentous learning +which Sir William Hamilton embodied in his 'Edinburgh' articles, he had +at least read the book under review, and knew something of the language. +The author (Thomas Brown—a man who should have known better) of a +contemptuous review of Kant, in an early number of the 'Edinburgh,' +makes it even ostentatiously evident that he has never read a line of +the original, and that his whole knowledge is derived from what (by his +own account) is a very rambling and inadequate French essay. The young +gentlemen who wrote in those days have a jaunty mode of pronouncing upon +all conceivable topics without even affecting to have studied the +subject, which is amusing in its way, and which fully explains the +flimsy nature of their performance.</p> + +<p>The authors, in fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely +ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long +afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney +Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that +time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the +republica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>tion was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing +even the most serious books through the pages of a periodical has become +so common that such modesty would now imply the emptiest affectation. +The collections of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith will give a sufficient +impression of the earlier numbers of the 'Review.' The only contributors +of equal reputation were Horner and Brougham. Horner, so far as one can +judge, was a typical representative of those solid, indomitable +Scotchmen whom one knows not whether to respect for their energy or to +dread as the most intolerable of bores. He plodded through legal, +metaphysical, scientific, and literary studies like an elephant forcing +his way through a jungle; and laboured as resolutely and systematically +to acquire graces of style as to master the intricacies of the 'dismal +science.' At an early age, and with no advantages of position, he had +gained extraordinary authority in Parliament. Sydney Smith said of him +that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face, and looked so +virtuous that he might commit any crime with impunity. His death +probably deprived us of a most exemplary statesman and first-rate +Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it can hardly have been a great loss to +literature. Passages from Horner's journals, given in his 'Memoirs,' are +quaint illustrations of the frame of mind generally inculcated in +manuals for the use of virtuous young men. At the age of twenty-eight, +he resolves one day to meditate upon various topics, distributed under +nine heads, including the society to be frequented in the metropolis; +the characters to be studied; the scale of intimacies; the style of +conversation; the use of other men's minds in self-education; the +regulation of ambition, of political sentiments, connections, and +conduct; the importance of 'steadily systematising all plans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> and aims +of life, and so providing against contingencies as to put happiness at +least out of the reach of accident,' and the cultivation of moral +feelings by 'dignified sentiments and pleasing associations' derived +from poets, moralists, or actual life. Sydney Smith, in a very lively +portrait, says that Horner was the best, kindest, simplest, and most +incorruptible of mankind; but intimates sufficiently that his +impenetrability to the facetious was something almost unexampled. A jest +upon an important subject was, it seems, the only affliction which his +strength of principle would not enable him to bear with patience. His +contributions gave some solid economical speculation to the 'Review,' +but were neither numerous nor lively. Brougham's amazing vitality wasted +itself in a different way. His multifarious energy, from early boyhood +to the borders of old age, would be almost incredible, if we had not the +good fortune to be contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone. His share in the +opening numbers of the 'Review' is another of the points upon which +there is an odd conflict of testimony.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> But from a very early period +he was the most voluminous and, at times, the most valuable of +contributors. It has been said that he once wrote a whole number, +including articles upon lithotomy and Chinese music. It is more +authentic that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> contributed six articles to one number at the very +crisis of his political career, and at the same period he boasts of +having written a fifth of the whole 'Review' to that time. He would sit +down in a morning and write off twenty pages at a single effort. Jeffrey +compares his own editorial authority to that of a feudal monarch over +some independent barons. When Jeffrey gave up the 'Review,' this 'baron' +aspired to something more like domination than independence. He made the +unfortunate editor's life a burden to him. He wrote voluminous letters, +objurgating, entreating, boasting of past services, denouncing rival +contributors, declaring that a regard for the views of any other man was +base subservience to a renegade Ministry, or foolish attention to the +hints of understrappers; threatening, if he was neglected, to set up a +rival Review, and generally hectoring, bullying, and declaiming in a +manner which gives one the highest opinion of the diplomatic skill of +the editor, who managed, without truckling, to avoid a breach with his +tremendous contributor. Brougham, indeed, was not quite blind to the +fact that the 'Review' was as useful to him as he could be to the +'Review,' and was therefore more amenable than might have been expected, +in the last resort. But he was in every relation one of those men who +are nearly as much hated and dreaded by their colleagues as by the +adversary—a kind of irrepressible rocket, only too easy to discharge, +but whose course defied prediction.</p> + +<p>It is, however, admitted by everyone that the literary results of this +portentous activity were essentially ephemeral. His writings are +hopelessly commonplace in substance and slipshod in style. His garden +offers a bushel of potatoes instead of a single peach. Much of +Brougham's work was up to the level necessary to give effect to the +manifesto of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> an active politician. It was a forcible exposition of the +arguments common at the time; but it has nowhere that stamp of +originality in thought or brilliance in expression which could confer +upon it a permanent vitality.</p> + +<p>Jeffrey and Sydney Smith deserve more respectful treatment. Macaulay +speaks of his first editor with respectful enthusiasm. He says of the +collected contributions that the 'variety and fertility of Jeffrey's +mind' seem more extraordinary than ever. Scarcely could any three men +have produced such 'diversified excellence.' 'When I compare him with +Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his +range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer. But +he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great +judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius +than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much +as Brougham affects the character.' Macaulay hated Brougham, and was, +perhaps, a little unjust to him. But what are we to say of the writings +upon which this panegyric is pronounced?</p> + +<p>Jeffrey's collected articles include about eighty out of two hundred +reviews, nearly all contributed to the 'Edinburgh' within its first +period of twenty-five years. They fill four volumes, and are distributed +under the seven heads—general literature, history, poetry, metaphysics, +fiction, politics, and miscellaneous. Certainly there is versatility +enough implied in such a list, and we may be sure that he has ample +opportunity for displaying whatever may be in him. It is, however, easy +to dismiss some of these divisions. Jeffrey knew history as an English +gentleman of average cultivation knew it; that is to say, not enough to +justify him in writing about it. He knew as much of meta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>physics as a +clever lad was likely to pick up at Edinburgh during the reign of Dugald +Stewart; his essays in that kind, though they show some aptitude and +abundant confidence, do not now deserve serious attention. His chief +speculative performance was an essay upon Beauty contributed to the +'Encyclopædia Britannica,' of which his biographer says quaintly that it +is 'as sound as the subject admits of.' It is crude and meagre in +substance. The principal conclusion is the rather unsatisfactory one for +a professional critic, that there are no particular rules about beauty, +and consequently that one taste is about as good as another. Nobody, +however, could be less inclined to apply this over-liberal theory to +questions of literary taste. There, he evidently holds there is most +decidedly a right and wrong, and everybody is very plainly in the wrong +who differs from himself.</p> + +<p>Jeffrey's chief fame—or, should we say, notoriety?—was gained, and his +merit should be tested by his success in this department. The greatest +triumph that a literary critic can win is the early recognition of +genius not yet appreciated by his contemporaries. The next test of his +merit is his capacity for pronouncing sound judgment upon controversies +which are fully before the public; and, finally, no inconsiderable merit +must be allowed to any critic who has a vigorous taste of his own—not +hopelessly eccentric or silly—and expresses it with true literary +force. If not a judge, he may in that case be a useful advocate.</p> + +<p>What can we say for Jeffrey upon this understanding? Did he ever +encourage a rising genius? The sole approach to such a success is an +appreciative notice of Keats, which would be the more satisfactory if +poor Keats had not been previously assailed by the Opposition journal. +The other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> judgments are for the most part pronounced upon men already +celebrated; and the single phrase which has survived is the celebrated +'This will never do,' directed against Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Every +critic has a sacred and inalienable right to blunder at times: but +Jeffrey's blundering is amazingly systematic and comprehensive. In the +last of his poetical critiques (October 1829) he sums up his critical +experience. He doubts whether Mrs. Hemans, whom he is reviewing at the +time, will be immortal. 'The tuneful quartos of Southey,' he says, 'are +already little better than lumber; and the rich melodies of Keats and +Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth, and the plebeian +pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the field of vision. The novels +of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are +fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to +immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from +its place of pride.' Who survive this general decay? Not Coleridge, who +is not even mentioned; nor is Mrs. Hemans secure. The two who show least +marks of decay are—of all people in the world—Rogers and Campbell! It +is only to be added that this summary was republished in 1843, by which +time the true proportions of the great reputations of the period were +becoming more obvious to an ordinary observer. It seems almost +incredible now that any sane critic should pick out the poems of Rogers +and Campbell as the sole enduring relics from the age of Wordsworth, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Byron.</p> + +<p>Doubtless a critic should rather draw the moral of his own fallibility +than of his superiority to Jeffrey. Criticism is a still more perishable +commodity than poetry. Jeffrey was a man of unusual intelligence and +quickness of feeling;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> and a follower in his steps should think twice +before he ventures to cast the first stone. If all critics who have +grossly blundered are therefore to be pronounced utterly incompetent, we +should, I fear, have to condemn nearly everyone who has taken up the +profession. Not only Dennis and Rymer, but Dryden, Pope, Addison, +Johnson, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, and even Coleridge, down to the last +new critic in the latest and most fashionable journals, would have to be +censured. Still there are blunders and blunders; and some of Jeffrey's +sins in that kind are such as it is not very easy to forgive. If he +attacked great men, it has been said in his defence, he attacked those +parts of their writings which were really objectionable. And, of course, +nobody will deny that (for example) Wordsworth's wilful and ostentatious +inversion of accepted rules presented a very tempting mark to the +critic. But—to say nothing of Jeffrey's failure to discharge adequately +the correlative duty of generous praise—it must be admitted that his +ridicule seems to strike pretty much at random. He picks out Southey, +certainly the least eminent of the so-called school of Wordsworth, +Coleridge, and Lamb, as the one writer of the set whose poetry deserves +serious consideration; and, besides attacking Wordsworth's faults, his +occasional flatness and childishness, selects some of his finest poems +(e.g. the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality) as flagrant specimens +of the hopelessly absurd.</p> + +<p>The 'White Doe of Rylstone' may not be Wordsworth's best work, but a man +who begins a review of it by proclaiming it to be 'the very worst poem +ever imprinted in a quarto volume,' who follows up this remark by +unmixed and indiscriminating abuse, and who publishes the review +twenty-eight years later as expressing his mature convictions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> is +certainly proclaiming his own gross incompetence. Or, again, Jeffrey +writes about 'Wilhelm Meister' (in 1824), knowing its high reputation in +Germany, and finds in it nothing but a text for a dissertation upon the +amazing eccentricity of national taste which can admire 'sheer +nonsense,' and at length proclaims himself tired of extracting 'so much +trash.' There is a kind of indecency, a wanton disregard of the general +consensus of opinion, in such treatment of a contemporary classic (then +just translated by Carlyle, and so brought within Jeffrey's sphere) +which one would hope to be now impossible. It is true that Jeffrey +relents a little at the end, admits that Goethe has 'great talent,' and +would like to withdraw some of his censure. Whilst, therefore, he +regards the novel as an instance of that diversity of national taste +which makes a writer idolised in one country who would not be tolerated +in another, he would hold it out rather as an object of wonder than +contempt. Though the greater part 'would not be endured, and, indeed, +could not have been written in England,' there are many passages of +which any country might naturally be proud. Truly this is an +illustration of Jeffrey's fundamental principle, that taste has no laws, +and is a matter of accidental caprice.</p> + +<p>It may be said that better critics have erred with equal recklessness. +De Quincey, who could be an admirable critic where his indolent +prejudices were not concerned, is even more dead to the merits of +Goethe. Byron's critical remarks are generally worth reading, in spite +of his wilful eccentricity; and he spoke of Wordsworth and Southey still +more brutally than Jeffrey, and admired Rogers as unreasonably. In such +cases we may admit the principle already suggested, that even the most +reckless criticism has a kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> of value when it implies a genuine (even +though a mistaken) taste. So long as a man says sincerely what he +thinks, he tells us something worth knowing.</p> + +<p>Unluckily, this is just where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects +to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put +up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable +tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because +admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the +general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some not +too judicious criticism; preferring, for example, the sham romantic +business of the 'Lay' to the incomparable vigour of the rough +moss-troopers,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who sought the beeves that made their broth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Scotland and in England both—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his +judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is +passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But, +unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals, +it would seem, resemble the old-fashioned squires who kept a badger +ready to be baited whenever a little amusement was desirable. The rising +school of Lake poets, with their austere professions and real +weaknesses, was just the game to show a little sport; and, accordingly, +poor Jeffrey blundered into grievous misapprehensions, and has survived +chiefly by his worst errors. The simple fact is, that he accepted +whatever seemed to a hasty observer to be the safest opinion, that which +was current in the most orthodox critical circles, and expressed it with +rather more point than his neighbours. But his criticism implies no +serious thought or any deeper sentiment than pleasure at having found a +good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> laughing-stock. The most unmistakable bit of genuine expression of +his own feelings in Jeffrey's writings is, I think, to be found in his +letters to Dickens. 'Oh! my dear, dear Dickens!' he exclaims, 'what a +No. 5' (of 'Dombey and Son') 'you have now given us. I have so cried and +sobbed over it last night and again this morning, and felt my heart +purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed +them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since that divine Nelly +was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has +been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul in the summer +sunshine of that lofty room.' The emotion is a little senile, and most +of us think it exaggerated; but at least it is genuine. The earlier +thunders of the 'Edinburgh Review' have lost their terrors, because they +are in fact mere echoes of commonplace opinion. They are often clever +enough, and have all the air of judicial authority, but we feel that +they are empty shams, concealing no solid core of strong personal +feeling even of the perverse variety. The critic has been asking +himself, not 'What do I feel?' but 'What is the correct remark to make?'</p> + +<p>Jeffrey's political writing suggests, I think, in some respects a higher +estimate of his merits. He has not, it is true, very strong convictions, +but his sentiments are liberal in the better sense of the word, and he +has a more philosophical tone than is usual with English publicists. He +appreciates the truths, now become commonplace, that the political +constitution of the country should be developed so as to give free play +for the underlying social forces without breaking abruptly with the old +traditions. He combats with dignity the narrow prejudices which led to a +policy of rigid repression, and which, in his opinion, could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span> only lead +to revolution. But the effect of his principles is not a little marred +by a certain timidity both of character and intellect. Hopefulness +should be the mark of an ardent reformer, and Jeffrey seems to be always +decided by his fears. His favourite topic is the advantage of a strong +middle party, for he is terribly afraid of a collision between the two +extremes; he can only look forward to despotism if the Tories triumph, +and a sweeping revolution if they are beaten. Meanwhile, for many years +he thinks it most probable that both parties will be swallowed up by the +common enemy. Never was there such a determined croaker. In 1808 he +suspects that Bonaparte will be in Dublin in about fifteen months, when +he, if he survives, will try to go to America. In 1811 he expects +Bonaparte to be in Ireland in eighteen months, and asks how England can +then be kept, and whether it would be worth keeping? France is certain +to conquer the Continent, and our interference will only 'exasperate and +accelerate.' Bonaparte's invasion of Russia in 1813 made him still more +gloomy. He rejoiced at the French defeat as one delivered from a great +terror, but the return of the Emperor dejects him again. All he can say +of the war (just before Waterloo) is that he is 'mortally afraid of it,' +and that he hates Bonaparte 'because he makes me more afraid than +anybody else.' In 1829 he anticipates 'tragical scenes' and a sanguinary +revolution; in 1821 he thinks as ill as ever 'of the state and prospects +of the country,' though with less alarm of speedy mischief; and in 1822 +he looks forward to revolutionary wars all over the Continent, from +which we may possibly escape by reason of our 'miserable poverty;' +whilst it is probable that our old tyrannies and corruptions will last +for some 4,000 or 5,000 years longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span></p> + +<p>A stalwart politician, Whig or Tory, is rarely developed out of a Mr. +Much-Afraid or a Mr. Despondency; they are too closely related to Mr. +Facing-both-Ways. Jeffrey thinks it generally a duty to conceal his +fears and affect a confidence which he does not feel; but perhaps the +best piece of writing in his essays is that in which he for once gives +full expression to his pessimist sentiment. It occurs in a review of a +book in which Madame de Staël maintains the doctrine of human +perfectibility. Jeffrey explains his more despondent view in a really +eloquent passage. He thinks that the increase of educated intelligence +will not diminish the permanent causes of human misery. War will be as +common as ever, wealth will be used with at least equal selfishness, +luxury and dissipation will increase, enthusiasm will diminish, +intellectual originality will become rarer, the division of labour will +make men's lives pettier and more mechanical, and pauperism grow with +the development of manufactures. When republishing his essays Jeffrey +expresses his continued adherence to these views, and they are more +interesting than most of his work, because they have at least the merits +of originality and sincerity. Still, one cannot help observing that if +the 'Edinburgh Review' was an efficient organ of progress, it was not +from any ardent faith in progress entertained by its chief conductor.</p> + +<p>It is a relief to turn from Jeffrey to Sydney Smith. The highest epithet +applicable to Jeffrey is 'clever,' to which we may prefix some modest +intensitive. He is a brilliant, versatile, and at bottom liberal and +kindly man of the world; but he never gets fairly beyond the border-line +which irrevocably separates lively talent from original power. There are +dozens of writers who could turn out work on the same pattern and about +equally good. Smith, on the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> hand, stamps all his work with his +peculiar characteristics. It is original and unmistakable; and in a +certain department—not, of course, a very high one—he has almost +unique merits. I do not think that the 'Plymley Letters' can be +surpassed by anything in the language as specimens of the terse, +effective treatment of a great subject in language suitable for popular +readers. Of course they have no pretence to the keen polish of Junius, +or the weight of thought of Burke, or the rhetorical splendours of +Milton; but their humour, freshness, and spirit are inimitable. The +'Drapier Letters,' to which they have often been compared, were more +effective at the moment; but no fair critic can deny, I think, that +Sydney Smith's performance is now more interesting than Swift's.</p> + +<p>The comparison between the Dean and the Canon is an obvious one, and has +often been made. There is a likeness in the external history of the two +clergymen who both sought for preferment through politics, and were +both, even by friends, felt to have sinned against professional +proprieties, and were put off with scanty rewards in consequence. Both, +too, were masters of a vigorous style, and original humourists. But the +likeness does not go very deep. Swift had the most powerful intellect +and the strongest passion as undeniably as Smith had the sweetest +nature. The admirable good-humour with which Smith accepted his position +and devoted himself to honest work in an obscure country parish, is the +strongest contrast with Swift's misanthropical seclusion; and nothing +can be less like than Smith's admirable domestic history and the +mysterious love affairs with Stella and Vanessa. Smith's character +reminds us more closely of Fuller, whose peculiar humour is much of the +same stamp; and who, falling upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> hard times, and therefore tinged by a +more melancholy sentiment, yet showed the same unconquerable +cheerfulness and intellectual vivacity.</p> + +<p>Most of Sydney Smith's 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight +texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of +characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded +kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic. +Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a review of Waterton's +'Wanderings:'—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To +what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of +Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a +puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? To be sure, the +toucan might retort, To what purpose were gentlemen in Bond +Street created? To what purpose were certain members of +Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with +their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the +country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not +enter into the metaphysics of the toucan.</p></div> + +<p>Smith's humour is most aptly used to give point to the vigorous logic of +a thoroughly healthy nature, contemptuous of all nonsense, full of +shrewd common-sense, and righteously indignant in the presence of all +injustice and outworn abuse. It would be difficult to find anywhere a +more brilliant assault upon the prejudices which defend established +grievances than the inimitable 'Noodle's Oration,' into which Smith has +compressed the pith of Bentham's 'Book of Fallacies.' There is a certain +resemblance between the logic of Smith and Macaulay, both of whom, it +must be admitted, are rather given to proving commonplaces and inclined +to remain on the surface of things. Smith, like Macaulay, fully +understands the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract, and +hammering obvious truths<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> into men's heads by dint of homely +explanation. Smith's memory does not supply so vast a store of parallels +as that upon which Macaulay could draw so freely; but his humorous +illustrations are more amusing and effective. There could not be a +happier way of putting the argument for what may be called the lottery +system of endowments than the picture of the respectable baker driving +past Northumberland House to St. Paul's Churchyard, and speculating on +the chance of elevating his 'little muffin-faced son' to a place among +the Percies or the highest seat in the Cathedral. Macaulay would have +enforced his reasoning by a catalogue of successful ecclesiastics. The +folly of alienating Catholic sympathies, during our great struggle, by +maintaining the old disabilities, is brought out with equal skill by the +apologue in the 'Plymley Letters' of the orthodox captain of a frigate +in a dangerous action, securing twenty or thirty of his crew, who +happened to be Papists, under a Protestant guard; reminding his sailors, +in a bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorting +the Episcopal gunner to distrust the Presbyterian quartermaster; rushing +through blood and brains to examine his men in the Thirty-nine Articles, +and forbidding anyone to spunge or ram who has not taken the sacrament +according to the rites of the Church of England. It is quite another +question whether Smith really penetrates to the bottom of the dispute; +but the only fault to be found with his statement of the case, as he saw +it, is that it makes it rather too clear. The arguments are never all on +one side in any political question, and the writer who sees absolutely +no difficulty, suggests to a wary reader that he is ignoring something +relevant. Still, this is hardly an objection to a popular advocate, and +it is fair to add that Smith's logic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> is not more admirable than the +hearty generosity of his sympathy with the oppressed Catholic. The +appeal to cowardice is lost in the appeal to true philanthropic +sentiment.</p> + +<p>With all his merits, there is a less favourable side to Smith's +advocacy. When he was condemned as being too worldly and facetious for a +priest, it was easy to retort that humour is not of necessity +irreligious. It might be added that in his writings it is strictly +subservient to solid argument. In a London party he might throw the +reins upon the neck of his fancy and go on playing with a ludicrous +image till his audience felt the agony of laughter to be really painful. +In his writings he aims almost as straight at his mark as Swift, and is +never diverted by the spirit of pure fun. The humour always illuminates +well-strung logic. But the scandal was not quite groundless. When he +directs his powers against sheer obstruction and antiquated +prejudice—against abuses in prisons, or the game-laws, or education—we +can have no fault to find; nor is it fair to condemn a reviewer because +in all these questions he is a follower rather than a leader. It is +enough if he knows a good cause when he sees it, and does his best to +back up reformers in the press, though hardly a working reformer, and +certainly not an originator of reform. But it is less easy to excuse his +want of sympathy for the reformers themselves.</p> + +<p>If there is one thing which Sydney Smith dreads and dislikes, it is +enthusiasm. Nobody would deny, at the present day, that the zeal which +supplied the true leverage for some of the greatest social reforms of +the time was to be found chiefly amongst the so-called Evangelicals and +Methodists. For them Smith has nothing but the heartiest aversion. He is +always having a quiet jest at the religious sentiments of Perceval or +Wilberforce, and his most pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>minent articles in the 'Review' were a +series of inexcusably bitter attacks upon the Methodists. He is +thoroughly alarmed and disgusted by their progress. He thinks them +likely to succeed, and says that, if they succeed, 'happiness will be +destroyed, reason degraded, and sound religion banished from the world,' +and that a reign of fanaticism will be succeeded by 'a long period of +the grossest immorality, atheism, and debauchery.' He is not sure that +any remedy or considerable palliative is possible, but he suggests, as +hopeful, the employment of ridicule, and applies it himself most +unsparingly. When the Methodists try to convert the Hindoos, he attacks +them furiously for endangering the empire. They naturally reply that a +Christian is bound to propagate his belief. The answer, says Smith, is +short: 'It is not Christianity which is introduced (into India), but the +debased nonsense and mummery of the Methodists, which has little more to +do with the Christian religion than it has to do with the religion of +China.' The missionaries, he says, are so foolish, 'that the natives +almost instinctively duck and pelt them,' as, one cannot help +remembering, missionaries of an earlier Christian era had been ducked +and pelted. He pronounces the enterprise to be hopeless and cruel, and +clenches his argument by a statement which sounds strangely enough in +the mouth of a sincere Christian:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Let us ask (he says), if the Bible is universally diffused +in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives +to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal—we +who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few +acres about Madras over the whole peninsula and sixty +millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct +every crime of which human nature is capable? What matchless +impudence, to follow up such practice with such precepts! If +we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and +tell them that Machiavel is our prophet and the god of the +Manichæans our god.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span></p></div> + +<p>We are to make our practice consistent by giving up our virtues instead +of our vices. Of course, Smith ends his article by a phrase about 'the +slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christianity;' but the +Methodists might well feel that the 'matchless impudence' was not all on +their side, and that this Christian priest, had he lived some centuries +earlier, would have sympathised a good deal more with Gallio than with +St. Paul.</p> + +<p>It is a question which I need not here discuss how far Smith could be +justified in his ridicule of men who, with all their undeniable +absurdity, were at least zealous believers in the creed which he—as is +quite manifest—held in all sincerity. But one remark is obvious; the +Edinburgh Reviewers justify, to a certain point, the claim put forward +by Sydney Smith; they condemned many crying abuses, and condemned them +heartily. They condemned them, as thoroughly sensible men of the world, +animated partly by a really generous sentiment, partly by a tacit +scepticism as to the value of the protected interests, and above all by +the strong conviction that it was quite essential for the middle +party—that is, for the bulk of the respectable well-bred classes—to +throw overboard gross abuses which afforded so many points of attack to +thoroughgoing radicals. On the other hand, they were quite indifferent +or openly hostile to most of the new forces which stirred men's minds. +They patronised political economy because Malthus began by opposing the +revolutionary dreams of Godwin and his like. But every one of the great +impulses of the time was treated by them in an antagonistic spirit. They +savagely ridiculed Coleridge, the great seminal mind of one +philosophical school; they fiercely attacked Bentham and James Mill, the +great leaders of the antagonist school; they were equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> opposed to +the Evangelicals who revered Wilberforce, and, in later times, to the +religious party, of which Dr. Newman was the great ornament: in poetry +they clung, as long as they could, to the safe old principles +represented by Crabbe and Rogers: they, covered Wordsworth and Coleridge +with almost unmixed ridicule, ignored Shelley, and were only tender to +Byron and Scott because Scott and Byron were fashionable idols. The +truth is, that it is a mistake to suppose that the eighteenth century +ended with the year 1800. It lasted in the upper currents of opinion +till at least 1832. Sydney Smith's theology is that of Paley and the +common-sense divines of the previous period. Jeffrey's politics were but +slightly in advance of the true old Whigs, who still worshipped +according to the tradition of their fathers in Holland House. The ideal +of the party was to bring the practice of the country up to the theory +whose main outlines had been accepted in the Revolution of 1688; and +they studiously shut their eyes to any newer intellectual and social +movements.</p> + +<p>I do not say this by way of simple condemnation; for we have daily more +reason to acknowledge the immense value of calm, clear common-sense, +which sees the absurd side of even the best impulses. But it is +necessary to bear the fact in mind when estimating such claims as those +put forward by Sydney Smith. The truth seems to be that the 'Edinburgh +Review' enormously raised the tone of periodical literature at the time, +by opening an arena for perfectly independent discussion. Its great +merit, at starting, was that it was no mere publisher's organ, like its +rivals, and that it paid contributors well enough to attract the most +rising talent of the day. As the 'Review' progressed, its capacities +became more generally understood, and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> writers, as they rose to +eminence and attracted new allies, put more genuine work into articles +certain to obtain a wide circulation and to come with great authority. +This implies a long step towards the development of the present system, +whose merits and defects would deserve a full discussion—the system +according to which much of the most solid and original work of the time +first appears in periodicals. The tone of periodicals has been +enormously raised, but the effect upon general literature may be more +questionable. But the 'Edinburgh' was not in its early years a journal +with a mission, or the organ of an enthusiastic sect. Rather it was the +instrument used by a number of very clever young men to put forward the +ideas current in the more liberal section of the upper classes, with +much occasional vigour and a large infusion of common-sense, but also +with abundant flippancy and superficiality, and, in a literary sense, +without that solidity of workmanship which is essential for enduring +vitality.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Scott's letter, stating that this overture had been made by Jeffrey +under terror of the 'Quarterly,' was first published in Lockhart's 'Life +of Scott.' Jeffrey denied that he could ever have made the offer, both +because his contributors were too independent and because he had always +considered politics to be (as he remembered to have told Scott) the +'right leg' of the 'Review.' Undoubtedly, though Scott's letter was +written at the time and Jeffrey's contradiction many years afterwards, +it seems that Scott must have exaggerated. And yet in Horner's 'Memoirs' +we find a letter from Jeffrey which goes far to show that there was more +than might be supposed to confirm Scott's statement. Jeffrey begs for +Horner's assistance in the 'day of need,' caused by the Cevallos article +and the threatened 'Quarterly.' He tells Horner that he may write upon +any subject he pleases—'only no party politics, and nothing but +exemplary moderation and impartiality on all politics. I have allowed +too much mischief to be done from my mere indifference and love of +sport; but it would be inexcusable to spoil the powerful instrument we +have got hold of for the sake of teasing and playing tricks.'—Horner's +<i>Memoirs</i>, i. 439. It was on the occasion of the Cevallos article that +the Earl of Buchan solemnly kicked the 'Review' from his study into the +street—a performance which he supposed would be fatal to its +circulation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See Mill's <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 92, for an interesting account of +these articles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It would appear, from one of Jeffrey's statements, that Brougham +selfishly hung back till after the third number of the 'Review,' and its +'assured success' (Horner's <i>Memoirs</i>, i. p. 186, and Macvey Napier's +<i>Correspondence</i>, p. 422); from another, that Brougham, though anxious +to contribute, was excluded by Sydney Smith, from prudential motives. On +the other hand, Brougham in his autobiography claims (by name) seven +articles in the first number, five in the second, eight in the third, +and five in the fourth; in five of which he had a collaborator. His +hesitation, he says, ended before the appearance of the first number, +and was due to doubts as to Jeffrey's possession of sufficient editorial +power.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span></p> +<h2><i>WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS</i></h2> + + +<p>Under every poetry, it has been said, there lies a philosophy. Rather, +it may almost be said, every poetry is a philosophy. The poet and the +philosopher live in the same world and are interested in the same +truths. What is the nature of man and the world in which he lives, and +what, in consequence, should be our conduct? These are the great +problems, the answers to which may take a religious, a poetical, a +philosophical, or an artistic form. The difference is that the poet has +intuitions, while the philosopher gives demonstrations; that the thought +which in one mind is converted into emotion, is in the other resolved +into logic; and that a symbolic representation of the idea is +substituted for a direct expression. The normal relation is exhibited in +the case of the anatomist and the sculptor. The artist intuitively +recognises the most perfect form; the man of science analyses the +structural relations by which it is produced. Though the two provinces +are concentric, they are not coincident. The reasoner is interested in +many details which have no immediate significance for the man of +feeling; and the poetic insight, on the other hand, is capable of +recognising subtle harmonies and discords of which our crude instruments +of weighing and measuring are incapable of revealing the secret. But the +connection is so close that the greatest works of either kind seem to +have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> a double nature. A philosophy may, like Spinoza's, be apparelled +in the most technical and abstruse panoply of logic, and yet the total +impression may stimulate a religious sentiment as effectively as any +poetic or theosophic mysticism. Or a great imaginative work, like +Shakespeare's, may present us with the most vivid concrete symbols, and +yet suggest, as forcibly as the formal demonstrations of a +metaphysician, the idealist conviction that the visible and tangible +world is a dream-woven tissue covering infinite and inscrutable +mysteries. In each case the highest intellectual faculty manifests +itself in the vigour with which certain profound conceptions of the +world and life have been grasped and assimilated. In each case that man +is greatest who soars habitually to the highest regions and gazes most +steadily upon the widest horizons of time and space. The logical +consistency which frames all dogmas into a consistent whole, is but +another aspect of the imaginative power which harmonises the strongest +and subtlest emotions excited.</p> + +<p>The task, indeed, of deducing the philosophy from the poetry, of +inferring what a man thinks from what he feels, may at times perplex the +acutest critic. Nor, if it were satisfactorily accomplished, could we +infer that the best philosopher is also the best poet. Absolute +incapacity for poetical expression may be combined with the highest +philosophic power. All that can safely be said is that a man's thoughts, +whether embodied in symbols or worked out in syllogisms, are more +valuable in proportion as they indicate greater philosophical insight; +and therefore that, <i>ceteris paribus</i>, that man is the greater poet +whose imagination is most transfused with reason; who has the deepest +truths to proclaim as well as the strongest feelings to utter.</p> + +<p>Some theorists implicitly deny this principle by holding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> substantially +that the poet's function is simply the utterance of a particular mood, +and that, if he utters it forcibly and delicately, we have no more to +ask. Even so, we should not admit that the thoughts suggested to a wise +man by a prospect of death and eternity are of just equal value, if +equally well expressed, with the thoughts suggested to a fool by the +contemplation of a good dinner. But, in practice, the utterance of +emotions can hardly be dissociated from the assertion of principles. +Psychologists have shown, ever since the days of Berkeley, that when a +man describes (as he thinks) a mere sensation, and says, for example, 'I +see a house,' he is really recording the result of a complex logical +process. A great painter and the dullest observer may have the same +impressions of coloured blotches upon their retina. The great man infers +the true nature of the objects which produce his sensations, and can +therefore represent the objects accurately. The other sees only with his +eyes, and can therefore represent nothing. There is thus a logic implied +even in the simplest observation, and one which can be tested by +mathematical rules as distinctly as a proposition in geometry.</p> + +<p>When we have to find a language for our emotions instead of our +sensations, we generally express the result of an incomparably more +complex set of intellectual operations. The poet, in uttering his joy or +sadness, often implies, in the very form of his language, a whole +philosophy of life or of the universe. The explanation is given at the +end of Shakespeare's familiar passage about the poet's eye:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such tricks hath strong imagination,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, if it would but apprehend some joy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It comprehends some bringer of that joy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or in the night, imagining some fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How easy is a bush supposed a bear!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The <i>ap</i>prehension of the passion, as Shakespeare logically says, is a +<i>com</i>prehension of its cause. The imagination reasons. The bare faculty +of sight involves thought and feeling. The symbol which the fancy +spontaneously constructs, implies a whole world of truth or error, of +superstitious beliefs or sound philosophy. The poetry holds a number of +intellectual dogmas in solution; and it is precisely due to these +general dogmas, which are true and important for us as well as for the +poet, that his power over our sympathies is due. If his philosophy has +no power in it, his emotions lose their hold upon our minds, or interest +us only as antiquarians and lovers of the picturesque. But in the +briefest poems of a true thinker we read the essence of the life-long +reflections of a passionate and intellectual nature. Fears and hopes +common to all thoughtful men have been coined into a single phrase. Even +in cases where no definite conviction is expressed or even implied, and +the poem is simply, like music, an indefinite utterance of a certain +state of the emotions, we may discover an intellectual element. The +rational and the emotional nature have such intricate relations that one +cannot exist in great richness and force without justifying an inference +as to the other. From a single phrase, as from a single gesture, we can +often go far to divining the character of a man's thoughts and feelings. +We know more of a man from five minutes' talk than from pages of what is +called 'psychological analysis.' From a passing expression on the face, +itself the result of variations so minute as to defy all analysis, we +instinctively frame judgments as to a man's temperament and habitual +modes of thought and conduct. Indeed, such judgments, if erroneous, +determine us only too exclusively in the most important relations of +life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span></p> + +<p>Now the highest poetry is that which expresses the richest, most +powerful, and most susceptible emotional nature, and the most versatile, +penetrative, and subtle intellect. Such qualities may be stamped upon +trifling work. The great artist can express his power within the limits +of a coin or a gem. The great poet will reveal his character through a +sonnet or a song. Shakespeare, or Milton, or Burns, or Wordsworth can +express his whole mode of feeling within a few lines. An ill-balanced +nature reveals itself by a discord, as an illogical mind by a fallacy. A +man need not compose an epic on a system of philosophy to write himself +down an ass. And, inversely, a great mind and a noble nature may show +itself by impalpable but recognisable signs within the 'sonnet's scanty +plot of ground.' Once more, the highest poetry must be that which +expresses not only the richest but the healthiest nature. Disease means +an absence or a want of balance of certain faculties, and therefore +leads to false reasoning or emotional discord. The defect of character +betrays itself in some erroneous mode of thought or baseness of +sentiment. And since morality means obedience to those rules which are +most essential to the spiritual health, vicious feeling indicates some +morbid tendency, and is so far destructive of the poetical faculty. An +immoral sentiment is the sign either of a false judgment of the world +and of human nature, or of a defect in the emotional nature which shows +itself by a discord or an indecorum, and leads to a cynicism or +indecency which offends the reason through the taste. What is called +immorality does not indeed always imply such defects. Sound moral +intuitions may be opposed to the narrow code prevalent at the time; or a +protest against puritanical or ascetic perversions of the standard may +hurry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> the poet into attacks upon true principles. And, again, the keen +sensibility which makes a man a poet, undoubtedly exposes him to certain +types of disease. He is more likely than his thick-skinned neighbour to +be vexed by evil, and to be drawn into distorted views of life by an +excess of sympathy or indignation. Injudicious admirers prize the +disease instead of the strength from which it springs; and value the +cynicism or the despair instead of the contempt for heartless +commonplace or the desire for better things with which it was +unfortunately connected. A strong moral sentiment has a great value, +even when forced into an unnatural alliance. Nay, even when it is, so to +speak, inverted, it often receives a kind of paradoxical value from its +efficacy against some opposite form of error. It is only a complete +absence of the moral faculty which is irredeemably bad. The poet in whom +it does not exist is condemned to the lower sphere, and can only deal +with the deepest feelings on penalty of shocking us by indecency or +profanity. A man who can revel in 'Epicurus' stye' without even the +indirect homage to purity of remorse and bitterness, can do nothing but +gratify our lowest passions. They, perhaps, have their place, and the +man who is content with such utterances may not be utterly worthless. +But to place him on a level with his betters is to confound every sound +principle of criticism.</p> + +<p>It follows that a kind of collateral test of poetical excellence may be +found by extracting the philosophy from the poetry. The test is, of +course, inadequate. A good philosopher may be an execrable poet. Even +stupidity is happily not inconsistent with sound doctrine, though +inconsistent with a firm grasp of ultimate principles. But the vigour +with which a man grasps and assimilates a deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> moral doctrine is a test +of the degree in which he possesses one essential condition of the +higher poetical excellence. A continuous illustration of this principle +is given in the poetry of Wordsworth, who, indeed, has expounded his +ethical and philosophical views so explicitly, one would rather not say +so ostentatiously, that great part of the work is done to our hands. +Nowhere is it easier to observe the mode in which poetry and philosophy +spring from the same root and owe their excellence to the same +intellectual powers. So much has been said by the ablest critics of the +purely poetical side of Wordsworth's genius, that I may willingly +renounce the difficult task of adding or repeating. I gladly take for +granted—what is generally acknowledged—that Wordsworth in his best +moods reaches a greater height than any other modern Englishman. The +word 'inspiration' is less forced when applied to his loftiest poetry +than when used of any of his contemporaries. With defects too obvious to +be mentioned, he can yet pierce furthest behind the veil; and embody +most efficiently the thoughts and emotions which come to us in our most +solemn and reflective moods. Other poetry becomes trifling when we are +making our inevitable passages through the Valley of the Shadow of +Death. Wordsworth's alone retains its power. We love him the more as we +grow older and become more deeply impressed with the sadness and +seriousness of life; we are apt to grow weary of his rivals when we have +finally quitted the regions of youthful enchantment. And I take the +explanation to be that he is not merely a melodious writer, or a +powerful utterer of deep emotion, but a true philosopher. His poetry +wears well because it has solid substance. He is a prophet and a +moralist, as well as a mere singer. His ethical system, in par<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>ticular, +is as distinctive and capable of systematic exposition as that of +Butler. By endeavouring to state it in plain prose, we shall see how the +poetical power implies a sensitiveness to ideas which, when extracted +from the symbolical embodiment, fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought.</p> + +<p>There are two opposite types to which all moral systems tend. They +correspond to the two great intellectual families to which every man +belongs by right of birth. One class of minds is distinguished by its +firm grasp of facts, by its reluctance to drop solid substance for the +loveliest shadows, and by its preference of concrete truths to the most +symmetrical of theories. In ethical questions the tendency of such minds +is to consider man as a being impelled by strong but unreasonable +passions towards tangible objects. He is a loving, hating, thirsting, +hungering—anything but a reasoning—being. As Swift—a typical example +of this intellectual temperament—declared, man is not an <i>animal +rationale</i>, but at most <i>capax rationis</i>. At bottom, he is a machine +worked by blind instincts. Their tendency cannot be deduced by <i>à +priori</i> reasoning, though reason may calculate the consequences of +indulging them. The passions are equally good, so far as equally +pleasurable. Virtue means that course of conduct which secures the +maximum of pleasure. Fine theories about abstract rights and +correspondence to eternal truths are so many words. They provide decent +masks for our passions; they do not really govern them, or alter their +nature, but they cover the ugly brutal selfishness of mankind, and +soften the shock of conflicting interests. Such a view has something in +it congenial to the English love of reality and contempt for shams. It +may be represented by Swift or Mandeville in the last century; in poetry +it corresponds to the theory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> attributed by some critics to Shakespeare; +in a tranquil and reasoning mind it leads to the utilitarianism of +Bentham; in a proud, passionate, and imaginative mind it manifests +itself in such a poem as 'Don Juan.' Its strength is in its grasp of +fact; its weakness, in its tendency to cynicism. Opposed to this is the +school which starts from abstract reason. It prefers to dwell in the +ideal world, where principles may be contemplated apart from the +accidents which render them obscure to vulgar minds. It seeks to deduce +the moral code from eternal truths without seeking for a groundwork in +the facts of experience. If facts refuse to conform to theories, it +proposes that facts should be summarily abolished. Though the actual +human being is, unfortunately, not always reasonable, it holds that pure +reason must be in the long run the dominant force, and that it reveals +the laws to which mankind will ultimately conform. The revolutionary +doctrine of the 'rights of man' expressed one form of this doctrine, and +showed in the most striking way a strength and weakness, which are the +converse of those exhibited by its antagonist. It was strong as +appealing to the loftier motives of justice and sympathy; and weak as +defying the appeal to experience. The most striking example in English +literature is in Godwin's 'Political Justice.' The existing social order +is to be calmly abolished because founded upon blind prejudice; the +constituent atoms called men are to be rearranged in an ideal order as +in a mathematical diagram. Shelley gives the translation of this theory +into poetry. The 'Revolt of Islam' or the 'Prometheus Unbound,' with all +its unearthly beauty, wearies the imagination which tries to soar into +the thin air of Shelley's dreamworld; just as the intellect, trying to +apply the abstract formulæ of political<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> metaphysics to any concrete +problem, feels as though it were under an exhausted receiver. In both +cases we seem to have got entirely out of the region of real human +passions and senses into a world, beautiful perhaps, but certainly +impalpable.</p> + +<p>The great aim of moral philosophy is to unite the disjoined element, to +end the divorce between reason and experience, and to escape from the +alternative of dealing with empty but symmetrical formulæ or concrete +and chaotic facts. No hint can be given here as to the direction in +which a final solution must be sought. Whatever the true method, +Wordsworth's mode of conceiving the problem shows how powerfully he +grasped the questions at issue. If his doctrines are not systematically +expounded, they all have a direct bearing upon the real difficulties +involved. They are stated so forcibly in his noblest poems that we might +almost express a complete theory in his own language. But, without +seeking to make a collection of aphorisms from his poetry, we may +indicate the cardinal points of his teaching.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>The most characteristic of all his doctrines is that which is embodied +in the great ode upon the 'Intimations of Immortality.' The doctrine +itself—the theory that the instincts of childhood testify to the +pre-existence of the soul—sounds fanciful enough; and Wordsworth took +rather unnecessary pains to say that he did not hold it as a serious +dogma. We certainly need not ask whether it is reasonable or orthodox to +believe that 'our birth is but a sleep and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> forgetting.' The fact +symbolised by the poetic fancy—the glory and freshness of our childish +instincts—is equally noteworthy, whatever its cause. Some modern +reasoners would explain its significance by reference to a very +different kind of pre-existence. The instincts, they would say, are +valuable, because they register the accumulated and inherited experience +of past generations. Wordsworth's delight in wild scenery is regarded by +them as due to the 'combination of states that were organised in the +race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were +amongst the mountains, woods, and waters.' In childhood we are most +completely under the dominion of these inherited impulses. The +correlation between the organism and its medium is then most perfect, +and hence the peculiar theme of childish communion with nature.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth would have repudiated the doctrine with disgust. He would +have been 'on the side of the angels.' No memories of the savage and the +monkey, but the reminiscences of the once-glorious soul could explain +his emotions. Yet there is this much in common between him and the men +of science whom he denounced with too little discrimination. The fact of +the value of these primitive instincts is admitted, and admitted for the +same purpose. Man, it is agreed, is furnished with sentiments which +cannot be explained as the result of his individual experience. They may +be intelligible, according to the evolutionist, when regarded as +embodying the past experience of the race; or, according to Wordsworth, +as implying a certain mysterious faculty imprinted upon the soul. The +scientific doctrine, whether sound or not, has modified the whole mode +of approaching ethical problems; and Wordsworth, though with a very +different purpose, gives a new emphasis to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span> facts, upon a +recognition of which, according to some theorists, must be based the +reconciliation of the great rival schools—the intuitionists and the +utilitarians. The parallel may at first sight seem fanciful; and it +would be too daring to claim for Wordsworth the discovery of the most +remarkable phenomenon which modern psychology must take into account. +There is, however, a real connection between the two doctrines, though +in one sense they are almost antithetical. Meanwhile we observe that the +same sensibility which gives poetical power is necessary to the +scientific observer. The magic of the ode, and of many other passages in +Wordsworth's poetry, is due to his recognition of this mysterious +efficacy of our childish instincts. He gives emphasis to one of the most +striking facts of our spiritual experience, which had passed with little +notice from professed psychologists. He feels what they afterwards tried +to explain.</p> + +<p>The full meaning of the doctrine comes out as we study Wordsworth more +thoroughly. Other poets—almost all poets—have dwelt fondly upon +recollections of childhood. But not feeling so strongly, and therefore +not expressing so forcibly, the peculiar character of the emotion, they +have not derived the same lessons from their observation. The Epicurean +poets are content with Herrick's simple moral—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gather ye rosebuds while ye may—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and with his simple explanation—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That age is best which is the first,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When youth and blood are warmer.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Others more thoughtful look back upon the early days with the passionate +regret of Byron's verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such painful longings for the 'tender grace of a day that is dead' are +spontaneous and natural. Every healthy mind feels the pang in proportion +to the strength of its affections. But it is also true that the regret +resembles too often the maudlin meditation of a fast young man over his +morning's soda-water. It implies, that is, a non-recognition of the +higher uses to which the fading memories may still be put. A different +tone breathes in Shelley's pathetic but rather hectic moralisings, and +his lamentations over the departure of the 'spirit of delight.' Nowhere +has it found more exquisite expression than in the marvellous 'Ode to +the West Wind.' These magical verses—his best, as it seems to +me—describe the reflection of the poet's own mind in the strange stir +and commotion of a dying winter's day. They represent, we may say, the +fitful melancholy which oppresses a noble spirit when it has recognised +the difficulty of forcing facts into conformity with the ideal. He still +clings to the hope that his 'dead thoughts' may be driven over the +universe,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But he bows before the inexorable fate which has cramped his energies:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A heavy weight of years has chained and bowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One too like thee; tameless and swift and proud.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Neither Byron nor Shelley can see any satisfactory solution, and +therefore neither can reach a perfect harmony of feeling. The world +seems to them to be out of joint, because they have not known how to +accept the inevitable, nor to conform to the discipline of facts. And, +therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> however intense the emotion, and however exquisite its +expression, we are left in a state of intellectual and emotional +discontent. Such utterances may suit us in youth, when we can afford to +play with sorrow. As we grow older we feel a certain emptiness in them. +A true man ought not to sit down and weep with an exhausted debauchee. +He cannot afford to confess himself beaten with the idealist who has +discovered that Rome was not built in a day, nor revolutions made with +rose-water. He has to work as long as he has strength; to work in spite +of, even by strength of, sorrow, disappointment, wounded vanity, and +blunted sensibilities; and therefore he must search for some profounder +solution for the dark riddle of life.</p> + +<p>This solution it is Wordsworth's chief aim to supply. In the familiar +verses which stand as a motto to his poems—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The child is father to the man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I could wish my days to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound each to each by natural piety—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the great problem of life, that is, as he conceives it, is to secure a +continuity between the period at which we are guided by half-conscious +instincts, and that in which a man is able to supply the place of these +primitive impulses by reasoned convictions. This is the thought which +comes over and over again in his deepest poems, and round which all his +teaching centred. It supplies the great moral, for example, of the +'Leech-gatherer:'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As if life's business were a summer mood:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if all needful things would come unsought<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To genial faith still rich in genial good.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When his faith is tried by harsh experience, the leech-gatherer comes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like a man from some far region sent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To give me human strength by apt admonishment;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>for he shows how the 'genial faith' may be converted into permanent +strength by resolution and independence. The verses most commonly +quoted, such as—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We poets in our youth begin in gladness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thereof come in the end despondency and sadness,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>give the ordinary view of the sickly school. Wordsworth's aim is to +supply an answer worthy not only of a poet, but a man. The same +sentiment again is expressed in the grand 'Ode to Duty,' where the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stern daughter of the voice of God<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is invoked to supply that 'genial sense of youth' which has hitherto +been a sufficient guidance; or in the majestic morality of the 'Happy +Warrior;' or in the noble verses on 'Tintern Abbey;' or, finally, in the +great ode which gives most completely the whole theory of that process +by which our early intuitions are to be transformed into settled +principles of feeling and action.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth's philosophical theory, in short, depends upon the asserted +identity between our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The +doctrine of a state of pre-existence, as it appears in other +writers—as, for example, in the Cambridge Platonists<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>—was connected +with an obsolete metaphysical system, and the doctrine—exploded in its +old form—of innate ideas. Wordsworth does not attribute any such +preternatural character to the 'blank misgivings' and 'shadowy +recollections' of which he speaks. They are invaluable data of our +spiritual experience; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> they do not entitle us to lay down dogmatic +propositions independently of experience. They are spontaneous products +of a nature in harmony with the universe in which it is placed, and +inestimable as a clear indication that such a harmony exists. To +interpret and regulate them belongs to the reasoning faculty and the +higher imagination of later years. If he does not quite distinguish +between the province of reason and emotion—the most difficult of +philosophical problems—he keeps clear of the cruder mysticism, because +he does not seek to elicit any definite formulæ from those admittedly +vague forebodings which lie on the border-land between the two sides of +our nature. With his invariable sanity of mind, he more than once +notices the difficulty of distinguishing between that which nature +teaches us and the interpretations which we impose upon nature.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> He +carefully refrains from pressing the inference too far.</p> + +<p>The teaching, indeed, assumes that view of the universe which is implied +in his pantheistic language. The Divinity really reveals Himself in the +lonely mountains and the starry heavens. By contemplating them we are +able to rise into that 'blessed mood' in which for a time the burden of +the mystery is rolled off our souls, and we can 'see into the life of +things.' And here we must admit that Wordsworth is not entirely free +from the weakness which generally besets thinkers of this tendency. Like +Shaftesbury in the previous century, who speaks of the universal harmony +as emphatically though not as poetically as Wordsworth, he is tempted to +adopt a too facile optimism. He seems at times to have overlooked that +dark side of nature which is recognised in theological doctrines of +corruption, or in the scientific<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> theories about the fierce struggle for +existence. Can we in fact say that these early instincts prove more than +the happy constitution of the individual who feels them? Is there not a +teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a +complacent brooding over soothing thoughts? Do not the mountains which +Wordsworth loved so well, speak of decay and catastrophe in every line +of their slopes? Do they not suggest the helplessness and narrow +limitations of man, as forcibly as his possible exaltation? The awe +which they strike into our souls has its terrible as well as its amiable +side; and in moods of depression the darker aspect becomes more +conspicuous than the brighter. Nay, if we admit that we have instincts +which are the very substance of all that afterwards becomes ennobling, +have we not also instincts which suggest a close alliance with the +brutes? If the child amidst his newborn blisses suggests a heavenly +origin, does he not also show sensual and cruel instincts which imply at +least an admixture of baser elements? If man is responsive to all +natural influences, how is he to distinguish between the good and the +bad, and, in short, to frame a conscience out of the vague instincts +which contain the germs of all the possible developments of the future?</p> + +<p>To say that Wordsworth has not given a complete answer to such +difficulties, is to say that he has not explained the origin of evil. It +may be admitted, however, that he does to a certain extent show a +narrowness of conception. The voice of nature, as he says, resembles an +echo; but we 'unthinking creatures' listen to 'voices of two different +natures.' We do not always distinguish between the echo of our lower +passions and the 'echoes from beyond the grave.' Wordsworth sometimes +fails to recognise the ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The +'blessed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the world, is too +easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it. +He finds lonely meditation so inspiring that he is too indifferent to +the troubles of less self-sufficing or clear-sighted human beings. The +ambiguity makes itself felt in the sphere of morality. The ethical +doctrine that virtue consists in conformity to nature becomes ambiguous +with him, as with all its advocates, when we ask for a precise +definition of nature. How are we to know which natural forces make for +us and which fight against us?</p> + +<p>The doctrine of the love of nature, generally regarded as Wordsworth's +great lesson to mankind, means, as interpreted by himself and others, a +love of the wilder and grander objects of natural scenery; a passion for +the 'sounding cataract,' the rock, the mountain, and the forest; a +preference, therefore, of the country to the town, and of the simpler to +the more complex forms of social life. But what is the true value of +this sentiment? The unfortunate Solitary in the 'Excursion' is beset by +three Wordsworths; for the Wanderer and the Pastor are little more (as +Wordsworth indeed intimates) than reflections of himself, seen in +different mirrors. The Solitary represents the anti-social lessons to be +derived from communion with nature. He has become a misanthrope, and has +learnt from 'Candide' the lesson that we clearly do not live in the best +of all possible worlds. Instead of learning the true lesson from nature +by penetrating its deeper meanings, he manages to feed</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pity and scorn and melancholy pride<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>by accidental and fanciful analogies, and sees in rock pyramids or +obelisks a rude mockery of human toils. To confute this sentiment, to +upset 'Candide,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This dull product of a scoffer's pen,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is the purpose of the lofty poetry and versified prose of the long +dialogues which ensue. That Wordsworth should call Voltaire dull is a +curious example of the proverbial blindness of controversialists; but +the moral may be equally good. It is given most pithily in the lines—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We live by admiration, hope, and love;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even as these are well and wisely fused,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dignity of being we ascend.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>'But what is Error?' continues the preacher; and the Solitary replies by +saying, 'somewhat haughtily,' that love, admiration, and hope are 'mad +fancy's favourite vassals.' The distinction between fancy and +imagination is, in brief, that fancy deals with the superficial +resemblances, and imagination with the deeper truths which underlie +them. The purpose, then, of the 'Excursion,' and of Wordsworth's poetry +in general, is to show how the higher faculty reveals a harmony which we +overlook when, with the Solitary, we</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Skim along the surfaces of things.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The rightly prepared mind can recognise the divine harmony which +underlies all apparent disorder. The universe is to its perceptions like +the shell whose murmur in a child's ear seems to express a mysterious +union with the sea. But the mind must be rightly prepared. Everything +depends upon the point of view. One man, as he says in an elaborate +figure, looking upon a series of ridges in spring from their northern +side, sees a waste of snow, and from the south a continuous expanse of +green. That view, we must take it, is the right one which is illuminated +by the 'ray divine.' But we must train our eyes to recognise its +splendour; and the final answer to the Solitary is there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>fore embodied +in a series of narratives, showing by example how our spiritual vision +may be purified or obscured. Our philosophy must be finally based, not +upon abstract speculation and metaphysical arguments, but on the +diffused consciousness of the healthy mind. As Butler sees the universe +by the light of conscience, Wordsworth sees it through the wider +emotions of awe, reverence, and love, produced in a sound nature.</p> + +<p>The pantheistic conception, in short, leads to an unsatisfactory +optimism in the general view of nature, and to an equal tolerance of all +passions as equally 'natural.' To escape from this difficulty we must +establish some more discriminative mode of interpreting nature. Man is +the instrument played upon by all impulses, good or bad. The music which +results may be harmonious or discordant. When the instrument is in tune, +the music will be perfect; but when is it in tune, and how are we to +know that it is in tune? That problem once solved, we can tell which are +the authentic utterances and which are the accidental discords. And by +solving it, or by saying what is the right constitution of human beings, +we shall discover which is the true philosophy of the universe, and what +are the dictates of a sound moral sense. Wordsworth implicitly answers +the question by explaining, in his favourite phrase, how we are to build +up our moral being.</p> + +<p>The voice of nature speaks at first in vague emotions, scarcely +distinguishable from mere animal buoyancy. The boy, hooting in mimicry +of the owls, receives in his heart the voice of mountain torrents and +the solemn imagery of rocks, and woods, and stars. The sportive girl is +unconsciously moulded into stateliness and grace by the floating clouds, +the bending willow, and even by silent sympathy with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> motions of the +storm. Nobody has ever shown, with such exquisite power as Wordsworth, +how much of the charm of natural objects in later life is due to early +associations, thus formed in a mind not yet capable of contemplating its +own processes. As old Matthew says in the lines which, however familiar, +can never be read without emotion—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My eyes are dim with childish tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My heart is idly stirred;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the same sound is in my ears<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Which in those days I heard.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And the strangely beautiful address to the cuckoo might be made into a +text for a prolonged commentary by an æsthetic philosopher upon the +power of early association. It curiously illustrates, for example, the +reason of Wordsworth's delight in recalling sounds. The croak of the +distant raven, the bleat of the mountain lamb, the splash of the leaping +fish in the lonely tarn, are specially delightful to him, because the +hearing is the most spiritual of our senses; and these sounds, like the +cuckoo's cry, seem to convert the earth into an 'unsubstantial fairy +place.' The phrase 'association' indeed implies a certain arbitrariness +in the images suggested, which is not quite in accordance with +Wordsworth's feeling. Though the echo depends partly upon the hearer, +the mountain voices are specially adapted for certain moods. They have, +we may say, a spontaneous affinity for the nobler affections. If some +early passage in our childhood is associated with a particular spot, a +house or a street will bring back the petty and accidental details: a +mountain or a lake will revive the deeper and more permanent elements of +feeling. If you have made love in a palace, according to Mr. Disraeli's +prescription, the sight of it will recall the splendour of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span> object's +dress or jewellery; if, as Wordsworth would prefer, with a background of +mountains, it will appear in later days as if they had absorbed, and +were always ready again to radiate forth, the tender and hallowing +influences which then for the first time entered your life. The +elementary and deepest passions are most easily associated with the +sublime and beautiful in nature.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The primal duties shine aloft like stars;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And, therefore, if you have been happy enough to take delight in these +natural and universal objects in the early days, when the most permanent +associations are formed, the sight of them in later days will bring back +by pre-ordained and divine symbolism whatever was most ennobling in your +early feelings. The vulgarising associations will drop off of +themselves, and what was pure and lofty will remain.</p> + +<p>From this natural law follows another of Wordsworth's favourite +precepts. The mountains are not with him a symbol of anti-social +feelings. On the contrary, they are in their proper place as the +background of the simple domestic affections. He loves his native hills, +not in the Byronic fashion, as a savage wilderness, but as the +appropriate framework in which a healthy social order can permanently +maintain itself. That, for example, is, as he tells us, the thought +which inspired the 'Brothers,' a poem which excels all modern idylls in +weight of meaning and depth of feeling, by virtue of the idea thus +embodied. The retired valley of Ennerdale, with its grand background of +hills, precipitous enough to be fairly called mountains, forces the two +lads into closer affection. Shut in by these 'enormous barriers,' and +undistracted by the ebb and flow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> of the outside world, the mutual love +becomes concentrated. A tie like that of family blood is involuntarily +imposed upon the little community of dalesmen. The image of sheep-tracks +and shepherds clad in country grey is stamped upon the elder brother's +mind, and comes back to him in tropical calms; he hears the tones of his +waterfalls in the piping shrouds; and when he returns, recognises every +fresh scar made by winter storms on the mountain sides, and knows by +sight every unmarked grave in the little churchyard. The fraternal +affection sanctifies the scenery, and the sight of the scenery brings +back the affection with overpowering force upon his return. This is +everywhere the sentiment inspired in Wordsworth by his beloved hills. It +is not so much the love of nature pure and simple, as of nature seen +through the deepest human feelings. The light glimmering in a lonely +cottage, the one rude house in the deep valley, with its 'small lot of +life-supporting fields and guardian rocks,' are necessary to point the +moral and to draw to a definite focus the various forces of sentiment. +The two veins of feeling are inseparably blended. The peasant noble, in +the 'Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,' learns equally from men and +nature:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">His daily teachers had been woods and hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The silence that is in the starry skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The sleep that is among the lonely hills.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Without the love, the silence and the sleep would have had no spiritual +meaning. They are valuable as giving intensity and solemnity to the +positive emotion.</p> + +<p>The same remark is to be made upon Wordsworth's favourite teaching of +the advantages of the contemplative life. He is fond of enforcing the +doctrine of the familiar lines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> that we can feed our minds 'in a wise +passiveness,' and that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One impulse from the vernal wood<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Can teach you more of man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of moral evil and of good,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Than all the sages can.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And, according to some commentators, this would seem to express the +doctrine that the ultimate end of life is the cultivation of tender +emotions without reference to action. The doctrine, thus absolutely +stated, would be immoral and illogical. To recommend contemplation in +preference to action is like preferring sleeping to waking; or saying, +as a full expression of the truth, that silence is golden and speech +silvern. Like that familiar phrase, Wordsworth's teaching is not to be +interpreted literally. The essence of such maxims is to be one-sided. +They are paradoxical in order to be emphatic. To have seasons of +contemplation, of withdrawal from the world and from books, of calm +surrendering of ourselves to the influences of nature, is a practice +commended in one form or other by all moral teachers. It is a sanitary +rule, resting upon obvious principles. The mind which is always occupied +in a multiplicity of small observations, or the regulation of practical +details, loses the power of seeing general principles and of associating +all objects with the central emotions of 'admiration, hope, and love.' +The philosophic mind is that which habitually sees the general in the +particular, and finds food for the deepest thought in the simplest +objects. It requires, therefore, periods of repose, in which the +fragmentary and complex atoms of distracted feeling which make up the +incessant whirl of daily life may have time to crystallise round the +central thoughts. But it must feed in order to assimilate; and each +process implies the other as its correlative. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> constant interest, +therefore, in the joys and sorrows of our neighbours is as essential as +quiet, self-centred rumination. It is when the eye 'has kept watch o'er +man's mortality,' and by virtue of the tender sympathies of 'the human +heart by which we live,' that to us</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The meanest flower which blows can give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The solitude which implies severance from natural sympathies and +affections is poisonous. The happiness of the heart which lives alone,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Housed in a dream, an outcast from the kind,<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Wordsworth's meditations upon flowers or animal life are impressive +because they have been touched by this constant sympathy. The sermon is +always in his mind, and therefore every stone may serve for a text. His +contemplation enables him to see the pathetic side of the small pains +and pleasures which we are generally in too great a hurry to notice. +There are times, of course, when this moralising tendency leads him to +the regions of the namby-pamby or sheer prosaic platitude. On the other +hand, no one approaches him in the power of touching some rich chord of +feeling by help of the pettiest incident. The old man going to the +fox-hunt with a tear on his cheek, and saying to himself,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The key I must take, for my Helen is dead;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or the mother carrying home her dead sailor's bird; the village +schoolmaster, in whom a rift in the clouds revives the memory of his +little daughter; the old huntsman unable to cut through the stump of +rotten wood—touch our hearts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> at once and for ever. The secret is given +in the rather prosaic apology for not relating a tale about poor Simon +Lee:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O reader! had you in your mind<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Such stores as silent thought can bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O gentle reader! you would find<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A tale in everything.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The value of silent thought is so to cultivate the primitive emotions +that they may flow spontaneously upon every common incident, and that +every familiar object becomes symbolic of them. It is a familiar remark +that a philosopher or man of science who has devoted himself to +meditation upon some principle or law of nature, is always finding new +illustrations in the most unexpected quarters. He cannot take up a novel +or walk across the street without hitting upon appropriate instances. +Wordsworth would apply the principle to the building up of our 'moral +being.' Admiration, hope, and love should be so constantly in our +thoughts, that innumerable sights and sounds which are meaningless to +the world should become to us a language incessantly suggestive of the +deepest topics of thought.</p> + +<p>This explains his dislike to science, as he understood the word, and his +denunciations of the 'world.' The man of science is one who cuts up +nature into fragments, and not only neglects their possible significance +for our higher feelings, but refrains on principle from taking it into +account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification, +and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance +as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead +and spiritless,' we are thus really waging</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An impious warfare with the very life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of our own souls.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We are putting the letter in place of the spirit, and dealing with +nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem. When we have learnt to +associate every object with some lesson</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of human suffering or of human joy;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>when we have thus obtained the 'glorious habit,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">By which sense is made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Subservient still to moral purposes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Auxiliar to divine;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the 'dull eye' of science will light up; for, in observing natural +processes, it will carry with it an incessant reference to the spiritual +processes to which they are allied. Science, in short, requires to be +brought into intimate connection with morality and religion. If we are +forced for our immediate purpose to pursue truth for itself, regardless +of consequences, we must remember all the more carefully that truth is a +whole, and that fragmentary bits of knowledge become valuable as they +are incorporated into a general system. The tendency of modern times to +specialism brings with it a characteristic danger. It requires to be +supplemented by a correlative process of integration. We must study +details to increase our knowledge; we must accustom ourselves to look at +the detail in the light of the general principles in order to make it +fruitful.</p> + +<p>The influence of that world which 'is too much with us late and soon' is +of the same kind. The man of science loves barren facts for their own +sake. The man of the world becomes devoted to some petty pursuit without +reference to ultimate ends. He becomes a slave to money, or power, or +praise, without caring for their effect upon his moral character. As +social organisation becomes more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> complete, the social unit becomes a +mere fragment instead of being a complete whole in himself. Man becomes</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The senseless member of a vast machine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The division of labour, celebrated with such enthusiasm by Adam +Smith,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> tends to crush all real life out of its victims. The soul of +the political economist may rejoice when he sees a human being devoting +his whole faculties to the performance of one subsidiary operation in +the manufacture of a pin. The poet and the moralist must notice with +anxiety the contrast between the old-fashioned peasant who, if he +discharged each particular function clumsily, discharged at least many +functions, and found exercise for all the intellectual and moral +faculties of his nature, and the modern artisan doomed to the incessant +repetition of one petty set of muscular expansions and contractions, and +whose soul, if he has one, is therefore rather an encumbrance than +otherwise. This is the evil which is constantly before Wordsworth's +eyes, as it has certainly not become less prominent since his time. The +danger of crushing the individual is a serious one according to his +view; not because it implies the neglect of some abstract political +rights, but from the impoverishment of character which is implied in the +process. Give every man a vote, and abolish all interference with each +man's private tastes, and the danger may still be as great as ever. The +tendency to 'differentiation'—as we call it in modern phraseology—the +social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's +sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon +processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span>fore, be +cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, or by the negative remedy +of removing old barriers. It requires to be met by profounder moral and +religious teaching. Men must be taught what is the really valuable part +of their natures, and what is the purest happiness to be extracted from +life, as well as allowed to gratify fully their own tastes; for who can +say that men encouraged by all their surroundings and appeals to the +most obvious motives to turn themselves into machines, will not +deliberately choose to be machines? Many powerful thinkers have +illustrated Wordsworth's doctrine more elaborately, but nobody has gone +more decisively to the root of the matter.</p> + +<p>One other side of Wordsworth's teaching is still more significant and +original. Our vague instincts are consolidated into reason by +meditation, sympathy with our fellows, communion with nature, and a +constant devotion to 'high endeavours.' If life run smoothly, the +transformation may be easy, and our primitive optimism turn +imperceptibly into general complacency. The trial comes when we make +personal acquaintance with sorrow, and our early buoyancy begins to +fail. We are tempted to become querulous or to lap ourselves in +indifference. Most poets are content to bewail our lot melodiously, and +admit that there is no remedy unless a remedy be found in 'the luxury of +grief.' Prosaic people become selfish, though not sentimental. They +laugh at their old illusions, and turn to the solid consolations of +comfort. Nothing is more melancholy than to study many biographies, and +note—not the failure of early promise, which may mean merely an aiming +above the mark—but the progressive deterioration of character which so +often follows grief and disappointment. If it be not true that most men +grow worse as they grow old, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> surely true that few men pass +through the world without being corrupted as much as purified.</p> + +<p>Now Wordsworth's favourite lesson is the possibility of turning grief +and disappointment into account. He teaches in many forms the necessity +of 'transmuting' sorrow into strength. One of the great evils is a lack +of power,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An agonising sorrow to transmute.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Happy Warrior is, above all, the man who in face of all human +miseries can</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Exercise a power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which is our human nature's highest dower;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their bad influence, and their good receives;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who is made more compassionate by familiarity with sorrow, more placable +by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It +is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to +the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who +will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an +impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we +may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an +intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far +at least as this world is concerned, can really be called consolatory. +None of the ordinary commonplaces will serve, or serve at most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> as +indications of human sympathy. But there is some consolation in the +thought that even death may bind the survivors closer, and leave as a +legacy enduring motives to noble action. It is easy to say this; but +Wordsworth has the merit of feeling the truth in all its force, and +expressing it by the most forcible images. In one shape or another the +sentiment is embodied in most of his really powerful poetry. It is +intended, for example, to be the moral of the 'White Doe of Rylstone.' +There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is +external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral +and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it +grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem. +Emily, the heroine, is to become a soul</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By force of sorrows high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uplifted to the purest sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of undisturbed serenity.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The 'White Doe' is one of those poems which make many readers inclined +to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's dogged insensibility; and I +confess that I am not one of its warm admirers. The sentiment seems to +be unduly relaxed throughout; there is a want of sympathy with heroism +of the rough and active type, which is, after all, at least as worthy of +admiration as the more passive variety of the virtue; and the defect is +made more palpable by the position of the chief actors. These rough +borderers, who recall William of Deloraine and Dandie Dinmont, are +somehow out of their element when preaching the doctrines of quietism +and submission to circumstances. But, whatever our judgment of this +particular embodiment of Wordsworth's moral philosophy, the inculcation +of the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> lesson gives force to many of his finest poems. It is +enough to mention the 'Leech-gatherer,' the 'Stanzas on Peele Castle,' +'Michael,' and, as expressing the inverse view of the futility of idle +grief, 'Laodamia,' where he has succeeded in combining his morality with +more than his ordinary beauty of poetical form. The teaching of all +these poems falls in with the doctrine already set forth. All moral +teaching, I have sometimes fancied, might be summed up in the one +formula, 'Waste not.' Every element of which our nature is composed may +be said to be good in its proper place; and therefore every vicious +habit springs out of the misapplication of forces which might be turned +to account by judicious training. The waste of sorrow is one of the most +lamentable forms of waste. Sorrow too often tends to produce bitterness +or effeminacy of character. But it may, if rightly used, serve only to +detach us from the lower motives, and give sanctity to the higher. That +is what Wordsworth sees with unequalled clearness, and he therefore sees +also the condition of profiting. The mind in which the most valuable +elements have been systematically strengthened by meditation, by +association of deep thought with the most universal presences, by +constant sympathy with the joys and sorrows of its fellows, will be +prepared to convert sorrow into a medicine instead of a poison. Sorrow +is deteriorating so far as it is selfish. The man who is occupied with +his own interests makes grief an excuse for effeminate indulgence in +self-pity. He becomes weaker and more fretful. The man who has learnt +habitually to think of himself as part of a greater whole, whose conduct +has been habitually directed to noble ends, is purified and strengthened +by the spiritual convulsion. His disappointment, or his loss of some +beloved object, makes him more anxious to fix the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> bases of his +happiness widely and deeply, and to be content with the consciousness of +honest work, instead of looking for what is called success.</p> + +<p>But I must not take to preaching in the place of Wordsworth. The whole +theory is most nobly summed up in the grand lines already noticed on the +character of the Happy Warrior. There Wordsworth has explained in the +most forcible and direct language the mode in which a grand character +can be formed; how youthful impulses may change into manly purpose; how +pain and sorrow may be transmuted into new forces; how the mind may be +fixed upon lofty purposes; how the domestic affections—which give the +truest happiness—may also be the greatest source of strength to the man +who is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">More brave for this, that he has much to lose;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and how, finally, he becomes indifferent to all petty ambition—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This is the Happy Warrior, this is he<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whom every man in arms should wish to be.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We may now see what ethical theory underlies Wordsworth's teaching of +the transformation of instinct into reason. We must start from the +postulate that there is in fact a Divine order in the universe; and that +conformity to this order produces beauty as embodied in the external +world, and is the condition of virtue as regulating our character. It is +by obedience to the 'stern lawgiver,' Duty, that flowers gain their +fragrance, and that 'the most ancient heavens' preserve their freshness +and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in +abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and +emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not +a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are +not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering +their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been +implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds +to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to +experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the +assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it, +though we could not deduce it by an <i>à priori</i> method.</p> + +<p>The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and +may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern +teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy +natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great +primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume. +Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and +endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the +primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights +of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;' +and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for +furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite +treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early +happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief +produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on +petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and +pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> the +noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its +instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature, +and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know +how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised +are the laws of morality.</p> + +<p>To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode +of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You +must love him,' as he says of the poet,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Ere to you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He will seem worthy of your love.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The doctrine corresponds to the <i>crede ut intelligas</i> of the divine; or +to the philosophic theory that we must start from the knowledge already +constructed within us by instincts which have not yet learnt to reason. +And, finally, if a persistent reasoner should ask why—even admitting +the facts—the higher type should be preferred to the lower, Wordsworth +may ask, Why is bodily health preferable to disease? If a man likes weak +lungs and a bad digestion, reason cannot convince him of his error. The +physician has done enough when he has pointed out the sanitary laws +obedience to which generates strength, long life, and power of +enjoyment. The moralist is in the same position when he has shown how +certain habits conduce to the development of a type superior to its +rivals in all the faculties which imply permanent peace of mind and +power of resisting the shocks of the world without disintegration. Much +undoubtedly remains to be said. Wordsworth's teaching, profound and +admirable as it may be, has not the potency to silence the scepticism +which has gathered strength since his day, and assailed fundamental—or +what to him seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> fundamental—tenets of his system. No one can yet +say what transformation may pass upon the thoughts and emotions for +which he found utterance in speaking of the Divinity and sanctity of +nature. Some people vehemently maintain that the words will be emptied +of all meaning if the old theological conceptions to which he was so +firmly attached should disappear with the development of new modes of +thought. Nature, as regarded by the light of modern science, will be the +name of a cruel and wasteful, or at least of a purely neutral and +indifferent power, or perhaps as merely an equivalent for the +Unknowable, to which the conditions of our intellect prevent us from +ever attaching any intelligible predicate. Others would say that in +whatever terms we choose to speak of the mysterious darkness which +surrounds our little island of comparative light, the emotion generated +in a thoughtful mind by the contemplation of the universe will remain +unaltered or strengthen with clearer knowledge; and that we shall +express ourselves in a new dialect without altering the essence of our +thought. The emotions to which Wordsworth has given utterance will +remain, though the system in which he believed should sink into +oblivion; as, indeed, all human systems have found different modes of +symbolising the same fundamental feelings. But it is enough vaguely to +indicate considerations not here to be developed.</p> + +<p>It only remains to be added once more that Wordsworth's poetry derives +its power from the same source as his philosophy. It speaks to our +strongest feelings because his speculation rests upon our deepest +thoughts. His singular capacity for investing all objects with a glow +derived from early associations; his keen sympathy with natural and +simple emotions; his sense of the sanctifying influences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> which can be +extracted from sorrow, are of equal value to his power over our +intellects and our imaginations. His psychology, stated systematically, +is rational; and, when expressed passionately, turns into poetry. To be +sensitive to the most important phenomena is the first step equally +towards a poetical or a scientific exposition. To see these truly is the +condition of making the poetry harmonious and the philosophy logical. +And it is often difficult to say which power is most remarkable in +Wordsworth. It would be easy to illustrate the truth by other than moral +topics. His sonnet, noticed by De Quincey, in which he speaks of the +abstracting power of darkness, and observes that as the hills pass into +twilight we see the same sight as the ancient Britons, is impressive as +it stands, but would be equally good as an illustration in a +metaphysical treatise. Again, the sonnet beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is at once, as he has shown in a commentary of his own, an illustration +of a curious psychological law—of our tendency, that is, to introduce +an arbitrary principle of order into a random collection of +objects—and, for the same reason, a striking embodiment of the +corresponding mood of feeling. The little poem called 'Stepping +Westward' is in the same way at once a delicate expression of a specific +sentiment and an acute critical analysis of the subtle associations +suggested by a single phrase. But such illustrations might be multiplied +indefinitely. As he has himself said, there is scarcely one of his poems +which does not call attention to some moral sentiment, or to a general +principle or law of thought, of our intellectual constitution.</p> + +<p>Finally, we might look at the reverse side of the picture, and endeavour +to show how the narrow limits of Words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>worth's power are connected with +certain moral defects; with the want of quick sympathy which shows +itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which +caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather +commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he +assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many +thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would +be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to +console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy +happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to +think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;' +and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest +exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has +expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and +Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in +acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this +connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> As, for example, in the <i>Lines on Tintern Abbey</i>: 'If this be but a +vain belief.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See Wordsworth's reference to the <i>Wealth of Nations</i>, in the +<i>Prelude</i>, book xiii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> So, too, in the <i>Prelude</i>:—</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then was the truth received into my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If from the affliction somewhere do not grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Honour which could not else have been, a faith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An elevation, and a sanctity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If new strength be not given, nor old restored,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fault is ours, not Nature's.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span></p> +<h2><i>LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS</i></h2> + + +<p>When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works, +the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part +any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and +were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a +definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an +attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most +striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of +opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general +public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish +applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It +is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer literary palate than is +possessed by the vulgar herd are really so keenly appreciative as the +innocent reader of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in matters +of taste—whether of the literal or metaphorical kind—is the commonest +of vices. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are +more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed. I have heard very good +judges whisper in private that they have found Landor dull; and the rare +citations made from his works often betray a very perfunctory study of +them. Not long ago, for example, an able critic quoted a passage from +one of the 'Imaginary Conversations' to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> prove that Landor admired +Milton's prose, adding the remark that it might probably be taken as an +expression of his real sentiments, although put in the mouth of a +dramatic person. To anyone who has read Landor with ordinary attention, +it seems as absurd to speak in this hypothetical manner as it would be +to infer from some incidental allusion that Mr. Ruskin admires Turner. +Landor's adoration for Milton is one of the most conspicuous of his +critical propensities. There are, of course, many eulogies upon Landor +of undeniable weight. They are hearty, genuine, and from competent +judges. Yet the enthusiasm of such admirable critics as Mr. Emerson and +Mr. Lowell may be carped at by some who fancy that every American enjoys +a peculiar sense of complacency when rescuing an English genius from the +neglect of his own countrymen. If Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne have +been conspicuous in their admiration, it might be urged that neither of +them has too strong a desire to keep to that beaten highroad of the +commonplace, beyond which even the best guides meet with pitfalls. +Southey's praises of Landor were sincere and emphatic; but it must be +added that they provoke a recollection of one of Johnson's shrewd +remarks. 'The reciprocal civility of authors,' says the Doctor, 'is one +of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.' One forgives poor +Southey indeed for the vanity which enabled him to bear up so bravely +against anxiety and repeated disappointment; and if both he and Landor +found that 'reciprocal civility' helped them to bear the disregard of +contemporaries, one would not judge them harshly. It was simply a tacit +agreement to throw their harmless vanity into a common stock. Of Mr. +Forster, Landor's faithful friend and admirer, one can only say that in +his writing about Landor, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> upon other topics, we are distracted +between the respect due to his strong feeling for the excellent in +literature, and the undeniable facts that his criticisms have a very +blunt edge, and that his eulogies are apt to be indiscriminate.</p> + +<p>Southey and Wordsworth had a simple method of explaining the neglect of +a great author. According to them, contemporary neglect affords a +negative presumption in favour of permanent reputation. No lofty poet +has honour in his own generation. Southey's conviction that his +ponderous epics would make the fortune of his children is a pleasant +instance of self-delusion. But the theory is generally admitted in +regard to Wordsworth; and Landor accepted and defended it with +characteristic vigour. 'I have published,' he says in the conversation +with Hare, 'five volumes of "Imaginary Conversations:" cut the worst of +them through the middle, and there will remain in the decimal fraction +enough to satisfy my appetite for fame. I shall dine late; but the +dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.' He recurs +frequently to the doctrine. 'Be patient!' he says, in another character. +'From the higher heavens of poetry it is long before the radiance of the +brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out +one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and +instruments on the poet's grave. The worms must have eaten us before we +rightly know what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are +boxed and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so! I shall not be tired +of waiting.' Conscious, as he says in his own person, that in 2,000 +years there have not been five volumes of prose (the work of one author) +equal to his 'Conversations,' he could indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> afford to wait: if +conscious of earthly things, he must be waiting still.</p> + +<p>This superlative self-esteem strikes one, to say the truth, as part of +Landor's abiding boyishness. It is only in schoolboy themes that we are +still inclined to talk about the devouring love of fame. Grown-up men +look rightly with some contempt upon such aspirations. What work a man +does is really done in, or at least through, his own generation; and the +posthumous fame which poets affect to value means, for the most part, +being known by name to a few antiquarians, schoolmasters, or secluded +students. When the poet, to adopt Landor's metaphor, has become a +luminous star, his superiority to those which have grown dim by distance +is indeed for the first time clearly demonstrated. We can still see him, +though other bodies of his system have vanished into the infinite depths +of oblivion. But he has also ceased to give appreciable warmth or light +to ordinary human beings. He is a splendid name, but not a living +influence. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to any +such statements, but I have a suspicion that even Shakespeare's chief +work may have been done in the Globe Theatre, to living audiences, who +felt what they never thought of criticising, and were quite unable to +measure; and that, spite of all æsthetic philosophers and minute +antiquarians and judicious revivals, his real influence upon men's minds +has been for the most part declining as his fame has been spreading. To +defend or fully expound this heretical dogma would take too much space. +The 'late-dinner' theory, however, as held by Wordsworth and Landor, is +subject to one less questionable qualification. It is an utterly +untenable proposition that great men have been generally overlooked in +their own day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span></p> + +<p>If we run over the chief names of our literature, it would be hard to +point to one which was not honoured, and sometimes honoured to excess, +during its proprietor's lifetime. It is, indeed, true that much +ephemeral underwood has often hidden in part the majestic forms which +now stand out as sole relics of the forest. It is true also that the +petty spite and jealousy of contemporaries, especially of their ablest +contemporaries, has often prevented the full recognition of great men. +And there have been some whose fame, like that of Bunyan and De Foe, has +extended amongst the lower sphere of readers before receiving the +ratification of constituted judges. But such irregularities in the +distribution of fame do not quite meet the point. I doubt whether one +could mention a single case in which an author, overlooked at the time +both by the critics and the mass, has afterwards become famous; and the +cases are very rare in which a reputation once decayed has again taken +root and shown real vitality. The experiment of resuscitation has been +tried of late years with great pertinacity. The forgotten images of our +seventeenth-century ancestors have been brought out of the lumber-room +amidst immense flourishes of trumpets, but they are terribly worm-eaten; +and all efforts to make their statues once more stand firmly on their +pedestals have generally failed. Landor himself refused to see the +merits of the mere 'mushrooms,' as he somewhere called them, which grew +beneath the Shakespearian oak; and though such men as Chapman, Webster, +and Ford have received the warmest eulogies of Lamb and other able +successors, their vitality is spasmodic and uncertain. We generally read +them, if we read them, at the point of the critic's bayonet.</p> + +<p>The case of Wordsworth is no precedent for Landor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> Wordsworth's fame +was for a long time confined to a narrow sect, and he did all in his +power to hinder its spread by wilful disregard of the established +canons—even when founded in reason. A reformer who will not court the +prejudices even of his friends is likely to be slow in making converts. +But it is one thing to be slow in getting a hearing, and another in +attracting men who are quite prepared to hear. Wordsworth resembled a +man coming into a drawing-room with muddy boots and a smock-frock. He +courted disgust, and such courtship is pretty sure of success. But +Landor made his bow in full court-dress. In spite of the difficulty of +his poetry, he had all the natural graces which are apt to propitiate +cultivated readers. His prose has merits so conspicuous and so dear to +the critical mind, that one might have expected his welcome from the +connoisseurs to be warm even beyond the limit of sincerity. To praise +him was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and +there can be no greater stimulus to critical enthusiasm. One might have +guessed that he would be a favourite with all who set up for a +discernment superior to that of the vulgar; though the causes which must +obstruct a wide recognition of his merits are sufficiently obvious. It +may be interesting to consider the cause of his ill-success with some +fulness; and it is a comfort to the critic to reflect that in such a +case even obtuseness is in some sort a qualification; for it will enable +one to sympathise with the vulgar insensibility to the offered delicacy, +if only to substitute articulate rejection for simple stolid silence.</p> + +<p>I do not wish, indeed, to put forward such a claim too unreservedly. I +will merely take courage to confess that Landor very frequently bores +me. So do a good many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage +be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon +Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever +spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, +almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser +continuously. Even Milton in Landor's hands, in defiance of his known +opinions, is made to speak contemptuously of 'The Faery Queen.' 'There +is scarcely a poet of the same eminence,' says Porson, obviously +representing Landor in this case, 'whom I have found it so delightful to +read in, and so hard to read through.' What Landor here says of Spenser, +I should venture to say of Landor. There are few books of the kind into +which one may dip with so great a certainty of finding much to admire as +the 'Imaginary Conversations,' and few of any high reputation which are +so certain to become wearisome after a time. And yet, upon thinking of +the whole five volumes so emphatically extolled by their author, one +feels the necessity of some apology for this admission of inadequate +sympathy. There is a vigour of feeling, an originality of character, a +fineness of style which makes one understand, if not quite agree to, the +audacious self-commendation. Part of the effect is due simply to the +sheer quantity of good writing. Take any essay separately, and one must +admit that—to speak only of his contemporaries—there is a greater +charm in passages of equal length by Lamb, De Quincey, or even Hazlitt. +None of them gets upon such stilts, or seems so anxious to keep the +reader at arm's length. But, on the other hand, there is something +imposing in so continuous a flow of stately and generally faultless +English, with so many weighty aphorisms rising spontaneously, without +splashing or disturbance, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> the surface of talk, and such an easy +felicity of theme unmarred by the flash and glitter of the modern +epigrammatic style. Lamb is both sweeter and more profound, to say +nothing of his incomparable humour; but then Lamb's flight is short and +uncertain. De Quincey's passages of splendid rhetoric are too often +succeeded by dead levels of verbosity and laboured puerilities which +make annoyance alternate with enthusiasm. Hazlitt is often spasmodic, +and his intrusive egotism is pettish and undignified. But so far at +least as his style is concerned, Landor's unruffled abundant stream of +continuous harmony excites one's admiration the more the longer one +reads. Hardly anyone who has written so much has kept so uniformly to a +high level, and so seldom descended to empty verbosity or to downright +slipshod. It is true that the substance does not always correspond to +the perfection of the form. There are frequent discontinuities of +thought where the style is smoothest. He reminds one at times of those +Alpine glaciers where an exquisitely rounded surface of snow conceals +yawning crevasses beneath; and if one stops for a moment to think, one +is apt to break through the crust with an abrupt and annoying jerk.</p> + +<p>The excellence of Landor's style has, of course, been universally +acknowledged, and it is natural that it should be more appreciated by +his fellow-craftsmen than by general readers less interested in +technical questions. The defects are the natural complements of its +merits. When accused of being too figurative, he had a ready reply. +'Wordsworth,' he says in one of his 'Conversations,' 'slithers on the +soft mud, and cannot stop himself until he comes down. In his poetry +there is as much of prose as there is of poetry in the prose of Milton. +But prose on certain occasions can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> bear a great deal of poetry; on the +other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose, +and neither fan nor burnt feather can bring her to herself again.' The +remark about the relations of prose and poetry was originally made in a +real conversation with Wordsworth in defence of Landor's own luxuriance. +Wordsworth, it is said, took it to himself, and not without reason, as +appears by its insertion in this 'Conversation.' The retort, however +happy, is no more conclusive than other cases of the <i>tu quoque</i>. We are +too often inclined to say to Landor as Southey says to Porson in another +place: 'Pray leave these tropes and metaphors.' His sense suffers from a +superfetation of figures, or from the undue pursuit of a figure, till +the 'wind of the poor phrase is cracked.' In the phrase just quoted, for +example, we could dispense with the 'fan and burnt feather,' which have +very little relation to the thought. So, to take an instance of the +excessively florid, I may quote the phrase in which Marvell defends his +want of respect for the aristocracy of his day. 'Ever too hard upon +great men, Mr. Marvell!' says Bishop Parker; and Marvell replies:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows because +our sun is setting; the men so little and the places so +lofty that, casting my pebble, I only show where they stand. +They would be less contented with themselves, if they had +obtained their preferment honestly. Luck and dexterity +always give more pleasure than intellect and knowledge; +because they fill up what they fall on to the brim at once; +and people run to them with acclamations at the splash. +Wisdom is reserved and noiseless, contented with hard +earnings, and daily letting go some early acquisition to +make room for better specimens. But great is the exultation +of a worthless man when he receives for the chips and +raspings of his Bridewell logwood a richer reward than the +best and wisest for extensive tracts of well-cleared truths! +Even he who has sold his country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>—</p></div> + +<p>'Forbear, good Mr. Marvell,' says Bishop Parker; and one is inclined to +sympathise with the poor man drowned under this cascade of tropes. It is +certainly imposing, but I should be glad to know the meaning of the +metaphor about 'luck and dexterity.' Passages occur, again, in which we +are tempted to think that Landor is falling into an imitation of an +obsolete model. Take, for example, the following:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A narrow mind cannot be enlarged, nor can a capacious one be +contracted. Are we angry with a phial for not being a flask; +or do we wonder that the skin of an elephant sits uneasily +on a squirrel?</p></div> + +<p>Or this, in reference to Wordsworth:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Pastiness and flatness are the qualities of a pancake, and +thus far he attained his aim: but if he means it for me, let +him place the accessories on the table, lest what is insipid +and clammy ... grow into duller accretion and moister +viscidity the more I masticate it.</p></div> + +<p>Or a remark given to Newton:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Wherever there is vacuity of mind, there must either be +flaccidity or craving; and this vacuity must necessarily be +found in the greater part of princes, from the defects of +their education, from the fear of offending them in its +progress by interrogations and admonitions, from the habit +of rendering all things valueless by the facility with which +they are obtained, and transitory by the negligence with +which they are received and holden.</p></div> + +<p>Should we not remove the names of Porson and Newton from these +sentences, and substitute Sam Johnson? The last passage reads very like +a quotation from the 'Rambler.' Johnson was, in my opinion and in +Landor's, a great writer in spite of his mannerism; but the mannerism is +always rather awkward, and in such places we seem to see—cer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span>tainly not +a squirrel—but, say, a thoroughbred horse invested with the skin of an +elephant.</p> + +<p>These lapses into the inflated are of course exceptional with Landor. +There can be no question of the fineness of his perception in all +matters of literary form. To say that his standard of style is classical +is to repeat a commonplace too obvious for repetition, except to add a +doubt whether he is not often too ostentatious and self-conscious in his +classicism. He loves and often exhibits a masculine simplicity, and +speaks with enthusiasm of Locke and Swift in their own departments. +Locke is to be 'revered;' he is 'too simply grand for admiration;' and +no one, he thinks, ever had such a power as Swift of saying forcibly and +completely whatever he meant to say. But for his own purposes he +generally prefers a different model. The qualities which he specially +claims seem to be summed up in the conversation upon Bacon's Essays +between Newton and Barrow. Cicero and Bacon, says Barrow, have more +wisdom between them than all the philosophers of antiquity. Newton's +review of the Essays, he adds, 'hath brought back to my recollection so +much of shrewd judgment, so much of rich imagery, such a profusion of +truths so plain as (without his manner of exhibiting them) to appear +almost unimportant, that in various high qualities of the human mind I +must acknowledge not only Cicero, but every prose writer among the +Greeks, to stand far below him. Cicero is least valued for his highest +merits, his fulness, and his perspicuity. Bad judges (and how few are +not so!) desire in composition the concise and obscure; not knowing that +the one most frequently arises from paucity of materials, and the other +from inability to manage and dispose them.' Landor aims, like Bacon, at +rich imagery, at giving to thoughts which appear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> plain more value by +fineness of expression, and at compressing shrewd judgments into weighty +aphorisms. He would equally rival Cicero in fulness and perspicuity; +whilst a severe rejection of everything slovenly or superfluous would +save him from ever deviating into the merely florid. So far as style can +be really separated from thought, we may admit unreservedly that he has +succeeded in his aim, and has attained a rare harmony of tone and +colouring.</p> + +<p>There may, indeed, be some doubt as to his perspicuity. Southey said +that Landor was obscure, whilst adding that he could not explain the +cause of the obscurity. Causes enough may be suggested. Besides his +incoherency, his love of figures which sometimes become half detached +from the underlying thought, and an over-anxiety to avoid mere smartness +which sometimes leads to real vagueness, he expects too much from his +readers, or perhaps despises them too much. He will not condescend to +explanation if you do not catch his drift at half a word. He is so +desirous to round off his transitions gracefully, that he obliterates +the necessary indications of the main divisions of the subject. When +criticising Milton or Dante, he can hardly keep his hand off the finest +passages in his desire to pare away superfluities. Treating himself in +the same fashion, he leaves none of those little signs which, like the +typographical hand prefixed to a notice, are extremely convenient, +though strictly superfluous. It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard +framework of logical divisions showing too distinctly in an argument, or +to have a too elaborate statement of dates and places and external +relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may be removed too +freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffolding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +Faults of this kind, however, will not explain Landor's failure to get a +real hold upon a large body of readers. Writers of far greater obscurity +and much more repellent blemishes of style to set against much lower +merits, have gained a far wider popularity. The want of sympathy between +so eminent a literary artist and his time must rest upon some deeper +divergence of sentiment. Landor's writings present the same kind of +problem as his life. We are told, and we can see for ourselves, that he +was a man of many very high and many very amiable qualities. He was full +of chivalrous feeling; capable of the most flowing and delicate +courtesy; easily stirred to righteous indignation against every kind of +tyranny and bigotry; capable, too, of a tenderness pleasantly contrasted +with his outbursts of passing wrath; passionately fond of children, and +a true lover of dogs. But with all this, he could never live long at +peace with anybody. He was the most impracticable of men, and every +turning-point in his career was decided by some vehement quarrel. He had +to leave school in consequence of a quarrel, trifling in itself, but +aggravated by 'a fierce defiance of all authority and a refusal to ask +forgiveness.' He got into a preposterous scrape at Oxford, and forced +the authorities to rusticate him. This branched out into a quarrel with +his father. When he set up as a country gentleman at Llanthony Abbey, he +managed to quarrel with his neighbours and his tenants, until the +accumulating consequences to his purse forced him to go to Italy. On the +road thither he began the first of many quarrels with his wife, which +ultimately developed into a chronic quarrel and drove him back to +England. From England he was finally dislodged by another quarrel which +drove him back to Italy. Intermediate quarrels of minor importance are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> +intercalated between those which provoked decisive crises. The +lightheartedness which provoked all these difficulties is not more +remarkable than the ease with which he threw them off his mind. Blown +hither and thither by his own gusts of passion, he always seems to fall +on his feet, and forgets his trouble as a schoolboy forgets yesterday's +flogging. On the first transitory separation from his wife, he made +himself quite happy by writing Latin verses; and he always seems to have +found sufficient consolation in such literary occupation for vexations +which would have driven some people out of their mind. He would not, he +writes, encounter the rudeness of a certain lawyer to save all his +property; but he adds, 'I have chastised him in my Latin poetry now in +the press.' Such a mode of chastisement seems to have been as completely +satisfactory to Landor as it doubtless was to the lawyer.</p> + +<p>His quarrels do not alienate us, for it is evident that they did not +proceed from any malignant passion. If his temper was ungovernable, his +passions were not odious, or, in any low sense, selfish. In many, if not +all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of +right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive +insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people +who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing +to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense +of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against +stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance of shrewd +sense which fully appreciates Falstaff's theory of honour. Scott himself +managed to combine the two qualities; but poor Landor seems to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span> had +Hotspur's readiness to quarrel on the tenth part of a hair without the +redeeming touch of common-sense. In a slightly different social sphere, +he must, one would fancy, have been the mark of a dozen bullets before +he had grown up to manhood; it is not quite clear how, even as it was, +he avoided duels, unless because he regarded the practice as a Christian +barbarism to which the ancients had never condescended.</p> + +<p>His position and surroundings tended to aggravate his incoherencies of +statement. Like his own Peterborough, he was a man of aristocratic +feeling, with a hearty contempt for aristocrats. The expectation that he +would one day join the ranks of the country gentlemen unsettled him as a +scholar; and when he became a landed proprietor he despised his fellow +'barbarians' with a true scholar's contempt. He was not forced into the +ordinary professional groove, and yet did not fully imbibe the +prejudices of the class who can afford to be idle, and the natural +result is an odd mixture of conflicting prejudices. He is classical in +taste and cosmopolitan in life, and yet he always retains a certain +John-Bull element. His preference of Shakespeare to Racine is associated +with, if not partly prompted by, a mere English antipathy to foreigners. +He never becomes Italianised so far as to lose his contempt for men +whose ideas of sport rank larks with the orthodox partridge. He abuses +Castlereagh and poor George III. to his heart's content, and so far +flies in the face of British prejudice; but it is by no means as a +sympathiser with foreign innovations. His republicanism is strongly +dashed with old-fashioned conservatism, and he is proud of a doubtful +descent from old worthies of the true English type. Through all his +would-be paganism we feel that at bottom he is after all a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> true-born +and wrong-headed Englishman. He never, like Shelley, pushed his quarrel +with the old order to the extreme, but remained in a solitary cave of +Adullam. 'There can be no great genius,' says Penn to Peterborough, +'where there is not profound and continued reasoning.' The remark is too +good for Penn; and yet it would be dangerous in Landor's own mouth; for +certainly the defect which most strikes us, both in his life and his +writings, is just the inconsistency which leaves most people as the +reasoning powers develop. His work was marred by the unreasonableness of +a nature so impetuous and so absorbed by any momentary gust of passion +that he could never bring his thoughts or his plans to a focus, or +conform them to a general scheme. His prejudices master him both in +speculation and practice. He cannot fairly rise above them, or govern +them by reference to general principles or the permanent interests of +his life. In the vulgar phrase, he is always ready to cut off his nose +to spite his face. He quarrels with his schoolmaster or his wife. In an +instant he is all fire and fury, runs amuck at his best friends, and +does irreparable mischief. Some men might try to atone for such offences +by remorse. Landor, unluckily for himself, could forget the past as +easily as he could ignore the future. He lives only in the present, and +can throw himself into a favourite author or compose Latin verses or an +imaginary conversation as though schoolmasters or wives, or duns or +critics, had no existence. With such a temperament, reasoning, which +implies patient contemplation and painful liberation from prejudice, has +no fair chance; his principles are not the growth of thought, but the +translation into dogmas of intense likes and dislikes, which have grown +up in his mind he scarcely knows how, and gathered strength<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> by sheer +force of repetition instead of deliberate examination.</p> + +<p>His writings reflect—and in some ways only too faithfully—these +idiosyncrasies. Southey said that his temper was the only explanation of +his faults. 'Never did man represent himself in his writings so much +less generous, less just, less compassionate, less noble in all respects +than he really is. I certainly,' he adds, 'never knew anyone of brighter +genius or of kinder heart.' Southey, no doubt, was in this case +resenting certain attacks of Landor's upon his most cherished opinions; +and, truly, nothing but continuous separation could have preserved the +friendship between two men so peremptorily opposed upon so many +essential points. Southey's criticism, though sharpened by such latent +antagonisms, has really much force. The 'Conversations' give much that +Landor's friends would have been glad to ignore; and yet they present +such a full-length portrait of the man, that it is better to dwell upon +them than upon his poetry, which, moreover, with all its fine qualities, +is (I cannot help thinking) of less intrinsic value. The ordinary +reader, however, is repelled from the 'Conversations' not only by mere +inherent difficulties, but by comments which raise a false expectation. +An easy-going critic is apt to assume of any book that it exactly +fulfils the ostensible aim of the author. So we are told of +'Shakespeare's Examination' (and on the high authority of Charles Lamb), +that no one could have written it except Landor or Shakespeare himself. +When Bacon is introduced, we are assured that the aphorisms introduced +are worthy of Bacon himself. What Cicero is made to say is exactly what +he would have said, 'if he could;' and the dialogue between Walton, +Cotton, and Oldways is, of course, as good as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span> passage from the +'Complete Angler.' In the same spirit we are told that the dialogues +were to be 'one-act dramas;' and we are informed how the great +philosophers, statesmen, poets, and artists of all ages did in fact pass +across the stage, each represented to the life, and each discoursing in +his most admirable style.</p> + +<p>All this is easy to say, but unluckily represents what the +'Conversations' would have been had they been perfect. To say that they +are very far from perfect is only to say that they were the compositions +of a man; but Landor was also a man to whom his best friends would +hardly attribute a remarkable immunity from fault. The dialogue, it need +hardly be remarked, is one of the most difficult of all forms of +composition. One rule, however, would be generally admitted. Landor +defends his digressions on the ground that they always occur in real +conversations. If we 'adhere to one point,' he says (in Southey's +person), 'it is a disquisition, not a conversation.' And he adds, with +one of his wilful back-handed blows at Plato, that most writers of +dialogue plunge into abstruse questions, and 'collect a heap of +arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiff of some rhetorical +charlatan tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons for the occasion.' +Possibly! but for all that, the perfect dialogue ought not, we should +say, to be really incoherent. It should include digressions, but the +digressions ought to return upon the main subject. The art consists in +preserving real unity in the midst of the superficial deviations +rendered easy by this form of composition. The facility of digression is +really a temptation, not a privilege. Anybody can write blank verse of a +kind, because it so easily slips into prose; and that is why good blank +verse is so rare. And so anybody can write a decent dialogue if you +allow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> him to ramble as we all do in actual talk. The finest +philosophical dialogues are those in which a complete logical framework +underlies the dramatic structure. They are a perfect fusion of logic and +imagination. Instead of harsh divisions and cross-divisions of the +subject, and a balance of abstract arguments, we have vivid portraits of +human beings, each embodying a different line of thought. But the logic +is still seen, though the more carefully hidden the more exquisite the +skill of the artist. And the purely artistic dialogue which describes +passion or the emotions arising from a given situation should in the +same way set forth a single idea, and preserve a dramatic unity of +conception at least as rigidly as a full-grown play. So far as Landor +used his facilities as an excuse for rambling, instead of so skilfully +subordinating them to the main purpose as to reproduce new variations on +the central theme, he is clearly in error, or is at least aiming at a +lower kind of excellence. And this, it may be said at once, seems to be +the most radical defect in point of composition of Landor's +'Conversations.' They have the fault which his real talk is said to have +exemplified. We are told that his temperament 'disqualified him for +anything like sustained reasoning, and he instinctively backed away from +discussion or argument.' Many of the written dialogues are a prolonged +series of explosions; when one expects a continuous development of a +theme, they are monotonous thunder-growls. Landor undoubtedly had a +sufficient share of dramatic power to write short dialogues expressing a +single situation with most admirable power, delicacy, and firmness of +touch. Nor, again, does the criticism just made refer to those longer +dialogues which are in reality a mere string of notes upon poems or +proposals for reforms in spelling. The slight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span> dramatic form binds +together his pencillings from the margins of 'Paradise Lost' or +Wordsworth's poems very pleasantly, and enables him to give additional +effect to vivacious outbursts of praise or censure. But the more +elaborate dialogues suffer grievously from this absence of a true unity. +There is not that skilful evolution of a central idea without the rigid +formality of scientific discussion which we admire in the real +masterpieces of the art. We have a conglomerate, not an organic growth; +a series of observations set forth with never-failing elegance of style, +and often with singular keenness of perception; but they do not take us +beyond the starting-point. When Robinson Crusoe crossed the Pyrenees, +his guide led him by such dexterous windings and gradual ascents that he +found himself across the mountains before he knew where he was. With +Landor it is just the opposite. After many digressions and ramblings we +find ourselves back on the same side of the original question. We are +marking time with admirable gracefulness, but somehow we are not +advancing. Naturally flesh and blood grow weary when there is no +apparent end to a discussion, except that the author must in time be +wearied of performing variations upon a single theme.</p> + +<p>We are more easily reconciled to some other faults which are rather due +to expectations raised by his critics than to positive errors. No one, +for example, would care to notice an anachronism, if Landor did not +occasionally put in a claim for accuracy. I have no objection whatever +to allow Hooker to console Bacon for his loss of the chancellorship, in +calm disregard of the fact that Hooker died some twenty years before +Bacon rose to that high office. The fault can be amended by substituting +any other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> name for Hooker's. Nor do I at all wish to find in Landor +that kind of archæological accuracy which is sought by some composers of +historical romances. Were it not that critics have asserted the +opposite, it would be hardly worth while to say that Landor's style +seldom condescends to adapt itself to the mouth of the speaker, and that +from Demosthenes to Porson every interlocutor has palpably the true +Landorian trick of speech. Here and there, it is true, the effect is +rather unpleasant. Pericles and Aspasia are apt to indulge in criticism +of English customs, and no weak regard for time and place prevents +Eubulides from denouncing Canning to Demosthenes. The classical dress +becomes so thin on such occasions, that even the small degree of +illusion which one may fairly desiderate is too rudely interrupted. The +actor does not disguise his voice enough for theatrical purposes. It is +perhaps a more serious fault that the dialogue constantly lapses into +monologue. We might often remove the names of the talkers as useless +interruptions. Some conversations might as well be headed, in legal +phraseology, Landor <i>v.</i> Landor, or at most Landor <i>v.</i> Landor and +another—the other being some wretched man of straw or Guy Faux effigy +dragged in to be belaboured with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive +nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the +name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be +made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his +philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two to represent +his smashing retorts.</p> + +<p>There is yet another criticism or two to be added. The extreme +scrupulosity with which Landor polishes his style and removes +superfluities from poetical narrative, smoothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> them at times till we +can hardly grasp them, might have been applied to some of the wanton +digressions in which the dialogues abound. We should have been glad if +he had ruthlessly cut out two-thirds of the conversation between +Richelieu and others, in which some charming English pastorals are mixed +up with a quantity of unmistakable rubbish. But, for the most part, we +can console ourselves by a smile. When Landor lowers his head and +charges bull-like at the phantom of some king or priest, we are prepared +for, and amused by, his impetuosity. Malesherbes discourses with great +point and vigour upon French literature, and may fairly diverge into a +little politics; but it is certainly comic when he suddenly remembers +one of Landor's pet grievances, and the unlucky Rousseau has to discuss +a question for which few people could be more ludicrously unfit—the +details of a plan for reforming the institution of English justices of +the peace. The grave dignity with which the subject is introduced gives +additional piquancy to the absurdity. An occasional laugh at Landor is +the more valuable because, to say the truth, one is not very likely to +laugh with him. Nothing is more difficult for an author—as Landor +himself observes in reference to Milton—than to decide upon his own +merits as a wit or humorist. I am not quite sure that this is true; for +I have certainly found authors distinctly fallible in judging of their +own merits as poets and philosophers. But it is undeniable that many a +man laughs at his own wit who has to laugh alone. I will not take upon +myself to say that Landor was without humour; he has certainly a +delicate gracefulness which may be classed with the finer kinds of +humour; but if anybody (to take one instance) will read the story which +Chaucer tells to Boccaccio and Petrarch and pronounce it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span> to be amusing, +I can only say that his notions of humour differ materially from mine. +Some of his wrathful satire against kings and priests has a vigour which +is amusing; but the tact which enables him to avoid errors of taste of a +different kind often fails him when he tries the facetious.</p> + +<p>Blemishes such as these go some way, perhaps, to account for Landor's +unpopularity. But they are such as might be amply redeemed by his +vigour, his fulness, and unflagging energy of style. There is no equally +voluminous author of great power who does not fall short of his own +highest achievements in a large part of his work, and who is not open to +the remark that his achievements are not all that we could have wished. +It is doubtless best to take what we can get, and not to repine if we do +not get something better, the possibility of which is suggested by the +actual accomplishment. If Landor had united to his own powers those of +Scott or Shakespeare, he would have been improved. Landor, repenting a +little for some censures of Milton, says to Southey, 'Are we not +somewhat like two little beggar-boys who, forgetting that they are in +tatters, sit noticing a few stains and rents in their father's raiment?' +'But they love him,' replies Southey, and we feel the apology to be +sufficient.</p> + +<p>Can we make it in the case of Landor? Is he a man whom we can take to +our hearts, treating his vagaries and ill-humours as we do the testiness +of a valued friend? Or do we feel that he is one whom it is better to +have for an acquaintance than for an intimate? The problem seems to have +exercised those who knew him best in life. Many, like Southey or Napier, +thought him a man of true nobility and tenderness of character, and +looked upon his defects as mere superficial blemishes. If some who came +closer seem to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> had a rather different opinion, we must allow that +a man's personal defects are often unimportant in his literary capacity. +It has been laid down as a general rule that poets cannot get on with +their wives; and yet they are poets in virtue of being lovable at the +core. Landor's domestic troubles need not indicate an incapacity for +meeting our sympathies any more than the domestic troubles of +Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Burns, Byron, Shelley, or many others. In +his poetry a man should show his best self; and defects, important in +the daily life which is made up of trifles, may cease to trouble us when +admitted to the inmost recesses of his nature.</p> + +<p>Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved +unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the +form to the substance—from the manner in which his message is delivered +to the message itself—we find that the superficial defects rise from +very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we +find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. He +has pronounced himself upon a wide range of subjects; there is much +criticism, some of it of a very rare and admirable order; much +theological and political disquisition; and much exposition, in various +forms, of the practical philosophy which every man imbibes according to +his faculties in his passage through the world. It would be undesirable +to discuss seriously his political or religious notions. To say the +truth, they are not really worth discussing, for they are little more +than vehement explosions of unreasoning prejudice. I do not know whether +Landor would have approved the famous aspiration about strangling the +last of kings with the entrails of the last priest, but some such +sentiment seems to sum up all that he really has to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> say. His doctrine +so far coincides with that of Diderot and other revolutionists, though +he has no sympathy with their social aspirations. His utterances, +however, remind us too much—in substance, though not in form—of the +rhetoric of debating societies. They are as factitious as the +old-fashioned appeals to the memory of Brutus. They would doubtless make +a sensation at the Union. Diogenes tells us that 'all nations, all +cities, all communities, should combine in one great hunt, like that of +the Scythians at the approach of winter, and follow it' (the kingly +power, to wit) 'up, unrelentingly to its perdition. The diadem should +designate the victim; all who wear it, all who offer it, all who bow to +it, should perish.' Demosthenes, in less direct language, announces the +same plan to Eubulides as the one truth, far more important than any +other, and 'more conducive to whatever is desirable to the well-educated +and free.' We laugh, not because the phrase is overstrained, or intended +to have a merely dramatic truth, for Landor puts similar sentiments into +the mouths of all his favourite speakers, but simply because we feel it +to be a mere form of swearing. The language would have been less +elegant, but the meaning just the same, if he had rapped out a good +mouth-filling oath whenever he heard the name of king. When, in +reference to some such utterances, Carlyle said that 'Landor's principle +is mere rebellion,' Landor was much nettled, and declared himself to be +in favour of authority. He despised American republicanism and regarded +Venice as the pattern State. He sympathised in this, as in much else, +with the theorists of Milton's time, and would have been approved by +Harrington or Algernon Sidney; but, for all that, Carlyle seems pretty +well to have hit the mark. Such republicanism is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> reality nothing +more than the political expression of intense pride, or, if you prefer +the word, self-respect. It is the sentiment of personal dignity, which +could not bear the thought that he, Landor, should have to bow the knee +to a fool like George III.; or that Milton should have been regarded as +the inferior of such a sneak as Charles I. But the same feeling would +have been just as much shocked by the claim of a demagogue to override +high-spirited gentlemen. Mobs were every whit as vile as kings. He might +have stood for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, if Coriolanus had not an +unfortunate want of taste in his language. Landor, indeed, being never +much troubled as to consistency, is fond of dilating on the absurdity of +any kind of hereditary rank; but he sympathises, to his last fibre, with +the spirit fostered by the existence of an aristocratic caste, and +producible, so far as our experience has gone, in no other way. He is +generous enough to hate all oppression in every form, and therefore to +hate the oppression exercised by a noble as heartily as oppression +exercised by a king. He is a big boy ready to fight anyone who bullies +his fag; but with no doubts as to the merits of fagging. But then he +never chooses to look at the awkward consequences of his opinion. When +talking of politics, an aristocracy full of virtue and talent, ruling on +generous principles a people sufficiently educated to obey its natural +leaders, is the ideal which is vaguely before his mind. To ask how it is +to be produced without hereditary rank, or to be prevented from +degenerating into a tyrannical oligarchy, or to be reconciled at all +with modern principles, is simply to be impertinent. He answers all such +questions by putting himself in imagination into the attitude of a +Pericles or Demosthenes or Milton, fulminating against tyrants and +keeping the mob in its place by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> ascendency of genius. To recommend +Venice as a model is simply to say that you have nothing but contempt +for all politics. It is as if a lad should be asked whether he preferred +to join a cavalry or an infantry regiment, and should reply that he +would only serve under Leonidas.</p> + +<p>His religious principles are in the same way little more than the +assertion that he will not be fettered in mind or body by any priest on +earth. The priest is to him what he was to the deists and materialists +of the eighteenth century—a juggling impostor who uses superstition as +an instrument for creeping into the confidence of women and cowards, and +burning brave men; but he has no dreams of the advent of a religion of +reason. He ridicules the notion that truth will prevail: it never has +and it never will. At bottom he prefers paganism to Christianity because +it was tolerant and encouraged art, and allowed philosophers to enjoy as +much privilege as they can ever really enjoy—that of living in peace +and knowing that their neighbours are harmless fools. After a fashion he +likes his own version of Christianity, which is superficially that of +many popular preachers: Be tolerant, kindly, and happy, and don't worry +your head about dogmas, or become a slave to priests. But then one also +feels that humility is generally regarded as an essential part of +Christianity, and that in Landor's version it is replaced by something +like its antithesis. You should do good, too, as you respect yourself +and would be respected by men; but the chief good is the philosophic +mind, which can wrap itself in its own consciousness of worth, and enjoy +the finest pleasures of life without superstitious asceticism. Let the +vulgar amuse themselves with the playthings of their creed, so long as +they do not take to playing with faggots.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span> Stand apart and enjoy your +own superiority with good-natured contempt.</p> + +<p>One of his longest and, in this sense, most characteristic dialogues, is +that between Penn and Peterborough. Peterborough is the ideal aristocrat +with a contempt for the actual aristocracy; and Penn represents the +religion of common-sense. 'Teach men to calculate rightly and thou wilt +have taught them to live religiously,' is Penn's sentiment, and perhaps +not too unfaithful to the original. No one could have a more thorough +contempt for the mystical element in Quakerism than Landor; but he loves +Quakers as sober, industrious, easy-going people, who regard good-humour +and comfort as the ultimate aim of religious life, and who manage to do +without lawyers or priests. Peterborough, meanwhile, represents his +other side—the haughty, energetic, cultivated aristocrat, who, on the +ground of their common aversions, can hold out a friendly hand to the +quiet Quaker. Landor, of course, is both at once. He is the noble who +rather enjoys giving a little scandal at times to his drab-suited +companion; but, on the whole, thinks that it would be an excellent world +if the common people would adopt this harmless form of religion, which +tolerates other opinions and does not give any leverage to kings, +insolvent aristocrats, or intriguing bishops.</p> + +<p>Landor's critical utterances reveal the same tendencies. Much of the +criticism has of course an interest of its own. It is the judgment of a +real master of language upon many technical points of style, and the +judgment, moreover, of a poet who can look even upon classical poets as +one who breathes the same atmosphere at an equal elevation, and who +speaks out like a cultivated gentleman, not as a schoolmaster or a +specialist. But putting aside this and the crotchets about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span> spelling, +which have been dignified with the name of philological theories, the +general direction of his sympathies is eminently characteristic. Landor +of course pays the inevitable homage to the great names of Plato, Dante, +and Shakespeare, and yet it would be scarcely unfair to say that he +hates Plato, that Dante gives him far more annoyance than pleasure, and +that he really cares little for Shakespeare. The last might be denied on +the ground of isolated expressions. 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says, +'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born +ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and +seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes +brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is +dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of +'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be +pacified by the fairly-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed +plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakespeare.' That is his genuine +impression. Some readers may appeal to that 'Examination of Shakespeare' +which (as we have seen) was held by Lamb to be beyond the powers of any +other writer except its hero. I confess that, in my opinion, Lamb could +have himself drawn a far more sympathetic portrait of Shakespeare, and +that Scott would have brought out the whole scene with incomparably +greater vividness. Call it a morning in an English country-house in the +sixteenth century, and it will be full of charming passages along with +some laborious failures. But when we are forced to think of Slender and +Shallow, and Sir Hugh Evans, and the Shakespearian method of +portraiture, the personages in Landor's talk seem half asleep and +terribly given to twaddle. His view of Dante is less equivocal. In the +whole 'Inferno,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> Petrarca (evidently representing Landor) finds nothing +admirable but the famous descriptions of Francesca and Ugolino. They are +the 'greater and lesser oases' in a vast desert. And he would pare one +of these fine passages to the quick, whilst the other provokes the +remark ('we must whisper it') that Dante is 'the great master of the +disgusting.' He seems really to prefer Boccaccio and Ovid, to say +nothing of Homer and Virgil. Plato is denounced still more unsparingly. +From Aristotle and Diogenes down to Lord Chatham, assailants are set on +to worry him, and tear to pieces his gorgeous robes with just an +occasional perfunctory apology. Even Lady Jane Grey is deprived of her +favourite. She consents on Ascham's petition to lay aside books, but she +excepts Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Polybius: the 'others I do +resign;' they are good for the arbour and garden walk, but not for the +fireside or pillow. This is surely to wrong the poor soul; but Landor is +intolerant in his enthusiasm for his philosophical favourites. Epicurus +is the teacher whom he really delights to honour, and Cicero is forced +to confess in his last hours that he has nearly come over to the camp of +his old adversary.</p> + +<p>It is easy to interpret the meaning of these prejudices. Landor hates +and despises the romantic and the mystic. He has not the least feeling +for the art which owes its powers to suggestions of the infinite, or to +symbols forced into grotesqueness by the effort to express that for +which no thought can be adequate. He refuses to bother himself with +allegory or dreamy speculation, and, unlike Sir T. Browne, hates to lose +himself in an 'O Altitudo!' He cares nothing for Dante's inner thoughts, +and sees only a hideous chamber of horrors in the 'Inferno.' Plato is a +mere compiler of idle sophistries, and contemptible to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span> common-sense +and worldly wisdom of Locke and Bacon. In the same spirit he despised +Wordsworth's philosophising as heartily as Jeffrey, and, though he tried +to be just, could really see nothing in him except the writer of good +rustic idylls, and of one good piece of paganism, the 'Laodamia.'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +From such a point of view he ranks him below Burns, Scott, and Cowper, +and makes poor Southey consent—Southey who ranked Wordsworth with +Milton!</p> + +<p>These tendencies are generally summed up by speaking of Landor's +objectivity and Hellenism. I have no particular objection to those words +except that they seem rather vague and to leave our problem untouched. A +man may be as 'objective' as you please in a sense, and as thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of Greek art, and yet may manage to fall in with +the spirit of our own times. The truth is, I fancy, that a simpler name +may be given to Landor's tastes, and that we may find them exemplified +nearer home. There is many a good country gentleman who rides well to +hounds, and is most heartily 'objective' in the sense of hating +metaphysics and elaborate allegory and unintelligible art, and +preferring a glass of wine and a talk with a charming young lady to +mystic communings with the world-spirit; and as for Landor's Hellenism, +that surely ought not to be an uncommon phenomenon in the region of +English public schools. It is an odd circumstance that we should be so +much puzzled by the very man who seems to realise precisely that ideal +of culture upon which our most popular system of education is apparently +moulded. Here at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> is a man who is really simple-minded enough to +take the habit of writing Latin verses seriously; making it a +consolation in trouble as well as an elegant amusement. He hopes to rest +his fame upon it, and even by a marvellous <i>tour de force</i> writes a +great deal of English poetry which for all the world reads exactly like +a first-rate copy of modern Greek Iambics. For once we have produced +just what the system ought constantly to produce, and yet we cannot make +him out.</p> + +<p>The reason for our not producing more Landors is indeed pretty simple. +Men of real poetic genius are exceedingly rare at all times, and it is +still rarer to find such a man who remains a schoolboy all his life. +Landor is precisely a glorified and sublime edition of the model +sixth-form lad, only with an unusually strong infusion of schoolboy +perversion. Perverse lads, indeed, generally kick over the traces at an +earlier point: and refuse to learn anything. Boys who take kindly to the +classical system are generally good—that is to say, docile. They +develop into prosaic tutors and professors; or, when the cares of life +begin to press, they start their cargo of classical lumber and fill the +void with law or politics. Landor's peculiar temperament led him to kick +against authority, whilst he yet imbibed the spirit of the teaching +fully, and in some respects rather too fully. He was a rebel against the +outward form, and yet more faithful in spirit than most of the obedient +subjects.</p> + +<p>The impatient and indomitable temper which made quiet or continuous +meditation impossible, and the accidental circumstances of his life, +left him in possession of qualities which are in most men subdued or +expelled by the hard discipline of life. Brought into impulsive +collision with all kinds of authorities, he set up a kind of schoolboy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span> +republicanism, and used all his poetic eloquence to give it an air of +reality. But he never cared to bring it into harmony with any definite +system of thought, or let his outbursts of temper transport him into +settled antagonism with accepted principles. He troubled himself just as +little about theological as about political theories; he was as utterly +impervious as the dullest of squires to the mystic philosophy imported +by Coleridge, and found the world quite rich enough in sources of +enjoyment without tormenting himself about the unseen, and the ugly +superstitions which thrive in mental twilight. But he had quarrelled +with parsons as much as with lawyers, and could not stand the thought of +a priest interfering with his affairs or limiting his amusements. And so +he set up as a tolerant and hearty disciple of Epicurus. Chivalrous +sentiment and an exquisite perception of the beautiful saved him from +any gross interpretation of his master's principles; although, to say +the truth, he shows an occasional laxity on some points which savours of +the easy-going pagan, or perhaps of the noble of the old school. As he +grew up he drank deep of English literature, and sympathised with the +grand republican pride of Milton—as sturdy a rebel as himself, and a +still nobler because more serious rhetorician. He went to Italy, and, as +he imbibed Italian literature, sympathised with the joyous spirit of +Boccaccio and the eternal boyishness of classical art. Mediævalism and +all mystic philosophies remained unintelligible to this true-born +Englishman. Irritated rather than humbled by his incapacity, he cast +them aside, pretty much as a schoolboy might throw a Plato at the head +of a pedantic master.</p> + +<p>The best and most attractive dialogues are those in which he can give +free play to this Epicurean sentiment; forget his political mouthing, +and inoculate us for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> moment with the spirit of youthful enjoyment. +Nothing can be more perfectly charming in its way than Epicurus in his +exquisite garden, discoursing on his pleasant knoll, where, with +violets, cyclamens, and convolvuluses clustering round, he talks to his +lovely girl-disciples upon the true theory of life—temperate enjoyment +of all refined pleasures, forgetfulness of all cares, and converse with +true chosen spirits far from the noise of the profane vulgar: of the +art, in short, by which a man of fine cultivation may make the most of +this life, and learn to take death as a calm and happy subsidence into +oblivion. Nor far behind is the dialogue in which Lucullus entertains +Cæsar in his delightful villa, and illustrates by example, as well as +precept, Landor's favourite doctrine of the vast superiority of the +literary to the active life. Politics, as he makes even Demosthenes +admit, are the 'sad refuge of restless minds, averse from business and +from study.' And certainly there are moods in which we could ask nothing +better than to live in a remote villa, in which wealth and art have done +everything in their power to give all the pleasures compatible with +perfect refinement and contempt of the grosser tastes. Only it must be +admitted that this is not quite a gospel for the million. And probably +the highest triumph is in the Pentameron, where the whole scene is so +vividly coloured by so many delicate touches, and such charming little +episodes of Italian life, that we seem almost to have seen the fat, +wheezy poet hoisting himself on to his pampered steed, to have listened +to the village gossip, and followed the little flirtations in which the +true poets take so kindly an interest; and are quite ready to pardon +certain useless digressions and critical vagaries, and to overlook +complacently any little laxity of morals.</p> + +<p>These, and many of the shorter and more dramatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span> dialogues, have a rare +charm, and the critic will return to analyse, if he can, their technical +qualities. But little explanation can be needed, after reading them, of +Landor's want of popularity. If he had applied one-tenth part of his +literary skill to expand commonplace sentiment; if he had talked that +kind of gentle twaddle by which some recent essayists edify their +readers, he might have succeeded in gaining a wide popularity. Or if he +had been really, as some writers seem to fancy, a deep and systematic +thinker as well as a most admirable artist, he might have extorted a +hearing even while provoking dissent. But his boyish waywardness has +disqualified him from reaching the deeper sympathies of either class. We +feel that the most superhuman of schoolboys has really a rather shallow +view of life. His various outbursts of wrath amuse us at best when they +do not bore, even though they take the outward form of philosophy or +statesmanship. He has really no answer or vestige of answer for any +problems of his, nor indeed of any other time, for he has no basis of +serious thought. All he can say is, ultimately, that he feels himself in +a very uncongenial atmosphere, from which it is delightful to retire, in +imagination, to the society of Epicurus, or the study of a few literary +masterpieces. That may be very true, but it can be interesting only to a +few men of similar taste; and men of profound insight, whether of the +poetic or the philosophic temperament, are apt to be vexed by his hasty +dogmatism and irritable rejection of much which deserved his sympathy. +His wanton quarrel with the world has been avenged by the world's +indifference. We may regret the result when we see what rare qualities +have been cruelly wasted, but we cannot fairly shut our eyes to the fact +that the world has a very strong case.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> De Quincey gets into a curious puzzle about Landor's remarks in his +essay on Milton <i>versus</i> Southey and Landor. He cannot understand to +which of Wordsworth's poems Landor is referring, and makes some oddly +erroneous guesses.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span></p> +<h2><i>MACAULAY</i></h2> + + +<p>Lord Macaulay was pre-eminently a fortunate man; and his good fortune +has survived him. Few, indeed, in the long line of English authors whom +he loved so well, have been equally happy in a biographer. Most official +biographies are a mixture of bungling and indiscretion. It is only in +virtue of some happy coincidence that the one or two people who alone +have the requisite knowledge can produce also the requisite skill and +discretion. Mr. Trevelyan is one of the exceptions to the rule. His book +is such a piece of thorough literary workmanship as would have delighted +its subject. By a rare felicity, the almost filial affection of the +narrator conciliates the reader instead of exciting a distrust of the +narrative. We feel that Macaulay's must have been a lovable character to +excite such warmth of feeling, and a noble character to enable one who +loved him to speak so frankly. The ordinary biographer's idolatry is not +absent, but it becomes a testimony to the hero's excellence instead of +introducing a disturbing element into our estimate of his merits.</p> + +<p>No reader of Macaulay's works will be surprised at the manliness which +is stamped not less plainly upon them than upon his whole career. But +few who were not in some degree behind the scenes would be prepared for +the tenderness of nature which is equally conspicuous. We all recognised +in Macaulay a lover of truth and political honour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span> We find no more than +we expected, when we are told that the one circumstance upon which he +looked back with some regret was the unauthorised publication by a +constituent of a letter in which he had spoken too frankly of a +political ally. That is indeed an infinitesimal stain upon the character +of a man who rose without wealth or connection, by sheer force of +intellect, to a conspicuous position amongst politicians. But we find +something more than we expected in the singular beauty of Macaulay's +domestic life. In his relations to his father, his sisters, and the +younger generation, he was admirable. The stern religious principle and +profound absorption in philanthropic labours of old Zachary Macaulay +must have made the position of his brilliant son anything but an easy +one. He could hardly read a novel, or contribute to a worldly magazine, +without calling down something like a reproof. The father seems to have +indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip +about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed +culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen +satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of +praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of +royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such +paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive of +anything like mutual confidence. Macaulay seems, in spite of all, to +have been on the most cordial terms with his father to the last. Some +suppression of his sentiments must indeed have been necessary; and we +cannot avoid tracing certain peculiarities of the son's intellectual +career to his having been condemned from an early age to habitual +reticence upon the deepest of all subjects of thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span></p> + +<p>Macaulay's relations to his sisters are sufficiently revealed in a long +series of charming letters, showing, both in their playfulness and in +their literary and political discussions, the unreserved respect and +confidence which united them. One of them writes upon his death: 'We +have lost the light of our home, the most tender, loving, generous, +unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can +tell? What a world of love he poured out upon me and mine!' Reading +these words at the close of the biography, we do not wonder at the +glamour of sisterly affection; but admit them to be the natural +expression of a perfectly sincere conviction. Can there be higher +praise? His relation to children is equally charming. 'He was beyond +comparison the best of playfellows,' writes Mr. Trevelyan; 'unrivalled +in the invention of games, and never weary of repeating them.' He wrote +long letters to his favourites; he addressed pretty little poems to them +on their birthdays, and composed long nursery rhymes for their +edification; whilst overwhelmed with historical labours, and grudging +the demands of society, he would dawdle away whole mornings with them, +and spend the afternoon in taking them to sights; he would build up a +den with newspapers behind the sofa, and act the part of tiger or +brigand; he would take them to the Tower, or Madame Tussaud's, or the +Zoological Gardens, make puns to enliven the Polytechnic, and tell +innumerable anecdotes to animate the statues in the British Museum; nor, +as they grew older, did he neglect the more dignified duty of +inoculating them with the literary tastes which had been the consolation +of his life. Obviously he was the ideal uncle—the uncle of optimistic +fiction, but with qualifications for his task such as few fictitious +uncles can possess. It need hardly be added that Macaulay was a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span> of +noble liberality in money matters, that he helped his family when they +were in difficulties, and was beloved by the servants who depended upon +him. In his domestic relations he had, according to his nephew, only one +serious fault—he did not appreciate canine excellence; but no man is +perfect.</p> + +<p>The thorough kindliness of the man reconciles us even to his good +fortune. He was an infant phenomenon; the best boy at school; in his +college days, 'ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out' at Bowood, +formed a circle to hear him talk, from breakfast to dinner-time; he was +famous as an author at twenty-five; accepted as a great parliamentary +orator at thirty; and, as a natural consequence, caressed with effusion +by editors, politicians, Whig magnates, and the clique of Holland House; +by thirty-three he had become a man of mark in society, literature, and +politics, and had secured his fortune by gaining a seat in the Indian +Council. His later career was a series of triumphs. He had been the main +support of the greatest literary organ of his party, and the 'Essays' +republished from its pages became at once a standard work. The 'Lays of +Ancient Rome' sold like Scott's most popular poetry; the 'History' +caused an excitement almost unparalleled in literary annals. Not only +was the first sale enormous, but it has gone on ever since increasing. +The popular author was equally popular in Parliament. The benches were +crammed to listen to the rare treat of his eloquence; and he had the far +rarer glory of more than once turning the settled opinion of the House +by a single speech. It is a more vulgar but a striking testimony to his +success that he made 20,000<i>l.</i> in one year by literature. Other authors +have had their heads turned by less triumphant careers; they have +descended to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span> lower ambition, and wasted their lives in spasmodic +straining to gain worthless applause. Macaulay remained faithful to his +calling. He worked his hardest to the last, and became a more unsparing +critic of his own performances as time went on. We do not feel even a +passing symptom of a grudge against his good fortune. Rather we are +moved by that kind of sentiment which expresses itself in the schoolboy +phrase, 'Well done our side!' We are glad to see the hearty, kindly, +truthful man crowned with all appropriate praise, and to think that for +once one of our race has got so decidedly the best of it in the hard +battle with the temptations and the miseries of life.</p> + +<p>Certain shortcomings have been set off against these virtues by critics +of Macaulay's life. He was, it has been said, too good a hater. At any +rate, he hated vice, meanness, and charlatanism. It is easier to hate +such things too little than too much. But it must be admitted that his +likes and dislikes indicate a certain rigidity and narrowness of nature. +'In books, as in people and places,' says Mr. Trevelyan, 'he loved that, +and loved that only, to which he had been accustomed from boyhood +upwards.' The faults of which this significant remark reveals one cause, +are marked upon his whole literary character. Macaulay was converted to +Whiggism when at college. The advance from Toryism to Whiggism is not +such as to involve a very violent wrench of the moral and intellectual +nature. Such as it was, it was the only wrench from which Macaulay +suffered. What he was as a scholar of Trinity, he was substantially as a +peer of the realm. He made, it would seem, few new friends, though he +grappled his old ones as 'with hooks of steel.' The fault is one which +belongs to many men of strong natures, and so long as we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span> +considering Macaulay's life we shall not be much disposed to quarrel +with his innate conservatism. Strong affections are so admirable a +quality that we can pardon the man who loves well though not widely; and +if Macaulay had not a genuine fervour of regard for the little circle of +his intimates, there is no man who deserves such praise.</p> + +<p>It is when we turn from Macaulay's personal character to attempt an +estimate of his literary position, that these faults acquire more +importance. His intellectual force was extraordinary within certain +limits; beyond those limits the giant became a child. He assimilated a +certain set of ideas as a lad, and never acquired a new idea in later +life. He accumulated vast stores of knowledge, but they all fitted into +the old framework of theory. Whiggism seemed to him to provide a +satisfactory solution for all political problems when he was sending his +first article to 'Knight's Magazine,' and when he was writing the last +page of his 'History.' 'I entered public life a Whig,' as he said in +1849, 'and a Whig I am determined to remain.' And what is meant by +Whiggism in Macaulay's mouth? It means substantially that creed which +registers the experience of the English upper classes during the four or +five generations previous to Macaulay. It represents, not the reasoning, +but the instinctive convictions generated by the dogged insistence upon +their privileges of a stubborn, high-spirited, and individually +short-sighted race. To deduce it as a symmetrical doctrine from abstract +propositions would be futile. It is only reasonable so far as a creed, +felt out by the collective instinct of a number of more or less stupid +people, becomes impressed with a quasi-rational unity, not from their +respect for logic, but from the uniformity of the mode of development. +Hatred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span> to pure reason is indeed one of its first principles. A doctrine +avowedly founded on logic instead of instinct becomes for that very +reason suspect to it. Common-sense takes the place of philosophy. At +times this mass of sentiment opposes itself under stress of +circumstances to the absolute theories of monarchy, and then calls +itself Whiggism. At other times it offers an equally dogged resistance +to absolute theories of democracy, and then becomes nominally Tory. In +Macaulay's youth the weight of opinion had been slowly swinging round +from the Toryism generated by dread of revolution, to Whiggism generated +by the accumulation of palpable abuses. The growing intelligence and +more rapidly growing power of the middle classes gave it at the same +time a more popular character than before. Macaulay's 'conversion' was +simply a process of swinging with the tide. The Clapham Sect, amongst +whom he had been brought up, was already more than half Whig, in virtue +of its attack upon the sacred institution of slavery by means of popular +agitation. Macaulay—the most brilliant of its young men—naturally cast +in his lot with the brilliant men, a little older than himself, who +fought under the blue and yellow banner of the 'Edinburgh Review.' No +great change of sentiment was necessary, though some of the old Clapham +doctrines died out in his mind as he was swept into the political +current.</p> + +<p>Macaulay thus early became a thoroughgoing Whig. Whiggism seemed to him +the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of progress: the pure essence of political wisdom. +He was never fully conscious of the vast revolution in thought which was +going on all around him. He was saturated with the doctrines of 1832. He +stated them with unequalled vigour and clearness. Anybody who disputed +them from either side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span> question seemed to him to be little better +than a fool. Southey and Mr. Gladstone talked arrant nonsense when they +disputed the logical or practical value of the doctrines laid down by +Locke. James Mill deserved the most contemptuous language for daring to +push those doctrines beyond the sacred line. When Macaulay attacks an +old non-juror or a modern Tory, we can only wonder how opinions which, +on his showing, are so inconceivably absurd, could ever have been held +by any human being. Men are Whigs or not-Whigs, and the not-Whig is less +a heretic to be anathematised than a blockhead beneath the reach of +argument. All political wisdom centres in Holland House, and the +'Edinburgh Review' is its prophet. There is something in the absolute +confidence of Macaulay's political dogmatism which varies between the +sublime and the ridiculous. We can hardly avoid laughing at this +superlative self-satisfaction, and yet we must admit that it is +indicative of a real political force not to be treated with simple +contempt. Belief is power, even when belief is most unreasonable.</p> + +<p>To define a Whig and to define Macaulay is pretty much the same thing. +Let us trace some of the qualities which enabled one man to become so +completely the type of a vast body of his compatriots.</p> + +<p>The first and most obvious power in which Macaulay excelled his +neighbours was his portentous memory. He could assimilate printed pages, +says his nephew, more quickly than others could glance over them. +Whatever he read was stamped upon his mind instantaneously and +permanently, and he read everything. In the midst of severe labours in +India, he read enough classical authors to stock the mind of an ordinary +professor. At the same time he framed a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span> criminal code and devoured +masses of trashy novels. From the works of the ancient Fathers of the +Church to English political pamphlets and to modern street ballads, no +printed matter came amiss to his omnivorous appetite. All that he had +read could be reproduced at a moment's notice. Every fool, he said, can +repeat his Archbishops of Canterbury backwards; and he was as familiar +with the Cambridge Calendar as the most devout Protestant with the +Bible. He could have re-written 'Sir Charles Grandison' from memory if +every copy had been lost. Now it might perhaps be plausibly maintained +that the possession of such a memory is unfavourable to a high +development of the reasoning powers. The case of Pascal, indeed, who is +said never to have forgotten anything, shows that the two powers may +co-exist; and other cases might of course be mentioned. But it is true +that a powerful memory may enable a man to save himself the trouble of +reasoning. It encourages the indolent propensity of deciding +difficulties by precedent instead of principles. Macaulay, for example, +was once required to argue the point of political casuistry as to the +degree of independent action permissible to members of a Cabinet. An +ordinary mind would have to answer by striking a rough balance between +the conveniences and inconveniences likely to arise. It would be forced, +that is to say, to reason from the nature of the case. But Macaulay had +at his fingers' end every instance from the days of Walpole to his own +in which Ministers had been allowed to vote against the general policy +of the Government. By quoting them, he seemed to decide the point by +authority, instead of taking the troublesome and dangerous road of +abstract reasoning. Thus to appeal to experience is with him to appeal +to the stores of a gigantic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span> memory; and is generally the same thing as +to deny the value of all general rules. This is the true Whig doctrine +of referring to precedent rather than to theory. Our popular leaders +were always glad to quote Hampden and Sidney instead of venturing upon +the dangerous ground of abstract rights.</p> + +<p>Macaulay's love of deciding all points by an accumulation of appropriate +instances is indeed characteristic of his mind. It is connected with a +curious defect of analytical power. It appears in his literary criticism +as much as in his political speculations. In an interesting letter to +Mr. Napier, he states the case himself as an excuse for not writing upon +Scott. 'Hazlitt used to say, "I am nothing if not critical." The case +with me,' says Macaulay, 'is precisely the reverse. I have a strong and +acute enjoyment of works of the imagination, but I have never habituated +myself to dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly for that +very reason. Such books as Lessing's "Laocoon," such passages as the +criticism on "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," fill me with wonder and +despair.' If we take any of Macaulay's criticisms, we shall see how +truly he had gauged his own capacity. They are either random discharges +of superlatives or vigorous assertions of sound moral principles. He +compliments some favourite author with an emphatic repetition of the +ordinary eulogies, or shows conclusively that Montgomery was a sham +poet, and Wycherley a corrupt ribald. Nobody can hit a haystack with +more certainty, but he is not so good at a difficult mark. He never +makes a fine suggestion as to the secrets of the art whose products he +admires or describes. His mode, for example, of criticising Bunyan is to +give a list of the passages which he remembers, and of course he +remembers everything.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span> He observes, what is tolerably clear, that +Bunyan's allegory is as vivid as a concrete history, though strangely +comparing him in this respect to Shelley—the least concrete of poets; +and he makes the discovery, which did not require his vast stores of +historical knowledge, 'that it is impossible to doubt that' Bunyan's +trial of Christian and Faithful is meant to satirise the judges of the +time of Charles II. That is as plain as the intention of the last +cartoon in 'Punch.' Macaulay can draw a most vivid portrait, so far as +that can be done by a picturesque accumulation of characteristic facts, +but he never gets below the surface, or details the principles whose +embodiment he describes from without.</p> + +<p>The defect is connected with further peculiarities, in which Macaulay is +the genuine representative of the true Whig type. The practical value of +adherence to precedent is obvious. It may be justified by the assertion +that all sound political philosophy must be based upon experience: and +no one will deny that assertion to contain a most important truth. But +in Macaulay's mind this sound doctrine seems to be confused with the +very questionable doctrine that in political questions there is no +philosophy at all. To appeal to experience may mean either to appeal to +facts so classified and systematically arranged as to illustrate general +truths, or to appeal to a mere mass of observations, without taking the +trouble to elicit their true significance, or even to believe that they +can be resolved into particular cases of a general truth. This is the +difference between an experimental philosophy and a crude empiricism. +Macaulay takes the lower alternative. The vigorous attack upon James +Mill, which he very properly suppressed during his life on account of +its juvenile arrogance, curiously illustrates his mode of thought. No +one can deny, I think, that he makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span> some very good points against a +very questionable system of political dogmatism. But when we ask what +are Macaulay's own principles, we are left at a stand. He ought, by all +his intellectual sympathies, to be a utilitarian. Yet he treats +utilitarianism with the utmost contempt, though he has no alternative +theory to suggest. He ends his first Essay against Mill by one of his +customary purple patches about Baconian induction. He tells us, in the +second, how to apply it. Bacon proposed to discover the principle of +heat by observing in what qualities all hot bodies agreed, and in what +qualities all cold bodies. Similarly, we are to make a list of all +constitutions which have produced good or bad government, and to +investigate their points of agreement and difference. This sounds +plausible to the uninstructed, but is a mere rhetorical flourish. +Bacon's method is admittedly inadequate for reasons which I leave to men +of science to explain, and Macaulay's method is equally hopeless in +politics. It is hopeless for the simple reason that the complexity of +the phenomena makes it impracticable. We cannot find out what +constitution is best after this fashion, simply because the goodness or +badness of a constitution depends upon a thousand conditions of social, +moral, and intellectual development. When stripped of its pretentious +phraseology, Macaulay's teaching comes simply to this: the only rule in +politics is the rule of thumb. All general principles are wrong or +futile. We have found out in England that our constitution, constructed +in absolute defiance of all <i>à priori</i> reasoning, is the best in the +world: it is the best for providing us with the maximum of bread, beef, +beer, and means of buying bread, beer, and beef: and we have got it +because we have never—like those publicans the French—trusted to fine +sayings about truth and justice and human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span> rights, but blundered on, +adding a patch here and knocking a hole there, as our humour prompted +us.</p> + +<p>This sovereign contempt of all speculation—simply as +speculation—reaches its acme in the Essay on Bacon. The curious naïveté +with which Macaulay denounces all philosophy in that vigorous production +excites a kind of perverse admiration. How can one refuse to admire the +audacity which enables a man explicitly to identify philosophy with +humbug? It is what ninety-nine men out of a hundred think, but not one +in a thousand dares to say. Goethe says somewhere that he likes +Englishmen because English fools are the most thoroughgoing of fools. +English 'Philistines,' as represented by Macaulay, the prince of +Philistines, according to Matthew Arnold, carry their contempt of the +higher intellectual interests to a pitch of real sublimity. Bacon's +theory of induction, says Macaulay, in so many words, was valueless. +Everybody could reason before it as well as after. But Bacon really +performed a service of inestimable value to mankind; and it consisted +precisely in this, that he called their attention from philosophy to the +pursuit of material advantages. The old philosophers had gone on +bothering about theology, ethics, and the true and beautiful, and such +other nonsense. Bacon taught us to work at chemistry and mechanics, to +invent diving-bells and steam-engines and spinning-jennies. We could +never, it seems, have found out the advantages of this direction of our +energies without a philosopher, and so far philosophy is negatively +good. It has written up upon all the supposed avenues to inquiry, 'No +admission except on business;' that is, upon the business of direct +practical discovery. We English have taken the hint, and we have +therefore lived to see when a man can breakfast in London<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span> and dine in +Edinburgh, and may look forward to a day when the tops of Ben-Nevis and +Helvellyn will be cultivated like flower-gardens, and when machines +constructed on principles yet to be discovered will be in every house.</p> + +<p>The theory which underlies this conclusion is often explicitly stated. +All philosophy has produced mere futile logomachy. Greek sages and Roman +moralists and mediæval schoolmen have amassed words, and amassed nothing +else. One distinct discovery of a solid truth, however humble, is worth +all their labours. This condemnation applies not only to philosophy, but +to the religious embodiment of philosophy. No satisfactory conclusion +ever has been reached or ever will be reached in theological disputes. +On all such topics, he tells Mr. Gladstone, there has always been the +widest divergence of opinion. Nor are there better hopes for the future. +The ablest minds, he says in the Essay upon Ranke, have believed in +transubstantiation; that is, according to him, in the most ineffable +nonsense. There is no certainty that men will not believe to the end of +time the doctrines which imposed upon so able a man as Sir Thomas More. +Not only, that is, have men been hitherto wandering in a labyrinth +without a clue, but there is no chance that any clue will ever be found. +The doctrine, so familiar to our generation, of laws of intellectual +development, never even occurs to him. The collective thought of +generations marks time without advancing. A guess of Sir Thomas More is +as good or as bad as the guess of the last philosopher. This theory, if +true, implies utter scepticism. And yet Macaulay was clearly not a +sceptic. His creed was hidden under a systematic reticence, and he +resisted every attempt to raise the veil with rather superfluous +indignation. When a constituent dared to ask about his religious views, +he denounced the rash inquirer in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span> terms applicable to an agent of the +Inquisition. He vouchsafed, indeed, the information that he was a +Christian. We may accept the phrase, not only on the strength of his +invariable sincerity, but because it falls in with the general turn of +his arguments. He denounces the futility of the ancient moralists, but +he asserts the enormous social value of Christianity.</p> + +<p>His attitude, in fact, is equally characteristic of the man and his +surroundings. The old Clapham teaching had faded in his mind: it had not +produced a revolt. He retained the old hatred for slavery; and he +retained, with the whole force of his affectionate nature, reverence for +the school of Wilberforce, Thornton, and his own father. He estimated +most highly, not perhaps more highly than they deserved, the value of +the services rendered by them in awakening the conscience of the nation. +In their persistent and disinterested labours he recognised a +manifestation of the great social force of Christianity. But a belief +that Christianity is useful, and even that it is true, may consist with +a profound conviction of the futility of the philosophy with which it +has been associated. Here again Macaulay is a true Whig. The Whig love +of precedent, the Whig hatred for abstract theories, may consist with a +Tory application. But the true Whig differed from the Tory in adding to +these views an invincible suspicion of parsons. The first Whig battles +were fought against the Church as much as against the King. From the +struggle with Sacheverell down to the struggle for Catholic +emancipation, Toryism and High-Church principles were associated against +Whigs and Dissenters. By that kind of dumb instinct which outruns +reason, the Whig had learnt that there was some occult bond of union +between the claims of a priesthood and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span> claims of a monarchy. The +old maxim, 'No bishop, no king,' suggested the opposite principle that +you must keep down the clergy if you would limit the monarchy. The +natural interpretation of this prejudice into political theory, is that +the Church is extremely useful as an ally of the constable, but +possesses a most dangerous explosive power if allowed to claim +independent authority. In practice we must resist all claims of the +Church to dictate to the State. In theory we must deny the foundation +upon which such claims can alone be founded. Dogmatism must be +pronounced to be fundamentally irrational. Nobody knows anything about +theology; or what is the same thing, no two people agree. As they don't +agree, they cannot claim to impose their beliefs upon others.</p> + +<p>This sentiment comes out curiously in the characteristic Essay just +mentioned. Macaulay says, in reply to Mr. Gladstone, that there is no +more reason for the introduction of religious questions into State +affairs than for introducing them into the affairs of a Canal Company. +He puts his argument with an admirable vigour and clearness which blinds +many readers to the fact that he is begging the question by evading the +real difficulty. If, in fact, Government had as little to do as a Canal +Company with religious opinion, we should have long ago learnt the great +lesson of toleration. But that is just the very <i>crux</i>. Can we draw the +line between the spiritual and the secular? Nothing, replies Macaulay, +is easier; and his method has been already indicated. We all agree that +we don't want to be robbed or murdered: we are by no means all agreed +about the doctrine of Trinity. But, says a churchman, a certain creed is +necessary to men's moral and spiritual welfare, and therefore of the +utmost importance even for the prevention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span> of robbery and murder. This +is what Macaulay implicitly denies. The whole of dogmatic theology +belongs to that region of philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever you +please to call it, in which men are doomed to dispute for ever without +coming any nearer to a decision. All that the statesman has to do with +such matters is to see that if men are fools enough to speculate, they +shall not be allowed to cut each other's throats when they reach, as +they always must reach, contradictory results. If you raise a difficult +point—such, for example, as the education question—Macaulay replies, +as so many people have replied before and since, Teach the people 'those +principles of morality which are common to all the forms of +Christianity.' That is easier said than done! The plausibility of the +solution in Macaulay's mouth is due to the fundamental assumption that +everything except morality is hopeless ground of inquiry. Once get +beyond the Ten Commandments and you will sink in a bottomless morass of +argument, counterargument, quibble, logomachy, superstition, and +confusion worse confounded.</p> + +<p>In Macaulay's teaching, as in that of his party, there is doubtless much +that is noble. He has a righteous hatred of oppression in all shapes and +disguises. He can tear to pieces with great logical power many of the +fallacies alleged by his opponents. Our sympathies are certainly with +him as against men who advocate persecution on any grounds, and he is +fully qualified to crush his ordinary opponents. But it is plain that +his whole political and (if we may use the word) philosophical teaching +rests on something like a downright aversion to the higher order of +speculation. He despises it. He wants something tangible and +concrete—something in favour of which he may appeal to the imme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span>diate +testimony of the senses. He must feel his feet planted on the solid +earth. The pain of attempting to soar into higher regions is not +compensated to him by the increased width of horizon. And in this +respect he is but the type of most of his countrymen, and reflects what +has been (as I should say) erroneously called their 'unimaginative' view +of things in general.</p> + +<p>Macaulay, at any rate, distinctly belongs to the imaginative class of +minds, if only in virtue of his instinctive preference of the concrete +to the abstract, and his dislike, already noticed, to analysis. He has a +thirst for distinct and vivid images. He reasons by examples instead of +appealing to formulæ. There is a characteristic account in Mr. +Trevelyan's volumes of his habit of rambling amongst the older parts of +London, his fancy teeming with stories attached to the picturesque +fragments of antiquity, and carrying on dialogues between imaginary +persons as vivid, if not as forcible, as those of Scott's novels. To +this habit—rather inverting the order of cause and effect—he +attributes his accuracy of detail. We should rather say that the +intensity of the impressions generated both the accuracy and the +day-dreams. A philosopher would be arguing in his daily rambles where an +imaginative mind is creating a series of pictures. But Macaulay's +imagination is as definitely limited as his speculation. The genuine +poet is also a philosopher. He sees intuitively what the reasoner +evolves by argument. The greatest minds in both classes are equally +marked by their naturalisation in the lofty regions of thought, +inaccessible or uncongenial to men of inferior stamp. It is tempting in +some ways to compare Macaulay to Burke. Burke's superiority is marked by +this, that he is primarily a philosopher, and therefore instinctively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span> +sees the illustration of a general law in every particular fact. +Macaulay, on the contrary, gets away from theory as fast as possible, +and tries to conceal his poverty of thought under masses of ingenious +illustration.</p> + +<p>His imaginative narrowness would come out still more clearly by a +comparison with Carlyle. One significant fact must be enough. Everyone +must have observed how powerfully Carlyle expresses the emotion +suggested by the brief appearance of some little waif from past history. +We may remember, for example, how the usher, De Brézé, appears for a +moment to utter the last shriek of the old monarchical etiquette, and +then vanishes into the dim abysses of the past. The imagination is +excited by the little glimpse of light flashing for a moment upon some +special point in the cloudy phantasmagoria of human history. The image +of a past existence is projected for a moment upon our eyes, to make us +feel how transitory is life, and how rapidly one visionary existence +expels another. We are such stuff as dreams are made of:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">None other than a moving row<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of visionary shapes that come and go<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Around the sun-illumined lantern held<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In midnight by the master of the show.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Every object is seen against the background of eternal mystery. In +Macaulay's pages this element is altogether absent. We see a figure from +the past as vividly as if he were present. We observe the details of his +dress, the odd oaths with which his discourse is interlarded, the minute +peculiarities of his features or manner. We laugh or admire as we should +do at a living man; and we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But +the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into oblivion, +that our little island<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span> of daylight will soon be shrouded in the +gathering mist, and that we tread at every instant on the dust of +forgotten continents. We treat the men of past ages quite at our ease. +We applaud and criticise Hampden or Chatham as we should applaud Peel or +Cobden. There is no atmospheric effect—no sense of the dim march of +ages, or of the vast procession of human life. It is doubtless a great +feat to make the past present. It is a greater to emancipate us from the +tyranny of the present, and to raise us to a point at which we feel that +we too are almost as dreamlike as the men of old time. To gain clearness +and definition Macaulay has dropped the element of mystery. He sees +perfectly whatever can be seen by the ordinary lawyer, or politician, or +merchant; he is insensible to the visions which reveal themselves only +to minds haunted by thoughts of eternity, and delighting to dwell in the +border-land where dreams blend with realities. Mysticism is to him +hateful, and historical figures form groups of individuals, not symbols +of forces working behind the veil.</p> + +<p>Macaulay, therefore, can be no more a poet in the sense in which the +word is applied to Spenser, or to Wordsworth, both of whom he holds to +be simply intolerable bores, than he can be a metaphysician or a +scientific thinker. In common phraseology, he is a Philistine—a word +which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher +intellectual interests. The word may also be defined, however, as the +name applied by prigs to the rest of their species. And I hold that the +modern fashion of using it as a common term of abuse amounts to a +literary nuisance. It enables intellectual coxcombs to brand men with an +offensive epithet for being a degree more manly than themselves. There +is much that is good in your Philistine; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span> when we ask what Macaulay +was, instead of showing what he was not, we shall perhaps find that the +popular estimate is not altogether wrong.</p> + +<p>Macaulay was not only a typical Whig, but the prophet of Whiggism to his +generation. Though not a poet or a philosopher, he was a born +rhetorician. His parliamentary career proves his capacity sufficiently, +though want of the physical qualifications, and of exclusive devotion to +political success, prevented him, as perhaps a want of subtlety or +flexibility of mind would have always prevented him, from attaining +excellence as a debater. In everything that he wrote, however, we see +the true rhetorician. He tells us that Fox wrote debates, whilst +Mackintosh spoke essays. Macaulay did both. His compositions are a +series of orations on behalf of sound Whig views, whatever their +external form. Given a certain audience—and every orator supposes a +particular audience—their effectiveness is undeniable. Macaulay's may +be composed of ordinary Englishmen, with a moderate standard of +education. His arguments are adapted to the ordinary Cabinet Minister, +or, what is much the same, to the person who is willing to pay a +shilling to hear an evening lecture. He can hit an audience composed of +such materials—to quote Burke's phrase about George Grenville—'between +wind and water.' He uses the language, the logic, and the images which +they can fully understand; and though his hearer, like his schoolboy, is +ostensibly credited at times with a portentous memory, Macaulay always +takes excellent care to put him in mind of the facts which he is assumed +to remember. The faults and the merits of his style follow from his +resolute determination to be understood of the people. He was specially +delighted, as his nephew tells us, by a reader at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span> Messrs. +Spottiswoode's, who said that in all the 'History' there was only one +sentence the meaning of which was not obvious to him at first sight. We +are more surprised that there was one such sentence. Clearness is the +first of the cardinal virtues of style; and nobody ever wrote more +clearly than Macaulay. He sacrifices much, it is true, in order to +obtain it. He proves that two and two make four with a pertinacity which +would make him dull, if it were not for his abundance of brilliant +illustration. He always remembers the principle which should guide a +barrister in addressing a jury. He has not merely to exhibit his proofs, +but to hammer them into the heads of his audience by incessant +repetition. It is no small proof of artistic skill that a writer who +systematically adopts this method should yet be invariably lively. He +goes on blacking the chimney with a persistency which somehow amuses us +because he puts so much heart into his work. He proves the most obvious +truths again and again; but his vivacity never flags. This tendency +undoubtedly leads to great defects of style. His sentences are +monotonous and mechanical. He has a perfect hatred of pronouns, and for +fear of a possible entanglement between 'hims' and 'hers' and 'its,' he +will repeat not merely a substantive, but a whole group of substantives. +Sometimes, to make his sense unmistakable, he will repeat a whole +formula, with only a change in the copula. For the same reason, he hates +all qualifications and parentheses. Each thought must be resolved into +its constituent parts; each argument must be expressed as a simple +proposition: and his paragraphs are rather aggregates of independent +atoms than possessed of a continuous unity. His writing—to use a +favourite formula of his own—bears the same relation to a style of +graceful modulation that a bit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span> of mosaic work bears to a picture. Each +phrase has its distinct hue, instead of melting into its neighbours. +Here we have a black patch and there a white. There are no half tones, +no subtle interblending of different currents of thought. It is partly +for this reason that his descriptions of character are often so +unsatisfactory. He likes to represent a man as a bundle of +contradictions, because it enables him to obtain startling contrasts. He +heightens a vice in one place, a virtue in another, and piles them +together in a heap, without troubling himself to ask whether nature can +make such monsters, or preserve them if made. To anyone given to +analysis, these contrasts are actually painful. There is a story of the +Duke of Wellington having once stated that the rats got into his bottles +in Spain. 'They must have been very large bottles or very small rats,' +said somebody. 'On the contrary,' replied the Duke, 'the rats were very +large and the bottles very small.' Macaulay delights in leaving us face +to face with such contrasts in more important matters. Boswell must, we +would say, have been a clever man or his biography cannot have been so +good as you say. On the contrary, says Macaulay, he was the greatest of +fools and the best of biographers. He strikes a discord and purposely +fails to resolve it. To men of more delicate sensibility the result is +an intolerable jar.</p> + +<p>For the same reason, Macaulay's genuine eloquence is marred by the +symptoms of malice prepense. When he sews on a purple patch, he is +resolved that there shall be no mistake about it; it must stand out from +a radical contrast of colours. The emotion is not to swell by degrees, +till you find yourself carried away in the torrent which set out as a +tranquil stream. The transition is deliberately emphasised. On one side +of a full stop you are listening to a matter-of-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span>fact statement; on the +other, there is all at once a blare of trumpets and a beating of drums, +till the crash almost deafens you. He regrets in one of his letters that +he has used up the celebrated, and, it must be confessed, really +forcible passage about the impeachment scene in Westminster Hall. It +might have come in usefully in the 'History,' which, as he then hoped, +would reach the time of Warren Hastings. The regret is unpleasantly +suggestive of that deliberation in the manufacture of eloquence which +stamps it as artificial.</p> + +<p>Such faults may annoy critics, even of no very sensitive fibre. What is +it that redeems them? The first answer is, that the work is impressive +because it is thoroughly genuine. The stream, it is true, comes forth by +spasmodic gushes, when it ought to flow in a continuous current; but it +flows from a full reservoir instead of being pumped from a shallow +cistern. The knowledge and, what is more, the thoroughly-assimilated +knowledge, is enormous. Mr. Trevelyan has shown in detail what we had +all divined for ourselves, how much patient labour is often employed in +a paragraph or the turn of a phrase. To accuse Macaulay of +superficiality is, in this sense, altogether absurd. His speculation may +be meagre, but his store of information is simply inexhaustible. Mill's +writing was impressive, because one often felt that a single argument +condensed the result of a long process of reflection. Macaulay has the +lower but similar merit that a single picturesque touch implies +incalculable masses of knowledge. It is but an insignificant part of the +building which appears above ground. Compare a passage with the assigned +authority, and you are inclined to accuse him—sometimes it may be +rightfully—of amplifying and modifying. But more often the particular +authority is merely the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span> nucleus round which a whole volume of other +knowledge has crystallised. A single hint is significant to a +properly-prepared mind of a thousand facts not explicitly contained in +it. Nobody, he said, could judge of the accuracy of one part of his +'History' who had not 'soaked his mind with the transitory literature of +the day.' His real authority was not this or that particular passage, +but a literature. And for this reason alone, Macaulay's historical +writings have a permanent value which will prevent them from being +superseded even by more philosophical thinkers, whose minds have not +undergone the 'soaking' process.</p> + +<p>It is significant again that imitations of Macaulay are almost as +offensive as imitations of Carlyle. Every great writer has his +parasites. Macaulay's false glitter and jingle, his frequent flippancy +and superficiality of thought, are more easily caught than his virtues; +but so are all faults. Would-be followers of Carlyle catch the strained +gestures without the rapture of his inspiration. Would-be followers of +Mill fancied themselves to be logical when they were only hopelessly +unsympathetic and unimaginative; and would-be followers of some other +writers can be effeminate and foppish without being subtle or graceful. +Macaulay's thoroughness of work has, perhaps, been less contagious than +we could wish. Something of the modern raising of the standard of +accuracy in historical inquiry may be set down to his influence. The +misfortune is that, if some writers have learnt from him to be flippant +without learning to be laborious, others have caught the accuracy +without the liveliness. In the later volumes of his 'History,' his +vigour began to be a little clogged by the fulness of his knowledge; and +we can observe symptoms of the tendency of modern historians to grudge +the sacrifice of sifting their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span> knowledge. They read enough, but instead +of giving us the results, they tumble out the accumulated mass of raw +materials upon our devoted heads, till they make us long for a fire in +the State Paper Office.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, Macaulay did not yield to this temptation in his earlier +writings, and the result is that he is, for the ordinary reader, one of +the two authorities for English history, the other being Shakespeare. +Without comparing their merits, we must admit that the compression of so +much into a few short narratives shows intensity as well as compass of +mind. He could digest as well as devour, and he tried his digestion +pretty severely. It is fashionable to say that part of his practical +force is due to the training of parliamentary life. Familiarity with the +course of affairs doubtless strengthened his insight into history, and +taught him the value of downright common-sense in teaching an average +audience. Speaking purely from the literary point of view, I cannot +agree further in the opinion suggested. I suspect the 'History' would +have been better if Macaulay had not been so deeply immersed in all the +business of legislation and electioneering. I do not profoundly +reverence the House of Commons' tone—even in the House of Commons; and +in literature it easily becomes a nuisance. Familiarity with the actual +machinery of politics tends to strengthen the contempt for general +principles, of which Macaulay had an ample share. It encourages the +illusion of the fly upon the wheel, the doctrine that the dust and din +of debate and the worry of lobbies and committee-rooms are not the +effect but the cause of the great social movement. The historian of the +Roman Empire, as we know, owed something to the captain of Hampshire +Militia; but years of life absorbed in parliamentary wrangling and in +sitting at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span> the feet of the philosophers of Holland House were not +likely to widen a mind already disposed to narrow views of the world.</p> + +<p>For Macaulay's immediate success, indeed, the training was undoubtedly +valuable. As he carried into Parliament the authority of a great writer, +so he wrote books with the authority of the practical politician. He has +the true instinct of affairs. He knows what are the immediate motives +which move masses of men; and is never misled by fanciful analogies or +blindfolded by the pedantry of official language. He has seen +flesh-and-blood statesmen—at any rate, English statesmen—and +understands the nature of the animal. Nobody can be freer from the +dominion of crotchets. All his reasoning is made of the soundest common +sense, and represents, if not the ultimate forces, yet forces with which +we have to reckon. And he knows, too, how to stir the blood of the +average Englishman. He understands most thoroughly the value of +concentration, unity, and simplicity. Every speech or essay forms an +artistic whole, in which some distinct moral is vigorously driven home +by a succession of downright blows. This strong rhetorical instinct is +shown conspicuously in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which, whatever we +might say of them as poetry, are an admirable specimen of rhymed +rhetoric. We know how good they are when we see how incapable are modern +ballad-writers in general of putting the same swing and fire into their +verses. Compare, for example, Aytoun's 'Lays of the Cavaliers,' as the +most obvious parallel:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not swifter pours the avalanche<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Adown the steep incline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That rises o'er the parent springs<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of rough and rapid Rhine,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>than certain Scotch heroes over an entrenchment. Place this mouthing by +any parallel passage in Macaulay:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now, by our sire Quirinus,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">It was a goodly sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see the thirty standards<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Swept down the tide of flight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So flies the spray in Adria<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When the black squall doth blow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So corn-sheaves in the flood time<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Spin down the whirling Po.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And so on in verses which innumerable schoolboys of inferior pretensions +to Macaulay's know by heart. And in such cases the verdict of the +schoolboy is perhaps more valuable than that of the literary +connoisseur. There are, of course, many living poets who can do +tolerably something of far higher quality which Macaulay could not do at +all. But I don't know who, since Scott, could have done this particular +thing. Possibly Mr. Kingsley might have approached it, or the poet, if +he would have condescended so far, who sang the bearing of the good news +from Ghent to Aix. In any case, the feat is significant of Macaulay's +true power. It looks easy; it involves no demands upon the higher +reasoning or imaginative powers: but nobody will believe it to be easy +who observes the extreme rarity of a success in a feat so often +attempted.</p> + +<p>A similar remark is suggested by Macaulay's 'Essays.' Read such an essay +as that upon Clive, or Warren Hastings, or Chatham. The story seems to +tell itself. The characters are so strongly marked, the events fall so +easily into their places, that we fancy that the narrator's business has +been done to his hand. It wants little critical experience to discover +that this massive simplicity is really indicative of an art not, it may +be, of the highest order, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span> truly admirable for its purpose. It +indicates not only a gigantic memory, but a glowing mind, which has +fused a crude mass of materials into unity. If we do not find the sudden +touches which reveal the philosophical sagacity or the imaginative +insight of the highest order of intellects, we recognise the true +rhetorical instinct. The outlines may be harsh, and the colours too +glaring; but the general effect has been carefully studied. The details +are wrought in with consummate skill. We indulge in an intercalary pish! +here and there; but we are fascinated and we remember. The actual amount +of intellectual force which goes to the composition of such written +archives is immense, though the quality may leave something to be +desired. Shrewd common-sense may be an inferior substitute for +philosophy, and the faculty which brings remote objects close to the eye +of an ordinary observer for the loftier faculty which tinges everyday +life with the hues of mystic contemplation. But when the common +faculties are present in so abnormal a degree, they begin to have a +dignity of their own.</p> + +<p>It is impossible in such matters to establish any measure of comparison. +No analysis will enable us to say how much pedestrian capacity may be +fairly regarded as equivalent to a small capacity for soaring above the +solid earth, and therefore the question as to the relative value of +Macaulay's work and that of some men of loftier aims and less perfect +execution must be left to individual taste. We can only say that it is +something so to have written the history of many national heroes as to +make their faded glories revive to active life in the memory of their +countrymen. So long as Englishmen are what they are—and they don't seem +to change as rapidly as might be wished—they will turn to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span> Macaulay's +pages to gain a vivid impression of our greatest achievements during an +important period.</p> + +<p>Nor is this all. The fire which glows in Macaulay's history, the intense +patriotic feeling, the love of certain moral qualities, is not +altogether of the highest kind. His ideal of national and individual +greatness might easily be criticised. But the sentiment, as far as it +goes, is altogether sound and manly. He is too fond, it has been said, +of incessant moralising. From a scientific point of view the moralising +is irrelevant. We want to study the causes and the nature of great +social movements; and when we are stopped in order to inquire how far +the prominent actors in them were hurried beyond ordinary rules, we are +transported into a different order of thought. It would be as much to +the purpose if we approved an earthquake for upsetting a fort, and +blamed it for moving the foundations of a church. Macaulay can never +understand this point of view. With him, history is nothing more than a +sum of biographies. And even from a biographical point of view his +moralising is often troublesome. He not only insists upon transporting +party prejudice into his estimates, and mauls poor James II. as he +mauled the Tories in 1832; but he applies obviously inadequate tests. It +is absurd to call upon men engaged in a life-and-death wrestle to pay +scrupulous attention to the ordinary rules of politeness. There are +times when judgments guided by constitutional precedent become +ludicrously out of place, and when the best man is he who aims +straightest at the heart of his antagonist. But, in spite of such +drawbacks, Macaulay's genuine sympathy for manliness and force of +character generally enables him to strike pretty nearly the true note. +To learn the true secret of Cromwell's character we must go to Carlyle, +who can sympathise with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span> deep currents of religious enthusiasm. Macaulay +retains too much of the old Whig distrust for all that it calls +fanaticism fully to recognise the grandeur beneath the grotesque outside +of the Puritan. But Macaulay tells us most distinctly why Englishmen +warm at the name of the great Protector. We, like the banished +Cavaliers, 'glow with an emotion of national pride' at his animated +picture of the unconquerable Ironsides. One phrase may be sufficiently +illustrative. After quoting Clarendon's story of the Scotch nobleman who +forced Charles to leave the field of Naseby by seizing his horse's +bridle, 'no man,' says Macaulay, 'who had much value for his life would +have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day for Oliver +Cromwell.'</p> + +<p>Macaulay, in short, always feels, and therefore communicates, a hearty +admiration for sheer manliness. And some of his portraits of great men +have therefore a genuine power, and show the deeper insight which comes +from true sympathy. He estimates the respectable observer of +constitutional proprieties too highly; he is unduly repelled by the +external oddities of the truly masculine and noble Johnson; but his +enthusiasm for his pet hero, William, or for Chatham or Clive, carries +us along with him. And at moments when he is narrating their exploits, +and can forget his elaborate argumentations and refrain from bits of +deliberate bombast, the style becomes graphic in the higher sense of a +much-abused word, and we confess that we are listening to genuine +eloquence. Putting aside for the moment recollection of foibles, almost +too obvious to deserve the careful demonstration which they have +sometimes received, we are glad to surrender ourselves to the charm of +his straightforward, clear-headed, hard-hitting declamation. There is no +writer with whom it is easier to find fault, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span> the limits of whose +power may be more distinctly defined; but within his own sphere he goes +forward, as he went through life, with a kind of grand confidence in +himself and his cause, which is attractive, and at times even +provocative of sympathetic enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Macaulay said, in his Diary, that he wrote his 'History' with an eye to +a remote past and a remote future. He meant to erect a monument more +enduring than brass, and the ambition at least stimulated him to +admirable thoroughness of workmanship. How far his aim was secured must +be left to the decision of a posterity which will not trouble itself +about the susceptibilities of candidates for its favour. In one sense, +however, Macaulay must be interesting so long as the type which he so +fully represents continues to exist. Whig has become an old-fashioned +phrase, and is repudiated by modern Liberals and Radicals, who think +themselves wiser than their fathers. The decay of the old name implies a +remarkable political change; but I doubt whether it implies more than a +very superficial change in the national character. New classes and new +ideas have come upon the stage; but they have a curious family likeness +to the old. The Whiggism whose peculiarities Macaulay reflected so +faithfully represents some of the most deeply-seated tendencies of the +national character. It has, therefore, both its ugly and its honourable +side. Its disregard, or rather its hatred, for pure reason, its +exaltation of expediency above truth and precedent above principle, its +instinctive dread of strong religious or political faiths, are of course +questionable qualities. Yet even they have their nobler side. There is +something almost sublime about the grand unreasonableness of the average +Englishman. His dogged contempt for all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span> foreigners and philosophers, +his intense resolution to have his own way and use his own eyes, to see +nothing that does not come within his narrow sphere of vision, and to +see it quite clearly before he acts upon it, are of course abhorrent to +thinkers of a different order. But they are great qualities in the +struggle for existence which must determine the future of the world. The +Englishman, armed in his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts +with unequalled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, +but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the +universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is +not to be trifled with. Macaulay's sympathy with these qualities led to +some annoying peculiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a +commonness, sometimes a vulgarity, of style which is easily criticised. +But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always +comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is +nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colours resolutely +and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and +spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never +knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He +is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine +love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with +unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which +he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be +narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the +manliness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his +countrymen. He is proud of the healthy vigorous stock from which he +springs; and the fervour of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span> enthusiasm, though it may shock a +delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue +to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at +bottom—indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud.</p> + + +<p class="center">END OF THE SECOND VOLUME</p> + +<p class="frontend">PRINTED BY<br /> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br /> +LONDON</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="transnote"> +<a name="TN" id="TN"></a><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_31">31</a>: illlustrations amended to illustrations</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_38">38</a>: Single quote mark removed from end of excerpt. +("And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!")</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_81">81</a>: idiosyncracy amended to idiosyncrasy</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_117">117</a>: Single quote mark in front of "miserable" +removed. ("'The man they called Dizzy' can despise a +miserable creature ...")</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_131">131</a>: sweatmeats amended to sweetmeats</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_143">143</a>: aristocractic amended to aristocratic</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_147">147</a>: sentiment amended to sentiments</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_163">163</a>: Mahommedan amended to Mohammedan</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_181">181</a>: Macchiavelli amended to Machiavelli</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_241">241</a>: Full stop added after "third generation."</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_247">247</a>: Comma added after "We both love the +Constitution...."</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_325">325</a>: chartalan amended to charlatan</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_368">368</a>: Shakspeare amended to Shakespeare</p> + +<p>Italicisation and hyphenation have been standardised. +However, where there is an equal number of instances of +a hyphenated and unhyphenated word, both have been +retained: dreamlike/dream-like; evildoers/evil-doers; +highflown/high-flown; jogtrot/jog-trot; +overdoses/over-doses; textbook/text-book.</p></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOURS IN A LIBRARY *** + +***** This file should be named 30336-h.htm or 30336-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/3/30336/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hours in a Library + New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) + +Author: Leslie Stephen + +Release Date: October 25, 2009 [EBook #30336] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOURS IN A LIBRARY *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | + | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | + | this document. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + +VOL. II. + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + +BY + +LESLIE STEPHEN + +_NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS_ + +IN THREE VOLUMES + +VOL. II. + +LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1892 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONTENTS + +OF + +THE SECOND VOLUME + + + PAGE + +DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS 1 + +CRABBE 33 + +WILLIAM HAZLITT 67 + +DISRAELI'S NOVELS 106 + +MASSINGER 141 + +FIELDING'S NOVELS 177 + +COWPER AND ROUSSEAU 208 + +THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS 241 + +WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS 270 + +LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 308 + +MACAULAY 343 + + + + +HOURS IN A LIBRARY + + + + +_DR. JOHNSON'S WRITINGS_ + + +A book appeared not long ago of which it was the professed object to +give to the modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell's +immortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain from +discussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may be +made in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcome +must, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, to +say the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always mangle +some people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they may +display, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of the +great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an +intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic, +retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon +those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original, +the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There +remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but +not extinct, can be titillated by the promise that they shall not have +the trouble of making their own selection. Let us wish them good +digestions, and, in spite of modern changes of fashion, more robust +taste for the future. I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell. A man, indeed, may +be a good Christian, and an excellent father of a family, without loving +Johnson or Boswell, for a sense of humour is not one of the primary +virtues. But Boswell's is one of the very few books which, after many +years of familiarity, will still provoke a hearty laugh even in the +solitude of a study; and the laughter is of that kind which does one +good. + +I do not wish, however, to pronounce one more eulogy upon an old friend, +but to say a few words on a question which he sometimes suggests. +Macaulay's well-known but provoking essay is more than usually lavish in +overstrained paradoxes. He has explicitly declared that Boswell wrote +one of the most charming of books because he was one of the greatest of +fools. And his remarks suggest, if they do not implicitly assert, that +Johnson wrote some of the most unreadable of books, although, if not +because, he possessed one of the most vigorous intellects of the time. +Carlyle has given a sufficient explanation of the first paradox; but the +second may justify a little further inquiry. As a general rule, the talk +of a great man is the reflection of his books. Nothing is so false as +the common saying that the presence of a distinguished writer is +generally disappointing. It exemplifies a very common delusion. People +are so impressed by the disparity which sometimes occurs, that they +take the exception for the rule. It is, of course, true that a man's +verbal utterances may differ materially from his written utterances. He +may, like Addison, be shy in company; he may, like many retired +students, be slow in collecting his thoughts; or he may, like Goldsmith, +be over-anxious to shine at all hazards. But a patient observer will +even then detect the essential identity under superficial differences; +and in the majority of cases, as in that of Macaulay himself, the +talking and the writing are palpably and almost absurdly similar. The +whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who +is partially revealed to us in his spoken or his written words. Whatever +the means of communication, the problem is the same. The two methods of +inquiry may supplement each other; but their substantial agreement is +the test of their accuracy. If Johnson, as a writer, appears to us to be +a mere windbag and manufacturer of sesquipedalian verbiage, whilst, as a +talker, he appears to be one of the most genuine and deeply feeling of +men, we may be sure that our analysis has been somewhere defective. The +discrepancy is, of course, partly explained by the faults of Johnson's +style; but the explanation only removes the difficulty a degree further. +'The style is the man' is a very excellent aphorism, though some eminent +writers have lately pointed out that Buffon's original remark was_ le +style c'est de l'homme_. That only proves that, like many other good +sayings, it has been polished and brought to perfection by the process +of attrition in numerous minds, instead of being struck out at a blow by +a solitary thinker. From a purely logical point of view, Buffon may be +correct; but the very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration +which makes it more biting whilst less rigidly accurate. According to +Buffon, the style might belong to a man as an acquisition rather than to +natural growth. There are parasitical writers who, in the old phrase, +have 'formed their style,' by the imitation of accepted models, and who +have, therefore, possessed it only by right of appropriation. Boswell +has a discussion as to the writers who may have served Johnson in this +capacity. But, in fact, Johnson, like all other men of strong +idiosyncrasy, formed his style as he formed his legs. The peculiarities +of his limbs were in some degree the result of conscious efforts in +walking, swimming, and 'buffeting with his books.' This development was +doubtless more fully determined by the constitution which he brought +into the world, and the circumstances under which he was brought up. And +even that queer Johnsonese, which Macaulay supposes him to have adopted +in accordance with a more definite literary theory, will probably appear +to be the natural expression of certain innate tendencies, and of the +mental atmosphere which he breathed from youth. To appreciate fairly the +strangely cumbrous form of his written speech, we must penetrate more +deeply than may at first sight seem necessary beneath the outer rind of +this literary Behemoth. The difficulty of such spiritual dissection is, +indeed, very great; but some little light may be thrown upon the subject +by following out such indications as we possess. + +The talking Johnson is sufficiently familiar to us. So far as Boswell +needs an interpreter, Carlyle has done all that can be done. He has +concentrated and explained what is diffused, and often unconsciously +indicated in Boswell's pages. When reading Boswell, we are half ashamed +of his power over our sympathies. It is like turning over a portfolio +of sketches, caricatured, inadequate, and each giving only some +imperfect aspect of the original. Macaulay's smart paradoxes only +increase our perplexity by throwing the superficial contrasts into +stronger relief. Carlyle, with true imaginative insight, gives us at +once the essence of Johnson; he brings before our eyes the luminous body +of which we had previously been conscious only by a series of imperfect +images refracted through a number of distorting media. To render such a +service effectually is the highest triumph of criticism; and it would be +impertinent to say again in feebler language what Carlyle has expressed +so forcibly. We may, however, recall certain general conclusions by way +of preface to the problem which he has not expressly considered, how far +Johnson succeeded in expressing himself through his writings. + +The world, as Carlyle sees it, is composed, we all know, of two classes: +there are 'the dull millions, who, as a dull flock, roll hither and +thither, whithersoever they are led,' and there are a few superior +natures who can see and can will. There are, in other words, the heroes, +and those whose highest wisdom is to be hero-worshippers. Johnson's +glory is that he belonged to the sacred band, though he could not claim +within it the highest, or even a very high, rank. In the current +dialect, therefore, he was 'nowise a clothes-horse or patent digester, +but a genuine man.' Whatever the accuracy of the general doctrine, or of +certain corollaries which are drawn from it, the application to Johnson +explains one main condition of his power. Persons of colourless +imagination may hold--nor will we dispute their verdict--that Carlyle +overcharges his lights and shades, and brings his heroes into too +startling a contrast with the vulgar herd. Yet it is undeniable that +the great bulk of mankind are transmitters rather than originators of +spiritual force. Most of us are necessarily condemned to express our +thoughts in formulas which we have learnt from others and can but +slightly tinge with our feeble personality. Nor, as a rule, are we even +consistent disciples of any one school of thought. What we call our +opinions are mere bundles of incoherent formulae, arbitrarily stitched +together because our reasoning faculties are too dull to make +inconsistency painful. Of the vast piles of books which load our +libraries, ninety-nine hundredths and more are but printed echoes: and +it is the rarest of pleasures to say, Here is a distinct record of +impressions at first hand. We commonplace beings are hurried along in +the crowd, living from hand to mouth on such slices of material and +spiritual food as happen to drift in our direction, with little more +power of taking an independent course, or of forming any general theory, +than the polyps which are carried along by an oceanic current. Ask any +man what he thinks of the world in which he is placed: whether, for +example, it is on the whole a scene of happiness or misery, and he will +either answer by some cut-and-dried fragments of what was once wisdom, +or he will confine himself to a few incoherent details. He had a good +dinner to-day and a bad toothache yesterday, and a family affliction or +blessing the day before. But he is as incapable of summing up his +impressions as an infant of performing an operation in the differential +calculus. It is as rare as it is refreshing to find a man who can stand +on his own legs and be conscious of his own feelings, who is sturdy +enough to react as well as to transmit action, and lofty enough to raise +himself above the hurrying crowd and have some distinct belief as to +whence it is coming and whither it is going. Now Johnson, as one of the +sturdiest of mankind, had the power due to a very distinct sentiment, if +not to a very clear theory, about the world in which he lived. It had +buffeted him severely enough, and he had formed a decisive estimate of +its value. He was no man to be put off with mere phrases in place of +opinions, or to accept doctrines which were not capable of expressing +genuine emotion. To this it must be added that his emotions were as deep +and tender as they were genuine. How sacred was his love for his old and +ugly wife; how warm his sympathy wherever it could be effective; how +manly the self-respect with which he guarded his dignity through all the +temptations of Grub Street, need not be once more pointed out. Perhaps, +however, it is worth while to notice the extreme rarity of such +qualities. Many people, we think, love their fathers. Fortunately, that +is true; but in how many people is filial affection strong enough to +overpower the dread of eccentricity? How many men would have been +capable of doing penance in Uttoxeter market years after their father's +death for a long-passed act of disobedience? Most of us, again, would +have a temporary emotion of pity for an outcast lying helplessly in the +street. We should call the police, or send her in a cab to the +workhouse, or, at least, write to the _Times_ to denounce the defective +arrangements of public charity. But it is perhaps better not to ask how +many good Samaritans would take her on their shoulders to their own +homes, care for her wants, and put her into a better way of life. + +In the lives of most eminent men we find much good feeling and +honourable conduct; but it is an exception, even in the case of good +men, when we find that a life has been shaped by other than the ordinary +conventions, or that emotions have dared to overflow the well-worn +channels of respectability. The love which we feel for Johnson is due +to the fact that the pivots upon which his life turned are invariably +noble motives, and not mere obedience to custom. More than one modern +writer has expressed a fraternal affection for Addison, and it is +justified by the kindly humour which breathes through his 'Essays.' But +what anecdote of that most decorous and successful person touches our +hearts or has the heroic ring of Johnson's wrestlings with adverse +fortune? Addison showed how a Christian could die--when his life has run +smoothly through pleasant places, secretaryships of state, and marriages +with countesses, and when nothing--except a few overdoses of port +wine--has shaken his nerves or ruffled his temper. A far deeper emotion +rises at the deathbed of the rugged old pilgrim, who has fought his way +to peace in spite of troubles within and without, who has been jeered in +Vanity Fair and has descended into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, +and escaped with pain and difficulty from the clutches of Giant Despair. +When the last feelings of such a man are tender, solemn, and simple, we +feel ourselves in a higher presence than that of an amiable gentleman +who simply died, as he lived, with consummate decorum. + +On turning, however, from Johnson's life to his writings, from Boswell +to the 'Rambler,' it must be admitted that the shock is trying to our +nerves. The 'Rambler' has, indeed, high merits. The impression which it +made upon his own generation proves the fact; for the reputation, +however temporary, was not won by a concession to the fashions of the +day, but to the influence of a strong judgment uttering itself through +uncouth forms. The melancholy which colours its pages is the melancholy +of a noble nature. The tone of thought reminds us of Bishop Butler, +whose writings, defaced by a style even more tiresome, though less +pompous than Johnson's, have owed their enduring reputation to a +philosophical acuteness in which Johnson was certainly very deficient. +Both of these great men, however, impress us by their deep sense of the +evils under which humanity suffers, and their rejection of the +superficial optimism of the day. Butler's sadness, undoubtedly, is that +of a recluse, and Johnson's that of a man of the world; but the +sentiment is fundamentally the same. It may be added, too, that here, as +elsewhere, Johnson speaks with the sincerity of a man drawing upon his +own experience. He announces himself as a scholar thrust out upon the +world rather by necessity than choice; and a large proportion of the +papers dwell upon the various sufferings of the literary class. Nobody +could speak more feelingly of those sufferings, as no one had a closer +personal acquaintance with them. But allowing to Johnson whatever credit +is due to the man who performs one more variation on the old theme, +_Vanitas vanitatum_, we must in candour admit that the 'Rambler' has the +one unpardonable fault: it is unreadable. + +What an amazing turn it shows for commonplaces! That life is short, that +marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men +are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, +that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from +detraction;--these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon +which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. +Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an +unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no man from this time,' is the comment in +one of his stories, 'suffer his felicity to depend on the death of his +aunt.' Every actor, of course, uses the same dialect. A gay young +gentleman tells us that he used to amuse his companions by giving them +notice of his friends' oddities. 'Every man,' he says, 'has some +habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which +never fails to excite mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By +premonition of these particularities, I secured our pleasantry.' The +feminine characters, Flirtillas, and Cleoras, and Euphelias, and +Penthesileas, are, if possible, still more grotesque. Macaulay remarks +that he wears the petticoat with as ill a grace as Falstaff himself. The +reader, he thinks, will cry out with Sir Hugh, 'I like not when a 'oman +has a great peard! I spy a great peard under her muffler.' Oddly enough +Johnson gives the very same quotation; and goes on to warn his supposed +correspondents that Phyllis must send no more letters from the Horse +Guards; and that Belinda must 'resign her pretensions to female elegance +till she has lived three weeks without hearing the politics of Button's +Coffee House.' The Doctor was probably sensible enough of his own +defects. And yet there is a still more wearisome set of articles. In +emulation of the precedent set by Addison, Johnson indulges in the +dreariest of allegories. Criticism, we are told, was the eldest daughter +of Labour and Truth, but at last resigned in favour of Time, and left +Prejudice and False Taste to reign in company with Fraud and Mischief. +Then we have the genealogy of Wit and Learning, and of Satire, the Son +of Wit and Malice, and an account of their various quarrels, and the +decision of Jupiter. Neither are the histories of such semi-allegorical +personages as Almamoulin, the son of Nouradin, or of Anningait and Ayut, +the Greenland lovers, much more refreshing to modern readers. That +Johnson possessed humour of no mean order, we know from Boswell; but no +critic could have divined his power from the clumsy gambols in which he +occasionally recreates himself. Perhaps his happiest effort is a +dissertation upon the advantage of living in garrets; but the humour +struggles and gasps dreadfully under the weight of words. 'There are,' +he says, 'some who would continue blockheads' (the Alpine Club was not +yet founded), 'even on the summit of the Andes or the Peak of Teneriffe. +But let not any man be considered as unimprovable till this potent +remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was found to be great only in a +garret, as the joiner of Aretaeus was rational in no other place but his +own shop.' + +How could a man of real power write such unendurable stuff? Or how, +indeed, could any man come to embody his thoughts in the style of which +one other sentence will be a sufficient example? As it is afterwards +nearly repeated, it may be supposed to have struck his fancy. The +remarks of the philosophers who denounce temerity are, he says, 'too +just to be disputed and too salutary to be rejected; but there is +likewise some danger lest timorous prudence should be inculcated till +courage and enterprise are wholly repressed and the mind congested in +perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.' Is +there not some danger, we ask, that the mind will be benumbed into +perpetual torpidity by the influence of this soporific sapience? It is +still true, however, that this Johnsonese, so often burlesqued and +ridiculed, was, as far as we can judge, a genuine product. Macaulay says +that it is more offensive than the mannerism of Milton or Burke, because +it is a mannerism adopted on principle and sustained by constant effort. +Facts do not confirm the theory. Milton's prose style seems to be the +result of a conscious effort to run English into classical moulds. +Burke's mannerism does not appear in his early writings, and we can +trace its development from the imitation of Bolingbroke to the last +declamation against the Revolution. But Johnson seems to have written +Johnsonese from his cradle. In his first original composition, the +preface to Father Lobo's 'Abyssinia,' the style is as distinctive as in +the 'Rambler.' The Parliamentary reports in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' +make Pitt and Fox[1] express sentiments which are probably their own in +language which is as unmistakably Johnson's. It is clear that his style, +good or bad, was the same from his earliest efforts. It is only in his +last book, the 'Lives of the Poets,' that the mannerism, though equally +marked, is so far subdued as to be tolerable. What he himself called his +habit of using 'too big words and too many of them' was no affectation, +but as much the result of his special idiosyncrasy as his queer +gruntings and twitchings. Sir Joshua Reynolds indeed maintained, and we +may believe so attentive an observer, that his strange physical +contortions were the result of bad habit, not of actual disease. +Johnson, he said, could sit as still as other people when his attention +was called to it. And possibly, if he had tried, he might have avoided +the fault of making 'little fishes talk like whales.' But how did the +bad habits arise? According to Boswell, Johnson professed to have +'formed his style' partly upon Sir W. Temple, and on 'Chambers's +Proposal for his Dictionary.' The statement was obviously +misinterpreted: but there is a glimmering of truth in the theory that +the 'style was formed'--so far as those words have any meaning--on the +'giants of the seventeenth century,' and especially upon Sir Thomas +Browne. Johnson's taste, in fact, had led him to the study of writers +in many ways congenial to him. His favourite book, as we know, was +Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' The pedantry of the older school did +not repel him; the weighty thought rightly attracted him; and the more +complex structure of sentence was perhaps a pleasant contrast to an ear +saturated with the Gallicised neatness of Addison and Pope. Unluckily, +the secret of the old majestic cadence was hopelessly lost. Johnson, +though spiritually akin to the giants, was the firmest ally and subject +of the dwarfish dynasty which supplanted them. The very faculty of +hearing seems to change in obedience to some mysterious law at different +stages of intellectual development; and that which to one generation is +delicious music is to another a mere droning of bagpipes or the grinding +of monotonous barrel-organs. + +Assuming that a man can find perfect satisfaction in the versification +of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that +'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in +blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout +the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid +satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of +alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more +or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work +with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's +harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was +'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for +'lavishing much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.' Moreover, +the poor man did his best by introducing sounding proper names, even +when they 'added little music to his poem:' an example of this feeble, +though well-meant expedient, being the passage about the moon, which-- + + The Tuscan artist views, + At evening, from the top of Fiesole + Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, &c. + +This profanity passed at the time for orthodoxy. But the misfortune was, +that Johnson, unhesitatingly subscribing to the rules of Queen Anne's +critics, is always instinctively feeling after the grander effects of +the old school. Nature prompts him to the stateliness of Milton, whilst +Art orders him to deal out long and short syllables alternately, and to +make them up in parcels of ten, and then tie the parcels together in +pairs by the help of a rhyme. The natural utterance of a man of strong +perceptions, but of unwieldy intellect, of a melancholy temperament, and +capable of very deep, but not vivacious emotions, would be in stately +and elaborate phrases. His style was not more distinctly a work of art +than the style of Browne or Milton, but, unluckily, it was a work of bad +art. He had the misfortune, not so rare as it may sound, to be born in +the wrong century; and is, therefore, a giant in fetters; the amplitude +of stride is still there, but it is checked into mechanical regularity. +A similar phenomenon is observable in other writers of the time. The +blank verse of Young, for example, is generally set to Pope's tune with +the omission of the rhymes, whilst Thomson, revolting more or less +consciously against the canons of his time, too often falls into mere +pompous mouthing. Shaftesbury, in the previous generation, trying to +write poetical prose, becomes as pedantic as Johnson, though in a +different style; and Gibbon's mannerism is a familiar example of a +similar escape from a monotonous simplicity into awkward complexity. +Such writers are like men who have been chilled by what Johnson would +call the 'frigorifick' influence of the classicism of their fathers, and +whose numbed limbs move stiffly and awkwardly in a first attempt to +regain the old liberty. The form, too, of the 'Rambler' is unfortunate. +Johnson has always Addison before his eyes; to whom it was formerly the +fashion to compare him for the same excellent reason which has recently +suggested comparisons between Dickens and Thackeray--namely, that their +works were published in the same external shape. Unluckily, Johnson gave +too much excuse for the comparison by really imitating Addison. He has +to make allegories, and to give lively sketches of feminine +peculiarities, and to ridicule social foibles of which he was, at most, +a distant observer. The inevitable consequence is, that though here and +there we catch a glimpse of the genuine man, we are, generally, too much +provoked by the awkwardness of his costume to be capable of enjoying, or +even reading him. + +In many of his writings, however, Johnson manages, almost entirely, to +throw off these impediments. In his deep capacity for sympathy and +reverence, we recognise some of the elements that go to the making of a +poet. He is always a man of intuitions rather than of discursive +intellect; often keen of vision, though wanting in analytical power. For +poetry, indeed, as it is often understood now, or even as it was +understood by Pope, he had little enough qualification. He had not the +intellectual vivacity implied in the marvellously neat workmanship of +Pope, and still less the delight in all natural and artistic beauty +which we generally take to be essential to poetic excellence. His +contempt for 'Lycidas' is sufficiently significant upon that head. Still +more characteristic is the incapacity to understand Spenser, which +comes out incidentally in his remarks upon some of those imitations, +which even in the middle of the eighteenth century showed that +sensibility to the purest form of poetry was not by any means extinct +amongst us. But there is a poetry, though we sometimes seem to forget +it, which is the natural expression of deep moral sentiment; and of this +Johnson has written enough to reveal very genuine power. The touching +verses upon the death of Levett are almost as pathetic as Cowper; and +fragments of the two imitations of Juvenal have struck deep enough to be +not quite forgotten. We still quote the lines about pointing a moral and +adorning a tale, which conclude a really noble passage. We are too often +reminded of his melancholy musings over the + + Fears of the brave and follies of the wise, + +and a few of the concluding lines of the 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' in +which he answers the question whether man must of necessity + + Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate, + +in helplessness and ignorance, may have something of a familiar ring. We +are to give thanks, he says, + + For love, which scarce collective man can fill; + For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill; + For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, + Counts death kind nature's signal for retreat; + These goods for man, the laws of heaven ordain, + These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain, + With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, + And makes the happiness she does not find. + +These lines, and many others which might be quoted, are noble in +expression, as well as lofty and tender in feeling. Johnson, like +Wordsworth, or even more deeply than Wordsworth, had felt all the +'heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world;' and, +though he stumbles a little in the narrow limits of his versification, +he bears himself nobly, and manages to put his heart into his poetry. +Coleridge's paraphrase of the well-known lines, 'Let observation with +extensive observation, observe mankind from China to Peru,' would +prevent us from saying that he had thrown off his verbiage. He has not +the felicity of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' though he wrote one of the best +couplets in that admirable poem; but his ponderous lines show genuine +vigour, and can be excluded from poetry only by the help of an arbitrary +classification. + +The fullest expression, however, of Johnson's feeling is undoubtedly to +be found in 'Rasselas.' The inevitable comparison with Voltaire's +'Candide,' which, by an odd coincidence, appeared almost simultaneously, +suggests some curious reflections. The resemblance between the moral of +the two books is so strong that, as Johnson remarked, it would have been +difficult not to suppose that one had given a hint to the other but for +the chronological difficulty. The contrast, indeed, is as marked as the +likeness. 'Candide' is not adapted for family reading, whereas +'Rasselas' might be a textbook for young ladies studying English in a +convent. 'Candide' is a marvel of clearness and vivacity; whereas to +read 'Rasselas' is about as exhilarating as to wade knee-deep through a +sandy desert. Voltaire and Johnson, however, the great sceptic and the +last of the true old Tories, coincide pretty well in their view of the +world, and in the remedy which they suggest. The world is, they agree, +full of misery, and the optimism which would deny the reality of the +misery is childish. _Il faut cultiver notre jardin_ is the last word of +'Candide,' and Johnson's teaching, both here and elsewhere, may be +summed up in the words 'Work, and don't whine.' It need not be +considered here, nor, perhaps, is it quite plain, what speculative +conclusions Voltaire meant to be drawn from his teaching. The +peculiarity of Johnson is, that he is apparently indifferent to any such +conclusion. A dogmatic assertion, that the world is on the whole a scene +of misery, may be pressed into the service of different philosophies. +Johnson asserted the opinion resolutely, both in writing and in +conversation, but apparently never troubled himself with any inferences +but such as have a directly practical tendency. He was no +'speculatist'--a word which now strikes us as having an American twang, +but which was familiar to the lexicographer. His only excursion to the +borders of such regions was in the very forcible review of Soane Jenyns, +who had made a jaunty attempt to explain the origin of evil by the help +of a few of Pope's epigrams. Johnson's sledge-hammer smashes his flimsy +platitudes to pieces with an energy too good for such a foe. For +speculation, properly so called, there was no need. The review, like +'Rasselas,' is simply a vigorous protest against the popular attempt to +make things pleasant by a feeble dilution of the most watery kind of +popular teaching. He has no trouble in remarking that the evils of +poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that +there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered +consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country +gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it +was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks +facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he +tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in +denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the +papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue to a +comedy with the words-- + + Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind + Surveys the general toil of human kind. + +In the 'Life of Savage' he makes the common remark that the lives of +many of the greatest teachers of mankind have been miserable. The +explanation to which he inclines is that they have not been more +miserable than their neighbours, but that their misery has been more +conspicuous. His melancholy view of life may have been caused simply by +his unfortunate constitution; for everybody sees in the disease of his +own liver a disorder of the universe; but it was also intensified by the +natural reaction of a powerful nature against the fluent optimism of the +time, which expressed itself in Pope's aphorism, Whatever is, is right. +The strongest men of the time revolted against that attempt to cure a +deep-seated disease by a few fine speeches. The form taken by Johnson's +revolt is characteristic. His nature was too tender and too manly to +incline to Swift's misanthropy. Men might be wretched, but he would not +therefore revile them as filthy Yahoos. He was too reverent and cared +too little for abstract thought to share the scepticism of Voltaire. In +this miserable world the one worthy object of ambition is to do one's +duty, and the one consolation deserving the name is to be found in +religion. That Johnson's religious opinions sometimes took the form of +rather grotesque superstition may be true; and it is easy enough to +ridicule some of its manifestations. He took the creed of his day +without much examination of the evidence upon which its dogmas rested; +but a writer must be thoughtless indeed who should be more inclined to +laugh at his superficial oddities, than to admire the reverent spirit +and the brave self-respect with which he struggled through a painful +life. The protest of 'Rasselas' against optimism is therefore widely +different from the protest of Voltaire. The deep and genuine feeling of +the Frenchman is concealed under smart assaults upon the dogmas of +popular theology; the Englishman desires to impress upon us the futility +of all human enjoyments, with a view to deepen the solemnity of our +habitual tone of thought. It is true, indeed, that the evil is dwelt +upon more forcibly than the remedy. The book is all the more impressive. +We are almost appalled by the gloomy strength which sees so forcibly the +misery of the world and rejects so unequivocally all the palliatives of +sentiment and philosophy. The melancholy is intensified by the ponderous +style, which suggests a man weary of a heavy burden. The air seems to be +filled with what Johnson once called 'inspissated gloom.' 'Rasselas,' +one may say, has a narrow escape of being a great book, though it is ill +calculated for the hasty readers of to-day. Indeed, the defects are +serious enough. The class of writing to which it belongs demands a +certain dramatic picturesqueness to point the moral effectively. Not +only the long-winded sentences, but the slow evolution of thought and +the deliberation with which he works out his pictures of misery, make +the general effect dull beside such books as 'Candide' or 'Gulliver's +Travels.' A touch of epigrammatic exaggeration is very much needed; and +yet anybody who has the courage to read it through will admit that +Johnson is not an unworthy guide into those gloomy regions of +imagination which we all visit sometimes, and which it is as well to +visit in good company. + +After his fashion, Johnson is a fair representative of Greatheart. His +melancholy is distinguished from that of feebler men by the strength of +the conviction that 'it will do no good to whine.' We know his view of +the great prophet of the Revolutionary school. 'Rousseau,' he said, to +Boswell's astonishment, 'is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a +sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from +the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in +the plantations.' That is a fine specimen of the good Johnsonese +prejudices of which we hear so much; and, of course, it is easy to infer +that Johnson was an ignorant bigot, who had not in any degree taken the +measure of the great moving forces of his time. Nothing, indeed, can be +truer than that Johnson cared very little for the new gospel of the +rights of man. His truly British contempt for all such fancies ('for +anything I see,' he once said, 'foreigners are fools') is one of his +strongest characteristics. Now, Rousseau and his like took a view of the +world as it was quite as melancholy as Johnson's. They inferred that it +ought to be turned upside down, assured that the millennium would begin +as soon as a few revolutionary dogmas were accepted. All their remedies +appeared to the excellent Doctor as so much of that cant of which it was +a man's first duty to clear his mind. The evils of life were far too +deeply seated to be caused or cured by kings or demagogues. One of the +most popular commonplaces of the day was the mischief of luxury. That we +were all on the high road to ruin on account of our wealth, our +corruption, and the growth of the national debt, was the text of any +number of political agitators. The whole of this talk was, to his mind, +so much whining and cant. Luxury did no harm, and the mass of the +people, as indeed was in one sense obvious enough, had only too little +of it. The pet 'state of nature' of theorists was a silly figment. The +genuine savage was little better than an animal; and a savage woman, +whose contempt for civilised life had prompted her to escape to the +forest, was simply a 'speaking cat.' The natural equality of mankind was +mere moonshine. So far is it from being true, he says, that no two +people can be together for half an hour without one acquiring an evident +superiority over the other. Subordination is an essential element of +human happiness. A Whig stinks in his nostrils because to his eye modern +Whiggism is 'a negation of all principles.' As he said of Priestley's +writings, it unsettles everything and settles nothing. 'He is a cursed +Whig, a _bottomless_ Whig as they all are now,' was his description +apparently of Burke. Order, in fact, is a vital necessity; what +particular form it may take matters comparatively little; and therefore +all revolutionary dogmas were chimerical as an attack upon the +inevitable conditions of life, and mischievous so far as productive of +useless discontent. We need not ask what mixture of truth and falsehood +there may be in these principles. Of course, a Radical, or even a +respectable Whig, like Macaulay, who believed in the magical efficacy of +the British Constitution, might shriek or laugh at such doctrine. +Johnson's political pamphlets, besides the defects natural to a writer +who was only a politician by accident, advocate the most retrograde +doctrines. Nobody at the present day thinks that the Stamp Act was an +admirable or justifiable measure; or would approve of telling the +Americans that they ought to have been grateful for their long exemption +instead of indignant at the imposition. 'We do not put a calf into the +plough; we wait till he is an ox'--was not a judicious taunt. He was +utterly wrong; and, if everybody who is utterly wrong in a political +controversy deserves unmixed contempt, there is no more to be said for +him. We might indeed argue that Johnson was in some ways entitled to the +sympathy of enlightened people. His hatred of the Americans was +complicated by his hatred of slave-owners. He anticipated Lincoln in +proposing the emancipation of the negroes as a military measure. His +uniform hatred for the slave trade scandalised poor Boswell, who held +that its abolition would be equivalent to 'shutting the gates of mercy +on mankind.' His language about the blundering tyranny of the English +rule in Ireland would satisfy Mr. Froude, though he would hardly have +loved a Home Ruler. He denounces the frequency of capital punishment and +the harshness of imprisonment for debt, and he invokes a compassionate +treatment of the outcasts of our streets as warmly as the more +sentimental Goldsmith. His conservatism may be at times obtuse, but it +is never of the cynical variety. He hates cruelty and injustice as +righteously as he hates anarchy. Indeed, Johnson's contempt for mouthing +agitators of the Wilkes and Junius variety is one which may be shared by +most thinkers who would not accept his principles. There is a vigorous +passage in the 'False Alarm' which is scarcely unjust to the patriots of +the day. He describes the mode in which petitions are generally got up. +They are sent from town to town, and the people flock to see what is to +be sent to the king. 'One man signs because he hates the Papists; +another because he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes; one because +it will vex the parson; another because he owes his landlord nothing; +one because he is rich; another because he is poor; one to show that he +is not afraid, and another to show that he can write.' The people, he +thinks, are as well off as they are likely to be under any form of +government; and grievances about general warrants or the rights of +juries in libel cases are not really felt so long as they have enough to +eat and drink and wear. The error, we may probably say, was less in the +contempt for a very shallow agitation than in the want of perception +that deeper causes of discontent were accumulating in the background. +Wilkes in himself was a worthless demagogue; but Wilkes was the straw +carried by the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment, to which Johnson +was entirely blind. Yet whatever we may think of his political +philosophy, the value of these solid sturdy prejudices is undeniable. To +the fact that Johnson was the typical representative of a large class of +Englishmen, we owe it that the Society of Rights did not develop into a +Jacobin Club. The fine phrases on which Frenchmen became intoxicated +never turned the heads of men impervious to abstract theories and +incapable of dropping substances for shadows. There are evils in each +temperament; but it is as well that some men should carry into politics +that rooted contempt for whining which lay so deep in Johnson's nature. +He scorned the sickliness of the Rousseau school as, in spite of his +constitutional melancholy, he scorned valetudinarianism whether of the +bodily or the spiritual order. He saw evil enough in the world to be +heartily, at times too roughly, impatient of all fine ladies who made a +luxury of grief or of demagogues who shrieked about theoretical +grievances which did not sensibly affect the happiness of one man in a +thousand. The lady would not have time to nurse her sorrows if she had +been a washerwoman; the grievances with which the demagogues yelled +themselves hoarse could hardly be distinguished amidst the sorrows of +the vast majority condemned to keep starvation at bay by unceasing +labour. His incapacity for speculation makes his pamphlets worthless +beside Burke's philosophical discourses; but the treatment, if wrong and +defective on the theoretical side, is never contemptible. Here, as +elsewhere, he judges by his intuitive aversions. He rejects too hastily +whatever seems insipid or ill-flavoured to his spiritual appetite. Like +all the shrewd and sensible part of mankind he condemns as mere +moonshine what may be really the first faint dawn of a new daylight. But +then his intuitions are noble, and his fundamental belief is the vital +importance of order, of religion, and of morality, coupled with a +profound conviction, surely not erroneous, that the chief sources of +human suffering lie far deeper than any of the remedies proposed by +constitution-mongers and fluent theorists. The literary version of these +prejudices or principles is given most explicitly in the 'Lives of the +Poets'--the book which is now the most readable of Johnson's +performances, and which most frequently recalls his conversational +style. Indeed, it is a thoroughly admirable book, and but for one or two +defects might enjoy a much more decided popularity. It is full of shrewd +sense and righteous as well as keen estimates of men and things. The +'Life of Savage,' written in earlier times, is the best existing +portrait of that large class of authors who, in Johnson's phrase, 'hung +loose upon society' in the days of the Georges. The Lives of Pope, +Dryden, and others have scarcely been superseded, though much fuller +information has since come to light; and they are all well worth +reading. But the criticism, like the politics, is woefully out of date. +Johnson's division between the shams and the realities deserves all +respect in both cases, but in both cases he puts many things on the +wrong side of the dividing line. His hearty contempt for sham pastorals +and sham love-poetry will be probably shared by modern readers. 'Who +will hear of sheep and goats and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets +through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of +literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be for the most +part thrown away as men grow wise and nations grow learned.' But +elsewhere he blunders into terrible misapprehensions. Where he errs by +simply repeating the accepted rules of the Pope school, he for once +talks mere second-hand nonsense. But his independent judgments are +interesting even when erroneous. His unlucky assault upon 'Lycidas,' +already noticed, is generally dismissed with a pitying shrug of the +shoulders. 'Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and AEolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can +less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a +shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone; how +one god asks another god what has become of Lycidas, and how neither god +can tell. He who thus grieves can excite no sympathy; he who thus +praises will confer no honour.' + +Of course every tyro in criticism has his answer ready; he can discourse +about the aesthetic tendencies of the _Renaissance_ period, and explain +the necessity of placing one's self at a writer's point of view, and +entering into the spirit of the time. He will add, perhaps, that +'Lycidas' is a test of poetical feeling, and that he who does not +appreciate its exquisite melody has no music in his soul. The same +writer who will tell us all this, and doubtless with perfect truth, +would probably have adopted Pope or Johnson's theory with equal +confidence if he had lived in the last century. 'Lycidas' repelled +Johnson by incongruities, which, from his point of view, were certainly +offensive. Most modern readers, I will venture to suggest, feel the same +annoyances, though they have not the courage to avow them freely. If +poetry is to be judged exclusively by the simplicity and force with +which it expresses sincere emotion, 'Lycidas' would hardly convince us +of Milton's profound sorrow for the death of King, and must be condemned +accordingly. To the purely pictorial or musical effects of a poem +Johnson was nearly blind; but that need not suggest a doubt as to the +sincerity of his love for the poetry which came within the range of his +own sympathies. Every critic is in effect criticising himself as well as +his author; and I confess that to my mind an obviously sincere record of +impressions, however one-sided they may be, is infinitely refreshing, as +revealing at least the honesty of the writer. The ordinary run of +criticism generally implies nothing but the extreme desire of the author +to show that he is open to the very last new literary fashion. I should +welcome a good assault upon Shakespeare which was not prompted by a love +of singularity; and there are half-a-dozen popular idols--I have not the +courage to name them--a genuine attack upon whom I could witness with +entire equanimity, not to say some complacency. If Johnson's blunder in +this case implied sheer stupidity, one can only say that honest +stupidity is a much better thing than clever insincerity or fluent +repetition of second-hand dogmas. But, in fact, this dislike of +'Lycidas,' and a good many instances of critical incapacity might be +added, is merely a misapplication of a very sound principle. The hatred +of cant and humbug and affectation of all vanity is a most salutary +ingredient even in poetical criticism. Johnson, with his natural +ignorance of that historical method, the exaltation of which threatens +to become a part of our contemporary cant, made the pardonable blunder +of supposing that what would have been gross affectation in Gray must +have been affectation in Milton. His ear had been too much corrupted by +the contemporary school to enable him to recognise beauties which would +even have shone through some conscious affectation. He had the rare +courage--for, even then, Milton was one of the tabooed poets--to say +what he thought as forcibly as he could say it; and he has suffered the +natural punishment of plain speaking. It must, of course, be admitted +that a book embodying such principles is doomed to become more or less +obsolete, like his political pamphlets. And yet, as significant of the +writer's own character, as containing many passages of sound judgment, +expressed in forcible language, it is still, if not a great book, really +impressive within the limits of its capacity. + +After this imperfect survey of Johnson's writings, it only remains to be +noticed that all the most prominent peculiarities are the very same +which give interest to his spoken utterances. The doctrine is the same, +though the preacher's manner has changed. His melancholy is not so +heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of +excitement; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and +unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts +into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. His hearty love of +truth, and uncompromising hatred of cant in all its innumerable +transmutations, prompt half his most characteristic sayings. His queer +prejudices take a humorous form, and give a delightful zest to his +conversation. His contempt for abstract speculation comes out when he +vanquishes Berkeley, not with a grin, but by 'striking his foot with +mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem +to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous +thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down +with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they +compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions +of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous +rather than witty. He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that +all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. As +Boswell says, he is through your body in an instant without any +preliminary parade; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill +of fence. 'We know we are free and there's an end of it,' is his +characteristic summary of a perplexed bit of metaphysics; and he would +evidently have no patience to wander through the labyrinths in which men +like Jonathan Edwards delighted to perplex themselves. We should have +been glad to see a fuller report of one of those conversations in which +Burke 'wound into a subject like a serpent,' and contrast his method +with Johnson's downright hitting. Boswell had not the power, even if he +had the will, to give an adequate account of such a 'wit combat.' + +That such a mind should express itself most forcibly in speech is +intelligible enough. Conversation was to him not merely a contest, but a +means of escape from himself. 'I may be cracking my joke,' he said to +Boswell,'and cursing the sun: Sun, how I hate thy beams!' The phrase +sounds exaggerated, but it was apparently his settled conviction that +the only remedy for melancholy, except indeed the religious remedy, was +in hard work or in the rapture of conversational strife. His little +circle of friends called forth his humour as the House of Commons +excited Chatham's eloquence; and both of them were inclined to mouth too +much when deprived of the necessary stimulus. Chatham's set speeches +were as pompous as Johnson's deliberate writing. Johnson and Chatham +resemble the chemical bodies which acquire entirely new properties when +raised beyond a certain degree of temperature. Indeed, we frequently +meet touches of the conversational Johnson in his controversial writing. +'Taxation no Tyranny' is at moments almost as pithy as Swift, though the +style is never so simple. The celebrated Letter to Chesterfield, and the +letter in which he tells MacPherson that he will not be 'deterred from +detecting what he thinks a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian,' are as +good specimens of the smashing repartee as anything in Boswell's +reports. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often +as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous +phrases into simple words without losing some of their meaning. The +structure of the sentences is compact, though they are too elaborately +balanced and stuffed with superfluous antitheses. The language might be +simpler, but it is not a mere sham aggregation of words. His written +style, however faulty in other respects, is neither slipshod nor +ambiguous, and passes into his conversational style by imperceptible +degrees. The radical identity is intelligible, though the superficial +contrast is certainly curious. We may perhaps say that his century, +unfavourable to him as a writer, gave just what he required for talking. +If, as is sometimes said, the art of conversation is disappearing, it is +because society has become too large and diffuse. The good talker, as +indeed the good artist of every kind, depends upon the tacit +co-operation of the social medium. The chorus, as Johnson has himself +shown very well in one of the 'Ramblers,' is quite as essential as the +main performer. Nobody talks well in London, because everybody has +constantly to meet a fresh set of interlocutors, and is as much put out +as a musician who has to be always learning a new instrument. A literary +dictator has ceased to be a possibility, so far as direct personal +influence is concerned. In the club, Johnson knew how every blow would +tell, and in the rapid thrust and parry dropped the heavy style which +muffled his utterances in print. He had to deal with concrete +illustrations, instead of expanding into platitudinous generalities. The +obsolete theories which impair the value of his criticism and his +politics, become amusing in the form of pithy sayings, though they weary +us when asserted in formal expositions. His greatest literary effort, +the 'Dictionary,' has of necessity become antiquated in use, and, in +spite of the intellectual vigour indicated, can hardly be commended for +popular reading. And thus but for the inimitable Boswell, it must be +admitted that Johnson would probably have sunk very deeply into +oblivion. A few good sayings would have been preserved by Mrs. Thrale +and others, or have been handed down by tradition, and doubtless +assigned in process of time to Sydney Smith and other conversational +celebrities. A few couplets from the 'Vanity of Human Wishes' would not +yet have been submerged, and curious readers would have recognised the +power of 'Rasselas,' and been delighted with some shrewd touches in the +'Lives of the Poets.' But with all desire to magnify critical insight, +it must be admitted that that man would have shown singular penetration, +and been regarded as an eccentric commentator, who had divined the +humour and the fervour of mind which lay hid in the remains of the huge +lexicographer. And yet when we have once recognised his power, we can +see it everywhere indicated in his writings, though by an unfortunate +fatality the style or the substance was always so deeply affected by the +faults of the time, that the product is never thoroughly sound. His +tenacious conservatism caused him to cling to decaying materials for the +want of anything better, and he has suffered the natural penalty. He was +a great force half wasted, so far as literature was concerned, because +the fashionable costume of the day hampered the free exercises of his +powers, and because the only creeds to which he could attach himself +were in the phase of decline and inanition. A century earlier or later +he might have succeeded in expressing himself through books as well as +through his talk; but it is not given to us to choose the time of our +birth, and some very awkward consequences follow. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] See, for example, the great debate on February 13, 1741. + + + + +_CRABBE_ + + +It is nearly a century since George Crabbe, then a young man of +five-and-twenty, put three pounds in his pocket and started from his +native town of Aldborough, with a box of clothes and a case of surgical +instruments, to make his fortune in London. Few men have attempted that +adventure with less promising prospects. Any sensible adviser would have +told him to prefer starvation in his native village to starvation in the +back lanes of London. The adviser would, perhaps, have been vexed, but +would not have been confuted, by Crabbe's good fortune. We should still +recommend a youth not to jump into a river, though, of a thousand who +try the experiment, one may happen to be rescued by a benevolent +millionaire, and be put in the road to fortune. The chances against +Crabbe were enormous. Literature, considered as a trade, is a good deal +better at the present day than it was towards the end of the last +century, and yet anyone who has an opportunity of comparing the failures +with the successes, would be more apt to quote Chatterton than Crabbe as +a precedent for youthful aspirants. Crabbe, indeed, might say for +himself that literature was the only path open to him. His father was +collector of salt duties at Aldborough, a position, as one may imagine, +of no very great emolument. He had, however, given his son the chance of +acquiring a smattering of 'scholarship,' in the sense in which that +word is used by the less educated lower classes. To the slender store of +learning acquired in a cheap country school, the lad managed to add such +medical training as could be picked up during an apprenticeship in an +apothecary's shop. With this provision of knowledge he tried to obtain +practice in his native town. He failed to get any patients of the paying +variety. Crabbe was clumsy and absent-minded to the end of his life. He +had, moreover, a taste for botany, and the shrewd inhabitants of +Aldborough, with that perverse tendency to draw inferences which is +characteristic of people who cannot reason, argued that as he picked up +his samples in the ditches, he ought to sell the medicines presumably +compounded from them for nothing. In one way or other, poor Crabbe had +sunk to the verge of distress. Of course, under these circumstances, he +had fallen in love and engaged himself at the age of eighteen to a young +lady, apparently as poor as himself. Of course, too, he called Miss Elmy +'Mira,' and addressed her in verses which occasionally appeared in the +poet's corner of a certain 'Wheble's Magazine.' My Mira, said the young +surgeon, in a style which must have been rather antiquated even in +Aldborough-- + + My Mira, shepherds, is as fair + As sylvan nymphs who haunt the vale; + As sylphs who dwell in purest air, + As fays who skim the dusky dale. + +Moreover, he won a prize for a poem on Hope, and composed an +'Allegorical Fable' and a piece called 'The Atheist reclaimed;' and, in +short, added plentifully to the vast rubbish-heap of old-world verses, +now decayed beyond the industry of the most persevering of Dryasdusts. +Nay, he even succeeded by some mysterious means in getting one of his +poems published separately. It was called 'Inebriety,' and was an +unblushing imitation of Pope. Here is a couplet by way of sample:-- + + Champagne the courtier drinks the spleen to chase, + The colonel Burgundy, and Port his Grace. + +From the satirical the poet diverges into the mock heroic:-- + + See Inebriety! her wand she waves, + And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves. + +The interstices of the box of clothing which went with him from +Aldborough to London were doubtless crammed with much waste paper +scribbled over with these feeble echoes of Pope's Satires, and with +appeals to nymphs, muses, and shepherds. Crabbe was one of those men who +are born a generation after their natural epoch, and was as little +accessible to the change of fashion in poetry as in costume. When, +therefore, he finally resolved to hazard his own fate and Mira's upon +the results of his London adventure, the literary goods at his disposal +were already somewhat musty in character. The year 1780, in which he +reached London, marks the very nadir of English poetry. From the days of +Elizabeth to our own there has never been so absolutely barren a period. +People had become fairly tired of the jingle of Pope's imitators, and +the new era had not dawned. Goldsmith and Gray, both recently dead, +serve to illustrate the condition in which the most exquisite polish and +refinement of language has been developed until there is a danger of +sterility. The 'Elegy' and the 'Deserted Village' are in their way +inimitable poems: but we feel that the intellectual fibre of the poets +has become dangerously delicate. The critical faculty could not be +stimulated further without destroying all spontaneous impulse. The +reaction to a more masculine and passionate school was imminent; and if +the excellent Crabbe could have put into his box a few of Burns's +lyrics, or even a copy of Cowper's 'Task,' one might have augured better +for his prospects. But what chance was there for a man who could still +be contentedly invoking the muse and stringing together mechanic echoes +of Pope's couplets? How could he expect to charm the jaded faculties of +a generation which was already beginning to heave and stir with a +longing for some fresh excitement? For a year the fate which has +overtaken so many rash literary adventurers seemed to be approaching +steadily. One temporary gleam of good fortune cheered him for a time. He +persuaded an enterprising publisher to bring out a poem called 'The +Candidate,' which had some faint success, though ridiculed by the +reviewers. Unluckily the publisher became bankrupt and Crabbe was thrown +upon his resources--the poor three pounds and box of surgical +instruments aforesaid. How he managed to hold out for a year is a +mystery. It was lucky for him, as he intimates, that he had never heard +of the fate of Chatterton, who had poisoned himself just ten years +before. A Journal which he wrote for Mira is published in his Life, and +gives an account of his feelings during three months of his cruel +probation. He applies for a situation as amanuensis offered in an +advertisement, and comforts himself on failing with the reflection that +the advertiser was probably a sharper. He writes piteous letters to +publishers, and gets, of course, the stereotyped reply with which the +most amiable of publishers must damp the ardour of aspiring genius. The +disappointment is not much softened by the publisher's statement that +'he does not mean by this to insinuate any want of merit in the poem, +but rather a want of attention in the public.' Bit by bit his surgical +instruments go to the pawnbroker. When one publisher sends his polite +refusal poor Crabbe has only sixpence-farthing in the world, which, by +the purchase of a pint of porter, is reduced to fourpence-halfpenny. The +exchequer fills again by the disappearance of his wardrobe and his +watch; but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of +Dryden for three-and-sixpence, and on coming home tears his only coat, +which he manages to patch tolerably with a borrowed needle and thread, +pretending, with a pathetic shift, that they are required to stitch +together manuscripts instead of broadcloth. And so for a year the wolf +creeps nearer the door, whilst Crabbe gallantly keeps up appearances and +spirits, and yet he tries to preserve a show of good spirits in the +Journal to Mira, and continues to labour at his versemaking. Perhaps, +indeed, it may be regarded as a bad symptom that he is reduced to +distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is +nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he +thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of +deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the +desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and +comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather +commonplace in expression, but when read by the light of the distresses +he was enduring, show a brave unembittered spirit, not to be easily +respected too highly. Starvation seemed to be approaching; or, at least, +the only alternative was the abandonment of his ambition, and +acceptance, if he could get it, of the post of druggist's assistant. He +had but one resource left; and that not of the most promising kind. +Crabbe, amongst his other old-fashioned notions, had a strong belief in +the traditional patron. Johnson might have given him some hints upon the +subject; but luckily, as it turned out, he pursued what Chesterfield's +correspondent would have thought the most hopeless of all courses. He +wrote to Lord North, who was at that moment occupied in contemplating +the final results of the ingenious policy by which America was lost to +England, and probably consigned Crabbe's letter to the waste-paper +basket. Then he tried the effect of a copy of verses, beginning:-- + + Ah! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great, + T' adorn a rich or save a sinking State. + +He added a letter saying that, as Lord North had not answered him, Lord +Shelburne would probably be glad to supply the needs of a starving +apothecary turned poet. Another copy of verses was enclosed, pointing +out that Shelburne's reputed liberality would be repaid in the usual +coin: + + Then shall my grateful strains his ear rejoice, + His name harmonious thrilled on Mira's voice; + Round the reviving bays new sweets shall spring, + And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring! + +Nobody can blame North and Shelburne for not acting the part of Good +Samaritans. He, at least, may throw the first stone who has always taken +the trouble to sift the grain from the chaff amidst all the begging +letters which he has received, and who has never lamented that his +benevolence outran his discretion. But there was one man in England at +the time who had the rare union of qualities necessary for Crabbe's +purpose. Burke is a name never to be mentioned without reverence; not +only because Burke was incomparably the greatest of all English +political writers, and a standing refutation of the theory which couples +rhetorical excellence with intellectual emptiness, but also because he +was a man whose glowing hatred of all injustice and sympathy for all +suffering never evaporated in empty words. His fine literary perception +enabled him to detect the genuine excellence which underlay the +superficial triviality of Crabbe's verses. He discovered the genius +where men like North and Shelburne might excusably see nothing but the +mendicant versifier; and a benevolence still rarer than his critical +ability forbade him to satisfy his conscience by the sacrifice of a +five-pound note. When, by the one happy thought of his life, Crabbe +appealed to Burke's sympathy, the poet was desperately endeavouring to +get a poem through the press. But he owed fourteen pounds, and every +application to friends as poor as himself, and to patrons upon whom he +had no claims, had been unsuccessful. Nothing but ruin was before him. +After writing to Burke he spent the night in pacing Westminster Bridge. +The letter on which his fate hung is the more pathetic because it is +free from those questionable poetical flourishes which had failed to +conciliate his former patrons. It tells his story frankly and forcibly. +Burke, however, was not a rich man, and was at one of the most exciting +periods of his political career. His party was at last fighting its way +to power by means of the general resentment against the gross +mismanagement of their antagonists. A perfunctory discharge of the duty +of charity would have been pardonable; but from the moment when Crabbe +addressed Burke the poor man's fortune was made. Burke's glory rests +upon services of much more importance to the world at large than even +the preservation to the country of a man of genuine power. Yet there +are few actions on which he could reflect with more unalloyed +satisfaction; and the case is not a solitary one in Burke's history. A +political triumph may often be only hastened a year or two by the +efforts of even a great leader; but the salvage of a genius which would +otherwise have been hopelessly wrecked in the deep waters of poverty is +so much clear gain to mankind. One circumstance may be added as oddly +characteristic of Crabbe. He always spoke of his benefactor with +becoming gratitude: and many years afterwards Moore and Rogers thought +that they might extract some interesting anecdotes of the great author +from the now celebrated poet. Burke, as we know, was a man whom you +would discover to be remarkable if you stood with him for five minutes +under a haystack in a shower. Crabbe stayed in his house for months +under circumstances most calculated to be impressive. Burke was at the +height of his power and reputation; he was the first man of any +distinction whom the poet had ever seen; the two men had long and +intimate conversations, and Crabbe, it may be added, was a very keen +observer of character. And yet all that Rogers and Moore could extract +from him was a few 'vague generalities.' Moore suggests some +explanation; but the fact seems to be that Crabbe was one of those +simple, homespun characters, whose interests are strictly limited to +their own peculiar sphere. Burke, when he pleased, could talk of oxen as +well as politics, and doubtless adapted his conversation to the taste of +the young poet. Probably, much more was said about the state of Burke's +farm than about the prospects of the Whig party. Crabbe's powers of +vision were as limited as they were keen, and the great qualities to +which Burke owed his reputation could only exhibit themselves in a +sphere to which Crabbe never rose. His attempt to draw a likeness of +Burke under the name of 'Eugenius,' in the 'Borough,' is open to the +objection that it would be nearly as applicable to Wilberforce, Howard, +or Dr. Johnson. It is a mere complimentary daub, in which every +remarkable feature of the original is blurred or altogether omitted. + +The inward Crabbe remained to the end of his days what nature and +education had already made him; the outward Crabbe, by the help of +Burke, rapidly put on a more prosperous appearance. His poems were +published and achieved success. He took orders and found patrons. +Thurlow gave him L100, and afterwards presented him to two small +livings, growling out with an oath that he was 'as like Parson Adams as +twelve to a dozen.' The Duke of Rutland appointed him chaplain, a +position in which he seems to have been singularly out of his element. +Further patronage, however, made him independent, and he married his +Mira and lived very happily ever afterwards. Perhaps, with his +old-fashioned ideas, he would not quite have satisfied some clerical +critics of the present day. His views about non-residence and +pluralities seem to have been lax for the time; and his hearty dislike +for dissent was coupled with a general dislike for enthusiasm of all +kinds. He liked to ramble about after flowers and fossils, and to hammer +away at his poems in a study where chaos reigned supreme. For twenty-two +years after his first success as an author, he never managed to get a +poem into a state fit for publication, though periodical conflagrations +of masses of manuscript--too vast to be burnt in the chimney--testified +to his continuous industry. His reappearance seems to have been caused +chiefly by his desire to send a son to the University. His success was +repeated, though a new school had arisen which knew not Pope. The youth +who had been kindly received by Burke, Reynolds, and Johnson, came back +from his country retreat to be lionised at Holland House, and be petted +by Brougham and Moore, and Rogers and Campbell, and all the rising +luminaries. He paid a visit to Scott contemporaneously with George IV., +and pottered about the queer old wynds and closes of Edinburgh, which he +preferred to the New Town, and apparently to Arthur's Seat, with a +judicious _caddie_ following to keep him out of mischief. A more +tangible kind of homage was the receipt of L3,000 from Murray for his +'Tales of the Hall,' which so delighted him that he insisted on carrying +the bills loose in his pocket till he could show them 'to his son John' +in the country.[2] There, no doubt, he was most at home; and his +parishioners gradually became attached to their 'Parson Adams,' in spite +of his quaintnesses and some manful defiance of their prejudices. All +women and children loved him, and he died at a good old age in 1832, +having lived into a new order in many things, and been as little +affected by the change as most men. The words with which he concludes +the sketch of the Vicar in his 'Borough' are not inappropriate to +himself:-- + + Nor one so old has left this world of sin + More like the being that he entered in. + +The peculiar homeliness of Crabbe's character and poetry is excellently +hit off in the 'Rejected Addresses,' and the lines beginning + + John Richard William Alexander Dwyer + Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire, + +are probably more familiar to the present generation than any of the +originals. 'Pope in the worsted stockings' is the title hit off for him +by Horace Smith, and has about the same degree of truth as most smart +sayings of the kind. The 'worsted stockings' at least are +characteristic. Crabbe's son and biographer indicates some of the +surroundings of his father's early life in a description of the uncle, a +Mr. Tovell, with whom the poet's wife, the Mira of his Journal, passed +her youth. He was a sturdy yeoman, living in an old house with a moat, a +rookery, and fishponds. The hall was paved with black and white marble, +and the staircase was of black oak, slippery as ice, with a chiming +clock and a barrel-organ on the landing-places. The handsome +drawing-room and dining-rooms were only used on grand occasions, such as +the visit of a neighbouring peer. Mrs. Tovell jealously reserved for +herself the duty of scrubbing these state apartments, and sent any +servant to the right-about who dared to lay unhallowed hands upon them. +The family sat habitually in the old-fashioned kitchen, by a huge open +chimney, where the blaze of a whole pollard sometimes eclipsed the +feeble glimmer of the single candle in an iron candlestick, intended to +illuminate Mrs. Tovell's labours with the needle. Masters and servants, +with any travelling tinker or ratcatcher, all dined together, and the +nature of their meals has been described by Crabbe himself:-- + + But when the men beside their station took, + The maidens with them, and with these the cook; + When one huge wooden bowl before them stood, + Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food; + With bacon, mass saline, where never lean + Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen; + When from a single horn the party drew + Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new; + +then, the poet goes on to intimate, squeamish persons might feel a +little uncomfortable. After dinner followed a nap of precisely one hour. +Then bottles appeared on the table, and neighbouring farmers, with faces +rosy with brandy, drifted in for a chat. One of these heroes never went +to bed sober, but scandalised all teetotallers by retaining all his +powers and coursing after he was ninety. Bowl after bowl of punch was +emptied, and the conversation took so convivial a character that Crabbe +generally found it expedient to withdraw, though his son, who records +these performances, was held to be too young to be injured, and the +servants were too familiar for their presence to be a restraint. + +It was in this household that the poet found his Mira. Crabbe's own +father was apparently at a lower point of the social scale; and during +his later years took to drinking and to flinging dishes about the room +whenever he was out of temper. Crabbe always drew from the life; most of +his characters might have joined in his father's drinking bouts, or told +stories over Mr. Tovell's punchbowls. Doubtless a social order of the +same kind survived till a later period in various corners of the island. +The Tovells of to-day get their fashions from London, and their +labourers, instead of dining with them in their kitchen, have taken to +forming unions and making speeches about their rights. If, here and +there, in some remote nooks we find an approximation to the coarse, +hearty patriarchal mode of life, we regard it as a naturalist regards a +puny modern reptile, the representative of gigantic lizards of old +geological epochs. A sketch or two of its peculiarities, sufficiently +softened and idealised to suit modern tastes, forms a picturesque +background to a modern picture. Some of Miss Bronte's rough +Yorkshiremen would have drunk punch with Mr. Tovell; and the farmers in +the 'Mill on the Floss' are representatives of the same race, slightly +degenerate, in so far as they are just conscious that a new cause of +disturbance is setting into the quiet rural districts. Dandie Dinmont +again is a relation of Crabbe's heroes, though the fresh air of the +Cheviots and the stirring traditions of the old border life have +conferred upon him a more poetical colouring. To get a realistic picture +of country life as Crabbe saw it, we must go back to Squire Western, or +to some of the roughly-hewn masses of flesh who sat to Hogarth. Perhaps +it may be said that Miss Austen's delicate portrait of the more polished +society, which took the waters at Bath, and occasionally paid a visit to +London, implies a background of coarser manners and more brutal +passions, which lay outside her peculiar province. The question +naturally occurs to social philosophers, whether the improvement in the +external decencies of life and the wider intellectual horizon of modern +days prove a genuine advance over the rude and homely plenty of an +earlier generation. I refer to such problems only to remark that Crabbe +must be consulted by those who wish to look upon the seamy side of the +time which he describes. He very soon dropped his nymphs and shepherds, +and ceased to invoke the idyllic muse. In his long portrait gallery +there are plenty of virtuous people, and some people intended to be +refined; but features indicative of coarse animal passions, brutality, +selfishness, and sensuality are drawn to the life, and the development +of his stories is generally determined by some of the baser elements of +human nature. 'Jesse and Colin' are described in one of the Tales; but +they are not the Jesse and Colin of Dresden china. They are such rustics +as ate fat bacon and drank 'heavy ale and new;' not the imaginary +personages who exchanged amatory civilities in the old-fashioned +pastorals ridiculed by Pope and Gay. + +Crabbe's rough style is indicative of his general temper. It is in +places at least the most slovenly and slipshod that was ever adopted by +any true poet. The authors of the 'Rejected Addresses' had simply to +copy, without attempting the impossible task of caricaturing. One of +their familiar couplets, for example, runs thus:-- + + Emmanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy + Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ! + +And here is the original Crabbe:-- + + Swallow, a poor attorney, brought his boy + Up at his desk, and gave him his employ. + +When boy cannot be made to rhyme with employ, Crabbe is very fond of +dragging in a hoy. In the 'Parish Register' he introduces a narrative +about a village grocer and his friend in these lines:-- + + Aged were both, that Dawkins, Ditchem this, + Who much of marriage thought and much amiss. + +Or to quote one more opening of a story:-- + + Counter and Clubb were men in trade, whose pains, + Credit, and prudence, brought them constant gains; + Partners and punctual, every friend agreed + Counter and Clubb were men who must succeed. + +But of such gems anyone may gather as many as he pleases by simply +turning over Crabbe's pages. In one sense, they are rather pleasant than +otherwise. They are so characteristic and put forward with such absolute +simplicity that they have the same effect as a good old provincialism in +the mouth of a genuine countryman. It must, however, be admitted that +Crabbe's careful study of Pope had not initiated him in some of his +master's secrets. The worsted stockings were uncommonly thick. If Pope's +brilliance of style savours too much of affectation, Crabbe never +manages to hit off an epigram in the whole of his poetry. The language +seldom soars above the style which would be intelligible to the merest +clodhopper; and we can understand how, when in his later years Crabbe +was introduced to wits and men of the world, he generally held his +peace, or, at most, let fall some bit of dry quiet humour. At rare +intervals he remembers that a poet ought to indulge in a figure of +speech, and laboriously compounds a simile which appears in his poetry +like a bit of gold lace on a farmer's homespun coat. He confessed as +much in answer to a shrewd criticism of Jeffrey's, saying that he +generally thought of such illustrations and inserted them after he had +finished his tale. Here is one of these deliberately-concocted +ornaments, intended to explain the remark that the difference between +the character of two brothers came out when they were living together +quietly:-- + + As various colours in a painted ball, + While it has rest are seen distinctly all; + Till, whirl'd around by some exterior force, + They all are blended in the rapid course; + So in repose and not by passion swayed + We saw the difference by their habits made; + But, tried by strong emotions, they became + Filled with one love, and were in heart the same. + +The conceit is ingenious enough in one sense, but painfully ingenious. +It requires some thought to catch the likeness suggested, and then it +turns out to be purely superficial. The resemblance of such a writer to +Pope obviously does not go deep. Crabbe imitates Pope because everybody +imitated him at that day. He adopted Pope's metre because it had come to +be almost the only recognised means of poetical expression. He stuck to +it after his contemporaries had introduced new versification, partly +because he was old-fashioned to the backbone and partly because he had +none of those lofty inspirations which naturally generate new forms of +melody. He seldom trusts himself to be lyrical, and when he does his +versification is nearly as monotonous as it is in his narrative poetry. +We must not expect to soar with Crabbe into any of the loftier regions; +to see the world 'apparelled in celestial light,' or to descry + + Such forms as glitter in the muses' ray, + With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun. + +We shall find no vehement outbursts of passion, breaking loose from the +fetters of sacred convention. Crabbe is perfectly content with the +British Constitution, with the Thirty-nine Articles, and all +respectabilities in Church and State, and therefore he is quite content +also with the good old jogtrot of the recognised metres; his language, +halting invariably, and for the most part clumsy enough, is sufficiently +differentiated from prose by the mould into which it is run, and he +never wants to kick over the traces with his more excitable +contemporaries. + + The good old rule + Sufficeth him, the simple plan + +that each verse should consist of ten syllables, with an occasional +Alexandrine to accommodate a refractory epithet, and should rhyme +peaceably with its neighbour. + +From all which it may be too harshly inferred that Crabbe is merely a +writer in rhyming prose, and deserving of no attention from the more +enlightened adherents of a later school. The inference, I say, would be +hasty, for it is impossible to read Crabbe patiently without receiving a +very distinct and original impression. If some pedants of aesthetic +philosophy should declare that we ought not to be impressed because +Crabbe breaks all their rules, we can only reply they are mistaking +their trade. The true business of the critic is to discover from +observation what are the conditions under which a book appeals to our +sympathies, and, if he finds an apparent exception to his rules, to +admit that he has made an oversight, and not to condemn the facts which +persist in contradicting his theories. It may, indeed, be freely granted +that Crabbe has suffered seriously by his slovenly methods and his +insensibility to the more exquisite and ethereal forms of poetical +excellence. But however he may be classified, he possesses the essential +mark of genius, namely, that his pictures, however coarse the +workmanship, stamp themselves on our minds indelibly and +instantaneously. His pathos is here and there clumsy, but it goes +straight to the mark. His characteristic qualities were first distinctly +shown in the 'Village,' which was partly composed under Burke's eye, and +was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after +Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective, +to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank +facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two +is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then +listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too +exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities about +agricultural bliss. If his 'Auburn' is rather idealised, the most +prosaic of critics cannot object to the glow thrown by the memory of the +poet over the scene of now ruined happiness, and, moreover, Goldsmith's +delicate humour guards him instinctively from laying on his rose-colour +too thickly. Crabbe, however, will have nothing to do with rose-colour, +thick or thin. There is one explicit reference in the poem to his +predecessor's work, and it is significant. Everybody remembers, or ought +to remember, Goldsmith's charming pastor, to whom it can only be +objected that he has not the fear of political economists before his +eyes. This is Crabbe's retort after describing a dying pauper in need of +spiritual consolation:-- + + And does not he, the pious man, appear, + He, 'passing rich with forty pounds a year?' + Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock, + And far unlike him, feeds this little flock: + A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task + As much as God or man can fairly ask; + The rest he gives to loves and labours light, + To fields the morning, and to feasts the night. + None better skilled the noisy pack to guide, + To urge their chase, to cheer them, or to chide; + A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day, + And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play. + +This fox-hunting parson (of whom Cowper has described a duplicate) lets +the pauper die as he pleases; and afterwards allows him to be buried +without attending, performing the funerals, it seems, in a lump upon +Sundays. Crabbe admits in a note that such negligence was uncommon, but +adds that it is not unknown. The flock is, on the whole, worthy of the +shepherd. The old village sports have died out in favour of smuggling +and wrecking. The poor are not, as rich men fancy, healthy and well fed. +Their work makes them premature victims to ague and rheumatism; their +food is + + Homely, not wholesome, plain, not plenteous, such + As you who praise would never deign to touch. + +The ultimate fate of the worn-out labourer is the poorhouse, described +in lines of which it is enough to say that Scott and Wordsworth learnt +them by heart, and the melancholy deathbed already noticed. Are we +reading a poem or a Blue Book done into rhyme? may possibly be the +question of some readers. The answer should perhaps be that a good many +Blue Books contain an essence which only requires to be properly +extracted and refined to become genuine poetry. If Crabbe's verses +retain rather too much of the earthly elements, he is capable of +transmuting his minerals into genuine gold, as well as of simply +collecting them. Nothing, for example, is more characteristic than the +mode in which the occasional descriptions of nature are harmoniously +blended with the human life in his poetry. Crabbe is an ardent lover of +a certain type of scenery, to which justice has not often been done. We +are told how, after a long absence from Suffolk, he rode sixty miles +from his house to have a dip in the sea. Some of his poems appear to be +positively impregnated with a briny, or rather perhaps a tarry, odour. +The sea which he loved was by no means a Byronic sea. It has no grandeur +of storm, and still less has it the Mediterranean blue. It is the +sluggish muddy element which washes the flat shores of his beloved +Suffolk. He likes even the shelving beach, with fishermen's boats and +decaying nets and remnants of stale fish. He loves the dreary estuary, +where the slow tide sways backwards and forwards, and whence + + High o'er the restless deep, above the reach + Of gunner's hope, vast flocks of wildfowl stretch. + +The coming generation of poets took to the mountains; but Crabbe +remained faithful to the dismal and yet, in his hands, the impressive +scenery of his native salt-marshes. His method of description suits the +country. His verses never become melodramatic, nor does he ever seem to +invest nature with the mystic life of Wordsworth's poetry. He gives the +plain prosaic facts which impress us because they are in such perfect +harmony with the sentiment. Here, for example, is a fragment from the +'Village,' which is simply a description of the neighbourhood of +Aldborough:-- + + Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, + Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor; + From thence a length of burning sand appears, + Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; + Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, + Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye; + There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, + And to the ragged infant threaten war; + There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; + There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil; + Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, + The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; + O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, + And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade. + +The writer is too obviously a botanist; but the picture always remains +with us as the only conceivable background for the poverty-stricken +population whom he is about to describe. The actors in the 'Borough' are +presented to us in a similar setting; and it may be well to put a +sea-piece beside this bit of barren common. Crabbe's range of +descriptive power is pretty well confined within the limits so defined. +He is scarcely at home beyond the tide-marks:-- + + Be it the summer noon; a sandy space + The ebbing tide has left upon its place; + Then just the hot and stony beach above, + Light twinkling streams in bright confusion move; + + * * * * * + + There the broad bosom of the ocean keeps + An equal motion; swelling as it sleeps, + Then slowly sinking; curling to the strand, + Faint lazy waves o'ercreep the ridgy sand, + Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow, + And back return in silence, smooth and slow. + Ships in the calm seem anchored: for they glide + On the still sea, urged slowly by the tide: + Art thou not present, this calm scene before + Where all beside is pebbly length of shore, + And far as eye can reach, it can discern no more? + +I have omitted a couplet which verges on the scientific; for Crabbe is +unpleasantly anxious to leave nothing unexplained. The effect is, in its +way, perfect. Anyone who pleases may compare it with Wordsworth's calm +in the verses upon Peele Castle, where the sentiment is given without +the minute statement of facts, and where, too, we have the inevitable +quotation about the 'light that never was on sea or land,' and is pretty +nearly as rare in Crabbe's poetry. What he sees we can all see, though +not so intensely, and his art consists in selecting the precise elements +that tell most forcibly towards bringing us into the required frame of +mind. To enjoy Crabbe fully, we ought perhaps to be acclimatised on the +coast of the Eastern Counties; we should become sensitive to the +plaintive music of the scenery, which is now generally drowned by the +discordant sounds of modern watering-places, and would seem insipid to a +generation which values excitement in scenery as in fiction. Readers, +who measure the beauty of a district by its average height above the +sea-level, and who cannot appreciate the charm of a 'waste enormous +marsh,' may find Crabbe uncongenial. + +The human character is determined, as Mr. Buckle and other philosophers +have assured us, by the climate and the soil. A little ingenuity, such +as those philosophers display in accommodating facts to theory, might +discover a parallel between the type of Crabbe's personages and the +fauna and flora of his native district. Declining a task which might +lead to fanciful conclusions, I may assume that the East Anglian +character is sufficiently familiar, whatever the causes by which it has +been determined. To define Crabbe's poetry we have simply to imagine +ourselves listening to the stories of his parishioners, told by a +clergyman brought up amongst the lower rank of the middle classes, +scarcely elevated above their prejudices, and not willingly leaving +their circle of ideas. We must endow him with that simplicity of +character which gives us frequent cause to smile at its proprietor, but +which does not disqualify him from seeing a great deal further into his +neighbours than they are apt to give him credit for doing. Such insight, +in fact, is due not to any great subtlety of intellect, but to the +possession of deep feeling and sympathy. Crabbe saw little more of Burke +than would have been visible to an ordinary Suffolk farmer. When +transplanted to a ducal mansion, he only drew the pretty obvious +inference, embodied in a vigorous poem, that a patron is a very +disagreeable and at times a very mischievous personage. The joys and +griefs which really interest him are of the very tangible and solid kind +which affect men and women to whom the struggle for existence is a stern +reality. Here and there his good-humoured but rather clumsy ridicule may +strike some lady to whom some demon has whispered 'have a taste;' and +who turns up her nose at the fat bacon on Mr. Tovell's table. He pities +her squeamishness, but thinks it rather unreasonable. He satirises too +the heads of the rustic aristocracy; the brutal squire who bullies his +nephew the clergyman for preaching against his vices, and corrupts the +whole neighbourhood; or the speculative banker who cheats old maids +under pretence of looking after their investments. If the squire does +not generally appear in Crabbe in the familiar dramatic character of a +rural Lovelace, it is chiefly because Crabbe has no great belief in the +general purity of the inferior ranks of rural life. But his most +powerful stories deal with the tragedies--only too life-like--of the +shop and the farm. He describes the temptations which lead the small +tradesman to adulterate his goods, or the parish clerk to embezzle the +money subscribed in the village church, and the evil influence of +dissenting families in fostering a spiritual pride which leads to more +unctuous hypocrisy; for, though he says of the wicked squire that + + His worship ever was a Churchman true, + And held in scorn the Methodistic crew, + +the scorn is only objectionable to him in so far as it is a cynical +cloak for scorn of good morals. He tells how boys run away to sea, or +join strolling players, and have in consequence to beg their bread at +the end of their days. The almshouse or the county gaol is the natural +end of his villains, and he paints to the life the evil courses which +generally lead to such a climax. Nobody describes better the process of +going to the dogs. And most of all, he sympathises with the village +maiden who has listened too easily to the voice of the charmer, in the +shape of a gay sailor or a smart London footman, and has to reap the +bitter consequences of her too easy faith. Most of his stories might be +paralleled by the experience of any country clergyman who has entered +into the life of his parishioners. They are as commonplace and as +pathetic as the things which are happening round us every day, and which +fill a neglected paragraph in a country newspaper. The treatment varies +from the purely humorous to the most deep and genuine pathos; though it +never takes us into the regions of the loftier imagination. + +The more humorous of these performances may be briefly dismissed. Crabbe +possesses the faculty, but not in any eminent degree; his hand is a +little heavy, and one must remember that Mr. Tovell and his like were of +the race who require to have a joke driven into their heads with a +sledge-hammer. Once or twice we come upon a sketch which may help to +explain Miss Austen's admiration. There is an old maid devoted to Mira, +and rejoicing in stuffed puppies and parrots, who might have been +ridiculed by Emma Woodhouse, and a parson who would have suited the +Eltons admirably:-- + + Fiddling and fishing were his arts; at times + He altered sermons and he aimed at rhymes; + And his fair friends, not yet intent on cards, + Oft he amused with riddles and charades. + +Such sketches are a pleasant relief to his more sombre portraiture; but +it is in the tragic elements that his true power comes out. The motives +of his stories may be trivial, but never the sentiment. The deep manly +emotion makes us forget not only the frequent clumsiness of his style +but the pettiness of the incident, and what is more difficult, the +rather bread-and-butter tone of morality. If he is a little too fond of +bringing his villains to the gallows, he is preoccupied less by the +external consequences than by the natural working of evil passions. With +him sin is not punished by being found out, but by disintegrating the +character and blunting the higher sensibilities. He shows--and the +moral, if not new, is that which possesses the really intellectual +interest--how evil-doers are tortured by the cravings of desires that +cannot be satisfied, and the lacerations inflicted by ruined +self-respect. And therefore there is a truth in Crabbe's delineations +which is quite independent of his more or less rigid administration of +poetical justice. His critics used to accuse him of having a low opinion +of human nature. It is quite true that he assigns to selfishness and +brutal passion a very large part in carrying on the machinery of the +world. Some readers may infer that he was unlucky in his experience, and +others that he loved facts too unflinchingly. His stories sometimes +remind one of Balzac's in the descriptions of selfishness triumphant +over virtue. One, for example, of his deeply pathetic poems is called +'The Brothers;' and repeats the old contrast given in Fielding's Tom +Jones and Blifil. The shrewd sly hypocrite has received all manner of +kindnesses from the generous and simple sailor, and when, at last, the +poor sailor is ruined in health and fortune, he comes home expecting to +be supported by the gratitude of the brother, who has by this time made +money and is living at his ease. Nothing can be more pathetic or more in +the spirit of some of Balzac's stories than the way in which the rich +man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal +feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; +till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the +kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his +only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into +hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is not to be corrupted by +the coarse language of his poor old uncle. The rich brother suspects +that the sailor has broken this rule, and is reviling him for his +ingratitude, when suddenly he discovers that he is abusing a corpse. +The old sailor's heart is broken at last; and his brother repents too +late. He tries to comfort his remorse by cross-examining the boy, who +was the cause of the last quarrel:-- + + 'Did he not curse me, child?' 'He never cursed, + But could not breathe, and said his heart would burst.' + 'And so will mine'----'But, father, you must pray; + My uncle said it took his pains away.' + +Praying, however, cannot bring back the dead; and the fratricide, for +such he feels himself to be, is a melancholy man to the end of his days. +In Balzac's hands repentance would have had no place, and selfishness +have been finally triumphant and unabashed. We need not ask which would +be the most effective or the truest treatment; though I must put in a +word for the superior healthiness of Crabbe's mind. There is nothing +morbid about him. Still it would be absurd to push such a comparison +far. Crabbe's portraits are only spirited vignettes compared with the +elaborate full-lengths drawn by the intense imagination of the French +novelist; and Crabbe's whole range of thought is incomparably narrower. +The two writers have a real resemblance only in so far as in each case a +powerful accumulation of life-like details enables them to produce a +pathos, powerful by its vivid reality. + +The singular power of Crabbe is in some sense more conspicuous in the +stories where the incidents are almost audaciously trifling. One of them +begins with this not very impressive and very ungrammatical couplet:-- + + With our late Vicar, and his age the same, + His clerk, hight Jachin, to his office came. + +Jachin is a man of oppressive respectability; so oppressive, indeed, +that some of the scamps of the borough try to get him into scrapes by +temptations of a very inartificial kind, which he is strong enough to +resist. At last, however, it occurs to Jachin that he can easily +embezzle part of the usual monthly offerings while saving his character +in his own eyes by some obvious sophistry. He is detected and dismissed, +and dies after coming upon the parish. These materials for a tragic poem +are not very promising; and I do not mean to say that the sorrows of +poor Jachin affect us as deeply as those of Gretchen or Desdemona. The +parish clerk is perhaps a fit type of all that was least poetical in the +old social order of the country, and virtue which succumbs to the +temptation of taking two shillings out of a plate scarcely wants a +Mephistopheles to overcome it. We may perhaps think that the apologetic +note which the excellent Crabbe inserts at the end of his poem, to the +effect that he did not mean by it to represent mankind as 'puppets of an +overpowering destiny,' or 'to deny the doctrine of seducing spirits,' is +a little superfluous. The fact that a parish-clerk has taken to petty +pilfering can scarcely justify those heterodox conclusions. But when we +have smiled at Crabbe's philosophy, we begin to wonder at the force of +his sentiment. A blighted human soul is a pathetic object, however +paltry the temptation to which it has succumbed. Jachin has the dignity +of despair, though he is not quite a fallen archangel; and Crabbe's +favourite scenery harmonises with his agony. + + In each lone place, dejected and dismayed, + Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid, + Or to the restless sea and roaring wind + Gave the strong yearnings of a ruined mind; + On the broad beach, the silent summer day, + Stretched on some wreck, he wore his life away; + Or where the river mingles with the sea, + Or on the mud-bank by the elder tree, + Or by the bounding marsh-dyke, there was he. + +Nor would he have been a more pitiable object if he had betrayed a +nation or sold his soul for a Garter instead of the pillage of a +subscription plate. Poor old Jachin's story may seem to be borrowed from +a commonplace tract; but the detected pilferer, though he has only lost +the respect of the parson, the overseer, and the beadle, touches us as +deeply as the Byronic hero who has fallen out with the whole system of +the world. + +If we refuse to sympathise with the pang due to so petty a +catastrophe--though our sympathy should surely be proportioned to the +keenness of the suffering rather than the absolute height of the +fall--we may turn to tragedy of a deeper dye. Peter Grimes, as his name +indicates, was a ruffian from his infancy. He once knocked down his poor +old father, who warned him of the consequences of his brutality:-- + + On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief, + This he revolved, and drank for his relief. + +Adopting such a remedy, he sank from bad to worse, and gradually became +a thief, a smuggler, and a social outlaw. In those days, however, as is +proved by the history of Mrs. Brownrigg, parish authorities practised +the 'boarding-out system' after a reckless fashion. Peter was allowed to +take two or three apprentices in succession, whom he bullied, starved, +and maltreated, and who finally died under suspicious circumstances. The +last was found dead in Peter's fishing-boat after a rough voyage: and +though nothing could be proved, the Mayor told him that he should have +no more slaves to belabour. Peter, pursuing his trade in solitude, +gradually became morbid and depressed. The melancholy estuary became +haunted by ghostly visions. He had to groan and sweat with no vent for +his passion:-- + + Thus by himself compelled to live each day, + To wait for certain hours the tide's delay; + At the same time the same dull views to see, + The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree; + The water only, when the tides were high, + When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry; + The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks, + And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks; + Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float, + As the tide rolls by the impeded boat. + +Peter grew more sullen, and the scenery became more weird and +depressing. The few who watched him remarked that there were three +places where Peter seemed to be more than usually moved. For a time he +hurried past them, whistling as he rowed; but gradually he seemed to be +fascinated. The idle loungers in the summer saw a man and boat lingering +in the tideway, apparently watching the gliding waves without casting a +net or looking at the wildfowl. At last his delirium becoming stronger, +he is carried to the poorhouse, and tells his story to the clergyman. +Nobody has painted with greater vigour that kind of externalised +conscience which may still survive in a brutalised mind. Peter Grimes, +of course, sees his victims' spirits and hates them. He fancies that his +father torments him out of spite, characteristically forgetting that the +ghost had some excuse for his anger:-- + + 'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene, + No living being had I lately seen; + I paddled up and down and dipped my net, + But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get-- + A father's pleasure, when his toil was done, + To plague and torture thus an only son! + And so I sat and looked upon the stream, + How it ran on, and felt as in a dream; + But dream it was not; no!--I fixed my eyes + On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise; + I saw my father on the water stand, + And hold a thin pale boy in either hand; + And there they glided ghastly on the top + Of the salt flood, and never touched a drop; + I would have struck them, but they knew the intent, + And smiled upon the oar, and down they went. + +Remorse in Peter's mind takes the shape of bitter hatred for his +victims; and with another characteristic confusion, he partly attributes +his sufferings to some evil influence intrinsic in the locality:-- + + There were three places, where they ever rose-- + The whole long river has not such as those-- + Places accursed, where, if a man remain, + He'll see the things which strike him to the brain. + +And then the malevolent ghosts forced poor Peter to lean on his oars, +and showed him visions of coming horrors. Grimes dies impenitent, and +fancying that his tormentors are about to seize him. Of all haunted men +in fiction, it is not easy to think of a case where the horror is more +terribly realised. The blood-boulter'd Banquo tortured a noble victim, +but scarcely tortured him more effectually. Peter Grimes was doubtless a +close relation of Peter Bell. Bell having the advantage of Wordsworth's +interpretation, leads us to many thoughts which lie altogether beyond +Crabbe's reach; but, looking simply at the sheer tragic force of the two +characters, Grimes is to Bell what brandy is to small beer. He would +never have shown the white feather like his successor, who, + + After ten months' melancholy, + Became a good and honest man. + +If, in some sense, Peter Grimes is the most effective of Crabbe's +heroes, he would, if taken alone, give a very distorted impression of +the general spirit of the poetry. It is only at intervals that he +introduces us to downright criminals. There is, indeed, a description of +a convicted felon, which, according to Macaulay, has made 'many a rough +and cynical reader cry like a child,' and which, if space were +unlimited, would make a striking pendant to the agony of the burdened +Grimes. But, as a rule, Crabbe can find motives enough for tenderness in +sufferings which have nothing to do with the criminal law, and of which +the mere framework of the story is often interesting enough. His +peculiar power is best displayed in so presenting to us the sorrows of +commonplace characters as to make us feel that a shabby coat and a +narrow education, and the most unromantic of characters, need not cut +off our sympathies with a fellow-creature; and that the dullest +tradesman who treads on our toes in an omnibus may want only a power of +articulate expression to bring before us some of the deepest of all +problems. The parish clerk and the grocer--or whatever may be the +proverbial epitome of human dulness--may swell the chorus of lamentation +over the barrenness and the hardships and the wasted energies and the +harsh discords of life which is always 'steaming up' from the world, and +to which it is one, though perhaps not the highest, of the poet's +functions to make us duly sensible. Crabbe, like all realistic writers, +must be studied at full length, and therefore quotations are necessarily +unjust. It will be sufficient if I refer--pretty much at random--to the +short story of 'Phoebe Dawson' in the 'Parish Register,' to the more +elaborate stories of 'Edward Shore' and the 'Parting Hour' in the +'Tales,' or to the story of 'Ruth' in the 'Tales of the Hall,' where +again the dreary pathos is strangely heightened by Crabbe's favourite +seaport scenery, to prove that he might be called as truly as Goldsmith +_affectuum potens_, though scarcely _lenis, dominator_. + +It is time, however, to conclude with a word or two as to Crabbe's +peculiar place in the history of English literature. I said that, unlike +his contemporaries, Cowper and Burns, he adhered rigidly to the form of +the earlier eighteenth-century school, and partly for this reason +excited the wayward admiration of Byron, who always chose to abuse the +bridge which carried him to fame. But Crabbe's clumsiness of expression +makes him a very inadequate successor of Pope or of Goldsmith, and his +claims are really founded on the qualities which led Byron to call him +'nature's sternest painter, yet her best.' On this side he is connected +with some tendencies of the school which supplanted his early models. So +far as Wordsworth and his followers represented the reaction from the +artificial to a love of unsophisticated nature, Crabbe is entirely at +one with them. He did not share that unlucky taste for the namby-pamby +by which Wordsworth annoyed his contemporaries, and spoilt some of his +earlier poems. Its place was filled in Crabbe's mind by an even more +unfortunate disposition for the simply humdrum and commonplace, which, +it must be confessed, makes it almost as hard to read a good many of his +verses as to consume large quantities of suet pudding, and has probably +destroyed his popularity with the present generation. Still, Crabbe's +influence was powerful as against the old conventionality. He did not, +like his predecessors, write upon the topics which interested 'persons +of quality,' and never gives us the impression of having composed his +rhymes in a full-bottomed wig or even in a Grub Street garret. He has +gone out into country fields and village lanes, and paints directly from +man and nature, with almost a cynical disregard of the accepted code of +propriety. But the points on which he parts company with his more +distinguished contemporaries is equally obvious. Mr. Stopford Brooke has +lately been telling us with great eloquence what is the theology which +underlies the poetical tendencies of the last generation of poets. Of +that creed, a sufficiently vague one, it must be admitted, Crabbe was by +no means an apostle. Rather one would say he was as indifferent as a +good old-fashioned clergyman could very well be to the existence of any +new order of ideas in the world. The infidels, whom he sometimes +attacks, read Bolingbroke, and Chubb, and Mandeville, and have only +heard by report even of the existence of Voltaire. The Dissenters, whom +he so heartily detests, have listened to Whitefield and Wesley, or +perhaps to Huntington, S.S.--that is, as it may now be necessary to +explain, Sinner Saved. Every newer development of thought was still far +away from the quiet pews of Aldborough, and the only form of Church +restoration of which he has heard is the objectionable practice of +painting a new wall to represent a growth of lichens. Crabbe appreciates +the charm of the picturesque, but has never yet heard of our elaborate +methods of creating modern antiques. Lapped in such ignorance, and with +a mind little given to speculation, it is only in character that Crabbe +should be totally insensible to the various moods of thought represented +by Wordsworth's pantheistic conceptions of nature, or by Shelley's +dreamy idealism, or Byron's fierce revolutionary impulses. Still less, +if possible, could he sympathise with that love of beauty, pure and +simple, of which Keats was the first prophet. He might, indeed, be +briefly described by saying that he is at the very opposite pole from +Keats. The more bigoted admirers of Keats--for there are bigots in +matters of taste or poetry as well as in science or theology or +politics--would refuse the title of poet to Crabbe altogether on the +strength of the absence of this element from his verses. Like his most +obvious parallels in painting, he is too fond of boors and pothouses to +be allowed the quality of artistic perception. I will not argue the +point, which is, perhaps, rather a question of classification than of +intrinsic merit; but I will venture to suggest a test which will, I +think, give Crabbe a very firm, though, it may be, not a very lofty +place. Though I should be unwilling to be reckoned as one of Macaulay's +'rough and cynical readers,' I admit that I can read the story of the +convicted felon, or of Peter Grimes, without indulging in downright +blubbering. Most readers, I fear, can in these days get through pathetic +poems and novels without absolutely using their pocket-handkerchiefs. +But though Crabbe may not prompt such outward and visible signs of +emotion, I think that he produces a more distinct tendency to tears than +almost any poet of his time. True, he does not appeal to emotions, +accessible only through the finer intellectual perceptions, or to the +thoughts which 'lie too deep for tears.' That prerogative belongs to men +of more intense character, greater philosophical power, and more +delicate instincts. But the power of touching readers by downright +pictures of homespun griefs and sufferings is one which, to my mind, +implies some poetical capacity, and which clearly belongs to Crabbe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] It seems, one is sorry to add, that Murray made a very bad bargain +in this case. + + + + +_WILLIAM HAZLITT_ + + +There are few great books or great men that do not sadden us by a sense +of incompleteness. The writer, we feel, is better than his work. His +full power only reveals itself by flashes. There are blemishes in his +design, due to mere oversight or indolence; his energy has flagged, or +he has alloyed his pure gold to please the mob; or some burst of wayward +passion has disturbed the fair proportions of his work, and the man +himself is a half-finished or half-ruined fragment. The rough usage of +the world leaves its mark on the spiritual constitution of even the +strongest and best amongst us; and perhaps the finest natures suffer +more than others in virtue of their finer sympathies. 'Hamlet' is a +pretty good performance, if we make allowances; but what would it have +been if Shakespeare could have been at his highest level all through, +and if every element of strength in him had been purified from every +weakness? What would it have been, shall we say, if he could have had +the advantage of reading a few modern lectures on aesthetics? We may, +perhaps, be content with Shakespeare as circumstances left him; but in +reading our modern poets, the sentiment of regret is stronger. If Byron +had not been driven into his wild revolt against the world; if Shelley +had been judiciously treated from his youth; if Keats had had healthier +lungs; if Wordsworth had not grown rusty in his solitude; if Scott had +not been tempted into publisher's speculations; if Coleridge had never +taken to opium--what great poems might not have opened the new era of +literature, where now we have but incomplete designs, and listen to +harmonies half destroyed by internal discord? The regret, however, is +less when a man has succeeded in uttering the thought that was in him, +though it may never have found a worthy expression. Wordsworth could +have told us little more, though the 'Excursion' had been as complete a +work as 'Paradise Lost;' and if Scott might have written more +'Waverleys' and 'Antiquaries' and 'Old Mortalities,' he could hardly +have written better ones. But the works of some other writers suggest +possibilities which never even approached fulfilment. If the opinion +formed by his contemporaries of Coleridge be anywhere near the truth, we +lost in him a potential philosopher of a very high order, as we more +clearly lost a poet of singular fascination. Coleridge naturally +suggests the name of De Quincey, whose works are as often tantalising as +satisfying. And to make, it is true, a considerable drop from the +greatest of these names, we often feel when we take up one of Hazlitt's +glowing Essays, that here, too, was a man who might have made a far more +enduring mark as a writer of English prose. At their best, his writings +are admirable; they have the true stamp; the thought is masculine and +the expression masterly; phrases engrave themselves on the memory; and +we catch glimpses of a genuine thinker and no mere manufacturer of +literary commonplace. On a more prolonged study, it is true, we become +conscious of many shortcomings, and the general effect is somehow rather +cloying, though hardly from an excess of sweetness. And yet he deserves +the study both of the critic and the student of character. + +The story of Hazlitt's life has been told by his grandson; but there is +a rather curious defect of materials for so recent a biography. He kept, +it seems, no letters,--a weakness, if it be a weakness, for which one is +rather apt to applaud him in these days: but, on the other hand, nobody +ever indulged more persistently in the habit of washing his dirty linen +in public. Not even his idol Rousseau could be more demonstrative of his +feelings and recollections. His Essays are autobiographical, sometimes +even offensively; and after reading them we are even more familiar than +his contemporaries with many points of his character. He loved to pour +himself out in his Essays + + as plain + As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne. + +He has laid bare for the most careless reader the main elements of his +singular composition. Like some others of his revolutionary friends, +Godwin, for example, Leigh Hunt, and Tom Paine, he represents the old +dissenting spirit in a new incarnation. The grandfather a stern +Calvinist, the father a Unitarian, the son a freethinker; those were the +gradations through which more than one family passed during the closing +years of the last century and the opening of this. One generation still +clung to the old Puritan traditions and Jonathan Edwards; the next +followed Priestley; and the third joined the little band of radicals who +read Cobbett, scorned Southey as a deserter, and refused to be +frightened by the French Revolution. The outside crust of opinion may be +shed with little change to the inner man. Hazlitt was a dissenter to his +backbone. He was born to be in a minority; to be a living protest +against the dominant creed and constitution. He recognised and +denounced, but he never shook off, the faults characteristic of small +sects. A want of wide intellectual culture, and a certain sourness of +temper, cramped his powers and sometimes marred his writing. But from +his dissenting forefathers Hazlitt inherited something better. Beside +the huge tomes of controversial divinity on his father's shelves, the +'Patres Poloni,' Pripscovius, Crellius and Cracovius, Lardner and +Doddridge, and Baxter and Bates, and Howe, were the legends of the +Puritan hagiology. The old dissenters, he tells us, had Neale's 'History +of the Puritans' by heart, and made their children read Calamy's account +of the 2,000 ejected ministers along with the stories of Daniel in the +Lion's Den and Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Sympathy for the +persecuted, unbending resistance to the oppressor, was the creed which +had passed into their blood. 'This covenant they kept as the stars keep +their courses; this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better, +as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it does not +wither in their decay.... It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, +smiles in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to +the grave. This'--for in Hazlitt lies a personal application in all his +moralising--'This is better than the whirligig life of a court +poet'--such, for example, as Robert Southey. + +But Hazlitt's descent was not pure. If we could trace back the line of +his ancestry we should expect to find that by some freak of fortune, one +of the rigid old Puritans had married a descendant of some great Flemish +or Italian painter. Love of graceful forms and bright colouring and +voluptuous sensations had been transmitted to their descendants, though +hitherto repressed by the stern discipline of British nonconformity. As +the discipline relaxed, the Hazlitts reverted to the ancestral type. +Hazlitt himself, his brother and his sister, were painters by instinct. +The brother became a painter of miniatures by profession; and Hazlitt to +the end of his days revered Titian almost as much as he revered his +great idol Napoleon. An odd pair of idols, one thinks, for a youth +brought up upon Pripscovius and his brethren! A keen delight in all +artistic and natural beauty was an awkward endowment for a youth +intended for the ministry. Keats was scarcely more out of place in a +surgery than Hazlitt would have been in a Unitarian pulpit of those +days, and yet from that pulpit, oddly enough, came the greatest impulse +to Hazlitt. It came from a man who, like Hazlitt himself, though in a +higher degree than Hazlitt, combined the artistic and the philosophic +temperament. Coleridge, as Hazlitt somewhere says, threw a great stone +into the standing pool of contemporary thought; and it was in January +1798--one of the many dates in his personal history to which he recurs +with unceasing fondness--that Hazlitt rose before daylight and walked +ten miles in the mud to hear Coleridge preach. He has told, in his +graphic manner, how the voice of the preacher 'rose like a stream of +rich distilled perfumes;' how he launched into his subject, after giving +out the text, 'like an eagle dallying with the wind;' and how his young +hearer seemed to be listening to the music of the spheres, to see the +union of poetry and philosophy; and behold truth and genius embracing +under the eye of religion. His description of the youthful Coleridge has +a fit pendant in the wonderful description of the full-blown philosopher +in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling;' where, indeed, one or two touches are +taken from Hazlitt's Essays. It is Hazlitt who remarked, even at this +early meeting, that the dreamy poet philosopher could never decide on +which side of the footpath he should walk; and Hazlitt, who struck out +the epigram that Coleridge was an excellent talker if allowed to start +from no premisses and come to no conclusion. The glamour of Coleridge's +theosophy never seems to have fascinated Hazlitt's stubborn intellect. +At this time, indeed, Coleridge had not yet been inoculated with German +mysticism. In after years, the disciple, according to his custom, +renounced his master and assailed him with half-regretful anger. But the +intercourse and kindly encouragement of so eminent a man seem to have +roused Hazlitt's ambition. His poetical and his speculative intellect +were equally stirred. The youth was already longing to write a +philosophical treatise. The two elements of his nature thus roused to +action led him along a 'strange diagonal.' He would be at once a painter +and a metaphysician. Some eight years of artistic labour convinced him +that he could not be a Titian or a Raphael, and he declined to be a mere +Hazlitt junior. His metaphysical studies, on the contrary, convinced him +that he might be a Hume or a Berkeley; but unluckily they convinced +himself alone. The tiny volume which contained their results was +neglected by everybody but the author, who, to the end of his days, +loved it with the love of a mother for a deformed child. It is written, +to say the truth, in a painful and obscure style; it is the work of a +man who has brooded over his own thoughts in solitude till he cannot +appreciate the need of a clear exposition. The narrowness of his reading +had left him in ignorance of the new aspects under which the eternal +problems were presenting themselves to the new generation; and a +metaphysical discussion in antiquated phraseology is as useless as a +lady's dress in the last year's fashion. Hazlitt, in spite of this +double failure, does not seem to have been much disturbed by +impecuniosity; but the most determined Bohemian has to live. For some +years he strayed about the purlieus of literature, drudging, +translating, and doing other cobbler's work. Two of his performances, +however, were characteristic; he wrote an attack upon Malthus, and he +made an imprudent marriage. Even Malthusians must admit that imprudent +marriages may have some accidental good consequences. When a man has +fairly got his back to the wall, he is forced to fight; and Hazlitt, at +the age of thirty-four, with a wife and a son, at last discovered the +great secret of the literary profession, that a clever man can write +when he has to write or starve. To compose had been labour and grief to +him, so long as he could potter round a thought indefinitely; but with +the printer's devil on one side and the demands of a family on the +other, his ink began to flow freely, and during the last fifteen or +seventeen years of his life he became a voluminous though fragmentary +author. Several volumes of essays, lectures, and criticisms, besides his +more ambitious 'Life of Napoleon,' and a great deal of anonymous +writing, attest his industry. He died in 1830, at the age of fifty-two; +leaving enough to show that he could have done more and a good deal of a +rare, if not of the highest kind of excellence. + +Hazlitt, as I have said, is everywhere autobiographical. Besides that +secret, that a man can write if he must, he had discovered the further +secret that the easiest of all topics is his own feelings. It is an +apparent paradox, though the explanation is not far to seek, that +Hazlitt, though shy with his friends, was the most unreserved of +writers. Indeed he takes the public into his confidence with a facility +which we cannot easily forgive. Biographers of late have been guilty of +flagrant violations of the unwritten code which should protect the +privacies of social life from the intrusions of public curiosity. But +the most unscrupulous of biographers would hardly have dared to tear +aside the veil so audaciously as Hazlitt, in one conspicuous instance at +least, chose to do for himself. His idol Rousseau had indeed gone +further; but when Rousseau told the story of his youth, it was at least +seen through a long perspective of years, and his own personality might +seem to be scarcely interested. Hazlitt chose, in the strange book +called the 'New Pygmalion,' or 'Liber Amoris,' to invite the British +public at large to look on at a strange tragi-comedy, of which the last +scene was scarcely finished. Hazlitt had long been unhappy in his family +life. His wife appears to have been a masculine woman, with no talent +for domesticity; completely indifferent to her husband's pursuits, and +inclined to despise him for so fruitless an employment of his energies. +They had already separated, it seems, when Hazlitt fell desperately in +love with Miss Sarah Walker, the daughter of his lodging-house keeper. +The husband and wife agreed to obtain a divorce under the Scotch law, +after which they might follow their own paths, and Sarah Walker become +the second Mrs. Hazlitt. Some months had to be spent by Mr. and Mrs. +Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's +journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly +resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and +imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all +pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, +takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some +picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has +made a fool of himself, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a +troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved +pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his +friends letters which seem to be throbbing with unrestrainable passion. +He is raving as Romeo at Mantua might have raved about Juliet. To hear +Miss Walker called his wife will be music to his ears, such as they +never heard. But it seems doubtful whether, after all, his Juliet will +have him. He shrieks mere despair and suicide. Nothing is left in the +world to give him a drop of comfort. The breeze does not cool him nor +the blue sky delight him. He will never lie down at night nor rise up of +a morning in peace, nor even behold his little boy's face with pleasure, +unless he is restored to her favour. And Mrs. Hazlitt reports, after +acknowledging the receipt of L10, that Mr. Hazlitt was so much +'enamoured' of one of these letters that he pulled it out of his pocket +twenty times a day, wanted to read it to his companions, and ranted and +gesticulated till people took him for a madman. The 'Liber Amoris' is +made out of these letters--more or less altered and disguised, with some +reports of conversations with the lovely Sarah. 'It was an explosion of +frenzy,' says De Quincey; his reckless mode of relieving his bosom of +certain perilous stuff, with little care whether it produced scorn or +sympathy. A passion which urges its victim to such improprieties should +be, at least, deep and genuine. One would have liked him better if he +had not taken his frenzy to market. The 'Liber Amoris' tells us +accordingly that the author, Hazlitt's imaginary double, died abroad, +'of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of mind.' +The hero, in short, breaks his heart when the lady marries somebody +else. Hazlitt's heart was more elastic. Miss Sarah Walker married, and +Hazlitt next year married a widow lady 'of some property,' made a tour +with her on the Continent, and then--quarrelled with her also. It is not +a pretty story. Hazlitt's biographer informs us, by way of excuse, that +his grandfather was 'physically incapable'--whatever that may mean--'of +fixing his affection upon a single object.' He 'comprehended,' indeed, +'the worth of constancy' and other virtues as well as most men, and +could have written about them better than most men; but somehow 'a +sinister influence or agency,' a periphrasis for a sensuous temperament, +was perpetually present, which confined his virtues to the sphere of +theory. An apology sometimes is worse than a satire. The case, however, +seems to be sufficiently plain. We need not suspect that Hazlitt was +consciously acting a part and nursing his 'frenzy' because he thought +that it would make a startling book. He was an egotist and a man of +impulse. His impressions were for the time overpowering; but they were +transient. His temper was often stronger than his passions. A gust of +anger would make him quarrel with his oldest friends. Every emotion +justified itself for the time, because it was his. He always did well, +whether it pleased him for the moment to be angry, to be in love, to be +cynical, or to be furiously indignant. The end, therefore, of his life +exhibits a series of short impetuous fits of passionate endeavour, +rather than devotion to a single overruling purpose; and all his +writings are brief outbursts of eloquent feeling, where neither the +separate fragments nor the works considered as a whole obey any law of +logical development. And yet, in some ways, Hazlitt boasted, and boasted +plausibly enough, of his constancy. He has the same ideas to the end of +his life that he had at fourteen. He would, he remarks, be an excellent +man on a jury; he would say little, but would starve the eleven other +obstinate fellows out. Amongst politicians he was a faithful Abdiel, +when all others had deserted the cause. He loved the books of his +boyhood, the fields where he had walked, the gardens where he had drunk +tea, and, to a rather provoking extent, the old quotations and old +stories which he had used from his first days of authorship. The +explanation of the apparent paradox gives the clue to Hazlitt's singular +character. + +What I have called Hazlitt's egotism is more euphemistically and perhaps +more accurately described by Talfourd,[3] 'an intense consciousness of +his own individual being.' The word egotism in our rough estimates of +character is too easily confounded with selfishness. Hazlitt might have +been the person who, as one making a strange confession, assured a +friend that he took a deep interest in his own concerns. He was, one +would say, decidedly unselfish, if by selfishness is meant a disposition +to feather one's own nest without regard for other people's wants. Still +less was he selfish in the sense of preferring solid bread and butter to +the higher needs of mind and spirit. His sentiments are always generous, +and if scorn is too familiar a mood, it is scorn of the base and +servile. But his peculiarity is that these generous feelings are always +associated with some special case. He sees every abstract principle by +the concrete instance. He hates insolence in the abstract, but his +hatred flames into passion when it is insolence to Hazlitt. He resembles +that good old lady who wrote on the margin of her 'Complete Duty of Man' +the name of that neighbour who most conspicuously sinned against the +precept in the opposite text. Tyranny with Hazlitt is named Pitt, party +spite is Gifford, apostasy is Southey, and fidelity may be called +Cobbett or Godwin; though he finds names for the vices much more easily +than for the virtues. And thus, if he cannot be condemned for +selfishness, one must be charitable not to put down a good many of his +offences to its sister jealousy. The personal and the public sentiments +are so invariably blended in his mind that neither he nor anybody else +could have analysed their composition. He was apt to be the more moody +and irritable because his resentments clothed themselves spontaneously +in the language of some nobler emotion. If his friends are cold, he +bewails the fickleness of humanity; if they are successful, it is not +envy that prompts his irritation, but the rarity of the correspondence +between merit and reward. Such a man is more faithful to his dead than +to his living friends. The dead cannot change; they always come back to +his memory in their old colours; their names recall the old tender +emotion placed above all change and chance. But who can tell that our +dearest living friend may not come into awkward collision with us before +he has left the room? It is as well to be on our guard! It is curious +how the two feelings alternate in Hazlitt's mind in regard to the +friends who are at once dead and living; how fondly he dwells upon the +Coleridge of Wem and Nether Stowey where he first listened to the +enchanter's voice, and with what bitterness, which is yet but soured +affection, he turns upon the Coleridge who defended war-taxes in the +'Friend.' He hacks and hews at Southey through several furious Essays, +and ends with a groan. 'We met him unexpectedly the other day in St. +Giles's,' he says, 'were sorry we had passed him without speaking to an +old friend, turned and looked after him for some time as to a tale of +other days--sighing, as we walked on, Alas, poor Southey!' He fancies +himself to be in the mood of Brutus murdering Caesar. It is patriotism +struggling with old associations of friendship; if there is any personal +element in the hostility, no one is less conscious of it than the +possessor. To the whole Lake school his attitude is always the +same--justice done grudgingly in spite of anger, or satire tempered by +remorse. No one could say nastier things of that very different egotist, +Wordsworth; nor could anyone, outside the sacred clique, pay him +heartier compliments. Nobody, indeed, can dislike egotism like an +egotist. 'Wordsworth,' says Hazlitt, 'sees nothing but himself and the +universe; he hates all greatness and all pretensions to it but his own. +His egotism is in this respect a madness, for he scorns even the +admiration of himself, thinking it a presumption in anyone to suppose +that he has taste or sense enough to understand him. He hates all +science and all art: he hates chemistry, he hates conchology, he hates +Sir Isaac Newton, he hates logic, he hates metaphysics,' and so on +through a long list of hatreds, ending with the inimitable Napoleon, +whom Wordsworth hates, it seems, 'to get rid of the idea of anything +greater, or thought to be greater, than himself.' Hazlitt might have +made out a tolerable list of his own antipathies; though, to do him +justice, of antipathies balanced by ardent enthusiasm, especially for +the dead or the distant. + +Hazlitt, indeed, was incapable of the superlative self-esteem here +attributed to Wordsworth. His egotism is a curious variety of that +Protean passion, compounded as skilfully as the melancholy of Jaques. It +is not the fascinating and humorous egotism of Lamb, who disarms us +beforehand by a smile at his own crotchets. Hazlitt is too serious to be +playful. Nor is it like the amusing egotism of Boswell, combined with a +vanity which evades our contempt, because it asks so frankly for +sympathy. Hazlitt is too proud and too bitter. Neither is it the +misanthropic egotism of Byron, which, through all its affectation, +implies a certain aristocratic contempt of the world and its laws. +Hazlitt has not the sweep and continuity of Byron's passion. His +egotism--be it said without offence--is dashed with something of the +feeling common amongst his dissenting friends. He feels the awkwardness +which prevails amongst a clique branded by a certain social stigma, and +despises himself for his awkwardness. He resents neglect and scorns to +ask for patronage. His egotism is a touchy and wayward feeling which +takes the mask of misanthropy. He is always meditating upon his own +qualities, but not in the spirit of the conceited man who plumes himself +upon his virtues, nor of the ascetic who broods over his vices. He +prefers the apparently self-contradictory attitude (but human nature is +illogical) of meditating with remorse upon his own virtues. What in +others is complacency, becomes with him, ostensibly at least, +self-reproach. He affects--but it is hard to say where the affectation +begins--to be annoyed by the contemplation of his own merits. He is +angry with the world for preferring commonplace to genius, and rewarding +stupidity by success; but in form at least, he mocks at his own folly +for expecting better things. If he is vain at bottom, his vanity shows +itself indirectly by depreciating his neighbours. He is too proud to +dwell upon his own virtues, but he has been convinced by impartial +observation that the world at large is in a conspiracy against merit. +Thus he manages to transform his self-consciousness into the semblance +of proud humility, and extracts a bitter and rather morbid pleasure from +dwelling upon his disappointments and failures. Half-a-dozen of his best +Essays give expression to this mood, which is rather bitter than +querulous. He enlarges cordially on the 'disadvantages of intellectual +superiority.' An author--Hazlitt, to wit--is not allowed to relax into +dulness; if he is brilliant he is not understood, and if he professes an +interest in common things it is assumed that then he must be a fool. And +yet in the midst of these grumblings he is forced to admit a touch of +weakness, and tells us how it pleases him to hear a man ask in the Fives +Court, 'Which is Mr. Hazlitt?' He, the most idiosyncratic of men, and +most proud of it at bottom, declares how 'he hates his style to be +known, as he hates all idiosyncrasy.' At the next moment he purrs with +complacency at the recollection of having been forced into an avowal of +his authorship of an article in the 'Edinburgh Review.' Most generally +he eschews these naive lapses into vanity. He dilates on the old text of +the 'shyness of scholars.' The learned are out of place in competition +with the world. They are not and ought not to fancy themselves fitted +for the vulgar arena. They can never enjoy their old privileges. 'Fool +that it (learning) was, ever to forego its privileges and loosen the +strong hold it had on opinion in bigotry and superstition!' The same +tone of disgust pronounces itself more cynically in an Essay 'on the +pleasure of hating.' Hatred is, he admits, a poisonous ingredient in all +our passions, but it is that which gives reality to them. Patriotism +means hatred of the French, and virtue is a hatred of other people's +faults to atone for our own vices. All things turn to hatred. 'We hate +old friends, we hate old books, we hate old opinions, and at last we +come to hate ourselves.' Summing up all his disappointments, the broken +friendships, and disappointed ambitions, and vanished illusions, he +asks, in conclusion, whether he has not come to hate and despise +himself? 'Indeed, I do,' he answers, 'and chiefly for not having hated +and despised the world enough.' + +This is an outbreak of temporary spleen. Nobody loved his old books and +old opinions better. Hazlitt is speaking in the character of Timon, +which indeed fits him rather too easily. But elsewhere the same strain +of cynicism comes out in more natural and less extravagant form. Take, +for example, the Essay on the 'Conduct of Life.' It is a piece of _bona +fide_ advice addressed to his boy at school, and gives in a sufficiently +edifying form the commonplaces which elders are accustomed to address to +their juniors. Honesty, independence, diligence, and temperance are +commended in good set terms, though with an earnestness which, as is +often the case with Hazlitt, imparts some reality to outworn formulae. +When, however, he comes to the question of marriage, the true man breaks +out. Don't trust, he says, to fine sentiments: they will make no more +impression on these delicate creatures than on a piece of marble. Love +in women is vanity, interest, or fancy. Women care nothing about talents +or virtue--about poets or philosophers or politicians. They judge by the +eye. 'No true woman ever regarded anything but her lover's person and +address.' The author has no chance; for he lives in a dream, he feels +nothing spontaneously, his metaphysical refinements are all thrown away. +'Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the +fire in your eye; adorn your person; maintain your health, your beauty, +and your animal spirits; for if you once lapse into poetry and +philosophy you will want an eye to show you, a hand to guide you, a +bosom to love--and will stagger into your grave old before your time, +unloved and unlovely.' 'A spider,' he adds, 'the meanest creature that +crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow, but a scholar has no mate or +fellow.' Mrs. Hazlitt, Miss Sarah Walker, and several other ladies, +thought Hazlitt surly and cared nothing for his treatise on human +nature. Therefore (it is true Hazlittian logic) no woman cares for +sentiment. The sex which despised him must be despicable. Equally +characteristic is his profound belief that his failure in another line +is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most +characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. +He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, +and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does +not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, +with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not +being a Government tool. He wrote a charming character of Congreve's +Millamant, but it was unnoticed because he was not a Government tool. +Gifford would not relish his account of Dekkar's Orlando +Friscobaldo--because he was not a Government tool. He wrote admirable +table-talks--for once, as they are nearly finished, he will venture to +praise himself. He could swear (were they not his) that the thoughts in +them were 'founded as the rock, free as the air, the hue like an Italian +picture.' But, had the style been like polished steel, as firm and as +bright, it would have availed him nothing, for he was not a Government +tool. The world hated him, we see, for his merits. It is a bad world, he +says; but don't think that it is my vanity which has taken offence, for +I am remarkable for modesty, and therefore I know that my virtues are +faults of which I ought to be ashamed. Is this pride or vanity, or +humility, or cynicism, or self-reproach for wasted talents, or an +intimate blending of passions for which there is no precise name? Who +can unravel the masks within masks of a cunning egotism? + +To one virtue, however, that of political constancy, Hazlitt lays claim +in the most emphatic terms. If he quarrels with all his friends--'most +of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or +cold, uncomfortable acquaintance'--it is, of course, their fault. A +thoroughgoing egotist must think himself the centre of gravity of the +world, and all change of relations must mean that others have moved away +from him. Politically, too, all who have given up his opinions are +deserters, and generally from the worst of motives. He accuses Burke of +turning against the Revolution from--of all motives in the +world!--jealousy of Rousseau; a theory still more impossible than Mr. +Buckle's hypothesis of madness. Court favour supplies in most cases a +simpler explanation of the general demoralisation. Hazlitt could not +give credit to men like Southey and Coleridge for sincere alarm at the +French Revolution. Such a sentiment would be too unreasonable, for he +had not been alarmed himself. His constancy, indeed, would be admirable +if it did not suggest doubts of his wisdom. A man whose opinions at +fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If +his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by +experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. +To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write +yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what +Hazlitt called his opinions were really his feelings. He could argue +very ingeniously, as appears from his remarks on Coleridge and Malthus, +but his logic was the slave, not the ruler, of his emotions. His +politics were simply the expression, in a generalised form, of his +intense feeling of personality. They are a projection upon the modern +political world of that heroic spirit of individual self-respect which +animated his Puritan forefathers. One question, and only one question, +he frequently tells us, is of real importance. All the rest is mere +verbiage. The single dogma worth attacking or defending is the divine +right of kings. Are men, in the old phrase, born saddled and bridled, +and other men ready booted and spurred, or are they not? That is the +single shibboleth which distinguishes true men from false. Others, he +says, bowed their heads to the image of the beast. 'I spit upon it, and +buffeted it, and pointed at it, and drew aside the veil that then half +concealed it.' This passionate denial of the absolute right of men over +their fellows is but vicarious pride, if you please to call it so, or a +generous recognition of the dignity of human nature translated into +political terms. Hazlitt's character did not change, however much his +judgment of individuals might change; and therefore the principles which +merely reflected his character remained rooted and unshaken. And yet his +politics changed curiously enough in another sense. The abstract truth, +in Hazlitt's mind, must always have a concrete symbol. He chose to +regard Napoleon as the antithesis to the divine right of kings. That was +the vital formula of Napoleon, his essence, and the true meaning of his +policy. The one question in abstract politics was typified for Hazlitt +by the contrast between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance. To prove that +Napoleon could trample on human rights as roughly as any legitimate +sovereign was for him mere waste of time. Napoleon's tyranny meant a +fair war against the evil principle. Had Hazlitt lived in France, and +come into collision with press laws, it is likely enough that his +sentiments would have changed. But Napoleon was far enough off to serve +as a mere poetical symbol; his memory had got itself entwined in those +youthful associations on which Hazlitt always dwelt so fondly; and, +moreover, to defend 'Boney' was to quarrel with most of his countrymen, +and even of his own party. What more was wanted to make him one of +Hazlitt's superstitions? No more ardent devotee of the Napoleonic legend +ever existed, and Hazlitt's last years were employed in writing a book +which is a political pamphlet as much as a history. He worships the +eldest Napoleon with the fervour of a corporal of the Old Guard, and +denounces the great conspiracy of kings and nobles with the energy of +Cobbett; but he had none of the special knowledge which alone could give +permanent value to such a performance. He seems to have consulted only +the French authorities; and it is refreshing for once to find an +Englishman telling the story of Waterloo entirely from the French side, +and speaking, for example, of left and right as if he had been--as in +imagination he was--by the side of Napoleon instead of Wellington. Even +M. Victor Hugo can see more merit in the English army and its commander. +A radical, who takes Napoleon for his polar star, must change some of +his theories, though he disguises the change from himself; but a change +of a different kind came over Hazlitt as he grew older. + +The enthusiasm of the Southeys and Wordsworths for the French Revolution +changed--whatever their motives--into enthusiasm for the established +order. Hazlitt's enthusiasm remained, but became the enthusiasm of +regret instead of hope. As one by one the former zealots dropped off he +despised them as renegades, and clasped his old creed the more firmly to +his bosom. But the change did not draw him nearer to the few who +remained faithful. They perversely loved the wrong side of the right +cause, or loved it for the wrong reason. He liked the Whigs no better +than the Tories; the 'Edinburgh' and the 'Quarterly' were opposition +coaches, making a great dust and spattering each other with mud, but +travelling by the same road to the same end. A Whig, he said, was a +trimmer who dared neither to be a rogue nor an honest man, but was 'a +sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning +negation of the two.' And the true genuine radical reformers? To them, +as represented by the school of Bentham, Hazlitt entertained an aversion +quite as hearty as his aversion for Whigs and Tories. If, he says, the +Whigs are too finical to join heartily with the popular advocates, the +Reformers are too cold. They hated literature, poetry, and romance; +nothing gives them pleasure that does not give others pain; +utilitarianism means prosaic, hard-hearted, narrow-minded dogmatism. +Indeed, his pet essay on the principles of human nature was simply an +assault on what he took to be their fundamental position. He fancied +that the school of Bentham regarded man as a purely selfish and +calculating animal; and his whole philosophy was an attempt to prove the +natural disinterestedness of man, and to indicate for the imagination +and the emotions their proper place beside the calculating faculty. Few +were those who did not come under one or other clause of this sweeping +denunciation. He assailed Shelley, who was neither Whig, Tory, nor +Utilitarian, so cuttingly as to provoke a dispute with Leigh Hunt, and +had some of his sharp criticisms for his friend Godwin. His general +moral, indeed, is the old congenial one. The reformer is as unfit for +this world as the scholar. He is the only wise man, but, as things go, +wisdom is the worst of follies. The reformer, he says, is necessarily a +marplot; he does not know what he would be at; if he did, he does not +much care for it; and, moreover, he is 'governed habitually by a spirit +of contradiction, and is always wise beyond what is practicable.' Upon +this text Hazlitt dilates with immense spirit, satirising the crotchety +and impracticable race, and contrasting them with the disciplined +phalanx of Toryism, brilliantly and bitterly enough to delight Gifford; +and yet he is writing a preface to a volume of radical Essays. He is +consoling himself for being in a minority of one by proving that two +virtuous men must always disagree. Hazlitt is no genuine democrat. He +hates 'both mobs,' or, in other words, the great mass of the human race. +He would sympathise with Coriolanus more easily than with the Tribunes. +He laughs at the perfectibility of the species, and holds that 'all +things move, not in progress but in a ceaseless round.' The glorious +dream is fled: + + The radiance which was once so bright + Is now for ever taken from our sight; + +and his only consolation is to live over in memory the sanguine times of +his youth, before Napoleon had fallen and the Holy Alliance restored the +divine right of kings; to cherish eternal regret for the hopes that have +departed, and hatred and scorn equally enduring for those who blasted +them. 'Give me back,' he exclaims, 'one single evening at Boxhill, after +a stroll in the deep empurpled woods, before Bonaparte was yet beaten, +with "wine of Attic taste," when wit, beauty, friendship presided at +the board.' The personal blends with the political regret. + +Hazlitt, the politician, was soured. He fed his morbid egotism by +indignantly chewing the cud of disappointment, and scornfully rejecting +comfort. He quarrelled with his wife and with most of his friends, even +with the gentle Lamb, till Lamb regained his affections by the brief +quarrel with Southey. Certainly, he might call himself, with some +plausibility, 'the king of good haters.' But, after all, Hazlitt's +cynicism is the souring of a generous nature; and when we turn from the +politician to the critic and the essayist, our admiration for his powers +is less frequently jarred by annoyance at their wayward misuse. His +egotism--for he is still an egotist--here takes a different shape. His +criticism is not of the kind which is now most popular. He lived before +the days of philosophers who talk about the organism and its +environment, and of the connoisseurs who boast of an eclectic taste for +all the delicate essences of art. He never thought of showing that a +great writer was only the product of his time, race, and climate; and he +had not learnt to use such terms of art as 'supreme,' 'gracious,' +'tender,' 'bitter,' and 'subtle,' in which a good deal of criticism now +consists. Lamb, says Hazlitt, tried old authors 'on his palate as +epicures taste olives;' and the delicacy of discrimination which makes +the process enjoyable is perhaps the highest qualification of a good +critic. Hazlitt's point of view was rather different, nor can we ascribe +to him without qualification that exquisite appreciation of purely +literary charm which is so rare and so often affected. Nobody, indeed, +loved some authors more heartily or understood them better; his love is +so hearty that he cannot preserve the true critical attitude. Instead of +trying them on his palate, he swallows them greedily. His judgment of +an author seems to depend upon two circumstances. He is determined in +great measure by his private associations, and in part by his sympathy +for the character of the writer. His interest in this last sense is, one +may say, rather psychological than purely critical. He thinks of an +author not as the exponent of a particular vein of thought or emotion, +nor as an artistic performer on the instrument of language, but as a +human being to be loved or hated, or both, like Napoleon or Gifford or +Southey. + +Hazlitt's favourite authors were, for the most part, the friends of his +youth. He had pored over their pages till he knew them by heart; their +phrases were as familiar to his lips as texts of Scripture to preachers +who know but one book; the places where he had read them became sacred +to him, and a glory of his early enthusiasm was still reflected from the +old pages. Rousseau was his beloved above all writers. They had a +natural affinity. What Hazlitt says of Rousseau may be partly applied to +himself. Of Hazlitt it might be said almost as truly as of Rousseau, +that 'he had the most intense consciousness of his own existence. No +object that had once made an impression upon him was ever after +effaced.' In Rousseau's 'Confessions' and 'Nouvelle Heloise,' Hazlitt +saw the reflections of his own passions. He spent, he declares, two +whole years in reading these two books; and they were the happiest years +of his life. He marks with a white stone the days on which he read +particular passages. It was on April 10, 1798--as he tells us some +twenty years later--that he sat down to a volume of the 'New Heloise,' +at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. He +tells us which passage he read and what was the view before his bodily +eyes. His first reading of 'Paul and Virginia' is associated with an inn +at Bridgewater; and at another old-fashioned inn he tells how the rustic +fare and the quaint architecture gave additional piquancy to Congreve's +wit. He remembers, too, the spot at which he first read Mrs. Inchbald's +'Simple Story;' how he walked out to escape from one of the tenderest +parts, in order to return again with double relish. + +'An old crazy hand-organ,' he adds, 'was playing "Robin Adair," a summer +shower dropped manna on my head, and slaked my feverish thirst of +happiness.' He looks back to his first familiarity with his favourites +as an old man may think of his honeymoon. The memories of his own +feelings, of his author's poetry, and of the surrounding scenery, are +inextricably fused together. The sight of an old volume, he says, +sometimes shakes twenty years off his life; he sees his old friends +alive again, the place where he read the book, the day when he got it, +the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky. To these old favourites he +remained faithful, except that he seems to have tired of the glitter of +Junius. Burke's politics gave him some severe twinges. He says, in one +place, that he always tests the sense and candour of a Liberal by his +willingness to admit the greatness of Burke. He adds, as a note to the +Essay in which this occurs, that it was written in a 'fit of extravagant +candour,' when he thought that he could be more than just to an enemy +without betraying a cause. He oscillates between these views as his +humour changes. He is absurdly unjust to Burke the politician; but he +does not waver in his just recognition of the marvellous power of the +greatest--I should almost say the only great--political writer in the +language. The first time he read a passage from Burke, he said, This is +true eloquence. Johnson immediately became shelved, and Junius 'shrunk +up into little antithetic points and well-tuned sentences. But Burke's +style was forked and playful like the lightning, crested like the +serpent.' He is never weary of Burke, as he elsewhere says; and, in +fact, he is man enough to recognise genuine power when he meets it. To +another great master he yields with a reluctance which is an involuntary +compliment. The one author whom he admitted into his Pantheon after his +youthful enthusiasm had cooled was unluckily the most consistent of +Tories. Who is there, he asks, that admires the author of 'Waverley' +more than I do? Who is there that despises Sir Walter Scott more? The +Scotch novels, as they were then called, fairly overpowered him. The +imaginative force, the geniality and the wealth of picturesque incident +of the greatest of novelists, disarmed his antipathy. It is curious to +see how he struggles with himself. He blesses and curses in a breath. He +applies to Scott Pope's description of Bacon, 'the greatest, wisest, +meanest of mankind,' and asks-- + + Who would not laugh if such a man there be? + Who would not weep if "Waverley" were he? + +He crowns a torrent of abuse by declaring that Scott has encouraged the +lowest panders of a venal press, 'deluging and nauseating the public +mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang;' +and presently he calls Scott--by way, it is true, of lowering +Byron--'one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived.' He +invents a theory, to which he returns more than once, to justify the +contrast. Scott, he says, is much such a writer as the Duke of +Wellington (the hated antithesis of Napoleon, whose 'foolish face' he +specially detests) is a general. The one gets 100,000 men together, and +'leaves it to them to fight out the battle, for if he meddled with it +he might spoil sport; the other gets an innumerable quantity of facts +together, and lets them tell their story as they may. The facts are +stubborn in the last instance as the men are in the first, and in +neither case is the broth spoiled by the cook.' Both heroes show modesty +and self-knowledge, but 'little boldness or inventiveness of genius.' On +the strength of this doctrine he even compares Scott disadvantageously +with Godwin and Mrs. Inchbald, who had, it seems, more invention though +fewer facts. Hazlitt was not bound to understand strategy, and devoutly +held that Wellington's armies succeeded because their general only +looked on. But he should have understood his own trade a little better. +Putting aside this grotesque theory, he feels Scott's greatness truly, +and admits it generously. He enjoys the broth, to use his own phrase, +though he is determined to believe that it somehow made itself. + +Lamb said that Hazlitt was a greater authority when he praised than when +he abused, a doctrine which may be true of others than Hazlitt. The true +distinction is rather that Hazlitt, though always unsafe as a judge, is +admirable as an advocate in his own cause, and poor when merely speaking +from his brief. Of Mrs. Inchbald I must say what Hazlitt shocked his +audience by saying of Hannah More; that she has written a good deal +which I have not read, and I therefore cannot deny that her novels might +have been written by Venus; but I cannot admit that Wycherley's brutal +'Plain-dealer' is as good as ten volumes of sermons. 'It is curious to +see,' says Hazlitt, rather naively, 'how the same subject is treated by +two such different authors as Shakespeare and Wycherley.' Macaulay's +remark about the same coincidence is more to the point. 'Wycherley +borrows Viola,' says that vigorous moralist, 'and Viola forthwith +becomes a pander of the basest sort.' That is literally true. Indeed, +Hazlitt's love for the dramatists of the Restoration is something of a +puzzle, except so far as it is explained by early associations. Even +then it is hard to explain the sympathy which Hazlitt, the lover of +Rousseau and sentiment, feels for Congreve, whose speciality it is that +a touch of sentiment is as rare in his painfully-witty dialogues as a +drop of water in the desert. Perhaps a contempt for the prejudices of +respectable people gave zest to Hazlitt's enjoyment of a literature, +representative of a social atmosphere, most propitious to his best +feelings. And yet, though I cannot take Hazlitt's judgment, I would +frankly admit that Hazlitt's enthusiasm brings out Congreve's real +merits with a force of which a calmer judge would be incapable. His warm +praises of 'The Beggar's Opera,' his assault upon Sidney's 'Arcadia,' +his sarcasms against Tom Moore, are all excellent in their way, whether +we do or do not agree with his final result. Whenever Hazlitt writes +from his own mind, in short, he writes what is well worth reading. +Hazlitt learnt something in his later years from Lamb. He prefers, he +says, those papers of Elia in which there is the least infusion of +antiquated language; and, in fact, Lamb never inoculated him with his +taste for the old English literature. Hazlitt gave a series of lectures +upon the Elizabethan dramatists, and carelessly remarks some time +afterwards that he has only read about a quarter of Beaumont and +Fletcher's plays, and intends to read the rest when he has a chance. It +is plain, indeed, that the lectures, though written at times with great +spirit, are the work of a man who has got them up for the occasion. And +in his more ambitious and successful essays upon Shakespeare the same +want of reading appears in another way. He is more familiar with +Shakespeare's text than many better scholars. His familiarity is proved +by a habit of quotation of which it has been disputed whether it is a +merit or a defect. What phrenologists would call the adhesiveness of +Hazlitt's mind, its extreme retentiveness for any impression which has +once been received, tempts him to a constant repetition of familiar +phrases and illustrations. He has, too, a trick of working in patches of +his old essays, which he expressly defends on the ground that a book +which has not reached a second edition may be considered by its author +as manuscript. This self-plagiarism sometimes worries us, as we are +worried by a man whose conversation runs in ruts. But his quotations +from other authors, where used in moderation, often give a pleasant +richness to his style. Shakespeare, in particular, seems to be a +storehouse into which he can always dip for an appropriate turn of +phrase, and his love of Shakespeare is of a characteristic kind. He has +not counted syllables nor weighed various readings. He does not throw a +new light upon delicate indications of thought and sentiment, nor +philosophise after the manner of Coleridge and the Germans, nor regard +Shakespeare as the representative of his age according to the sweeping +method of M. Taine. Neither does he seem to love Shakespeare himself as +he loves Rousseau or Richardson. He speaks contemptuously of the Sonnets +and Poems, and, though I respect his sincerity, I think that such a +verdict necessarily indicates indifference to the most Shakespearian +parts of Shakespeare. The calm assertion that the qualities of the Poems +are the reverse of the qualities of the plays is unworthy of Hazlitt's +general acuteness. That which really attracts Hazlitt is sufficiently +indicated by the title of his book; he describes the characters of +Shakespeare's plays. It is Iago, and Timon, and Coriolanus, and Anthony, +and Cleopatra, who really interest him. He loves and hates them as if +they were his own contemporaries; he gives the main outlines of their +character with a spirited touch. And yet one somehow feels that Hazlitt +is not at his best in Shakespearian criticism; his eulogies savour of +commonplace, and are wanting in spontaneity. There is not that warm glow +of personal feeling which gives light and warmth to his style whenever +he touches upon his early favourites. Perhaps he is a little daunted by +the greatness of his task, and perhaps there is something in the +Shakespearian width of sympathy and in the Shakespearian humour which +lies beyond Hazlitt's sphere. His criticism of Hamlet is feeble; he does +not do justice to Mercutio or to Jaques; but he sympathises more +heartily with the tremendous passion of Lear and Othello, and finds +something congenial to his taste in Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. It +is characteristic, too, that he evidently understands Shakespeare better +on the stage than in the closet. When he can associate Iago and Shylock +with the visible presence of Kean, he can introduce that personal +element which is so necessary to his best writing. + +The best, indeed, of Hazlitt's criticisms--if the word may be so far +extended--are his criticisms of living men. The criticism of +contemporary portraits called the 'Spirit of the Age' is one of the +first of those series which have now become popular, as it is certainly +one of the very best. The descriptions of Bentham, and Godwin, and +Coleridge, and Horne Tooke are masterpieces in their way. They are, of +course, unfair; but that is part of their charm. One would no more take +for granted Hazlitt's valuation of Wordsworth than Timon's judgment of +Alcibiades. Hazlitt sees through coloured glasses, but his vision is not +the less penetrating. The vulgar satirist is such a one as Hazlitt +somewhere mentioned who called Wordsworth a dunce. Hazlitt was quite +incapable of such a solecism. He knew, nobody better, that a telling +caricature must be a good likeness. If he darkens the shades, and here +and there exaggerates an ungainly feature, we still know that the shade +exists and that the feature is not symmetrical. De Quincey reports the +saying of some admiring friend of Hazlitt, who confessed to a shudder +whenever Hazlitt used his habitual gesture of placing his hand within +his waistcoat. The hand might emerge armed with a dagger. Whenever, said +the same friend (Heaven preserve us from our friends!), Hazlitt had been +distracted for a moment from the general conversation, he looked round +with a mingled air of suspicion and defiance, as though some +objectionable phrase might have evaded his censure in the interval. The +traits recur to us when we read Hazlitt's descriptions of the men he had +known. We seem to see the dark sardonic man, watching the faces and +gestures of his friends, ready to take sudden offence at any affront to +his cherished prejudices, and yet hampered by a kind of nervous timidity +which makes him unpleasantly conscious of his own awkwardness. He +remains silent, till somebody unwittingly contradicts his unspoken +thoughts--the most irritating kind of contradiction to some people!--and +perhaps heaps indiscriminating praise on an old friend, a term nearly +synonymous with an old enemy. Then the dagger suddenly flashes out, and +Hazlitt strikes two or three rapid blows, aimed with unerring accuracy +at the weak points of the armour which he knows so well. And then, as he +strikes, a relenting comes over him; he remembers old days with a +sudden gush of fondness, and puts in a touch of scorn for his allies or +himself. Coleridge may deserve a blow, but the applause of Coleridge's +enemies awakes his self-reproach. His invective turns into panegyric, +and he warms for a time into hearty admiration, which proves that his +irritation arises from an excess, not from a defect, of sensibility; but +finding that he has gone a little too far, he lets his praise slide into +equivocal description, and, with some parting epigram, he relapses into +silence. The portraits thus drawn are never wanting in piquancy nor in +fidelity. Brooding over his injuries and his desertions, Hazlitt has +pondered almost with the eagerness of a lover upon the qualities of his +intimates. Suspicion, unjust it may be, has given keenness to his +investigation. He has interpreted in his own fashion every mood and +gesture. He has watched his friends as a courtier watches a royal +favourite. He has stored in his memory, as we fancy, the good retorts +which his shyness or unreadiness smothered at the propitious moment, and +brings them out in the shape of a personal description. When such a man +sits at our tables, silent and apparently self-absorbed, and yet shrewd +and sensitive, we may well be afraid of the dagger, though it may not be +drawn till after our death, and may write memoirs instead of piercing +flesh. And yet Hazlitt is no mean assassin of reputations; nor is his +enmity as a rule more than the seamy side of friendship. Gifford, +indeed, and Croker, 'the talking potato,' are treated as outside the +pale of human rights. + +Excellent as Hazlitt can be as a dispenser of praise and blame, he seems +to me to be at his best in a different capacity. The first of his +performances which attracted much attention was the Round Table, +designed by Leigh Hunt (who contributed a few papers), on the old +'Spectator' model. In the essays afterwards collected in the volumes +called 'Table Talk' and the 'Plain Speaker,' he is still better, because +more certain of his position. It would, indeed, be difficult to name any +writer, from the days of Addison to those of Lamb, who has equalled +Hazlitt's best performances of this kind. Addison is too unlike to +justify a comparison; and, to say the truth, though he has rather more +in common with Lamb, the contrast is much more obvious than the +resemblance. Each wants the other's most characteristic vein; Hazlitt +has hardly a touch of humour, and Lamb is incapable of Hazlitt's caustic +scorn for the world and himself. They have indeed in common, besides +certain superficial tastes, a love of pathetic brooding over the past. +But the sentiment exerted is radically different. Lamb forgets himself +when brooding over an old author or summing up the 'old familiar faces.' +His melancholy and his mirth cast delightful cross-lights upon the +topics of which he converses, and we do not know, until we pause to +reflect, that it is not the intrinsic merit of the objects, but Lamb's +own character, which has caused our pleasure. They would be dull, that +is, in other hands; but the feeling is embodied in the object described, +and not made itself the source of our interest. With Hazlitt, it is the +opposite. He is never more present than when he is dwelling upon the +past. Even in criticising a book or a man, his favourite mode is to tell +us how he came to love or to hate him; and in the non-critical Essays he +is always appealing to us, directly or indirectly, for sympathy with his +own personal emotions. He tells us how passionately he is yearning for +the days of his youth; he is trying to escape from his pressing +annoyances; wrapping himself in sacred associations against the fret +and worry of surrounding cares; repaying himself for the scorn of women +or Quarterly Reviewers by retreating into some imaginary hermitage; and +it is the delight of dreaming upon which he dwells more than upon the +beauty of the visions revealed to his inward eye. The force with which +this sentiment is presented gives a curious fascination to some of his +essays. Take, for example, the essay in 'Table Talk,' 'On Living to +One's self,'--an essay written, as he is careful to tell us, on a mild +January day in the country, whilst the fire is blazing on the hearth and +a partridge getting ready for his supper. There he expatiates in happy +isolation on the enjoyments of living as 'a silent spectator of the +mighty scheme of things;' as being in the world, and not of it; watching +the clouds and the stars, poring over a book, or gazing at a picture +without a thought of becoming an author or an artist. He has drifted +into a quiet little backwater, and congratulates himself in all +sincerity on his escape from the turbulent stream outside. He drinks in +the delight of rest at every pore; reduces himself for the time to the +state of a polyp drifting on the warm ocean stream, and becomes a +voluptuous hermit. He calls up the old days when he acted up to his +principles, and found pleasure enough in endless meditation and quiet +observation of nature. He preaches most edifyingly on the +disappointments, the excitements, the rough impacts of hard facts upon +sensitive natures, which haunt the world outside, and declares, in all +sincerity, 'this sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it +to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets.' He is sincere, and therefore +eloquent; and we need not, unless we please, add the remark that he +enjoys rest because it is a relief from toil; and that he will curse the +country as heartily as any man if doomed to entire rest. This meditation +on the phenomena of his own sensations leads him often into interesting +reflections of a psychological kind. He analyses his own feelings with +constant eagerness, as he analyses the character of his enemies. A good +specimen is the essay 'On Antiquity' in the 'Plain Speaker,' which +begins with some striking remarks on the apparently arbitrary mode in +which some objects and periods seem older to us than others, in defiance +of chronology. The monuments of the Middle Ages seem more antique than +the Greek statues and temples with their immortal youth. 'It is not the +full-grown, articulated, thoroughly accomplished periods of the world +that we regard with the pity or reverence due to age, so much as those +imperfect, unformed, uncertain periods which seem to totter on the verge +of non-existence, to shrink from the grasp of our feeble imagination, as +they crawl out of, or retire into the womb of time, of which our utmost +assurance is to doubt whether they ever were or not.' And then, as +usual, he passes to his own experience, and meditates on the changed +aspect of the world in youth and maturer life. The petty, personal +emotions pass away, whilst the grand and ideal 'remains with us +unimpaired in its lofty abstraction from age to age.' Therefore, though +the inference is not quite clear, he can never forget the first time he +saw Mrs. Siddons act, or the appearance of Burke's 'Letter to a Noble +Lord.' And then, in a passage worthy of Sir Thomas Browne, he describes +the change produced as our minds are stereotyped, as our most striking +thoughts become truisms, and we lose the faculty of admiration. In our +youth 'art woos us; science tempts us with her intricate labyrinths; +each step presents unlooked-for vistas, and closes upon us our backward +path. Our onward road is strange, obscure, and infinite. We are +bewildered in a shadow, lost in a dream. Our perceptions have the +brightness and indistinctness of a trance. Our continuity of +consciousness is broken, crumbles, and falls to pieces. We go on +learning and forgetting every hour. Our feelings are chaotic, confused, +strange to each other and ourselves.' But in time we learn by rote the +lessons which we had to spell out in our youth. 'A very short period +(from 15 to 25 or 30) includes the whole map and table of contents of +human life. From that time we may be said to live our lives over again, +repeat ourselves--the same thoughts return at stated intervals, like the +tunes of a barrel-organ; and the volume of the universe is no more than +a form of words, a book of reference.' + +From such musings Hazlitt can turn to describe any fresh impression +which has interested him, in spite of his occasional weariness, with a +freshness and vivacity which proves that his eye had not grown dim, nor +his temperament incapable of enjoyment. He fell in love with Miss Sarah +Wilson at the tolerably ripe age of 43; and his desire to live in the +past is not to be taken more seriously than his contempt for his +literary reputation. It lasts only till some vivid sensation occurs in +the present. In congenial company he could take a lively share in +conversation, as is proved not only by external evidence, but by his +very amusing book of conversations with Northcote--an old cynic out of +whom it does not seem that anybody else could strike many sparks,--or +from the essay, partly historical, it is to be supposed, in which he +records his celebrated discussion with Lamb, on persons whom one would +wish to have seen. But perhaps some of his most characteristic +performances in this line are those in which he anticipates the modern +taste for muscularity. His wayward disposition to depreciate ostensibly +his own department of action, leads him to write upon the 'disadvantages +of intellectual superiority,' and to maintain the thesis that the glory +of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And +perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the +physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives--in +which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his +last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau--and +still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill +Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, and we +are pretty well ashamed of the last flicker of enthusiasm created by +Sayers and Heenan. We may therefore enjoy without remorse the prose-poem +in which Hazlitt kindles with genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful +glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising +of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We +condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the +old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way +home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle Heloise,' admit +for a moment that 'Love of the Fancy is,' as the historian assures us, +'compatible with a cultivation of sentiment.' If Hazlitt had thrown as +much into his description of the Battle of Waterloo, and had taken the +English side, he would have been a popular writer. But even Hazlitt +cannot quite embalm the memories of Cribb, Belcher, and Gully. + +It is time, however, to stop. More might be said by a qualified writer +of Hazlitt's merits as a judge of pictures or of the stage. The same +literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, +condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man +can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, +capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow +that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and +Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; +nor, on the other hand, has he the plain homespun force of Swift and +Cobbett. And yet readers who do not insist upon measuring all prose by +the same standard, will probably agree that if Hazlitt is not a great +rhetorician, if he aims at no gorgeous effects of complex harmony, he +has yet an eloquence of his own. It is indeed an eloquence which does +not imply quick sympathy with many moods of feeling, or an intellectual +vision at once penetrating and comprehensive. It is the eloquence +characteristic of a proud and sensitive nature, which expresses a very +keen if narrow range of feeling, and implies a powerful grasp of one, if +only one side of the truth. Hazlitt harps a good deal upon one string; +but that string vibrates forcibly. His best passages are generally an +accumulation of short, pithy sentences, shaped in strong feeling, and +coloured by picturesque association; but repeating, rather than +corroborating, each other. The last blow goes home, but each falls on +the same place. He varies the phrase more than the thought; and +sometimes he becomes obscure, because he is so absorbed in his own +feelings that he forgets the very existence of strangers who require +explanation. Read through Hazlitt, and this monotony becomes a little +tiresome; but dip into him at intervals, and you will often be +astonished that so vigorous a writer has not left some more enduring +monument of his remarkable powers. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] In the excellent Essay prefixed to 'Hazlitt's Literary Remains.' + + + + +_DISRAELI'S NOVELS_[4] + + +It is a commonplace with men of literary eminence to extol the man of +deeds above the man of words. Scott was half ashamed of scribbling +novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true +prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the +shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in +masters of the art to depreciate their own peculiar function. People who +have less personal interest in the matter need not be so modest. I will +confess, at any rate, to preferring the men who have sown some new seed +of thought above the heroes whose names mark epochs in history. I would +rather make the nation's ballads than give its laws, dictate principles +than carry them into execution, and leaven a country with new ideas than +translate them into facts, inevitably mangling and distorting them in +the process. And therefore I would rather have written 'Hamlet' than +defeated the Spanish Armada; or 'Paradise Lost,' than have turned out +the Long Parliament; or 'Gray's Elegy,' than have stormed the heights of +Abram; or the Waverley Novels, than have won Waterloo or even Trafalgar. +I would rather have been Voltaire or Goethe than Frederick or Napoleon; +and I suspect that when the poor historian of the nineteenth century +begins his superhuman work, he will, as a thorough philosopher, +attribute more importance to two or three recent English writers than to +all the English statesmen who have been strutting and fretting their +little hour at Westminster. And therefore, too, I wish that Disraeli +could have stuck to his novels instead of rising to be Prime Minister of +England. This opinion is, of course, entirely independent of any +judgment which may be passed upon Disraeli's political career. Granting +that his cause has always been the right one, granting that he has +rendered it essential services, I should still wish that his brilliant +literary ability had been allowed to ripen undisturbed by all the +worries and distractions of parliamentary existence. Persons who think +the creation of a majority in the House of Commons a worthy reward for +the labours of a lifetime will, of course, differ from this conclusion. +Disraeli, at any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck +off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more +alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have +gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby +and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they +embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little +propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still +survives, must have lost many illusions; he must have herded with the +Tapers and Tadpoles, and prompted Rigby to write slashing articles on +his behalf in the quarterlies. He must have felt that his intellect was +cruelly wasted in talking claptrap and platitude to suit the thick +comprehensions of his party; and the huge dead weight of the invincible +impenetrability to ideas of ordinary mankind must have lain heavy upon +his soul. How many Tadpoles, one would like to know, still haunt the +Carlton Club, or throng the ministerial benches, and how many Rigbys +have forced their way into the Cabinet? That is one of the state secrets +which will hardly be divulged by the only competent observer. But at any +rate it is sad that the critic, who applied the lash so skilfully, +should have been so unequally yoked with the objects of his contempt. +Disraeli's talents for entertaining fiction may not indeed have been +altogether wasted in his official career; but he at least may pardon +admirers of his writing, who regret that he should have squandered +powers of imagination, capable of true creative work, upon that +alternation of truckling and blustering which is called governing the +country. + +The qualities which are of rather equivocal value in a minister of state +may be admirable in the domain of literature. It is hardly desirable +that the followers of a political leader should be haunted by an +ever-recurring doubt as to whether his philosophical utterances express +deep convictions, or the extemporised combinations of a fertile fancy, +and be uncertain whether he is really putting their clumsy thoughts into +clearer phrases, or foisting showy nonsense upon them for his own +purposes, or simply laughing at them in his sleeve. But, in a purely +literary sense, this ambiguous hovering between two meanings, this +oscillation between the ironical and the serious, is always amusing, and +sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in +literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air +of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in +earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a +standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that +the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments +of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright +sarcasm, as unmistakable in its meaning as the cut of a whip across your +face; and elsewhere we have passages which aim unmistakably, and +sometimes with unmistakable success, at rhetorical excellence. But, +between the two, there is a wide field where we may interpret his +meaning as we please. The philosophical theory may imply a genuine +belief, or may be a mere bit of conventional filling in, or perhaps a +parody of his friends or himself. The gorgeous passages may be +intentionally over-coloured, or may really represent his most sincere +taste. His homage may be genuine or a biting mockery. His extravagances +are kept precisely at such a pitch that it is equally fair to argue that +a satirist must have meant them to be absurd, or to argue only that he +would have seen their absurdity in anybody else. The unfortunate critic +feels himself in a position analogous to that of the suitors in the +'Merchant of Venice.' He may blunder grievously, whatever alternative he +selects. If he pronounces a passage to be pure gold, it may turn out to +be merely the mask of a bitter sneer; or he may declare it to be +ingenious burlesque when put forward in the most serious earnest; or may +ridicule it as overstrained bombast, and find that it was never meant to +be anything else. It is wiser to admit that perhaps the author was not +very clear himself, or possibly enjoyed that ambiguous attitude which +might be interpreted according to the taste of his readers and the +development of events. A man who deals in oracular utterances acquires +instinctively a mode of speech which may shift its colour with every +change of light. The texture of Disraeli's writings is so ingeniously +shot with irony and serious sentiment that each tint may predominate by +turns. It is impossible to suppose that the weaver of so cunning a web +should never have intended the effects which he produces; but +frequently, too, they must be the spontaneous and partly unconscious +results of a peculiar intellectual temperament. Delight in blending the +pathetic with the ludicrous is the characteristic of the true humorist. +Disraeli is not exactly a humorist, but something for which the rough +nomenclature of critics has not yet provided a distinctive name. His +pathos is not sufficiently tender, nor his laughter quite genial enough. +The quality which results is homologous to, though not identical with, +genuine humour: for the smile we must substitute a sneer, and the +element which enters into combination with the satire is something more +distantly allied to poetical unction than to glittering rhetoric. The +Disraelian irony thus compounded is hitherto a unique product of +intellectual chemistry. + +Most of Disraeli's novels are intended to set forth what, for want of a +better name, must be called a religious or political creed. To grasp its +precise meaning, or to determine the precise amount of earnestness with +which it is set forth, is of course hopeless. Its essence is to be +mysterious, and half the preacher's delight is in tantalising his +disciples. At moments he cannot quite suppress the amusement with which +he mocks their hopeless bewilderment. When Coningsby is on the point of +entering public life, he reads a speech of one of the initiated, +'denouncing the Venetian constitution, to the amazement of several +thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown +danger, now first introduced to their notice.' What more amusing than +suddenly to reveal to good easy citizens that what they took for +wholesome food is deadly poison, and to watch their hopeless incapacity +to understand whether you are really announcing a truth or launching an +epigram! + +Disraeli, undoubtedly, has certain fixed beliefs which underlie and +which, indeed, explain the superficial versatility of his teaching. +Amongst the various doctrines with which he plays more or less +seriously, two at least are deeply rooted in his mind. He holds, with a +fervour in every way honourable, a belief in the marvellous endowments +of his race, and connected with this belief is an almost romantic +admiration for every manifestation of intellectual power. Vivian Grey, +in a bit of characteristic bombast, describes himself as 'one who has +worshipped the empire of the intellect;' and his career is simply an +attempt to act out the principle that the world belongs of right to the +cleverest. Of Sidonia, after every superlative in the language has been +lavished upon his marvellous acquirements, we are told that 'the only +human quality that interested him was intellect.' Intellect is equally, +if not quite as exclusively, interesting to the creator of Sidonia. He +admires it in all its forms--in a Jesuit or a leader of the +International, in a charlatan or a statesman, or perhaps even more in +one who combines the two characters; but the most interesting of all +objects to Disraeli, if one may judge from his books, is a precocious +youth, whose delight in the sudden consciousness of great abilities has +not yet been dashed by experience. In some other writers we may learn +the age of the author by the age of his hero. A novelist who adopts the +common practice of painting from himself naturally finds out the merits +of middle age in his later works. But in every one of Disraeli's works, +from 'Vivian Grey' to 'Lothair,' the central figure is a youth, who is +frequently a statesman at school, and astonishes the world before he has +reached his majority. The change in the author's position is, indeed, +equally marked in a different way. The youthful heroes of Disraeli's +early novels are creative; in his later they become chiefly receptive. +Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming show their genius by insubordination; +Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of Sidonia; +and Lothair reduces himself so completely to a mere 'passive bucket' to +be pumped into by every variety of teacher, that he is unpleasantly like +a fool. Disraeli still loves ingenuous youth; but he has gained quite a +new perception of the value of docility. Here and there, of course, +there is a gentle gibe at juvenile vanity. 'My opinions are already +formed on every subject,' says Lothair; 'that is, on every subject of +importance; and, what is more, they will never change.' But such vanity +has nothing offensive. The audacity with which a lad of twenty solves +all the problems of the universe, excites in Disraeli genuine and really +generous sympathy. Sidonia converts the sentiment into a theory. +Experience, he says, is less than nothing to a creative mind. 'Almost +everything that is great has been done by youth.' The greatest captains, +the greatest poets, artists, statesmen, and religious reformers of the +world, have done their best work by middle life. All theories upon all +subjects can be proved from history; and the great Sidonia is not to be +pinned down by too literal an interpretation. But at least he is +expressing Disraeli's admiration for intellect which has the fervour, +rapidity, and reckless audacity of youth, which trusts its intuitions +instead of its calculations, and takes its crudest guesses for flashes +of inspiration. The exuberant buoyancy of his youthful heroes gives a +certain contagious charm to Disraeli's pages, which is attractive even +when verging upon extravagance. Our popular novelists have learned to +associate high spirits with muscularity; their youthful heroes are +either athletes destined to put on flesh in later days, or premature +prigs with serious convictions and a tendency to sermons and blue-books. +After a course of such books, Disraeli's genuine love of talent is +refreshing. He dwells fondly upon the effervescence of genius which +drives men to kick over the traces of respectability and strike out +short cuts to fame. If at bottom his heroes are rather eccentric than +original, they have at least a righteous hatred of all bores and +Philistines, and despise orthodoxy, political economy, and sound +information generally. They can provide you with new theories of +politics and history, as easily as Mercutio could pour out a string of +similes; and we have scarcely the heart to ask whether this vivacious +ebullition implies the process of fermentation by which a powerful mind +clears its crude ideas, or only an imitation of the process by which +superlative cleverness apes true genius. Intellect, as it becomes +sobered by middle age and by scholastic training, is no longer so +charming. When its guesses ossify into fixed opinions, and its arrogance +takes the airs of scientific dogmatism, it is always a tiresome and may +be a dangerous quality. Some indication of what Disraeli means by +intellect may be found in the preface to 'Lothair.' Speaking of the +conflict between science and the old religions, he says that it is a +most flagrant fallacy to suppose that modern ages have a monopoly of +scientific discovery. The greatest discoveries are not those of modern +ages. 'No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a +discovery as writing, or algebra, or language. What are the most +brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of +fire and the metals?' Hipparchus ranks with the Keplers and Newtons; and +Copernicus was but the champion of Pythagoras. To say nothing of the +characteristic assumption that somebody 'discovered' language and fire +in the same sense as modern chemists discovered spectrum analysis, the +argument is substantially that, because Hipparchus was as great a genius +as Newton, the views of the ancients upon religious or historical +questions deserve just as much respect as those of the moderns. In other +words, the accumulated knowledge of ages has taught us nothing. 'What is +conveniently called progress' is merely a polite name for change; and +one clever man's guess is as good as another, whatever the period at +which he lived. This theory is the correlative of Sidonia's assertion, +that experience is useless to the man of genius. The experience of the +race is just as valueless. Modern criticism is nothing but an +intellectual revolt of the Teutonic races against the Semitic +revelation, as the French revolution was a political revolt of the +Celtic races. The disturbance will pass away; and we shall find that +Abraham and Moses knew more about the universe than Hegel or Comte. The +prophets of the sacred race were divinely endowed with an esoteric +knowledge concealed from the vulgar behind mystic symbols and +ceremonies. If the old oracles are dumb, some gleams of the same power +still remain, and in the language of mere mortals are called genius. We +find it in perfection only amongst the Semites, whose finer +organisation, indicated by their musical supremacy, enables them to +catch the still small voice inaudible to our grosser ears. The Aryans, +indeed, have some touches of a cognate power, but it is dulled by a more +sensuous temperament. They can enter the court of the Gentiles; but +their mortal vesture is too muddy for admission into the holy of holies. +If ever they catch a glimpse of the truth, it is in their brilliant +youth, when, still uncorrupted by worldly politics, they can induce some +Sidonia partly to draw aside the veil. + +The intellect, then, as Disraeli conceives it, is not the faculty +denounced by theologians, which delights in systematic logical inquiry, +and hopes to attain truth by the unrestricted conflict of innumerable +minds. It is an abnormal power of piercing mysteries granted only to a +few distinguished seers. It does not lead to an earthly science, +expressible in definite formulas, and capable of being taught in Sunday +schools. The knowledge cannot be fully communicated to the profane, and +is at most to be shadowed forth in dim oracular utterances. Disraeli's +instinctive affinity for some kind of mystic teaching is indicated by +Vivian Grey's first request to his father. 'I wish,' he exclaims, 'to +make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want Plotinus and +Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrianus, and Mosanius Tyrius, and +Pericles, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damasenis!' But Vivian +Grey, as we know, wanted also to conquer the Marquis of Carabas; and the +odd combination between a mystic philosopher and a mere political +charlatan displays Disraeli's peculiar irony. Intellect with him is a +double-edged weapon: it is at once the faculty which reads the dark +riddle of the universe, and the faculty which makes use of Tapers and +Tadpoles. Our modern Daniel is also a shrewd electioneering agent. +Cynics, indeed, have learned in these later days to regard mystery as +too often synonymous with nonsense. The difficulty of interpreting +esoteric doctrines to the vulgar generally consists in this--that the +doctrines are mere collections of big words which collapse, instead of +becoming lucid, when put into plain English. The mystagogue is but too +closely allied to the charlatan. He may be straining to utter some +secret too deep for human utterance, or he is looking wise to conceal +absolute vacuity of thought. And at other times he must surely be +laughing at the youthful audacity which fancies that speculation is to +be carried on by a series of sudden inspirations, instead of laborious +accumulation of rigorously-tested reasonings. + +The three novels, 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' published from +1844 to 1847, form, as their author has told us, a trilogy intended to +set forth his views of political, social, and religious problems. Each +of them exhibits, in one form or other, this peculiar train of thought. +'Coningsby,' if I am not mistaken, is by far the ablest, and probably +owes its pre-eminence to the simple fact that it deals with the topics +in which its author felt the keenest interest. The social speculations +of 'Sybil' savour too much of the politician getting up a telling case; +and the religious speculations of 'Tancred' are pushed to the extreme +verge of the grotesque. But 'Coningsby' wants little but a greater +absence of purpose to be a first-rate novel. If Disraeli had confined +himself to the merely artistic point of view, he might have drawn a +picture of political society worthy of comparison with 'Vanity Fair.' +Lord Monmouth is evidently related to the Marquis of Steyne; and Rigby +is a masterpiece, though perhaps rather too suggestive of a direct study +from nature. Lord Monmouth is the ideal type of the 'Venetian' +aristocracy; and Rigby, like his historical namesake, of the corrupt +wire-pullers who flourished under their shade. The consistent +Epicureanism of the noble, in whom a sense of duty is only represented +by a vague instinct that he ought to preserve his political influence as +part of his personal splendour, and as an insurance against possible +incendiarism, is admirably contrasted by the coarser selfishness of +Rigby, who relieves his patron of all dirty work on consideration of +feathering his own nest, and fancying himself to be a statesman. The +whole background, in short, is painted with inimitable spirit and +fidelity. The one decided failure amongst the subsidiary characters is +Lucian Grey, the professional parasite, who earns his dinners by his +witty buffoonery. Somehow, his fun is terribly dreary on paper; perhaps +because, as a parasite, he is not allowed to indulge in the cutting +irony which animates all Disraeli's best sayings. The simple buffoonery +of exuberant animal spirits is not in Disraeli's line. When he can +neither be bitter nor rhetorical, he is apt to drop into mere mechanical +flatness. But nobody has described more vigorously all the meaner forms +of selfishness, stupidity, and sycophancy engendered under 'that fatal +drollery,' as Tancred describes it, 'called a parliamentary government.' +The pompous dulness which affects philosophical gravity, the appetite +for the mere dry husks and bran of musty constitutional platitude which +takes the airs of political wisdom, the pettifogging cunning which +supposes the gossips of lobbies and smoking-rooms to be the embodiment +of statesmanship, the selfishness which degrades political warfare into +a branch of stock-jobbing, and takes a great principle to be useful in +suggesting electioneering cries, as Telford thought that navigable +rivers were created to feed canals,--these and other tendencies favoured +by party government are hit off to the life. 'The man they called Dizzy' +can despise a miserable creature having the honour to be as heartily as +Carlyle himself, and, if his theories are serious, sometimes took our +blessed Constitution to be a mere shelter for such vermin as the Tapers +and Tadpoles. Two centuries of a parliamentary monarchy and a +parliamentary Church, says Coningsby, have made government detested, and +religion disbelieved. 'Political compromises,' says the omniscient +Sidonia, 'are not to be tolerated except at periods of rude transition. +An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariat of what is called +representative government. Your House of Commons, that has absorbed all +other powers in the State, will in all probability fall more rapidly +than it rose.' In short, the press will take its place. This is one of +those impromptu theories of history which are not to be taken too +literally. Indeed, the satirical background is intended to throw into +clearer relief a band of men of genius to whom has been granted some +insight into the great political mystery. Who, then, are the true +antithesis to the Tapers and Tadpoles? Should we compare them with a +Cromwell, who has a creed as well as a political platform; and contrast +'our young Queen and our old institutions' with some new version of the +old war cry, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon'? Or may we at least +have a glimpse of a Chatham, wakening the national spirit to sweep aside +the Newcastles and Bubb Dodingtons of the present day? Or, if Cromwells +and Chathams be too old-fashioned, and translate the Semitic principle +into a narrow English Protestantism, may we not have some genuine +revolutionary fanatic, a Cimourdain or a Gauvain, to burn up all this +dry chaff of mouldy politics with the fire of a genuine human passion? +Such a contrast, however effective, would have been a little awkward in +the year 1844. Young England had an ideal standard of its own, and +Disraeli must be the high priest of its peculiar hero-worship. Whether, +in this case, political trammels injured his artistic sense, or whether +his peculiar artistic tendencies injured his political career, is a +question rather for the historian than the critic. + +Certain it is, at any rate, that the _cenacle_ of politicians, whose +interests are to be thrown in relief against this mass of grovelling +corruption, forms but a feeble contrast, even in the purely artistic +sense. We have no right to doubt that Disraeli thought that Coningsby +and his friends represented the true solution of the difficulty; yet if +anybody had wished to demonstrate that a genuine belief might sometimes +make a man more contemptible than hypocritical selfishness, he could +scarcely have defended the paradox more ingeniously. 'Unconscious +cerebration' has become a popular explanation of many phenomena; and it +would hardly be fanciful to assume that one lobe of Disraeli's brain is +in the habit of secreting bitter satire unknown to himself, and +cunningly inserting it behind the thin veil of sentiment unconsciously +elaborated by the other. We are prepared, indeed, to accept the new +doctrine, as cleverly as Balzac could have inoculated us with a +provisional belief in animal magnetism, to heighten our interest in a +thrilling story of wonder. We have judicious hints of esoteric political +doctrine, which has been partially understood by great men at various +periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the +opening pages of 'Sybil.' The most remarkable thing about our popular +history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is 'a complete +mystification;' many of the principal characters never appear, as, for +example, Major Wildman, who was 'the soul of English politics from 1640 +to 1688.' It is not surprising, therefore, that two of our three chief +statesmen in later times should be systematically depreciated. The +younger Pitt, indeed, has been extolled, though on wrong grounds. But +Bolingbroke and Shelburne, our two finest political geniuses, are passed +over with contempt by ordinary historians. A historian might amuse +himself by tracing the curious analogy between the most showy +representatives of the old race of statesmen and the modern successor +who delights to sing his praises. The Patriot King is really to some +extent an anticipation of Disraeli's peculiar democratic Toryism. But +the chief merit of Shelburne would seem to be that the qualities which +earned for him the nickname of Malagrida made him convenient as a +hypothetical depository of some esoteric scheme of politics. For the +purposes of fiction, at any rate, we may believe that English politics +are a riddle of which only three men have guessed the true solution +since the 'financial' revolution of 1688. Pitt was only sound so far as +he was the pupil of Shelburne; but Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Disraeli +possessed the true key, and fully understood, for example, that Charles +I. was the 'holocaust of direct taxation.' But frankly to expound this +theory would be to destroy its charm, and to cast pearls before +political economists. And, therefore, its existence is dimly adumbrated +rather than its meaning revealed; and we have hints that there are +wheels within wheels, and that in the lowest deep of mystery there is a +yet deeper mystery. Coningsby and his associates, the brilliant +Buckhurst and the rich Catholic country gentleman, Eustace Lyle, are but +unripe neophytes, feeling after the true doctrine, but not yet fully +initiated. The superlative Sidonia, the man who by thirty has exhausted +all the sources of human knowledge, become master of the learning of +every nation, of all tongues, dead or living, and of every literature, +western and oriental; who has pursued all the speculations of science to +their last term; who has lived in all orders of society, and observed +man in every phase of civilisation; who has a penetrative intellect +which enables him to follow as by intuition the most profound of all +questions, and a power of communicating with precision the most abstruse +ideas; whose wealth would make Monte Cristo seem a pauper; who is so far +above his race that woman seems to him a toy, and man a machine,--this +thrice miraculous Sidonia, who can yet stoop from his elevation to win a +steeplechase from the Gentiles, or return their hospitality by an +exquisite dinner, is the fitting depository of the precious secret. No +one can ever accuse Disraeli of a want of audacity. He does not, like +weaker men, shrink from introducing men of genius because he is afraid +that he will not be able to make them talk in character; and when, in +'Venetia,' he introduces Byron and Shelley, he is kind enough to write +poetry for them, which produces as great an effect as the original. + +And now having a true prophet, having surrounded him with a band of +disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our +mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery. +Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle +the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be +satisfied. There is not any secret doctrine in politics. Bolingbroke may +have been a very clever man, but he could not see through a stone wall. +The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright +prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the +imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be +pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as +we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some +magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give +us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to +be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to +believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical +efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the +inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something +to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It +was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might +have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into +that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might +possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with +his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which +are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against +politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a +newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical +millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal +skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer +air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by +slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of +burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the +ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain +_aplomb_; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the +spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His +last book of 'Coningsby' opens with a Christmas scene worthy of an +illustrated keepsake. We have buttery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and +red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar's head +with a canticle. + + Caput apri defero, + Reddens laudes Domino, + +sing the noble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli +blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise +the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament. +He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a +passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that +the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert +hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be +trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to +this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, +and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies, +'The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?' It would, indeed, +be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of +Manchester. After dilating, in 'Tancred,' upon the vitality of Damascus, +he observes, 'As yet the disciples of progress have not been able +exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great +faith in the future of Birkenhead.' Perhaps the true sentiment is that +the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles, +look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan +civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but +admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the +moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant. +The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes of +Sidonia. The world--at least the Gentile world--is a farce. Ninety-nine +men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and +make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and +imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly. +As for the hundredth man--the youthful Coningsby or Tancred--his +enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his +game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is +almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success. +Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need +not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may +heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a +serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in +solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite +forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a +real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a +latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from +becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however +misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a +genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a +subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition +would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh, +but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the +consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest +degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite +utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical +colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, +but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant and +perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms +melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain +twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, +if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of +'Coningsby.' + +The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in +different proportions. 'Sybil' is chiefly devoted to what its author +calls 'an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period +in our social history.' We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is +enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself +capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists +who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into +sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer +purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand +impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to +tabulate in blue-books,--if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense +in which Miss Bronte knew them, and still less in the sense in which +Scott knew the Borderers--he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the +effects of trades' unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might +excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in 'Tancred' we again come +upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli's special +idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in +'Coningsby.' Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led +into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the +mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer +satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager +to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all +theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He +is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural +machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet, +intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the +satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words +and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous +air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be +solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous +picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must +be admitted that Tancred's own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even +more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that +'inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality,' and that God can +only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine--a theory which has +afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, God +can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this +belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great +Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us. +He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he +himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo +Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the +later learning--a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew, +and still retains some of the 'magnetic influence'--this great man, in +whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And +thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find +ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great +revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there +is 'absolutely no sport of any kind' near Jerusalem; and follow Tancred +where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before +the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into +ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration. +Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful +young woman comes straight out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and asks the +insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews +had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised +by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, +indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary +pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or +Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible +propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is +introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those +of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely +satirical one of interpreting Tancred's lofty dreams into political +intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are +convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the +strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion. +Can they be the guardians of the 'Asian mystery'? To our amazement it +turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phoebus of 'Lothair.' They +have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely +cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall +prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or +Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most +solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which +appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was +still untouched by time; a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet +lustrous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke +from the pensive passion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead +glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his +majestic forehead.' After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia, +this person told Tancred to 'announce the sublime and solacing doctrine +of Theocratic Equality.' But when Tancred, after his startling +adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the +Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of +bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after +him--Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the +novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. 'Out laughs the stern +philosopher,' or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, 'What, +ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth.' +Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering +cry. + +Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amusement? +Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the +passages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a +genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was +he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to +apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his +satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies. +Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear +in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept +the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only +solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution, +by accepting the theory of a double consciousness, and resolving to +pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes +us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either +aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of +fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener +enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed +lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we +had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are +blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria +of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew +doctors and classical artists, mediaeval monks and Anglican bishops, +perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from +Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws +dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley +actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as +arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking +cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and +original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest +realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere +mystification. + +But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to +observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge +into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was +composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic +tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian +Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in +which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the +'Wondrous Tale of Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited +attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels--except +Scott's and Kingsley's--are a weariness to the flesh, and when the +history is so remote from any association with modern feeling, even Mr. +Disraeli's vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An +opposite error disturbs one's appreciation of 'Venetia.' Byron and +Shelley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of +fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord +Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their +prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. 'Henrietta Temple' +and 'Contarini Fleming' may count as Mr. Disraeli's most satisfactory +performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and +has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, +but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of +a poetic nature--a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative +literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of +Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple' +professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are +certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli's art be not +the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The +same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this +different field it does not produce quite the same results. One +prominent tendency connects all his stories. When 'Lothair' made its +appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the +seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter. +Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates, +distributed with such reckless profusion amongst the characters, +intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth, +or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would +apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every +ducal millionaire, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven.' Vast landed +estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go +together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter +of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. 'If the youth who bears this +requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the +right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king; +and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that +is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat.' The +theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or +less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though +no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is +most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in +simple splendour, in 'ropes of pearls,' in priceless diamonds, gorgeous +clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not +uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an +infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience +of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early +admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour +insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar, +as to call his admiration for dukes snobbish; but the passion is too +sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for +the society of dukes, or take a child's pleasure in bright colours for +their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a +dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is +thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy +concessions, it ought not to be offensive. + +Disraeli's pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in +their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a +frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the +ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said +parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific +type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely +fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are +members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet, +Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a +Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet +incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped +by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to +such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli's modes of +representing passion. He has frankly explained his theory. The +peasant-noble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love 'in huts where poor +men lie,' and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in +support of the principle. That is not Disraeli's view. 'Love,' he says, +'that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a +ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount +with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as +its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is +placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate +the passion that is breathed in palaces, amid the ennobling creations +of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst +perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods'--woods, +that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All +Disraeli's passionate lovers--and they are very passionate--are provided +with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of +exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of +a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can +detect at once the stamp of noble blood in every gesture, and a coronet +is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make +love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced +gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the +background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled +with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery +state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence +by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is +suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5] +says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such +beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as +wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural +needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; +or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable +beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of +genii. The passion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to +stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash +and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects. + +In the 'Arabian Nights' the lover repeats a passage of poetry and then +faints from emotion, and Disraeli's lovers are apt to be as +demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity +makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example, +the model love-story in 'Henrietta Temple.' Told by a cold and +unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:--Ferdinand +Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army, +he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength +of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich nobleman. The +grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine's cousin, Katherine +Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the +property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement. +Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first +sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his +engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She +fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels +are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though +Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough +to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not +ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the +strength of it--a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on +false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at +last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured +of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the +greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from +Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover's +misfortunes. And then a 'happy thought' occurs to the two pairs of +lovers. If Miss Temple's wealth had come earlier, she might have married +Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an +exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom +marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand +Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The +moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at +the sponging-house. 'It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and +their hundreds that are ever done up,' says this keen observer. 'A nob +was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall. +Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing.' + +This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives +Disraeli's secret. His 'nobs' are so splendid in their surroundings, +such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown +upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be +hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be +questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues? +The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling +complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her +dark and lustrous locks. Love for such a being is the 'transcendent and +surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy.' It is a rapture +and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what +sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine, +'pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming +spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious +and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a +big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam played upon his lip.' +But 'the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories, +the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild +order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity +succeeded--a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circumambient +happiness.' In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love +which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some +warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the +domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms +of passion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as +plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to +gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is +that, while other men assume that the commonest things will take a +splendid colour as seen through a lover's eyes, Disraeli takes care that +whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring. + +Once more, if we consent for the time to take our author's view--and +that is the necessary condition for enjoying most literature--we must +admit the vivacity and, at times, the real eloquence of Disraeli's +rhetoric. In 'Contarini Fleming' he takes a still more ambitious flight, +and with considerable success. Fleming, the embodiment of the poetic +character, is, we might almost say, to other poets what Armine is to +other lovers. He has the same love of brilliant effects, and the same +absence of genuine tenderness. But one other qualification must be made. +We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that +amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, +and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But +his genius is so versatile that we doubt its true destination. His +first literary performance is to write a version of 'Vivian Grey,' a +reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put +himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by +Schiller's Robbers to emulate the career of Moor; his greatest feat is a +sudden stroke of diplomacy which enables him to defeat the plans of more +veteran statesmen. And when he has gone through his initiation, wooed +and won his marvellous beauty, and lost her in an ideal island, the +final shape of his aspirations is curiously characteristic. Having +become rich quite unexpectedly--for he did not know that he was to be +the hero of one of Disraeli's novels--he resolved to 'create a +paradise.' He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful +gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace +full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes +to 'create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in +extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most +accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity.' He has already laid +the foundation of a tower which is to rise to a height of at least a +hundred and fifty feet, and is to equal in solidity and design the most +celebrated works of antiquity. Certainly the scheme is magnificent; but +it is scarcely the ambition which one might have expected from a poet. +Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic +temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible +memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with +profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary +complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the +splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a +cultivated imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a +series of brilliant travellers' sketches, is no mean master of what may +be called poetical prose. His pictures of life and scenery are +vivacious, rapid, and decisive. In later years, the habit of +parliamentary oratory seems to have injured Disraeli's style. In +'Lothair' there is a good deal of slipshod verbiage. But in these +earlier stories the style is generally excellent till it becomes too +ambitious. It has a kind of metallic glitter, brilliant, sparkling with +numerous flashes of wit and fancy, and never wanting in sharpness of +effect, though it may be deficient in delicacy. Yet the author, who is +of necessity to be partly identified with the hero of 'Contarini +Fleming,' is distinctly not a poet; and the incapacity is most evident +when he endeavours to pass the inexorable limits. The distinction +between poetry and rhetoric is as profound as it is undefinable. A true +poet, as possessing an exquisite sensibility to the capacities of his +instrument, does not try to get the effects of metre when he is writing +without its restrictions and its advantages. Disraeli shows occasionally +a want of this delicacy of perception by breaking into a kind of +compromise between the two which can only be called Ossianesque. The +effect, for example, of such a passage as the following is, to my taste +at least, simply grotesque:-- + +'Still the courser onward rushes; still his mighty heart supports him. +Season and space, the glowing soil, the burning ray, yield to the +tempest of his frame, the thunder of his nerves, and lightning of his +veins. + +'Food or water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise +with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that +hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the +jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with +snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful +snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This is +their sole society.' + +And so on. Some great writers have made prose as melodious as verse; and +Disraeli can at times follow their example successfully. But one likes +to know what one is reading; and the effect of this queer expression is +as if, in the centre of a solemn march, were incorporated a few +dancing-steps, _a propos_ to nothing, and then subsiding into a regular +pace. Milton wrote grand prose and grand verse; but you are never +uncertain whether a fragment of 'Paradise Lost' may or may not have been +inserted by mere accident in the 'Areopagitica.' + +Not to dwell upon such minor defects, nobody can read 'Contarini +Fleming' or 'Henrietta Temple' without recognising the admirable talent +and exuberant vitality of the author. They have the faults of juvenile +performances; they are too gaudy; the author has been tempted to turn +aside too frequently in search of some brilliant epigram; he has +mistaken bombast for eloquence, and mere flowery brilliance for warmth +of emotion. But we might hope that longer experience and more earnest +purpose might correct such defects. Alas! in the year of their +publication, Disraeli first entered Parliament. His next works comprised +the trilogy, where the artistic aim has become subordinate to the +political or biological; and some thirty years of parliamentary labours +led to 'Lothair,' of which it is easiest to assume that it is a +practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon +Disraeli's own youthful performances. May one not lament the degradation +of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] Perhaps I ought to substitute 'Lord Beaconsfield' for Disraeli; but +I am writing of the author of 'Coningsby,' rather than of the author of +'Endymion:' and I will therefore venture to preserve the older name. + +[5] 'He never loved that loved not at first sight,' says Marlowe, and +Shakespeare after him. I cannot say whether this be an undesigned +literary coincidence or an appropriation. Disraeli, we know, was skilful +in the art of annexation. One or two instances may be added. Here is a +clear case of borrowing. Fuller says in the character of the good +sea-captain in the 'Holy State'--'Who first taught the water to imitate +the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, +the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the +sea is the ape of the land?' Essper George, in 'Vivian Grey,' says to +the sea: 'O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, +but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of +hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more +doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents +as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought +to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but +here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The +writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were +made of the ----government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain +of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, "call it _blunderment_ or +_plunderment_ or what you like--only not a _government_!"'--Coleridge's +'Essays on his own Times,' p. 893. Disraeli is sometimes credited with +the epigram in 'Lothair' about critics being authors who have failed. I +know not who said this first; but it was certainly not Disraeli. Landor +makes Porson tell Southey: 'Those who have failed as writers turn +reviewers.' The classical passage is in Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, he says, +said somewhere of a sculptor who had become discouraged: 'Redevenu +artiste _in partibus_, il avait beaucoup de succes dans les salons, il +etait consulte par beaucoup d'amateurs; _il passa critique comme tous +les impuissants qui mentent a leurs debuts_.' Sainte-Beuve, naturally +indignant at a phrase aimed against his craft, if not against himself, +says that this may be true of a sculptor or painter who deserts his art +in order to talk; 'mais, dans l'ordre de la pensee, cette parole de M. +de Balzac qui revient souvent sous la plume de toute une ecole de jeunes +litterateurs, est a la fois (je leur en demande pardon) une injustice et +une erreur.'--'Causeries du Lundi,' vol. ii. p. 455. A very similar +phrase is to be found in a book where one would hardly look for such +epigrams, Marryat's 'King's Own.' But to trace such witticisms to their +first source is a task for 'Notes and Queries.' + + + + +_MASSINGER_ + + +In one of the best of his occasional essays, Kingsley held a brief for +the plaintiffs in the old case of Puritans _versus_ Playwrights. The +litigation in which this case represents a minor issue has lasted for a +period far exceeding that of the most pertinacious lawsuit, and is not +likely to come to an end within any assignable limits of time. When the +discussion is pressed home, it is seen to involve fundamentally +different conceptions of human life and its purposes; and it can only +cease when we have discovered the grounds of a permanent conciliation +between the ethical and the aesthetic elements of human nature. The +narrower controversy between the stage and the Church has itself a long +history. It has left some curious marks upon English literature. The +prejudice which uttered itself through the Puritan Prynne was inherited, +in a later generation, by the High-Churchmen Collier and William Law. +The attack, it is true, may be ostensibly directed--as in Kingsley's +essay--against the abuse of the stage rather than against the stage +itself. Kingsley pays the usual tribute to Shakespeare whilst denouncing +the whole literature of which Shakespeare's dramas are the most +conspicuous product. But then, everybody always distinguishes in terms +between the use and the abuse; and the line of demarcation generally +turns out to be singularly fluctuating and uncertain. You can hardly +demolish Beaumont and Fletcher without bringing down some of the +outlying pinnacles, if not shaking the very foundations, of the temple +sacred to Shakespeare. + +It would be regrettable, could one stop to regret the one-sided and +illogical construction of the human mind, that a fair judgment in such +matters seems to require incompatible qualities. Your impartial critic +or historian is generally a man who leaves out of account nothing but +the essential. His impartiality means sympathy with the commonplace, and +incapacity for understanding heroic faith and overpowering enthusiasm. +He fancies that a man or a book can be judged by balancing a list of +virtues and vices as if they were separate entities lying side by side +in a box, instead of different aspects of a vital force. On the other +hand, the vivid imagination which restores dead bones to life makes its +possessor a partisan in extinct quarrels, and as short-sighted and +unfair a partisan as the original actors. Roundheads and Cavaliers have +been dead these two centuries. + + Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; + Dreamfooted as the shadow of a cloud, + They flit across the ear. + +Yet few even amongst modern writers are capable of doing justice to both +sides without first making both sides colourless. Hallam judges men in +the throes of a revolution as though they were parties in a lawsuit to +be decided by precedents and parchments, and Carlyle cannot appreciate +Cromwell's magnificent force of character without making him all but +infallible and impeccable. Critics of the early drama are equally +one-sided. The exquisite literary faculty of Charles Lamb revelled in +detecting beauties which had been covered with the dust of oblivion +during the reign of Pope. His appreciation was intensified by that charm +of discovery which finds its typical utterance in Keats's famous sonnet. +He was scarcely a more impartial judge of Fletcher or Ford than 'Stout +Cortes' of the new world revealed by his enterprise. We may willingly +defer to his judgment of the relative value of the writers whom he +discusses, but we must qualify his judgment of their intrinsic +excellence by the recollection that he speaks as a lover. To him and +other thoroughgoing admirers of the old drama the Puritanical onslaught +upon the stage presented itself as the advent of a gloomy superstition, +ruthlessly stamping out all that was beautiful in art and literature. +Kingsley, an admirable hater, could perceive only the opposite aspect of +the phenomena. To him the Puritan protest appears as the voice of the +enlightened conscience; the revolution means the troubling of the turbid +waters at the descent of the angel; Prynne's 'Histriomastix' is the +blast of the trumpet at which the rotten and polluted walls of Jericho +are to crumble into dust. The stage, which represented the tone of +aristocratic society, rightfully perished with the order which it +flattered. Courtiers had learnt to indulge in a cynical mockery of +virtue, or to find an unholy attraction in the accumulation of +extravagant horrors. The English drama, in short, was one of those evil +growths which are fostered by deeply-seated social corruption, and are +killed off by the breath of a purer air. That such phenomena occur at +times is undeniable. Mr. Symonds has recently shown us, in his history +of the Renaissance, how the Italian literature to which our English +dramatists owed so many suggestions was the natural fruit of a society +poisoned at the roots. Nor, when we have shaken off that spirit of +slavish adulation in which modern antiquarians and critics have regarded +the so-called Elizabethan dramatists, can we deny that there are +symptoms of a similar mischief in their writings. Some of the most +authoritative testimonials have a suspicious element. Praise has been +lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama. +Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human +passion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible +for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the +straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the +author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of +revolting motives. Such adulation ought to have disappeared with the +first fervour of rehabilitation. Much that has been praised in the old +drama is rubbish, and some of it disgusting rubbish. + +The question, however, remains, how far we ought to adopt either view of +the situation? Are we bound to cast aside the later dramas of the school +as simply products of corruption? It may be of interest to consider the +light thrown upon this question by the works of Massinger, nearly the +last of the writers who can really claim a permanent position in +literature. Massinger, born in 1584, died in 1639. His surviving works +were composed, with one exception, after 1620. They represent, +therefore, the tastes of the playgoing classes during the rapid +development of the great struggle which culminated in the rebellion. In +a literary sense it is the period when the imaginative impulse +represented by the great dramatists was running low. It is curious to +reflect that, if Shakespeare had lived out his legitimate allowance of +threescore years and ten, he might have witnessed the production, not +only of the first, but of nearly all the best works of his school; had +his life been prolonged for ten years more, he would have witnessed its +final extinction. Within these narrow limits of time the drama had +undergone a change corresponding to the change in the national mood. The +difference, for example, between Marlowe and Massinger at the opening +and the close of the period--though their births were separated by only +twenty years--corresponds to the difference between the temper of the +generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation +which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of +Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit +perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse +which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great +Queen. But it has led also to writers being too summarily classed +together who really represent very different phases in a remarkable +evolution. After making all allowances for personal idiosyncrasies, we +can still see how profoundly the work of Massinger is coloured by the +predominant sentiment of the later epoch. + +As little is known of Massinger's life as of the lives of most of the +contemporary dramatists who had the good or ill fortune to be born +before the days of the modern biographical mania. It is known that he, +like most of his brethren, suffered grievously from impecuniosity; and +he records in one of his dedications his obligations to a patron without +whose bounty he would for many years have 'but faintly subsisted.' His +father had been employed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke; but Massinger, +though acknowledging a certain debt of gratitude to the Herbert family, +can hardly have received from them any effective patronage. Whatever +their relations may have been, it has been pointed out by Professor +Gardiner[6] that Massinger probably sympathised with the political views +represented by the two sons of his father's patron, who were +successively Earls of Pembroke during the reigns of the first James and +Charles. On two occasions he got into trouble with the licenser for +attacks, real or supposed, upon the policy of the Government. More than +one of his plays contain, according to Professor Gardiner, references to +the politics of the day as distinct as those conveyed by a cartoon in +'Punch.' The general result of his argument is to show that Massinger +sympathised with the views of an aristocratic party who looked with +suspicion upon the despotic tendencies of Charles's Government, and +thought that they could manage refractory parliaments by adopting a more +spirited foreign policy. Though in reality weak and selfish enough, they +affected to protest against the materialising and oppressive policy of +the extreme Royalists. How far these views represented any genuine +convictions, and how far Massinger's adhesion implied a complete +sympathy with them, or might indicate that kind of delusion which often +leads a mere literary observer to see a lofty intention in the schemes +of a selfish politician, are questions which I am incompetent to +discuss, and which obviously do not admit of a decided answer. They +confirm, as far as they go, the general impression as to Massinger's +point of view which we should derive from his writings without special +interpretation. 'Shakespeare,' says Coleridge, 'gives the permanent +politics of human nature' (whatever they may be!), 'and the only +predilection which appears shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the +populace. Massinger is a decided Whig; Beaumont and Fletcher +high-flying, passive-obedience Tories.' The author of 'Coriolanus,' one +would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, +though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to +systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the +sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not +explicitly pronounced upon issues hardly revealed even to + + The prophetic soul + Of the wide world dreaming of things to come. + +The sense of national unity evolved in the great struggle with Spain had +not yet been lost in the discord of the rising generation. The other +classifications may be accepted with less reserve. The dramatists +represented the views of their patrons. The drama reflected in the main +the sentiments of an aristocratic class alarmed by the growing vigour of +the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a +thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in 'Valentinian' are, to follow the +same guidance, so 'very slavish and reptile' that it is a trial of +charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge's rather needless +surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the +duty to God should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days +was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a +bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right +may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The +difference between Fletcher and Massinger, who were occasional +collaborators and apparently close friends (Massinger, it is said, was +buried in Fletcher's grave), was probably due to difference of +temperament as much as to the character of Massinger's family +connection. Massinger's melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of +his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must +have beset the more thoughtful members of his party, as Fletcher +represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Massinger is +given to expatiating upon the text that + + Subjects' lives + Are not their prince's tennis-balls, to be bandied + In sport away. + +The high-minded Pulcheria, in the 'Emperor of the East,' administers a +bitter reproof to a slavish 'projector' who + + Roars out + All is the King's, his will above the laws; + +who whispers in his ear that nobody should bring a salad from his garden +without paying 'gabel,' or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that, +if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a +city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance. + + Is this the way + To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans + Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds + Be wash'd with widows' and wrong'd orphans' tears, + Or his power grow contemptible? + +Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were +written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the +vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of +Massinger's view of the political situation of the time. We see what +were the topics that were beginning to occupy men's minds. + +Dryden made the remark, often quoted for purposes of indignant +reprobation by modern critics, that Beaumont and Fletcher 'understood +and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better' (than +Shakespeare); 'whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartees +no poet can ever paint as they did.' It is, of course, easy enough to +reply that in the true sense of the word 'gentleman' Shakespeare's +heroes are incomparably superior to those of his successors; but then +this is just the sense in which Dryden did not use the word. His real +meaning indicates a very sound piece of historical criticism. Fletcher +describes a new social type; the 'King's Young Courtier' who is +deserting the good old ways of his father, the 'old courtier of the +Queen.' The change is but one step in that continuous process which has +substituted the modern gentleman for the old feudal noble; but the step +taken at that period was great and significant. The chivalrous type, +represented in Sidney's life and Spenser's poetry, is beginning to be +old-fashioned and out of place as the industrial elements of society +become more prominent. The aristocrat in the rising generation finds +that his occupation is going. He takes to those 'wild debaucheries' +which Dryden oddly reckons among the attributes of a true gentleman; and +learns the art of 'quick repartee' in the courtly society which has time +enough on its hands to make a business of amusement. The euphuism and +allied affectations of the earlier generation had a certain grace, as +the external clothing of a serious chivalrous sentiment; but it is +rapidly passing into a silly coxcombry to be crushed by Puritanism or +snuffed out by the worldly cynicism of the new generation. Shakespeare's +Henry or Romeo may indulge in wild freaks or abandon themselves to the +intense passions of vigorous youth; but they will settle down into good +statesmen and warriors as they grow older. Their love-making is a phase +in their development, not the business of their lives. Fletcher's heroes +seem to be not only occupied for the moment, but to make a permanent +profession of what with their predecessors was a passing phase of +youthful ebullience. It is true that we have still a long step to make +before we sink to the mere _roue_, the shameless scapegrace and cynical +man about town of the Restoration. To make a Wycherley you must distil +all the poetry out of a Fletcher. Fletcher is a true poet; and the +graceful sentiment, though mixed with a coarse alloy, still repels that +unmitigated grossness which, according to Burke's famous aphorism, is +responsible for half the evil of vice. He is still alive to generous and +tender emotions, though it can scarcely be said that his morality has +much substance in it. It is a sentiment, not a conviction, and covers +without quenching many ugly and brutal emotions. + +In Fletcher's wild gallants, still adorned by a touch of the chivalrous; +reckless, immoral, but scarcely cynical; not sceptical as to the +existence of virtue, but only admitting morality by way of parenthesis +to the habitual current of their thoughts, we recognise the kind of +stuff from which to frame the Cavaliers who will follow Rupert and be +crushed by Cromwell. A characteristic sentiment which occurs constantly +in the drama of the period represents the soldier out of work. We are +incessantly treated to lamentations upon the ingratitude of the +comfortable citizens who care nothing for the men to whom they owed +their security. The political history of the times explains the +popularity of such complaints. Englishmen were fretting under their +enforced abstinence from the exciting struggles on the Continent. There +was no want of Dugald Dalgettys returning from the wars to afford models +for the military braggart or the bluff honest soldier, both of whom go +swaggering through so many of the plays of the time. Clarendon in his +Life speaks of the temptations which beset him from mixing with the +military society of the time. There was a large and increasing class, +no longer finding occupation in fighting Spaniards and searching for +Eldorado, and consequently, in the Yankee phrase, 'spoiling for a +fight.' When the time comes, they will be ready enough to fight +gallantly, and to show an utter incapacity for serious discipline. They +will meet the citizens, whom they have mocked so merrily, and find that +reckless courage and spasmodic chivalry do not exhaust the +qualifications for military success. + +Massinger represents a different turn of sentiment which would be +encouraged in some minds by the same social conditions. Instead of +abandoning himself frankly to the stream of youthful sentiment, he feels +that it has a dangerous aspect. The shadow of coming evils was already +dark enough to suggest various forebodings. But he is also a moraliser +by temperament. Mr. Ward says that his strength is owing in a great +degree to his appreciation of the great moral forces; and the remark is +only a confirmation of the judgment of most of his critics. It is, of +course, not merely that he is fond of adding little moral tags of +questionable applicability to the end of his plays. 'We are taught,' he +says in the 'Fatal Dowry,' + + By this sad precedent, how just soever + Our reasons are to remedy our wrongs, + We are yet to leave them to their will and power + That to that purpose have authority. + +But it is, to say the least, doubtful whether anybody would have that +judicious doctrine much impressed upon him by seeing the play itself. +Nor can one rely much upon the elaborate and very eloquent defence of +his art in the 'Roman Actor.' Paris, the actor, sets forth very +vigorously that the stage tends to lay bare the snares to which youth is +exposed and to inflame a noble ambition by example. If the discharge of +such a function deserves reward from the Commonwealth-- + + Actors may put in for as large a share + As all the sects of the philosophers;-- + They with cold precepts--perhaps seldom read-- + Deliver what an honourable thing + The active virtue is; but does that fire + The blood, or swell the veins with emulation + To be both good and great, equal to that + Which is presented in our theatres? + +Massinger goes on to show, after the fashion of Jaques in 'As You Like +It,' that the man who chooses to put on the cap is responsible for the +application of the satire. He had good reasons, as we have seen, for +feeling sensitive as to misunderstandings--or, rather, too thorough +understandings--of this kind. + +To some dramatists of the time, who should put forward such a plea, one +would be inclined to answer in the sensible words of old Fuller. 'Two +things,' he says, 'are set forth to us in stage plays; some grave +sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vicious examples: and +with these desperate oaths, lustful talk, and riotous acts, are so +personated to the life, that wantons are tickled with delight, and feed +their palates upon them. It seems the goodness is not portrayed with +equal accents of liveliness as the wicked things are; otherwise men +would be deterred from vicious courses, with seeing the woful success +which follows them'--a result scarcely to be claimed by the actors of +the day. Massinger, however, shows more moral feeling than is expended +in providing sentiments to be tacked on as an external appendage, or +satisfied by an obedience to the demands of poetic justice. He is not +content with knocking his villains on the head--a practice in which he, +like his contemporaries, indulges with only too much complacency. The +idea which underlies most of his plays is a struggle of virtue assailed +by external or inward temptations. He is interested by the ethical +problems introduced in the play of conflicting passions, and never more +eloquent than in uttering the emotions of militant or triumphant virtue. +His view of life, indeed, is not only grave, but has a distinct +religious colouring. From various indications, it is probable that he +was a Roman Catholic. Some of these are grotesque enough. The +'Renegado,' for example, not only shows that Massinger was, for dramatic +purposes at least, an ardent believer in baptismal regeneration, but +includes--what one would scarcely have sought in such a place--a +discussion as to the validity of lay-baptism. The first of his surviving +plays, the 'Virgin Martyr' (in which he was assisted by Dekker), is +simply a dramatic version of an ecclesiastical legend. Though it seems +to have been popular at the time, the modern reader will probably think +that, in this case at least, the religious element is a little out of +place. An angel and a devil take an active part in the performance; +miracles are worked on the stage; the unbelievers are so shockingly +wicked, and the Christians so obtrusively good, that we--the +worldly-minded--are sensible of a little recalcitration, unless we are +disarmed by the simplicity of the whole performance. Religious tracts of +all ages and in all forms are apt to produce this ambiguous effect. +Unless we are quite in harmony with their assumptions, we feel that they +deal too much in conventional rose-colour. The angelic and diabolic +elements are not so clearly discriminated in this world, and should show +themselves less unequivocally on the stage, which ought to be its +mirror. Such art was not congenial to the English atmosphere; it might +be suitable in Madrid; but when forcibly transplanted to the London +stage, we feel that the performance has not the simple earnestness by +which alone it can be justified. The sentiment has a certain unreality, +and the _naivete_ suggests affectation. The implied belief is got up for +the moment and has a hollow ring. And therefore, the whole work, in +spite of some eloquence, is nothing better than a curiosity, as an +attempt at the assimilation of a heterogeneous form of art. + +A similar vein of sentiment, though not showing itself in so undiluted a +form, runs through most of Massinger's plays. He is throughout a +sentimentalist and a rhetorician. He is not, like the greatest men, +dominated by thoughts and emotions which force him to give them external +embodiment in life-like symbols. He is rather a man of much real feeling +and extraordinary facility of utterance, who finds in his stories +convenient occasions for indulging in elaborate didactic utterances upon +moral topics. It is probably this comparative weakness of the higher +imaginative faculty which makes Lamb speak of him rather disparagingly. +He is too self-conscious and too anxious to enforce downright moral +sentiments to satisfy a critic by whom spontaneous force and direct +insight were rightly regarded as the highest poetic qualities. A single +touch in Shakespeare, or even in Webster or Ford, often reveals more +depth of feeling than a whole scene of Massinger's facile and often +deliberately forensic eloquence. His temperament is indicated by the +peculiarities of his style. It is, as Coleridge says, poetry +differentiated by the smallest possible degree from prose. The greatest +artists of blank verse have so complete a mastery of their language that +it is felt as a fibre which runs through and everywhere strengthens the +harmony, and is yet in complete subordination to the sentiment. With a +writer of the second order, such as Fletcher, the metre becomes more +prominent, and at times produces a kind of monotonous sing-song, which +begins to remind us unpleasantly of the still more artificial tone +characteristic of the rhymed tragedies of the next generation. Massinger +diverges in the opposite direction. The metre is felt enough and only +just enough to give a more stately step to rather florid prose. It is +one of his marks that a line frequently ends by some insignificant 'of' +or 'from,' so as to exclude the briefest possible pause in reading. +Thus, to take an example pretty much at random, the following instance +might be easily read without observing that it was blank verse at all:-- + +'Your brave achievements in the war, and what you did for me, unspoken, +because I would not force the sweetness of your modesty to a blush, are +written here; and that there might be nothing wanting to sum up my +numerous engagements (never in my hopes to be cancelled), the great +duke, our mortal enemy, when my father's country lay open to his fury +and the spoil of the victorious army, and I brought into his power, hath +shown himself so noble, so full of honour, temperance, and all virtues +that can set off a prince; that, though I cannot render him that respect +I would, I am bound in thankfulness to admire him.' + +Such a style is suitable to a man whose moods do not often hurry him +into impetuous, or vivacious, or epigrammatic utterance. As the Persian +poet says of his country: his warmth is not heat, and his coolness is +not cold. He flows on in a quiet current, never breaking into foam or +fury, but vigorous, and invariably lucid. As a pleader before a +law-court--the character in which, as Mr. Ward observes, he has a +peculiar fondness for presenting himself--he would carry his audience +along with him, but scarcely hold them in spell-bound astonishment or +hurry them into fits of excitement. Melancholy resignation or dignified +dissatisfaction will find in him a powerful exponent, but scarcely +despair, or love, or hatred, or any social phase of pure unqualified +passion. + +The natural field for the display of such qualities is the romantic +drama, which Massinger took from the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher, and +endowed with greater dignity and less poetic fervour. For the vigorous +comedy of real life, as Jonson understood it, he has simply no capacity; +and in his rare attempts at humour, succeeds only in being at once dull +and dirty. His stage is generally occupied with dignified lords and +ladies, professing the most chivalrous sentiments, which are +occasionally too high-flown and overstrained to be thoroughly effective, +but which are yet uttered with sufficient sincerity. They are not mere +hollow pretences, consciously adopted to conceal base motives; but one +feels the want of an occasional infusion of the bracing air of common +sense. It is the voice of a society still inspired with the traditional +sentiments of honour and self-respect, but a little afraid of contact +with the rough realities of life. Its chivalry is a survival from a past +epoch, not a spontaneous outgrowth of the most vital elements of +contemporary development. In another generation, such a tone will be +adopted by a conscious and deliberate artifice, and be reflected in mere +theatrical rant. In the past, it was the natural expression of a +high-spirited race, full of self-confidence and pride in its own +vigorous audacity. In this transitional period it has a certain hectic +flush, symptomatic of approaching decay; anxious to give a wide berth +to realities, and most at home in the border land where dreams are only +half dispelled by the light of common day. 'Don Quixote' had sounded the +knell of the old romance, but something of the old spirit still lingers, +and can tinge with an interest, not yet wholly artificial, the lives and +passions of beings who are thus hovering on the outskirts of the living +world. The situations most characteristic of Massinger's tendency are in +harmony with this tone of sentiment. They are romances taken from a +considerable variety of sources, developed in a clearly connected series +of scenes. They are wanting in the imaginative unity of the great plays, +which show that a true poet has been profoundly moved by some profound +thought embodied in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare, +seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his +imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity +of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and +wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English +plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in +order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's +plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following +intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many +eloquent observations, though not developments of one master-thought. We +often feel that, if external circumstances had been propitious, he would +have expressed himself more naturally in the form of a prose romance +than in a drama. Nor, again, does he often indulge in those exciting and +horrible situations which possess such charms for his contemporaries. +There are occasions, it is true, in which this element is not wanting. +In the 'Unnatural Combat,' for example, we have a father killing his son +in a duel, by the end of the second act; and when, after a succession +of horrors of the worst kind, we are treated to a ghost, 'full of +wounds, leading in the shadow of a lady, her face leprous,' and the +worst criminal is killed by a flash of lightning, we feel that we were +fully entitled to such a catastrophe. We can only say, in Massinger's +words,-- + + May we make use of + This great example, and learn from it that + There cannot be a want of power above + To punish murder and unlawful love! + +The 'Duke of Milan' again culminates with a horrible scene, rivalling, +though with less power, the grotesque horrors of Webster's 'Duchess of +Malfi.' Other instances might be given of concessions to that +blood-and-thunder style of dramatic writing for which our ancestors had +a never-failing appetite. But, as a rule, Massinger inclines, as far as +contemporary writers will allow him, to the side of mercy. Instead of +using slaughter so freely that a new set of actors has to be introduced +to bury the old--a misfortune which sometimes occurs in the plays of the +time--he generally tends to a happy solution, and is disposed not only +to dismiss his virtuous characters to felicity, but even to make his +villains virtuous. We have not been excited to that pitch at which our +passions can only be harmonised by an effusion of blood, and a mild +solution is sufficient for the calmer feelings which have been aroused. + +This tendency illustrates Massinger's conception of life in another +sense. Nothing is more striking in the early stage than the vigour of +character of most of these heroes. Individual character, as it is said, +takes the place in the modern of fate in the ancient drama. Every man is +run in a mould of iron, and may break, but cannot bend. The fitting +prologue to the whole literature is provided by Marlowe's Tamburlaine, +with his superhuman audacity and vast bombastic rants, the incarnation +of a towering ambition which scorns all laws but its own devouring +passion. Faustus, braving all penalties, human and divine, is another +variety of the same type: and when we have to do with a weak character +like Edward II., we feel that it is his natural destiny to be confined +in a loathsome dungeon, with mouldy bread to eat and ditch-water to +drink. The world is for the daring; and though daring may be pushed to +excess, weakness is the one unpardonable offence. A thoroughgoing +villain is better than a trembling saint. If Shakespeare's instinctive +taste revealed the absurdity of the bombastic exaggeration of such +tendencies, his characters are equally unbending. His villains die, like +Macbeth and Iago, with their teeth set, and scorn even a deathbed +repentance. Hamlet exhibits the unfitness for a world of action of the +man who is foolish enough to see two sides to every question. So again, +Chapman, the writer who in fulness and fire of thought approaches most +nearly to Shakespeare, is an ardent worshipper of pure energy of +character. His Bussy d'Ambois cannot be turned from his purpose even by +the warnings of the ghost of his accomplice, and a mysterious spirit +summoned expressly to give advice. An admirably vigorous phrase from one +of the many declamations of his hero Byron--another representative of +the same haughty strength of will--gives his theory of character:-- + + Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea + Loves t' have his sail filled with a lusty wind, + Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack, + And his rapt ship run on her side so low + That she drinks water, and her keel plows air. + +Pure, undiluted energy, stern force of will, delight in danger for its +own sake, contempt for all laws but the self-imposed, those are the +cardinal virtues, and challenge our sympathy even when they lead their +possessor to destruction. The psychology implied in Jonson's treating of +'humour' is another phase of the same sentiment. The side by which +energetic characters lend themselves to comedy is the exaggeration of +some special trait which determines their course as tyrannically as +ambition governs the character suited for tragedy. + +When we turn to Massinger, this boundless vigour has disappeared. The +blood has grown cool. The tyrant no longer forces us to admiration by +the fulness of his vitality, and the magnificence of his contempt for +law. Whether for good or bad, he is comparatively a poor creature. He +has developed an uneasy conscience, and even whilst affecting to defy +the law, trembles at the thought of an approaching retribution. His +boasts have a shrill, querulous note in them. His creator does not fully +sympathise with his passion. Massinger cannot throw himself into the +situation; and is anxious to dwell upon the obvious moral considerations +which prove such characters to be decidedly inconvenient members of +society for their tamer neighbours. He is of course the more in +accordance with a correct code of morality, but fails correspondingly in +dramatic force and brilliance of colour. To exhibit a villain truly, +even to enable us to realise the true depth of his villainy, one must be +able for a moment to share his point of view, and therefore to +understand the true law of his being. It is a very sound rule in the +conduct of life, that we should not sympathise with scoundrels. But the +morality of the poet, as of the scientific psychologist, is founded upon +the unflinching veracity which sets forth all motives with absolute +impartiality. Some sort of provisional sympathy with the wicked there +must be, or they become mere impossible monsters or the conventional +scarecrows of improving tracts. + +This is Massinger's weakest side. His villains want backbone, and his +heroes are deficient in simple overmastering passion, or supplement +their motives by some overstrained and unnatural crotchet. Impulsiveness +takes the place of vigour, and indicates the want of a vigorous grasp of +the situation. Thus, for example, the 'Duke of Milan,' which is +certainly amongst the more impressive of Massinger's plays, may be +described as a variation upon the theme of 'Othello.' To measure the +work of any other writer by its relation to that masterpiece is, of +course, to apply a test of undue severity. Of comparison, properly +speaking, there can be no question. The similarity of the situation, +however, may bring out Massinger's characteristics. The Duke, who takes +the place of Othello, is, like his prototype, a brave soldier. The most +spirited and effective passage in the play is the scene in which he is +brought as a prisoner before Charles V., and not only extorts the +admiration of his conqueror, but wins his liberty by a dignified avowal +of his previous hostility, and avoidance of any base compliance. The +Duke shows himself to be a high-minded gentleman, and we are so far +prepared to sympathise with him when exposed to the wiles of +Francisco--the Iago of the piece. But, unfortunately, the scene is not +merely a digression in a constructive sense, but involves a +psychological inconsistency. The gallant soldier contrives to make +himself thoroughly contemptible. He is represented as excessively +uxorious, and his passion takes the very disagreeable turn of posthumous +jealousy. He has instructed Francisco to murder the wife whom he adores, +in case of his own death during the war, and thus to make sure that she +could not marry anybody else. On his return, the wife, who has been +informed by the treachery of Francisco of this pleasant arrangement, is +naturally rather cool to him; whereupon he flies into a rage and swears +that he will + + Never think of curs'd Marcelia more. + +His affection returns in another scene, but only in order to increase +his jealousy, and on hearing Francisco's slander he proceeds to stab his +wife out of hand. It is the action of a weak man in a passion, not of a +noble nature tortured to madness. Finding out his mistake, he of course +repents again, and expresses himself with a good deal of eloquence which +would be more effective if we could forget the overpowering pathos of +the parallel scene in 'Othello.' Much sympathy, however, is impossible +for a man whose whole conduct is so flighty, and so obviously determined +by the immediate demands of successive situations of the play, and not +the varying manifestation of a powerfully conceived character. Francisco +is a more coherent villain, and an objection made by Hazlitt to his +apparent want of motive is at least equally valid against Iago; but he +is of course but a diluted version of that superlative villain, as +Marcelia is a rather priggish and infinitely less tender Desdemona. The +failure, however, of the central figure to exhibit any fixity of +character is the real weakness of the play; and the horrors of the last +scene fail to atone for the want of the vivid style which reveals an +'intense and gloomy mind.' + +This kind of versatility and impulsiveness of character is revealed by +the curious convertibility--if one may use the word--of his characters. +They are the very reverse of the men of iron of the previous generation. +They change their state of mind as easily as the characters of the +contemporary drama put on disguises. We are often amazed at the +simplicity which enables a whole family to suppose the brother and +father to whom they have been speaking ten minutes before to be an +entire stranger, because he has changed his coat or talks broken +English. The audience must have been easily satisfied in such cases; but +it requires almost equal simplicity to accept some of Massinger's +transformations. In such a play as the 'Virgin Martyr,' a religious +conversion is a natural part of the scheme. Nor need we be surprised at +the amazing facility with which a fair Mohammedan is converted in the +'Renegado' by the summary assertion that the 'juggling Prophet' is a +cheat, and taught a pigeon to feed in his ear. Can there be strength, it +is added, in that religion which allows us to fear death? 'This is +unanswerable,' exclaims the lady, 'and there is something tells me I err +in my opinion.' This is almost as good as the sudden thought of swearing +eternal friendship in the 'Anti-Jacobin.' The hardened villain of the +first act in the same play falls into despair in the third, and, with +the help of an admirable Jesuit, becomes a most useful and exemplary +convert by the fifth. But such catastrophes may be regarded as more or +less miraculous. The versatility of character is more singular when +religious conversions are not in question. 'I am certain,' says Philanax +in the 'Emperor of the East,' + + 'A prince so soon in his disposition altered + Was never heard nor read of.' + +That proves that Philanax was not familiar with Massinger's plays. The +disposition of princes and of subjects is there constantly altered with +the most satisfactory result. It is not merely that, as often happens +elsewhere, the villains are summarily forced to repent at the end of a +play, like Angelo in 'Measure for Measure,' in order to allow the +curtain to fall upon a prospect of happiness. Such forced catastrophes +are common, if clumsy enough. But there is something malleable in the +very constitution of Massinger's characters. They repent half-way +through the performance, and see the error of their ways with a facility +which we could wish to be imitated in common life. The truth seems to be +that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is +more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be +irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal +to the feelings for a change of character. Thus, for example, in the +'Picture'--a characteristic, though not a very successful play--we have +a story founded upon the temptations of a separated husband and wife. +The husband carries with him a magical picture, which grows dark or +bright according to the behaviour of the wife, whom it represents. The +husband is tempted to infidelity by a queen, herself spoilt by the +flatteries of an uxorious husband; and the wife by a couple of +courtiers, who have all the vices of Fletcher's worst heroes without any +of their attractions. The interest of the play, such as it is, depends +upon the varying moods of the chief actors, who become so eloquent under +a sense of wrong or a reflection upon the charms of virtue, that they +approach the bounds of vice, and then gravitate back to respectability. +Everybody becomes perfectly respectable before the end of the play is +reached, and we are to suppose that they will remain respectable ever +afterwards. They avoid tragic results by their want of the overmastering +passions which lead to great crimes or noble actions. They are really +eloquent, but even more moved by their eloquence than the spectators can +be. They form the kind of audience which would be most flattering to an +able preacher, but in which a wise preacher would put little confidence. +And, therefore, besides the fanciful incident of the picture, they give +us an impression of unreality. They have no rich blood in their veins; +and are little better than lay figures taking up positions as it may +happen, in order to form an effective tableau illustrative of an +unexceptionable moral. + +There is, it is true, one remarkable exception to the general weakness +of Massinger's characters. The vigour with which Sir Giles Overreach is +set forth has made him the one well-known figure in Massinger's gallery, +and the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts' showed, in consequence, more vitality +than any of his other plays. Much praise has been given, and not more +than enough, to the originality and force of the conception. The +conventional miser is elevated into a great man by a kind of inverse +heroism, and made terrible instead of contemptible. But it is equally +plain that here, too, Massinger fails to project himself fairly into his +villain. His rants are singularly forcible, but they are clearly what +other people would think about him, not what he would really think, +still less what he would say, of himself. Take, for example, the very +fine speech in which he replies to the question of the virtuous +nobleman, whether he is not frightened by the imprecations of his +victims:-- + + Yes, as rocks are + When foaming billows split themselves against + Their flinty sides; or as the moon is moved + When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness. + I am of a solid temper, and, like these, + Steer on a constant course; with mine own sword, + If called into the field, I can make that right + Which fearful enemies murmur at as wrong. + Now, for those other piddling complaints + Breath'd out in bitterness, as when they call me + Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder + On my poor neighbour's rights or grand incloser + Of what was common to my private use, + Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries, + And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold, + I only think what 'tis to have my daughter + Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm + Makes me insensible to remorse or pity, + Or the least sting of conscience. + +Put this into the third person; read 'he' for 'I,' and 'his' for 'my,' +and it is an admirable bit of denunciation of a character probably +intended as a copy from life. It is a description of a wicked man from +outside; and wickedness seen from outside is generally unreasonable and +preposterous. When it is converted, by simple alteration of pronouns, +into the villain's own account of himself, the internal logic which +serves as a pretext disappears, and he becomes a mere monster. It is for +this reason that, as Hazlitt says, Massinger's villains--and he was +probably thinking especially of Overreach and Luke in 'A City +Madam'--appear like drunkards or madmen. His plays are apt to be a +continuous declamation, cut up into fragments, and assigned to the +different actors; and the essential unfitness of such a method to +dramatic requirements needs no elaborate demonstration. The villains +will have to denounce themselves, and will be ready to undergo +conversion at a moment's notice, in order to spout openly on behalf of +virtue as vigorously as they have spouted in transparent disguise on +behalf of vice. + +There is another consequence of Massinger's romantic tendency, which is +more pleasing. The chivalrous ideal of morality involves a reverence for +women, which may be exaggerated or affected, but which has at least a +genuine element in it. The women on the earlier stage have comparatively +a bad time of it amongst their energetic companions. Shakespeare's women +are undoubtedly most admirable and lovable creatures; but they are +content to take a subordinate part, and their highest virtue generally +includes entire submission to the will of their lords and masters. Some, +indeed, have an abundant share of the masculine temperament, like +Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth; but then they are by no means model +characters. Iago's description of the model woman is a cynical version +of the true Shakespearian theory. Women's true sphere, according to him, +or according to the modern slang, is domestic life; and if circumstances +force a Cordelia, an Imogen, a Rosalind, or a Viola, to take a more +active share in life, they take good care to let us know that they have +a woman's heart under their man's doublet. The weaker characters in +Massinger give a higher place to women, and justify it by a sentiment of +chivalrous devotion. The excess, indeed, of such submissiveness is often +satirised. In the 'Roman Actor,' the 'Emperor of the East,' the 'Duke of +Milan,' the 'Picture,' and elsewhere, we have various phases of uxorious +weakness, which suggest a possible application to the Court of Charles +I. Elsewhere, as in the 'Maid of Honour' and the 'Bashful Lover,' we are +called upon to sympathise with manifestations of a highflown devotion to +feminine excellence. Thus, the bashful lover, who is the hero of one of +his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself +scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her +he exclaims-- + + As Moors salute + The rising sun with joyful superstition, + I could fall down and worship.--O my heart! + Like Phoebe breaking through an envious cloud, + Or something which no simile can express, + She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended + With wonder and astonishment, does possess me. + +When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is +liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to +any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her +through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of +this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow +himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two +lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky +enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her +interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright +cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the +offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He +resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of +Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this +catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds +that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world +as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would +involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better +provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by +Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the +advantage of poor Mariana, whose reunion with her hypocritical husband +certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to +intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded +as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate, +in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who +has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot, +consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature +of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not +look out for others. She may permit herself for once to return the +affection of a worthy lover; but, when he fails, she must not condescend +again to love. That would be to admit that love was a necessity of her +life, not a special act of favour for some exceptional proofs of +worthiness. Given the general tone of sentiment, I confess that, to my +taste, Massinger's solution has the merit, not only of originality, but +of harmony. It may, of course, be held that a jilted lady should, in a +perfectly healthy state of society, have some other alternative besides +a convent or an unworthy marriage. Some people, for example, may hold +that she should be able to take to active life as a lawyer or a +professor of medicine; or they may hold that love ought not to hold so +prominent a part even in a woman's life that disappointed passion should +involve, as a necessary consequence, the entire abandonment of the +world. But, taking the romantic point of view, of which it is the very +essence to set an extravagant value upon love, and remembering that +Massinger had not heard of modern doctrines of woman's rights, one must +admit, I think, that he really shows, by the best means in his power, a +strong sense of the dignity of womanhood, and that his catastrophe is +more satisfactory than the violent death or the consignment to an +inferior lover which would have commended themselves to most Elizabethan +dramatists. + +The same vein of chivalrous sentiment gives a fine tone to some of +Massinger's other plays; to the 'Bondman,' for example, and the 'Great +Duke of Florence,' in both of which the treatment of lover's devotion +shows a higher sense of the virtue of feminine dignity and purity than +is common in the contemporary stage. There is, of course, a want of +reality, an admission of extravagant motives, and an absence of dramatic +concentration, which indicate an absence of high imaginative power. +Chivalry, at its best, is not very reconcilable with common-sense; and +the ideal hero is divided, as Cervantes shows, by very narrow +distinctions from the downright madman. What was absurd in the more +vigorous manifestations of the spirit does not vanish when its energy is +lowered, and the rhetorician takes the place of the poet. But the +sentiment is still genuine, and often gives real dignity to Massinger's +eloquent speeches. It is true that, in apparent inconsistency with this +excellence, passages of Massinger are even more deeply stained than +usual with revolting impurities. Not only are his bad men and women apt +to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed +out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the +indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy +explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity, +nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong +religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with +considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch, +according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he +suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with +the most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the +centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once +dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst +ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be +accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two +Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected. +But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are +superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the +structure of his plays. + +I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which +would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all +doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple +product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or +overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as +an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The +dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his +moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes +in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most +willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a +certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration. +But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say +honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays? +Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company, +say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is +clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt +to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic +affection? Is there not rather a sense that we have been all the time +in an unnatural region, where, it is true, a sense of honour and other +good qualities come in for much eloquent praise, but where, above +everything, there is a marked absence of downright wholesome +common-sense? Of course the effect is partly due to the region in which +the old dramatists generally sought for their tragic situations. We are +never quite at home in this fictitious cloudland, where the springs of +action are strange, unaccountable, and altogether different from those +with which we have to do in the workaday world. A great poet, indeed, +weaves a magic mirror out of these dream-like materials, in which he +shows us the great passions, love, and jealousy, and ambition, reflected +upon a gigantic scale. But, in weaker hands, the characters become +eccentric instead of typical: his vision simply distorts instead of +magnifying the fundamental truths of human nature. The liberty which +could be used by Shakespeare becomes dangerous for his successors. +Instead of a legitimate idealisation, we have simply an abandonment of +any basis in reality. + +The admission that Massinger is moral must therefore be qualified by the +statement that he is unnatural; or, in other words, that his morality is +morbid. The groundwork of all the virtues, we are sometimes told, is +strength. A strong nature may be wicked, but a weak one cannot attain +any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that +the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid +perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has +that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see +illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly +that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be plausible, +or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist +admits that vice is often pleasant, and that wicked men flourish like a +green bay-tree. He cannot be over-anxious to preach, for he feels that +the intrinsic charm of high qualities can dispense with any artificial +attempts to bolster them up by sham rhetoric, or to slur over the hard +facts of life. He will describe Iago as impartially as Desdemona, and, +having given us the facts, leave us to make what we please of them. It +is the mark of a more sickly type of morality, that it must always be +distorting the plain truth. It becomes sentimental, because it wishes to +believe that what is pleasant must be true. It makes villains condemn +themselves, because such a practice would save so much trouble to judges +and moralists. Not appreciating the full force of passions, it allows +the existence of grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a +little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and +represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial +examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes +necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest +position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is +possible is a very different one from our own. + +The decline of the great poetic impulse does not yet reveal itself by +sheer blindness to moral distinctions, or downright subservience to +vice. A lowered vitality does not necessarily imply disease, though it +is favourable to the development of vicious germs. The morality which +flourishes in an exhausted soil is not a plant of hardy growth and tough +fibre, nourished by rough common-sense, flourishing amongst the fierce +contests of vigorous passions, and delighting in the open air and the +broad daylight. It loves the twilight of romance, and creates heroes +impulsive, eccentric, extravagant in their resolves, servile in their +devotion, and whose very natures are more or less allied to weakness and +luxurious self-indulgence. Massinger, indeed, depicts with much sympathy +the virtues of the martyr and the penitent; he can illustrate the +paradox that strength can be conquered by weakness, and violence by +resignation. His good women triumph by softening the hearts of their +persecutors. Their purity is more attractive than the passions of their +rivals. His deserted King shows himself worthy of more loyalty than his +triumphant persecutors. His Roman actor atones for his weakness by +voluntarily taking part in his own punishment. + +Such passive virtues are undoubtedly most praiseworthy; but they may +border upon qualities not quite so praiseworthy. It is a melancholy +truth that your martyr is apt to be a little sanctimonious, and that a +penitent is generally a bit of a sneak. Resignation and self-restraint +are admirable qualities, but admirable in proportion to the force of the +opposing temptation. The strong man curbing his passions, the weak woman +finding strength in patient suffering, are deserving of our deepest +admiration; but in Massinger we feel that the triumph of virtue implies +rather a want of passion than a power of commanding it, and that +resignation is comparatively easy when it connotes an absence of active +force. The general lowering of vitality, the want of rigid dramatic +colouring, deprive his martyrs of that background of vigorous reality +against which their virtues would be forcibly revealed. His pathos is +not vivid and penetrating. Truly pathetic power is produced only when we +see that it is a sentiment wrung from a powerful intellect by keen +sympathy with the wrongs of life. We are affected by the tears of a +strong man; but the popular preacher who enjoys weeping produces in us +nothing but contempt. Massinger's heroes and heroines have not, we may +say, backbone enough in them to make us care very deeply for their +sorrows. And they moralise rather too freely. We do not want sermons, +but sympathy, when we are in our deepest grief; and we do not feel that +anyone feels very keenly who can take his sorrows for a text, and preach +in his agony upon the vanity of human wishes or the excellence of +resignation. + +Massinger's remarkable flow of genuine eloquence, his real dignity of +sentiment, his sympathy for virtuous motive, entitle him to respect; but +we cannot be blind to the defect which keeps his work below the level of +his greatest contemporaries. It is, in one word, a want of vital force. +His writing is pitched in too low a key. He is not invigorating, +stimulating, capable of fascinating us by the intensity of his +conceptions. His highest range is a dignified melancholy or a certain +chivalrous recognition of the noble side of human nature. The art which +he represents is still a genuine and spontaneous growth instead of an +artificial manufacture. He is not a mere professor of deportment, or +maker of fine phrases. The days of mere affection have not yet arrived; +but, on the other hand, there is an absence of that grand vehemence of +soul which breathes in the spontaneous, if too lawless, vigour of the +older race. There is something hollow under all this stately rhetoric; +there are none of those vivid phrases which reveal minds moved by strong +passions and excited by new aspects of the world. The sails of his verse +are not, in Chapman's phrase, 'filled with a lusty wind,' but moving at +best before a steady breath of romantic sentiment, and sometimes +flapping rather ominously for want of true impulse. High thinking may +still be there, but it is a little self-conscious, and in need of +artificial stimulant. The old strenuous spirit has disappeared, or gone +elsewhere--perhaps to excite a Puritan imagination, and create another +incarnation of the old type of masculine vigour in the hero of 'Paradise +Lost.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] _Contemporary Review_ for August 1876. + + + + +_FIELDING'S NOVELS_ + + +A double parallel has often been pointed out between the two pairs of +novelists who were most popular in the middle of our own and of the +preceding century. The intellectual affinity which made Smollett the +favourite author of Dickens is scarcely so close as that which commended +Fielding to Thackeray. The resemblance between 'Pickwick' and 'Humphrey +Clinker,' or between 'David Copperfield' and 'Roderick Random,' consists +chiefly in the exuberance of animal spirits, the keen eye for external +oddity, the consequent tendency to substitute caricature for portrait, +and the vivid transformation of autobiography into ostensible fiction, +which are characteristic of both authors. Between Fielding and Thackeray +the resemblance is closer. The peculiar irony of 'Jonathan Wild' has its +closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' +of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's +burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong +to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent since the days +of Lady Bellaston, but the costume of the actors has changed more than +their nature. Rawdon Crawley would not have been surprised to meet +Captain Booth in a spunging-house; Shandon and his friends preserved the +old traditions of Fielding's Grub Street; Lord Steyne and Major +Pendennis were survivals from the more congenial period of Lord Fellamar +and Colonel James; and the two Amelias represent cognate ideals of +female excellence. Or, to take an instance of similarity in detail, +might not this anecdote from 'The Covent Garden Journal' have rounded +off a paragraph in the 'Snob Papers?' A friend of Fielding saw a dirty +fellow in a mud-cart lash another with his whip, saying, with an oath, +'I will teach you manners to your betters.' Fielding's friend wondered +what could be the condition of this social inferior of a mud-cart +driver, till he found him to be the owner of a dust-cart driven by +asses. The great butt of Fielding's satire is, as he tells us, +affectation; the affectation which he specially hates is that of +straitlaced morality; Thackeray's satire is more generally directed +against the particular affectation called snobbishness; but the evil +principle attacked by either writer is merely one avatar of the demon +assailed by the other. + +The resemblance, which extends in some degree to style, might perhaps be +shown to imply a very close intellectual affinity. I am content, +however, to notice the literary genealogy as illustrative of the fact +that Fielding was the ancestor of one great race of novelists. 'I am,' +he says expressly in 'Tom Jones,' 'the founder of a new province of +writing.' Richardson's 'Clarissa'[7] and Smollett's 'Roderick Random' +were indeed published before 'Tom Jones;' but the provinces over which +Richardson and Smollett reigned were distinct from the contiguous +province of which Fielding claimed to be the first legislator. Smollett +(who comes nearest) professed to imitate 'Gil Blas' as Fielding +professed to imitate Cervantes. Smollett's story inherits from its +ancestry a reckless looseness of construction. It is a series of +anecdotes strung together by the accident that they all happen to the +same person. 'Tom Jones,' on the contrary, has a carefully constructed +plot, if not, as Coleridge asserts, one of the three best plots in +existence (its rivals being 'Oedipus Tyrannus' and 'The Alchemist'). Its +excellence depends upon the skill with which it is made subservient to +the development of character and the thoroughness with which the working +motives of the persons involved have been thought out. Fielding +claims--even ostentatiously--that he is writing a history, not a +romance; a history not the less true because all the facts are +imaginary, for the fictitious incidents serve to exhibit the most +general truths of human character. It is by this seriousness of purpose +that his work is distinguished from the old type of novel, developed by +Smollett, which is but a collection of amusing anecdotes; or from such +work as De Foe's, in which the external facts are given with an almost +provoking indifference to display of character and passion. Fielding's +great novels have a true organic unity as well as a consecutive story, +and are intended in our modern jargon as genuine studies in +psychological analysis.[8] + +Johnson, no mean authority when in his own sphere and free from personal +bias, expressly traversed this claim; he declared that there was more +knowledge of the human heart in a letter of 'Clarissa' than in the whole +of 'Tom Jones;' and said more picturesquely, that Fielding could tell +the hour by looking at the dial-plate, whilst Richardson knew how the +clock was made.[9] It is tempting to set this down as a Johnsonian +prejudice, and to deny or retort the comparison. Fielding, we might say, +paints flesh and blood; whereas Richardson consciously constructs his +puppets out of frigid abstractions. Lovelace is a bit of mechanism; Tom +Jones a human being. In fact, however, such comparisons are misleading. +Nothing is easier than to find an appropriate ticket for the objects of +our criticism, and summarily pigeon-hole Richardson as an idealist and +Fielding as a realist; Richardson as subjective and morbid, Fielding as +objective and full of coarse health; or to attribute to either of them +the deepest knowledge of the human heart. These are the mere banalities +of criticism; and I can never hear them without a suspicion that a +professor of aesthetics is trying to hoodwink me by a bit of technical +platitude. The cant phrases which have been used so often by panegyrists +too lazy to define their terms, have become almost as meaningless as the +complimentary formulae of society. + +Knowledge of the human heart in particular is a phrase which covers very +different states of mind. It may mean that power by which the novelist +or dramatist identifies himself with his characters; sees through their +eyes and feels with their senses; it is the product of a rich nature, a +vivid imagination, and great powers of sympathy, and draws a +comparatively small part of its resources from external experience. The +novelist knows how his characters would feel under given conditions, +because he feels it himself; he sees from within, not from without; and +is almost undergoing an actual experience instead of condensing his +observations on life. This is the power in which Shakespeare is supreme; +which Richardson proved himself, in his most powerful passages, to +possess in no small degree; and which in Balzac seems to have generated +fits of absolute hallucination. + +Fielding's novels are not without proof of this power, as no great +imaginative work can be possible without it; but the knowledge for which +he is specially conspicuous differs almost in kind. This knowledge is +drawn from observation rather than intuitive sympathy. It consists in +great part of those weighty maxims which a man of keen powers of +observation stores up in his passage through a varied experience. It is +the knowledge of Ulysses, who has known + + Cities of men + And manners, climates, councils, governments; + +the knowledge of a Machiavelli, who has looked behind the screen of +political hypocrisies; the knowledge of which the essence is distilled +in Bacon's 'Essays;' or the knowledge of which Polonius seems to have +retained many shrewd scraps even when he had fallen into his dotage. +In reading 'Clarissa' or 'Eugenie Grandet' we are aware that the soul +of Richardson or Balzac has transmigrated into another shape; that the +author is projected into his character, and is really giving us one +phase of his own sentiments. In reading Fielding we are listening to +remarks made by a spectator instead of an actor; we are receiving the +pithy recollections of the man about town; the prodigal who has been +with scamps in gambling-houses, and drunk beer in pothouses and punch +with country squires; the keen observer who has judged all characters, +from Sir Robert Walpole down to Betsy Canning;[10] who has fought the +hard battle of life with unflagging spirit, though with many falls; +and who, in spite of serious stains, has preserved the goodness of his +heart and the soundness of his head. The experience is generally given +in the shape of typical anecdotes rather than in explicit maxims; but +it is not the less distinctly the concentrated essence of observation, +rather than the spontaneous play of a vivid imagination. Like Balzac, +Fielding has portrayed the 'Comedie Humaine;' but his imagination has +never overpowered the coolness of his judgment. He shows a superiority +to his successor in fidelity almost as marked as his inferiority in +vividness. And, therefore, it may be said in passing, it is refreshing +to read Fielding at a time when this element of masculine observation +is the one thing most clearly wanting in modern literature. Our novels +give us the emotions of young ladies, which, in their way, are very +good things; they reflect the sentimental view of life, and the +sensational view, and the commonplace view, and the high philosophical +view. One thing they do not tell us. What does the world look like to +a shrewd police-magistrate, with a keen eye in his head and a sound +heart in his bosom? It might be worth knowing. Perhaps (who can tell?) +it would still look rather like Fielding's world. + +The peculiarity is indicated by Fielding's method. Scott, who, like +Fielding, generally describes from the outside, is content to keep +himself in the background. 'Here,' he says to his readers, 'are the +facts; make what you can of them.' Fielding will not efface himself; he +is always present as chorus; he tells us what moral we ought to draw; he +overflows with shrewd remarks, given in their most downright shape, +instead of obliquely suggested through the medium of anecdotes; he likes +to stop us as we pass through his portrait gallery; to take us by the +button-hole and expound his views of life and his criticisms on things +in general. His remarks are often so admirable that we prefer the +interpolations to the main current of narrative. Whether this plan is +the best must depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the author; but it goes +some way to explain one problem, over which Scott puzzles +himself--namely, why Fielding's plays are so inferior to his novels. +There are other reasons, external and internal; but it is at least clear +that a man who can never retire behind his puppets is not in the +dramatic frame of mind. He is always lecturing where a dramatist must be +content to pull the wires. Shakespeare is really as much present in his +plays as Fielding in his novels; but he does not let us know it; whereas +the excellent Fielding seems to be quite incapable of hiding his broad +shoulders and lofty stature behind his little puppet-show. + +There are, of course, actors in Fielding's world who can be trusted to +speak for themselves. Tom Jones, at any rate, who is Fielding in his +youth, or Captain Booth, who is the Fielding of later years, are drawn +from within. Their creator's sympathy is so close and spontaneous that +he has no need of his formulae and precedents. But elsewhere he betrays +his method by his desire to produce his authority. You will find the +explanation of a certain line of conduct, he says, in 'human nature, +page almost the last.' He is a little too fond of taking down that +volume with a flourish; of exhibiting his familiarity with its pages, +and referring to the passages which justify his assertions. Fielding has +an odd touch of the pedant. He is fond of airing his classical +knowledge; and he is equally fond of quoting this imaginary code which +he has had to study so thoroughly and painfully. The effect, however, is +to give an air of artificiality to some of his minor characters. They +show the traces of deliberate composition too distinctly, though the +blemish may be forgiven in consideration of the genuine force and +freshness of his thinking. If manufactured articles, they are not +second-hand manufactures. His knowledge, unlike that of the good Parson +Adams, comes from life, not books. + +The worldly wisdom for which Fielding is so conspicuous had indeed been +gathered in doubtful places, and shows traces of its origin. He had been +forced, as he said, to choose between the positions of a hackney +coachman and of a hackney writer. 'His genius,' said Lady M. W. Montagu, +who records the saying, 'deserves a better fate.' Whether it would have +been equally fertile, if favoured by more propitious surroundings, is +one of those fruitless questions which belong to the boundless history +of the might-have-beens. But one fact requires to be emphasised. +Fielding's critics and biographers have dwelt far too exclusively upon +the uglier side of his Bohemian life. They have presented him as +yielding to all the temptations which can mislead keen powers of +enjoyment, when the purse is one day at the lowest ebb and the next +overflowing with the profits of some lucky hit at the theatre. Those +unfortunate yellow liveries which contributed to dissipate his little +fortune have scandalised posterity as they scandalised his country +neighbours.[11] But it is essential to remember that the history of the +Fielding of later years, of the Fielding to whom we owe the novels, is +the record of a manful and persistent struggle to escape from the mire +of Grub Street. During that period he was studying the law with the +energy of a young student; redeeming the office of magistrate from the +discredit into which it had fallen in the hands of fee-hunting +predecessors; considering seriously, and making practical proposals to +remedy, the evils which then made the lowest social strata a hell upon +earth; sacrificing his last chances of health and life to put down with +a strong hand the robbers who infested the streets of London; and +clinging with affection to his wife and children. He never got fairly +clear of that lamentable slough of despond into which his follies had +plunged him. His moral tone lost what delicacy it had once possessed; he +had not the strength which enabled Johnson to gain elevation even from +the temptations which then beset the unlucky 'author by profession.' +Some literary hacks of the day escaped only by selling themselves, body +and soul; others sank into misery and vice, like poor Boyce, a fragment +of whose poem has been preserved by Fielding, and who appears in +literary history scribbling for pay in a sack arranged to represent a +shirt. Fielding never let go his hold of the firm land, though he must +have felt through life like one whose feet are always plunging into a +hopeless quagmire. To describe him as a mere reckless Bohemian, is to +overlook the main facts of his story. He was manly to the last, not in +the sense in which man means animal; but with the manliness of one who +struggles bravely to redeem early errors, and who knows the value of +independence, purity, and domestic affection. The scanty anecdotes which +do duty for his biography reveal little of his true life. We know, +indeed, from a spiteful and obviously exaggerated story of Horace +Walpole's, that he once had a very poor supper in doubtful company; and +from another anecdote, of slightly apocryphal flavour, that he once gave +to 'friendship' the money which ought to have been given to the +collector of rates. But really to know the man, we must go to his books. + +What did Fielding learn of the world which had treated him so roughly? +That the world must be composed of fools because it did not bow before +his genius, or of knaves because it did not reward his honesty? Men of +equal ability have drawn both those and the contradictory conclusions +from experience. Human nature, as philosophers assure us, varies little +from age to age; but the pictures drawn by the best observers vary so +strangely as to convince us that a portrait depends as much upon the +artist as upon the sitter. One can see nothing but the baser, and +another nothing but the nobler, passions. To one the world is like a +masque representing the triumph of vice; and another placidly assures us +that virtue is always rewarded by peace of mind, and that even the +temporary prosperity of the wicked is an illusion. On one canvas we see +a few great heroes stand out from a multitude of pygmies; on its rival, +giants and dwarfs appear to have pretty much the same stature. The world +is a scene of unrestrained passions impelling their puppets into +collision or alliance without intelligible design; or a scene of +domestic order, where an occasional catastrophe interferes as little +with ordinary lives as a comet with the solar system. Blind fate governs +one world of the imagination, and beneficent Providence another. The +theories embodied in poetry vary as widely as the philosophies on which +they are founded; and to philosophise is to declare the fundamental +assumptions of half the wise men of the world to be transparent +fallacies. + +We need not here attempt to reconcile these apparent contradictions. As +little need we attempt to settle Fielding's philosophy, for it resembles +the snakes in Iceland. It seems to have been his opinion that philosophy +is, as a rule, a fine word for humbug. That was a common conviction of +his day; but his acceptance of it doubtless indicates the limits of his +power. In his pages we have the shrewdest observation of man in his +domestic relations; but we scarcely come into contact with man as he +appears in presence of the infinite, and therefore with the deepest +thoughts and loftiest imaginings of the great poets and philosophers. +Fielding remains inflexibly in the regions of common-sense and everyday +experience. But he has given an emphatic opinion of that part of the +world which was visible to him, and it is one worth knowing. In a +remarkable conversation, reported in Boswell, Burke and Johnson, two of +the greatest of Fielding's contemporaries, seem to have agreed that they +had found men less just and more generous than they could have imagined. +People begin by judging the world from themselves, and it is therefore +natural that two men of great intellectual power should have expected +from their fellows a more than average adherence to settled principles. +Thus Johnson and Burke discovered that reason, upon which justice +depends, has less influence than a young reasoner is apt to fancy. On +the other hand, they discovered that the blind instincts by which the +mass is necessarily guided are not so bad as they are represented by the +cynics. The Rochefoucauld or Mandeville who passes off his smart +sayings upon the public as serious, knows better than anybody that a man +must be a fool to take them literally. The wisdom which he affects is +very easily learnt, and is more often the product of the premature +sagacity dear to youth than of a ripened judgment. Good-hearted men, at +least, like Johnson and Burke, shake off cynicism whilst others are +acquiring it. + +Fielding's verdict seems to differ at first sight. He undoubtedly lays +great stress upon the selfishness of mankind. He seldom admits of an +apparently generous action without showing its alloy of selfish motive, +and sometimes showing that it is a mere cloak for selfish motives. In a +characteristic passage of his 'Voyage to Lisbon' he applies his theory +to his own case. When the captain falls on his knees, he will not suffer +a brave man and an old man to remain for a moment in that posture, but +forgives him at once. He hastens, however, utterly to disclaim all +praise, on the ground that his true motive was simply the convenience of +forgiveness. 'If men were wiser,' he adds, 'they would be oftener +influenced by that motive.' This kind of inverted hypocrisy, which may +be graceful in a man's own case (for nobody will doubt that Fielding was +less guided by calculation than he asserts), is not so graceful when +applied to his neighbours. And perhaps some readers may hold that +Fielding pitches the average strain of human motive too low. I should +rather surmise that he substantially agrees with Johnson and Burke. The +fact that most men attend a good deal to their own interests is one of +the primary data of life. It is a thing at which we have no more right +to be astonished than at the fact that even saints and martyrs have to +eat and drink like other persons, or that a sound digestion is the +foundation of much moral excellence. It is one of those facts which +people of a romantic turn of mind may choose to overlook, but which no +honest observer of life can seriously deny. Our conduct is determined +through some thirty points of the compass by our own interest; and, +happily, through at least nine-and-twenty of those points is rightfully +so determined. Each man is forced, by an unavoidable necessity, to look +after his own and his children's bread and butter, and to spend most of +his efforts on that innocent end. So long as he does not pursue his +interests wrongfully, nor remain dead to other calls when they happen, +there is little cause for complaint, and certainly there is none for +surprise. + +Fielding recognises, but never exaggerates, this homely truth. He has a +hearty and generous belief in the reality of good impulses, and the +existence of thoroughly unselfish men. The main actors in his world are +not, as in Balzac's, mere hideous incarnations of selfishness. The +superior sanity of his mind keeps him from nightmares, if its calmness +is unfavourable to lofty visions. With Balzac, women like Lady Bellaston +become the rule instead of the exception, and their evil passions are +the dominant forces in society. Fielding, though he recognises their +existence, tells us plainly that they are exceptional. Society, he says, +is as moral as ever it was, and given more to frivolity than to +vice[12]--a statement judiciously overlooked by some of the critics who +want to make graphic history out of his novels. Fielding's mind had +gathered coarseness, but it had not been poisoned. He sees how many ugly +things are covered by the superficial gloss of fashion, but he does not +condescend to travesty the facts in order to gratify a morbid taste for +the horrible. When he wants a good man or woman he knows where to find +them, and paints from Allen or his own wife with obvious sincerity and +hearty sympathy. He is less anxious to exhibit human selfishness than to +show us that an alloy of generosity is to be found even amidst base +motives. Some of his happiest touches are illustrations of this +doctrine. His villains (with a significant exception) are never +monsters. They have some touch of human emotion. No desert, according to +him, is so bare but that some sweet spring blends with its brackish +waters. His grasping landladies have genuine movements of sympathy; and +even the scoundrelly Black George, the game-keeper, is anxious to do Tom +Jones a good turn, without risk, of course, to his own comfort, by way +of compensation for previous injuries. It is this impartial insight into +the ordinary texture of human motive that gives a certain solidity and +veracity to Fielding's work. We are always made to feel that the actions +spring fairly and naturally from the character of his persons, not from +the exigencies of his story or the desire to be effective. The one great +difficulty in 'Tom Jones' is the assumption that the excellent Allworthy +should have been deceived for years by the hypocrite Blifil, and blind +to the substantial kindliness of his ward. Here we may fancy that +Fielding has been forced to be unnatural by his plot. Yet he suggests a +satisfactory solution with admirable skill. Allworthy is prejudiced in +favour of Blifil by the apparently unjust prejudice of Blifil's mother +in favour of the jovial Tom. A generous man may easily become blind to +the faults of a supposed victim of maternal injustice; and even here +Fielding fairly escapes from the blame due to ordinary novelists, who +invent impossible misunderstandings in order to bring about intricate +perplexities. + +Blifil is perhaps the one case (for 'Jonathan Wild' is a satire, not a +history, or, as M. Taine fancies, a tract) in which Fielding seems to +lose his unvarying coolness of judgment; and the explanation is obvious. +The one fault to which he is, so to speak, unjust, is hypocrisy. +Hypocrisy, indeed, cannot well be painted too black, but it should not +be made impossible. When Fielding has to deal with such a character, he +for once loses his self-command, and, like inferior writers, begins to +be angry with his creatures. Instead of analysing and explaining, he +simply reviles and leaves us in presence of a moral anomaly. Blifil is +not more wicked than Iago, but we seem to understand the psychical +chemistry by which an Iago is compounded; whereas Blifil can only be +regarded as a devil (if the word be not too dignified) who does not +really belong to this world at all. The error, though characteristic of +a man whose great intellectual merit is his firm grasp of realities, and +whose favourite virtue is his downright sincerity, is not the less a +blemish. Hatred of pedantry too easily leads to hatred of culture, and +hatred of hypocrisy to distrust of the more exalted virtues. Fielding +cannot be just to motives lying rather outside his ordinary sphere of +thought. He can mock heartily and pleasantly enough at the affectation +of philosophy, as in the case where Parson Adams, urging poor Joseph +Andrews, by considerations drawn from the Bible and from Seneca, to be +ready to resign his Fanny 'peaceably, quietly, and contentedly,' +suddenly hears of the supposed loss of his own little child, and is +called upon to act instead of preaching. But his satire upon all +characters and creeds which embody the more exalted strains of feeling +is apt to be indiscriminate. A High Churchman, according to him, is a +Pharisee who prefers orthodoxy to virtue; a Methodist a mere +mountebank, who counterfeits spiritual raptures to impose upon dupes; a +Freethinker is a man who weaves a mask of fine phrases, under which to +cover his aversion to the restraints of religion. Fielding's religion +consists chiefly of a solid homespun morality, and he is more suspicious +of an excessive than of a defective zeal. Similarly he is a hearty Whig, +but no revolutionist. He has as hearty a contempt for the cant about +liberty[13] as Dr. Johnson himself, and has very stringent remedies to +propose for regulating the mob. The bailiff in 'Amelia,' who, whilst he +brutally maltreats the unlucky prisoners for debt, swaggers about the +British Constitution, and swears that he is 'all for liberty,' recalls +the boatman who ridiculed French slavery to Voltaire, and was carried +off next day by a pressgang. Fielding, indeed, is no fanatical adherent +of our blessed Constitution, which, as he says, has been pronounced by +some of our wisest men to be too perfect to be altered in any +particular, and which a number of the said wisest men have been mending +ever since. He hates cant on all sides impartially, though, as a sound +Whig, he specially hates Papists and Jacobites as the most offensive of +all Pharisees, marked for detestation by their taste for frogs and +French wine in preference to punch and roast beef. He is a patriotic +Briton, whose patriotism takes the genuine shape of a hearty growl at +English abuses, with a tacit assumption that things are worse elsewhere. + +The reflection of this quality of solid good sense, absolutely scorning +any ailment except that of solid facts, is the so-called realism of +Fielding's novels. He is, indeed, as hearty a realist as Hogarth, whose +congenial art he is never tired of praising with all the cordiality of +his nature, and to whom he refers his readers for portraits of several +characters in 'Tom Jones.' His scenery is as realistic as a photograph. +Tavern kitchens, spunging-house parlours, the back-slums of London +streets, are drawn from the realities with unflinching vigour. We see +the stains of beer-pots and smell the fumes of stale tobacco as +distinctly as in Hogarth's engravings. He shrinks neither from the +coarse nor the absolutely disgusting. It is enough to recall the female +boxing or scratching matches which are so frequent in his pages. On one +such occasion his language seems to imply that he had watched such +battles in the spirit of a connoisseur in our own day watching less +inexpressibly disgusting prize-fights. Certainly we could wish that, if +such scenes were to be depicted, there might have been a clearer proof +that the artist had a nose and eyes capable of feeling offence. + +But the nickname 'realist' slides easily into another sense. The realist +is sometimes supposed to be more shallow as well as more prosaic than +the idealist; to be content with the outside where the idealist pierces +to the heart. He gives the bare fact, where his rival gives the idea +symbolised by the fact, and therefore rendering it attractive to the +higher intellect. Fielding's view of his own art is instructive in this +as in other matters. Poetic invention, he says, is generally taken to be +a creative faculty; and if so, it is the peculiar property of the +romance-writers, who frankly take leave of the actual and possible. +Fielding disavows all claim to this faculty; he writes histories, not +romances. But, in his sense, poetic invention means, not creation, but +'discovery;' that is, 'a quick, sagacious penetration into the true +essence of all objects of our contemplation.' Perhaps we may say that it +is chiefly a question of method whether a writer should portray men or +angels--the beings, that is, of everyday life--or beings placed under a +totally different set of circumstances. The more vital question is +whether, by one method or the other, he shows us a man's heart or only +his clothes; whether he appeals to our intellects or imaginations, or +amuses us by images which do not sink below the eye. In scientific +writings a man may give us the true law of a phenomenon, whether he +exemplifies it in extreme or average cases, in the orbit of a comet or +the fall of an apple. The romance-writer should show us what real men +would be in dreamland, the writer of 'histories' what they are on the +knifeboard of an omnibus. True insight may be shown in either case, or +may be absent in either, according as the artist deals with the deepest +organic laws or the more external accidents. The 'Ancient Mariner' is an +embodiment of certain simple emotional phases and moral laws amidst the +phantasmagoric incidents of a dream, and De Foe does not interpret them +better because he confines himself to the most prosaic incidents. When +romance becomes really arbitrary, and is parted from all basis of +observation, it loses its true interest and deserves Fielding's +condemnation. Fielding conscientiously aims at discharging the highest +function. He describes, as he says in 'Joseph Andrews,' 'not men, but +manners; not an individual, but a species.' His lawyer, he tells us, has +been alive for the last four thousand years, and will probably survive +four thousand more. Mrs. Tow-wouse lives wherever turbulent temper, +avarice, and insensibility are united; and her sneaking husband wherever +a good inclination has glimmered forth, eclipsed by poverty of spirit +and understanding. But the type which shows best the force and the +limits of Fielding's genius is Parson Adams. He belongs to a +distinguished family, whose members have been portrayed by the greatest +historians. He is a collateral descendant of Don Quixote, for whose +creation Fielding felt a reverence exceeded only by his reverence for +Shakespeare.[14] The resemblance is, of course, distant, and consists +chiefly in this, that the parson, like the knight, lives in an ideal +world, and is constantly shocked by harsh collision with facts. He +believes in his sermons instead of his sword, and his imagination is +tenanted by virtuous squires and model parsons instead of Arcadian +shepherds, or knight-errants and fair ladies. His imagination is not +exalted beyond the limits of sanity, but only colours the prosaic +realities in accordance with the impulses of a tranquil benevolence. If +the theme be fundamentally similar, it is treated with a far less daring +hand. + +Adams is much more closely related to Sir Roger de Coverley, the Vicar +of Wakefield, or Uncle Toby. Each of these lovable beings invites us at +once to sympathise with and to smile at the unaffected simplicity which, +seeing no evil, becomes half ludicrous and half pathetic in this corrupt +world. Adams stands out from his brethren by his intense reality. If he +smells too distinctly of beer and tobacco, we believe in him more firmly +than in the less full-blooded creations of Sterne and Goldsmith. Parson +Adams, indeed, has a startling vigour of organisation. Not merely the +hero of a modern ritualist novel, but Amyas Leigh or Guy Livingstone +himself, might have been amazed at his athletic prowess. He stalks ahead +of the stage-coach (favoured doubtless by the bad roads of the period) +as though he had accepted the modern principle about fearing God and +walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours. His mutton fist and the +crabtree cudgel which swings so freely round his clerical head would +have daunted the contemporary gladiators, Slack and Broughton. He shows +his Christian humility not merely by familiarity with his poorest +parishioners, but in sitting up whole nights in tavern kitchens, +drinking unlimited beer, smoking inextinguishable pipes, and revelling +in a ceaseless flow of gossip. We smile at the good man's intense +delight in a love-story, at the simplicity which makes him see a good +Samaritan in Parson Trulliber, at the absence of mind which makes him +pitch his AEschylus into the fire, or walk a dozen miles in profound +oblivion of the animal which should have been between his knees; but his +contemporaries were provoked to a horse-laugh, and when we remark the +tremendous practical jokes which his innocence suggests to them, we +admit that he requires his whole athletic vigour to bring so tender a +heart safely through so rough a world. + +If the ideal hero is always to live in fancy-land and talk in blank +verse, Adams has clearly no right to the title; nor, indeed, has Don +Quixote. But the masculine portraiture of the coarse realities is not +only indicative of intellectual vigour, but artistically appropriate. +The contrast between the world and its simple-minded inhabitant is the +more forcible in proportion to the firmness and solidity of Fielding's +touch. Uncle Toby proves that Sterne had preserved enough tenderness to +make an exquisite plaything of his emotions. The Vicar of Wakefield +proves that Goldsmith had preserved a childlike innocence of +imagination, and could retire from duns and publishers to an idyllic +world of his own. Joseph Andrews proves that Fielding was neither a +child nor a sentimentalist, but that he had learnt to face facts as they +are, and set a true value on the best elements of human life. In the +midst of vanity and vexation of spirit he could find some comfort in +pure and strong domestic affection. He can indulge his feelings without +introducing the false note of sentimentalism, or condescending to tone +his pictures with rose-colour. He wants no illusions. The exemplary Dr. +Harrison in 'Amelia' held no action unworthy of him which could protect +an innocent person or 'bring a rogue to the gallows.' Good Parson Adams +could lay his cudgel on the back of a villain with hearty goodwill. He +believes too easily in human goodness, but there is not a maudlin fibre +in his whole body. He would not be the man to cry over a dead donkey +whilst children are in want of bread. He would be slower than the +excellent Dr. Primrose to believe in the reformation of a villain by +fine phrases, and if he fell into such a weakness, his biographer would +not, like Goldsmith, be inclined to sanction the error. A villain is +induced to reform, indeed, by the sight of Amelia's excellence, but +Fielding is careful to tell us that the change was illusory, and that +the villain ended on a gallows. We are made sensible that if Adams had +his fancies they were foibles, and therefore sources of misfortune. We +are to admire the childlike character, but not to share its illusions. +The world is not made of moonshine. Hypocrisy, cruelty, avarice, and +lust have to be stamped out by hard blows, not cured by delicate +infusion of graceful sentimentalisms. + +So far Fielding's portrait of an ideal character is all the better for +his masculine grasp of fact. It must, however, be admitted that he fails +a little on the other side of the contrast. He believes in a good heart, +but scarcely in very lofty motive. He tells us in 'Tom Jones'[15] that +he has painted no perfect character, because he never happened to meet +one. His stories, like 'Vanity Fair,' may be described as novels without +a hero. It is not merely that his characters are imperfect, but that +they are deficient in the finer ingredients which go to make up the +nearest approximations of our imperfect natures to heroism. Colonel +Newcome was not perhaps so good a man as Parson Adams, but he had a +certain delicacy of sentiment which led him, as we may remember, to be +rather hard upon Tom Jones, and which Fielding (as may be gathered from +Bath in 'Amelia') would have been inclined to ridicule. Parson Adams is +simple enough to become a laughing-stock to the brutal, but he never +consciously rebels against the dictates of the plainest common-sense. +His theology comes from Tillotson and Hoadly; he has no eye for the +romantic side of his creed, and would be apt to condemn a mystic as +simply a fool. His loftiest aspiration is not to reform the world or any +part of it, but to get a modest bit of preferment (he actually receives +it, we are happy to think, in 'Amelia'), enough to pay for his tobacco +and his children's schooling. Fielding's dislike to the romantic makes +him rather blind to the elevated. He will not only start from the +actual, but does not conceive the possibility of an infusion of loftier +principles. The existing standard of sound sense prescribes an +impassable limit to his imagination. Parson Adams is an admirable +incarnation of certain excellent and honest impulses. He sets forth the +wisdom of the heart and the beauty of the simple instincts of an +affectionate nature. But we are forced to admit that he is not the +highest type conceivable, and might, for example, learn something from +his less robust colleague Dr. Primrose. + +This remark suggests the common criticism, expounded with his usual +brilliancy by M. Taine. Fielding, he tells us, loves nature, but he does +not love it 'like the great impartial artists, Shakespeare and Goethe.' +He moralises incessantly--which is wrong. Moreover, his morality appears +to be very questionable. It consists in preferring instinct to reason. +The hero is the man who is born generous as a dog is born affectionate. +And this, says M. Taine, might be all very well were it not for a great +omission. Fielding has painted nature, but nature without refinement, +poetry and chivalry. He can only describe the impetuosity of the senses, +not the nervous exaltation and the poetic rapture. Man is with him 'a +good buffalo; and perhaps he is the hero required by a people which is +itself called John Bull.' In all which there is an undoubted vein of +truth. Fielding's want of refinement, for example, is one of those +undeniable facts which must be taken for granted. But, without seeking +to set right some other statements implied in M. Taine's judgment, it is +worth while to consider a little more fully the moral aspect of +Fielding's work. Much has been said upon this point by some who, with M. +Taine, take Fielding for a mere 'buffalo,' and by others who, like +Coleridge--a safer and more sympathetic critic--hold 'Tom Jones' to be, +on the whole, a sound exposition of healthy morality. + +Fielding, on the 'buffalo' view, is supposed to be simply taking one +side in one of those perpetual controversies which has occupied many +generations and never approaches a settlement. He prefers nature to law, +instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against +Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee +without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and +despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such +a doctrine--so absolutely stated--is rather a negation of all morality +than a lax morality. If it implies a love of generous instincts, it +denies that a man should have any regard for moral rules, which are +needed precisely in order to control our spontaneous instincts. Virtue +is amiable, but ceases to be meritorious. Nothing would be easier than +to quote passages in which Fielding expressly repudiates such a theory; +but, of course, a writer's morality must be judged by the conceptions +embodied in his work, not by the maxims scattered through it. Nor, for +the same reason, can we pay much attention to Fielding's express +assertion that he is writing in the interests of virtue; for Smollett, +and less scrupulous writers than Smollett, have found their account in +similar protestations. Yet anybody, I think, who will compare 'Joseph +Andrews' with that intentionally most moral work, 'Pamela,' will admit +that Fielding's morality goes deeper than this. Fielding at least makes +us love virtue, and is incapable of the solecism which Richardson +commits in substantially preaching that virtue means standing out for a +higher price. That Fielding's reckless heroes have a genuine sensibility +to the claims of virtue, appears still more unmistakably when we compare +them with the heartless fine gentlemen of the Congreve school and of his +own early plays, or put the faulty Captain Booth beside such an +unredeemed scamp as Peregrine Pickle. + +It is clear, in short, that the aim of Fielding (whether he succeeds or +not) is the very reverse of that attributed to him by M. Taine. 'Tom +Jones' and 'Amelia' have, ostensibly at least, a most emphatic moral +attached to them; and not only attached to them, but borne in mind and +even too elaborately preached throughout. That moral is the one which +Fielding had learnt in the school of his own experience. It is the moral +that dissipation bears fruit in misery. The remorse, it is true, which +was generated in Fielding and in his heroes was not the remorse which +drives a man to a cloister, or which even seriously poisons his +happiness. The offences against morality are condoned too easily, and +the line between vice and virtue drawn in accordance with certain +distinctions which even Parson Adams could scarcely have approved. Vice, +he seems to say, is altogether objectionable only when complicated by +cruelty or hypocrisy. But if Fielding's moral sense is not very +delicate, it is vigorous. He hates most heartily what he sees to be +wrong, though his sight might easily be improved in delicacy of +discrimination. The truth is simply that Fielding accepted that moral +code which the better men of the world in his time really acknowledged, +as distinguished from that by which they affected to be bound. That so +wide a distinction should generally exist between these codes is a +matter for deep regret. That Fielding in his hatred for humbug should +have condemned purity as puritanical is clearly lamentable. The +confusion, however, was part of the man, and, as already noticed, shows +itself in one shape or other throughout his work. But it would be unjust +to condemn him upon that ground as antagonistic or indifferent to +reasonable morality. His morality is at the superior antipodes from the +cynicism of a Wycherley; and far superior to the prurient sentimentalism +of Sterne or the hot-pressed priggishness of Richardson, or even the +reckless Bohemianism of Smollett. + +There is a deeper question, however, beneath this discussion. The +morality of those 'great impartial artists' of whom M. Taine speaks +differs from Fielding's in a more serious sense. The highest morality of +a great work of art depends upon the power with which the essential +beauty and ugliness of virtue and vice are exhibited by an impartial +observer. The morality, for example, of Goethe and Shakespeare appears +in the presentation of such characters as Iago and Mephistopheles. The +insight of true genius shows us by such examples what is the true +physiology of vice; what is the nature of the man who has lost all faith +in virtue and all sympathy with purity and nobility of character. The +artist of inferior rank tries to make us hate vice by showing that it +comes to a bad end precisely because he has an adequate perception of +its true nature. He can see that a drunkard generally gets into debt or +incurs an attack of _delirium tremens_, but he does not exhibit the +moral disintegration which is the underlying cause of the misfortune, +and which may be equally fatal, even if it happens to evade the penalty. +The distinction depends upon the power of the artist to fulfil +Fielding's requirement of penetrating to the essence of the objects of +his contemplation. It corresponds to the distinction in philosophy +between a merely prudential system of ethics--the system of the gallows +and the gaol--and the system which recognises the deeper issues +perceptible to a fine moral sense. + +Now, in certain matters, Fielding's morality is of the merely prudential +kind. It resembles Hogarth's simple doctrine that the good apprentice +will be Lord Mayor and the bad apprentice get into Newgate. So shrewd an +observer was indeed well aware, and could say very forcibly,[16] that +virtue in this world might sometimes lead to poverty, contempt, and +imprisonment. He does not, like some novelists, assume the character of +a temporal Providence, and knock his evildoers on the head at the end of +the story. He shows very forcibly that the difficulties which beset poor +Jones and Booth are not to be fairly called accidents, but are the +difficulties to which bad conduct generally leads a man, and which are +all the harder when not counterbalanced by a clear conscience. He can +even describe with sympathy such a character as poor Atkinson in +'Amelia,' whose unselfish love brings him more blows than favours of +fortune. But it is true that he is a good deal more sensible to what are +called the prudential sanctions of virtue, at least of a certain +category of virtues, than to its essential beauty. So far the want of +refinement of which M. Taine speaks does, in fact, lower, and lower very +materially, his moral perception. A man of true delicacy could never +have dragged Tom Jones into his lowest degradation without showing more +forcibly his abhorrence of his loose conduct. This is, as Colonel +Newcome properly points out, the great and obvious blot upon the story, +which no critics have missed, and we cannot even follow the leniency of +Coleridge, who thinks that a single passage introduced to express +Fielding's real judgment would have remedied the mischief. It is too +obvious to be denied without sophistry that Tom, though he has many good +feelings, and can preach very edifying sermons to his less scrupulous +friend Nightingale, requires to be cast in a different mould. His whole +character should have been strung to a higher pitch to make us feel that +such degradation would not merely have required punishment to restore +his self-complacency, but have left a craving for some thorough moral +ablution. + +Granting unreservedly all that may be urged upon this point, we may +still agree with the judgment pronounced by the most congenial critics. +Fielding's pages reek too strongly of tobacco; they are apt to turn +delicate stomachs; but the atmosphere is, on the whole, healthy and +bracing. No man can read them without prejudice and fail to recognise +the fact that he has been in contact with something much higher than a +'good buffalo.' He has learnt to know a man, not merely full of animal +vigour, not merely stored with various experience of men and manners, +but also in the main sound and unpoisoned by the mephitic vapours which +poisoned the atmosphere of his police-office. If the scorn of hypocrisy +is too fully emphasised, and the sensitiveness to ugly and revolting +objects too much deadened by a rough life, yet nobody could be more +heartily convinced of the beauty and value of those solid domestic +instincts on which human happiness must chiefly depend. Put Fielding +beside the modern would-be satirists who make society--especially French +society[17]--a mere sink of nastiness, or beside the more virtuous +persons whose favourite affectation is simplicity, and who labour most +spasmodically to be masculine, and his native vigour, his massive +common-sense, his wholesome views of men and manners, stand out in solid +relief. Certainly he was limited in perception, and not so elevated in +tone as might be desired; but he is a fitting representative of the +stalwart vigour and the intellectual shrewdness evident in the best men +of his time. The English domestic life of the period was certainly far +from blameless, and anything but refined; but if we have gained in some +ways, we are hardly entitled to look with unqualified disdain upon the +rough vigour of our beer-drinking, beef-eating ancestors. + +We have felt, indeed, the limitations of Fielding's art more clearly +since English fiction found a new starting-point in Scott. Scott made us +sensible of many sources of interest to which Fielding was naturally +blind. He showed us especially that a human being belonged to a society +going through a long course of historical development, and renewed the +bonds with the past which had been rudely snapped in Fielding's period. +Fielding only deals, it may be roughly said, with men as members of a +little family circle, whereas Scott shows them as members of a nation +rich in old historical traditions, related to the past and the future, +and to the external nature in which it has been developed. A wider set +of forces is introduced into our conception of humanity, and the +romantic element, which Fielding ignored, comes again to life. Scott, +too, was a greater man than Fielding, of wider sympathy, loftier +character, and, not the least, with an incomparably keener ear for the +voices of the mountains, the sea, and the sky. The more Scott is +studied, the higher, I believe, the opinion that we shall form of some +of his powers. But in one respect Fielding is his superior. It is a kind +of misnomer which classifies all Scott's books as novels. They are +embodied legends and traditions, descriptions of men, and races, and +epochs of history; but many of them are novels, as it were, by accident, +and modern readers are often disappointed because the name suggests +misleading associations. They expect to sympathise with Scott's heroes, +whereas the heroes are generally dropped in from without, just to give +ostensible continuity to the narrative. The apparent accessories are +really the main substance. The Jacobites and not Waverley, the +Borderers, not Mr. Van Beest Brown, the Covenanters, not Morton or Lord +Evandale, are the real subject of Scott's best romances. Now Fielding is +really a novelist in the more natural sense. We are interested, that is, +by the main characters, though they are not always the most attractive +in themselves. We are really absorbed by the play of their passions and +the conflict of their motives, and not merely taking advantage of the +company to see the surrounding scenery or phases of social life. In this +sense Fielding's art is admirable, and surpassed that of all his English +predecessors as of most of his successors. If the light is concentrated +in a narrow focus, it is still healthy daylight. So long as we do not +wish to leave his circle of ideas, we see little fault in the vigour +with which he fulfils his intention. And therefore, whatever Fielding's +other faults, he is beyond comparison the most faithful and profound +mouthpiece of the passions and failings of a society which seems at once +strangely remote and yet strangely near to us. When seeking to solve +that curious problem which is discussed in one of Hazlitt's best +essays--what characters one would most like to have met?--and running +over the various claims of a meeting at the Mermaid with Shakespeare and +Jonson, a 'neat repast of Attic taste' with Milton, a gossip at Button's +with Addison and Steele, a club-dinner with Johnson and Burke, a supper +with Lamb, or (certainly the least attractive) an evening at Holland +House, I sometimes fancy that, after all, few things would be pleasanter +than a pipe and a bowl of punch with Fielding and Hogarth. It is true +that for such a purpose I provide myself in imagination with a new set +of sturdy nerves, and with a digestion such as that which was once equal +to the horrors of an undergraduates' 'wine party.' But, having made that +trifling assumption, I fancy that there would be few places where one +would hear more good motherwit, shrewder judgments of men and things, or +a sounder appreciation of those homely elements of which human life is +in fact chiefly composed. Common-sense in the highest degree--whether we +choose to identify it or contrast it with genius--is at least one of the +most enduring and valuable of qualities in literature as everywhere +else; and Fielding is one of its best representatives. But perhaps one +is unduly biassed by the charm of a complete escape in imagination from +the thousand and one affectations which have grown up since Fielding +died and we have all become so much wiser and more learned than all +previous generations. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Richardson wrote the first part of 'Pamela' between November 10, +1739, and January 10, 1740. 'Joseph Andrews' appeared in 1742. The first +four volumes of 'Clarissa Harlowe' and 'Roderick Random' appeared in the +beginning of 1748; 'Tom Jones' in 1749. + +[8] See some appreciative remarks upon this in Scott's preface to the +_Monastery_. + +[9] It is rather curious that Richardson uses the same comparison to +Miss Fielding. He assures her that her brother only knew the outside of +a clock, whilst she knew all the finer springs and movements of its +inside. See _Richardson's Correspondence_, ii. 105. + +[10] Fielding blundered rather strangely in the celebrated Betsy Canning +case, as Balzac did in the 'Affaire Peytel'; but the story is too long +for repetition in this place. The trials of Miss Canning and her +supposed kidnappers are amongst the most amusing in the great collection +of State Trials. See vol. xix. of the 8vo edition. Fielding's defence of +his own conduct in the matter is reprinted in his 'Miscellanies and +Poems,' being the supplementary volume of the last collected edition of +his works. + +[11] They were really the property not of Fielding but of the once +famous '_beau_ Fielding.' See _Dictionary of National Biography_. + +[12] See _Tom Jones_, book xiv. chap. i. + +[13] See _Voyage to Lisbon_ (July 21) for some very good remarks upon +this word, which, as he says, no two men understand in the same sense. + +[14] In his interesting Life of Godwin, Mr. Paul claims for his hero (I +dare say rightly) that he was the first English writer to give a +'lengthy and appreciative notice' of 'Don Quixote.' But when he infers +that Godwin was also the first English writer who recognised in +Cervantes a great humourist, satirist, moralist, and artist, he seems to +me to overlook Fielding and others. So Warton in his essay on 'Pope' +calls 'Don Quixote' the 'most original and unrivalled work of modern +times.' The book must have been popular in England from its publication, +as we know from the preface to Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the +Burning Castle'; and numerous translations and imitations show that +Cervantes was always enjoyed, if not criticised. Fielding's frequent +references to 'Don Quixote' (to say nothing of his play, 'Don Quixote in +England') imply an admiration fully as warm as that of Godwin. 'Don +Quixote,' says Fielding, is more worthy the name of history than +Mariana, and he always speaks of Cervantes in the tone of an +affectionate disciple. Fielding, I will add, seems to me to have admired +Shakespeare more heartily and intelligently than ninety-nine out of a +hundred modern supporters of Shakespeare societies; though these +gentlemen are never happier than when depreciating English +eighteenth-century critics to exalt vapid German philosophising. +Fielding's favourite play seems from his quotations to have been +'Othello.' + +[15] Book x. chap. i. + +[16] _Tom Jones_, book xv. chap. i. + +[17] For Fielding's view of the French novels of his day see _Tom +Jones_, book xiii. chap. ix. + + + + +_COWPER AND ROUSSEAU_ + + +Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Cowper--considered as the type of domestic +poets--has recently been translated for the benefit of English readers. +It is interesting to know on the highest authority what are the +qualities which may recommend a writer, so strongly tinged by local +prejudices, to the admiration of a different race and generation. The +gulf which separates the Olney of a century back from modern Paris is +wide enough to give additional value to the generous appreciation of the +critic. I have not the presumption to supplement or correct any part of +his judgment. It is enough to remark briefly that Cowper's immediate +popularity was, as is usually the case, due in part to qualities which +have little to do with his more enduring reputation. Sainte-Beuve dwells +with special fondness upon his pictures of domestic and rural life. He +notices, of course, the marvellous keenness of his pathetic poems; and +he touches, though with some hint that national affinity is necessary to +its full appreciation, upon the playful humour which immortalised John +Gilpin, and lights up the poet's most charming letters. Something, +perhaps, might still be said by a competent critic upon the singular +charm of Cowper's best style. A poet, for example, might perhaps tell +us, though a prosaic person cannot, what is the secret of the impression +made by such a poem as the 'Wreck of the Royal George.' Given an +ordinary newspaper paragraph about wreck or battle, turn it into the +simplest possible language, do not introduce a single metaphor or figure +of speech, indulge in none but the most obvious of all reflections--as, +for example, that when a man is once drowned he won't win any more +battles--and produce as the result a copy of verses which nobody can +ever read without instantly knowing them by heart. How Cowper managed to +perform such a feat, and why not one poet even in a hundred can perform +it, are questions which might lead to some curious critical speculation. + +The qualities, however, which charm the purely literary critic do not +account for the whole of Cowper's influence. A great part of his +immediate, and some part of his more enduring success, have been clearly +owing to a different cause. On reading Johnson's 'Lives,' Cowper +remarked, rather uncharitably, that there was scarcely one good man +amongst the poets. Few poets, indeed, shared those religious views which +commended him more than any literary excellence to a large class of +readers. Religious poetry is generally popular out of all proportion to +its aesthetic merits. Young was but a second-rate Pope in point of +talent; but probably the 'Night Thoughts' have been studied by a dozen +people for one who has read the 'Essay on Man' or the 'Imitations of +Horace.' In our own day, nobody, I suppose, would hold that the +popularity of the 'Christian Year' has been strictly proportioned to its +poetical excellence; and Cowper's vein of religious meditation has +recommended him to thousands who, if biassed at all, were quite +unconsciously biassed by the admirable qualities which endeared him to +such a critic as Sainte-Beuve. His own view was frequently and +unequivocally expressed. He says over and over again--and his entire +sincerity lifts him above all suspicion of the affected +self-depreciation of other writers--that he looked upon his poetical +work as at best innocent trifling, except so far as his poems were +versified sermons. His intention was everywhere didactic--sometimes +annoyingly didactic--and his highest ambition was to be a useful +auxiliary to the prosaic exhortations of Doddridge, Watts, or his friend +Newton. His religion, said some people, drove him mad. Even a generous +critic like Mr. Stopford Brooke cannot refrain from hinting that his +madness was in some part due to the detested influence of Calvinism. In +fact, it may be admitted that Newton--who is half inclined to boast that +he has a name for driving people mad--scarcely showed his judgment in +setting a man who had already been in confinement to write hymns which +at times are the embodiment of despair. But it is obviously contrary to +the plainest facts to say that Cowper was driven mad by his creed. His +first attack preceded his religious enthusiasm; and a gentleman who +tries to hang himself because he has received a comfortable appointment +for life, is in a state of mind which may be explained without reference +to his theological views. It would be truer to say that when Cowper's +intellect was once unhinged, he found a congenial expression for the +tortures of his soul in the imagery provided by the sternest of +Christian sects. But neither can this circumstance be alleged as in +itself disparaging to the doctrines thus misapplied. A religious belief +which does not provide language for the darkest moods of the human mind, +for profound melancholy, torturing remorse and gloomy foreboding, is a +religion not calculated to lay a powerful grasp upon the imaginations of +mankind. Had Cowper been a Roman Catholic, the same anguish of mind +might have driven him to seek relief in the recesses of some austere +monastery. Had he, like Rousseau, been a theoretical optimist, he would, +like Rousseau, have tortured himself with the conflict between theory +and fact--between the world as it might be and the corrupt and tyrannous +world as it is--and have held that all men were in a conspiracy to rob +him of his peace. The chief article of Rousseau's rather hazy creed was +the duty of universal philanthropy, and Rousseau fancied himself to be +the object of all men's hatred. Similarly, Cowper, who held that the +first duty of man was the love of God, fancied that some mysterious +cause had made him the object of the irrevocable hatred of his Creator. +With such fancies, reason and creeds which embody reason have nothing to +do except to give shape to the instruments of self-torture. The cause of +the misery is the mind diseased. You can no more raze out its rooted +troubles by arguing against the reality of the phantoms which it +generates than cure any other delirium by the most irrefragable logic. + +Sainte-Beuve makes some remarks upon this analogy between Rousseau and +Cowper. The comparison suggests some curious considerations as to the +contrast and likeness of the two cases represented. Some personal +differences are, of course, profound and obvious. Cowper was as +indisputably the most virtuous man, as Rousseau the greatest +intellectual power. Cowper's domestic life was as beautiful as +Rousseau's was repulsive. Rousseau, moreover, was more decidedly a +sentimentalist than Cowper, if by sentimentalism we mean that +disposition which makes a luxury of grief, and delights in poring over +its own morbid emotions. Cowper's tears are always wrung from him by +intense anguish of soul, and never, as is occasionally the case with +Rousseau, suggests that the weeper is proud of his excessive tenderness. +Nevertheless, it is probably true, as Mr. Lowell says, that Cowper is +the nearest congener of Rousseau in our language. The two men, of +course, occupy in one respect an analogous literary position. We +habitually assign to Cowper an important place--though of course a +subordinate place to Rousseau--in bringing about the reaction against +the eighteenth-century code of taste and morality. In each case it would +generally be said that the change indicated was a return to nature and +passion from the artificial coldness of the dominant school. That +reaction, whatever its precise nature, took characteristically different +forms in England and in France; and it is as illustrating one of the +most important distinctions that I propose to say a few words upon the +contrast thus exhibited. + +Return to Nature! That was the war-cry which animated the Lake school in +their assault upon the then established authority. Pope, as they held, +had tied the hands of English poets by his jingling metres and frigid +conventionalities. The muse--to make use of the old-fashioned +phrase--had been rouged and bewigged, and put into high-heeled boots, +till she had lost the old majestic freedom of gait and energy of action. +Let us go back to our ancient school, to Milton and Shakespeare and +Spenser and Chaucer, and break the ignoble fetters imported from the +pseudo-classicists of France. These and similar phrases, repeated and +varied in a thousand forms, have become part of the stock-in-trade of +literary historians, and are put forward so fluently that we sometimes +forget to ask what it is precisely that they mean. Down to Milton, it is +assumed, we were natural; then we became artificial; and with the +Revolution we became natural again. That a theory so generally received +and so consciously adopted by the leaders of the new movement must have +in it a considerable amount of truth, is not to be disputed. But it is +sometimes not easy to interpret it into very plain language. The method +of explaining great intellectual and social movements by the phrase +'reaction' is a very tempting one, for the simple reason that it enables +us to effect a great saving of thought. The change is made to explain +itself. History becomes a record of oscillations; we are always swinging +backwards and forwards, pendulum fashion, from one extreme to another. +The courtiers of Charles II. were too dissolute because the Puritans +were too strict; Addison and Steele were respectable because Congreve +and Wycherley were licentious; Wesley was zealous because the Church had +become indifferent; the Revolution of 1789 was a reaction against the +manners of the last century, and the Revolution in running its course +set up a reaction against itself. Now it is easy enough to admit that +there is some truth in this theory. Every great man who moves his race +profoundly is of necessity protesting against the worst evils of the +time, and it is as true as a copy-book that zeal leads to extremes, and +one extreme to its opposite. A river flowing through a nearly level +plain turns its concavity alternately to the east and west, and we may +fairly explain each bend by the fact that the previous bend was in the +opposite direction. But that does not explain why the river flows +down-hill, nor show which direction tends downwards. We may account for +trifling oscillations, not for the main current. Nor does it seem at +first a self-evident proposition that vice, for example, necessarily +generates over-strictness. A man is not always a Pharisee because his +father has been a sinner. In fact, the people who talk so fluently about +reaction fall back whenever it suits them upon the inverse theory. If a +process happens to be continuous, the reason is as simple and +satisfactory as in the opposite case. A man is dissolute, they will tell +us, because his father was dissolute; just as they will tell us, in the +opposite case, that he was dissolute because his father was strict. +Obviously, the mere statement of a reaction is not by itself +satisfactory. We want to know why there should have been a reaction; why +the code of morals which satisfied one generation did not satisfy its +successors; why the coming man was repelled rather than attracted; what +it was that made Pope array himself in a wig instead of appreciating the +noble freedom of his predecessors; and why, again, at a given period men +became tired of the old wig business. When we have solved, or +approximated to a solution of, that problem, we shall generally find, I +suspect, that the action and reaction are generally more superficial +phenomena than we suppose, and that the great processes of evolution are +going on beneath the surface comparatively undisturbed by the changes +which first attract our notice. Every man naturally exaggerates the +share of his education due to himself. He fancies that he has made a +wonderful improvement upon his father's views, perhaps by reversing the +improvement made by the father on the grandfather's. He does not see, +what is plain enough to a more distant generation, that in reality each +generation is most closely bound to its nearest predecessors. + +There is, too, a special source of ambiguity in the catchword used by +the revolutionary school. They spoke of a return to nature. What, to ask +once more a very troublesome question, is meant by nature? Does it mean +inanimate nature? If so, is a love of nature clearly good or 'natural?' +Was Wordsworth justifiable _prima facie_ for telling us to study +mountains rather than Pope for announcing that + + The proper study of mankind is man? + +Is it not more natural to be interested in men than in mountains? Does +nature include man in his natural state? If so, what is the natural +state of man? Is the savage the man of nature, or the unsophisticated +peasant, or the man whose natural powers are developed to the highest +pitch? Is a native of the Andaman Islands the superior of Socrates? If +you admit that Socrates is superior to the savage, where do you draw the +line between the natural and the artificial? If a coral reef is natural +and beautiful because it is the work of insects, and a town artificial +and ugly because made by man, we must reject as unnatural all the best +products of the human race. If you distinguish between different works +of man, the distinction becomes irrelevant, for the products to which we +most object are just as natural, in any assignable sense of the word, as +those which we most admire. The word natural may indeed be used as +equivalent simply to beneficial or healthy; but then it loses all value +as an implicit test of what is and what is not beneficial. Probably, +indeed, some such sense was floating before the minds of most who have +used the term. We shall generally find a vague recognition of the fact +that there is a continuous series of integrating and disintegrating +processes; that some charges imply a normal development of the social or +individual organism leading to increased health and strength, whilst +others are significant of disease and ultimate obliteration or decay of +structure. Thus the artificial style of the Pope school, the appeals to +the muse, the pastoral affectation, and so forth, may be called +unnatural, because the philosophy of that style is the retention of +obsolete symbols after all vitality has departed, and when they +consequently become mere obstructions, embarrassing the free flow of +emotion which they once stimulated. + +But, however this may be, it is plain that the very different senses +given to the word nature by different schools of thought were +characteristic of profoundly different conceptions of the world and its +order. There is a sense in which it may be said with perfect accuracy +that the worship of nature, so far from being a fresh doctrine of the +new school, was the most characteristic tenet of the school from which +it dissented. All the speculative part of the English literature in the +first half of the eighteenth century is a prolonged discussion as to the +meaning and value of the law of nature, the religion of nature, and the +state of nature. The deist controversy, which occupied every one of the +keenest thinkers of the time, turned essentially upon this problem: +granting that there is an ascertainable and absolutely true religion of +nature, what is its relation to revealed religion? That, for example, is +the question explicitly discussed in Butler's typical book, which gives +the pith of the whole orthodox argument, and the same speculation +suggested the theme of Pope's 'Essay on Man,' which, in its occasional +strength and its many weaknesses, is perhaps the most characteristic, +though far from the most valuable product of the time. The religion of +nature undoubtedly meant something very different with Butler or Pope +from what it would have meant with Wordsworth or Coleridge--something so +different, indeed, that we might at first say that the two creeds had +nothing in common but the name. But we may see from Rousseau that there +was a real and intimate connection. Rousseau's philosophy, in fact, is +taken bodily from the teaching of his English predecessors. His +celebrated profession of faith through the lips of the Vicaire Savoyard, +which delighted Voltaire and profoundly influenced the leaders of the +French Revolution, is in fact the expression of a deism identical with +that of Pope's essay.[18] The political theories of the Social Contract +are founded upon the same base which served Locke and the English +political theorists of 1688; and are applied to sanction the attempt to +remodel existing societies in accordance with what they would have +called the law of nature. It is again perfectly true that Rousseau drew +from his theory consequences which inspired Robespierre, and would have +made Locke's hair stand on end; and that Pope would have been +scandalised at the too open revelation of his religious tendencies. It +is also true that Rousseau's passion was of infinitely greater +importance than his philosophy. But it remains true that the logical +framework into which his theories were fitted came to him straight from +the same school of thought which was dominant in England during the +preceding period. The real change effected by Rousseau was that he +breathed life into the dead bones. The English theorists, as has been +admirably shown by Mr. Morley in his 'Rousseau,' acted after their +national method. They accepted doctrines which, if logically developed, +would have led to a radical revolution, and therefore refused to develop +them logically. They remained in their favourite attitude of compromise, +and declined altogether to accommodate practice to theory. Locke's +political principles fairly carried out implied universal suffrage, the +absolute supremacy of the popular will, and the abolition of class +privileges. And yet it never seems to have occurred to him that he was +even indirectly attacking that complex structure of the British +Constitution, rooted in history, marked in every detail by special +conditions of growth, and therefore anomalous to the last degree when +tried by _a priori_ reasoning, of which Burke's philosophical eloquence +gives the best explanation and apology. Similarly, Clarke's theology is +pure deism, embodied in a series of propositions worked out on the model +of a mathematical text-book, and yet in his eyes perfectly consistent +with an acceptance of the orthodox dogmas which repose upon traditional +authority. This attitude of mind, so intelligible on this side of the +Channel, was utterly abhorrent to Rousseau's logical instincts. +Englishmen were content to keep their abstract theories for the closet +or the lecture-room, and dropped them as soon as they were in the pulpit +or in Parliament. Rousseau could give no quarter to any doctrine which +could not be fitted into a symmetrical edifice of abstract reasoning. He +carried into actual warfare the weapons which his English teachers had +kept for purposes of mere scholastic disputation. A monarchy, an order +of privileged nobility, a hierarchy claiming supernatural authority, +were not logically justifiable on the accepted principles. Never mind, +was the English answer, they work very well in practice; let us leave +them alone. Down with them to the ground! was Rousseau's passionate +retort. Realise the ideal; force practice into conformity with theory; +the voice of the poor and the oppressed is crying aloud for vengeance; +the divergence of the actual from the theoretical is no mere trifle to +be left to the slow action of time; it means the misery of millions and +the corruption of their rulers. The doctrine which had amused +philosophers was to become the war-cry of the masses; the men of '89 +were at no loss to translate into precepts suited for the immediate +wants of the day the doctrines which found their first utterance in the +glow of his voluminous eloquence; and the fall of the Bastille showed +the first vibrations of the earthquake which is still shaking the soil +of Europe. + +It is easy, then, to give a logical meaning to Rousseau's return to +nature. The whole inanimate world, so ran his philosophy, is perfect, +and shows plainly the marks of the Divine workmanship. All evil really +comes from man's abuse of freewill. Mountains, and forests, and seas, +all objects which have not suffered from his polluting touch, are +perfect and admirable. Let us fall down and worship. Man, too, himself, +as he came from his Creator's hands, is perfect. His 'natural'--that is, +original--impulses are all good; and in all men, in all races and +regions of the earth, we find a conscience which unerringly +distinguishes good from evil, and a love of his fellows which causes man +to obey the dictates of his conscience. And yet the world, as we see it, +is a prison or a lazar-house. Disease and starvation make life a burden, +and poison the health of the coming generations; those whom fortune has +placed above the masses make use of their advantages to harden their +hearts, and extract means of selfish enjoyment from the sufferings of +their fellow-creatures. What is the source of this heartrending discord? +The abuse of men's freewill; that is, of the mysterious power which +enables us to act contrary to the dictates of nature. What is the best +name for the disease which it generates? Luxury and corruption--the two +cant objects of denunciations which were as popular in the +pre-revolutionary generation as attacks upon sensationalism and +over-excitement at the present day. And what, then, is the mode of +cure? The return to nature. We are to make history run backwards, to +raze to its foundations the whole social and intellectual structure that +has been erected by generations of corrupt and selfish men. Everything +by which the civilised man differs from some theoretical pretension is +tainted with a kind of original sin. Political institutions, as they +exist, are conveniences for enabling the rich to rob the poor, and +churches contrivances by which priests make ignorance and superstition +play into the hands of selfish authority. Level all the existing order, +and build up a new one on principles of pure reason; give up all the +philosophical and theological dogmas, which have been the work of +designing priests and bewildered speculators, and revert to that pure +and simple religion which is divinely implanted in the heart of every +uncorrupted human being. The Savoyard vicar, if you have any doubts, +will tell you what is the true creed; and if you don't believe it, is +Rousseau's rather startling corollary, you ought to be put to death. + +That final touch shows the arbitrary and despotic spirit characteristic +of the relentless theorist. I need not here inquire what relation may be +borne by Rousseau's theories to any which could now be accepted by +intelligent thinkers. It is enough to say that there would be, to put it +gently, some slight difficulty in settling the details of this pure +creed common to all unsophisticated minds, and in seeing what would be +left when we had destroyed all institutions alloyed by sin and +selfishness. The meaning, however, in this connection of his love of +nature, taking the words in their mere common-sense, is in harmony with +his system. The mountains, whose worship he was the first to adumbrate, +if not actually to institute, were the symbols of the great natural +forces free from any stain of human interference. Greed and cruelty had +not stained the pure waters of his lovely lake, or dimmed the light to +which his vicar points as in the early morning it grazes the edges of +the mighty mountain buttresses. Whatever symbolism may be found in the +Alps, suggesting emotions of awe, wonder, and softened melancholy, came +unstained by the association with the vices of a complex civilisation. +If poets and critics have not quite analysed the precise nature of our +modern love of mountain scenery, the sentiment may at least be +illustrated by a modern parallel. The most eloquent writer who, in our +day, has transferred to his pages the charm of Alpine beauties, shares +in many ways Rousseau's antipathy for the social order. Mr. Ruskin would +explain better than anyone why the love of the sublimest scenery should +be associated with a profound conviction that all things are out of +joint, and that society can only be regenerated by rejecting all the +achievements upon which the ordinary optimist plumes himself. After all, +it is not surprising that those who are most sick of man as he is should +love the regions where man seems smallest. When Swift wished to express +his disgust for his race, he showed how absurd our passions appear in a +creature six inches high; and the mountains make us all Liliputians. In +other mouths Rousseau's sentiment, more fully interpreted, became +unequivocally misanthropical. Byron, if any definite logical theory were +to be fixed upon him, excluded the human race at large from his +conception of nature. He loved, or talked as though he loved, the +wilderness precisely because it was a wilderness; the sea because it +sent men 'shivering to their gods,' and the mountains because their +avalanches crush the petty works of human industry. Rousseau was less +anti-social than his disciple. The mountains with him were the great +barriers which kept civilisation and all its horrors at bay. They were +the asylums for liberty and simplicity. There the peasant, unspoilt as +yet by _trinkgelds_, not oppressed by the great, nor corrupted by the +rich, could lead that idyllic life upon which his fancy delighted. In a +passage quoted, as Sainte-Beuve notices, by Cowper, Rousseau describes, +with his usual warmth of sentiment, the delightful _matinee anglaise_ +passed in sight of the Alps by the family which had learnt the charms of +simplicity, and regulated its manners and the education of its children +by the unsophisticated laws of nature. It is doubtless a charming +picture, though the virtuous persons concerned are a little +over-conscious of their virtue, and it indicates a point of coincidence +between the two men. Rousseau, as Mr. Morley says, could appreciate as +well as Cowper the charms of a simple and natural life. Nobody could be +more eloquent on the beauty of domesticity; no one could paint better +the happiness of family life, where the main occupation was the +primitive labour of cultivating the ground, where no breath of +unhallowed excitement penetrated from the restless turmoil of the +outside world, where the mother knew her place, and kept to her placid +round of womanly duties, and where the children were taught with a +gentle firmness which developed every germ of reason and affection, +without undue stimulus or undue repression. And yet one must doubt +whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of +the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to +listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with +cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'[19] would have been a little +scandalised by some of the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, +and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. Cowper +and Mrs. Unwin, and even their more fashionable friend, Lady Austen, +would have felt their respectable prejudices shocked by contact with the +new Heloise; and the views of life taken by their teacher, the converted +slaveholder, John Newton, were as opposite as possible to those of +Rousseau's imaginary vicar. Indeed, Rousseau's ideal families have that +stain of affectation from which Cowper is so conspicuously free. The +rose-colour is laid on too thickly. They are too fond of taking credit +for universal admiration of the fine feelings which invariably animate +their breasts; their charitable sentiments are apt to take the form of +very easy condonation of vice; and if they repudiate the world, we +cannot believe that they are really unconscious of its existence. +Perhaps this dash of self-consciousness was useful in recommending them +to the taste of the jaded and weary society, sickening of a strange +disease which it could not interpret to itself, and finding for the +moment a new excitement in the charms of ancient simplicity. The real +thing might have palled upon it. But Rousseau's artificial and +self-conscious simplicity expressed that vague yearning and spirit of +unrest which could generate a half-sensual sentimentalism, but could be +repelled by genuine sentiment. Perhaps it not uncommonly happens that +those who are more or less tainted with a morbid tendency can denounce +it most effectually. The most effective satirist is the man who has +escaped with labour and pains, and not without some grievous stains, +from the slough in which others are still mired. The perfectly pure has +sometimes too little sympathy with his weaker brethren to place himself +at their point of view. Indeed, as we shall have occasion to remark, +Cowper is an instance of a thinker too far apart from the great world to +apply the lash effectually. + +Rousseau's view of the world and its evils was thus coherent enough, +however unsatisfactory in its basis, and was a development of, not a +reaction against, the previously dominant philosophy; and, though using +a different dialect and confined by different conditions, Cowper's +attack upon the existing order harmonises with much of Rousseau's +language. The first volume of poems, in which he had not yet discovered +the secret of his own strength, is in form a continuation of the satires +of the Pope school, and in substance a religious version of Rousseau's +denunciations of luxury. Amongst the first symptoms of the growing +feeling of uneasy discontent had been the popularity of Brown's +now-forgotten 'Estimate.' + + The inestimable estimate of Brown + Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town, + +says Cowper; and he proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious +administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the +country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and +lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' +'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all +turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or +simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of +meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the +coarse-fibred friend of his youth, we have a sad strain of lamentation +over the growing luxury and effeminacy of the age. It is a continued +anticipation of the lines in the 'Task,' which seem to express his most +serious and sincere conviction. + + The course of human ills, from good to ill, + From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. + Increase of power begets increase of wealth, + Wealth luxury, and luxury excess: + Excess the scrofulous and itchy plague, + That seizes first the opulent, descends + To the next rank contagious, and in time + Taints downwards all the graduated scale + Of order, from the chariot to the plough. + +That is his one unvariable lesson, set in different lights, but +associated more or less closely with every observation. The world is +ripening or rotting; and, as with Rousseau, luxury is the most +significant name of the absorbing evil. That such a view should commend +itself to a mind so clouded with melancholy would not be at any time +surprising, but it fell in with a widely spread conviction. Cowper had +not, indeed, learnt the most effective mode of touching men's hearts. +Separated by a retirement of twenty years from the world, with which he +had never been very familiar, and at which he only 'peeped through the +loopholes of retreat,' his satire wanted the brilliance, the quickness +of illustration from actual life, which alone makes satire readable. His +tone of feeling too frequently suggests that the critic represents the +querulous comments of old ladies gossiping about the outside world over +their tea-cups, easily scandalised by very simple things. Mrs. Unwin was +an excellent old lady, and Newton a most zealous country clergyman. +Probably they were intrinsically superior to the fine ladies and +gentlemen who laughed at them. But a mind acclimatised to the atmosphere +which they breathed inevitably lost its nervous tone. There was true +masculine vigour underlying Cowper's jeremiads; but it was natural that +many people should only see in him an amiable valetudinarian, not +qualified for a censorship of statesmen and men of the world. The man +who fights his way through London streets can't stop to lament over +every splash and puddle which might shock poor Cowper's nervous +sensibility. + +The last poem of the series, however, 'Retirement,' showed that Cowper +had a more characteristic and solacing message to mankind than a mere +rehearsal of the threadbare denunciations of luxury. The 'Task' revealed +his genuine power. There appeared those admirable delineations of +country scenery and country thoughts which Sainte-Beuve detaches so +lovingly from the mass of serious speculation in which they are +embedded. What he, as a purely literary critic, passed over as +comparatively uninteresting, gives the exposition of Cowper's +intellectual position. The poem is in fact a political, moral, and +religious disquisition interspersed with charming vignettes, which, +though not obtrusively moralised, illustrate the general thesis. The +poetical connoisseur may separate them from their environment, as a +collector of engravings might cut out the illustrations from the now +worthless letterpress. The poor author might complain that the most +important moral was thus eliminated from his book. But the author is +dead, and his opinions don't much matter. To understand Cowper's mind, +however, we must take the now obsolete meditation with the permanently +attractive pictures. To know why he so tenderly loved the slow windings +of the sinuous Ouse, we must see what he thought of the great Babel +beyond. It is the distant murmur of the great city that makes his little +refuge so attractive. The general vein of thought which appears in every +book of the poem is most characteristically expressed in the fifth, +called 'A Winter Morning Walk.' Cowper strolls out at sunrise in his +usual mood of tender playfulness, smiles at the vast shadow cast by the +low winter sun, as he sees upon the cottage wall the + + Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. + +He remarks, with a passing recollection of his last sermon, that we are +all shadows; but turns to note the cattle cowering behind the fences; +the labourer carving the haystack; the woodman going to work, followed +by his half-bred cur, and cheered by the fragrance of his short pipe. He +watches the marauding sparrows, and thinks with tenderness of the fate +of less audacious birds; and then pauses to examine the strange fretwork +erected at the mill-dam by the capricious freaks of the frost. Art, it +suggests to him, is often beaten by Nature; and his fancy goes off to +the winter palace of ice erected by the Russian empress. His friend +Newton makes use of the same easily allegorised object in one of his +religious writings; though I know not whether the poet or the divine +first turned it to account. Cowper, at any rate, is immediately diverted +into a meditation on 'human grandeur and the courts of kings.' The +selfishness and folly of the great give him an obvious theme for a +dissertation in the true Rousseau style. He tells us how 'kings were +first invented'--the ordinary theory of the time being that +political--deists added religious--institutions were all somehow +'invented' by knaves to impose upon fools. 'War is a game,' he says, in +the familiar phrase, + + 'Which were their subjects wise + Kings would not play at.' + +But, unluckily, their subjects are fools. In England indeed--for Cowper, +by virtue of his family traditions, was in theory a sound Whig--we know +how far to trust our kings; and he rises into a warmth on behalf of +liberty for which he thinks it right to make a simple-minded apology in +a note. The sentiment suggests a vigorous and indeed prophetic +denunciation of the terrors of the Bastille, and its 'horrid towers and +dungeons.' + + There's not an English heart that would not leap + To hear that ye were fallen at last! + +Within five or six years English hearts were indeed welcoming the event +thus foretold as the prospect of a new era of liberty. Liberty, says +Cowper, is the one thing which makes England dear. Were that boon lost, + + I would at least bewail it under skies + Milder, amongst a people less austere; + In scenes which, having never known me free, + Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.[20] + +So far Cowper was but expressing the sentiments of Rousseau, omitting, +of course, Rousseau's hearty dislike for England. But liberty suggests +to Cowper a different and more solemn vein of thought. There are worse +dungeons, he remembers, than the Bastille, and a slavery compared with +which that of the victims of French tyranny is a trifle-- + + There is yet a liberty unsung + By poets, and by senators unpraised, + Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power + Of earth and hell confederate take away. + +The patriot is lower than the martyr, though more highly prized by the +world; and Cowper changes his strain of patriotic fervour into a +prolonged devotional comment upon the text, + + He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, + And all are slaves besides. + +Who would have thought that we could glide so easily into so solemn a +topic from looking at the quaint freaks of morning shadows? But the +charm of the 'Task' is its sincerity; and in Cowper's mind the most +trivial objects really are connected by subtle threads of association +with the most solemn thoughts. He begins with mock heroics on the sofa, +and ends with a glowing vision of the millennium. No dream of human +perfectibility, but the expected advent of the true Ruler of the earth, +is the relief to the palpable darkness of the existing world. The +'Winter Walk' traces the circle of thought through which his mind +invariably revolves. + +It would be a waste of labour to draw out in definite formula the +systems adopted, from emotional sympathy, rather than from any logical +speculation, by Cowper and Rousseau. Each in some degree owed his +power--though Rousseau in a far higher degree than Cowper--to his +profound sensitiveness to the heavy burden of the time. Each of them +felt like a personal grief, and exaggerated in a distempered +imagination, the weariness and the forebodings more dimly present to +contemporaries. In an age when old forms of government had grown rigid +and obsolete, when the stiffened crust of society was beginning to heave +with new throes, when ancient faiths had left mere husks of dead formulae +to cramp the minds of men, when even superficial observers were startled +by vague omens of a coming crash, or expected some melodramatic +regeneration of the world, it was perhaps not strange that two men, +tottering on the verge of madness, should be amongst the most +impressive prophets. The truth of Butler's speculation, that nations, +like individuals, might go mad, was about to receive an apparent +confirmation. Cowper, like Rousseau, might see the world through the +distorting haze of a disordered fancy, but the world at large was itself +strangely disordered, and the smouldering discontent of the inarticulate +masses found an echo in their passionate utterances. Their voices were +like the moan of a coming earthquake. + +The difference, however, so characteristic of the two countries, is +reflected by the national representatives. Nobody could be less of a +revolutionist than Cowper. His whiggism was little more than a +tradition. Though he felt bound to denounce kings, to talk about Hampden +and Sidney, and to sympathise with Mrs. Macaulay's old-fashioned +republicanism, there was not a more loyal subject of George III., or one +more disposed, when he could turn his mind from his pet hares to the +concerns of the empire, to lament the revolt of the American colonies. +The awakening of England from the pleasant slumbers of the eighteenth +century--for it seems pleasant in these more restless times--took place +in a curiously sporadic and heterogeneous fashion. In France the +spiritual and temporal were so intricately welded together, the +interests of the State were so deeply involved in maintaining the faith +of the Church, that conservatism and orthodoxy naturally went together. +Philosophers rejected with equal fervour the established religious and +the political creed. The new volume of passionate feeling, no longer +satisfied with the ancient barriers, poured itself in both cases into +the revolutionary channel. In England no such plain and simple issue +existed. We had our usual system of compromises in practice, and hybrid +combinations of theory. There were infidel conservatives and radical +believers. The man who more than any other influenced English history +during that century was John Wesley. Wesley was to the full as deeply +impressed as Rousseau with the moral and social evils of the time. We +may doubt whether Cowper's denunciations of luxury owed most to +Rousseau's sentimental eloquence or to the matter-of-fact vigour of +Wesley's 'Appeals.' Cowper's portrait of Whitefield--'Leuconomus,' as he +calls him, to evade the sneers of the cultivated--and his frequent +references to the despised sect of Methodists reveal the immediate +source of much of his indignation. So far as those evils were caused by +the intellectual and moral conditions common to Europe at large, Wesley +and Rousseau might be called allies. Both of them gave satisfaction to +the need for a free play of unsatisfied emotions. Their solutions of the +problem were of course radically different; and Cowper only speaks the +familiar language of his sect when he taunts the philosopher with his +incapacity to free man from his bondage: + + Spend all the powers + Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise, + Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, + And with poetic trappings grace thy prose + Till it outmantle all the pride of verse; + +where he was possibly, as Sainte-Beuve suggests, thinking of Rousseau, +though Shaftesbury was the more frequent butt of such denunciations. The +difference in the solution of the great problem of moral regeneration +was facilitated by the difference of the environment. Rousseau, though +he shows a sentimental tenderness for Christianity, could not be +orthodox without putting himself on the side of the oppressors. Wesley, +though feeling profoundly the social discords of the time, could take +the side of the poor without the need of breaking in pieces a rigid +system of class-privilege. The evil which he had to encounter did not +present itself as tyranny oppressing helplessness, but as a general +neglect of reciprocal duties verging upon license. On the whole, +therefore, he took the conservative side of political questions. When +the American war gave the first signal of coming troubles, the +combinations of opinion were significant of the general state of mind. +Wesley and Johnson denounced the rebels from the orthodox point of view +with curious coincidence of language. The only man of equal intellectual +calibre who took the same side unequivocally was the arch-infidel +Gibbon. The then sleepy Established Church was too tolerant or too +indifferent to trouble him: why should he ally himself with Puritans and +enthusiasts to attack the Government which at once supported and tied +its hands? On the other side, we find such lovers of the established +religious order as Burke associated with free-thinkers like Tom Paine +and Horne Tooke. Tooke might agree with Voltaire in private, but he +could not air his opinions to a party which relied in no small measure +on the political zeal of sound dissenters. Dissent, in fact, meant +something like atheism combined with radicalism in France; in England it +meant desire for the traditional liberties of Englishmen, combined with +an often fanatical theological creed. + +Cowper, brought up amidst such surroundings, had no temptation to adopt +Rousseau's sweeping revolutionary fervour. His nominal whiggism was not +warmed into any subversive tendency. The labourers with whose sorrows he +sympathised might be ignorant, coarse, and drunken; he saw their faults +too clearly to believe in Rousseau's idyllic conventionalities, and +painted the truth as realistically as Crabbe: they required to be kept +out of the public-house, not to be liberated from obsolete feudal +disqualifications; a poacher, such as he described, was not the victim +of a brutal aristocracy, but simply a commonplace variety of thief. And, +on the other hand, when he denounces the laziness and selfishness of the +Establishment, the luxurious bishops, the sycophantic curates, the +sporting and the fiddling and the card-playing parson, he has no thought +of the enmity to Christianity which such satire would have suggested to +a French reformer, but is mentally contrasting the sleepiness of the +bishops with the virtues of Newton or Whitefield. + + 'Where dwell these matchless saints?' old Curio cries. + 'Even at your side, sir, and before your eyes, + The favour'd few, the enthusiasts you despise.' + +And whatever be thought of Cowper's general estimate of the needs of his +race, it must be granted that in one respect his philosophy was more +consequent than Rousseau's. Rousseau, though a deist in theory, rejected +the deist conclusion, that whatever is, is right; and consequently the +problem of how it can be that men, who are naturally so good, are in +fact so vile, remained a difficulty, only slurred over by his fluent +metaphysics about freewill. Cowper's belief in the profound corruption +of human nature supplied him with a doctrine less at variance with his +view of facts. He has no illusions about the man of nature. The savage, +he tells us, was a drunken beast till rescued from his bondage by the +zeal of the Moravian missionaries; and the poor are to be envied, not +because their lives are actually much better, but because they escape +the temptations and sophistries of the rich and learned. + +But how should this sentiment fit in with Cowper's love of nature? In +the language of his sect, nature is generally opposed to grace. It is +applied to a world in which not only the human inhabitants, but the +whole creation, is tainted with a mysterious evil. Why should Cowper +find relief in contemplating a system in which waste and carnage play so +conspicuous a part? Why, when he rescued his pet hares from the general +fate of their race, did he not think of the innumerable hares who +suffered not only from guns and greyhounds, but from the general +annoyances incident to the struggle for existence? Would it not have +been more logical if he had placed his happiness altogether in another +world, where the struggles and torments of our everyday life are +unknown? Indeed, though Cowper, as an orthodox Protestant, held that +ascetic practices ministered simply to spiritual conceit, was he not +bound to a sufficiently galling form of asceticism? His friends +habitually looked askance upon all those pleasures of the intellect and +the imagination which are not directly subservient to the religious +emotions. They had grave doubts of the expediency of his studies of the +pagan Homer. They looked with suspicion upon the slightest indulgence in +social amusements. And Cowper fully shared their sentiments. A taste for +music, for example, generally suggests to him a parson fiddling when he +ought to be praying; and following once more the lead of Newton, he +remarks upon the Handel celebration as a piece of grotesque profanity. +The name of science calls up to him a pert geologist, declaring after an +examination of the earth + + That He who made it, and revealed its date + To Moses, was mistaken in its age. + +Not only is the great bulk of his poetry directly religious or +devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has +admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to +Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, _Vive la +bagatelle!_ as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have +said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because +he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very +different. Nothing is more melancholy than Swift's elaborate triflings, +because they represent the efforts of a powerful intellect passing into +madness under enforced inaction, to kill time by childish occupation. +And the diagnosis of Cowper's case is similar. He trifles, he says, +because he is reduced to it by necessity. His most ludicrous verses have +been written in his saddest mood. It would be, he adds, 'but a shocking +vagary' if the sailors on a ship in danger relieved themselves 'by +fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such a part act I.' His love of +country sights and pleasures is so intense because it is the most +effectual relief. 'Oh!' he exclaims, 'I could spend whole days and +nights in gazing upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as +they flow.' And he adds, in his characteristic vein of thought, 'if +every human being upon earth could feel as I have done for many years, +there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an +unawakened one could be found from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle.' +The earth and the sun itself are, he says, but 'baubles;' but they are +the baubles which alone can distract his attention from more awful +prospects. His little garden and greenhouse are playthings lent to him +for a time, and soon to be left. He 'never framed a wish or formed a +plan,' as he says in the 'Task,' of which the scene was not laid in the +country; and when the gloomiest forebodings unhinged his mind, his love +became a passion. He is like his own prisoner in the Bastille playing +with spiders. All other avenues of delight are closed to him; he +believes, whenever his dark hour of serious thought returns, that he is +soon to be carried off to unspeakable torments; all ordinary methods of +human pleasure seem to be tainted with some corrupting influence; but +whilst playing with his spaniel, or watching his cucumbers, or walking +with Mrs. Unwin in the fields, he can for a moment distract his mind +with purely innocent pleasures. The awful background of his visions, +never quite absent, though often, we may hope, far removed from actual +consciousness, throws out these hours of delight into more prominent +relief. The sternest of his monitors, John Newton himself, could hardly +grudge this cup of cold water presented, as it were, to the lips of a +man in a self-made purgatory. + +This is the peculiar turn which gives so characteristic a tone to +Cowper's loving portraits of scenery. He is like the Judas seen by St. +Brandan on the iceberg; he is enjoying a momentary relaxation between +the past of misery and the future of anticipated torment. Such a +sentiment must, fortunately, be in some sense exceptional and +idiosyncratic. And yet, once more, it fell in with the prevailing +current of thought. Cowper agrees with Rousseau in finding that the +contemplation of scenery, unpolluted by human passion, and the enjoyment +of a calm domestic life is the best anodyne for a spirit wearied with +the perpetual disorders of a corrupt social order. He differs from him, +as we have seen, in the conviction that a deeper remedy is wanting than +any mere political change; in a more profound sense of human wickedness, +and, on the other hand, in a narrower estimate of the conditions of +human life. His definition of Nature, to put it logically, would exclude +that natural man in whose potential existence Rousseau more or less +believed. The passionate love of scenery was enough to distinguish him +from the poets of the preceding school, whose supposed hatred of Nature +meant simply that they were thoroughly immersed in the pleasures of a +society then first developed in its modern form, and not yet undermined +by the approach of a new revolution. The men of Pope and Addison's time +looked upon country squires as bores incapable of intellectual pleasure, +and, therefore, upon country life as a topic for gentle ridicule, or +more frequently as an unmitigated nuisance. Probably their estimate was +a very sound one. When a true poet like Thomson really enjoyed the fresh +air, his taste did not become a passion, and the scenery appeared to him +as a pleasant background to his Castle of Indolence. Cowper's peculiar +religious views prevented him again from anticipating the wider and more +philosophical sentiment of Wordsworth. Like Pope and Wordsworth, indeed, +he occasionally uses language which has a pantheistic sound. He +expresses his belief that + + There lives and works + A soul in all things, and that soul is God. + +But when Pope uses a similar phrase, it is the expression of a decaying +philosophy which never had much vitality, or passed from the sphere of +intellectual speculation to affect the imagination and the emotions. It +is a dogma which he holds sincerely, it may be, but not firmly enough to +colour his habitual sentiments. With Wordsworth, whatever its precise +meaning, it is an expression of an habitual and abiding sentiment, which +rises naturally to his lips whenever he abandons himself to his +spontaneous impulses. With Cowper, as is the case with all Cowper's +utterances, it is absolutely sincere for the time; but it is a doctrine +not very easily adapted to his habitual creed, and which drops out of +his mind whenever he passes from external nature to himself or his +fellows. The indwelling divinity whom he recognises in every 'freckle, +streak, or stain' on his favourite flowers, seems to be hopelessly +removed from his own personal interests. An awful and mysterious decree +has separated him for ever from the sole source of consolation. + +This is not the place to hint at any judgment upon Cowper's theology, or +to inquire how far a love of nature, in his sense of the words, can be +logically combined with a system based upon the fundamental dogma of the +corruption of man. Certainly a similar anticipation of the poetical +pantheism of Wordsworth may be found in that most logical of Calvinists, +Jonathan Edwards. Cowper, too, could be at no loss for scriptural +precedents, when recognising the immediate voice of God in thunder and +earthquakes, or in the calmer voices of the waterbrooks and the meadows. +His love of nature, at any rate, is at once of a narrower and sincerer +kind than that which Rousseau first made fashionable. He has no tendency +to the misanthropic or cynical view which induces men of morbid or +affected minds to profess a love of savage scenery simply because it is +savage. Neither does he rise to the more philosophical view which sees +in the seas and the mountains the most striking symbols of the great +forces of the universe to which we must accommodate ourselves, and which +might therefore rightfully be associated by a Wordsworth with the +deepest emotions of reverential awe. Nature is to him but a collection +of 'baubles,' soon to be taken away, and he seeks in its contemplation +a temporary relief from anguish, not a permanent object of worship. He +would dread that sentiment as a deistical form of idolatry; and he is +equally far from thinking that the natural man, wherever that vague +person might be found, could possibly be a desirable object of +imitation. His love of nature, in short, keen as it might be, was not +the reflection of any philosophical, religious, or political theory. But +it was genuine enough to charm many who might regard his theological +sentiments as a mere recrudescence of an obsolete form of belief. Mr. +Mill tells us how Wordsworth's poetry, little as he sympathised with +Wordsworth's opinions, solaced an intellect wearied with premature Greek +and over-doses of Benthamism. Such a relief must have come to many +readers of Cowper, who would put down his religion as rank fanaticism, +and his satire as anile declamation. Men suffered even then--though +Cowper was a predecessor of Miss Austen--from existing forms of 'life at +high pressure.' If life was not then so overcrowded, the evils under +which men were suffering appeared to be even more hopeless. The great +lesson of the value of intervals of calm retreat, of silence and +meditation, was already needed, if it is now still more pressing. Cowper +said, substantially, Leave the world, as Rousseau said, Upset the world. +The reformer, to say nothing of his greater intellectual power, +naturally interested the world which he threatened more than the recluse +whom it frightened. Limited within a narrower circle of ideas, and +living in a society where the great issues of the time were not +presented in so naked a form, Cowper's influence ran in a more confined +channel. He felt the incapacity of the old order to satisfy the +emotional wants of mankind, but was content to revive the old forms of +belief instead of seeking a more radical remedy in some subversive or +reconstructive system of thought. But the depth and sincerity of feeling +which explains his marvellous intensity of pathos is sometimes a +pleasant relief to the sentimentalism of his greater predecessor. Nor is +it hard to understand why his passages of sweet and melancholy musing by +the quiet Ouse should have come like a breath of fresh air to the jaded +generation waiting for the fall of the Bastille--and of other things. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] Rousseau himself seems to refer to Clarke, the leader of the +English rationalising school, as the best expounder of his theory, and +defended Pope's Essay against the criticisms of Voltaire. + +[19] A phrase by the way, which Cowper, though little given to +borrowing, took straight from Berkeley's 'Siris.' + +[20] Lord Tennyson suggests the same consolation in the lines ending-- + + Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, + Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky; + And I will see before I die + The palms and temples of the South. + + + + +_THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS_ + + +When browsing at random in a respectable library, one is pretty sure to +hit upon the early numbers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and prompted in +consequence to ask oneself the question, What are the intrinsic merits +of writing which produced so great an effect upon our grandfathers? The +'Review,' we may say, has lived into a third generation. The last +survivor of the original set has passed away; and there are but few +relics even of that second galaxy of authors amongst whom Macaulay was +the most brilliant star. One may speak, therefore, without shocking +existing susceptibilities, of the 'Review' in its first period, when +Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham were the most prominent names. A man +may still call himself middle-aged and yet have a distinct memory of +Brougham courting, rather too eagerly, the applause of the Social +Science Association; or Jeffrey, as he appeared in his kindly old age, +when he could hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet; and even of the +last outpourings of the irrepressible gaiety of Sydney Smith. But the +period of their literary activity is already so distant as to have +passed into the domain of history. It is the same thing to say that it +already belongs in some degree to the neighbouring or overlapping domain +of fiction. + +There is, in fact, already a conventional history of the early +'Edinburgh Review,' repeated without hesitation in all literary +histories and assumed in a thousand allusions, which becomes a little +incredible when we take down the dusty old volumes, where dingy calf has +replaced the original splendours of the blue and yellow, and which have +inevitably lost much of their savour during more than half a century's +repose. The story of the original publication has been given by the +chief founders. Edinburgh, at the beginning of the century, was one of +those provincial centres of intellectual activity which have an +increasing difficulty in maintaining themselves against metropolitan +attractions. In the last half of the eighteenth century, such +philosophical activity as existed in the country seemed to have taken +refuge in the northern half of the island. A set of brilliant young men, +living in a society still proud of the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith, +Reid, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and other northern luminaries, might +naturally be susceptible to the stimulus of literary ambition. In +politics the most rampant Conservatism, rendered bitter by the recent +experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more +undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger +men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an +organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever +lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23) +met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth') +story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation. +The first number appeared in October 1802, and produced, we are told, an +'electrical' effect. Its old humdrum rivals collapsed before it. Its +science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its +politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight +of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn, a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon, +suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political +principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism, +unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we +must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of +reforms, now familiar to us all, were still regarded as startling +innovations. The Catholics were not emancipated, nor the game-laws +softened, nor the Court of Chancery reformed, nor the slave-trade +abolished. Cruel punishment still disgraced the criminal code, libel was +put down with vindictive severity, prisoners were not allowed counsel in +capital cases, and many other grievances now wholly or partially +redressed were still flourishing in full force. + +Were they put down solely by the 'Edinburgh Review?' That, of course, +would not be alleged by its most ardent admirers; though Sydney Smith +certainly holds that the attacks of the 'Edinburgh' were amongst the +most efficient causes of the many victories which followed. I am not +concerned to dispute the statement; nor in fact do I doubt that it +contains much truth. But if we look at the 'Review' simply as literary +connoisseurs, and examine its volumes expecting to be edified by such +critical vigour and such a plentiful outpouring of righteous indignation +in burning language as might correspond to this picture of a great organ +of liberal opinion, we shall, I fear, be cruelly disappointed. Let us +speak the plain truth at once. Everyone who turns from the periodical +literature of the present day to the original 'Edinburgh Review' will be +amazed at its inferiority. It is generally dull, and, when not dull, +flimsy. The vigour has departed; the fire is extinct. To some extent, of +course, this is inevitable. Even the magnificent eloquence of Burke has +lost some of its early gloss. We can read, comparatively unmoved, +passages that would have once carried us off our legs in the exuberant +torrent of passionate invective. But, making all possible allowance for +the fading of all things human, I think that every reader who is frank +will admit his disappointment. Here and there, of course, amusing +passages illuminated by Sydney Smith's humour or Jeffrey's slashing and +swaggering retain a few sparks of fire. The pertness and petulance of +the youthful critics are amusing, though hardly in the way intended by +themselves. But, as a rule, one may most easily characterise the +contents by saying that few of the articles would have a chance of +acceptance by the editor of a first-rate periodical to-day; and that the +majority belong to an inferior variety of what is now called +'padding'--mere perfunctory bits of work, obviously manufactured by the +critic out of the book before him. + +The great political importance of the 'Edinburgh Review' belongs to a +later period. When the Whigs began to revive after the long reign of +Tory principles, and such questions as Roman Catholic Emancipation and +Parliamentary Reform were seriously coming to the front, the 'Review' +grew to be a most effective organ of the rising party. Even in earlier +years, it was doubtless a matter of real moment that the ablest +periodical of the day should manifest sympathies with the cause then so +profoundly depressed. But in those years there is nothing of that +vehement and unsparing advocacy of Whig principles which we might expect +from a band of youthful enthusiasts. So far indeed was the 'Review' from +unhesitating partisanship that the sound Tory Scott contributed to its +pages for some years; and so late as the end of 1807 invited Southey, +then developing into fiercer Toryism, as became a 'renegade' or a +'convert,' to enlist under Jeffrey. Southey, it is true, was prevented +from joining by scruples shared by his correspondent, but it was not for +another year that the breach became irreparable. The final offence was +given by the 'famous article upon Cevallos,' which appeared in October +1808. Even at that period Scott understood some remarks of Jeffrey's as +an offer to suppress the partisan tendencies of his 'Review.' Jeffrey +repudiated this interpretation; but the statement is enough to show +that, for six years after its birth, the 'Review' had not been conducted +in such a way as to pledge itself beyond all redemption in the eyes of +staunch Tories.[21] + +The Cevallos article, the work in uncertain proportions of Brougham and +Jeffrey, was undoubtedly calculated to give offence. It contained an +eloquent expression of foreboding as to the chances of the war in +Spain. The Whigs, whose policy had been opposed to the war, naturally +prophesied its ill-success, and, until this period, facts had certainly +not confuted their auguries. It was equally natural that their opponents +should be scandalised by their apparent want of patriotism. Scott's +indignation was characteristic. The 'Edinburgh Review,' he says, 'tells +you coolly, "We foresee a revolution in this country as well as Mr. +Cobbett;" and, to say the truth, by degrading the person of the +sovereign, exalting the power of the French armies and the wisdom of +their counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be +purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable +to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years +past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own +prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel +family _can_ pretend to be without it,' and it contains the only +valuable literary criticism of the day. The antidote was to be supplied +by the foundation of the 'Quarterly.' The Cevallos article, as Brougham +says, 'first made the Reviewers conspicuous as Liberals.' + +Jeffrey and his friends were in fact in the very difficult position of +all middle parties during a period of intense national and patriotic +excitement. If they attacked Perceval or Canning or Castlereagh in one +direction, they were equally opposed to the rough-and-ready democracy of +Cobbett or Burdett, and to the more philosophical radicalism of men like +Godwin or Bentham. They were generally too young to have been infected +by the original Whig sympathy for the French Revolution, or embittered +by the reaction. They condemned the principles of '89 as decidedly if +not as heartily as the Tories. The difference, as Sydney Smith said to +his imaginary Tory, Abraham Plymley, is 'in the means, not in the end. +We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and abhor the French.' +Only, as the difference about the means was diametrical, Tories +naturally held them to be playing into the hands of destructives, though +more out of cowardice than malignity. In such a position it is not +surprising if the Reviewers generally spoke in apologetic terms and with +bated breath. They could protest against the dominant policy as rash and +bigoted, but could not put forwards conflicting principles without +guarding themselves against the imputation of favouring the common +enemy. The Puritans of Radicalism set down this vacillation to a total +want of fixed principle, if not to baser motives. The first volume of +the 'Westminster Review' (1824) contains a characteristic assault upon +the 'see-saw' system of the 'Edinburgh' by the two Mills. The +'Edinburgh' is sternly condemned for its truckling to the aristocracy, +its cowardice, political immorality, and (of all things!) its +sentimentalism. In after years J. S. Mill contributed to its pages +himself; but the opinion of his fervid youth was that of the whole +Bentham school.[22] It is plain, however, that the 'Review,' even when +it had succeeded, did not absorb the activities of its contributors so +exclusively as is sometimes suggested. They rapidly dispersed to enter +upon different careers. Even before the first number appeared, Jeffrey +complains that almost all his friends are about to emigrate to London; +and the prediction was soon verified. Sydney Smith left to begin his +career as a clergyman in London; Horner and Brougham almost immediately +took to the English bar, with a view to pushing into public life; Allen +joined Lord Holland; Charles Bell set up in a London practice; two other +promising contributors took offence, and deserted the 'Review' in its +infancy; and Jeffrey was left almost alone, though still a centre of +attraction to the scattered group. He himself only undertook the +editorship on the understanding that he might renounce it as soon as he +could do without it; and always guarded himself most carefully against +any appearance of deserting a legal for a literary career. Although the +Edinburgh _cenacle_ was not dissolved, its bonds were greatly loosened; +the chief contributors were in no sense men who looked upon literature +as a principal occupation; and Jeffrey, as much as Brougham and Horner, +would have resented, as a mischievous imputation, the suggestion that +his chief energies were devoted to the 'Review.' In some sense this +might be an advantage. An article upon politics or philosophy is, of +course, better done by a professed statesman and thinker than by a +literary hack; but, on the other hand, a man who turns aside from +politics or philosophy to do mere hackwork, does it worse than the +professed man of letters. Work, taken up at odd hours to satisfy +editorial importunity or add a few pounds to a narrow income, is apt to +show the characteristic defects of all amateur performances. A very +large part of the early numbers is amateurish in this objectionable +sense. It is mere hand-to-mouth information, and is written, so to +speak, with the left hand. A clever man has turned over the last new +book of travels or poetry, or made a sudden incursion into foreign +literature or into some passage of history entirely fresh to him, and +has given his first impressions with an audacity which almost disarms +one by its extraordinary _naivete_. The standard of such disquisitions +was then so low that writing which would now be impossible passed muster +without an objection. When, in later years, Macaulay discussed Hampden +or Chatham, the book which he ostensibly reviewed was a mere pretext for +producing the rich stores of a mind trained by years of previous +historical study. Jeffrey wrote about Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoirs' and +Pepys's 'Diary' as though the books had for the first time revealed to +him the existence of Puritans or of courtiers under the Restoration. The +author of an article upon German metaphysics at the present day would +think it necessary to show that if he had not the portentous learning +which Sir William Hamilton embodied in his 'Edinburgh' articles, he had +at least read the book under review, and knew something of the language. +The author (Thomas Brown--a man who should have known better) of a +contemptuous review of Kant, in an early number of the 'Edinburgh,' +makes it even ostentatiously evident that he has never read a line of +the original, and that his whole knowledge is derived from what (by his +own account) is a very rambling and inadequate French essay. The young +gentlemen who wrote in those days have a jaunty mode of pronouncing upon +all conceivable topics without even affecting to have studied the +subject, which is amusing in its way, and which fully explains the +flimsy nature of their performance. + +The authors, in fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely +ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long +afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney +Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that +time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the +republication was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing +even the most serious books through the pages of a periodical has become +so common that such modesty would now imply the emptiest affectation. +The collections of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith will give a sufficient +impression of the earlier numbers of the 'Review.' The only contributors +of equal reputation were Horner and Brougham. Horner, so far as one can +judge, was a typical representative of those solid, indomitable +Scotchmen whom one knows not whether to respect for their energy or to +dread as the most intolerable of bores. He plodded through legal, +metaphysical, scientific, and literary studies like an elephant forcing +his way through a jungle; and laboured as resolutely and systematically +to acquire graces of style as to master the intricacies of the 'dismal +science.' At an early age, and with no advantages of position, he had +gained extraordinary authority in Parliament. Sydney Smith said of him +that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face, and looked so +virtuous that he might commit any crime with impunity. His death +probably deprived us of a most exemplary statesman and first-rate +Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it can hardly have been a great loss to +literature. Passages from Horner's journals, given in his 'Memoirs,' are +quaint illustrations of the frame of mind generally inculcated in +manuals for the use of virtuous young men. At the age of twenty-eight, +he resolves one day to meditate upon various topics, distributed under +nine heads, including the society to be frequented in the metropolis; +the characters to be studied; the scale of intimacies; the style of +conversation; the use of other men's minds in self-education; the +regulation of ambition, of political sentiments, connections, and +conduct; the importance of 'steadily systematising all plans and aims +of life, and so providing against contingencies as to put happiness at +least out of the reach of accident,' and the cultivation of moral +feelings by 'dignified sentiments and pleasing associations' derived +from poets, moralists, or actual life. Sydney Smith, in a very lively +portrait, says that Horner was the best, kindest, simplest, and most +incorruptible of mankind; but intimates sufficiently that his +impenetrability to the facetious was something almost unexampled. A jest +upon an important subject was, it seems, the only affliction which his +strength of principle would not enable him to bear with patience. His +contributions gave some solid economical speculation to the 'Review,' +but were neither numerous nor lively. Brougham's amazing vitality wasted +itself in a different way. His multifarious energy, from early boyhood +to the borders of old age, would be almost incredible, if we had not the +good fortune to be contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone. His share in the +opening numbers of the 'Review' is another of the points upon which +there is an odd conflict of testimony.[23] But from a very early period +he was the most voluminous and, at times, the most valuable of +contributors. It has been said that he once wrote a whole number, +including articles upon lithotomy and Chinese music. It is more +authentic that he contributed six articles to one number at the very +crisis of his political career, and at the same period he boasts of +having written a fifth of the whole 'Review' to that time. He would sit +down in a morning and write off twenty pages at a single effort. Jeffrey +compares his own editorial authority to that of a feudal monarch over +some independent barons. When Jeffrey gave up the 'Review,' this 'baron' +aspired to something more like domination than independence. He made the +unfortunate editor's life a burden to him. He wrote voluminous letters, +objurgating, entreating, boasting of past services, denouncing rival +contributors, declaring that a regard for the views of any other man was +base subservience to a renegade Ministry, or foolish attention to the +hints of understrappers; threatening, if he was neglected, to set up a +rival Review, and generally hectoring, bullying, and declaiming in a +manner which gives one the highest opinion of the diplomatic skill of +the editor, who managed, without truckling, to avoid a breach with his +tremendous contributor. Brougham, indeed, was not quite blind to the +fact that the 'Review' was as useful to him as he could be to the +'Review,' and was therefore more amenable than might have been expected, +in the last resort. But he was in every relation one of those men who +are nearly as much hated and dreaded by their colleagues as by the +adversary--a kind of irrepressible rocket, only too easy to discharge, +but whose course defied prediction. + +It is, however, admitted by everyone that the literary results of this +portentous activity were essentially ephemeral. His writings are +hopelessly commonplace in substance and slipshod in style. His garden +offers a bushel of potatoes instead of a single peach. Much of +Brougham's work was up to the level necessary to give effect to the +manifesto of an active politician. It was a forcible exposition of the +arguments common at the time; but it has nowhere that stamp of +originality in thought or brilliance in expression which could confer +upon it a permanent vitality. + +Jeffrey and Sydney Smith deserve more respectful treatment. Macaulay +speaks of his first editor with respectful enthusiasm. He says of the +collected contributions that the 'variety and fertility of Jeffrey's +mind' seem more extraordinary than ever. Scarcely could any three men +have produced such 'diversified excellence.' 'When I compare him with +Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his +range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer. But +he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great +judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius +than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much +as Brougham affects the character.' Macaulay hated Brougham, and was, +perhaps, a little unjust to him. But what are we to say of the writings +upon which this panegyric is pronounced? + +Jeffrey's collected articles include about eighty out of two hundred +reviews, nearly all contributed to the 'Edinburgh' within its first +period of twenty-five years. They fill four volumes, and are distributed +under the seven heads--general literature, history, poetry, metaphysics, +fiction, politics, and miscellaneous. Certainly there is versatility +enough implied in such a list, and we may be sure that he has ample +opportunity for displaying whatever may be in him. It is, however, easy +to dismiss some of these divisions. Jeffrey knew history as an English +gentleman of average cultivation knew it; that is to say, not enough to +justify him in writing about it. He knew as much of metaphysics as a +clever lad was likely to pick up at Edinburgh during the reign of Dugald +Stewart; his essays in that kind, though they show some aptitude and +abundant confidence, do not now deserve serious attention. His chief +speculative performance was an essay upon Beauty contributed to the +'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' of which his biographer says quaintly that it +is 'as sound as the subject admits of.' It is crude and meagre in +substance. The principal conclusion is the rather unsatisfactory one for +a professional critic, that there are no particular rules about beauty, +and consequently that one taste is about as good as another. Nobody, +however, could be less inclined to apply this over-liberal theory to +questions of literary taste. There, he evidently holds there is most +decidedly a right and wrong, and everybody is very plainly in the wrong +who differs from himself. + +Jeffrey's chief fame--or, should we say, notoriety?--was gained, and his +merit should be tested by his success in this department. The greatest +triumph that a literary critic can win is the early recognition of +genius not yet appreciated by his contemporaries. The next test of his +merit is his capacity for pronouncing sound judgment upon controversies +which are fully before the public; and, finally, no inconsiderable merit +must be allowed to any critic who has a vigorous taste of his own--not +hopelessly eccentric or silly--and expresses it with true literary +force. If not a judge, he may in that case be a useful advocate. + +What can we say for Jeffrey upon this understanding? Did he ever +encourage a rising genius? The sole approach to such a success is an +appreciative notice of Keats, which would be the more satisfactory if +poor Keats had not been previously assailed by the Opposition journal. +The other judgments are for the most part pronounced upon men already +celebrated; and the single phrase which has survived is the celebrated +'This will never do,' directed against Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Every +critic has a sacred and inalienable right to blunder at times: but +Jeffrey's blundering is amazingly systematic and comprehensive. In the +last of his poetical critiques (October 1829) he sums up his critical +experience. He doubts whether Mrs. Hemans, whom he is reviewing at the +time, will be immortal. 'The tuneful quartos of Southey,' he says, 'are +already little better than lumber; and the rich melodies of Keats and +Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth, and the plebeian +pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the field of vision. The novels +of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are +fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to +immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from +its place of pride.' Who survive this general decay? Not Coleridge, who +is not even mentioned; nor is Mrs. Hemans secure. The two who show least +marks of decay are--of all people in the world--Rogers and Campbell! It +is only to be added that this summary was republished in 1843, by which +time the true proportions of the great reputations of the period were +becoming more obvious to an ordinary observer. It seems almost +incredible now that any sane critic should pick out the poems of Rogers +and Campbell as the sole enduring relics from the age of Wordsworth, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Byron. + +Doubtless a critic should rather draw the moral of his own fallibility +than of his superiority to Jeffrey. Criticism is a still more perishable +commodity than poetry. Jeffrey was a man of unusual intelligence and +quickness of feeling; and a follower in his steps should think twice +before he ventures to cast the first stone. If all critics who have +grossly blundered are therefore to be pronounced utterly incompetent, we +should, I fear, have to condemn nearly everyone who has taken up the +profession. Not only Dennis and Rymer, but Dryden, Pope, Addison, +Johnson, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, and even Coleridge, down to the last +new critic in the latest and most fashionable journals, would have to be +censured. Still there are blunders and blunders; and some of Jeffrey's +sins in that kind are such as it is not very easy to forgive. If he +attacked great men, it has been said in his defence, he attacked those +parts of their writings which were really objectionable. And, of course, +nobody will deny that (for example) Wordsworth's wilful and ostentatious +inversion of accepted rules presented a very tempting mark to the +critic. But--to say nothing of Jeffrey's failure to discharge adequately +the correlative duty of generous praise--it must be admitted that his +ridicule seems to strike pretty much at random. He picks out Southey, +certainly the least eminent of the so-called school of Wordsworth, +Coleridge, and Lamb, as the one writer of the set whose poetry deserves +serious consideration; and, besides attacking Wordsworth's faults, his +occasional flatness and childishness, selects some of his finest poems +(e.g. the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality) as flagrant specimens +of the hopelessly absurd. + +The 'White Doe of Rylstone' may not be Wordsworth's best work, but a man +who begins a review of it by proclaiming it to be 'the very worst poem +ever imprinted in a quarto volume,' who follows up this remark by +unmixed and indiscriminating abuse, and who publishes the review +twenty-eight years later as expressing his mature convictions, is +certainly proclaiming his own gross incompetence. Or, again, Jeffrey +writes about 'Wilhelm Meister' (in 1824), knowing its high reputation in +Germany, and finds in it nothing but a text for a dissertation upon the +amazing eccentricity of national taste which can admire 'sheer +nonsense,' and at length proclaims himself tired of extracting 'so much +trash.' There is a kind of indecency, a wanton disregard of the general +consensus of opinion, in such treatment of a contemporary classic (then +just translated by Carlyle, and so brought within Jeffrey's sphere) +which one would hope to be now impossible. It is true that Jeffrey +relents a little at the end, admits that Goethe has 'great talent,' and +would like to withdraw some of his censure. Whilst, therefore, he +regards the novel as an instance of that diversity of national taste +which makes a writer idolised in one country who would not be tolerated +in another, he would hold it out rather as an object of wonder than +contempt. Though the greater part 'would not be endured, and, indeed, +could not have been written in England,' there are many passages of +which any country might naturally be proud. Truly this is an +illustration of Jeffrey's fundamental principle, that taste has no laws, +and is a matter of accidental caprice. + +It may be said that better critics have erred with equal recklessness. +De Quincey, who could be an admirable critic where his indolent +prejudices were not concerned, is even more dead to the merits of +Goethe. Byron's critical remarks are generally worth reading, in spite +of his wilful eccentricity; and he spoke of Wordsworth and Southey still +more brutally than Jeffrey, and admired Rogers as unreasonably. In such +cases we may admit the principle already suggested, that even the most +reckless criticism has a kind of value when it implies a genuine (even +though a mistaken) taste. So long as a man says sincerely what he +thinks, he tells us something worth knowing. + +Unluckily, this is just where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects +to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put +up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable +tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because +admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the +general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some not +too judicious criticism; preferring, for example, the sham romantic +business of the 'Lay' to the incomparable vigour of the rough +moss-troopers, + + Who sought the beeves that made their broth + In Scotland and in England both-- + +terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his +judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is +passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But, +unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals, +it would seem, resemble the old-fashioned squires who kept a badger +ready to be baited whenever a little amusement was desirable. The rising +school of Lake poets, with their austere professions and real +weaknesses, was just the game to show a little sport; and, accordingly, +poor Jeffrey blundered into grievous misapprehensions, and has survived +chiefly by his worst errors. The simple fact is, that he accepted +whatever seemed to a hasty observer to be the safest opinion, that which +was current in the most orthodox critical circles, and expressed it with +rather more point than his neighbours. But his criticism implies no +serious thought or any deeper sentiment than pleasure at having found a +good laughing-stock. The most unmistakable bit of genuine expression of +his own feelings in Jeffrey's writings is, I think, to be found in his +letters to Dickens. 'Oh! my dear, dear Dickens!' he exclaims, 'what a +No. 5' (of 'Dombey and Son') 'you have now given us. I have so cried and +sobbed over it last night and again this morning, and felt my heart +purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed +them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since that divine Nelly +was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has +been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul in the summer +sunshine of that lofty room.' The emotion is a little senile, and most +of us think it exaggerated; but at least it is genuine. The earlier +thunders of the 'Edinburgh Review' have lost their terrors, because they +are in fact mere echoes of commonplace opinion. They are often clever +enough, and have all the air of judicial authority, but we feel that +they are empty shams, concealing no solid core of strong personal +feeling even of the perverse variety. The critic has been asking +himself, not 'What do I feel?' but 'What is the correct remark to make?' + +Jeffrey's political writing suggests, I think, in some respects a higher +estimate of his merits. He has not, it is true, very strong convictions, +but his sentiments are liberal in the better sense of the word, and he +has a more philosophical tone than is usual with English publicists. He +appreciates the truths, now become commonplace, that the political +constitution of the country should be developed so as to give free play +for the underlying social forces without breaking abruptly with the old +traditions. He combats with dignity the narrow prejudices which led to a +policy of rigid repression, and which, in his opinion, could only lead +to revolution. But the effect of his principles is not a little marred +by a certain timidity both of character and intellect. Hopefulness +should be the mark of an ardent reformer, and Jeffrey seems to be always +decided by his fears. His favourite topic is the advantage of a strong +middle party, for he is terribly afraid of a collision between the two +extremes; he can only look forward to despotism if the Tories triumph, +and a sweeping revolution if they are beaten. Meanwhile, for many years +he thinks it most probable that both parties will be swallowed up by the +common enemy. Never was there such a determined croaker. In 1808 he +suspects that Bonaparte will be in Dublin in about fifteen months, when +he, if he survives, will try to go to America. In 1811 he expects +Bonaparte to be in Ireland in eighteen months, and asks how England can +then be kept, and whether it would be worth keeping? France is certain +to conquer the Continent, and our interference will only 'exasperate and +accelerate.' Bonaparte's invasion of Russia in 1813 made him still more +gloomy. He rejoiced at the French defeat as one delivered from a great +terror, but the return of the Emperor dejects him again. All he can say +of the war (just before Waterloo) is that he is 'mortally afraid of it,' +and that he hates Bonaparte 'because he makes me more afraid than +anybody else.' In 1829 he anticipates 'tragical scenes' and a sanguinary +revolution; in 1821 he thinks as ill as ever 'of the state and prospects +of the country,' though with less alarm of speedy mischief; and in 1822 +he looks forward to revolutionary wars all over the Continent, from +which we may possibly escape by reason of our 'miserable poverty;' +whilst it is probable that our old tyrannies and corruptions will last +for some 4,000 or 5,000 years longer. + +A stalwart politician, Whig or Tory, is rarely developed out of a Mr. +Much-Afraid or a Mr. Despondency; they are too closely related to Mr. +Facing-both-Ways. Jeffrey thinks it generally a duty to conceal his +fears and affect a confidence which he does not feel; but perhaps the +best piece of writing in his essays is that in which he for once gives +full expression to his pessimist sentiment. It occurs in a review of a +book in which Madame de Stael maintains the doctrine of human +perfectibility. Jeffrey explains his more despondent view in a really +eloquent passage. He thinks that the increase of educated intelligence +will not diminish the permanent causes of human misery. War will be as +common as ever, wealth will be used with at least equal selfishness, +luxury and dissipation will increase, enthusiasm will diminish, +intellectual originality will become rarer, the division of labour will +make men's lives pettier and more mechanical, and pauperism grow with +the development of manufactures. When republishing his essays Jeffrey +expresses his continued adherence to these views, and they are more +interesting than most of his work, because they have at least the merits +of originality and sincerity. Still, one cannot help observing that if +the 'Edinburgh Review' was an efficient organ of progress, it was not +from any ardent faith in progress entertained by its chief conductor. + +It is a relief to turn from Jeffrey to Sydney Smith. The highest epithet +applicable to Jeffrey is 'clever,' to which we may prefix some modest +intensitive. He is a brilliant, versatile, and at bottom liberal and +kindly man of the world; but he never gets fairly beyond the border-line +which irrevocably separates lively talent from original power. There are +dozens of writers who could turn out work on the same pattern and about +equally good. Smith, on the other hand, stamps all his work with his +peculiar characteristics. It is original and unmistakable; and in a +certain department--not, of course, a very high one--he has almost +unique merits. I do not think that the 'Plymley Letters' can be +surpassed by anything in the language as specimens of the terse, +effective treatment of a great subject in language suitable for popular +readers. Of course they have no pretence to the keen polish of Junius, +or the weight of thought of Burke, or the rhetorical splendours of +Milton; but their humour, freshness, and spirit are inimitable. The +'Drapier Letters,' to which they have often been compared, were more +effective at the moment; but no fair critic can deny, I think, that +Sydney Smith's performance is now more interesting than Swift's. + +The comparison between the Dean and the Canon is an obvious one, and has +often been made. There is a likeness in the external history of the two +clergymen who both sought for preferment through politics, and were +both, even by friends, felt to have sinned against professional +proprieties, and were put off with scanty rewards in consequence. Both, +too, were masters of a vigorous style, and original humourists. But the +likeness does not go very deep. Swift had the most powerful intellect +and the strongest passion as undeniably as Smith had the sweetest +nature. The admirable good-humour with which Smith accepted his position +and devoted himself to honest work in an obscure country parish, is the +strongest contrast with Swift's misanthropical seclusion; and nothing +can be less like than Smith's admirable domestic history and the +mysterious love affairs with Stella and Vanessa. Smith's character +reminds us more closely of Fuller, whose peculiar humour is much of the +same stamp; and who, falling upon hard times, and therefore tinged by a +more melancholy sentiment, yet showed the same unconquerable +cheerfulness and intellectual vivacity. + +Most of Sydney Smith's 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight +texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of +characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded +kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic. +Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a review of Waterton's +'Wanderings:'-- + + How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To + what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of + Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a + puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? To be sure, the + toucan might retort, To what purpose were gentlemen in Bond + Street created? To what purpose were certain members of + Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with + their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the + country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not + enter into the metaphysics of the toucan. + +Smith's humour is most aptly used to give point to the vigorous logic of +a thoroughly healthy nature, contemptuous of all nonsense, full of +shrewd common-sense, and righteously indignant in the presence of all +injustice and outworn abuse. It would be difficult to find anywhere a +more brilliant assault upon the prejudices which defend established +grievances than the inimitable 'Noodle's Oration,' into which Smith has +compressed the pith of Bentham's 'Book of Fallacies.' There is a certain +resemblance between the logic of Smith and Macaulay, both of whom, it +must be admitted, are rather given to proving commonplaces and inclined +to remain on the surface of things. Smith, like Macaulay, fully +understands the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract, and +hammering obvious truths into men's heads by dint of homely +explanation. Smith's memory does not supply so vast a store of parallels +as that upon which Macaulay could draw so freely; but his humorous +illustrations are more amusing and effective. There could not be a +happier way of putting the argument for what may be called the lottery +system of endowments than the picture of the respectable baker driving +past Northumberland House to St. Paul's Churchyard, and speculating on +the chance of elevating his 'little muffin-faced son' to a place among +the Percies or the highest seat in the Cathedral. Macaulay would have +enforced his reasoning by a catalogue of successful ecclesiastics. The +folly of alienating Catholic sympathies, during our great struggle, by +maintaining the old disabilities, is brought out with equal skill by the +apologue in the 'Plymley Letters' of the orthodox captain of a frigate +in a dangerous action, securing twenty or thirty of his crew, who +happened to be Papists, under a Protestant guard; reminding his sailors, +in a bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorting +the Episcopal gunner to distrust the Presbyterian quartermaster; rushing +through blood and brains to examine his men in the Thirty-nine Articles, +and forbidding anyone to spunge or ram who has not taken the sacrament +according to the rites of the Church of England. It is quite another +question whether Smith really penetrates to the bottom of the dispute; +but the only fault to be found with his statement of the case, as he saw +it, is that it makes it rather too clear. The arguments are never all on +one side in any political question, and the writer who sees absolutely +no difficulty, suggests to a wary reader that he is ignoring something +relevant. Still, this is hardly an objection to a popular advocate, and +it is fair to add that Smith's logic is not more admirable than the +hearty generosity of his sympathy with the oppressed Catholic. The +appeal to cowardice is lost in the appeal to true philanthropic +sentiment. + +With all his merits, there is a less favourable side to Smith's +advocacy. When he was condemned as being too worldly and facetious for a +priest, it was easy to retort that humour is not of necessity +irreligious. It might be added that in his writings it is strictly +subservient to solid argument. In a London party he might throw the +reins upon the neck of his fancy and go on playing with a ludicrous +image till his audience felt the agony of laughter to be really painful. +In his writings he aims almost as straight at his mark as Swift, and is +never diverted by the spirit of pure fun. The humour always illuminates +well-strung logic. But the scandal was not quite groundless. When he +directs his powers against sheer obstruction and antiquated +prejudice--against abuses in prisons, or the game-laws, or education--we +can have no fault to find; nor is it fair to condemn a reviewer because +in all these questions he is a follower rather than a leader. It is +enough if he knows a good cause when he sees it, and does his best to +back up reformers in the press, though hardly a working reformer, and +certainly not an originator of reform. But it is less easy to excuse his +want of sympathy for the reformers themselves. + +If there is one thing which Sydney Smith dreads and dislikes, it is +enthusiasm. Nobody would deny, at the present day, that the zeal which +supplied the true leverage for some of the greatest social reforms of +the time was to be found chiefly amongst the so-called Evangelicals and +Methodists. For them Smith has nothing but the heartiest aversion. He is +always having a quiet jest at the religious sentiments of Perceval or +Wilberforce, and his most prominent articles in the 'Review' were a +series of inexcusably bitter attacks upon the Methodists. He is +thoroughly alarmed and disgusted by their progress. He thinks them +likely to succeed, and says that, if they succeed, 'happiness will be +destroyed, reason degraded, and sound religion banished from the world,' +and that a reign of fanaticism will be succeeded by 'a long period of +the grossest immorality, atheism, and debauchery.' He is not sure that +any remedy or considerable palliative is possible, but he suggests, as +hopeful, the employment of ridicule, and applies it himself most +unsparingly. When the Methodists try to convert the Hindoos, he attacks +them furiously for endangering the empire. They naturally reply that a +Christian is bound to propagate his belief. The answer, says Smith, is +short: 'It is not Christianity which is introduced (into India), but the +debased nonsense and mummery of the Methodists, which has little more to +do with the Christian religion than it has to do with the religion of +China.' The missionaries, he says, are so foolish, 'that the natives +almost instinctively duck and pelt them,' as, one cannot help +remembering, missionaries of an earlier Christian era had been ducked +and pelted. He pronounces the enterprise to be hopeless and cruel, and +clenches his argument by a statement which sounds strangely enough in +the mouth of a sincere Christian:-- + + Let us ask (he says), if the Bible is universally diffused + in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives + to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal--we + who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few + acres about Madras over the whole peninsula and sixty + millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct + every crime of which human nature is capable? What matchless + impudence, to follow up such practice with such precepts! If + we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and + tell them that Machiavel is our prophet and the god of the + Manichaeans our god. + +We are to make our practice consistent by giving up our virtues instead +of our vices. Of course, Smith ends his article by a phrase about 'the +slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christianity;' but the +Methodists might well feel that the 'matchless impudence' was not all on +their side, and that this Christian priest, had he lived some centuries +earlier, would have sympathised a good deal more with Gallio than with +St. Paul. + +It is a question which I need not here discuss how far Smith could be +justified in his ridicule of men who, with all their undeniable +absurdity, were at least zealous believers in the creed which he--as is +quite manifest--held in all sincerity. But one remark is obvious; the +Edinburgh Reviewers justify, to a certain point, the claim put forward +by Sydney Smith; they condemned many crying abuses, and condemned them +heartily. They condemned them, as thoroughly sensible men of the world, +animated partly by a really generous sentiment, partly by a tacit +scepticism as to the value of the protected interests, and above all by +the strong conviction that it was quite essential for the middle +party--that is, for the bulk of the respectable well-bred classes--to +throw overboard gross abuses which afforded so many points of attack to +thoroughgoing radicals. On the other hand, they were quite indifferent +or openly hostile to most of the new forces which stirred men's minds. +They patronised political economy because Malthus began by opposing the +revolutionary dreams of Godwin and his like. But every one of the great +impulses of the time was treated by them in an antagonistic spirit. They +savagely ridiculed Coleridge, the great seminal mind of one +philosophical school; they fiercely attacked Bentham and James Mill, the +great leaders of the antagonist school; they were equally opposed to +the Evangelicals who revered Wilberforce, and, in later times, to the +religious party, of which Dr. Newman was the great ornament: in poetry +they clung, as long as they could, to the safe old principles +represented by Crabbe and Rogers: they, covered Wordsworth and Coleridge +with almost unmixed ridicule, ignored Shelley, and were only tender to +Byron and Scott because Scott and Byron were fashionable idols. The +truth is, that it is a mistake to suppose that the eighteenth century +ended with the year 1800. It lasted in the upper currents of opinion +till at least 1832. Sydney Smith's theology is that of Paley and the +common-sense divines of the previous period. Jeffrey's politics were but +slightly in advance of the true old Whigs, who still worshipped +according to the tradition of their fathers in Holland House. The ideal +of the party was to bring the practice of the country up to the theory +whose main outlines had been accepted in the Revolution of 1688; and +they studiously shut their eyes to any newer intellectual and social +movements. + +I do not say this by way of simple condemnation; for we have daily more +reason to acknowledge the immense value of calm, clear common-sense, +which sees the absurd side of even the best impulses. But it is +necessary to bear the fact in mind when estimating such claims as those +put forward by Sydney Smith. The truth seems to be that the 'Edinburgh +Review' enormously raised the tone of periodical literature at the time, +by opening an arena for perfectly independent discussion. Its great +merit, at starting, was that it was no mere publisher's organ, like its +rivals, and that it paid contributors well enough to attract the most +rising talent of the day. As the 'Review' progressed, its capacities +became more generally understood, and its writers, as they rose to +eminence and attracted new allies, put more genuine work into articles +certain to obtain a wide circulation and to come with great authority. +This implies a long step towards the development of the present system, +whose merits and defects would deserve a full discussion--the system +according to which much of the most solid and original work of the time +first appears in periodicals. The tone of periodicals has been +enormously raised, but the effect upon general literature may be more +questionable. But the 'Edinburgh' was not in its early years a journal +with a mission, or the organ of an enthusiastic sect. Rather it was the +instrument used by a number of very clever young men to put forward the +ideas current in the more liberal section of the upper classes, with +much occasional vigour and a large infusion of common-sense, but also +with abundant flippancy and superficiality, and, in a literary sense, +without that solidity of workmanship which is essential for enduring +vitality. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] Scott's letter, stating that this overture had been made by Jeffrey +under terror of the 'Quarterly,' was first published in Lockhart's 'Life +of Scott.' Jeffrey denied that he could ever have made the offer, both +because his contributors were too independent and because he had always +considered politics to be (as he remembered to have told Scott) the +'right leg' of the 'Review.' Undoubtedly, though Scott's letter was +written at the time and Jeffrey's contradiction many years afterwards, +it seems that Scott must have exaggerated. And yet in Horner's 'Memoirs' +we find a letter from Jeffrey which goes far to show that there was more +than might be supposed to confirm Scott's statement. Jeffrey begs for +Horner's assistance in the 'day of need,' caused by the Cevallos article +and the threatened 'Quarterly.' He tells Horner that he may write upon +any subject he pleases--'only no party politics, and nothing but +exemplary moderation and impartiality on all politics. I have allowed +too much mischief to be done from my mere indifference and love of +sport; but it would be inexcusable to spoil the powerful instrument we +have got hold of for the sake of teasing and playing tricks.'--Horner's +_Memoirs_, i. 439. It was on the occasion of the Cevallos article that +the Earl of Buchan solemnly kicked the 'Review' from his study into the +street--a performance which he supposed would be fatal to its +circulation. + +[22] See Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 92, for an interesting account of +these articles. + +[23] It would appear, from one of Jeffrey's statements, that Brougham +selfishly hung back till after the third number of the 'Review,' and its +'assured success' (Horner's _Memoirs_, i. p. 186, and Macvey Napier's +_Correspondence_, p. 422); from another, that Brougham, though anxious +to contribute, was excluded by Sydney Smith, from prudential motives. On +the other hand, Brougham in his autobiography claims (by name) seven +articles in the first number, five in the second, eight in the third, +and five in the fourth; in five of which he had a collaborator. His +hesitation, he says, ended before the appearance of the first number, +and was due to doubts as to Jeffrey's possession of sufficient editorial +power. + + + + +_WORDSWORTH'S ETHICS_ + + +Under every poetry, it has been said, there lies a philosophy. Rather, +it may almost be said, every poetry is a philosophy. The poet and the +philosopher live in the same world and are interested in the same +truths. What is the nature of man and the world in which he lives, and +what, in consequence, should be our conduct? These are the great +problems, the answers to which may take a religious, a poetical, a +philosophical, or an artistic form. The difference is that the poet has +intuitions, while the philosopher gives demonstrations; that the thought +which in one mind is converted into emotion, is in the other resolved +into logic; and that a symbolic representation of the idea is +substituted for a direct expression. The normal relation is exhibited in +the case of the anatomist and the sculptor. The artist intuitively +recognises the most perfect form; the man of science analyses the +structural relations by which it is produced. Though the two provinces +are concentric, they are not coincident. The reasoner is interested in +many details which have no immediate significance for the man of +feeling; and the poetic insight, on the other hand, is capable of +recognising subtle harmonies and discords of which our crude instruments +of weighing and measuring are incapable of revealing the secret. But the +connection is so close that the greatest works of either kind seem to +have a double nature. A philosophy may, like Spinoza's, be apparelled +in the most technical and abstruse panoply of logic, and yet the total +impression may stimulate a religious sentiment as effectively as any +poetic or theosophic mysticism. Or a great imaginative work, like +Shakespeare's, may present us with the most vivid concrete symbols, and +yet suggest, as forcibly as the formal demonstrations of a +metaphysician, the idealist conviction that the visible and tangible +world is a dream-woven tissue covering infinite and inscrutable +mysteries. In each case the highest intellectual faculty manifests +itself in the vigour with which certain profound conceptions of the +world and life have been grasped and assimilated. In each case that man +is greatest who soars habitually to the highest regions and gazes most +steadily upon the widest horizons of time and space. The logical +consistency which frames all dogmas into a consistent whole, is but +another aspect of the imaginative power which harmonises the strongest +and subtlest emotions excited. + +The task, indeed, of deducing the philosophy from the poetry, of +inferring what a man thinks from what he feels, may at times perplex the +acutest critic. Nor, if it were satisfactorily accomplished, could we +infer that the best philosopher is also the best poet. Absolute +incapacity for poetical expression may be combined with the highest +philosophic power. All that can safely be said is that a man's thoughts, +whether embodied in symbols or worked out in syllogisms, are more +valuable in proportion as they indicate greater philosophical insight; +and therefore that, _ceteris paribus_, that man is the greater poet +whose imagination is most transfused with reason; who has the deepest +truths to proclaim as well as the strongest feelings to utter. + +Some theorists implicitly deny this principle by holding substantially +that the poet's function is simply the utterance of a particular mood, +and that, if he utters it forcibly and delicately, we have no more to +ask. Even so, we should not admit that the thoughts suggested to a wise +man by a prospect of death and eternity are of just equal value, if +equally well expressed, with the thoughts suggested to a fool by the +contemplation of a good dinner. But, in practice, the utterance of +emotions can hardly be dissociated from the assertion of principles. +Psychologists have shown, ever since the days of Berkeley, that when a +man describes (as he thinks) a mere sensation, and says, for example, 'I +see a house,' he is really recording the result of a complex logical +process. A great painter and the dullest observer may have the same +impressions of coloured blotches upon their retina. The great man infers +the true nature of the objects which produce his sensations, and can +therefore represent the objects accurately. The other sees only with his +eyes, and can therefore represent nothing. There is thus a logic implied +even in the simplest observation, and one which can be tested by +mathematical rules as distinctly as a proposition in geometry. + +When we have to find a language for our emotions instead of our +sensations, we generally express the result of an incomparably more +complex set of intellectual operations. The poet, in uttering his joy or +sadness, often implies, in the very form of his language, a whole +philosophy of life or of the universe. The explanation is given at the +end of Shakespeare's familiar passage about the poet's eye:-- + + Such tricks hath strong imagination, + That, if it would but apprehend some joy, + It comprehends some bringer of that joy; + Or in the night, imagining some fear, + How easy is a bush supposed a bear! + +The _ap_prehension of the passion, as Shakespeare logically says, is a +_com_prehension of its cause. The imagination reasons. The bare faculty +of sight involves thought and feeling. The symbol which the fancy +spontaneously constructs, implies a whole world of truth or error, of +superstitious beliefs or sound philosophy. The poetry holds a number of +intellectual dogmas in solution; and it is precisely due to these +general dogmas, which are true and important for us as well as for the +poet, that his power over our sympathies is due. If his philosophy has +no power in it, his emotions lose their hold upon our minds, or interest +us only as antiquarians and lovers of the picturesque. But in the +briefest poems of a true thinker we read the essence of the life-long +reflections of a passionate and intellectual nature. Fears and hopes +common to all thoughtful men have been coined into a single phrase. Even +in cases where no definite conviction is expressed or even implied, and +the poem is simply, like music, an indefinite utterance of a certain +state of the emotions, we may discover an intellectual element. The +rational and the emotional nature have such intricate relations that one +cannot exist in great richness and force without justifying an inference +as to the other. From a single phrase, as from a single gesture, we can +often go far to divining the character of a man's thoughts and feelings. +We know more of a man from five minutes' talk than from pages of what is +called 'psychological analysis.' From a passing expression on the face, +itself the result of variations so minute as to defy all analysis, we +instinctively frame judgments as to a man's temperament and habitual +modes of thought and conduct. Indeed, such judgments, if erroneous, +determine us only too exclusively in the most important relations of +life. + +Now the highest poetry is that which expresses the richest, most +powerful, and most susceptible emotional nature, and the most versatile, +penetrative, and subtle intellect. Such qualities may be stamped upon +trifling work. The great artist can express his power within the limits +of a coin or a gem. The great poet will reveal his character through a +sonnet or a song. Shakespeare, or Milton, or Burns, or Wordsworth can +express his whole mode of feeling within a few lines. An ill-balanced +nature reveals itself by a discord, as an illogical mind by a fallacy. A +man need not compose an epic on a system of philosophy to write himself +down an ass. And, inversely, a great mind and a noble nature may show +itself by impalpable but recognisable signs within the 'sonnet's scanty +plot of ground.' Once more, the highest poetry must be that which +expresses not only the richest but the healthiest nature. Disease means +an absence or a want of balance of certain faculties, and therefore +leads to false reasoning or emotional discord. The defect of character +betrays itself in some erroneous mode of thought or baseness of +sentiment. And since morality means obedience to those rules which are +most essential to the spiritual health, vicious feeling indicates some +morbid tendency, and is so far destructive of the poetical faculty. An +immoral sentiment is the sign either of a false judgment of the world +and of human nature, or of a defect in the emotional nature which shows +itself by a discord or an indecorum, and leads to a cynicism or +indecency which offends the reason through the taste. What is called +immorality does not indeed always imply such defects. Sound moral +intuitions may be opposed to the narrow code prevalent at the time; or a +protest against puritanical or ascetic perversions of the standard may +hurry the poet into attacks upon true principles. And, again, the keen +sensibility which makes a man a poet, undoubtedly exposes him to certain +types of disease. He is more likely than his thick-skinned neighbour to +be vexed by evil, and to be drawn into distorted views of life by an +excess of sympathy or indignation. Injudicious admirers prize the +disease instead of the strength from which it springs; and value the +cynicism or the despair instead of the contempt for heartless +commonplace or the desire for better things with which it was +unfortunately connected. A strong moral sentiment has a great value, +even when forced into an unnatural alliance. Nay, even when it is, so to +speak, inverted, it often receives a kind of paradoxical value from its +efficacy against some opposite form of error. It is only a complete +absence of the moral faculty which is irredeemably bad. The poet in whom +it does not exist is condemned to the lower sphere, and can only deal +with the deepest feelings on penalty of shocking us by indecency or +profanity. A man who can revel in 'Epicurus' stye' without even the +indirect homage to purity of remorse and bitterness, can do nothing but +gratify our lowest passions. They, perhaps, have their place, and the +man who is content with such utterances may not be utterly worthless. +But to place him on a level with his betters is to confound every sound +principle of criticism. + +It follows that a kind of collateral test of poetical excellence may be +found by extracting the philosophy from the poetry. The test is, of +course, inadequate. A good philosopher may be an execrable poet. Even +stupidity is happily not inconsistent with sound doctrine, though +inconsistent with a firm grasp of ultimate principles. But the vigour +with which a man grasps and assimilates a deep moral doctrine is a test +of the degree in which he possesses one essential condition of the +higher poetical excellence. A continuous illustration of this principle +is given in the poetry of Wordsworth, who, indeed, has expounded his +ethical and philosophical views so explicitly, one would rather not say +so ostentatiously, that great part of the work is done to our hands. +Nowhere is it easier to observe the mode in which poetry and philosophy +spring from the same root and owe their excellence to the same +intellectual powers. So much has been said by the ablest critics of the +purely poetical side of Wordsworth's genius, that I may willingly +renounce the difficult task of adding or repeating. I gladly take for +granted--what is generally acknowledged--that Wordsworth in his best +moods reaches a greater height than any other modern Englishman. The +word 'inspiration' is less forced when applied to his loftiest poetry +than when used of any of his contemporaries. With defects too obvious to +be mentioned, he can yet pierce furthest behind the veil; and embody +most efficiently the thoughts and emotions which come to us in our most +solemn and reflective moods. Other poetry becomes trifling when we are +making our inevitable passages through the Valley of the Shadow of +Death. Wordsworth's alone retains its power. We love him the more as we +grow older and become more deeply impressed with the sadness and +seriousness of life; we are apt to grow weary of his rivals when we have +finally quitted the regions of youthful enchantment. And I take the +explanation to be that he is not merely a melodious writer, or a +powerful utterer of deep emotion, but a true philosopher. His poetry +wears well because it has solid substance. He is a prophet and a +moralist, as well as a mere singer. His ethical system, in particular, +is as distinctive and capable of systematic exposition as that of +Butler. By endeavouring to state it in plain prose, we shall see how the +poetical power implies a sensitiveness to ideas which, when extracted +from the symbolical embodiment, fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought. + +There are two opposite types to which all moral systems tend. They +correspond to the two great intellectual families to which every man +belongs by right of birth. One class of minds is distinguished by its +firm grasp of facts, by its reluctance to drop solid substance for the +loveliest shadows, and by its preference of concrete truths to the most +symmetrical of theories. In ethical questions the tendency of such minds +is to consider man as a being impelled by strong but unreasonable +passions towards tangible objects. He is a loving, hating, thirsting, +hungering--anything but a reasoning--being. As Swift--a typical example +of this intellectual temperament--declared, man is not an _animal +rationale_, but at most _capax rationis_. At bottom, he is a machine +worked by blind instincts. Their tendency cannot be deduced by _a +priori_ reasoning, though reason may calculate the consequences of +indulging them. The passions are equally good, so far as equally +pleasurable. Virtue means that course of conduct which secures the +maximum of pleasure. Fine theories about abstract rights and +correspondence to eternal truths are so many words. They provide decent +masks for our passions; they do not really govern them, or alter their +nature, but they cover the ugly brutal selfishness of mankind, and +soften the shock of conflicting interests. Such a view has something in +it congenial to the English love of reality and contempt for shams. It +may be represented by Swift or Mandeville in the last century; in poetry +it corresponds to the theory attributed by some critics to Shakespeare; +in a tranquil and reasoning mind it leads to the utilitarianism of +Bentham; in a proud, passionate, and imaginative mind it manifests +itself in such a poem as 'Don Juan.' Its strength is in its grasp of +fact; its weakness, in its tendency to cynicism. Opposed to this is the +school which starts from abstract reason. It prefers to dwell in the +ideal world, where principles may be contemplated apart from the +accidents which render them obscure to vulgar minds. It seeks to deduce +the moral code from eternal truths without seeking for a groundwork in +the facts of experience. If facts refuse to conform to theories, it +proposes that facts should be summarily abolished. Though the actual +human being is, unfortunately, not always reasonable, it holds that pure +reason must be in the long run the dominant force, and that it reveals +the laws to which mankind will ultimately conform. The revolutionary +doctrine of the 'rights of man' expressed one form of this doctrine, and +showed in the most striking way a strength and weakness, which are the +converse of those exhibited by its antagonist. It was strong as +appealing to the loftier motives of justice and sympathy; and weak as +defying the appeal to experience. The most striking example in English +literature is in Godwin's 'Political Justice.' The existing social order +is to be calmly abolished because founded upon blind prejudice; the +constituent atoms called men are to be rearranged in an ideal order as +in a mathematical diagram. Shelley gives the translation of this theory +into poetry. The 'Revolt of Islam' or the 'Prometheus Unbound,' with all +its unearthly beauty, wearies the imagination which tries to soar into +the thin air of Shelley's dreamworld; just as the intellect, trying to +apply the abstract formulae of political metaphysics to any concrete +problem, feels as though it were under an exhausted receiver. In both +cases we seem to have got entirely out of the region of real human +passions and senses into a world, beautiful perhaps, but certainly +impalpable. + +The great aim of moral philosophy is to unite the disjoined element, to +end the divorce between reason and experience, and to escape from the +alternative of dealing with empty but symmetrical formulae or concrete +and chaotic facts. No hint can be given here as to the direction in +which a final solution must be sought. Whatever the true method, +Wordsworth's mode of conceiving the problem shows how powerfully he +grasped the questions at issue. If his doctrines are not systematically +expounded, they all have a direct bearing upon the real difficulties +involved. They are stated so forcibly in his noblest poems that we might +almost express a complete theory in his own language. But, without +seeking to make a collection of aphorisms from his poetry, we may +indicate the cardinal points of his teaching.[24] + +The most characteristic of all his doctrines is that which is embodied +in the great ode upon the 'Intimations of Immortality.' The doctrine +itself--the theory that the instincts of childhood testify to the +pre-existence of the soul--sounds fanciful enough; and Wordsworth took +rather unnecessary pains to say that he did not hold it as a serious +dogma. We certainly need not ask whether it is reasonable or orthodox to +believe that 'our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.' The fact +symbolised by the poetic fancy--the glory and freshness of our childish +instincts--is equally noteworthy, whatever its cause. Some modern +reasoners would explain its significance by reference to a very +different kind of pre-existence. The instincts, they would say, are +valuable, because they register the accumulated and inherited experience +of past generations. Wordsworth's delight in wild scenery is regarded by +them as due to the 'combination of states that were organised in the +race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were +amongst the mountains, woods, and waters.' In childhood we are most +completely under the dominion of these inherited impulses. The +correlation between the organism and its medium is then most perfect, +and hence the peculiar theme of childish communion with nature. + +Wordsworth would have repudiated the doctrine with disgust. He would +have been 'on the side of the angels.' No memories of the savage and the +monkey, but the reminiscences of the once-glorious soul could explain +his emotions. Yet there is this much in common between him and the men +of science whom he denounced with too little discrimination. The fact of +the value of these primitive instincts is admitted, and admitted for the +same purpose. Man, it is agreed, is furnished with sentiments which +cannot be explained as the result of his individual experience. They may +be intelligible, according to the evolutionist, when regarded as +embodying the past experience of the race; or, according to Wordsworth, +as implying a certain mysterious faculty imprinted upon the soul. The +scientific doctrine, whether sound or not, has modified the whole mode +of approaching ethical problems; and Wordsworth, though with a very +different purpose, gives a new emphasis to the facts, upon a +recognition of which, according to some theorists, must be based the +reconciliation of the great rival schools--the intuitionists and the +utilitarians. The parallel may at first sight seem fanciful; and it +would be too daring to claim for Wordsworth the discovery of the most +remarkable phenomenon which modern psychology must take into account. +There is, however, a real connection between the two doctrines, though +in one sense they are almost antithetical. Meanwhile we observe that the +same sensibility which gives poetical power is necessary to the +scientific observer. The magic of the ode, and of many other passages in +Wordsworth's poetry, is due to his recognition of this mysterious +efficacy of our childish instincts. He gives emphasis to one of the most +striking facts of our spiritual experience, which had passed with little +notice from professed psychologists. He feels what they afterwards tried +to explain. + +The full meaning of the doctrine comes out as we study Wordsworth more +thoroughly. Other poets--almost all poets--have dwelt fondly upon +recollections of childhood. But not feeling so strongly, and therefore +not expressing so forcibly, the peculiar character of the emotion, they +have not derived the same lessons from their observation. The Epicurean +poets are content with Herrick's simple moral-- + + Gather ye rosebuds while ye may-- + +and with his simple explanation-- + + That age is best which is the first, + When youth and blood are warmer. + +Others more thoughtful look back upon the early days with the passionate +regret of Byron's verses: + + There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, + When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; + 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. + +Such painful longings for the 'tender grace of a day that is dead' are +spontaneous and natural. Every healthy mind feels the pang in proportion +to the strength of its affections. But it is also true that the regret +resembles too often the maudlin meditation of a fast young man over his +morning's soda-water. It implies, that is, a non-recognition of the +higher uses to which the fading memories may still be put. A different +tone breathes in Shelley's pathetic but rather hectic moralisings, and +his lamentations over the departure of the 'spirit of delight.' Nowhere +has it found more exquisite expression than in the marvellous 'Ode to +the West Wind.' These magical verses--his best, as it seems to +me--describe the reflection of the poet's own mind in the strange stir +and commotion of a dying winter's day. They represent, we may say, the +fitful melancholy which oppresses a noble spirit when it has recognised +the difficulty of forcing facts into conformity with the ideal. He still +clings to the hope that his 'dead thoughts' may be driven over the +universe, + + Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth. + +But he bows before the inexorable fate which has cramped his energies: + + A heavy weight of years has chained and bowed + One too like thee; tameless and swift and proud. + +Neither Byron nor Shelley can see any satisfactory solution, and +therefore neither can reach a perfect harmony of feeling. The world +seems to them to be out of joint, because they have not known how to +accept the inevitable, nor to conform to the discipline of facts. And, +therefore, however intense the emotion, and however exquisite its +expression, we are left in a state of intellectual and emotional +discontent. Such utterances may suit us in youth, when we can afford to +play with sorrow. As we grow older we feel a certain emptiness in them. +A true man ought not to sit down and weep with an exhausted debauchee. +He cannot afford to confess himself beaten with the idealist who has +discovered that Rome was not built in a day, nor revolutions made with +rose-water. He has to work as long as he has strength; to work in spite +of, even by strength of, sorrow, disappointment, wounded vanity, and +blunted sensibilities; and therefore he must search for some profounder +solution for the dark riddle of life. + +This solution it is Wordsworth's chief aim to supply. In the familiar +verses which stand as a motto to his poems-- + + The child is father to the man, + And I could wish my days to be + Bound each to each by natural piety-- + +the great problem of life, that is, as he conceives it, is to secure a +continuity between the period at which we are guided by half-conscious +instincts, and that in which a man is able to supply the place of these +primitive impulses by reasoned convictions. This is the thought which +comes over and over again in his deepest poems, and round which all his +teaching centred. It supplies the great moral, for example, of the +'Leech-gatherer:' + + My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, + As if life's business were a summer mood: + As if all needful things would come unsought + To genial faith still rich in genial good. + +When his faith is tried by harsh experience, the leech-gatherer comes, + + Like a man from some far region sent + To give me human strength by apt admonishment; + +for he shows how the 'genial faith' may be converted into permanent +strength by resolution and independence. The verses most commonly +quoted, such as-- + + We poets in our youth begin in gladness, + But thereof come in the end despondency and sadness, + +give the ordinary view of the sickly school. Wordsworth's aim is to +supply an answer worthy not only of a poet, but a man. The same +sentiment again is expressed in the grand 'Ode to Duty,' where the + + Stern daughter of the voice of God + +is invoked to supply that 'genial sense of youth' which has hitherto +been a sufficient guidance; or in the majestic morality of the 'Happy +Warrior;' or in the noble verses on 'Tintern Abbey;' or, finally, in the +great ode which gives most completely the whole theory of that process +by which our early intuitions are to be transformed into settled +principles of feeling and action. + +Wordsworth's philosophical theory, in short, depends upon the asserted +identity between our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The +doctrine of a state of pre-existence, as it appears in other +writers--as, for example, in the Cambridge Platonists[25]--was connected +with an obsolete metaphysical system, and the doctrine--exploded in its +old form--of innate ideas. Wordsworth does not attribute any such +preternatural character to the 'blank misgivings' and 'shadowy +recollections' of which he speaks. They are invaluable data of our +spiritual experience; but they do not entitle us to lay down dogmatic +propositions independently of experience. They are spontaneous products +of a nature in harmony with the universe in which it is placed, and +inestimable as a clear indication that such a harmony exists. To +interpret and regulate them belongs to the reasoning faculty and the +higher imagination of later years. If he does not quite distinguish +between the province of reason and emotion--the most difficult of +philosophical problems--he keeps clear of the cruder mysticism, because +he does not seek to elicit any definite formulae from those admittedly +vague forebodings which lie on the border-land between the two sides of +our nature. With his invariable sanity of mind, he more than once +notices the difficulty of distinguishing between that which nature +teaches us and the interpretations which we impose upon nature.[26] He +carefully refrains from pressing the inference too far. + +The teaching, indeed, assumes that view of the universe which is implied +in his pantheistic language. The Divinity really reveals Himself in the +lonely mountains and the starry heavens. By contemplating them we are +able to rise into that 'blessed mood' in which for a time the burden of +the mystery is rolled off our souls, and we can 'see into the life of +things.' And here we must admit that Wordsworth is not entirely free +from the weakness which generally besets thinkers of this tendency. Like +Shaftesbury in the previous century, who speaks of the universal harmony +as emphatically though not as poetically as Wordsworth, he is tempted to +adopt a too facile optimism. He seems at times to have overlooked that +dark side of nature which is recognised in theological doctrines of +corruption, or in the scientific theories about the fierce struggle for +existence. Can we in fact say that these early instincts prove more than +the happy constitution of the individual who feels them? Is there not a +teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a +complacent brooding over soothing thoughts? Do not the mountains which +Wordsworth loved so well, speak of decay and catastrophe in every line +of their slopes? Do they not suggest the helplessness and narrow +limitations of man, as forcibly as his possible exaltation? The awe +which they strike into our souls has its terrible as well as its amiable +side; and in moods of depression the darker aspect becomes more +conspicuous than the brighter. Nay, if we admit that we have instincts +which are the very substance of all that afterwards becomes ennobling, +have we not also instincts which suggest a close alliance with the +brutes? If the child amidst his newborn blisses suggests a heavenly +origin, does he not also show sensual and cruel instincts which imply at +least an admixture of baser elements? If man is responsive to all +natural influences, how is he to distinguish between the good and the +bad, and, in short, to frame a conscience out of the vague instincts +which contain the germs of all the possible developments of the future? + +To say that Wordsworth has not given a complete answer to such +difficulties, is to say that he has not explained the origin of evil. It +may be admitted, however, that he does to a certain extent show a +narrowness of conception. The voice of nature, as he says, resembles an +echo; but we 'unthinking creatures' listen to 'voices of two different +natures.' We do not always distinguish between the echo of our lower +passions and the 'echoes from beyond the grave.' Wordsworth sometimes +fails to recognise the ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The +'blessed mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the world, is too +easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it. +He finds lonely meditation so inspiring that he is too indifferent to +the troubles of less self-sufficing or clear-sighted human beings. The +ambiguity makes itself felt in the sphere of morality. The ethical +doctrine that virtue consists in conformity to nature becomes ambiguous +with him, as with all its advocates, when we ask for a precise +definition of nature. How are we to know which natural forces make for +us and which fight against us? + +The doctrine of the love of nature, generally regarded as Wordsworth's +great lesson to mankind, means, as interpreted by himself and others, a +love of the wilder and grander objects of natural scenery; a passion for +the 'sounding cataract,' the rock, the mountain, and the forest; a +preference, therefore, of the country to the town, and of the simpler to +the more complex forms of social life. But what is the true value of +this sentiment? The unfortunate Solitary in the 'Excursion' is beset by +three Wordsworths; for the Wanderer and the Pastor are little more (as +Wordsworth indeed intimates) than reflections of himself, seen in +different mirrors. The Solitary represents the anti-social lessons to be +derived from communion with nature. He has become a misanthrope, and has +learnt from 'Candide' the lesson that we clearly do not live in the best +of all possible worlds. Instead of learning the true lesson from nature +by penetrating its deeper meanings, he manages to feed + + Pity and scorn and melancholy pride + +by accidental and fanciful analogies, and sees in rock pyramids or +obelisks a rude mockery of human toils. To confute this sentiment, to +upset 'Candide,' + + This dull product of a scoffer's pen, + +is the purpose of the lofty poetry and versified prose of the long +dialogues which ensue. That Wordsworth should call Voltaire dull is a +curious example of the proverbial blindness of controversialists; but +the moral may be equally good. It is given most pithily in the lines-- + + We live by admiration, hope, and love; + And even as these are well and wisely fused, + The dignity of being we ascend. + +'But what is Error?' continues the preacher; and the Solitary replies by +saying, 'somewhat haughtily,' that love, admiration, and hope are 'mad +fancy's favourite vassals.' The distinction between fancy and +imagination is, in brief, that fancy deals with the superficial +resemblances, and imagination with the deeper truths which underlie +them. The purpose, then, of the 'Excursion,' and of Wordsworth's poetry +in general, is to show how the higher faculty reveals a harmony which we +overlook when, with the Solitary, we + + Skim along the surfaces of things. + +The rightly prepared mind can recognise the divine harmony which +underlies all apparent disorder. The universe is to its perceptions like +the shell whose murmur in a child's ear seems to express a mysterious +union with the sea. But the mind must be rightly prepared. Everything +depends upon the point of view. One man, as he says in an elaborate +figure, looking upon a series of ridges in spring from their northern +side, sees a waste of snow, and from the south a continuous expanse of +green. That view, we must take it, is the right one which is illuminated +by the 'ray divine.' But we must train our eyes to recognise its +splendour; and the final answer to the Solitary is therefore embodied +in a series of narratives, showing by example how our spiritual vision +may be purified or obscured. Our philosophy must be finally based, not +upon abstract speculation and metaphysical arguments, but on the +diffused consciousness of the healthy mind. As Butler sees the universe +by the light of conscience, Wordsworth sees it through the wider +emotions of awe, reverence, and love, produced in a sound nature. + +The pantheistic conception, in short, leads to an unsatisfactory +optimism in the general view of nature, and to an equal tolerance of all +passions as equally 'natural.' To escape from this difficulty we must +establish some more discriminative mode of interpreting nature. Man is +the instrument played upon by all impulses, good or bad. The music which +results may be harmonious or discordant. When the instrument is in tune, +the music will be perfect; but when is it in tune, and how are we to +know that it is in tune? That problem once solved, we can tell which are +the authentic utterances and which are the accidental discords. And by +solving it, or by saying what is the right constitution of human beings, +we shall discover which is the true philosophy of the universe, and what +are the dictates of a sound moral sense. Wordsworth implicitly answers +the question by explaining, in his favourite phrase, how we are to build +up our moral being. + +The voice of nature speaks at first in vague emotions, scarcely +distinguishable from mere animal buoyancy. The boy, hooting in mimicry +of the owls, receives in his heart the voice of mountain torrents and +the solemn imagery of rocks, and woods, and stars. The sportive girl is +unconsciously moulded into stateliness and grace by the floating clouds, +the bending willow, and even by silent sympathy with the motions of the +storm. Nobody has ever shown, with such exquisite power as Wordsworth, +how much of the charm of natural objects in later life is due to early +associations, thus formed in a mind not yet capable of contemplating its +own processes. As old Matthew says in the lines which, however familiar, +can never be read without emotion-- + + My eyes are dim with childish tears, + My heart is idly stirred; + For the same sound is in my ears + Which in those days I heard. + +And the strangely beautiful address to the cuckoo might be made into a +text for a prolonged commentary by an aesthetic philosopher upon the +power of early association. It curiously illustrates, for example, the +reason of Wordsworth's delight in recalling sounds. The croak of the +distant raven, the bleat of the mountain lamb, the splash of the leaping +fish in the lonely tarn, are specially delightful to him, because the +hearing is the most spiritual of our senses; and these sounds, like the +cuckoo's cry, seem to convert the earth into an 'unsubstantial fairy +place.' The phrase 'association' indeed implies a certain arbitrariness +in the images suggested, which is not quite in accordance with +Wordsworth's feeling. Though the echo depends partly upon the hearer, +the mountain voices are specially adapted for certain moods. They have, +we may say, a spontaneous affinity for the nobler affections. If some +early passage in our childhood is associated with a particular spot, a +house or a street will bring back the petty and accidental details: a +mountain or a lake will revive the deeper and more permanent elements of +feeling. If you have made love in a palace, according to Mr. Disraeli's +prescription, the sight of it will recall the splendour of the object's +dress or jewellery; if, as Wordsworth would prefer, with a background of +mountains, it will appear in later days as if they had absorbed, and +were always ready again to radiate forth, the tender and hallowing +influences which then for the first time entered your life. The +elementary and deepest passions are most easily associated with the +sublime and beautiful in nature. + + The primal duties shine aloft like stars; + The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, + Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers. + +And, therefore, if you have been happy enough to take delight in these +natural and universal objects in the early days, when the most permanent +associations are formed, the sight of them in later days will bring back +by pre-ordained and divine symbolism whatever was most ennobling in your +early feelings. The vulgarising associations will drop off of +themselves, and what was pure and lofty will remain. + +From this natural law follows another of Wordsworth's favourite +precepts. The mountains are not with him a symbol of anti-social +feelings. On the contrary, they are in their proper place as the +background of the simple domestic affections. He loves his native hills, +not in the Byronic fashion, as a savage wilderness, but as the +appropriate framework in which a healthy social order can permanently +maintain itself. That, for example, is, as he tells us, the thought +which inspired the 'Brothers,' a poem which excels all modern idylls in +weight of meaning and depth of feeling, by virtue of the idea thus +embodied. The retired valley of Ennerdale, with its grand background of +hills, precipitous enough to be fairly called mountains, forces the two +lads into closer affection. Shut in by these 'enormous barriers,' and +undistracted by the ebb and flow of the outside world, the mutual love +becomes concentrated. A tie like that of family blood is involuntarily +imposed upon the little community of dalesmen. The image of sheep-tracks +and shepherds clad in country grey is stamped upon the elder brother's +mind, and comes back to him in tropical calms; he hears the tones of his +waterfalls in the piping shrouds; and when he returns, recognises every +fresh scar made by winter storms on the mountain sides, and knows by +sight every unmarked grave in the little churchyard. The fraternal +affection sanctifies the scenery, and the sight of the scenery brings +back the affection with overpowering force upon his return. This is +everywhere the sentiment inspired in Wordsworth by his beloved hills. It +is not so much the love of nature pure and simple, as of nature seen +through the deepest human feelings. The light glimmering in a lonely +cottage, the one rude house in the deep valley, with its 'small lot of +life-supporting fields and guardian rocks,' are necessary to point the +moral and to draw to a definite focus the various forces of sentiment. +The two veins of feeling are inseparably blended. The peasant noble, in +the 'Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,' learns equally from men and +nature:-- + + Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; + His daily teachers had been woods and hills, + The silence that is in the starry skies, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + +Without the love, the silence and the sleep would have had no spiritual +meaning. They are valuable as giving intensity and solemnity to the +positive emotion. + +The same remark is to be made upon Wordsworth's favourite teaching of +the advantages of the contemplative life. He is fond of enforcing the +doctrine of the familiar lines, that we can feed our minds 'in a wise +passiveness,' and that + + One impulse from the vernal wood + Can teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good, + Than all the sages can. + +And, according to some commentators, this would seem to express the +doctrine that the ultimate end of life is the cultivation of tender +emotions without reference to action. The doctrine, thus absolutely +stated, would be immoral and illogical. To recommend contemplation in +preference to action is like preferring sleeping to waking; or saying, +as a full expression of the truth, that silence is golden and speech +silvern. Like that familiar phrase, Wordsworth's teaching is not to be +interpreted literally. The essence of such maxims is to be one-sided. +They are paradoxical in order to be emphatic. To have seasons of +contemplation, of withdrawal from the world and from books, of calm +surrendering of ourselves to the influences of nature, is a practice +commended in one form or other by all moral teachers. It is a sanitary +rule, resting upon obvious principles. The mind which is always occupied +in a multiplicity of small observations, or the regulation of practical +details, loses the power of seeing general principles and of associating +all objects with the central emotions of 'admiration, hope, and love.' +The philosophic mind is that which habitually sees the general in the +particular, and finds food for the deepest thought in the simplest +objects. It requires, therefore, periods of repose, in which the +fragmentary and complex atoms of distracted feeling which make up the +incessant whirl of daily life may have time to crystallise round the +central thoughts. But it must feed in order to assimilate; and each +process implies the other as its correlative. A constant interest, +therefore, in the joys and sorrows of our neighbours is as essential as +quiet, self-centred rumination. It is when the eye 'has kept watch o'er +man's mortality,' and by virtue of the tender sympathies of 'the human +heart by which we live,' that to us + + The meanest flower which blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. + +The solitude which implies severance from natural sympathies and +affections is poisonous. The happiness of the heart which lives alone, + + Housed in a dream, an outcast from the kind, + + * * * * * + + Is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind. + +Wordsworth's meditations upon flowers or animal life are impressive +because they have been touched by this constant sympathy. The sermon is +always in his mind, and therefore every stone may serve for a text. His +contemplation enables him to see the pathetic side of the small pains +and pleasures which we are generally in too great a hurry to notice. +There are times, of course, when this moralising tendency leads him to +the regions of the namby-pamby or sheer prosaic platitude. On the other +hand, no one approaches him in the power of touching some rich chord of +feeling by help of the pettiest incident. The old man going to the +fox-hunt with a tear on his cheek, and saying to himself, + + The key I must take, for my Helen is dead; + +or the mother carrying home her dead sailor's bird; the village +schoolmaster, in whom a rift in the clouds revives the memory of his +little daughter; the old huntsman unable to cut through the stump of +rotten wood--touch our hearts at once and for ever. The secret is given +in the rather prosaic apology for not relating a tale about poor Simon +Lee: + + O reader! had you in your mind + Such stores as silent thought can bring, + O gentle reader! you would find + A tale in everything. + +The value of silent thought is so to cultivate the primitive emotions +that they may flow spontaneously upon every common incident, and that +every familiar object becomes symbolic of them. It is a familiar remark +that a philosopher or man of science who has devoted himself to +meditation upon some principle or law of nature, is always finding new +illustrations in the most unexpected quarters. He cannot take up a novel +or walk across the street without hitting upon appropriate instances. +Wordsworth would apply the principle to the building up of our 'moral +being.' Admiration, hope, and love should be so constantly in our +thoughts, that innumerable sights and sounds which are meaningless to +the world should become to us a language incessantly suggestive of the +deepest topics of thought. + +This explains his dislike to science, as he understood the word, and his +denunciations of the 'world.' The man of science is one who cuts up +nature into fragments, and not only neglects their possible significance +for our higher feelings, but refrains on principle from taking it into +account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification, +and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance +as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead +and spiritless,' we are thus really waging + + An impious warfare with the very life + Of our own souls. + +We are putting the letter in place of the spirit, and dealing with +nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem. When we have learnt to +associate every object with some lesson + + Of human suffering or of human joy; + +when we have thus obtained the 'glorious habit,' + + By which sense is made + Subservient still to moral purposes, + Auxiliar to divine; + +the 'dull eye' of science will light up; for, in observing natural +processes, it will carry with it an incessant reference to the spiritual +processes to which they are allied. Science, in short, requires to be +brought into intimate connection with morality and religion. If we are +forced for our immediate purpose to pursue truth for itself, regardless +of consequences, we must remember all the more carefully that truth is a +whole, and that fragmentary bits of knowledge become valuable as they +are incorporated into a general system. The tendency of modern times to +specialism brings with it a characteristic danger. It requires to be +supplemented by a correlative process of integration. We must study +details to increase our knowledge; we must accustom ourselves to look at +the detail in the light of the general principles in order to make it +fruitful. + +The influence of that world which 'is too much with us late and soon' is +of the same kind. The man of science loves barren facts for their own +sake. The man of the world becomes devoted to some petty pursuit without +reference to ultimate ends. He becomes a slave to money, or power, or +praise, without caring for their effect upon his moral character. As +social organisation becomes more complete, the social unit becomes a +mere fragment instead of being a complete whole in himself. Man becomes + + The senseless member of a vast machine, + Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel. + +The division of labour, celebrated with such enthusiasm by Adam +Smith,[27] tends to crush all real life out of its victims. The soul of +the political economist may rejoice when he sees a human being devoting +his whole faculties to the performance of one subsidiary operation in +the manufacture of a pin. The poet and the moralist must notice with +anxiety the contrast between the old-fashioned peasant who, if he +discharged each particular function clumsily, discharged at least many +functions, and found exercise for all the intellectual and moral +faculties of his nature, and the modern artisan doomed to the incessant +repetition of one petty set of muscular expansions and contractions, and +whose soul, if he has one, is therefore rather an encumbrance than +otherwise. This is the evil which is constantly before Wordsworth's +eyes, as it has certainly not become less prominent since his time. The +danger of crushing the individual is a serious one according to his +view; not because it implies the neglect of some abstract political +rights, but from the impoverishment of character which is implied in the +process. Give every man a vote, and abolish all interference with each +man's private tastes, and the danger may still be as great as ever. The +tendency to 'differentiation'--as we call it in modern phraseology--the +social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's +sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon +processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, therefore, be +cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, or by the negative remedy +of removing old barriers. It requires to be met by profounder moral and +religious teaching. Men must be taught what is the really valuable part +of their natures, and what is the purest happiness to be extracted from +life, as well as allowed to gratify fully their own tastes; for who can +say that men encouraged by all their surroundings and appeals to the +most obvious motives to turn themselves into machines, will not +deliberately choose to be machines? Many powerful thinkers have +illustrated Wordsworth's doctrine more elaborately, but nobody has gone +more decisively to the root of the matter. + +One other side of Wordsworth's teaching is still more significant and +original. Our vague instincts are consolidated into reason by +meditation, sympathy with our fellows, communion with nature, and a +constant devotion to 'high endeavours.' If life run smoothly, the +transformation may be easy, and our primitive optimism turn +imperceptibly into general complacency. The trial comes when we make +personal acquaintance with sorrow, and our early buoyancy begins to +fail. We are tempted to become querulous or to lap ourselves in +indifference. Most poets are content to bewail our lot melodiously, and +admit that there is no remedy unless a remedy be found in 'the luxury of +grief.' Prosaic people become selfish, though not sentimental. They +laugh at their old illusions, and turn to the solid consolations of +comfort. Nothing is more melancholy than to study many biographies, and +note--not the failure of early promise, which may mean merely an aiming +above the mark--but the progressive deterioration of character which so +often follows grief and disappointment. If it be not true that most men +grow worse as they grow old, it is surely true that few men pass +through the world without being corrupted as much as purified. + +Now Wordsworth's favourite lesson is the possibility of turning grief +and disappointment into account. He teaches in many forms the necessity +of 'transmuting' sorrow into strength. One of the great evils is a lack +of power, + + An agonising sorrow to transmute. + +The Happy Warrior is, above all, the man who in face of all human +miseries can + + Exercise a power + Which is our human nature's highest dower; + Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves + Of their bad influence, and their good receives; + +who is made more compassionate by familiarity with sorrow, more placable +by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.[28] It +is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to +the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who +will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an +impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we +may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an +intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far +at least as this world is concerned, can really be called consolatory. +None of the ordinary commonplaces will serve, or serve at most as +indications of human sympathy. But there is some consolation in the +thought that even death may bind the survivors closer, and leave as a +legacy enduring motives to noble action. It is easy to say this; but +Wordsworth has the merit of feeling the truth in all its force, and +expressing it by the most forcible images. In one shape or another the +sentiment is embodied in most of his really powerful poetry. It is +intended, for example, to be the moral of the 'White Doe of Rylstone.' +There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is +external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral +and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it +grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem. +Emily, the heroine, is to become a soul + + By force of sorrows high + Uplifted to the purest sky + Of undisturbed serenity. + +The 'White Doe' is one of those poems which make many readers inclined +to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's dogged insensibility; and I +confess that I am not one of its warm admirers. The sentiment seems to +be unduly relaxed throughout; there is a want of sympathy with heroism +of the rough and active type, which is, after all, at least as worthy of +admiration as the more passive variety of the virtue; and the defect is +made more palpable by the position of the chief actors. These rough +borderers, who recall William of Deloraine and Dandie Dinmont, are +somehow out of their element when preaching the doctrines of quietism +and submission to circumstances. But, whatever our judgment of this +particular embodiment of Wordsworth's moral philosophy, the inculcation +of the same lesson gives force to many of his finest poems. It is +enough to mention the 'Leech-gatherer,' the 'Stanzas on Peele Castle,' +'Michael,' and, as expressing the inverse view of the futility of idle +grief, 'Laodamia,' where he has succeeded in combining his morality with +more than his ordinary beauty of poetical form. The teaching of all +these poems falls in with the doctrine already set forth. All moral +teaching, I have sometimes fancied, might be summed up in the one +formula, 'Waste not.' Every element of which our nature is composed may +be said to be good in its proper place; and therefore every vicious +habit springs out of the misapplication of forces which might be turned +to account by judicious training. The waste of sorrow is one of the most +lamentable forms of waste. Sorrow too often tends to produce bitterness +or effeminacy of character. But it may, if rightly used, serve only to +detach us from the lower motives, and give sanctity to the higher. That +is what Wordsworth sees with unequalled clearness, and he therefore sees +also the condition of profiting. The mind in which the most valuable +elements have been systematically strengthened by meditation, by +association of deep thought with the most universal presences, by +constant sympathy with the joys and sorrows of its fellows, will be +prepared to convert sorrow into a medicine instead of a poison. Sorrow +is deteriorating so far as it is selfish. The man who is occupied with +his own interests makes grief an excuse for effeminate indulgence in +self-pity. He becomes weaker and more fretful. The man who has learnt +habitually to think of himself as part of a greater whole, whose conduct +has been habitually directed to noble ends, is purified and strengthened +by the spiritual convulsion. His disappointment, or his loss of some +beloved object, makes him more anxious to fix the bases of his +happiness widely and deeply, and to be content with the consciousness of +honest work, instead of looking for what is called success. + +But I must not take to preaching in the place of Wordsworth. The whole +theory is most nobly summed up in the grand lines already noticed on the +character of the Happy Warrior. There Wordsworth has explained in the +most forcible and direct language the mode in which a grand character +can be formed; how youthful impulses may change into manly purpose; how +pain and sorrow may be transmuted into new forces; how the mind may be +fixed upon lofty purposes; how the domestic affections--which give the +truest happiness--may also be the greatest source of strength to the man +who is + + More brave for this, that he has much to lose; + +and how, finally, he becomes indifferent to all petty ambition-- + + Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; + And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws + His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. + This is the Happy Warrior, this is he + Whom every man in arms should wish to be. + +We may now see what ethical theory underlies Wordsworth's teaching of +the transformation of instinct into reason. We must start from the +postulate that there is in fact a Divine order in the universe; and that +conformity to this order produces beauty as embodied in the external +world, and is the condition of virtue as regulating our character. It is +by obedience to the 'stern lawgiver,' Duty, that flowers gain their +fragrance, and that 'the most ancient heavens' preserve their freshness +and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in +abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are +precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and +emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not +a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are +not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering +their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been +implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds +to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to +experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the +assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it, +though we could not deduce it by an _a priori_ method. + +The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and +may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern +teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy +natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great +primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume. +Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and +endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the +primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights +of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;' +and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for +furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite +treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early +happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief +produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on +petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and +pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing the +noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its +instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature, +and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know +how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised +are the laws of morality. + +To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode +of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You +must love him,' as he says of the poet, + + Ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love. + +The doctrine corresponds to the _crede ut intelligas_ of the divine; or +to the philosophic theory that we must start from the knowledge already +constructed within us by instincts which have not yet learnt to reason. +And, finally, if a persistent reasoner should ask why--even admitting +the facts--the higher type should be preferred to the lower, Wordsworth +may ask, Why is bodily health preferable to disease? If a man likes weak +lungs and a bad digestion, reason cannot convince him of his error. The +physician has done enough when he has pointed out the sanitary laws +obedience to which generates strength, long life, and power of +enjoyment. The moralist is in the same position when he has shown how +certain habits conduce to the development of a type superior to its +rivals in all the faculties which imply permanent peace of mind and +power of resisting the shocks of the world without disintegration. Much +undoubtedly remains to be said. Wordsworth's teaching, profound and +admirable as it may be, has not the potency to silence the scepticism +which has gathered strength since his day, and assailed fundamental--or +what to him seemed fundamental--tenets of his system. No one can yet +say what transformation may pass upon the thoughts and emotions for +which he found utterance in speaking of the Divinity and sanctity of +nature. Some people vehemently maintain that the words will be emptied +of all meaning if the old theological conceptions to which he was so +firmly attached should disappear with the development of new modes of +thought. Nature, as regarded by the light of modern science, will be the +name of a cruel and wasteful, or at least of a purely neutral and +indifferent power, or perhaps as merely an equivalent for the +Unknowable, to which the conditions of our intellect prevent us from +ever attaching any intelligible predicate. Others would say that in +whatever terms we choose to speak of the mysterious darkness which +surrounds our little island of comparative light, the emotion generated +in a thoughtful mind by the contemplation of the universe will remain +unaltered or strengthen with clearer knowledge; and that we shall +express ourselves in a new dialect without altering the essence of our +thought. The emotions to which Wordsworth has given utterance will +remain, though the system in which he believed should sink into +oblivion; as, indeed, all human systems have found different modes of +symbolising the same fundamental feelings. But it is enough vaguely to +indicate considerations not here to be developed. + +It only remains to be added once more that Wordsworth's poetry derives +its power from the same source as his philosophy. It speaks to our +strongest feelings because his speculation rests upon our deepest +thoughts. His singular capacity for investing all objects with a glow +derived from early associations; his keen sympathy with natural and +simple emotions; his sense of the sanctifying influences which can be +extracted from sorrow, are of equal value to his power over our +intellects and our imaginations. His psychology, stated systematically, +is rational; and, when expressed passionately, turns into poetry. To be +sensitive to the most important phenomena is the first step equally +towards a poetical or a scientific exposition. To see these truly is the +condition of making the poetry harmonious and the philosophy logical. +And it is often difficult to say which power is most remarkable in +Wordsworth. It would be easy to illustrate the truth by other than moral +topics. His sonnet, noticed by De Quincey, in which he speaks of the +abstracting power of darkness, and observes that as the hills pass into +twilight we see the same sight as the ancient Britons, is impressive as +it stands, but would be equally good as an illustration in a +metaphysical treatise. Again, the sonnet beginning + + With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide, + +is at once, as he has shown in a commentary of his own, an illustration +of a curious psychological law--of our tendency, that is, to introduce +an arbitrary principle of order into a random collection of +objects--and, for the same reason, a striking embodiment of the +corresponding mood of feeling. The little poem called 'Stepping +Westward' is in the same way at once a delicate expression of a specific +sentiment and an acute critical analysis of the subtle associations +suggested by a single phrase. But such illustrations might be multiplied +indefinitely. As he has himself said, there is scarcely one of his poems +which does not call attention to some moral sentiment, or to a general +principle or law of thought, of our intellectual constitution. + +Finally, we might look at the reverse side of the picture, and endeavour +to show how the narrow limits of Wordsworth's power are connected with +certain moral defects; with the want of quick sympathy which shows +itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which +caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather +commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he +assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many +thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would +be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to +console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy +happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to +think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;' +and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest +exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has +expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and +Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in +acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist. + +[25] The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this +connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint. + +[26] As, for example, in the _Lines on Tintern Abbey_: 'If this be but a +vain belief.' + +[27] See Wordsworth's reference to the _Wealth of Nations_, in the +_Prelude_, book xiii. + +[28] So, too, in the _Prelude_:-- + + Then was the truth received into my heart, + That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, + If from the affliction somewhere do not grow + Honour which could not else have been, a faith, + An elevation, and a sanctity; + If new strength be not given, nor old restored, + The fault is ours, not Nature's. + + + + +_LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS_ + + +When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works, +the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part +any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and +were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a +definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an +attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most +striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of +opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general +public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish +applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It +is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer literary palate than is +possessed by the vulgar herd are really so keenly appreciative as the +innocent reader of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in matters +of taste--whether of the literal or metaphorical kind--is the commonest +of vices. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are +more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed. I have heard very good +judges whisper in private that they have found Landor dull; and the rare +citations made from his works often betray a very perfunctory study of +them. Not long ago, for example, an able critic quoted a passage from +one of the 'Imaginary Conversations' to prove that Landor admired +Milton's prose, adding the remark that it might probably be taken as an +expression of his real sentiments, although put in the mouth of a +dramatic person. To anyone who has read Landor with ordinary attention, +it seems as absurd to speak in this hypothetical manner as it would be +to infer from some incidental allusion that Mr. Ruskin admires Turner. +Landor's adoration for Milton is one of the most conspicuous of his +critical propensities. There are, of course, many eulogies upon Landor +of undeniable weight. They are hearty, genuine, and from competent +judges. Yet the enthusiasm of such admirable critics as Mr. Emerson and +Mr. Lowell may be carped at by some who fancy that every American enjoys +a peculiar sense of complacency when rescuing an English genius from the +neglect of his own countrymen. If Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne have +been conspicuous in their admiration, it might be urged that neither of +them has too strong a desire to keep to that beaten highroad of the +commonplace, beyond which even the best guides meet with pitfalls. +Southey's praises of Landor were sincere and emphatic; but it must be +added that they provoke a recollection of one of Johnson's shrewd +remarks. 'The reciprocal civility of authors,' says the Doctor, 'is one +of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.' One forgives poor +Southey indeed for the vanity which enabled him to bear up so bravely +against anxiety and repeated disappointment; and if both he and Landor +found that 'reciprocal civility' helped them to bear the disregard of +contemporaries, one would not judge them harshly. It was simply a tacit +agreement to throw their harmless vanity into a common stock. Of Mr. +Forster, Landor's faithful friend and admirer, one can only say that in +his writing about Landor, as upon other topics, we are distracted +between the respect due to his strong feeling for the excellent in +literature, and the undeniable facts that his criticisms have a very +blunt edge, and that his eulogies are apt to be indiscriminate. + +Southey and Wordsworth had a simple method of explaining the neglect of +a great author. According to them, contemporary neglect affords a +negative presumption in favour of permanent reputation. No lofty poet +has honour in his own generation. Southey's conviction that his +ponderous epics would make the fortune of his children is a pleasant +instance of self-delusion. But the theory is generally admitted in +regard to Wordsworth; and Landor accepted and defended it with +characteristic vigour. 'I have published,' he says in the conversation +with Hare, 'five volumes of "Imaginary Conversations:" cut the worst of +them through the middle, and there will remain in the decimal fraction +enough to satisfy my appetite for fame. I shall dine late; but the +dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.' He recurs +frequently to the doctrine. 'Be patient!' he says, in another character. +'From the higher heavens of poetry it is long before the radiance of the +brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out +one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and +instruments on the poet's grave. The worms must have eaten us before we +rightly know what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are +boxed and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so! I shall not be tired +of waiting.' Conscious, as he says in his own person, that in 2,000 +years there have not been five volumes of prose (the work of one author) +equal to his 'Conversations,' he could indeed afford to wait: if +conscious of earthly things, he must be waiting still. + +This superlative self-esteem strikes one, to say the truth, as part of +Landor's abiding boyishness. It is only in schoolboy themes that we are +still inclined to talk about the devouring love of fame. Grown-up men +look rightly with some contempt upon such aspirations. What work a man +does is really done in, or at least through, his own generation; and the +posthumous fame which poets affect to value means, for the most part, +being known by name to a few antiquarians, schoolmasters, or secluded +students. When the poet, to adopt Landor's metaphor, has become a +luminous star, his superiority to those which have grown dim by distance +is indeed for the first time clearly demonstrated. We can still see him, +though other bodies of his system have vanished into the infinite depths +of oblivion. But he has also ceased to give appreciable warmth or light +to ordinary human beings. He is a splendid name, but not a living +influence. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to any +such statements, but I have a suspicion that even Shakespeare's chief +work may have been done in the Globe Theatre, to living audiences, who +felt what they never thought of criticising, and were quite unable to +measure; and that, spite of all aesthetic philosophers and minute +antiquarians and judicious revivals, his real influence upon men's minds +has been for the most part declining as his fame has been spreading. To +defend or fully expound this heretical dogma would take too much space. +The 'late-dinner' theory, however, as held by Wordsworth and Landor, is +subject to one less questionable qualification. It is an utterly +untenable proposition that great men have been generally overlooked in +their own day. + +If we run over the chief names of our literature, it would be hard to +point to one which was not honoured, and sometimes honoured to excess, +during its proprietor's lifetime. It is, indeed, true that much +ephemeral underwood has often hidden in part the majestic forms which +now stand out as sole relics of the forest. It is true also that the +petty spite and jealousy of contemporaries, especially of their ablest +contemporaries, has often prevented the full recognition of great men. +And there have been some whose fame, like that of Bunyan and De Foe, has +extended amongst the lower sphere of readers before receiving the +ratification of constituted judges. But such irregularities in the +distribution of fame do not quite meet the point. I doubt whether one +could mention a single case in which an author, overlooked at the time +both by the critics and the mass, has afterwards become famous; and the +cases are very rare in which a reputation once decayed has again taken +root and shown real vitality. The experiment of resuscitation has been +tried of late years with great pertinacity. The forgotten images of our +seventeenth-century ancestors have been brought out of the lumber-room +amidst immense flourishes of trumpets, but they are terribly worm-eaten; +and all efforts to make their statues once more stand firmly on their +pedestals have generally failed. Landor himself refused to see the +merits of the mere 'mushrooms,' as he somewhere called them, which grew +beneath the Shakespearian oak; and though such men as Chapman, Webster, +and Ford have received the warmest eulogies of Lamb and other able +successors, their vitality is spasmodic and uncertain. We generally read +them, if we read them, at the point of the critic's bayonet. + +The case of Wordsworth is no precedent for Landor. Wordsworth's fame +was for a long time confined to a narrow sect, and he did all in his +power to hinder its spread by wilful disregard of the established +canons--even when founded in reason. A reformer who will not court the +prejudices even of his friends is likely to be slow in making converts. +But it is one thing to be slow in getting a hearing, and another in +attracting men who are quite prepared to hear. Wordsworth resembled a +man coming into a drawing-room with muddy boots and a smock-frock. He +courted disgust, and such courtship is pretty sure of success. But +Landor made his bow in full court-dress. In spite of the difficulty of +his poetry, he had all the natural graces which are apt to propitiate +cultivated readers. His prose has merits so conspicuous and so dear to +the critical mind, that one might have expected his welcome from the +connoisseurs to be warm even beyond the limit of sincerity. To praise +him was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and +there can be no greater stimulus to critical enthusiasm. One might have +guessed that he would be a favourite with all who set up for a +discernment superior to that of the vulgar; though the causes which must +obstruct a wide recognition of his merits are sufficiently obvious. It +may be interesting to consider the cause of his ill-success with some +fulness; and it is a comfort to the critic to reflect that in such a +case even obtuseness is in some sort a qualification; for it will enable +one to sympathise with the vulgar insensibility to the offered delicacy, +if only to substitute articulate rejection for simple stolid silence. + +I do not wish, indeed, to put forward such a claim too unreservedly. I +will merely take courage to confess that Landor very frequently bores +me. So do a good many writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage +be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon +Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever +spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, +almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser +continuously. Even Milton in Landor's hands, in defiance of his known +opinions, is made to speak contemptuously of 'The Faery Queen.' 'There +is scarcely a poet of the same eminence,' says Porson, obviously +representing Landor in this case, 'whom I have found it so delightful to +read in, and so hard to read through.' What Landor here says of Spenser, +I should venture to say of Landor. There are few books of the kind into +which one may dip with so great a certainty of finding much to admire as +the 'Imaginary Conversations,' and few of any high reputation which are +so certain to become wearisome after a time. And yet, upon thinking of +the whole five volumes so emphatically extolled by their author, one +feels the necessity of some apology for this admission of inadequate +sympathy. There is a vigour of feeling, an originality of character, a +fineness of style which makes one understand, if not quite agree to, the +audacious self-commendation. Part of the effect is due simply to the +sheer quantity of good writing. Take any essay separately, and one must +admit that--to speak only of his contemporaries--there is a greater +charm in passages of equal length by Lamb, De Quincey, or even Hazlitt. +None of them gets upon such stilts, or seems so anxious to keep the +reader at arm's length. But, on the other hand, there is something +imposing in so continuous a flow of stately and generally faultless +English, with so many weighty aphorisms rising spontaneously, without +splashing or disturbance, to the surface of talk, and such an easy +felicity of theme unmarred by the flash and glitter of the modern +epigrammatic style. Lamb is both sweeter and more profound, to say +nothing of his incomparable humour; but then Lamb's flight is short and +uncertain. De Quincey's passages of splendid rhetoric are too often +succeeded by dead levels of verbosity and laboured puerilities which +make annoyance alternate with enthusiasm. Hazlitt is often spasmodic, +and his intrusive egotism is pettish and undignified. But so far at +least as his style is concerned, Landor's unruffled abundant stream of +continuous harmony excites one's admiration the more the longer one +reads. Hardly anyone who has written so much has kept so uniformly to a +high level, and so seldom descended to empty verbosity or to downright +slipshod. It is true that the substance does not always correspond to +the perfection of the form. There are frequent discontinuities of +thought where the style is smoothest. He reminds one at times of those +Alpine glaciers where an exquisitely rounded surface of snow conceals +yawning crevasses beneath; and if one stops for a moment to think, one +is apt to break through the crust with an abrupt and annoying jerk. + +The excellence of Landor's style has, of course, been universally +acknowledged, and it is natural that it should be more appreciated by +his fellow-craftsmen than by general readers less interested in +technical questions. The defects are the natural complements of its +merits. When accused of being too figurative, he had a ready reply. +'Wordsworth,' he says in one of his 'Conversations,' 'slithers on the +soft mud, and cannot stop himself until he comes down. In his poetry +there is as much of prose as there is of poetry in the prose of Milton. +But prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the +other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose, +and neither fan nor burnt feather can bring her to herself again.' The +remark about the relations of prose and poetry was originally made in a +real conversation with Wordsworth in defence of Landor's own luxuriance. +Wordsworth, it is said, took it to himself, and not without reason, as +appears by its insertion in this 'Conversation.' The retort, however +happy, is no more conclusive than other cases of the _tu quoque_. We are +too often inclined to say to Landor as Southey says to Porson in another +place: 'Pray leave these tropes and metaphors.' His sense suffers from a +superfetation of figures, or from the undue pursuit of a figure, till +the 'wind of the poor phrase is cracked.' In the phrase just quoted, for +example, we could dispense with the 'fan and burnt feather,' which have +very little relation to the thought. So, to take an instance of the +excessively florid, I may quote the phrase in which Marvell defends his +want of respect for the aristocracy of his day. 'Ever too hard upon +great men, Mr. Marvell!' says Bishop Parker; and Marvell replies:-- + + Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows because + our sun is setting; the men so little and the places so + lofty that, casting my pebble, I only show where they stand. + They would be less contented with themselves, if they had + obtained their preferment honestly. Luck and dexterity + always give more pleasure than intellect and knowledge; + because they fill up what they fall on to the brim at once; + and people run to them with acclamations at the splash. + Wisdom is reserved and noiseless, contented with hard + earnings, and daily letting go some early acquisition to + make room for better specimens. But great is the exultation + of a worthless man when he receives for the chips and + raspings of his Bridewell logwood a richer reward than the + best and wisest for extensive tracts of well-cleared truths! + Even he who has sold his country-- + +'Forbear, good Mr. Marvell,' says Bishop Parker; and one is inclined to +sympathise with the poor man drowned under this cascade of tropes. It is +certainly imposing, but I should be glad to know the meaning of the +metaphor about 'luck and dexterity.' Passages occur, again, in which we +are tempted to think that Landor is falling into an imitation of an +obsolete model. Take, for example, the following:-- + + A narrow mind cannot be enlarged, nor can a capacious one be + contracted. Are we angry with a phial for not being a flask; + or do we wonder that the skin of an elephant sits uneasily + on a squirrel? + +Or this, in reference to Wordsworth:-- + + Pastiness and flatness are the qualities of a pancake, and + thus far he attained his aim: but if he means it for me, let + him place the accessories on the table, lest what is insipid + and clammy ... grow into duller accretion and moister + viscidity the more I masticate it. + +Or a remark given to Newton:-- + + Wherever there is vacuity of mind, there must either be + flaccidity or craving; and this vacuity must necessarily be + found in the greater part of princes, from the defects of + their education, from the fear of offending them in its + progress by interrogations and admonitions, from the habit + of rendering all things valueless by the facility with which + they are obtained, and transitory by the negligence with + which they are received and holden. + +Should we not remove the names of Porson and Newton from these +sentences, and substitute Sam Johnson? The last passage reads very like +a quotation from the 'Rambler.' Johnson was, in my opinion and in +Landor's, a great writer in spite of his mannerism; but the mannerism is +always rather awkward, and in such places we seem to see--certainly not +a squirrel--but, say, a thoroughbred horse invested with the skin of an +elephant. + +These lapses into the inflated are of course exceptional with Landor. +There can be no question of the fineness of his perception in all +matters of literary form. To say that his standard of style is classical +is to repeat a commonplace too obvious for repetition, except to add a +doubt whether he is not often too ostentatious and self-conscious in his +classicism. He loves and often exhibits a masculine simplicity, and +speaks with enthusiasm of Locke and Swift in their own departments. +Locke is to be 'revered;' he is 'too simply grand for admiration;' and +no one, he thinks, ever had such a power as Swift of saying forcibly and +completely whatever he meant to say. But for his own purposes he +generally prefers a different model. The qualities which he specially +claims seem to be summed up in the conversation upon Bacon's Essays +between Newton and Barrow. Cicero and Bacon, says Barrow, have more +wisdom between them than all the philosophers of antiquity. Newton's +review of the Essays, he adds, 'hath brought back to my recollection so +much of shrewd judgment, so much of rich imagery, such a profusion of +truths so plain as (without his manner of exhibiting them) to appear +almost unimportant, that in various high qualities of the human mind I +must acknowledge not only Cicero, but every prose writer among the +Greeks, to stand far below him. Cicero is least valued for his highest +merits, his fulness, and his perspicuity. Bad judges (and how few are +not so!) desire in composition the concise and obscure; not knowing that +the one most frequently arises from paucity of materials, and the other +from inability to manage and dispose them.' Landor aims, like Bacon, at +rich imagery, at giving to thoughts which appear plain more value by +fineness of expression, and at compressing shrewd judgments into weighty +aphorisms. He would equally rival Cicero in fulness and perspicuity; +whilst a severe rejection of everything slovenly or superfluous would +save him from ever deviating into the merely florid. So far as style can +be really separated from thought, we may admit unreservedly that he has +succeeded in his aim, and has attained a rare harmony of tone and +colouring. + +There may, indeed, be some doubt as to his perspicuity. Southey said +that Landor was obscure, whilst adding that he could not explain the +cause of the obscurity. Causes enough may be suggested. Besides his +incoherency, his love of figures which sometimes become half detached +from the underlying thought, and an over-anxiety to avoid mere smartness +which sometimes leads to real vagueness, he expects too much from his +readers, or perhaps despises them too much. He will not condescend to +explanation if you do not catch his drift at half a word. He is so +desirous to round off his transitions gracefully, that he obliterates +the necessary indications of the main divisions of the subject. When +criticising Milton or Dante, he can hardly keep his hand off the finest +passages in his desire to pare away superfluities. Treating himself in +the same fashion, he leaves none of those little signs which, like the +typographical hand prefixed to a notice, are extremely convenient, +though strictly superfluous. It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard +framework of logical divisions showing too distinctly in an argument, or +to have a too elaborate statement of dates and places and external +relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may be removed too +freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffolding. +Faults of this kind, however, will not explain Landor's failure to get a +real hold upon a large body of readers. Writers of far greater obscurity +and much more repellent blemishes of style to set against much lower +merits, have gained a far wider popularity. The want of sympathy between +so eminent a literary artist and his time must rest upon some deeper +divergence of sentiment. Landor's writings present the same kind of +problem as his life. We are told, and we can see for ourselves, that he +was a man of many very high and many very amiable qualities. He was full +of chivalrous feeling; capable of the most flowing and delicate +courtesy; easily stirred to righteous indignation against every kind of +tyranny and bigotry; capable, too, of a tenderness pleasantly contrasted +with his outbursts of passing wrath; passionately fond of children, and +a true lover of dogs. But with all this, he could never live long at +peace with anybody. He was the most impracticable of men, and every +turning-point in his career was decided by some vehement quarrel. He had +to leave school in consequence of a quarrel, trifling in itself, but +aggravated by 'a fierce defiance of all authority and a refusal to ask +forgiveness.' He got into a preposterous scrape at Oxford, and forced +the authorities to rusticate him. This branched out into a quarrel with +his father. When he set up as a country gentleman at Llanthony Abbey, he +managed to quarrel with his neighbours and his tenants, until the +accumulating consequences to his purse forced him to go to Italy. On the +road thither he began the first of many quarrels with his wife, which +ultimately developed into a chronic quarrel and drove him back to +England. From England he was finally dislodged by another quarrel which +drove him back to Italy. Intermediate quarrels of minor importance are +intercalated between those which provoked decisive crises. The +lightheartedness which provoked all these difficulties is not more +remarkable than the ease with which he threw them off his mind. Blown +hither and thither by his own gusts of passion, he always seems to fall +on his feet, and forgets his trouble as a schoolboy forgets yesterday's +flogging. On the first transitory separation from his wife, he made +himself quite happy by writing Latin verses; and he always seems to have +found sufficient consolation in such literary occupation for vexations +which would have driven some people out of their mind. He would not, he +writes, encounter the rudeness of a certain lawyer to save all his +property; but he adds, 'I have chastised him in my Latin poetry now in +the press.' Such a mode of chastisement seems to have been as completely +satisfactory to Landor as it doubtless was to the lawyer. + +His quarrels do not alienate us, for it is evident that they did not +proceed from any malignant passion. If his temper was ungovernable, his +passions were not odious, or, in any low sense, selfish. In many, if not +all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of +right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive +insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people +who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing +to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense +of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against +stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance of shrewd +sense which fully appreciates Falstaff's theory of honour. Scott himself +managed to combine the two qualities; but poor Landor seems to have had +Hotspur's readiness to quarrel on the tenth part of a hair without the +redeeming touch of common-sense. In a slightly different social sphere, +he must, one would fancy, have been the mark of a dozen bullets before +he had grown up to manhood; it is not quite clear how, even as it was, +he avoided duels, unless because he regarded the practice as a Christian +barbarism to which the ancients had never condescended. + +His position and surroundings tended to aggravate his incoherencies of +statement. Like his own Peterborough, he was a man of aristocratic +feeling, with a hearty contempt for aristocrats. The expectation that he +would one day join the ranks of the country gentlemen unsettled him as a +scholar; and when he became a landed proprietor he despised his fellow +'barbarians' with a true scholar's contempt. He was not forced into the +ordinary professional groove, and yet did not fully imbibe the +prejudices of the class who can afford to be idle, and the natural +result is an odd mixture of conflicting prejudices. He is classical in +taste and cosmopolitan in life, and yet he always retains a certain +John-Bull element. His preference of Shakespeare to Racine is associated +with, if not partly prompted by, a mere English antipathy to foreigners. +He never becomes Italianised so far as to lose his contempt for men +whose ideas of sport rank larks with the orthodox partridge. He abuses +Castlereagh and poor George III. to his heart's content, and so far +flies in the face of British prejudice; but it is by no means as a +sympathiser with foreign innovations. His republicanism is strongly +dashed with old-fashioned conservatism, and he is proud of a doubtful +descent from old worthies of the true English type. Through all his +would-be paganism we feel that at bottom he is after all a true-born +and wrong-headed Englishman. He never, like Shelley, pushed his quarrel +with the old order to the extreme, but remained in a solitary cave of +Adullam. 'There can be no great genius,' says Penn to Peterborough, +'where there is not profound and continued reasoning.' The remark is too +good for Penn; and yet it would be dangerous in Landor's own mouth; for +certainly the defect which most strikes us, both in his life and his +writings, is just the inconsistency which leaves most people as the +reasoning powers develop. His work was marred by the unreasonableness of +a nature so impetuous and so absorbed by any momentary gust of passion +that he could never bring his thoughts or his plans to a focus, or +conform them to a general scheme. His prejudices master him both in +speculation and practice. He cannot fairly rise above them, or govern +them by reference to general principles or the permanent interests of +his life. In the vulgar phrase, he is always ready to cut off his nose +to spite his face. He quarrels with his schoolmaster or his wife. In an +instant he is all fire and fury, runs amuck at his best friends, and +does irreparable mischief. Some men might try to atone for such offences +by remorse. Landor, unluckily for himself, could forget the past as +easily as he could ignore the future. He lives only in the present, and +can throw himself into a favourite author or compose Latin verses or an +imaginary conversation as though schoolmasters or wives, or duns or +critics, had no existence. With such a temperament, reasoning, which +implies patient contemplation and painful liberation from prejudice, has +no fair chance; his principles are not the growth of thought, but the +translation into dogmas of intense likes and dislikes, which have grown +up in his mind he scarcely knows how, and gathered strength by sheer +force of repetition instead of deliberate examination. + +His writings reflect--and in some ways only too faithfully--these +idiosyncrasies. Southey said that his temper was the only explanation of +his faults. 'Never did man represent himself in his writings so much +less generous, less just, less compassionate, less noble in all respects +than he really is. I certainly,' he adds, 'never knew anyone of brighter +genius or of kinder heart.' Southey, no doubt, was in this case +resenting certain attacks of Landor's upon his most cherished opinions; +and, truly, nothing but continuous separation could have preserved the +friendship between two men so peremptorily opposed upon so many +essential points. Southey's criticism, though sharpened by such latent +antagonisms, has really much force. The 'Conversations' give much that +Landor's friends would have been glad to ignore; and yet they present +such a full-length portrait of the man, that it is better to dwell upon +them than upon his poetry, which, moreover, with all its fine qualities, +is (I cannot help thinking) of less intrinsic value. The ordinary +reader, however, is repelled from the 'Conversations' not only by mere +inherent difficulties, but by comments which raise a false expectation. +An easy-going critic is apt to assume of any book that it exactly +fulfils the ostensible aim of the author. So we are told of +'Shakespeare's Examination' (and on the high authority of Charles Lamb), +that no one could have written it except Landor or Shakespeare himself. +When Bacon is introduced, we are assured that the aphorisms introduced +are worthy of Bacon himself. What Cicero is made to say is exactly what +he would have said, 'if he could;' and the dialogue between Walton, +Cotton, and Oldways is, of course, as good as a passage from the +'Complete Angler.' In the same spirit we are told that the dialogues +were to be 'one-act dramas;' and we are informed how the great +philosophers, statesmen, poets, and artists of all ages did in fact pass +across the stage, each represented to the life, and each discoursing in +his most admirable style. + +All this is easy to say, but unluckily represents what the +'Conversations' would have been had they been perfect. To say that they +are very far from perfect is only to say that they were the compositions +of a man; but Landor was also a man to whom his best friends would +hardly attribute a remarkable immunity from fault. The dialogue, it need +hardly be remarked, is one of the most difficult of all forms of +composition. One rule, however, would be generally admitted. Landor +defends his digressions on the ground that they always occur in real +conversations. If we 'adhere to one point,' he says (in Southey's +person), 'it is a disquisition, not a conversation.' And he adds, with +one of his wilful back-handed blows at Plato, that most writers of +dialogue plunge into abstruse questions, and 'collect a heap of +arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiff of some rhetorical +charlatan tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons for the occasion.' +Possibly! but for all that, the perfect dialogue ought not, we should +say, to be really incoherent. It should include digressions, but the +digressions ought to return upon the main subject. The art consists in +preserving real unity in the midst of the superficial deviations +rendered easy by this form of composition. The facility of digression is +really a temptation, not a privilege. Anybody can write blank verse of a +kind, because it so easily slips into prose; and that is why good blank +verse is so rare. And so anybody can write a decent dialogue if you +allow him to ramble as we all do in actual talk. The finest +philosophical dialogues are those in which a complete logical framework +underlies the dramatic structure. They are a perfect fusion of logic and +imagination. Instead of harsh divisions and cross-divisions of the +subject, and a balance of abstract arguments, we have vivid portraits of +human beings, each embodying a different line of thought. But the logic +is still seen, though the more carefully hidden the more exquisite the +skill of the artist. And the purely artistic dialogue which describes +passion or the emotions arising from a given situation should in the +same way set forth a single idea, and preserve a dramatic unity of +conception at least as rigidly as a full-grown play. So far as Landor +used his facilities as an excuse for rambling, instead of so skilfully +subordinating them to the main purpose as to reproduce new variations on +the central theme, he is clearly in error, or is at least aiming at a +lower kind of excellence. And this, it may be said at once, seems to be +the most radical defect in point of composition of Landor's +'Conversations.' They have the fault which his real talk is said to have +exemplified. We are told that his temperament 'disqualified him for +anything like sustained reasoning, and he instinctively backed away from +discussion or argument.' Many of the written dialogues are a prolonged +series of explosions; when one expects a continuous development of a +theme, they are monotonous thunder-growls. Landor undoubtedly had a +sufficient share of dramatic power to write short dialogues expressing a +single situation with most admirable power, delicacy, and firmness of +touch. Nor, again, does the criticism just made refer to those longer +dialogues which are in reality a mere string of notes upon poems or +proposals for reforms in spelling. The slight dramatic form binds +together his pencillings from the margins of 'Paradise Lost' or +Wordsworth's poems very pleasantly, and enables him to give additional +effect to vivacious outbursts of praise or censure. But the more +elaborate dialogues suffer grievously from this absence of a true unity. +There is not that skilful evolution of a central idea without the rigid +formality of scientific discussion which we admire in the real +masterpieces of the art. We have a conglomerate, not an organic growth; +a series of observations set forth with never-failing elegance of style, +and often with singular keenness of perception; but they do not take us +beyond the starting-point. When Robinson Crusoe crossed the Pyrenees, +his guide led him by such dexterous windings and gradual ascents that he +found himself across the mountains before he knew where he was. With +Landor it is just the opposite. After many digressions and ramblings we +find ourselves back on the same side of the original question. We are +marking time with admirable gracefulness, but somehow we are not +advancing. Naturally flesh and blood grow weary when there is no +apparent end to a discussion, except that the author must in time be +wearied of performing variations upon a single theme. + +We are more easily reconciled to some other faults which are rather due +to expectations raised by his critics than to positive errors. No one, +for example, would care to notice an anachronism, if Landor did not +occasionally put in a claim for accuracy. I have no objection whatever +to allow Hooker to console Bacon for his loss of the chancellorship, in +calm disregard of the fact that Hooker died some twenty years before +Bacon rose to that high office. The fault can be amended by substituting +any other name for Hooker's. Nor do I at all wish to find in Landor +that kind of archaeological accuracy which is sought by some composers of +historical romances. Were it not that critics have asserted the +opposite, it would be hardly worth while to say that Landor's style +seldom condescends to adapt itself to the mouth of the speaker, and that +from Demosthenes to Porson every interlocutor has palpably the true +Landorian trick of speech. Here and there, it is true, the effect is +rather unpleasant. Pericles and Aspasia are apt to indulge in criticism +of English customs, and no weak regard for time and place prevents +Eubulides from denouncing Canning to Demosthenes. The classical dress +becomes so thin on such occasions, that even the small degree of +illusion which one may fairly desiderate is too rudely interrupted. The +actor does not disguise his voice enough for theatrical purposes. It is +perhaps a more serious fault that the dialogue constantly lapses into +monologue. We might often remove the names of the talkers as useless +interruptions. Some conversations might as well be headed, in legal +phraseology, Landor _v._ Landor, or at most Landor _v._ Landor and +another--the other being some wretched man of straw or Guy Faux effigy +dragged in to be belaboured with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive +nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the +name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be +made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his +philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two to represent +his smashing retorts. + +There is yet another criticism or two to be added. The extreme +scrupulosity with which Landor polishes his style and removes +superfluities from poetical narrative, smoothing them at times till we +can hardly grasp them, might have been applied to some of the wanton +digressions in which the dialogues abound. We should have been glad if +he had ruthlessly cut out two-thirds of the conversation between +Richelieu and others, in which some charming English pastorals are mixed +up with a quantity of unmistakable rubbish. But, for the most part, we +can console ourselves by a smile. When Landor lowers his head and +charges bull-like at the phantom of some king or priest, we are prepared +for, and amused by, his impetuosity. Malesherbes discourses with great +point and vigour upon French literature, and may fairly diverge into a +little politics; but it is certainly comic when he suddenly remembers +one of Landor's pet grievances, and the unlucky Rousseau has to discuss +a question for which few people could be more ludicrously unfit--the +details of a plan for reforming the institution of English justices of +the peace. The grave dignity with which the subject is introduced gives +additional piquancy to the absurdity. An occasional laugh at Landor is +the more valuable because, to say the truth, one is not very likely to +laugh with him. Nothing is more difficult for an author--as Landor +himself observes in reference to Milton--than to decide upon his own +merits as a wit or humorist. I am not quite sure that this is true; for +I have certainly found authors distinctly fallible in judging of their +own merits as poets and philosophers. But it is undeniable that many a +man laughs at his own wit who has to laugh alone. I will not take upon +myself to say that Landor was without humour; he has certainly a +delicate gracefulness which may be classed with the finer kinds of +humour; but if anybody (to take one instance) will read the story which +Chaucer tells to Boccaccio and Petrarch and pronounce it to be amusing, +I can only say that his notions of humour differ materially from mine. +Some of his wrathful satire against kings and priests has a vigour which +is amusing; but the tact which enables him to avoid errors of taste of a +different kind often fails him when he tries the facetious. + +Blemishes such as these go some way, perhaps, to account for Landor's +unpopularity. But they are such as might be amply redeemed by his +vigour, his fulness, and unflagging energy of style. There is no equally +voluminous author of great power who does not fall short of his own +highest achievements in a large part of his work, and who is not open to +the remark that his achievements are not all that we could have wished. +It is doubtless best to take what we can get, and not to repine if we do +not get something better, the possibility of which is suggested by the +actual accomplishment. If Landor had united to his own powers those of +Scott or Shakespeare, he would have been improved. Landor, repenting a +little for some censures of Milton, says to Southey, 'Are we not +somewhat like two little beggar-boys who, forgetting that they are in +tatters, sit noticing a few stains and rents in their father's raiment?' +'But they love him,' replies Southey, and we feel the apology to be +sufficient. + +Can we make it in the case of Landor? Is he a man whom we can take to +our hearts, treating his vagaries and ill-humours as we do the testiness +of a valued friend? Or do we feel that he is one whom it is better to +have for an acquaintance than for an intimate? The problem seems to have +exercised those who knew him best in life. Many, like Southey or Napier, +thought him a man of true nobility and tenderness of character, and +looked upon his defects as mere superficial blemishes. If some who came +closer seem to have had a rather different opinion, we must allow that +a man's personal defects are often unimportant in his literary capacity. +It has been laid down as a general rule that poets cannot get on with +their wives; and yet they are poets in virtue of being lovable at the +core. Landor's domestic troubles need not indicate an incapacity for +meeting our sympathies any more than the domestic troubles of +Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Burns, Byron, Shelley, or many others. In +his poetry a man should show his best self; and defects, important in +the daily life which is made up of trifles, may cease to trouble us when +admitted to the inmost recesses of his nature. + +Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved +unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the +form to the substance--from the manner in which his message is delivered +to the message itself--we find that the superficial defects rise from +very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we +find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. He +has pronounced himself upon a wide range of subjects; there is much +criticism, some of it of a very rare and admirable order; much +theological and political disquisition; and much exposition, in various +forms, of the practical philosophy which every man imbibes according to +his faculties in his passage through the world. It would be undesirable +to discuss seriously his political or religious notions. To say the +truth, they are not really worth discussing, for they are little more +than vehement explosions of unreasoning prejudice. I do not know whether +Landor would have approved the famous aspiration about strangling the +last of kings with the entrails of the last priest, but some such +sentiment seems to sum up all that he really has to say. His doctrine +so far coincides with that of Diderot and other revolutionists, though +he has no sympathy with their social aspirations. His utterances, +however, remind us too much--in substance, though not in form--of the +rhetoric of debating societies. They are as factitious as the +old-fashioned appeals to the memory of Brutus. They would doubtless make +a sensation at the Union. Diogenes tells us that 'all nations, all +cities, all communities, should combine in one great hunt, like that of +the Scythians at the approach of winter, and follow it' (the kingly +power, to wit) 'up, unrelentingly to its perdition. The diadem should +designate the victim; all who wear it, all who offer it, all who bow to +it, should perish.' Demosthenes, in less direct language, announces the +same plan to Eubulides as the one truth, far more important than any +other, and 'more conducive to whatever is desirable to the well-educated +and free.' We laugh, not because the phrase is overstrained, or intended +to have a merely dramatic truth, for Landor puts similar sentiments into +the mouths of all his favourite speakers, but simply because we feel it +to be a mere form of swearing. The language would have been less +elegant, but the meaning just the same, if he had rapped out a good +mouth-filling oath whenever he heard the name of king. When, in +reference to some such utterances, Carlyle said that 'Landor's principle +is mere rebellion,' Landor was much nettled, and declared himself to be +in favour of authority. He despised American republicanism and regarded +Venice as the pattern State. He sympathised in this, as in much else, +with the theorists of Milton's time, and would have been approved by +Harrington or Algernon Sidney; but, for all that, Carlyle seems pretty +well to have hit the mark. Such republicanism is in reality nothing +more than the political expression of intense pride, or, if you prefer +the word, self-respect. It is the sentiment of personal dignity, which +could not bear the thought that he, Landor, should have to bow the knee +to a fool like George III.; or that Milton should have been regarded as +the inferior of such a sneak as Charles I. But the same feeling would +have been just as much shocked by the claim of a demagogue to override +high-spirited gentlemen. Mobs were every whit as vile as kings. He might +have stood for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, if Coriolanus had not an +unfortunate want of taste in his language. Landor, indeed, being never +much troubled as to consistency, is fond of dilating on the absurdity of +any kind of hereditary rank; but he sympathises, to his last fibre, with +the spirit fostered by the existence of an aristocratic caste, and +producible, so far as our experience has gone, in no other way. He is +generous enough to hate all oppression in every form, and therefore to +hate the oppression exercised by a noble as heartily as oppression +exercised by a king. He is a big boy ready to fight anyone who bullies +his fag; but with no doubts as to the merits of fagging. But then he +never chooses to look at the awkward consequences of his opinion. When +talking of politics, an aristocracy full of virtue and talent, ruling on +generous principles a people sufficiently educated to obey its natural +leaders, is the ideal which is vaguely before his mind. To ask how it is +to be produced without hereditary rank, or to be prevented from +degenerating into a tyrannical oligarchy, or to be reconciled at all +with modern principles, is simply to be impertinent. He answers all such +questions by putting himself in imagination into the attitude of a +Pericles or Demosthenes or Milton, fulminating against tyrants and +keeping the mob in its place by the ascendency of genius. To recommend +Venice as a model is simply to say that you have nothing but contempt +for all politics. It is as if a lad should be asked whether he preferred +to join a cavalry or an infantry regiment, and should reply that he +would only serve under Leonidas. + +His religious principles are in the same way little more than the +assertion that he will not be fettered in mind or body by any priest on +earth. The priest is to him what he was to the deists and materialists +of the eighteenth century--a juggling impostor who uses superstition as +an instrument for creeping into the confidence of women and cowards, and +burning brave men; but he has no dreams of the advent of a religion of +reason. He ridicules the notion that truth will prevail: it never has +and it never will. At bottom he prefers paganism to Christianity because +it was tolerant and encouraged art, and allowed philosophers to enjoy as +much privilege as they can ever really enjoy--that of living in peace +and knowing that their neighbours are harmless fools. After a fashion he +likes his own version of Christianity, which is superficially that of +many popular preachers: Be tolerant, kindly, and happy, and don't worry +your head about dogmas, or become a slave to priests. But then one also +feels that humility is generally regarded as an essential part of +Christianity, and that in Landor's version it is replaced by something +like its antithesis. You should do good, too, as you respect yourself +and would be respected by men; but the chief good is the philosophic +mind, which can wrap itself in its own consciousness of worth, and enjoy +the finest pleasures of life without superstitious asceticism. Let the +vulgar amuse themselves with the playthings of their creed, so long as +they do not take to playing with faggots. Stand apart and enjoy your +own superiority with good-natured contempt. + +One of his longest and, in this sense, most characteristic dialogues, is +that between Penn and Peterborough. Peterborough is the ideal aristocrat +with a contempt for the actual aristocracy; and Penn represents the +religion of common-sense. 'Teach men to calculate rightly and thou wilt +have taught them to live religiously,' is Penn's sentiment, and perhaps +not too unfaithful to the original. No one could have a more thorough +contempt for the mystical element in Quakerism than Landor; but he loves +Quakers as sober, industrious, easy-going people, who regard good-humour +and comfort as the ultimate aim of religious life, and who manage to do +without lawyers or priests. Peterborough, meanwhile, represents his +other side--the haughty, energetic, cultivated aristocrat, who, on the +ground of their common aversions, can hold out a friendly hand to the +quiet Quaker. Landor, of course, is both at once. He is the noble who +rather enjoys giving a little scandal at times to his drab-suited +companion; but, on the whole, thinks that it would be an excellent world +if the common people would adopt this harmless form of religion, which +tolerates other opinions and does not give any leverage to kings, +insolvent aristocrats, or intriguing bishops. + +Landor's critical utterances reveal the same tendencies. Much of the +criticism has of course an interest of its own. It is the judgment of a +real master of language upon many technical points of style, and the +judgment, moreover, of a poet who can look even upon classical poets as +one who breathes the same atmosphere at an equal elevation, and who +speaks out like a cultivated gentleman, not as a schoolmaster or a +specialist. But putting aside this and the crotchets about spelling, +which have been dignified with the name of philological theories, the +general direction of his sympathies is eminently characteristic. Landor +of course pays the inevitable homage to the great names of Plato, Dante, +and Shakespeare, and yet it would be scarcely unfair to say that he +hates Plato, that Dante gives him far more annoyance than pleasure, and +that he really cares little for Shakespeare. The last might be denied on +the ground of isolated expressions. 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says, +'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born +ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and +seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes +brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is +dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of +'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be +pacified by the fairly-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed +plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakespeare.' That is his genuine +impression. Some readers may appeal to that 'Examination of Shakespeare' +which (as we have seen) was held by Lamb to be beyond the powers of any +other writer except its hero. I confess that, in my opinion, Lamb could +have himself drawn a far more sympathetic portrait of Shakespeare, and +that Scott would have brought out the whole scene with incomparably +greater vividness. Call it a morning in an English country-house in the +sixteenth century, and it will be full of charming passages along with +some laborious failures. But when we are forced to think of Slender and +Shallow, and Sir Hugh Evans, and the Shakespearian method of +portraiture, the personages in Landor's talk seem half asleep and +terribly given to twaddle. His view of Dante is less equivocal. In the +whole 'Inferno,' Petrarca (evidently representing Landor) finds nothing +admirable but the famous descriptions of Francesca and Ugolino. They are +the 'greater and lesser oases' in a vast desert. And he would pare one +of these fine passages to the quick, whilst the other provokes the +remark ('we must whisper it') that Dante is 'the great master of the +disgusting.' He seems really to prefer Boccaccio and Ovid, to say +nothing of Homer and Virgil. Plato is denounced still more unsparingly. +From Aristotle and Diogenes down to Lord Chatham, assailants are set on +to worry him, and tear to pieces his gorgeous robes with just an +occasional perfunctory apology. Even Lady Jane Grey is deprived of her +favourite. She consents on Ascham's petition to lay aside books, but she +excepts Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Polybius: the 'others I do +resign;' they are good for the arbour and garden walk, but not for the +fireside or pillow. This is surely to wrong the poor soul; but Landor is +intolerant in his enthusiasm for his philosophical favourites. Epicurus +is the teacher whom he really delights to honour, and Cicero is forced +to confess in his last hours that he has nearly come over to the camp of +his old adversary. + +It is easy to interpret the meaning of these prejudices. Landor hates +and despises the romantic and the mystic. He has not the least feeling +for the art which owes its powers to suggestions of the infinite, or to +symbols forced into grotesqueness by the effort to express that for +which no thought can be adequate. He refuses to bother himself with +allegory or dreamy speculation, and, unlike Sir T. Browne, hates to lose +himself in an 'O Altitudo!' He cares nothing for Dante's inner thoughts, +and sees only a hideous chamber of horrors in the 'Inferno.' Plato is a +mere compiler of idle sophistries, and contemptible to the common-sense +and worldly wisdom of Locke and Bacon. In the same spirit he despised +Wordsworth's philosophising as heartily as Jeffrey, and, though he tried +to be just, could really see nothing in him except the writer of good +rustic idylls, and of one good piece of paganism, the 'Laodamia.'[29] +From such a point of view he ranks him below Burns, Scott, and Cowper, +and makes poor Southey consent--Southey who ranked Wordsworth with +Milton! + +These tendencies are generally summed up by speaking of Landor's +objectivity and Hellenism. I have no particular objection to those words +except that they seem rather vague and to leave our problem untouched. A +man may be as 'objective' as you please in a sense, and as thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of Greek art, and yet may manage to fall in with +the spirit of our own times. The truth is, I fancy, that a simpler name +may be given to Landor's tastes, and that we may find them exemplified +nearer home. There is many a good country gentleman who rides well to +hounds, and is most heartily 'objective' in the sense of hating +metaphysics and elaborate allegory and unintelligible art, and +preferring a glass of wine and a talk with a charming young lady to +mystic communings with the world-spirit; and as for Landor's Hellenism, +that surely ought not to be an uncommon phenomenon in the region of +English public schools. It is an odd circumstance that we should be so +much puzzled by the very man who seems to realise precisely that ideal +of culture upon which our most popular system of education is apparently +moulded. Here at last is a man who is really simple-minded enough to +take the habit of writing Latin verses seriously; making it a +consolation in trouble as well as an elegant amusement. He hopes to rest +his fame upon it, and even by a marvellous _tour de force_ writes a +great deal of English poetry which for all the world reads exactly like +a first-rate copy of modern Greek Iambics. For once we have produced +just what the system ought constantly to produce, and yet we cannot make +him out. + +The reason for our not producing more Landors is indeed pretty simple. +Men of real poetic genius are exceedingly rare at all times, and it is +still rarer to find such a man who remains a schoolboy all his life. +Landor is precisely a glorified and sublime edition of the model +sixth-form lad, only with an unusually strong infusion of schoolboy +perversion. Perverse lads, indeed, generally kick over the traces at an +earlier point: and refuse to learn anything. Boys who take kindly to the +classical system are generally good--that is to say, docile. They +develop into prosaic tutors and professors; or, when the cares of life +begin to press, they start their cargo of classical lumber and fill the +void with law or politics. Landor's peculiar temperament led him to kick +against authority, whilst he yet imbibed the spirit of the teaching +fully, and in some respects rather too fully. He was a rebel against the +outward form, and yet more faithful in spirit than most of the obedient +subjects. + +The impatient and indomitable temper which made quiet or continuous +meditation impossible, and the accidental circumstances of his life, +left him in possession of qualities which are in most men subdued or +expelled by the hard discipline of life. Brought into impulsive +collision with all kinds of authorities, he set up a kind of schoolboy +republicanism, and used all his poetic eloquence to give it an air of +reality. But he never cared to bring it into harmony with any definite +system of thought, or let his outbursts of temper transport him into +settled antagonism with accepted principles. He troubled himself just as +little about theological as about political theories; he was as utterly +impervious as the dullest of squires to the mystic philosophy imported +by Coleridge, and found the world quite rich enough in sources of +enjoyment without tormenting himself about the unseen, and the ugly +superstitions which thrive in mental twilight. But he had quarrelled +with parsons as much as with lawyers, and could not stand the thought of +a priest interfering with his affairs or limiting his amusements. And so +he set up as a tolerant and hearty disciple of Epicurus. Chivalrous +sentiment and an exquisite perception of the beautiful saved him from +any gross interpretation of his master's principles; although, to say +the truth, he shows an occasional laxity on some points which savours of +the easy-going pagan, or perhaps of the noble of the old school. As he +grew up he drank deep of English literature, and sympathised with the +grand republican pride of Milton--as sturdy a rebel as himself, and a +still nobler because more serious rhetorician. He went to Italy, and, as +he imbibed Italian literature, sympathised with the joyous spirit of +Boccaccio and the eternal boyishness of classical art. Mediaevalism and +all mystic philosophies remained unintelligible to this true-born +Englishman. Irritated rather than humbled by his incapacity, he cast +them aside, pretty much as a schoolboy might throw a Plato at the head +of a pedantic master. + +The best and most attractive dialogues are those in which he can give +free play to this Epicurean sentiment; forget his political mouthing, +and inoculate us for the moment with the spirit of youthful enjoyment. +Nothing can be more perfectly charming in its way than Epicurus in his +exquisite garden, discoursing on his pleasant knoll, where, with +violets, cyclamens, and convolvuluses clustering round, he talks to his +lovely girl-disciples upon the true theory of life--temperate enjoyment +of all refined pleasures, forgetfulness of all cares, and converse with +true chosen spirits far from the noise of the profane vulgar: of the +art, in short, by which a man of fine cultivation may make the most of +this life, and learn to take death as a calm and happy subsidence into +oblivion. Nor far behind is the dialogue in which Lucullus entertains +Caesar in his delightful villa, and illustrates by example, as well as +precept, Landor's favourite doctrine of the vast superiority of the +literary to the active life. Politics, as he makes even Demosthenes +admit, are the 'sad refuge of restless minds, averse from business and +from study.' And certainly there are moods in which we could ask nothing +better than to live in a remote villa, in which wealth and art have done +everything in their power to give all the pleasures compatible with +perfect refinement and contempt of the grosser tastes. Only it must be +admitted that this is not quite a gospel for the million. And probably +the highest triumph is in the Pentameron, where the whole scene is so +vividly coloured by so many delicate touches, and such charming little +episodes of Italian life, that we seem almost to have seen the fat, +wheezy poet hoisting himself on to his pampered steed, to have listened +to the village gossip, and followed the little flirtations in which the +true poets take so kindly an interest; and are quite ready to pardon +certain useless digressions and critical vagaries, and to overlook +complacently any little laxity of morals. + +These, and many of the shorter and more dramatic dialogues, have a rare +charm, and the critic will return to analyse, if he can, their technical +qualities. But little explanation can be needed, after reading them, of +Landor's want of popularity. If he had applied one-tenth part of his +literary skill to expand commonplace sentiment; if he had talked that +kind of gentle twaddle by which some recent essayists edify their +readers, he might have succeeded in gaining a wide popularity. Or if he +had been really, as some writers seem to fancy, a deep and systematic +thinker as well as a most admirable artist, he might have extorted a +hearing even while provoking dissent. But his boyish waywardness has +disqualified him from reaching the deeper sympathies of either class. We +feel that the most superhuman of schoolboys has really a rather shallow +view of life. His various outbursts of wrath amuse us at best when they +do not bore, even though they take the outward form of philosophy or +statesmanship. He has really no answer or vestige of answer for any +problems of his, nor indeed of any other time, for he has no basis of +serious thought. All he can say is, ultimately, that he feels himself in +a very uncongenial atmosphere, from which it is delightful to retire, in +imagination, to the society of Epicurus, or the study of a few literary +masterpieces. That may be very true, but it can be interesting only to a +few men of similar taste; and men of profound insight, whether of the +poetic or the philosophic temperament, are apt to be vexed by his hasty +dogmatism and irritable rejection of much which deserved his sympathy. +His wanton quarrel with the world has been avenged by the world's +indifference. We may regret the result when we see what rare qualities +have been cruelly wasted, but we cannot fairly shut our eyes to the fact +that the world has a very strong case. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[29] De Quincey gets into a curious puzzle about Landor's remarks in his +essay on Milton _versus_ Southey and Landor. He cannot understand to +which of Wordsworth's poems Landor is referring, and makes some oddly +erroneous guesses. + + + + +_MACAULAY_ + + +Lord Macaulay was pre-eminently a fortunate man; and his good fortune +has survived him. Few, indeed, in the long line of English authors whom +he loved so well, have been equally happy in a biographer. Most official +biographies are a mixture of bungling and indiscretion. It is only in +virtue of some happy coincidence that the one or two people who alone +have the requisite knowledge can produce also the requisite skill and +discretion. Mr. Trevelyan is one of the exceptions to the rule. His book +is such a piece of thorough literary workmanship as would have delighted +its subject. By a rare felicity, the almost filial affection of the +narrator conciliates the reader instead of exciting a distrust of the +narrative. We feel that Macaulay's must have been a lovable character to +excite such warmth of feeling, and a noble character to enable one who +loved him to speak so frankly. The ordinary biographer's idolatry is not +absent, but it becomes a testimony to the hero's excellence instead of +introducing a disturbing element into our estimate of his merits. + +No reader of Macaulay's works will be surprised at the manliness which +is stamped not less plainly upon them than upon his whole career. But +few who were not in some degree behind the scenes would be prepared for +the tenderness of nature which is equally conspicuous. We all recognised +in Macaulay a lover of truth and political honour. We find no more than +we expected, when we are told that the one circumstance upon which he +looked back with some regret was the unauthorised publication by a +constituent of a letter in which he had spoken too frankly of a +political ally. That is indeed an infinitesimal stain upon the character +of a man who rose without wealth or connection, by sheer force of +intellect, to a conspicuous position amongst politicians. But we find +something more than we expected in the singular beauty of Macaulay's +domestic life. In his relations to his father, his sisters, and the +younger generation, he was admirable. The stern religious principle and +profound absorption in philanthropic labours of old Zachary Macaulay +must have made the position of his brilliant son anything but an easy +one. He could hardly read a novel, or contribute to a worldly magazine, +without calling down something like a reproof. The father seems to have +indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip +about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed +culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen +satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of +praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of +royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such +paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive of +anything like mutual confidence. Macaulay seems, in spite of all, to +have been on the most cordial terms with his father to the last. Some +suppression of his sentiments must indeed have been necessary; and we +cannot avoid tracing certain peculiarities of the son's intellectual +career to his having been condemned from an early age to habitual +reticence upon the deepest of all subjects of thought. + +Macaulay's relations to his sisters are sufficiently revealed in a long +series of charming letters, showing, both in their playfulness and in +their literary and political discussions, the unreserved respect and +confidence which united them. One of them writes upon his death: 'We +have lost the light of our home, the most tender, loving, generous, +unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can +tell? What a world of love he poured out upon me and mine!' Reading +these words at the close of the biography, we do not wonder at the +glamour of sisterly affection; but admit them to be the natural +expression of a perfectly sincere conviction. Can there be higher +praise? His relation to children is equally charming. 'He was beyond +comparison the best of playfellows,' writes Mr. Trevelyan; 'unrivalled +in the invention of games, and never weary of repeating them.' He wrote +long letters to his favourites; he addressed pretty little poems to them +on their birthdays, and composed long nursery rhymes for their +edification; whilst overwhelmed with historical labours, and grudging +the demands of society, he would dawdle away whole mornings with them, +and spend the afternoon in taking them to sights; he would build up a +den with newspapers behind the sofa, and act the part of tiger or +brigand; he would take them to the Tower, or Madame Tussaud's, or the +Zoological Gardens, make puns to enliven the Polytechnic, and tell +innumerable anecdotes to animate the statues in the British Museum; nor, +as they grew older, did he neglect the more dignified duty of +inoculating them with the literary tastes which had been the consolation +of his life. Obviously he was the ideal uncle--the uncle of optimistic +fiction, but with qualifications for his task such as few fictitious +uncles can possess. It need hardly be added that Macaulay was a man of +noble liberality in money matters, that he helped his family when they +were in difficulties, and was beloved by the servants who depended upon +him. In his domestic relations he had, according to his nephew, only one +serious fault--he did not appreciate canine excellence; but no man is +perfect. + +The thorough kindliness of the man reconciles us even to his good +fortune. He was an infant phenomenon; the best boy at school; in his +college days, 'ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out' at Bowood, +formed a circle to hear him talk, from breakfast to dinner-time; he was +famous as an author at twenty-five; accepted as a great parliamentary +orator at thirty; and, as a natural consequence, caressed with effusion +by editors, politicians, Whig magnates, and the clique of Holland House; +by thirty-three he had become a man of mark in society, literature, and +politics, and had secured his fortune by gaining a seat in the Indian +Council. His later career was a series of triumphs. He had been the main +support of the greatest literary organ of his party, and the 'Essays' +republished from its pages became at once a standard work. The 'Lays of +Ancient Rome' sold like Scott's most popular poetry; the 'History' +caused an excitement almost unparalleled in literary annals. Not only +was the first sale enormous, but it has gone on ever since increasing. +The popular author was equally popular in Parliament. The benches were +crammed to listen to the rare treat of his eloquence; and he had the far +rarer glory of more than once turning the settled opinion of the House +by a single speech. It is a more vulgar but a striking testimony to his +success that he made 20,000_l._ in one year by literature. Other authors +have had their heads turned by less triumphant careers; they have +descended to lower ambition, and wasted their lives in spasmodic +straining to gain worthless applause. Macaulay remained faithful to his +calling. He worked his hardest to the last, and became a more unsparing +critic of his own performances as time went on. We do not feel even a +passing symptom of a grudge against his good fortune. Rather we are +moved by that kind of sentiment which expresses itself in the schoolboy +phrase, 'Well done our side!' We are glad to see the hearty, kindly, +truthful man crowned with all appropriate praise, and to think that for +once one of our race has got so decidedly the best of it in the hard +battle with the temptations and the miseries of life. + +Certain shortcomings have been set off against these virtues by critics +of Macaulay's life. He was, it has been said, too good a hater. At any +rate, he hated vice, meanness, and charlatanism. It is easier to hate +such things too little than too much. But it must be admitted that his +likes and dislikes indicate a certain rigidity and narrowness of nature. +'In books, as in people and places,' says Mr. Trevelyan, 'he loved that, +and loved that only, to which he had been accustomed from boyhood +upwards.' The faults of which this significant remark reveals one cause, +are marked upon his whole literary character. Macaulay was converted to +Whiggism when at college. The advance from Toryism to Whiggism is not +such as to involve a very violent wrench of the moral and intellectual +nature. Such as it was, it was the only wrench from which Macaulay +suffered. What he was as a scholar of Trinity, he was substantially as a +peer of the realm. He made, it would seem, few new friends, though he +grappled his old ones as 'with hooks of steel.' The fault is one which +belongs to many men of strong natures, and so long as we are +considering Macaulay's life we shall not be much disposed to quarrel +with his innate conservatism. Strong affections are so admirable a +quality that we can pardon the man who loves well though not widely; and +if Macaulay had not a genuine fervour of regard for the little circle of +his intimates, there is no man who deserves such praise. + +It is when we turn from Macaulay's personal character to attempt an +estimate of his literary position, that these faults acquire more +importance. His intellectual force was extraordinary within certain +limits; beyond those limits the giant became a child. He assimilated a +certain set of ideas as a lad, and never acquired a new idea in later +life. He accumulated vast stores of knowledge, but they all fitted into +the old framework of theory. Whiggism seemed to him to provide a +satisfactory solution for all political problems when he was sending his +first article to 'Knight's Magazine,' and when he was writing the last +page of his 'History.' 'I entered public life a Whig,' as he said in +1849, 'and a Whig I am determined to remain.' And what is meant by +Whiggism in Macaulay's mouth? It means substantially that creed which +registers the experience of the English upper classes during the four or +five generations previous to Macaulay. It represents, not the reasoning, +but the instinctive convictions generated by the dogged insistence upon +their privileges of a stubborn, high-spirited, and individually +short-sighted race. To deduce it as a symmetrical doctrine from abstract +propositions would be futile. It is only reasonable so far as a creed, +felt out by the collective instinct of a number of more or less stupid +people, becomes impressed with a quasi-rational unity, not from their +respect for logic, but from the uniformity of the mode of development. +Hatred to pure reason is indeed one of its first principles. A doctrine +avowedly founded on logic instead of instinct becomes for that very +reason suspect to it. Common-sense takes the place of philosophy. At +times this mass of sentiment opposes itself under stress of +circumstances to the absolute theories of monarchy, and then calls +itself Whiggism. At other times it offers an equally dogged resistance +to absolute theories of democracy, and then becomes nominally Tory. In +Macaulay's youth the weight of opinion had been slowly swinging round +from the Toryism generated by dread of revolution, to Whiggism generated +by the accumulation of palpable abuses. The growing intelligence and +more rapidly growing power of the middle classes gave it at the same +time a more popular character than before. Macaulay's 'conversion' was +simply a process of swinging with the tide. The Clapham Sect, amongst +whom he had been brought up, was already more than half Whig, in virtue +of its attack upon the sacred institution of slavery by means of popular +agitation. Macaulay--the most brilliant of its young men--naturally cast +in his lot with the brilliant men, a little older than himself, who +fought under the blue and yellow banner of the 'Edinburgh Review.' No +great change of sentiment was necessary, though some of the old Clapham +doctrines died out in his mind as he was swept into the political +current. + +Macaulay thus early became a thoroughgoing Whig. Whiggism seemed to him +the _ne plus ultra_ of progress: the pure essence of political wisdom. +He was never fully conscious of the vast revolution in thought which was +going on all around him. He was saturated with the doctrines of 1832. He +stated them with unequalled vigour and clearness. Anybody who disputed +them from either side of the question seemed to him to be little better +than a fool. Southey and Mr. Gladstone talked arrant nonsense when they +disputed the logical or practical value of the doctrines laid down by +Locke. James Mill deserved the most contemptuous language for daring to +push those doctrines beyond the sacred line. When Macaulay attacks an +old non-juror or a modern Tory, we can only wonder how opinions which, +on his showing, are so inconceivably absurd, could ever have been held +by any human being. Men are Whigs or not-Whigs, and the not-Whig is less +a heretic to be anathematised than a blockhead beneath the reach of +argument. All political wisdom centres in Holland House, and the +'Edinburgh Review' is its prophet. There is something in the absolute +confidence of Macaulay's political dogmatism which varies between the +sublime and the ridiculous. We can hardly avoid laughing at this +superlative self-satisfaction, and yet we must admit that it is +indicative of a real political force not to be treated with simple +contempt. Belief is power, even when belief is most unreasonable. + +To define a Whig and to define Macaulay is pretty much the same thing. +Let us trace some of the qualities which enabled one man to become so +completely the type of a vast body of his compatriots. + +The first and most obvious power in which Macaulay excelled his +neighbours was his portentous memory. He could assimilate printed pages, +says his nephew, more quickly than others could glance over them. +Whatever he read was stamped upon his mind instantaneously and +permanently, and he read everything. In the midst of severe labours in +India, he read enough classical authors to stock the mind of an ordinary +professor. At the same time he framed a criminal code and devoured +masses of trashy novels. From the works of the ancient Fathers of the +Church to English political pamphlets and to modern street ballads, no +printed matter came amiss to his omnivorous appetite. All that he had +read could be reproduced at a moment's notice. Every fool, he said, can +repeat his Archbishops of Canterbury backwards; and he was as familiar +with the Cambridge Calendar as the most devout Protestant with the +Bible. He could have re-written 'Sir Charles Grandison' from memory if +every copy had been lost. Now it might perhaps be plausibly maintained +that the possession of such a memory is unfavourable to a high +development of the reasoning powers. The case of Pascal, indeed, who is +said never to have forgotten anything, shows that the two powers may +co-exist; and other cases might of course be mentioned. But it is true +that a powerful memory may enable a man to save himself the trouble of +reasoning. It encourages the indolent propensity of deciding +difficulties by precedent instead of principles. Macaulay, for example, +was once required to argue the point of political casuistry as to the +degree of independent action permissible to members of a Cabinet. An +ordinary mind would have to answer by striking a rough balance between +the conveniences and inconveniences likely to arise. It would be forced, +that is to say, to reason from the nature of the case. But Macaulay had +at his fingers' end every instance from the days of Walpole to his own +in which Ministers had been allowed to vote against the general policy +of the Government. By quoting them, he seemed to decide the point by +authority, instead of taking the troublesome and dangerous road of +abstract reasoning. Thus to appeal to experience is with him to appeal +to the stores of a gigantic memory; and is generally the same thing as +to deny the value of all general rules. This is the true Whig doctrine +of referring to precedent rather than to theory. Our popular leaders +were always glad to quote Hampden and Sidney instead of venturing upon +the dangerous ground of abstract rights. + +Macaulay's love of deciding all points by an accumulation of appropriate +instances is indeed characteristic of his mind. It is connected with a +curious defect of analytical power. It appears in his literary criticism +as much as in his political speculations. In an interesting letter to +Mr. Napier, he states the case himself as an excuse for not writing upon +Scott. 'Hazlitt used to say, "I am nothing if not critical." The case +with me,' says Macaulay, 'is precisely the reverse. I have a strong and +acute enjoyment of works of the imagination, but I have never habituated +myself to dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly for that +very reason. Such books as Lessing's "Laocoon," such passages as the +criticism on "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," fill me with wonder and +despair.' If we take any of Macaulay's criticisms, we shall see how +truly he had gauged his own capacity. They are either random discharges +of superlatives or vigorous assertions of sound moral principles. He +compliments some favourite author with an emphatic repetition of the +ordinary eulogies, or shows conclusively that Montgomery was a sham +poet, and Wycherley a corrupt ribald. Nobody can hit a haystack with +more certainty, but he is not so good at a difficult mark. He never +makes a fine suggestion as to the secrets of the art whose products he +admires or describes. His mode, for example, of criticising Bunyan is to +give a list of the passages which he remembers, and of course he +remembers everything. He observes, what is tolerably clear, that +Bunyan's allegory is as vivid as a concrete history, though strangely +comparing him in this respect to Shelley--the least concrete of poets; +and he makes the discovery, which did not require his vast stores of +historical knowledge, 'that it is impossible to doubt that' Bunyan's +trial of Christian and Faithful is meant to satirise the judges of the +time of Charles II. That is as plain as the intention of the last +cartoon in 'Punch.' Macaulay can draw a most vivid portrait, so far as +that can be done by a picturesque accumulation of characteristic facts, +but he never gets below the surface, or details the principles whose +embodiment he describes from without. + +The defect is connected with further peculiarities, in which Macaulay is +the genuine representative of the true Whig type. The practical value of +adherence to precedent is obvious. It may be justified by the assertion +that all sound political philosophy must be based upon experience: and +no one will deny that assertion to contain a most important truth. But +in Macaulay's mind this sound doctrine seems to be confused with the +very questionable doctrine that in political questions there is no +philosophy at all. To appeal to experience may mean either to appeal to +facts so classified and systematically arranged as to illustrate general +truths, or to appeal to a mere mass of observations, without taking the +trouble to elicit their true significance, or even to believe that they +can be resolved into particular cases of a general truth. This is the +difference between an experimental philosophy and a crude empiricism. +Macaulay takes the lower alternative. The vigorous attack upon James +Mill, which he very properly suppressed during his life on account of +its juvenile arrogance, curiously illustrates his mode of thought. No +one can deny, I think, that he makes some very good points against a +very questionable system of political dogmatism. But when we ask what +are Macaulay's own principles, we are left at a stand. He ought, by all +his intellectual sympathies, to be a utilitarian. Yet he treats +utilitarianism with the utmost contempt, though he has no alternative +theory to suggest. He ends his first Essay against Mill by one of his +customary purple patches about Baconian induction. He tells us, in the +second, how to apply it. Bacon proposed to discover the principle of +heat by observing in what qualities all hot bodies agreed, and in what +qualities all cold bodies. Similarly, we are to make a list of all +constitutions which have produced good or bad government, and to +investigate their points of agreement and difference. This sounds +plausible to the uninstructed, but is a mere rhetorical flourish. +Bacon's method is admittedly inadequate for reasons which I leave to men +of science to explain, and Macaulay's method is equally hopeless in +politics. It is hopeless for the simple reason that the complexity of +the phenomena makes it impracticable. We cannot find out what +constitution is best after this fashion, simply because the goodness or +badness of a constitution depends upon a thousand conditions of social, +moral, and intellectual development. When stripped of its pretentious +phraseology, Macaulay's teaching comes simply to this: the only rule in +politics is the rule of thumb. All general principles are wrong or +futile. We have found out in England that our constitution, constructed +in absolute defiance of all _a priori_ reasoning, is the best in the +world: it is the best for providing us with the maximum of bread, beef, +beer, and means of buying bread, beer, and beef: and we have got it +because we have never--like those publicans the French--trusted to fine +sayings about truth and justice and human rights, but blundered on, +adding a patch here and knocking a hole there, as our humour prompted +us. + +This sovereign contempt of all speculation--simply as +speculation--reaches its acme in the Essay on Bacon. The curious naivete +with which Macaulay denounces all philosophy in that vigorous production +excites a kind of perverse admiration. How can one refuse to admire the +audacity which enables a man explicitly to identify philosophy with +humbug? It is what ninety-nine men out of a hundred think, but not one +in a thousand dares to say. Goethe says somewhere that he likes +Englishmen because English fools are the most thoroughgoing of fools. +English 'Philistines,' as represented by Macaulay, the prince of +Philistines, according to Matthew Arnold, carry their contempt of the +higher intellectual interests to a pitch of real sublimity. Bacon's +theory of induction, says Macaulay, in so many words, was valueless. +Everybody could reason before it as well as after. But Bacon really +performed a service of inestimable value to mankind; and it consisted +precisely in this, that he called their attention from philosophy to the +pursuit of material advantages. The old philosophers had gone on +bothering about theology, ethics, and the true and beautiful, and such +other nonsense. Bacon taught us to work at chemistry and mechanics, to +invent diving-bells and steam-engines and spinning-jennies. We could +never, it seems, have found out the advantages of this direction of our +energies without a philosopher, and so far philosophy is negatively +good. It has written up upon all the supposed avenues to inquiry, 'No +admission except on business;' that is, upon the business of direct +practical discovery. We English have taken the hint, and we have +therefore lived to see when a man can breakfast in London and dine in +Edinburgh, and may look forward to a day when the tops of Ben-Nevis and +Helvellyn will be cultivated like flower-gardens, and when machines +constructed on principles yet to be discovered will be in every house. + +The theory which underlies this conclusion is often explicitly stated. +All philosophy has produced mere futile logomachy. Greek sages and Roman +moralists and mediaeval schoolmen have amassed words, and amassed nothing +else. One distinct discovery of a solid truth, however humble, is worth +all their labours. This condemnation applies not only to philosophy, but +to the religious embodiment of philosophy. No satisfactory conclusion +ever has been reached or ever will be reached in theological disputes. +On all such topics, he tells Mr. Gladstone, there has always been the +widest divergence of opinion. Nor are there better hopes for the future. +The ablest minds, he says in the Essay upon Ranke, have believed in +transubstantiation; that is, according to him, in the most ineffable +nonsense. There is no certainty that men will not believe to the end of +time the doctrines which imposed upon so able a man as Sir Thomas More. +Not only, that is, have men been hitherto wandering in a labyrinth +without a clue, but there is no chance that any clue will ever be found. +The doctrine, so familiar to our generation, of laws of intellectual +development, never even occurs to him. The collective thought of +generations marks time without advancing. A guess of Sir Thomas More is +as good or as bad as the guess of the last philosopher. This theory, if +true, implies utter scepticism. And yet Macaulay was clearly not a +sceptic. His creed was hidden under a systematic reticence, and he +resisted every attempt to raise the veil with rather superfluous +indignation. When a constituent dared to ask about his religious views, +he denounced the rash inquirer in terms applicable to an agent of the +Inquisition. He vouchsafed, indeed, the information that he was a +Christian. We may accept the phrase, not only on the strength of his +invariable sincerity, but because it falls in with the general turn of +his arguments. He denounces the futility of the ancient moralists, but +he asserts the enormous social value of Christianity. + +His attitude, in fact, is equally characteristic of the man and his +surroundings. The old Clapham teaching had faded in his mind: it had not +produced a revolt. He retained the old hatred for slavery; and he +retained, with the whole force of his affectionate nature, reverence for +the school of Wilberforce, Thornton, and his own father. He estimated +most highly, not perhaps more highly than they deserved, the value of +the services rendered by them in awakening the conscience of the nation. +In their persistent and disinterested labours he recognised a +manifestation of the great social force of Christianity. But a belief +that Christianity is useful, and even that it is true, may consist with +a profound conviction of the futility of the philosophy with which it +has been associated. Here again Macaulay is a true Whig. The Whig love +of precedent, the Whig hatred for abstract theories, may consist with a +Tory application. But the true Whig differed from the Tory in adding to +these views an invincible suspicion of parsons. The first Whig battles +were fought against the Church as much as against the King. From the +struggle with Sacheverell down to the struggle for Catholic +emancipation, Toryism and High-Church principles were associated against +Whigs and Dissenters. By that kind of dumb instinct which outruns +reason, the Whig had learnt that there was some occult bond of union +between the claims of a priesthood and the claims of a monarchy. The +old maxim, 'No bishop, no king,' suggested the opposite principle that +you must keep down the clergy if you would limit the monarchy. The +natural interpretation of this prejudice into political theory, is that +the Church is extremely useful as an ally of the constable, but +possesses a most dangerous explosive power if allowed to claim +independent authority. In practice we must resist all claims of the +Church to dictate to the State. In theory we must deny the foundation +upon which such claims can alone be founded. Dogmatism must be +pronounced to be fundamentally irrational. Nobody knows anything about +theology; or what is the same thing, no two people agree. As they don't +agree, they cannot claim to impose their beliefs upon others. + +This sentiment comes out curiously in the characteristic Essay just +mentioned. Macaulay says, in reply to Mr. Gladstone, that there is no +more reason for the introduction of religious questions into State +affairs than for introducing them into the affairs of a Canal Company. +He puts his argument with an admirable vigour and clearness which blinds +many readers to the fact that he is begging the question by evading the +real difficulty. If, in fact, Government had as little to do as a Canal +Company with religious opinion, we should have long ago learnt the great +lesson of toleration. But that is just the very _crux_. Can we draw the +line between the spiritual and the secular? Nothing, replies Macaulay, +is easier; and his method has been already indicated. We all agree that +we don't want to be robbed or murdered: we are by no means all agreed +about the doctrine of Trinity. But, says a churchman, a certain creed is +necessary to men's moral and spiritual welfare, and therefore of the +utmost importance even for the prevention of robbery and murder. This +is what Macaulay implicitly denies. The whole of dogmatic theology +belongs to that region of philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever you +please to call it, in which men are doomed to dispute for ever without +coming any nearer to a decision. All that the statesman has to do with +such matters is to see that if men are fools enough to speculate, they +shall not be allowed to cut each other's throats when they reach, as +they always must reach, contradictory results. If you raise a difficult +point--such, for example, as the education question--Macaulay replies, +as so many people have replied before and since, Teach the people 'those +principles of morality which are common to all the forms of +Christianity.' That is easier said than done! The plausibility of the +solution in Macaulay's mouth is due to the fundamental assumption that +everything except morality is hopeless ground of inquiry. Once get +beyond the Ten Commandments and you will sink in a bottomless morass of +argument, counterargument, quibble, logomachy, superstition, and +confusion worse confounded. + +In Macaulay's teaching, as in that of his party, there is doubtless much +that is noble. He has a righteous hatred of oppression in all shapes and +disguises. He can tear to pieces with great logical power many of the +fallacies alleged by his opponents. Our sympathies are certainly with +him as against men who advocate persecution on any grounds, and he is +fully qualified to crush his ordinary opponents. But it is plain that +his whole political and (if we may use the word) philosophical teaching +rests on something like a downright aversion to the higher order of +speculation. He despises it. He wants something tangible and +concrete--something in favour of which he may appeal to the immediate +testimony of the senses. He must feel his feet planted on the solid +earth. The pain of attempting to soar into higher regions is not +compensated to him by the increased width of horizon. And in this +respect he is but the type of most of his countrymen, and reflects what +has been (as I should say) erroneously called their 'unimaginative' view +of things in general. + +Macaulay, at any rate, distinctly belongs to the imaginative class of +minds, if only in virtue of his instinctive preference of the concrete +to the abstract, and his dislike, already noticed, to analysis. He has a +thirst for distinct and vivid images. He reasons by examples instead of +appealing to formulae. There is a characteristic account in Mr. +Trevelyan's volumes of his habit of rambling amongst the older parts of +London, his fancy teeming with stories attached to the picturesque +fragments of antiquity, and carrying on dialogues between imaginary +persons as vivid, if not as forcible, as those of Scott's novels. To +this habit--rather inverting the order of cause and effect--he +attributes his accuracy of detail. We should rather say that the +intensity of the impressions generated both the accuracy and the +day-dreams. A philosopher would be arguing in his daily rambles where an +imaginative mind is creating a series of pictures. But Macaulay's +imagination is as definitely limited as his speculation. The genuine +poet is also a philosopher. He sees intuitively what the reasoner +evolves by argument. The greatest minds in both classes are equally +marked by their naturalisation in the lofty regions of thought, +inaccessible or uncongenial to men of inferior stamp. It is tempting in +some ways to compare Macaulay to Burke. Burke's superiority is marked by +this, that he is primarily a philosopher, and therefore instinctively +sees the illustration of a general law in every particular fact. +Macaulay, on the contrary, gets away from theory as fast as possible, +and tries to conceal his poverty of thought under masses of ingenious +illustration. + +His imaginative narrowness would come out still more clearly by a +comparison with Carlyle. One significant fact must be enough. Everyone +must have observed how powerfully Carlyle expresses the emotion +suggested by the brief appearance of some little waif from past history. +We may remember, for example, how the usher, De Breze, appears for a +moment to utter the last shriek of the old monarchical etiquette, and +then vanishes into the dim abysses of the past. The imagination is +excited by the little glimpse of light flashing for a moment upon some +special point in the cloudy phantasmagoria of human history. The image +of a past existence is projected for a moment upon our eyes, to make us +feel how transitory is life, and how rapidly one visionary existence +expels another. We are such stuff as dreams are made of:-- + + None other than a moving row + Of visionary shapes that come and go + Around the sun-illumined lantern held + In midnight by the master of the show. + +Every object is seen against the background of eternal mystery. In +Macaulay's pages this element is altogether absent. We see a figure from +the past as vividly as if he were present. We observe the details of his +dress, the odd oaths with which his discourse is interlarded, the minute +peculiarities of his features or manner. We laugh or admire as we should +do at a living man; and we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But +the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into oblivion, +that our little island of daylight will soon be shrouded in the +gathering mist, and that we tread at every instant on the dust of +forgotten continents. We treat the men of past ages quite at our ease. +We applaud and criticise Hampden or Chatham as we should applaud Peel or +Cobden. There is no atmospheric effect--no sense of the dim march of +ages, or of the vast procession of human life. It is doubtless a great +feat to make the past present. It is a greater to emancipate us from the +tyranny of the present, and to raise us to a point at which we feel that +we too are almost as dreamlike as the men of old time. To gain clearness +and definition Macaulay has dropped the element of mystery. He sees +perfectly whatever can be seen by the ordinary lawyer, or politician, or +merchant; he is insensible to the visions which reveal themselves only +to minds haunted by thoughts of eternity, and delighting to dwell in the +border-land where dreams blend with realities. Mysticism is to him +hateful, and historical figures form groups of individuals, not symbols +of forces working behind the veil. + +Macaulay, therefore, can be no more a poet in the sense in which the +word is applied to Spenser, or to Wordsworth, both of whom he holds to +be simply intolerable bores, than he can be a metaphysician or a +scientific thinker. In common phraseology, he is a Philistine--a word +which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher +intellectual interests. The word may also be defined, however, as the +name applied by prigs to the rest of their species. And I hold that the +modern fashion of using it as a common term of abuse amounts to a +literary nuisance. It enables intellectual coxcombs to brand men with an +offensive epithet for being a degree more manly than themselves. There +is much that is good in your Philistine; and when we ask what Macaulay +was, instead of showing what he was not, we shall perhaps find that the +popular estimate is not altogether wrong. + +Macaulay was not only a typical Whig, but the prophet of Whiggism to his +generation. Though not a poet or a philosopher, he was a born +rhetorician. His parliamentary career proves his capacity sufficiently, +though want of the physical qualifications, and of exclusive devotion to +political success, prevented him, as perhaps a want of subtlety or +flexibility of mind would have always prevented him, from attaining +excellence as a debater. In everything that he wrote, however, we see +the true rhetorician. He tells us that Fox wrote debates, whilst +Mackintosh spoke essays. Macaulay did both. His compositions are a +series of orations on behalf of sound Whig views, whatever their +external form. Given a certain audience--and every orator supposes a +particular audience--their effectiveness is undeniable. Macaulay's may +be composed of ordinary Englishmen, with a moderate standard of +education. His arguments are adapted to the ordinary Cabinet Minister, +or, what is much the same, to the person who is willing to pay a +shilling to hear an evening lecture. He can hit an audience composed of +such materials--to quote Burke's phrase about George Grenville--'between +wind and water.' He uses the language, the logic, and the images which +they can fully understand; and though his hearer, like his schoolboy, is +ostensibly credited at times with a portentous memory, Macaulay always +takes excellent care to put him in mind of the facts which he is assumed +to remember. The faults and the merits of his style follow from his +resolute determination to be understood of the people. He was specially +delighted, as his nephew tells us, by a reader at Messrs. +Spottiswoode's, who said that in all the 'History' there was only one +sentence the meaning of which was not obvious to him at first sight. We +are more surprised that there was one such sentence. Clearness is the +first of the cardinal virtues of style; and nobody ever wrote more +clearly than Macaulay. He sacrifices much, it is true, in order to +obtain it. He proves that two and two make four with a pertinacity which +would make him dull, if it were not for his abundance of brilliant +illustration. He always remembers the principle which should guide a +barrister in addressing a jury. He has not merely to exhibit his proofs, +but to hammer them into the heads of his audience by incessant +repetition. It is no small proof of artistic skill that a writer who +systematically adopts this method should yet be invariably lively. He +goes on blacking the chimney with a persistency which somehow amuses us +because he puts so much heart into his work. He proves the most obvious +truths again and again; but his vivacity never flags. This tendency +undoubtedly leads to great defects of style. His sentences are +monotonous and mechanical. He has a perfect hatred of pronouns, and for +fear of a possible entanglement between 'hims' and 'hers' and 'its,' he +will repeat not merely a substantive, but a whole group of substantives. +Sometimes, to make his sense unmistakable, he will repeat a whole +formula, with only a change in the copula. For the same reason, he hates +all qualifications and parentheses. Each thought must be resolved into +its constituent parts; each argument must be expressed as a simple +proposition: and his paragraphs are rather aggregates of independent +atoms than possessed of a continuous unity. His writing--to use a +favourite formula of his own--bears the same relation to a style of +graceful modulation that a bit of mosaic work bears to a picture. Each +phrase has its distinct hue, instead of melting into its neighbours. +Here we have a black patch and there a white. There are no half tones, +no subtle interblending of different currents of thought. It is partly +for this reason that his descriptions of character are often so +unsatisfactory. He likes to represent a man as a bundle of +contradictions, because it enables him to obtain startling contrasts. He +heightens a vice in one place, a virtue in another, and piles them +together in a heap, without troubling himself to ask whether nature can +make such monsters, or preserve them if made. To anyone given to +analysis, these contrasts are actually painful. There is a story of the +Duke of Wellington having once stated that the rats got into his bottles +in Spain. 'They must have been very large bottles or very small rats,' +said somebody. 'On the contrary,' replied the Duke, 'the rats were very +large and the bottles very small.' Macaulay delights in leaving us face +to face with such contrasts in more important matters. Boswell must, we +would say, have been a clever man or his biography cannot have been so +good as you say. On the contrary, says Macaulay, he was the greatest of +fools and the best of biographers. He strikes a discord and purposely +fails to resolve it. To men of more delicate sensibility the result is +an intolerable jar. + +For the same reason, Macaulay's genuine eloquence is marred by the +symptoms of malice prepense. When he sews on a purple patch, he is +resolved that there shall be no mistake about it; it must stand out from +a radical contrast of colours. The emotion is not to swell by degrees, +till you find yourself carried away in the torrent which set out as a +tranquil stream. The transition is deliberately emphasised. On one side +of a full stop you are listening to a matter-of-fact statement; on the +other, there is all at once a blare of trumpets and a beating of drums, +till the crash almost deafens you. He regrets in one of his letters that +he has used up the celebrated, and, it must be confessed, really +forcible passage about the impeachment scene in Westminster Hall. It +might have come in usefully in the 'History,' which, as he then hoped, +would reach the time of Warren Hastings. The regret is unpleasantly +suggestive of that deliberation in the manufacture of eloquence which +stamps it as artificial. + +Such faults may annoy critics, even of no very sensitive fibre. What is +it that redeems them? The first answer is, that the work is impressive +because it is thoroughly genuine. The stream, it is true, comes forth by +spasmodic gushes, when it ought to flow in a continuous current; but it +flows from a full reservoir instead of being pumped from a shallow +cistern. The knowledge and, what is more, the thoroughly-assimilated +knowledge, is enormous. Mr. Trevelyan has shown in detail what we had +all divined for ourselves, how much patient labour is often employed in +a paragraph or the turn of a phrase. To accuse Macaulay of +superficiality is, in this sense, altogether absurd. His speculation may +be meagre, but his store of information is simply inexhaustible. Mill's +writing was impressive, because one often felt that a single argument +condensed the result of a long process of reflection. Macaulay has the +lower but similar merit that a single picturesque touch implies +incalculable masses of knowledge. It is but an insignificant part of the +building which appears above ground. Compare a passage with the assigned +authority, and you are inclined to accuse him--sometimes it may be +rightfully--of amplifying and modifying. But more often the particular +authority is merely the nucleus round which a whole volume of other +knowledge has crystallised. A single hint is significant to a +properly-prepared mind of a thousand facts not explicitly contained in +it. Nobody, he said, could judge of the accuracy of one part of his +'History' who had not 'soaked his mind with the transitory literature of +the day.' His real authority was not this or that particular passage, +but a literature. And for this reason alone, Macaulay's historical +writings have a permanent value which will prevent them from being +superseded even by more philosophical thinkers, whose minds have not +undergone the 'soaking' process. + +It is significant again that imitations of Macaulay are almost as +offensive as imitations of Carlyle. Every great writer has his +parasites. Macaulay's false glitter and jingle, his frequent flippancy +and superficiality of thought, are more easily caught than his virtues; +but so are all faults. Would-be followers of Carlyle catch the strained +gestures without the rapture of his inspiration. Would-be followers of +Mill fancied themselves to be logical when they were only hopelessly +unsympathetic and unimaginative; and would-be followers of some other +writers can be effeminate and foppish without being subtle or graceful. +Macaulay's thoroughness of work has, perhaps, been less contagious than +we could wish. Something of the modern raising of the standard of +accuracy in historical inquiry may be set down to his influence. The +misfortune is that, if some writers have learnt from him to be flippant +without learning to be laborious, others have caught the accuracy +without the liveliness. In the later volumes of his 'History,' his +vigour began to be a little clogged by the fulness of his knowledge; and +we can observe symptoms of the tendency of modern historians to grudge +the sacrifice of sifting their knowledge. They read enough, but instead +of giving us the results, they tumble out the accumulated mass of raw +materials upon our devoted heads, till they make us long for a fire in +the State Paper Office. + +Fortunately, Macaulay did not yield to this temptation in his earlier +writings, and the result is that he is, for the ordinary reader, one of +the two authorities for English history, the other being Shakespeare. +Without comparing their merits, we must admit that the compression of so +much into a few short narratives shows intensity as well as compass of +mind. He could digest as well as devour, and he tried his digestion +pretty severely. It is fashionable to say that part of his practical +force is due to the training of parliamentary life. Familiarity with the +course of affairs doubtless strengthened his insight into history, and +taught him the value of downright common-sense in teaching an average +audience. Speaking purely from the literary point of view, I cannot +agree further in the opinion suggested. I suspect the 'History' would +have been better if Macaulay had not been so deeply immersed in all the +business of legislation and electioneering. I do not profoundly +reverence the House of Commons' tone--even in the House of Commons; and +in literature it easily becomes a nuisance. Familiarity with the actual +machinery of politics tends to strengthen the contempt for general +principles, of which Macaulay had an ample share. It encourages the +illusion of the fly upon the wheel, the doctrine that the dust and din +of debate and the worry of lobbies and committee-rooms are not the +effect but the cause of the great social movement. The historian of the +Roman Empire, as we know, owed something to the captain of Hampshire +Militia; but years of life absorbed in parliamentary wrangling and in +sitting at the feet of the philosophers of Holland House were not +likely to widen a mind already disposed to narrow views of the world. + +For Macaulay's immediate success, indeed, the training was undoubtedly +valuable. As he carried into Parliament the authority of a great writer, +so he wrote books with the authority of the practical politician. He has +the true instinct of affairs. He knows what are the immediate motives +which move masses of men; and is never misled by fanciful analogies or +blindfolded by the pedantry of official language. He has seen +flesh-and-blood statesmen--at any rate, English statesmen--and +understands the nature of the animal. Nobody can be freer from the +dominion of crotchets. All his reasoning is made of the soundest common +sense, and represents, if not the ultimate forces, yet forces with which +we have to reckon. And he knows, too, how to stir the blood of the +average Englishman. He understands most thoroughly the value of +concentration, unity, and simplicity. Every speech or essay forms an +artistic whole, in which some distinct moral is vigorously driven home +by a succession of downright blows. This strong rhetorical instinct is +shown conspicuously in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which, whatever we +might say of them as poetry, are an admirable specimen of rhymed +rhetoric. We know how good they are when we see how incapable are modern +ballad-writers in general of putting the same swing and fire into their +verses. Compare, for example, Aytoun's 'Lays of the Cavaliers,' as the +most obvious parallel:-- + + Not swifter pours the avalanche + Adown the steep incline, + That rises o'er the parent springs + Of rough and rapid Rhine, + +than certain Scotch heroes over an entrenchment. Place this mouthing by +any parallel passage in Macaulay:-- + + Now, by our sire Quirinus, + It was a goodly sight + To see the thirty standards + Swept down the tide of flight. + So flies the spray in Adria + When the black squall doth blow. + So corn-sheaves in the flood time + Spin down the whirling Po. + +And so on in verses which innumerable schoolboys of inferior pretensions +to Macaulay's know by heart. And in such cases the verdict of the +schoolboy is perhaps more valuable than that of the literary +connoisseur. There are, of course, many living poets who can do +tolerably something of far higher quality which Macaulay could not do at +all. But I don't know who, since Scott, could have done this particular +thing. Possibly Mr. Kingsley might have approached it, or the poet, if +he would have condescended so far, who sang the bearing of the good news +from Ghent to Aix. In any case, the feat is significant of Macaulay's +true power. It looks easy; it involves no demands upon the higher +reasoning or imaginative powers: but nobody will believe it to be easy +who observes the extreme rarity of a success in a feat so often +attempted. + +A similar remark is suggested by Macaulay's 'Essays.' Read such an essay +as that upon Clive, or Warren Hastings, or Chatham. The story seems to +tell itself. The characters are so strongly marked, the events fall so +easily into their places, that we fancy that the narrator's business has +been done to his hand. It wants little critical experience to discover +that this massive simplicity is really indicative of an art not, it may +be, of the highest order, but truly admirable for its purpose. It +indicates not only a gigantic memory, but a glowing mind, which has +fused a crude mass of materials into unity. If we do not find the sudden +touches which reveal the philosophical sagacity or the imaginative +insight of the highest order of intellects, we recognise the true +rhetorical instinct. The outlines may be harsh, and the colours too +glaring; but the general effect has been carefully studied. The details +are wrought in with consummate skill. We indulge in an intercalary pish! +here and there; but we are fascinated and we remember. The actual amount +of intellectual force which goes to the composition of such written +archives is immense, though the quality may leave something to be +desired. Shrewd common-sense may be an inferior substitute for +philosophy, and the faculty which brings remote objects close to the eye +of an ordinary observer for the loftier faculty which tinges everyday +life with the hues of mystic contemplation. But when the common +faculties are present in so abnormal a degree, they begin to have a +dignity of their own. + +It is impossible in such matters to establish any measure of comparison. +No analysis will enable us to say how much pedestrian capacity may be +fairly regarded as equivalent to a small capacity for soaring above the +solid earth, and therefore the question as to the relative value of +Macaulay's work and that of some men of loftier aims and less perfect +execution must be left to individual taste. We can only say that it is +something so to have written the history of many national heroes as to +make their faded glories revive to active life in the memory of their +countrymen. So long as Englishmen are what they are--and they don't seem +to change as rapidly as might be wished--they will turn to Macaulay's +pages to gain a vivid impression of our greatest achievements during an +important period. + +Nor is this all. The fire which glows in Macaulay's history, the intense +patriotic feeling, the love of certain moral qualities, is not +altogether of the highest kind. His ideal of national and individual +greatness might easily be criticised. But the sentiment, as far as it +goes, is altogether sound and manly. He is too fond, it has been said, +of incessant moralising. From a scientific point of view the moralising +is irrelevant. We want to study the causes and the nature of great +social movements; and when we are stopped in order to inquire how far +the prominent actors in them were hurried beyond ordinary rules, we are +transported into a different order of thought. It would be as much to +the purpose if we approved an earthquake for upsetting a fort, and +blamed it for moving the foundations of a church. Macaulay can never +understand this point of view. With him, history is nothing more than a +sum of biographies. And even from a biographical point of view his +moralising is often troublesome. He not only insists upon transporting +party prejudice into his estimates, and mauls poor James II. as he +mauled the Tories in 1832; but he applies obviously inadequate tests. It +is absurd to call upon men engaged in a life-and-death wrestle to pay +scrupulous attention to the ordinary rules of politeness. There are +times when judgments guided by constitutional precedent become +ludicrously out of place, and when the best man is he who aims +straightest at the heart of his antagonist. But, in spite of such +drawbacks, Macaulay's genuine sympathy for manliness and force of +character generally enables him to strike pretty nearly the true note. +To learn the true secret of Cromwell's character we must go to Carlyle, +who can sympathise with deep currents of religious enthusiasm. Macaulay +retains too much of the old Whig distrust for all that it calls +fanaticism fully to recognise the grandeur beneath the grotesque outside +of the Puritan. But Macaulay tells us most distinctly why Englishmen +warm at the name of the great Protector. We, like the banished +Cavaliers, 'glow with an emotion of national pride' at his animated +picture of the unconquerable Ironsides. One phrase may be sufficiently +illustrative. After quoting Clarendon's story of the Scotch nobleman who +forced Charles to leave the field of Naseby by seizing his horse's +bridle, 'no man,' says Macaulay, 'who had much value for his life would +have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day for Oliver +Cromwell.' + +Macaulay, in short, always feels, and therefore communicates, a hearty +admiration for sheer manliness. And some of his portraits of great men +have therefore a genuine power, and show the deeper insight which comes +from true sympathy. He estimates the respectable observer of +constitutional proprieties too highly; he is unduly repelled by the +external oddities of the truly masculine and noble Johnson; but his +enthusiasm for his pet hero, William, or for Chatham or Clive, carries +us along with him. And at moments when he is narrating their exploits, +and can forget his elaborate argumentations and refrain from bits of +deliberate bombast, the style becomes graphic in the higher sense of a +much-abused word, and we confess that we are listening to genuine +eloquence. Putting aside for the moment recollection of foibles, almost +too obvious to deserve the careful demonstration which they have +sometimes received, we are glad to surrender ourselves to the charm of +his straightforward, clear-headed, hard-hitting declamation. There is no +writer with whom it is easier to find fault, or the limits of whose +power may be more distinctly defined; but within his own sphere he goes +forward, as he went through life, with a kind of grand confidence in +himself and his cause, which is attractive, and at times even +provocative of sympathetic enthusiasm. + +Macaulay said, in his Diary, that he wrote his 'History' with an eye to +a remote past and a remote future. He meant to erect a monument more +enduring than brass, and the ambition at least stimulated him to +admirable thoroughness of workmanship. How far his aim was secured must +be left to the decision of a posterity which will not trouble itself +about the susceptibilities of candidates for its favour. In one sense, +however, Macaulay must be interesting so long as the type which he so +fully represents continues to exist. Whig has become an old-fashioned +phrase, and is repudiated by modern Liberals and Radicals, who think +themselves wiser than their fathers. The decay of the old name implies a +remarkable political change; but I doubt whether it implies more than a +very superficial change in the national character. New classes and new +ideas have come upon the stage; but they have a curious family likeness +to the old. The Whiggism whose peculiarities Macaulay reflected so +faithfully represents some of the most deeply-seated tendencies of the +national character. It has, therefore, both its ugly and its honourable +side. Its disregard, or rather its hatred, for pure reason, its +exaltation of expediency above truth and precedent above principle, its +instinctive dread of strong religious or political faiths, are of course +questionable qualities. Yet even they have their nobler side. There is +something almost sublime about the grand unreasonableness of the average +Englishman. His dogged contempt for all foreigners and philosophers, +his intense resolution to have his own way and use his own eyes, to see +nothing that does not come within his narrow sphere of vision, and to +see it quite clearly before he acts upon it, are of course abhorrent to +thinkers of a different order. But they are great qualities in the +struggle for existence which must determine the future of the world. The +Englishman, armed in his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts +with unequalled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, +but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the +universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is +not to be trifled with. Macaulay's sympathy with these qualities led to +some annoying peculiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a +commonness, sometimes a vulgarity, of style which is easily criticised. +But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always +comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is +nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colours resolutely +and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and +spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never +knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He +is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine +love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with +unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which +he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be +narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the +manliness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his +countrymen. He is proud of the healthy vigorous stock from which he +springs; and the fervour of his enthusiasm, though it may shock a +delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue +to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at +bottom--indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud. + + +END OF THE SECOND VOLUME + + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE +LONDON + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Page 31: illlustrations amended to illustrations | + | Page 38: Single quote mark removed from end of excerpt. | + | ("And Shelburne's fame through laughing valleys ring!") | + | Page 81: idiosyncracy amended to idiosyncrasy | + | Page 117: Single quote mark in front of "miserable" | + | removed. ("'The man they called Dizzy' can despise a | + | miserable creature ...") | + | Page 131: sweatmeats amended to sweetmeats | + | Page 143: aristocractic amended to aristocratic | + | Page 147: sentiment amended to sentiments | + | Page 163: Mahommedan amended to Mohammedan | + | Page 181: Macchiavelli amended to Machiavelli | + | Page 241: Full stop added after "third generation." | + | Page 247: Comma added after "We both love the | + | Constitution...." | + | Page 325: chartalan amended to charlatan | + | Page 368: Shakspeare amended to Shakespeare | + | | + | Italicisation and hyphenation have been standardised. | + | However, where there is an equal number of instances of | + | a hyphenated and unhyphenated word, both have been | + | retained: dreamlike/dream-like; evildoers/evil-doers; | + | highflown/high-flown; jogtrot/jog-trot; | + | overdoses/over-doses; textbook/text-book. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOURS IN A LIBRARY *** + +***** This file should be named 30336.txt or 30336.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/3/30336/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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