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COLLECTANEA 
 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
This book has been printed from type as follows: 
 500 copies on Old Stratford paper. 
 125 copies on Van Gelder paper. 
 15 copies on Imperial Japan paper. 
 
 ^^TftW^^^y 
 
 2Z£^ 
 
COLLECTANEA 
 
 aUfnmas fflarlgb 
 
 182t-J855 
 
 "For the whole, as it consisteth of 
 parts; so without all the parts it is not 
 whole; and to make it absolute, is re- 
 quired not only the parts, but such parts 
 as are true." 
 
 — Ben Jonson. Explorata.. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 SAMUEL ARTHUR JONES 
 
 CANTON PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 MCM III 
 
C4 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 Two Co! •»? Hereived 
 
 JUL 26 1904 
 
 ^ Cooyrlght Entrv 
 
 d.£^ - M- ~ / a ^ 3 
 
 CLASS CC xXc. No. 
 COPY B 
 
 Copyright, 1903, 
 By Lewis Buddy III 
 
To 
 
 Dewitt Miller, the Bibliotaph, 
 
 a.nd 
 
 Paul Lemperly, the Bibliophile, 
 
 with thanks beyond words. 
 
PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 These writings of Thomas Carlyle were contributed to the 
 "New Edinburgh Review," October, I82I; April, 1822. The 
 London "Athenaeum," January, 1837. The "Examiner," Sep- 
 tember, 1840. "Eraser's Magazine," May, 1849. The London 
 "Athenaeum," The London "Times," November, 1855, and have 
 been hitherto uncollected. 
 
 Three of these have escaped the bibliographers entirely; the 
 Review of Heintze's "Selections," "Indian Meal," and the 
 " Letter to the Times." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE ix 
 
 METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED CHARACTERS 17 
 
 FAUSTUS 57 
 
 FAUST'S CURSE . 93 
 
 HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION OF BURNS 97 
 
 INDIAN MEAL 107 
 
 A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES 117 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 127 
 
 vii 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 It provokes a smile at the expense of the critics 
 to learn, and by his own confession, that Thomas 
 Carlyle is enrolled in the Grand Army of 'rejected 
 contributors.' Looking back at the battle he had 
 fought and won, he wrote: "It must be owned that 
 my first entrances into glorious 'Literature' were 
 abundantly stinted and painful; but a man does 
 enter if, with a small gift, he persist; and perhaps 
 it is no disadvantage if the door be several times 
 slammed in his face as a salutary preliminary." 
 Twice, at least, was the door slammed in his face 
 before Dr. Brewster (not yet "Sir David") gave him 
 an allotment of hack-work on the "Edinburgh 
 Encyclopaedia;" but the Fates had determined 
 that Thomas Carlyle should 'persist,' for he was 
 to be "a writer of books." 
 
 He was gifted with what Goldsmith calls 'a knack 
 of hoping,' but the gloomy Scotch scholar him- 
 self christened his faculty 'desperate hope.' He 
 could also 'toil terribly;' and in tenacity of pur- 
 pose he was as indomitable as Robert Bruce. 
 Given such qualities, together with no 'small gift,' 
 and the very natural outcome is the thirty-four 
 octavo volumes labelled The Collected Writings 
 of Thomas Carlyle* 
 
 Why add another book to that long list? He 
 did not see fit to resurrect the 'prentice-work 
 
 ix 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 which for nearly fifty years had been 'decently 
 interred ' in the forgotten pages of booksel- 
 ler Waugh's soon bankrapH "New Edinburgh 
 Magazine ." But these discarded children of his 
 younger days are legitimate, though ill-favored, 
 and they also have a significant value for the stu- 
 dent of Literature as illustrating the development 
 of the Ecclefechan stonemason's son into a verita- 
 ble Man of Letters. 
 
 Carlyle was in the twenty-sixth year of his age 
 when he wrote his review of Joanna Baillie's 
 "Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters ," yet 
 was he then but trying his wings — if not as timid- 
 ly, at least as awkwardly as a new-fledged bird. 
 The strong pinions that enabled one "Diogenes 
 Teufelsdrockh" to soar from the attic of his abode 
 in the Wahngasse beyond the very stars are not at 
 all discernible in Miss Baillie's callow but confi- 
 dent critic. Carlyle now takes rank with De Quin- 
 cey in the scope and luxuriance of his vocabulary; 
 in J 82 1 his slender stock of synonymes is all too 
 apparent, and his style (which he has yet to find) is 
 even uncouth in its irregularities: nevertheless, 
 there are gleams and glimpses of half-felicities that 
 give promise of better things, 'if he persist.' 
 
 As a workman and at the same age Carlyle was 
 by no means so facile as Lowell, but his earliest 
 attempt at deliberate criticism reveals a degree 
 of independent judgement to which the author 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 of the Biglow Papers had not then attained . 
 Carlyle never worshipped the idols of the forum, 
 the theatre, or the market-place. He passed his 
 own pronouncement, sturdily as his out-spoken 
 father would have done, upon the poetical plati- 
 tudes of Joanna Baillie regardless of the shower of 
 adulation which drenched that most renowned 
 and 'respectable' of rhyming spinsters. Time has 
 justified his findings and it was easy for Mrs. Oli- 
 phant, in J 882, to make her summing-up so com- 
 pletely in accord with his piece of 'prentice-work 
 honestly and fearlessly done some sixty years be- 
 fore — and then against the full tide of general 
 opinion. Sir Walter Scott, 'Apollo's venal son,' 
 was found lacking in either Carlyle's capability of 
 sound judgement or in the courage to exercise it. 
 In the introduction to the third canto of M^r^ 
 mion, Scott made such a slip as this: 
 
 . . . the wild harp, which silent hung 
 By silver Avon's sylvan shore, 
 'Till twice an hundred years rolled o'er; 
 When she, the bold Enchantress, came 
 With fearless hand and heart on flame ! 
 From the pale willow snatched the treasure, 
 And swept it with a kindred measure, 
 'Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove 
 With Montford's hate and Basil's love. 
 Awakening at the inspired strain. 
 Deemed their own Shakspeare lived again. 
 
 After such a tinkling drizzle from the font of 
 Castalay one feels that Byron's sneer at the 'pros- 
 
 xi 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 tituted muse' is not without the extenuating prov- 
 ocation. 
 
 Bailie Waugh's obscure critic was a better judge 
 of poetical poultry than Avon's simple swans or 
 even Sir Walter himself, and the raw recruit whom 
 the dazzling sheen of Waugh's guineas had tempt- 
 ed to mount the critic's tripod did not hesitate to 
 fly in the face of "those qualified to judge" — such 
 are Miss Baillie's own words — whose unstinted 
 and intemperate praise had fully persuaded the 
 fertile female rhymster that, verily, her lips had 
 been touched with fire from the altar. 
 
 The clear sanity of Carlyle's very first uncen- 
 sured criticism is noteworthy; for an unknown 
 scribbler in a moribund magazine who does not 
 mistake the eau sucre of Sentimentality for the 
 dew of Helicon is a phenomenon as rare as it is 
 indicative. 
 
 "The first literary use to which Carlyle turned 
 his knowledge of German was in the writing of his 
 "Life of Schiller." ... He had indeed written 
 an article on Faust before this date {Neiv Edin." 
 burgh Re-viem), April J822), but it is a compara- 
 tively crude production, and Carlyle did not con- 
 sider it worthy of a place in his Collected Works." 
 
 Thus writes one of the most loving and pains- 
 taking of editors; but doth not the small boy who 
 has had the 'luck' to hook monsters after long and 
 patient angling throw away the little minnows 
 
 xii 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 (that he had accepted gladly in the morning) to 
 display his prowess in his larger game ? Are we 
 not all boys of a larger and not always a wiser 
 growth ? 
 
 Judged at this late day, it may be regarded as "a 
 comparatively crude production" — but, in April 
 J 822? It is doubtful if at that period there were 
 six men in Great Britain who knew of Goethe's 
 "Faust" — if, indeed, there were any other than the 
 son of James Carlyle who had read it as discern- 
 ingly. At a time when English Literature in- 
 cludes all manner of ineptitudes christened 
 "Translations" of Goethe's opus maximus it is 
 not difficult to despise the day of small begin- 
 nings. As the product of a young man who began 
 the study of German only two years previously, it 
 is a somewhat rare 'crudity.' 
 
 The rhymed rendering of "Faust's Curse" was 
 published ten years later and of it Carlyle wrote 
 in his Diary: "Last Friday saw my name in large 
 letters at the 'Athenaeum' office in Catherine 
 Street, Strand; hurried on with downcast eyes as 
 if I had seen myself in the pillory." 
 
 That terrifying spectacle to be seen at the Athe- 
 naeum office was "Faust's Curse," which hung 
 printed there : such a rarity was that famous im- 
 precation in the year of Grace, J 832 — ten years 
 after the publication of Carlyle's first 'compara- 
 tively crude production.' 
 
 xiii 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Carlyle's review of Heintze's translation of Burns 
 was a labor of love done for the usually-impecuni- 
 ous and always-improvident Leigh Hunt, then 
 writing and publishing his "Examiner." It was 
 only eight years since Carlyle had written the 
 rhymed translation of "Faust's Curse" which 'hung 
 printed' in the Athenaeum office, but he was now 
 the renowned author of "The French Revolution. 
 A History."; the despised "Sartor Resartus" had 
 been published as a book in America — edition 
 following edition with unwonted celerity — and 
 even his "Essays" had been collected and publish- 
 ed by the esurient 'Yankees:' Eraser being obli- 
 ged to import sheets thereof in J 839 to meet the 
 English demand, and in the next year (again com- 
 pelled by the rapid sale thereof) to republish the 
 "Essays" himself. Carlyle had also protested that 
 Emerson had been too unsparing of the capital 
 letters without which the perfervid Scotchman 
 could not satisfactorily express himself; so they 
 were restored in the English reissue. Eraser craft- 
 ily called it the " Second Edition," as if the honor 
 of preparing the first had been due to the demand 
 of Carlyle's British readers. All this, in the ex- 
 pressive slang of the stable, enabled the struggling 
 Scotchman to 'feel his oats,' — and feel them he 
 surely did; for he "wor on the rampage, Pip" when 
 he wrote "Chartism"(J840). 
 
 "Burn's songs have a tune, so as few or rather 
 xiv 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 as no modern songs we know of have. Every 
 thought, every turn of phrase, sings itself; the 
 tune modulates it all, shapes it as a soul does the 
 body it is to dwell in. The tune is always the soul 
 of a song, in this sense; that is to say, provided 
 the song be a true song, and have any soul." 
 
 When the editor read this he felt that the dic- 
 tum should not be left in the neglected pages of a 
 little-known extinct magazine. 
 
 How many of the millions of British readers 
 ("mostly fools") were aware that the spectacle of 
 Carlyle on Oli'ver CromTvett was soon followed 
 by that of Carlyle on "Indian Meal!" 
 
 It is often urged that Carlyle spent his strength 
 in finding the fault rather than in providing the 
 remedy: the forgotten paper in "Frasier's Maga- 
 zine" will prove a revelation to many. He had 
 bestirred himself in behalf of famine-stricken Ire- 
 land even before he had made his journey thither 
 to learn, if he could, the secret of her troubles and 
 to find the remedy therefor. Although he did 
 say that the cure would be to 'submerge the whole 
 island for twenty-four hours,' he had the sympa- 
 thetic tear on his face even while the grim jest 
 was on his lips. 
 
 Alas! Even "Indian corn" in all the prodigal 
 profusion of nature may serve to disconcert the 
 'Malthusian fling,' still it is not the panacea for 
 Ireland's "curse of eight hundred years." 
 
 The reader who is curious to learn how Carlyle 
 
 XV 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 gathered his material and moulded it to his pur- 
 pose can be gratified by consulting the Carlyle- 
 Emerson correspondence as edited by Professor 
 Norton: Letters cxxxviii, cxxxix, cxl, ccxii, cxlii. 
 In his "Autobiography," Leigh Hunt, who had 
 long been Carlyle's near neighbor, wrote: 
 
 "I believe that what Mr. Carlyle loves better 
 than his fault-finding, with all its eloquence, is the 
 face of any human creature that looks suffering, 
 and loving and sincere; and I believe further, that 
 if the fellow-creature were suffering only, and 
 neither loving nor sincere, but had come to a pass 
 of agony in this life, which put him at the mercy 
 of some good man for some last help and conso- 
 lation towards his grave, even at the risk of loss 
 to repute, and a sure amount of pain and vexa- 
 tion, that man, if the groan reached him in its 
 forlornness, would be Thomas Carlyle." 
 
 The "Letter to the Editor of the Times" — 
 which the Rev. Alexander Napier found in the 
 "Athenaeum" and has fitly embalmed in his 
 edition of "Boswell's Life of Johnson," — is touch- 
 ingly corroborative. Leigh Hunt's testimony and 
 the pious and searching enthusiasm of the "Let- 
 ter to the Times" are commended to the consid- 
 eration of every reviler of the memory of the son 
 of James and Margaret Carlyle. 
 
 The editor begs leave to state that he has not 
 
 deemed it proper to alter the punctuation of 
 
 Carlyle's original printed text. 
 
 S. A. J. 
 
 Ann Arbor, I2thofJuIy, 1902. 
 
 xvi 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED 
 CHARACTERS 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED 
 CHARACTERS^ 
 
 [^Nco) Edinburgh Re'uie'V}, October, 1 82 1.] 
 
 Miss Baillie has long enjoyed a large tribute of 
 public favor; and the powers she possesses are no 
 doubt fully sufficient to vindicate her claims to it. 
 Yet, if we mistake not, this distinction has been 
 earned more by the display of intellectual super- 
 iority in general, than of eminent poetical genius; 
 more by the avoidance of great blemishes, than 
 the production of great beauties. Her poetry rare- 
 ly belongs to the higher departments of the art; 
 she deals little in the exhibition of sublime emo- 
 tions — whether of an energetic or a tender cast; her 
 store of imagery, her range of feeling, are both 
 circumscribed; and though her studies have been 
 professedly devoted, with an exclusive preference, 
 to the workings of passion and the various aspects 
 of human character, it is only with passions and 
 characters of a common stamp that she appears to 
 be completely successful. Her tragic portraits are 
 certainly, in some cases, strongly sketched; yet in 
 general they are nothing more than sketches, and 
 
 ^ Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters. 
 
 By Joanna Baillie, London, I82I. 
 
 19 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 sketches too by one who has observed rather than 
 felt, — who has seen the effects produced by great 
 conjunctures and surprising emergences, but who 
 has little power to conceive the actual being of an 
 impassioned spirit subjected to their influence. 
 
 From this cause it follows, that, in Miss Baillie's 
 dramas, the characteristic lineaments of her heroes 
 are educed — if educed at all — rather by the man- 
 agement of external situations, than by the direct 
 expression of internal consciousness; rather by the 
 display of actions, than the collision of feelings 
 manifesting themselves naturally in the progress 
 of the dialogue. With great inventive powers, 
 indeed, something impressive may possibly be 
 accomplished, even in this less poetic method: 
 but invention is not a quality in which Miss Baillie 
 particularly excels; and hence her management of 
 those untoward instruments she employs is not 
 always the most felicitous. 
 
 These original deficiencies, important enough in 
 themselves, have been enhanced, and rendered 
 prominent, by Miss Baillie's mode of composition. 
 Her performances have too much the appearance 
 of forethought and plan, to pass for any relatives 
 of nature; we find abundance of criticism and logic 
 in them, but too little of genuine peptic fervour; 
 and the project of producing two plays, a tragedy 
 and a comedy, on each of the passions, not only 
 had something mechanical in it, something very 
 alien to the spontaneous inspiration which poets 
 boast of, but also tended to render her characters 
 
 20 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 too abstract and uncompounded to excite much 
 interest. The beings wrought out on such a system 
 are apt to resemble personifications rather than 
 persons; they must hate, or envy, or love; and an 
 author, in his anxiety to make them do so, with 
 sufficient energy to give effect, is in danger of for- 
 getting that they have anything to do besides. 
 Much ingenuity, and much vividness of conception 
 may be evinced in this manner, as Godwin and 
 others have exemplified; but it is not thus, we 
 imagine, that deep feeling will be awakened in a 
 reader, or any character brought forward, that 
 shall have much chance to dwell on his memory. 
 In a word, we may think them to be very amiable 
 or very detestable, but we do not feel them to be 
 men. It is true, but Miss Baillie's plays are not all 
 liable, in the same, or in any eminent degree, to 
 this objection; but in all of them its force may be 
 discovered more or less distinctly, and never with- 
 out great injury to the result. 
 
 With such weighty drawbacks, it is sufficiently 
 clear that our author has no title to rank among 
 the first class of poets. But it is equally so, we 
 readily admit, that she possesses gifts enough to 
 raise her far above the lowest: nor should it be 
 forgotten, that, as her pretentions are much less 
 urgent than her merits, so if she has fallen short 
 of the highest excellence, our censure of her fail- 
 ure should be less marked than our commenda- 
 tion of her partial success. But, independently of 
 such claims to indulgence, an attentive reader can- 
 
 21 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 not avoid being struck with the many beauties that 
 are scattered over her writings. She cannot be 
 compared with our older dramatists. Basil and 
 Ethwall are not known to us like Othello and 
 Macbeth; they do not incorporate themselves with 
 our thoughts and become part of the mind's 
 household goods; but, though incomplete and 
 unequal as dramatic characters, they bear traces 
 of keen observation and energetic feeling, accom- 
 panied at times with a strength of conception — 
 which, if it had extended over the general surface 
 of those poems — comprising the exalted, as it 
 often does the common mental condition of the 
 agent, would have amply contradicted our pre- 
 vious criticisms. Nor is the effect of those intrinsic 
 qualities obstructed by a depraved taste or a faulty 
 style. The allusions and metaphors are always 
 pure, often at once expressive and picturesque ; 
 while the language in which they are clothed, is 
 formed on the best models, and exhibits those 
 beauties to the greatest advantage. 
 
 In her less distinguished productions, the same 
 fundamental excellencies, though more sparingly 
 developed, are still discernible. 
 
 There is a frank and vigorous air about her poet- 
 ry, which pleases by seeming to perform all that it 
 attempts. She has an acute relish for the simple 
 affections of humanity, and the simple aspects of 
 nature; and occasionally, there are thrills of wild 
 sublimity, — which, as they rise without violence 
 from the surrounding emotions, give dignity and 
 
 22 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 relief to their unpretending beauties. Indeed, it is 
 this unpretendingness, this utter want of affecta- 
 tion, which constitutes the redeeming quality of 
 Miss Baillie's writings. Be the subject high or low, 
 she seems as if she were completely mistress of it; 
 or at least, she avoids all unnatural expedients, and 
 goes quietly along her destined course — indifferent 
 to success, if it cannot be purchased without the 
 sacrifice of truth and moderation. 
 
 Good and evil are always mixed. It is probably 
 by the undue cultivation of her reasoning faculties, 
 that Miss Baillie has enfeebled the imaginative 
 vigour of her poetry; and by the same process, 
 no less probably, she has also imparted to it this 
 unaffected simplicity, its principal ornament. To 
 the same cause must likewise be ascribed, at least 
 in part, the tone of wholesome, honest feeling, 
 which pervades all her writings, and so agreeably 
 distinguishes them, in an age when poetry is de- 
 formed by a spirit of morbid exaggeration, the 
 more baneful, as its tendency is to inspire disrespect 
 or disgust for everything that is peaceable or 
 happy in the ordinary ways of men. In Miss 
 Baillie's writings, if we fail to meet with glowing, 
 yet faithful exhibitions of perturbed and subli- 
 mated feelings, we also fail to meet with the reck- 
 less wailings, the bitter execrations of existing 
 institutions, the cold derision of human nature, 
 and the meretricious charms, not more dazzling 
 than pernicious, which so deeply infect much of 
 our present literature. In the absence of heroes, 
 
 23 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 we are not presented with ruffians, decked out in 
 colours which embellish rather than conceal their 
 villainy; if we have less impetuous sentiment, 
 what we have is all genuine; it does not array 
 itself in oriential gorgeousness, it does not languish 
 in diseased melancholy, or rave in the frenzy of 
 despair, — but moves calmly and steadily along in 
 cheerful comeliness, and the heart is better for it. 
 Miss Baillie, in short, though not a great poet, is 
 in every sense a good one. 
 
 With such impressions of Miss Baillie's powers, 
 and such dispositions to like, if not to admire, any 
 thing proceeding from her pen, we expected to re- 
 ceive more delight from the present volume than 
 a perusal of it has actually afforded us. At first 
 view, the title "Metrical Legends of Exalted Char- 
 acters" suggests the idea of an undertaking emi- 
 nently calculated to give room for the introduc- 
 tion of much striking description, and much 
 delightful, as well as highly valuable sentiment. 
 Though poetry is an imaginative art, its produc- 
 tions must be founded on reality in some sense, 
 or they cannot yield us gratification. The ancient 
 critical precept, that every drama should have for 
 its groundwork some historical or credited event, 
 was not without a show of reason; for although 
 the imagination may be filled, and the heart touch- 
 ed, as modern experience has frequently proved, 
 by events and characters purely fictitious, yet still 
 there is a hankering after truth in all of us; and the 
 idea that what we are contemplating did actually 
 
 24 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 in part take place, and for aught we know, in 
 whole — that the characters before us were in fact 
 real inhabitants of this earth, creatures of flesh and 
 blood like ourselves, adds a wonderful vivacity to 
 our impressions, at the time we receive them. The 
 most hardened novel reader is now and then as- 
 sailed by a chilling qualm, even at the very nodus 
 of his story, on reflecting that all this mighty stir 
 around him is but a fantasy; and though he strives 
 to banish such suggestions, they return upon him 
 when the intoxication is over, and never return 
 without a sensible diminution of his pleasure. No 
 doubt this disadvantage must continue to be quiet- 
 ly submitted to; the real occurrences of the world 
 are too circumscribed and prosaic to give scope to 
 our full energies; and it is a grand privilege possess- 
 ed by us, that we can at will frame an ideal scene, 
 where all shall be fair and free, where the passions 
 and powers of our nature may be arranged, and set 
 in opposition, and developed as we choose, while 
 things without us offer no obstruction to our crea- 
 tive efforts. But if this shadowy world delights us 
 merely as it seems to afford space for the unre- 
 strained exertion of human will, the effect must 
 depend on our belief, however transient, of its real- 
 ity; and hence, if cases should occur, in which the 
 restraints alluded to were wanting in a great meas- 
 ure, and might be removed entirely without vio- 
 lating, not the transient, but the permanent belief 
 we have of their reality, the effect of such cases 
 would be more intense, and therefore more poet- 
 
 25 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 ical. Now "exalted characters" furnish just such 
 cases as we have supposed. They are men in whom 
 the low elements of humanity are feeble or almost 
 extinct; and the poet has no task to perform with 
 regard to them, but to present their mind, and 
 such of their actions as unfold it, full and luminous 
 before us, with all the colouring and accompani- 
 ments which his art can lend. From their very 
 nature, characters and events susceptible of this 
 treatment must be rare; and the student of history 
 who wishes to enlarge his heart, and extend his 
 compass of thought, as well as to store his mem- 
 ory with facts, may justly regret their being so. A 
 historical personage, depicted in the colours of 
 poetry, is like a bright sun-spot in the grey cold 
 twilight of ordinary narrative. Richard and Wal- 
 lenstein are no longer the thin shadows they appear- 
 ed to us, in the mirror of Holinshed and Harte ; they 
 are living men, with all their attributes, whom we 
 almost seem to know personally; and the new in- 
 terest we take in them is extended to the whole 
 groups in which they mingle. No one can read 
 the meagerest chronicle of our old French wars, 
 without finding a warmer glow spread over all the 
 scene, a more intimate presence in it, communica- 
 ted from the plays of Shakespeare. In Henry's 
 army we discover wellknown faces; the king and 
 his valiant captains, even the ancient Pistol and 
 Bardolph, "a soldier firm of heart," are all dear to 
 our memories. We follow the progress of the host, 
 as it were with our eyes; and hear the armourers 
 
 26 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 give "dreadful note of preparation," every time the 
 victory of Agincourt is mentioned to us. Nor is 
 the increased animation which this particular spe- 
 cies of poetry diffuses over the most striking pas- 
 sages of history, the only, or even the principal ad- 
 vantage we derive from it. Besides ministering to 
 our pleasure, it contributes to our improvement. 
 If history is valuable, chiefly, as it offers examples 
 by which human nature is illustrated, and human 
 conduct may be regulated, then it is of the highest 
 importance that such great characters as have in- 
 fluenced the destinies of men, be held up to us in 
 the degree of light that shall most powerfully elicit 
 the generous expansion of soul, which a view of 
 them is fitted to inspire. We cannot feel too 
 strongly the admiration of highly-gifted virtue, or 
 the fear of highly-gifted wickedness; and if poetry 
 profess to occupy a more exalted rank in the scale 
 of our pursuits than that of being merely an ele- 
 gant amusement, — if it profess to elevate our 
 nature by giving scope to its higher qualities, and 
 communicating new beauty to the ordinary things 
 around us, — we do not see how it can better vin- 
 dicate such claims, than by adorning the memory 
 of those our illustrious brethren who have journey- 
 ed through life in might and recitude before us. 
 Every time the poet can seize the impress of such 
 a character, and transmit it warm to our bosoms, 
 he performs not only the most delightful but the 
 most beneficial function of his art. He rescues 
 from obscurity or neglect a token of the dignity of 
 
 27 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 man; and thus presenting another high example, 
 to which we may appeal in the day of trial, he 
 enriches and exalts the moral treasury of our race. 
 With regard to the illustrious wicked, poetical 
 representation is profitable in this way likewise. 
 The spectacle of mental power tends to enlarge 
 the mind of him who beholds it; and what is more, 
 the penalties attached to its misemployment the 
 "compunctious visitings" of conscience, or its still 
 more frightful insensibility, form a lesson of awful 
 import, which it is fit that all of us should study. 
 When a poet converts our admiration of greatness 
 into admiration of the crimes it is employed to 
 effect, he does not use, but abuse his authority 
 over us, and our feelings refuse to obey him. True 
 poetry will have another aim. Filippo and Mac- 
 beth are not less instructive than Brutus or Virgin- 
 ius. If this reasoning be correct, the increase of 
 pleasure and profit, derived from this species of 
 poetry, must appear to be great and indubitable. At 
 the same time, however, like every earthly good, it 
 is mixed with some alloy. The poet cannot secure 
 to us those advantages, without invading and appar- 
 ently violating the province of the historian and bi- 
 ographer. Poetryandhistoryhave long been at issue 
 on this matter. There is a kind of debatable ground 
 between them, the limits of which are nothing like 
 ascertained, and where each lays claim to the right 
 of dominion. On one hand, the sticklers for ac- 
 curacy allege, that, by distorting the events, and ex- 
 aggerating the characters of former ages, the face 
 
 28 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 of history becomes disfigured in the imaginations 
 of men; and erroneous notions thus silently propa- 
 gated, must inevitably, though imperceptibly, viti- 
 ate the conclusions and inferences to be deduced 
 from the real course of things, which has now been 
 displaced in a great measure from our thoughts, 
 to make room for a series more splendid, invented 
 by the poet for a purpose altogether foreign. 
 
 On the other hand are set forth the manifold ad- 
 vantages enumerated above, and the narrow com- 
 pass to which the injury complained of is limited. 
 The poet, it is said, will never violate the truth of 
 history to any important extent, as he is in general 
 sufficiently restrained by considerations affecting 
 his own pursuits alone. He knows well enough 
 that no subject over which the full daylight of his- 
 tory has once been shed, and which has thus be- 
 come familiar in all its details, and settled in the 
 public mind, can by any management be rendered 
 a fit subject for poetry. His efforts will, therefore, 
 be chiefly directed to the more obscure and re- 
 mote departments of history, concernin wghich 
 little can be known, or at least is known, to con- 
 tradict his statements; and in those distant scenes, 
 if he find a few facts applicable to his purpose, 
 why, it is asked, should he not be permitted, nay 
 invited, to seize them ? For the great characters 
 there dimly shadowed forth, he becomes a kind of 
 new creator. The faint traces they have left re- 
 main uninterpreted and barren in the eyes of the 
 chronicler: to the poet's eye they are like the frag- 
 
 29 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 ments of an antediluvian animal, as contemplated 
 by the mind of a Cuvier — dark to others and void 
 of meaning, but discovering to his experienced sa- 
 gacity, the form and habits of a species long ex- 
 tinct. And if, by a similar power, the plastic and 
 far-sighted genius of a poet, can, from those slen- 
 der hints, detect the structure and essence of the 
 sublime character to whom they relate, why should 
 he not disclose it, and thus offer to us a mass of ex- 
 alted thoughts and noble feelings, which, but for 
 such a power, we should never have recovered 
 from the darkness that buried them ? Let the poet, 
 then, say his admirers, take what liberty he pleases 
 with history. For his own sake, he will avoid falsi- 
 fying the characters and transactions recorded 
 there, to any fatal degree ; because long before it 
 prove hurtful to the moral judgements of his audi- 
 ence, this proceeding will prove still more hurtful 
 to the effect of his poetry, which will in vain solicit 
 favour from minds that are revolted by an open 
 contradiction of what they know to be true. 
 
 We do not pretend to settle this controversy; but 
 we cannot help observing, that the advocates for 
 history seem to overrate their claim of damages. 
 No one, it is certain, is likely to recur to the pages 
 of a drama or an epic for settling a date or a dis- 
 puted fact; and for all moral purposes, the poetical 
 selection of circumstances may convey as faithful 
 an idea of the subject treated, as the historical 
 narrative in which every circumstance is minutely 
 detailed. The truth of historical characters is in- 
 
 30 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 deed a more grave consideration; but the force and 
 vividness of the delineation are also an important 
 particular, and the omission of some circumstances 
 which enfeeble the general result, rather than 
 change its nature, has as many ad\antages, and 
 gives such a powerful engine for poetry to impress 
 us with, at once delightfully and beneficially, that 
 considerable latitude ought to be allowed even 
 here. Miss Baillie is aware of those conflicting 
 rights, and is puzzled, like ourselves, how to recon- 
 cile them. Admitting that history is too indistinct, 
 and biography too minute and familiar to call forth 
 "that rousing and generous admiration which the 
 "more simple and distant view of heroic worth is 
 "fitted to inspire;" she conceives that romance in 
 verse or prose, "by throwing over the venerated 
 "form of a majestic man, a gauzy veil, on which is 
 "delineated the fanciful form of an angel," is no 
 less injurious than unfaithful to the memory of the 
 mighty dead. She proceeds, 
 
 "Having this view of the subject in my mind, 
 and a great desire, notwithstanding, to pay some 
 tribute to the memory of a few characters for 
 whom I felt a peculiar admiration and respect, I 
 have ventured upon what may be considered, in 
 some degree, as a new attempt, — to give a short 
 descriptive chronicle of those noble beings, whose 
 existence has honoured human nature and bene- 
 fitted mankind. 
 
 "In relating a true story, though we do not add 
 any events or material circumstances to it, and 
 
 31 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 abstain from attributing any motives for action 
 which have not been credibly reported, or may not 
 be fairly inferred, yet, how often do we spontan- 
 eously, almost unwittingly, add description similar 
 to what we know must have belonged to the 
 actors and scenery of our story? 
 
 "In imitation then of this human propensity, 
 from which we derive so much pleasure, though 
 mischievous, when not indulged with charity and 
 moderation I have written the following metrical 
 legends, describing such scenes as truly belong to 
 my story, with occasionally the feelings, figures, 
 and gestures of those whose actions they relate, 
 and also assigning their motives of action, as they 
 may naturally be supposed to have existed. 
 
 "The events they record are taken from sources 
 sufficiently authentic; and where anything has 
 been reasonably questioned, I give some notice of 
 the doubt. I have endeavored to give them with 
 the brief simplicity of a chronicle, though frequent- 
 ly stopping in my course, where occasion for re- 
 flection or remark naturally offered itself, or pro- 
 ceeding more slowly, when objects capable of 
 interesting or pleasing description tempted me to 
 linger. Though my great desire has been to dis- 
 play such portraitures of real worth and noble her- 
 oism as might awaken high and generous feelings 
 in a youthful mind; yet I have not, as far as I know, 
 imputed to my heroes motives or sentiments be- 
 yond what their noble deeds do fairly warrant. I 
 have made each legend short enough to be read 
 
 32 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 in one moderate sitting, that the impression might 
 be undivided, and that the weariness of a story, 
 not varied or enriched by minuter circumstances, 
 might be, if possible, avoided. It has, in short, 
 been my aim to produce sentimental and descrip- 
 tive memorials of exalted worth." 
 
 The disadvantages of this plan are too obvious 
 to require much discussion. A versified chronicle, 
 confined within the rigid limits of historical truth, 
 is evidently one of the most unpoetical things in 
 nature. And although the degree of licence which 
 forms the discriminating feature of these metrical 
 legends may admit to introducing much fine de- 
 scription, both of scenery and feeling, yet for the 
 main purpose, that of exhibiting a great character 
 in glowing colours, and impressing us with it 
 strongly, few things could be worse calculated 
 than this new species of poem. "With heroic char- 
 acters, especially, we think it would fail in the 
 very best hands; and with any character, it is 
 plainly impossible that it should ever become the 
 vehicle of high poety. It leaves no room for 
 invention, little for imagination, except of a low 
 kind, partly allowed even in prose: there can be no 
 unity of action, for no man's life was ever in whole 
 directed to a single object; hence no unity of in- 
 terest, no unity of result. These disadvantages 
 are palpable enough. "What compensation do we 
 get for them ? If the truth of the narrative be all 
 our compensation, it is a very poor one. Granting 
 the narrative to be true in every particular — we 
 
 33 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 ask, of what avail is it? We did not take it up for 
 historical information, but to obtain a sublime 
 view of mental greatness. The fact of a hero's 
 life are worth nothing to us except as they repre- 
 sent the powers of his mind; and so the latter be 
 displayed with the greatest truth and effect, the 
 former may be as they will. Does Miss Baillie 
 think a straggling narrative of a man's whole life 
 and conversation the best mode of presenting an 
 intense and faithful view of his character? We im- 
 agine, on the contrary, it would not be difficult to 
 prove, that, for exhibiting the character in all its 
 truth and completeness, it must frequently be ad- 
 visable to alter, always more than advisable to 
 concentrate, the events which have displayed it. 
 We say truth, and we meant to use the term in its 
 highest sense. The actions of a man are never 
 more than a feeble and imperfect emblem of what 
 is passing within. To a common mind they dis- 
 play little of the unseen movements which a 
 sympathising mind infers from their presence; and 
 to any mind they offer but a faint copy of the re- 
 ality. Besides, they disclose the various mental 
 features only in succession, and the trace left by 
 one event is apt to be erased before that of anoth- 
 er is communicated. Hence, to give a true picture 
 of any character, particularly a great character, 
 true, we mean, both in its proportions and vi'uidy 
 ness it must often be requisite to forsake the 
 straightforward track of narrative, to accumulate, 
 either secretly, as historians do in forming their 
 
 34 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 judgment, or avowedly, as poets do in presenting 
 theirs, and combine the several impressions which 
 the story has produced upon us, — uniting them 
 in their proper situation and relative strength to 
 establish the true proportion, and accompanying 
 them with all the influence of poetry to impart 
 the true degree of •vi'vidness. Now, a "metrical 
 legend," if it adhere to the actual series of events 
 as they occurred, and reject all but the slenderest 
 embellishments of fancy, can never effect this. 
 Without immense means, it will effect nothing. 
 To give us even an approximate likeness of a great 
 man, so feeble an implement would need to be 
 wielded by an artist no way inferior to Shakes- 
 peare himself. The poet must be able, not merely 
 to understand the character he is delineating, but 
 to enter into it even to the minutest ramifications; 
 not merely to estimate his hero, but to transfuse his 
 whole being into him — to see with his hero's eyes, 
 and feel with his hero's heart. But Miss Baillie's 
 talent, we have already said, does not lie here. 
 She does not conceive a deep agitated nature very 
 fully, or embody her conceptions of it very hap- 
 pily; and her success, partial as it is, in this respect, 
 depends more on the display of incidents than of 
 emotions. Her present system, however, prohibits 
 not only the invention of new incidents, but even 
 the new arrangement of such as are prescribed; 
 and she is thus left to overcome the difficulties of 
 her undertaking — great and many in other re- 
 spects — by a resource, in the management of which 
 
 35 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 she has never shewn much power, by delineating 
 internal feeling without the external movement 
 which bespeaks it. The result is such as might have 
 been expected. On a first perusal, her "Metrical 
 Legends" of exalted characters, disappoint us ex- 
 tremely. They give us next to no idea at all of 
 the heroes whose characters it is their purpose to 
 celebrate; and we throw down the book in a state 
 of irritated ennui, declaring it to be tedious and pro- 
 saic beyond endurance. On a second perusal, it is 
 true, we are again disappointed; we now discover 
 much beautiful and spirited poetry sprinkled over 
 its barren groundwork; but still we cannot avoid 
 feeling, that the main design of the performance 
 has failed, and the great powers, we see misdirect- 
 ed to accomplish it, are calculated to make us 
 judge of it more harshly. 
 
 The first legend in the volume turns upon the 
 history of William Wallace, a name dear to every 
 lover of freedom, and amply meriting all the celeb- 
 rity which poetry can give it. The fate of Wal- 
 lace has been singularly hard, both in life and after 
 it. The deliverers of Switzerland, Tell and Stauf- 
 facher, and all the rest, have had their deeds re- 
 corded in the annals of their Country — gratefully 
 dwelt upon by historians of other countries, and it 
 last depicted on the imperishable canvass, of Schil- 
 ler. But in the very period when the tyranny of 
 Gessler had called forth the spirit that slumbered 
 in the mountain peasants, as stern a spirit was 
 roused, by a far more formidable tyrant, as fierce a 
 
 36 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 contest was waging among our own bleak hills, 
 and the patriot that guided it had an arm as strong, 
 a heart as firm, as the time required. Now mark 
 the difference! Tell died beside his own hearth, 
 amid affectionate grandchildren; a people blessed 
 him, {des Vaterlandes Shutz tend Erreiter); and a 
 poet, fitted to appreciate and fathom his manlysoul, 
 has embalmed the memory of its worth forever: 
 while Wallace, as unblemished after greater trials, 
 insulted and betrayed, but never yielding, perished 
 on the scaffold far from his native land, and before 
 the freedom he had bought for it, was achieved, 
 leaving his fame to the charge of a vulgar rhymer. 
 Nor since the days of Blind Harry has the case 
 been mended. Wallace, slightly mentioned by his- 
 torians, though the author of a mighty revolution 
 in his country, has become the prey of novelists 
 and poetasters. They have made him into a sen- 
 timental philosopher, a woe-begone lover, a mere 
 "carpet knight." Nay, Metastasio has not scrupled 
 to trick him out into a "metre ballad-monger:" 
 and Vatla (for the very name is lost), trills forth 
 his patriotism and his gallantry in many a quaver, 
 as an opera-hero ought, but resembling our own 
 rugged, massy, stern, indomitable Wallace wight, 
 just about as much as Vauxchall tin-cascade re- 
 sembles the falls of Niagara. We wish all this were 
 remedied. Why does not the author of Waverly 
 bestir himself? He has done a faithful duty to the 
 Cavaliers and Covenanters: a higher name than 
 any of them is still behind. The Wizard, if he liked, 
 
 37 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 could image back to us the very form and pressure 
 of those far off times, the very life and substance 
 of the strong and busy spirits that adorned them. 
 It would be glorious to behold all this in his magic 
 glass and then to say, "It is all our own — and the 
 magician too is ours." 
 
 The task, which we have thus presumed to rec- 
 ommend to the Great Novelist, and which, in spite 
 of all its obstacles, we seriously wish he would un- 
 dertake, has not in any measure been forestalled 
 by this attempt of Miss Baillie's. Her Wallace is 
 a lamentable failure. His exploits are related cer- 
 tainly in clear language, and not without gleams of 
 poetic imagery here and there, such as the unhap- 
 py nature of the plan allowed; but those exploits 
 have no union among themselves; they are isolat- 
 ed, and point different ways; they do not combine 
 to bring out or to strengthen one great effect, and 
 Wallace remains as much unknown to us as before. 
 We have, in fact, nothing but the ghost of him here. 
 He moves about the country— sets fire to the barns 
 of Ayr— fights at Stirling— offers to fight at Stan- 
 more — refuses at Falkirk — overcomes the Red 
 Reaver— is betrayed, and dies very edifyingly. 
 Now, all this is excellent, but nothing to the point 
 in view: the hero has still no individuality about 
 him; his features are invisible; and if we try to 
 grasp him, he proves to be an empty shade. We 
 are totd^ frequently and emphatically, that Wallace 
 is a very strong person, expert at the broadsword, 
 and a great patriot; with many other things which 
 
 38 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 we knew somewhat before, and do not yet know 
 better, or see more clearly; but the stern spirit of 
 the man, with all its fervid movements, the fiery 
 joy of victory, the stubborn resolution of defeat, 
 the grandeur of purpose, the unconquerable will, 
 his whole heroic nature, are wanting. We see 
 none of those living energies that nerved him for 
 his task; none of the great thoughts and great de- 
 sires, the overshadowings of despondency, the vis- 
 ions of generous hope, that chequered and sublimed 
 his restless existence. It is impossible to conceive 
 how Mrs Wallace could have freed his country, or 
 risen to command its armies: he shews no powers 
 of such a kind, few powers of any kind, except 
 mere physical strength;— his actions are recorded 
 in free and expressive language; but his character 
 is left to our own inferences, — that is to say, just 
 where it was. 
 
 We regret that Miss Baillie should have attempt- 
 ed the depicting of Wallace; but above all, that she 
 should have attempted it on such a plan. If deliv- 
 ered from the invincible obstructions thus volun- 
 tarily created, though perhaps she could not have 
 given us Wallace in his full majesty, she would at 
 least have given us some visible and pleasing out- 
 line of him. Her verses, though unequal, are by no 
 means destitute of beauty. It is only on contrast- 
 ing what is done with what is aimed at, that they 
 become disagreeable. The poem contains many 
 brilliant similies and fine allusions, it has few faults 
 except deficiencies; and, though these are numer- 
 
 39 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 ous, we frequently discover the free step and blithe 
 face of Miss Baillie's early muse. If we wished to 
 shew this "legend" to be very tame and feeble in 
 many places, we should have no difficult task. It 
 were easy to produce not a few stanzas of metred 
 prose; we could even point out half a page, in 
 which there is literally nothing but names, and 
 names so unmusical, that prose itself would have 
 paused before admitting them. But though not a 
 difficult, it would be grating task; and the reader 
 will obtain a more agreeable, and a far juster no- 
 tion of the general style and merits of the poem 
 from such an extract as the following. 
 It is the proemium. 
 
 "Insensible to high heroic deeds, 
 Is there a spirit clothed in mortal weeds, 
 
 Who at the patriot's moving story 
 
 Devoted to his country's good, 
 
 Devoted to his country's glory, 
 Shedding for freemen's rights his generous blood; — 
 
 List'neth not with breath heaved high, 
 
 Quiv'ring nerve, and glistening eye. 
 Feeling within a spark of heavenly flame. 
 That with the hero's worth may humble kindred claim ? 
 If such there be, still let him plod 
 
 On the dull foggy paths of care. 
 Nor raise his eyes from the dank sod 
 To view creation fair : 
 
 What boots to him the wond'rous works of God ? 
 His soul with brutal things has ta'en its earthly lair. 
 
 Come, youths, whose eyes are forward cast, — 
 
 And in the future see the past, — 
 The past, as winnow'd in the early nnind 
 
 With husk and prickle left behind ! 
 
 Come; whether under lowland vest. 
 
 Or by the mountain tartan prest, 
 40 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 Your gen'rous bosoms heave ; 
 
 Pausing a while in thoughtful rest, 
 
 My legend lay receive. ♦ 
 
 Come, aged sires, who love to tell 
 What fields were fought, what deeds were done; 
 
 What things in olden times befell, — 
 Those good old times, whose term is run ! 
 
 Come ye, whose manly strength with pride 
 
 Is breasting now the present tide 
 
 Of worldly strife, and cast aside 
 
 A hasty glance at what hath been ! 
 
 Come, courtly dames, in silken sheen, 
 And ye, who under thatched roofs abide; 
 Yea, ev'n the barefoot child by cottage fire. 
 Who doth some shreds of northern lore acquire. 
 
 By the stirr'd embers' scanty light, — 
 
 List to my legend lay of Wallace wight." 
 
 This we conceive to be at least an average speci- 
 men of the work. If it contains fewer beautiful 
 strokes than some other passages — the battle of 
 Stirling, for example — it contains none of their fall- 
 ingsoff ; and it gives no idea of the languor and dis- 
 appointment resulting from the whole narrative, 
 and inseparable from the principles on which it is 
 conducted. To shew what we might have had on 
 other principles, we need only appeal to the fine 
 sketch which follows — excepting, of course, the 
 two first stanzas. Wallace is hastening to meet 
 the English chiefs assembled in court at Ayr, — ac- 
 cording to the plausible but insidious invitation 
 which had been sent to all the neighboring barons. 
 The bridle of his horse is laid hold of by a friendly 
 hand — 
 
 " ' Oh ! go not to the barns of Ayr ! 
 'Kindred and friends are murder'd there. 
 41 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 'The faithless Southrons, one by one, 
 'On them the hangman's task hath [have] done. 
 'Oh, turn thy steed, and fearful ruin shun! ' 
 He, shudd'ring, heard, with visage pale, 
 Which quickly chang'd to wrath's terrific hue ; 
 And then apace came sorrow's bursting wail; 
 The noble heart could weep that could not quail, 
 
 'My friends, my kinsmen, war-mates bold and true! 
 Met ye a villain's end I Oh is it so with you ! ' 
 
 The hero turn'd his chafing steed, 
 
 And to the wild woods bent his speed. 
 
 But not to keep in hiding there, 
 
 Or give his sorrow to despair, 
 
 For the firce tumult in his breast 
 
 To speedy, dreadfuf action press'd. 
 
 And there within a tangled glade, 
 
 List'ning the courser's coming tread, 
 
 "With hearts that shared his ire and grief, 
 
 A faithful band receiv'd their chief. 
 In Ayr the guilty Southrons held a feast, 
 
 When that dire day its fearfuf course had run, 
 And laid them down their weary limbs to rest 
 Where the foul deed was done. 
 
 But ere beneath the cottage thatch 
 
 Cocks had crow'd the second watch ; 
 
 When sleepers breathe in heavy plight, 
 
 Press'd with the visions of the night, 
 
 And spirits, from unhallow'd ground. 
 
 Ascend to walk their silent round : 
 
 When trembles dell or desert heath. 
 
 The witches' orgy dance beneath, — 
 
 To the rous'd warders fearful gaze, 
 
 The Barns of Ayr were in a blaze. 
 
 The dense dun smoke was mounting slow 
 And stately, from the flaming wreck below, 
 And mantling far aloft in many a volum'd wreath; 
 Whilst town and woods, and ocean wide did lye, 
 Tinctur'd like glowing furnace-iron beneath 
 Its awful canopy. 
 42 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 Red mazy sparks soon with the dense smoke blended, 
 
 And far around like fiery sleet descended. 
 
 From the scorch'd and cracking pile 
 
 Fierce burst the glowing flames the while; 
 
 Thro' creviced wall and buttress strong, 
 
 Sweeping the rafter'd roofs along; 
 
 Which, as with sudden crash they fell, 
 
 Their raging fierceness seem'd to quell, 
 
 And for a passing instant spread 
 
 O'er land and sea a lurid shade ; 
 
 Then with increasing brightness, high 
 
 In spiral form, shot to the sky 
 
 With momentary height so grand, 
 
 That chill'd beholders breathless stand. 
 
 Thus rose and fell the flaming surgy flood, 
 
 'Til! fencing around the gulphy light, 
 
 Black, jagg'd and bare, a fearful sight ! 
 
 Like ruin grim of former days, 
 
 Seen 'thwart the broad sun's setting rays. 
 
 The guilty fabric stood. 
 And dreadful are the deaths, I ween, 
 Which midst that fearful wreck have been. 
 The pike and sword, and smoke and fire. 
 Have mtnister'd to vengeful ire. 
 
 New-wak'd wretches stood aghast 
 To see the fire-flood in their rear 
 Close to their breast the pointed spear. 
 
 And in wild horror yell'd their last. 
 But what dark figures now emerge 
 From the dread gulf and cross the light, 
 
 Appearing on its fearful verge. 
 Each like an armed sprite ? 
 
 Whilst one above the rest doth tower, — 
 
 A form of stern gigantic power, 
 
 Whirling from his lofty stand 
 
 The stnold'ring stone or burning brand? 
 Those are the leagued for Scotland's native right, 
 Whose clashing arms rang Southrons knell, 
 When to their fearful work they fell, — 
 That form is Wallace wight." 
 
 43 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 The beauties of this description, at once so 
 chaste and so expressive, are sufficient to remind 
 us that much of what is feeble and faulty in the 
 execution of this poem, is to be ascribed to errors 
 in the original design, which no powers, however 
 great, could have entirely surmounted. In the life 
 of Wallace, those original defects are more than 
 usually sensible. In that of Christopher Columbus, 
 the subject of our second "Legend," they are less 
 so; the scenes to be pourtrayed are more vast and 
 striking: the events to be recorded are more nu- 
 merous; they follow in quicker succession, have 
 more of a consentaneous character, and bear more 
 upon a single object. In this piece, accordingly, 
 our disappointment has been smaller. It is impos- 
 sible, indeed, for any one to write a history of 
 Columbus, how imperfectly soever, without inter- 
 mingling something of poetry with his narrative. 
 The character of Columbus, so richly furnished 
 with intellectual and moral endowments, his fate, 
 and the great things he accomplished, are of them- 
 selves poetical. To view him, after long years of 
 anxious waiting, at length embarked with his slen- 
 der crew, — alone with them upon the wide and 
 wasteful deep, which no keel had ever ploughed, 
 no human eyes had ever seen before; yet bearing 
 fearlessly on, destined to discover a new world, to 
 found new empires, and to change the fate of the 
 old, — might strike some sparks of feeling from the 
 very dullest heart. 
 
 With such advantages inherent in its subject, the 
 
 44 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 "Legend of Columbus" is calculated to afford 
 considerable pleasure. It contains some poetical 
 sentiment and thought, with much poetical de- 
 scription; the story proceeds less tediously/ is 
 less broken into fragments; and the sinkings into 
 prose are less frequent and alarming. Yet the 
 innate perversity of Miss Baillie's plan — which the 
 weak points of her genius tend to aggravate, are 
 but too apparent here also. Nearly all that is 
 historical is prosaic: we have nothing of Columbus 
 but what is external; no strong impression of the 
 enthusiastic heart and warm imagination, that 
 supported him so long and so bravely. If we 
 wished to get, — we do not say a true idea, but any 
 idea— of his character, it is not to this "metrical 
 legend" that we should have recourse. Robert- 
 son's prose would answer the purpose infinitely 
 
 ^ It may seem inconsistent in us to complain of omissions in 
 the narrative. In fact, we wish they had been much more numer- 
 ous: but we see no reason why, in such a professed account of 
 Columbus's achievements and sufferings, the last and greatest of 
 his sufferings, the year of bitterness which he spent in Jamaica, 
 after the loss of his ships, (1504,) should not be mentioned at all, — 
 or what is worse, mentioned so as to convey a totally false im- 
 pression of it. Miss Baillie notices the prediction of the eclipse ; 
 but she does not notice the ultimate hostility of the Indians, the 
 mutinies of the Spaniards, and the savage conduct of the governor 
 of St. Domingo, who not only refused to give any assistance of 
 ships or provisions, but accompanied his refusal with inhuman 
 mockery. The fatigue, the famine, and the horrors of this year 
 quite broke the constitution, and broke the heart of Columbus, 
 who died soon after. A letter expressive of extreme agony, and 
 said to have been written by him here, may be seen in Edwards' 
 History of the West Indies, Vol. I. 
 
 45 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 better. And we do not think there can be a more 
 convincing proof of this system being radically 
 bad, than the fact — of which an experiment will 
 satisfy any one — that Columbus's character, extra- 
 ordinary in every sense, and full of the elements 
 of poetry as it is, scarcely appears at all in the 
 reader's imagination, and is never the primary 
 object there. The narrative is not, however, void 
 of beauties: and the life of Columbus, though 
 itself unheeded, or at least unpoetical, is made the 
 platform on which some true poetry is built. The 
 following thought is just, and not ill stated, though 
 the soul oi imagination is a new entity. 
 
 But hath there lived of mortal mould 
 Whose fortunes with his thoughts could hold 
 An even race ? Earth's greatest son 
 That e'er earned fame, or empire won. 
 Hath but fulfill'd, within a narrow scope, 
 A stinted portion of his ample hope. 
 
 With heavy sigh and look depress'd. 
 
 The greatest men will some-times hear 
 The story of their acts address'd 
 
 To the young stranger's wond'ring ear. 
 And check the half-swoln tear. 
 Is it or modesty, or pride, 
 Which may not open praise abide ? 
 No ; read his inward thoughts : they tel! 
 His deeds of fame he prizes well. 
 But, ah! they in his fancy stand, 
 As relics of a blighted band. 
 Who, lost to man's approving sight, 
 Have perish'd in the gloom of night, 
 Ere yet the glorious light of day 
 Had glitter'd on their bright array. 
 His mightiest feat had once another, 
 
 Of high imagination born, — 
 46 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 A loftier and a nobler brother, 
 
 From dear existence torn ; 
 And she for those, who are not, steeps 
 Her soul in woe, — like Rachel, weeps." 
 
 The moving circumstances of Columbus's first 
 voyages are, of course, attended to. There is beau- 
 ty in the picture, though not as much as might 
 have been. 
 
 "From shore and strait, and gulf and bay, 
 The vessels held their daring way, 
 Left far behind, in distance thrown, 
 All land to Moor or Christian known. 
 Left far behind the misty isle. 
 Whose fitful shroud, withdrawn the while, 
 Shews wood and hill and headland bright, 
 To later seamen's wond'ring sight; 
 And tide and sea left far behind 
 That e'er bore freight of human kind; 
 Where ship or bark to shifting gales 
 E'er tacked their [her] course or spread their [her] sails. 
 Around them lay a boundless main 
 In which to hold their silent reign; 
 But for the passing current's flow. 
 And cleft waves brawling round the prow, 
 They might have thought some magic spell 
 Had bound them, weary fate ! for ever their to dwell. 
 
 What did this trackless waste supply 
 To sooth the mind or please the eye? 
 The rising morn thro' dim mist breaking, 
 The flicker'd east with purple streaking ; 
 The mid-day cloud thro' thin air flying. 
 With deeper blue the blue sea dying ; 
 Long ridgy waves their white mains rearing, 
 And in the broad gleam disappearing ; 
 The broaden'd blazing sun declining. 
 And western waves like fire-flood shining ; 
 The sky's vast dome to darkness given, 
 And all the glorious host of heaven. 
 47 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 Full oft upon the deck, while other's slept, 
 
 To mark the bearing of each well-known star 
 
 That shone aloft, or on th' horizon far, 
 The anxious chief his lonely vigil kept; 
 The mournful wind, the hoarse wave breaking near 
 The breathing groans of sleep, the plunging lead, 
 The steersman's call, and his own stilly tread, 
 
 Are all the sounds of night that reach his ear. 
 
 His darker form stalk'd thro' the sable gloom 
 
 With gestures discomposed and features keen. 
 That might not in the face of day be seen. 
 
 Like some unblessed spirit from the tomb. 
 Night after night, and day succeeding day 
 So pass'd their dull, unvaried time away 
 Till hope, the seaman's worship'd queen, had flown 
 From every valiant heart but his alone ; 
 Where still, by day, enthron'd she held her state 
 With sunny look and brow elate." 
 
 A rapid glance is afterwards taken of the new 
 world to whicti this voyage led. We need not in- 
 sist on its merits. 
 
 Where he, the sea's unwearied, dauntless rover. 
 Thro' many a gulph and straight, did first discover 
 
 That continent, whose mighty reach 
 
 From th' utmost frozen north doth stretch 
 
 Ev'n to the frozen south; a land 
 
 Of surface fair and structure grand. 
 
 There, thro' vast regions rivers pour, 
 Whose mid-way skiff scarce sees the shore; 
 Which, rolling on in lordly pride. 
 Give to the main their ample tide; 
 And dauntless [?] then, with current strong. 
 Impetuous, roaring, bear along, 
 And still their sep'rate honours keep. 
 In bold contention with the mighty deep. 
 
 There broad-based mountains from the very sight 
 Conceal in clouds their vasty height, 
 48 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 Whose frozen peaks, a vision rare, 
 Above the girdling clouds rear'd far in upper air, 
 At times appear, and soothly seem 
 To the far distant, up-cast eye. 
 Like snowy watch-towers of the sky, — 
 Like passing visions of a dream. 
 
 There forests grand of olden birth, 
 O'ercanopy the darken'd earth, 
 Whose trees, growth of unreckon'd time, 
 Rear o'er whole regions far and wide 
 A chequer'd dome of lofty pride 
 
 Silent, solemn, and sublime, — 
 A pillar'd lab'rinth, in whose trackless gloom, 
 Unguided feet might stray till close of mortal doom. 
 
 There grassy plains of verdant green 
 Spread far beyond man's ken are seen. 
 Whose darker bushy spots that lie 
 Strewed o'er the level vast, descry 
 Admiring strangers, from the brow 
 Of hill or upland steep, and show. 
 Like a calm ocean's peaceful isles, 
 When morning light thro' rising vapour smiles." 
 
 From the contemplation of those great scenes, 
 we are transported to a very different class of ob- 
 jects, in the fourth "Legend"— that of Lady Griseld 
 Baillie, by far the most successful in the volume. 
 This matter-of-fact poetry is here in its proper 
 place; its advantages, such as they are, come now 
 to be of service. The exploits of a powerful and 
 violently agitated mind, if they are intended to in- 
 dicate its nature, must be compressed into a nar- 
 row space, and made to tell upon us at once with 
 their united force, seconded by the poet's interpre- 
 tation and display of them. It is from the failure 
 in this, owing to the prescribed events being dif- 
 
 49 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 fused over so large a circle, and alloyed with so 
 large a portion of the meanness of ordinary life, as 
 well as to the want of a capacity to enter fully into 
 the spirit of an exalted and strong character, that 
 Miss Baillie has not succeeded in conveying to us 
 any vivid or even distinct idea of Wallace and 
 Columbus. The case is different with her most 
 amiable kinswoman. 
 
 — "She of gentler nature, softer, dearer, 
 
 Of daily life the active, kindly cheerer; 
 
 With generous bosom, age, or childhood shielding, 
 
 And in the storms of life, tho' mov'd, unyielding; 
 
 Strength in her gentleness, hope in her sorrow, 
 
 Whose darkest hours some ray of brightness borrow 
 
 From better days to come, whose meek devotion 
 
 Calms every wayward passion's wild commotion; 
 
 In want and suff'ring, soothing, useful, sprightly, 
 
 Bearing the press of evil hap so lightly. 
 
 Till evil's self seems its strong hold betraying 
 
 To the sweet witch'ry of such winsome playing; 
 
 Bold from affection, if by nature fearful, 
 
 With varying brow, sad, tender, anxious, cheerful, — 
 
 This is meet partner for the loftiest mind. 
 
 With crown or helmet grac'd, — yea, this is womankind!" 
 
 The simple doings of such a meek, unambitious 
 creature, will speak for themselves; and, if they 
 needed an interpreter. Miss Baillie understands 
 them well. Besides, they speak with that small, 
 still voice, which requires to be often repeated be- 
 fore it will be listened to. A being like this is 
 not to be described by combining a few of its bold 
 and brilliant manifestations. Lady Griseld has 
 nothing bold or brilliant in her character, and its 
 excellencies must be unfolded by a minute and 
 
 50 
 
EXALTED CHA RACXi R S_ _ 
 
 patient display=^fthe trying, though retired scenes 
 in which she prove9~tbeir_^ower. The particulars 
 of her Hfe should be detailed at full length: and the 
 problem is to detail them witn tliat sprightliness 
 and vivacity which shall gain for them a welcome 
 admission, and prevent their littleness from weary- 
 ing our attention and dissipating our sympathies. 
 
 It is another circumstance in favour of this Le- 
 gend, that, no expectations being previously enter- 
 tained with regard to its heroine, her modest worth 
 comes upon us with all the advantages of surprise. 
 Lady Griseld's character and very existence are 
 now for the first time presented to our thoughts. 
 Her name does not, like that of Wallace or Colum- 
 bus, occupy a large extent in our imaginations, and 
 awaken the idea of something magnificent and 
 vast whenever it is pronounced. She is not men- 
 tioned in history, nor would she make a figure 
 there. The "dear and helpful child" of Sir Patrick 
 Hume might watch over her father, when tyranny 
 compelled him to hide in the burial-vault of his 
 ancestors; she might accompany her parents when 
 the same tyranny compelled them to take shelter 
 with their family in a foreign country; her affec- 
 tionate, cheerful, unwearied efforts might sweeten 
 their exile; in due time she might be united to her 
 early friend, (the younger Jerviswood,) and as a 
 wife and mother become no less exemplary than 
 she had been as a daughter — and still continued 
 even when a widow: but, though her quiet virtues 
 gave happiness or solace to all connected with 
 
 51 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 her, they are not of a kind which historians love 
 to dwell upon. 
 
 In every point of view, then, Lady Griseld was 
 the fittest subject for this species of legend. Her 
 actions were full of lowly beauty; they required to 
 be developed minutely, that their beauty might be 
 demonstrated, and to be decorated with all the 
 graceful drapery of fancy, that it might be attract- 
 ive. And what is more important still, her mind 
 and the situations in which she was called upon to 
 act, were at once familiar to the every-day thoughts 
 of Miss Baillie, and such as afforded room for em- 
 ploying the most valuable and uncontested facul- 
 ties of her genius. Lady Griseld, accordingly, is 
 quite a lovely person. She does not of course, pre- 
 tend to be an epic heroine, to sway over us by the 
 potency and dazzling attributes of her character 
 and actions: but she is something fully as good, 
 and far more difficult for any but a true poet to 
 pourtray with interest and yet without exaggera- 
 tion. A calm unprofessing benefactress, she is 
 busied about humble things, which pass without 
 notice in the world's turmoil: but her simple life is 
 described so gracefully; she has withal such an 
 elastic, though silent strength of feeling, such a 
 generous forgetfulness of self; there is such a heav- 
 enly innocence of soul, pervading and beautifying 
 the earthly duties, to which she bends unwearied- 
 ly; she appears so saint-like, and yet so warm and 
 cheerful, and "studious of household good;" her 
 character throughout is so emphatically simplex 
 
 52 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 munditiis, that no one can regard her without an 
 affectionate admiration. There is scarcely any- 
 thing more amiable in romance; and the thought, 
 that it is all real, occurs most opportunely to con- 
 firm and sanction our dehght. 
 
 We dare not venture upon a more detailed ac- 
 count of her life ; our coarse attempt would but 
 spoil it; and therefore we more earnestly exhort 
 all our readers to study Lady Griseld for them- 
 selves, and spare us that unthankful labour. They 
 will find her as winning as we have said; and de- 
 scribed in this "Legend" with a gentle ardour, an 
 unconscious dignity, a sedulous faithfulness, befit- 
 ting her character, and of kindred to it. All this is, 
 no doubt, far enough from having any connexion 
 with that sublime species of poetry, which gains 
 its end by inflaming our hearts or expanding our 
 imaginations; but it is an exquisite specimen of 
 that humbler species, which seeks to enliven our 
 kindly sympathies, and brighten the scenery of our 
 common existence. The style both of language 
 and of versification is well adapted to the style of 
 thought. Miss Baillie's language has always many 
 good qualities, particularly in the present volume. 
 It is never inflated; it has often a careless elegance, 
 and at times a shrewd expressiveness, to which 
 few living authors have attained. But in the case 
 before us, there is joined with those beauties a cer- 
 tain airy carriage, a witching coquetry, if we may 
 speak so, which it is as impossible to resist as to 
 describe. 
 
 53 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF 
 
 Our readers will naturally call for a sample of 
 those various and vaunted excellencies — outward 
 as well as substantial; and none that we can select 
 will convey any adequate impression. The follow- 
 ing is all we are able to afford: it contains but a 
 few simple flowers out of a most fragrant and 
 healthful garden. Sir Patrick Hume has fled to 
 Holland, (for his share in Monmouth's invasion,) 
 and is living there with his family — poor, but com- 
 forted in the hope of better times. 
 
 "And well, with ready hand and heart, 
 Each task of toilsome duty taking 
 
 Did one dear inmate play her part, 
 The last asleep, the earliest waking. 
 
 Her hands each nightly couch prepared. 
 
 And frugal meal on which they fared ; 
 
 Unfolding spread the servet white, 
 
 And deck'd the board with tankard bright. 
 
 Thro' fretted hose and garment rent, 
 
 Her tiny needle deftly went, 
 
 Till hateful penury, so graced, 
 
 Was scarcely in their dwelling traced. 
 
 With rev'rence to the old she clung, 
 
 With sweet affection to the young. 
 
 To her was crabbed lesson said, 
 
 To her the sly petition made. 
 
 To her was told each petty care; 
 
 By her was lisp'd the tardy prayer. 
 
 What time the urchin, half undrest 
 
 And half asleep was put to rest. 
 
 There is a sight all hearts beguiling, — 
 A youthful mother to her infant smiling. 
 Who, [which,] with spread arms and dancing feet, 
 And cooing voice returns its answer sweet. 
 Who does not love to see the grandame mild. 
 Lesson with yearning looks the list'ning child? 
 54 
 
EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 But 'tis a thing of saintlier nature, 
 
 Amidst her friends of pigmy stature, 
 
 To see the maid in youth's fair bloom, 
 
 A guardian sister's charge assume, " 
 
 And, like a touch of angels' bliss, 
 
 Receive from each its grateful kiss. — 
 To see them when their hour of love is past, 
 
 Aside their grave demeanor cast. 
 
 With her in mimic war they wrestle; 
 
 Beneath her twisted robe they nestle ; 
 
 Upon her glowing cheek they revel, 
 
 Low bended to their tiny level; 
 
 While oft, her lovely neck bestriding 
 
 Crows some arch imp, like huntsman riding. 
 This is a sight the coldest heart may feel, — 
 To make down rugged cheeks the kindly tear to steal. 
 
 But when the toilsome sun was set. 
 And ev'ning groups together met, 
 (For other strangers shelter'd there 
 Would seek with them to lighten care,) 
 Her feet still in the dance mov'd lightest. 
 Her eye with merry glance beam'd brightest, 
 Her braided locks were coil'd the neatest, 
 Her carol song was trilled the sweetest; 
 And round the fire, in winter cold 
 No archer tale than hers was told." 
 
 We meant to say a few words in favour of the 
 " Elder Tree" and " Malcom's Heir," two of the bal- 
 lads which conclude this volume. But it is impos- 
 sible now; nor is it necessary: we can part in kind- 
 ness with Miss Baillie here as well as elsewhere; 
 and we wish to part in kindness with one whom 
 we love so much. For though we have censured 
 freely, it has been more in sorrow than in anger; 
 in sorrow to see such efforts wasted on a task 
 which no human powers could fully accomplish. 
 
 55 
 
METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED CHARACTERS 
 
 We never distrusted Miss Baillie's talents, and the 
 present volume has raised them in our esteem. It 
 is only her mode of employing them that we con- 
 demn. If she can find any more Lady Griselds, it 
 will be well: but we would advise her to be cau- 
 tious in future of meddling with such persons as 
 Wallace, or Columbus, — and above all, of treating 
 them by way of "Metrical Legends." 
 
 56 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
FAUSTUS' 
 
 [Neiv Edinburgh Re'vieiu, April, 1822] 
 
 The title page of this work excites expectations 
 which the work itself is very little calculated to 
 fulfil. It is no translation of Faust; but merely a 
 pretty full description of its various scenes, inter- 
 spersed at frequent intervals with extracts of con- 
 siderable length, rendered into clear and very fee- 
 ble blank verse, — generally without great violence 
 to the meaning of the original, or any attempt to 
 imitate the matchless beauties of its diction; — the 
 whole intended mainly to accompany a series 
 of plates illustrative of Faust, which have lately 
 been engraved by M. Moses from the drawings of 
 Retsch, a German artist. 
 
 "The slight analysis, drawn up as an accompani- 
 "ment to Retsch's Outlines, being out of print, the 
 "publishers felt desirous to supply its place with a 
 "more careful abstract of Faust, which, while it 
 "served as a book of reference and explanation 
 "for the use of the purchasers of the plates, might 
 "also possess some claims to interest the general 
 "reader. With this view," &c. 
 
 ^ Faustus: from the German of Goethe. 8vo. London, I82I. 
 59 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 "We entertain no prejudice whatever against this 
 "more careful abstract." It seems to be a solid in- 
 offensive undertaking, founded on the immutable 
 principles of profit and loss, and is accomplished 
 quite as well as could have been expected. But 
 we have felt mortified at seeing the bright aerial 
 creations of Goethe metamorphosed into such a 
 stagnant, vapid caput moriaum: and we cannot 
 forbear to caution our readers against forming 
 any judgment of that great foreigner from his rep- 
 resentative; or imagining that "Faustus" affords 
 even the faintest idea of the celebrated drama, the 
 name of which it bears. An avowedly prose trans- 
 lation of the passages selected, would have been 
 less unjust to all parties. It would have enabled 
 the author to express the sense of his original with 
 equal gracefulness, and far more precision, with- 
 out inviting such of his readers as know the genu- 
 ine Faust to institute comparisons so distressing, — 
 or leading such of them as do not know it — to 
 form so erroneous an estimate of its merits. Ac- 
 cording to this plan, it seems impossible that any 
 stanza like the following, — 
 
 "Bin ich der Fliichtling nicht, der Unbehauste? 
 Der Unmensch ohne Zweck und Ruh? 
 Der wie ein Wassersturz von Pels zu Felsen brauste, 
 Begierig wuthend nach dem Abgrund zu,"^ 
 
 ^ This simile is fast degenerating into what Voltaire called un 
 Suisse, — a simile ready to move at any one's bidding. We have 
 met with it repeatedly of late, both in poetry and prose, — Manfred, 
 Anastasius, The Apostate, — not to speak of others. Byron and 
 Hope spin it into a fine allegory, each in his own fashion : Mr. 
 
 60 
 
FAUSTUS 
 could have been transformed so miserably as into 
 
 — "Oh! am I not — 
 The fugitive — the houseless wanderer — 
 The wild barbarian without an object} 
 Or like a cataract that from rock to rock 
 With eager fury leaps heralding ruin!" 
 
 Poetical license, and the trammels of verse, are 
 all that can be pleaded in extenuation of this and 
 a thousand such unhappy failures. There are 
 others for which an humbler plea must serve. 
 "/for' auf mii deinem Gram zu spielen/' the au- 
 thor knows full well, cannot mean, "O! learn to 
 dally with your misery:" nor on reconsidering the 
 matter, will he fail to discover that **alle sechs 
 Ta^ewer^" signifies the universe, not — "a whole 
 week's business;" or that — 
 
 "Und dann die hohe Intuition 
 
 Ich darf niht — sagen wie — zu schliessen" — 
 
 cannot be translated by 
 
 — "And then the high 
 The wond'rous intuition ? — I dare not 
 Proceed." 
 
 If such inaccuracies as these had been avoided; 
 if the book had borne a humbler title, and been 
 sober prose in shape, as it is in substance, — though 
 it could not have interested it would not have of- 
 fended "the general reader;" and purchasers of 
 Retsch's outlines would have taken it with them 
 
 Sheil, by introducing frost into his cataract, has contrived to il- 
 lustrate very forcibly some doctrines of Martinus Scriblerus on the 
 Art of Sinking. Du sublime au ridicule il n 'y a. qu' un pas. 
 
 61 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 not the less, — which is nearly all the circulation 
 it has any right or chance ever to obtain under 
 any form. 
 
 Perhaps we are too severe on this slender per- 
 formance: but the sight of it renewed our wish to 
 see Faust in an English dress; while the perusal of 
 it mocked all such anticipations. A suitable ver- 
 sion of Faust would be a rich addition to our liter- 
 ature; but the difficulties which stand in the way 
 of such an undertaking amount to almost an ab- 
 solute veto. The merits of a good translation, es- 
 pecially in poetry, always bear some kindred, 
 though humble, relation to those of the original; 
 and in the case before us, that relation approaches 
 more nearly to equality than in any other we 
 know of. 
 
 To exhibit in a different tongue any tolerable 
 copy of the external graces of this drama, — the 
 marvellous felicity of its language, and the ever- 
 varying, ever-expressive rhythm of its verse, would 
 demand the exercize of all that is rarest and most 
 valuable in a poet's art; while the requisite famili- 
 arity with such thoughts and feelings as it em- 
 bodies, could not exist but in conjunction with 
 nearly all that is rarest and most valuable in a 
 poet's genius. A person so qualified is much more 
 likely to write tragedies of his own, than to trans- 
 late those of others: and thus Faust, we are afraid 
 must ever continue in many respects a sealed book 
 to the mere English reader. 
 
 Certainly, it is not with the hope of doing much 
 
 62 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 to open it that ive have taken up the subject. But 
 if we can succeed in describing — though we can- 
 not pretend to exhibit — any of the characteristic 
 features of a work so generally famous, our efforts 
 will not perhaps prove unacceptable to many who 
 know it only by name: and for ourselves, Faust is 
 so great a favorite with us, that a few hours can 
 scarcely be spent more agreeably than in lingering 
 amid the endless labyrinths of thought, to which a 
 fresh perusal of it never fails to introduce us. 
 
 Goethe is likely to figure in after ages, as one of 
 the most remarkable characters of his time; and 
 posterity will derive from this tragedy their most 
 lively impressions, both of his peculiar excellencies 
 and defects. Faust was conceived while its author 
 was passing from youth to settled manhood, — a 
 period of inquietude in every life, — frequently, as 
 in his case, of a darkness and despondency but too 
 well suited to furnish ideas for such a work. It 
 was executed when long culture and varied expe- 
 rience had ripened his powers; and under a splen- 
 dour of reputation, which admitted the most con- 
 fident, even careless exertion of them: its object is 
 to delineate whatever is wildest and most myste- 
 rious in the heart and the intellect of man; and its 
 chief materials are drawn from the heart and the 
 intellect of the writer. In perusing it, accordingly, 
 we seem to behold the troubled chaos of his own 
 early woes, and doubts, and wanderings, — illumi- 
 nated in part, and reduced to form, by succeeding 
 speculations of a calmer nature, — and pourtrayed 
 
 63 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 by a finished master, in all its original vividness, 
 without its original disorder. In studying the 
 scenes of Faust, we incessantly discover marks of 
 that singular union of enthusiasm with derision; of 
 volatility with strength and fervour; of impetuous 
 passion, now breaking out in fiery indignation, 
 now in melting tenderness, now in withering sar- 
 casm, with an overflowing gaiety, not only sport- 
 ive and full of the richest humour, but grotesque 
 to the very borders of absurdity, or beyond them, 
 — which appears to belong exclusively to Goethe. 
 In Faust too, we trace the subtle and restless un- 
 derstanding, which, at one period or another of its 
 history, has penetrated into almost every subject 
 of human thought; the sparkling fancy, and, as a 
 necessary consequence, the boundless command 
 of language and allusion — to clothe and illustrate, 
 as if by enchantment, all the conceptions of a 
 most capricious, though lofty and powerful imag- 
 ination. 
 
 Qualities so exquisite have long placed Goethe 
 at the head of German poets; and given him a 
 kind of literary autocracy in his own country, to 
 which nothing with us bears any resemblance. 
 Unlimited power is said to injure the possessor of 
 it; and here, as in more important instances, it has 
 produced its natural effect. Goethe has suffered, 
 as well as profited, by the want of criticism; and 
 traces of his having written for a much too indul- 
 gent public, are visible in Faust no less than traces 
 of his wonderful genius. There is a want of unity 
 
 64 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 in the general plan of the work, and there are nu- 
 merous sins against taste in the execution of it. 
 We do not allude to any of the three superannuat- 
 ed unities of Aristotle, or the French school: but 
 there is not in Faust that unity of interest, which 
 we are taught to expect in every work of fiction. 
 The end has too slight a connection with the be- 
 ginning, the parts with each other: and the gen- 
 eral effect is more than once entirely suspended by 
 the insertion of certain incoherent scenes, which 
 it would not be easy to admire anywhere; and no- 
 where — it might seem at first view — more diffi- 
 cult than here. They resemble the disjecta mem." 
 bra of wit and satire, much more than wit and 
 satire themselves; and though not without some 
 gleams of meaning independently of the local and 
 ephemeral topics to which they refer, they are 
 given out in so raw a state of preparation as 
 would undoubtedly expose them to very brief and 
 harsh treatment from any critic but a German one. 
 It were unfair, however, to deny that this strange 
 mixture of pathos, and horror, and drollery, ac- 
 quires, on reflection, a secondary beauty, sufficient 
 to cancel much of its original rudeness and appar- 
 ent incongruity. Faust is not constructed on the 
 common dramatic principles, or at all adapted for 
 theatrical representation. It seems to aim at hold- 
 ing up not only a picture of the fortunes and feel- 
 ings of a single character, or group of characters; 
 but at the same time, a vague emblem of the 
 great vortex of human life; and in this point of 
 
 65 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 view, its heterogeneous composition and abrupt 
 variations, even its occasional extravagance, have 
 a subordinate propriety, as significant of the vast, 
 and confused, and ever-changing object, which the 
 whole in some degree is meant to shadow forth. 
 
 The "Tragical History of Doctor Faustus," by 
 Marlow, is grounded on the same tradition with 
 this play of Goethe's; but the two pieces have little 
 else in common. The genius of Marlow was of a 
 kind very dissimilar and very inferior to that of 
 Goethe; and the structure and plan of his "Tragi- 
 cal History" point to an age with many of whose 
 feelings and opinions we are fast losing all sympa- 
 thy. Marlow's play derives its chief interest from 
 delineating the gloomy and mysterious connection 
 of man with the world of spirits: and presupposes 
 a certain degree of belief in magic and apparitions. 
 He has, in fact, done little more than cast into a 
 dramatic form the story of the "Devil and Doctor 
 Faustus," which used so powerfully to harrow up 
 the soul in the childhood of our grandfathers, and 
 which still produces a pleasing, though far milder 
 effect, on the more sceptical urchins of the present 
 age. The characters are not more happily im- 
 agined, than the incidents which are intended to 
 display them. His demon is a paltering rueful cra- 
 ven, whom we feel much readier to pity and de- 
 spise, than to hate or fear. Faustus himself has few 
 qualities to interest us. He is animated indeed by 
 a boundless thirst for power and pleasure; but it 
 is power and pleasure of the lowest sort that he 
 
 66 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 covets. His anticipated delights are corporeal ; and 
 he longs for the pomp and circumstance of author- 
 ity,— scarcely at all for the bold energies which 
 serve to earn it, and as exercising which, it is 
 alone, or chiefly valuable, to a high mind. He 
 hopes that 
 
 "As Indian moors obey their Spanish lords, 
 
 So shall the spirits of every element 
 
 Be always serviceable to us three: 
 
 Like lions shall they guard us when we please, 
 
 Like Almain Ritters with their horsemen's staves, 
 
 Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides. 
 
 Sometimes like women or unwedded maids. 
 
 Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows 
 
 Than have the white breasts of the Queen of love." 
 
 It is less the uncertainty of human knowledge, 
 than the limited emoluments of a "Wittenberg 
 Professorship, that disgusts him; and he concludes 
 a mad bargain with the devil, bartering his ever- 
 lasting happiness against four and twenty years of 
 sensual enjoyment, and of vulgar power; which 
 he uses in a way worthy of the bargain, — in play- 
 ing conjuror's tricks to irritate the Pope or amuse 
 the Emperor, in cheating jockies, and eating loads 
 of hay; and when the hour is come, he falls pros- 
 trate before his fate, with a frantic terror analo- 
 gous to the brutal insolence with which he had 
 spent the days of his prosperity. Marlow's work 
 is not without some touches of the sublime, and 
 many passages of a luxurious beauty; but it never 
 could affect the reader deeply, as a whole, and its 
 power of so affecting him is lessening daily. 
 
 67 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 Goethe's conception, both of Faust and Mephis- 
 tophiles, bears not only far more relation to the 
 habits of a refined and intellectual age, but is also 
 far more ingenious and poetical in itself. The in- 
 troduction of magic is but accessory to the main 
 result: it is intended merely to serve as the means 
 of illustrating certain feelings, and unfolding cer- 
 tain propensities, which exist in the mind, inde- 
 pendently of magic; and the belief we are required 
 to give it is of the most loose and transient nature. 
 Indeed if we can only conceive that an assemblage 
 like this dramatis personx, so discordant, and so 
 strangely related to each other, has been formed 
 by any means, the author appears to care little 
 whether we believe in it at all; and throughout 
 the play, glimmering indications frequently be- 
 come visible of the ridicule with which the char- 
 acters themselves, whatever they profess in public, 
 inwardly regard the whole subject of diablerie in 
 all its branches. Nor does Faust's misery, at any 
 period of his history, spring from so common a 
 source as the dread of his future doom; "this sun 
 shines on all his sorrows," and it would hardly al- 
 leviate them perceptibly, if the hereafter were to 
 be for him an everlasting blank. Mephistophiles, 
 too, is a much more curious personage than form- 
 erly. "The progress of improvement," as he him- 
 self observes, "has been so considerable of late, 
 that it has extended even to the devil — the north- 
 ern phantom with horns, and tail, and claws, being 
 no longer visible upon earth." He is a moral, not 
 
 68 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 a physical devil; and the attributes of his character 
 harmonize with the rest of the intellectual ma- 
 chinery by which Goethe undertakes to work 
 upon our feelings. It is machinery of a much finer 
 and more complete sort than that employed by 
 Mario w; the management of it is infinitely more 
 difficult; but the effect which he makes it produce 
 is also much more ennobling, and reaches much 
 farther into the mysteries of our nature. 
 
 Faust is first presented to our notice, seated at 
 his desk, in a narrow Gothic chamber, dimly illu- 
 minated by his solitary lamp. Surrounded with 
 all the materials of study, he is meditating on the 
 vanity and utter worthlessness of all they can lead 
 him to. In early life, he has entered upon the 
 search of truth with the fearlessness natural to his 
 ardent temper, solicited by such an object; spurn- 
 ing those consecrated barriers, which, though 
 they tend to repress the freedom of thought, often 
 serve also to concentrate its exertions, and there- 
 by increase its results — he has attempted to pene- 
 trate the most secret recesses of physical and 
 mental nature: he has now examined all, and no- 
 where found one satisfactory conclusion. From 
 each keener effort to divine the essence of things, 
 his mind has returned back more faint and full of 
 doubt: and when philosophy, in all its depart- 
 ments, is explored to the utmost limits of human 
 research, Faust finds himself as ignorant as at the 
 outset. "Words will not satisfy him, and of real ex- 
 istences he cannot gain the knowledge. There are 
 
 69 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 no first indubitable principles to guide him; and 
 still the universe, study it as he may, appears be- 
 fore him a dark entangled riddle, the meaning of 
 which, if it have any, is impenetrably hid from 
 men. Nor is it to kno<zv only that he strives; the 
 sensibilities of his heart have been embarked in 
 this undertaking as well as the faculties of his in- 
 tellect — he would feel as well as understand; and 
 he cherishes vague and vehement longings for 
 some unspeakable communion with the great 
 powers of nature, whose magnificence expands 
 his soul, while their mysteriousness confounds 
 and repels it. 
 
 Faust's natural and acquired endowments are 
 high, but his ideas of excellence are vastly higher. 
 All that he can appears as nothing in comparison 
 of what — he should; and this enormous dispropor- 
 tion between what he is, and what he aims with 
 such intense volition to become, forms a never- 
 failing source of agitation to his mind. He has 
 gifts which would bear him forward triumphantly 
 to the acquisition of every thing that man is per- 
 mitted to acquire; but all will not satisfy, if he can- 
 not overstep the limits with which nature itself 
 has circumscribed him. 
 
 Meanwhile, those secluded struggles, in which 
 the flower of his days is already spent, have 
 estranged him from the cheerful ways of men. 
 Immured in his closet, among books and instru- 
 ments, and all the dead machinery of art, he has 
 long ago forsaken the sunny fields of life; friend- 
 
 70 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 ship, and love, and worldly preferment, have alike 
 been sacrificed at the shrine of science; and science 
 has requited him with vain delusions and baseless 
 chimeras. The spirit which longed to mingle with 
 the cherubim, and explore the darkest arcana of 
 the universe, is shut up within the narrow cell of 
 a college, and reduced to conduct a few boys 
 through the juggling sophistry of scholastic learn- 
 ing. Nor does the magic, to which, in the bitter- 
 ness of his disgust, he has devoted himself, avail 
 him anything. The beings whom he summons 
 from the vasty deep, refuse to admit him to their 
 fellowship. He shudders and sinks when the " flam- 
 ing countenance" of the spirit of the earth is 
 turned towards him, and finds himself too justly re- 
 proved for vain glory in imagining that his nature 
 could be raised to a level with it. 
 
 Cheated of this forlorn hope, Faust abandons 
 himself to utter despair— he has no longer an ob- 
 ject upon earth, and still no rest. The sources of 
 feeling are changed into sources of self torment; 
 the acuteness of his sensibility, and the force of 
 his will, serve only to augment his sufferings; his 
 superhuman attainments lift him above human 
 sympathy; he envies the sluggish happiness of 
 those around him, still more than he despises the 
 materials of it. His heart is stung to madness, 
 when he thinks of what he is, and what he wished 
 to be — "an equal of the gods?" exclaims he, "I 
 am an equal of the worm, which crawls through 
 the dust; which as it lives and feeds upon the 
 
 71 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 dust, the traveler's step annihilates and buries." 
 In this tumultuous agony, his eye lights on a 
 phial of poison, and one lurid ray of joy breaks in 
 upon him, as he determines on self-murder. There 
 is a stern pathos, a wild grandeur in the feelings 
 with which he surveys this undisputed proof of 
 human knowledge, this essence of all kind of 
 sleepy juices, by which the pangs of humanity are 
 to be quieted at once and for ever. The lofty 
 hopes of another world dawn upon him, where 
 the soul's ethereal essence shall no more be clog- 
 ged and cramped by its bodily fetters — where its 
 lordly feelings shall no more be blighted and con- 
 founded in the low turmoil of earth. The stream 
 of life is carrying him nearer and nearer to the 
 great ocean; the mirror -wave is glancing at his 
 feet ; new day beckons him to brighter shores. He 
 knows the fearful risk, but there is no alternative ; 
 he must boldly turn his face away from this ter- 
 restrial sun, and venture through that pass "around 
 whose narrow mouth all hell is flaming," whither- 
 soever it may lead. The cup into which he has 
 now poured the poison, recalls to memory his fa- 
 ther's house, and the festive nights in which a 
 different use was made of this old relic. One 
 last paroxysm of awakened sympathies! — but he 
 dashes them away, and the cup is at his lips. At 
 this instant, the choir assembled in the neighbour- 
 ing church to celebrate the Easter Festival, com- 
 mence their hymn in worship of our Saviour. Its 
 simple tones, and the solemn warning which the 
 
 72 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 words address to mortals, toiling in this vale of 
 tears, arrest the hand of the suicide; the remem- 
 brance of many happy days of pious childhood 
 breaks through that of the agitated and unhallow- 
 ed scenes which have succeeded; his seared and 
 tortured heart is melted into natural feeling; "tears 
 flow; the earth has back her son." 
 
 But Faust's miseries are suspended only for a 
 time. Next day we find him in company with his 
 amanuensis, Wagner — a quiet gerund-grinder, a 
 collator of manuscripts and speculator on classical 
 affairs, "the poorest of all the sons of earth,"— 
 whose phlegmatic character and dull pursuits are 
 strongly contrasted with the fervid temperament 
 and unearthly longings of his master. They wan- 
 der about the fields, now covered with lively 
 groups of the city population, high and low, come 
 out to enjoy the holiday, and make merry accord- 
 ing to their respective inclinations. Faust rejoices 
 to find himself "a man among men;" but as even- 
 ing approaches he falls into his usual reveries; 
 pours out his eloquent impassioned aspirations 
 over the setting sun; and returns home to solitude 
 and gloom as before. The world again appears to 
 him a mournful prison-house, in which a thousand 
 cares are let loose to prey upon the heart, and 
 mock all its higher purposes . He knows not 
 whither to turn for comfort or instruction. The 
 New Testament occurs to him, and he eagerly de- 
 termines to translate it into his native language, 
 and study it more attentively than ever. But a 
 
 73 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 difficulty stops his progress at the very threshold. 
 "In the beginning was the Word" is a statement 
 which he cannot comprehend, and no alteration 
 he can make on the passage will render it intelli- 
 gible to him. 
 
 In the midst of this perplexity, an evil spirit, Me- 
 phistophiles, appears to Faust, and counsels him 
 to lay aside all such vain speculations, to go forth 
 into the world, and enjoy those real pleasures with 
 which its votaries are rewarded. With cold mal- 
 ice, he leads Faust's imagination to contemplate 
 the hopeless barren disquietudes of his actual con- 
 dition. Faust admits that he has no hope; that, 
 day or night, his anguish never ceases; that exist- 
 ence is a burden to him ; and death his only hope. 
 "And yet," rejoins the demon, with a spiteful 
 apathy worthy of him, "a certain man one night 
 did not drink out a certain liquor!" Faust's heart 
 is cut by the remembrance of all that he has suf- 
 fered, and the anticipation of all that he has yet to 
 suffer, — he breaks forth into a bitter and indig- 
 nant malediction upon life and everything con- 
 nected with it. 
 
 "Wenn aus dem schrecklichen Gewiihle 
 Ein suss bekanter Ton mich zog, 
 Den Rest von kindlichem Gefuhle 
 Mit Anklang froher Zeit betrog: 
 So fluch' ich Allem, was der Seele 
 Mit Lock- und Gaukelwerk umspannt 
 Und sie in diese Trauerhohle 
 Mit Blend- und Schmeichelkraften bannt! 
 Verslucht voraus die hohe Meinung, 
 Womit der Geist sich selbst umfangt! 
 74 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 Verslucht das Blenden der Erscheinung, 
 
 Die sich an unfre Sinne drankt ! 
 
 Verclucht, was uns in Traumen heuchelt , 
 
 Des Ruhms, der Namensdauer Trug ! • 
 
 Verslucht, was als Besitz uns schmeichelt, 
 
 Als Weib und Kind, als Knecht und Pflug ! 
 
 Verclucht sei Mammon, wenn mit Schatzen 
 
 Er uns zu kiihncn Thaten regt, 
 
 Wenn er zu miissigem Ergetzen 
 
 Die Polster uns zurechte legt! 
 
 Fluch sei dem Balsamsaft der Trauben ! 
 
 Fluch jener hbchsten Liebeshuld ! 
 
 Fluch sei der Hoffnung ! Fluch dem Glauben ! 
 
 Und Fluch vor alien der Gebuld ! "^ 
 
 'We are sorry, that to most of our readers, instead of those beau- 
 tiful verses, we have nothing to shew but the following very dim 
 and distorted image of them: 
 
 "Tho' from my heart's wild tempest 
 A sweet remember'd tone recovered me, 
 And all my youth's remaining hopes responded 
 With the soft echo of joys long gone by. 
 Yet do I curse them all — all — all that captivates 
 The soul with juggling witchery, and with false 
 And flattering spells into a [this] den of grief 
 Lures it, and binds it there. Accursed be 
 All the proud thoughts with which man learns to pamper 
 His haughty spirit — cursed be those sweet 
 Entrancing phantoms which delude our senses — 
 Cursed the dreams which lure us to the search 
 Of fame and reputation, — cursed all 
 Of which we glory in the vain possession. 
 Children and wife, and slave and plough — accursed 
 Be Mammon, when with rich and glittering heaps 
 He tempts us to bold deeds, or when he smooths 
 The pillow of inglorious dalliance — 
 Accursed be the grape's enticing juice — 
 Cursed be love, and hope, and faith — and cursed 
 Above all cursed, be the tame dull spirit 
 Which bears life's evils patiently." 
 75 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 The tempter now changes his tone. Having 
 worked his victim up to the proper pitch of fierce 
 and desperate scorn for all his earthly lot, he pro- 
 ceeds to set before him the boundless joys he may 
 still secure, by listening to advice and accepting 
 assistance from him. Faust hears him — but con- 
 temptuously: "How can a wretch find," he asks, 
 "comprehend or find enjoyment for the lofty 
 mind of man?" Yet if it could be so — if I shall 
 ever lie at ease upon this bed of torture; if thy de- 
 lusions shall ever once cheat me into self-compla- 
 cency, once betray me with enjoyment; if I shall 
 ever say to any moment. Linger! thou art sweet!— 
 then cast me into fetters, then hurl me down to 
 ruin: I shall not refuse to go. The great spirit of 
 the earth has spurned me: Nature veils herself 
 from my examination: can the future world be 
 worse than this? Living here, I am a slave: What 
 matters whether thine or whose ? Mephistophiles 
 grasps at the offer. The contract is ratified with 
 the usual formalities. He is to be Faust's while 
 here, Faust is to be his hereafter. 
 
 Except the character of Faust himself, that of 
 his new associate is by far the most striking and 
 original in the whole of this wonderful drama. 
 Mephistophiles is not the common devil of poetry, 
 but one much more adapted to his functions. It is 
 evident that he was a devil from the first — and 
 can be nothing else. He is emphatically "the 
 Denyer:" he fears nothing, complains of nothing, 
 hopes for nothing. Magnanimity, devotion, affec- 
 
 76 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 tion, all that can sweeten or embellish existence, 
 he looks upon as childish mummery. His powerful 
 intellect enables him to understand all those senti- 
 ments and their modes of acting upon men: but 
 the idea of them excites no pleasure in his mind; 
 and he regards all their manifestations as the most 
 weak and ridiculous anility. Pride would be a 
 thing too noble for him; yet his servile conduct 
 proceeds less from natural sycophancy, than from 
 an utter contempt of moral distinctions. He feels 
 it no more disgraceful to cringe and fawn, that he 
 may avoid the trouble of asserting and command- 
 ing, than it would be to go round the base of a 
 mountain, that he might avoid the trouble of go- 
 ing over its summit; it is the easiest mode of ac- 
 complishing his purpose in both cases, and noth- 
 ing more. He might be accused of inordinate van- 
 ity, but his unfeigned disregard for the approba- 
 tion of others gives to his self-esteem a character 
 more sinister than that of ordinary vanity. He 
 cares for the suffrage of no one — irony is the only 
 tone in which he speaks of all things ; and the 
 universe itself appears in his eyes little better than 
 a huge puppet-show, and its whole history a pal- 
 try farce, in which there is nothing to excite any 
 feeling but derision from a rational thinker. He 
 does not even appear to hate any one very deeply. 
 His aim with Faust seems rather that of an ama- 
 teur, than of a regular demon: he tempts him 
 chiefly as an intellectual recreation. No doubt, his 
 motives, like all motives, are mixed; but he seems 
 
 77 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 in the course of his operations to display, not so 
 much the rancour and envy natural to his profes- 
 sion, as a desire purely scientific — a curiosity to 
 see how ridiculous the empty dreamer, with all his 
 elevations and refinements, his imaginary woes 
 and still more imaginary joys, will look at last. In 
 many respects Mephistophiles resembles some 
 French philosophe of the last century. There is 
 the perfection of the intellectual faculties with a 
 total absence of the moral; the extreme of fanciful 
 pleasantry and acute thought, with the extreme of 
 arid selfishness and contemptuous apathy. Upon 
 all those passions and emotions which men are 
 ennobled by experiencing, he reasons with the 
 keen sagacity and easy disdain of the most accom- 
 plished cynic. The sciences fare still worse with 
 him. Logic, medicine, law, theology, as they pass 
 in review before him, are ridiculed till they seem 
 hardly even worth despising. His wit, and knowl- 
 edge, and gaiety, and humour, are boundless; but 
 in his hands they do not illuminate — they con- 
 sume. "It is written on his front that he never 
 loved a living soul." He cannot pity, or admire, 
 or worship — he can only mock. His presence is 
 like a moral Harmattan, the "mortifying wind" of 
 the desert, under which every green thing is 
 parched and dies. 
 
 From the moment when Faust connects himself 
 with such a being, his character and conduct be- 
 come degraded; we pity him not the less, but much 
 of our respect is gone. He seems as if he had 
 
 78 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 thrown away the crown of his manhood, which, 
 though it galled his brow, was still a crown. He 
 has become a slave that he might avoid the duties 
 of a king; and the pleasures of a slave are not 
 suited to his nature. It was himself still more 
 than his circumstances that required change: the 
 wildness of his desires still more than the scanti- 
 ness of their gratification produced his misery; and 
 the vulgar enjoyments of the world may contami- 
 nate him more, but will satisfy him even less than 
 the high though infatuated struggles he has now 
 relinquished. Accordingly, he traverses "the 
 bustling inanity of life: food hovers before his 
 eager lips; but he begs for nourishment in vain." 
 His heart is alternately wounded by the sneers, and 
 betrayed by the wiles of the scoffing demon who 
 guides him; and he loses his dignity without find- 
 ing peace. 
 
 Faust has given up the pursuit of knowledge in 
 disgust; but he has not yet become a mere man of 
 pleasure. Mephistophiles listens with a smile to 
 his vast project of participating in the pains and 
 joys of all the human race, and filling his soul with 
 human sympathy, since it cannot be filled with 
 the perception of truth, and the sympathy of high- 
 er natures. All this, according tn Mephistophiles, 
 proceeds from the imperfection of his pupil's un- 
 derstanding. The search of truth is but like 
 "thrashing straw," it leads to no result; and those 
 ambitious aspirations serve only to make the fool, 
 who entertains them, no better than "a beast 
 
 79 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 driven about by an evil spirit within a circle of 
 withered heath, while green pastures lie all around 
 it." To command the services of others, he thinks 
 at least equal to sympathizing with their feelings; 
 and therefore, a wise man should plunge into the 
 rushing crowd of the week-day world; should 
 court power, and the only genuine pleasures, — 
 those of sense. 
 
 With such views, the two set out together on 
 their travels: they are first transported to a scene 
 of boisterous merriment in a Leipsic tavern. The 
 rude jollity of the these blackguards appears more 
 amusing as depicted in the graphic poetry of 
 Goethe, than it would if actually exhibited in Auer" 
 baches Keller, It speedily disgusts Faust; and his 
 mentor, after entertaining the topers with an in- 
 describable song, and at last confounding them by 
 some feats of conjuring, conducts him to a witch's 
 cave. The purpose of their visit is to have Faust 
 restored to youth by the spells of this Hecate: and 
 they wait during her absence considering the sin- 
 gular furniture of her establishment. 
 
 There is nothing of the sublime in Goethe's 
 mode of treating sorcery— scarcely anything of 
 the horrible. A kind of solemn absurdity marks 
 all his witches; they have not the malevolence us- 
 ually imputed to that class of persons; and they 
 appear to live on a very friendly footing with their 
 master, shewing no wish to quit his service now 
 or afterwards. All that distinguishes them from 
 common mortals is the extreme absurdity and 
 
 80 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 coarseness of their general character, and its adap- 
 tation to the peculiarity of their position, midway, 
 as it were, between the world of spirits and that of 
 men. The latter circumstance also gives them a 
 tendency to survey life and human nature, in the 
 abstract — to take comprehensive views of things; 
 and this tendency, combined with the dimness of 
 their intellectual vision, furnishes a copious supply 
 of the most ludicrous hallucinations — tinged with 
 a slight shade of preternatural horror, which in- 
 creases its effect. Perhaps, in the present era, this 
 is the best use that can be made of witchcraft. So 
 far as we know, it is peculiar to Goethe. 
 
 The return of youth, which Faust greeted as the 
 highest blessing, becomes the means of sinking 
 him into wretchedness forever; and deeper wretch- 
 edness than ever, because it is now mingled with 
 remorse. In crossing the street he first beholds 
 Margaret; and their earthly fortunes are thence- 
 forth indissolubly connected. Margaret possesses 
 no qualities to call forth our admiration; yet the 
 poet has contrived to make us warmly interested 
 in her favour. She is poor and simple — nothing 
 but a young artless girl in humble life. Yet the 
 meek gracefulness of her nature, her innocence of 
 heart, the strength and purity of her first affec- 
 tion — when contrasted with the dark fate that im- 
 pends over her — excite our pity keenly; and we 
 regret that a class of interests so touching in their 
 lowly completeness, should have been desolated 
 by the intrusion of the wicked and tumultuous pas- 
 
 81 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 sions of a world, from which she seemed so far 
 withdrawn. Faust her lover, — for he loves her 
 truly, and with a fervour originating not in her 
 qualities but his own character, — is aware of their 
 relative situation. In the delirium of his feelings, 
 he does not forget that the innocent creature, who 
 views him with such adoration that her whole be- 
 ing is, as it were, swallowed up in his, must partici- 
 pate in the ruin which overhangs him. He utters 
 many a bitter self-reproach, and forms many a 
 strenuous resolution to tear himself away. But 
 the violence of his attachment still retains him; 
 the arts of the fiend — ^whom he despises and hates, 
 yet listens to— at length prevail; and poor Marga- 
 ret's ruin is completed. 
 
 The succeeding scenes exhibit Margaret in a 
 state of anguish gradually darkening to despair. 
 She has unwittingly destroyed her mother, — a 
 drug intended to be only soporific, having by the 
 treachery of Mephistophiles proved a deadly poi- 
 son: and Valentine, a brave soldier, her brother, 
 and now her only surviving relative, hearing of 
 his beloved sister's disgrace, and hastening to 
 avenge it, dies by the hand of Faust. Valentine 
 appears before us only for a moment, and then 
 expires: but the qualities he displays in that mo- 
 ment make us regret that we see him no more. 
 He reminds us of Shakspeare's Mercutio. He 
 speaks, with his dying breath, to his sister, in a 
 tone of bitter levity, more cutting than the most 
 indignant declamation. Her own heart but too 
 
 82 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 well seconds his reproaches. Alone and unpro- 
 tected, — her friends all killed by her own hand — 
 her seducer fled to escape from justice — and in- 
 famy approaching to cover her, — Margaret has 
 now no stay on earth. Religion itself, which once 
 formed the balm of her life, is now become its 
 bane. In the church, where the choir is chanting 
 a solemn hymn expressive of the terrors of the last 
 day, an evil spirit is represented as standing behind 
 Margaret, and, applying the most fearful of the 
 denunciations to her; it asks where her mother is? 
 where her brother? and pronounces a woe against 
 her, because their blood is on her hands. 
 
 Faust and his companion, meantime, are assist- 
 ing at a very different scene. They have hastened 
 to the Brocken in the Hartz Mountains, where the 
 sorcerer's Sabbath, the Walpurgis-night, or night 
 of the first of May, is receiving due celebration 
 from innumerable witches and wizards of every 
 age and rank. It is impossible to convey any idea 
 of this extraordinary convention, or of the plan 
 which Goethe has taken to depict it. "We behold 
 the mountain and the adjacent forests gleaming 
 with a faint lugubrious light; and witches in full 
 motion towards it from every point — crowding, 
 jostling, treading each other under foot — sailing in 
 troughs, riding on swine, or broomsticks — and 
 capering in all the frantic jollity of their brutish 
 carnival. Goethe appears to have aimed at imitat- 
 ing in his verse the wild uproar, which it was his 
 task to describe. It is the Saturnalia of poetry as 
 
 83 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 well as of witchcraft. An intermezzo is repre- 
 sented before the infernal audience, on the summit 
 of the mountain. Its title is Oberon^s Golden 
 Marriage: H treats, like Quevedo's book de om^ 
 nibus rebus ei quibusdam aliis. The interlocu- 
 tors, who deliver each one verse, are from all 
 quarters of the animal, vegetable, astronomical, 
 theatrical, and metaphysical world, — scene-shifters 
 of Weimar, will-o'-wisps, weathercocks, fairies, 
 the Genius of the age, and snuffings of the stars. 
 It is "a universal hubbub wild, of stunning sounds 
 and voices all confused." Feeble glimpses of 
 meaning occur here and there; but the whole 
 wavers between sense and utter nothingness, and 
 leaves an impression like the first dawnings of 
 thoughts in the mind, before they can at all be 
 converted into propositions capable of being con- 
 tradicted or affirmed. 
 
 Faust mingles in this Satanic revelry more than 
 we could wish: yet he soon grows tired of it; and 
 we can almost pardon him for having snatched a 
 few moments of enjoyment, or at least forgetful- 
 ness, from a source however mean, when we re- 
 flect that they are the last allotted to him. The 
 riotous pastime being ended, he discovers that 
 Margaret has been imprisoned for the crimes 
 which she committed on his account, and is con- 
 demned to die. The agonies of remorse take hold 
 of him at the comparison of her recent miseries 
 and hard doom, with the wretched fooleries which 
 have lately occupied him. But the tempest of his 
 
 84 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 feelings moves not Mephistophiles. It is vain for 
 Faust to imprecate a thousand curses on ttie head 
 of this wicked spirit: the demon listens with pro- 
 found composure; the victim is now within his 
 toils; and the aid he at last proffers serves only to 
 bring on a more torturing catastrophe. Faust is 
 furnished with the keys, and conducted to the 
 door of the prison, where Margaret is confined, 
 while his companion stupifies the jailor, and agrees 
 to wait with his phanton-steeds in readiness to 
 convey them all, ere morning, out of danger. But 
 the efforts of Faust prove fruitless. On exploring 
 his way to the cell where Margaret lies confined, 
 he discovers that hardship has already crazed her 
 brain. She is singing a rude ballad when he enters, 
 and mistakes him for her executioner. Few sit- 
 uations can be conceived more excruciating than 
 Faust's. Before him are the ruins of that young 
 mind whose innocence he has destroyed, whose 
 world, just opening, with enchantments of which 
 experience had not yet proved the vanity, he has 
 changed into a waste howling wilderness; and his 
 last hope of saving her even from an ignominous 
 and painful death is rendered vain. He conjures her 
 to fly, and he will yet love her and watch over her: 
 but his words suggest no definite idea to her mind; 
 the power of thought is gone, while that of feeling 
 subsists in more than its original strength; the 
 wrecks of memory are confusedly mingled with 
 abrupt sensations of the present, and hurried an- 
 ticipations of the future, and over all is heard the 
 
 85 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 wail of blind and degraded woe, more piercing be- 
 cause it is blind and degraded — without claims to 
 respect or hope of remedy. Goethe has pictured 
 the insanity of Margaret with an almost frightful 
 air of reality. There is a tinge of coarseness inter- 
 mingled with the wild expression of her distracted 
 feelings: it is not the insanity of poetry, but that of 
 life. She recognizes her lover; and her first senti- 
 ment is a burst of joy: but her perceptions have no 
 permanency; she replies to his renewed and more 
 earnest supplications for departure, with a "Whith- 
 er? — without is the grave" — she alludes to her 
 murdered child, which she calls upon him to make 
 haste and save; wishes she were past the hill where 
 her mother sits wagging her old grey head, which 
 is heavy with sleep; tells affectingly, how she her- 
 self would be buried to-morrow,— and relapses 
 into dreams which transport her back to the ear- 
 lier periods of their intimacy. He begs her, if she 
 would not kill him, to come away — "the day is 
 dawning; — Day!" she exclaims, "yes, it is day — 
 the last day is dawning; it should have been my 
 wedding day! Tell no one that you have been 
 with Margaret — Alas! for my garland — it is gone! 
 We shall see each other again; but not at the 
 dance. The mob is rushing, yet I hear them not — 
 the square, the streets, are crowded with them; 
 they hurry me to the block — how they bind and 
 tie me! — the bell is tolling — the judgment-wand is 
 broken, every neck shrinks as the axe severs mine. 
 The world lies dumb as the grave!" Mephisto- 
 
 86 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 philes appears at the door to chide their "useless 
 lingering and prating" — his horses shiver in the 
 morning breeze, he will wait no longer. Margaret 
 shrieks at sight of him; she fervently appeals to 
 the judgment of heaven; and prefers death and the 
 loss of her last earthly friend to being where he 
 has any power. The demon observes that "she is 
 judged;" a voice from above, adds, that "she is 
 saved." Mephistophiles calls Faust to him and 
 departs; the voice of Margaret is heard from with- 
 in crying after the latter — but in vain — their earthly 
 history is done, their lots are divided, they meet 
 no more. 
 
 The work, of which we have traced this brief 
 and imperfect sketch, is undoubtedly one of the 
 most singular that have ever appeared in Europe. 
 We scarcely know under what class to arrange it, 
 or how to mark out its rank in the scale of literary 
 dignity. As a mere drama, its faults are many; 
 and its beauties, though of a high order, are not of 
 the highest. There is not plot sufficient to create 
 dramatic interest; and though many scenes are of 
 great power, and many situations of high tragical 
 effect, they hang too loosely together to consti- 
 tute a perfect work of this class. Perhaps the 
 most striking peculiarity of the whole perform- 
 ance is the wonderful versatility of talent which 
 it implies. To group together the wicked scorn- 
 ful malignity of Mephistophiles with the pastoral 
 innocence of Margaret, the chaotic gaiety of the 
 Brocken, and the impetuous enthusiasm of Faust, 
 
 87 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 was a task which few could have meditated, and 
 none but Goethe could have accomplished. It pre- 
 supposes a union of poetical and philosophical 
 powers, such as have rarely met together in the 
 history of mind. 
 
 It is to the character of Faust, however, as dis- 
 played in the opening scenes of the play, that we 
 turn for the highest proof of Goethe's genius. 
 They give us the most vivid picture we have ever 
 seen of a species of mental convulsion, at once in 
 the extreme degree moving and difficult to paint. 
 It is the destruction of a noble spirit by the force 
 of its own thoughts; a suicide of the mind, far more 
 tragical than that of the body. Faust interests us 
 deeply at first; he is at the utmost pitch of misery, 
 and has no feeling of self-accusation; he possesses 
 all the grandest attributes of our nature, and has 
 meant to use them well. His fault seems but the 
 want of wordly wisdom, and the lofty, though un- 
 happy constitution of his mind; he has been born 
 with the head of a sceptic and the heart of a de- 
 votee; in grasping at the sublime, he has lost even 
 the useful; when his earthly hopes are all blasted, 
 no moral consolation is in store for him; "he has 
 not an object, and yet he has not rest." The sleep- 
 less agitation, the arid tearless wretchedness, nat- 
 ural to a human being so situated, have been 
 delineated by Goethe with a beauty and verisimili- 
 tude, to which there are few parallels, even in 
 easier subjects. An unlimited supply of the finest 
 metaphors and most expressive language, com- 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 bines with the melody of the verse to make the 
 earlier part of Faust one of the richest spots in the 
 whole circle of modern poetry. 
 
 Faust and Mephistophiles personify the two pro- 
 pensities, as implanted by nature, and modified by 
 education — to admire and to despise, to look at 
 the world on its poetical or on its prosaic side — 
 which by their combination, in different propor- 
 tions, give rise to so many varieties of moral 
 disposition among men. It is not without reluc- 
 tance, that in the play before us, we behold the 
 inferior principle triumphant in the end. Faust's 
 crimes are many, but his will seems to have had 
 little share in them; even after his connection 
 with the fiend, he feels virtuously, even nobly, 
 though he acts ill; and, when we see Mephisto- 
 philes at length succeed in ruining a being so 
 greatly his superior in all respects, it seems as if 
 the spirit of evil were made victorious over that 
 of good, the lower part of man's nature over the 
 higher. But if such be our feeling, it is not with 
 the poet that we must quarrel. "The soul that 
 sinneth, it shall die" is the law of nature as well 
 as of revelation; and acts of desperate rashness, 
 though without any purpose morally bad in the 
 author of them, as they produce fatal consequences 
 to the individual or to others, must be punished 
 accordingly. Faust's criminality existed long be- 
 fore he forsook his retirement, or addicted him- 
 self to the converse of spirits; it began when he 
 allowed his desires to reach beyond the boundaries 
 
 89 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 wherewith nature had circumscribed them, when 
 he allowed his mind to wander — even in the 
 search of truth^till it doubted the existence of a 
 Providence, and the foundation of moral distinc- 
 tions. All his subsequent miseries and crimes 
 originated in this — at first view, so pardonable a 
 transgression; and the concluding lines of Marlow 
 may be applied to his conduct and history, with a 
 sense more extended than Marlow meant them to 
 bear — 
 
 Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight; 
 
 And burned is Apollo's laurel bough, 
 
 That some time grew within this learned man; 
 
 Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall, 
 
 Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise 
 
 Only to wonder at forbidden things — 
 
 Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits 
 
 To practice more than heavenly power permits. 
 
 We cannot take leave of Faust, without advert- 
 ing to the controversy which has arisen respect- 
 ing its connection with Manfred. The charge of 
 plagiarism, which Goethe brought forward against 
 Byron, some time ago, in a German Journal — and 
 still more his mode of bringing it forward — gave 
 us pain; we thought it unworthy of Goethe; it 
 shews too much of the author, too little of the 
 man. Goethe may be at ease about his laurels. It 
 has been his fortune to live through a change of 
 dynasty in European poetry, and to be himself, 
 more than any other, instrumental in causing that 
 change. He has created a new literary era in his 
 own country; and none will dispute him the glory 
 
 90 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 not only of having furnished many scattered ideas 
 — but what is far more honorable — much impor- 
 tant intellectual training, to every one of the great 
 minds, with whose fame all Europe, and particu- 
 larly England "rings from side to side." The man 
 whose writings served to nourish and direct the 
 genius of Sir Waher Scott, — whose Gotz 'von Ber^ 
 lichingen paved the way for the poetizing of 
 Border Chivalry, and thus prepared, afar off, the 
 elements of the Scot's novels, has no need to 
 higgle with Byron about even the property of 
 Manfred. It is not our business at present to 
 enter upon the discussion of the point in dispute. 
 A cursory perusal of Faust and Manfred, we 
 think, will satisfy any one, that both works stand 
 related to each other, — that if Faust had never 
 seen the light, neither in all probability would 
 Manfred. Yet it does not appear to be apparent, 
 but as forerunner, that Faust is related to Manfred. 
 The idea of man's connection with the invisible 
 world is the same in both; but in Byron it is 
 treated solemnly; in Goethe it often furnishes 
 matter of laughter. Manfred, too, is not the same 
 character with Faust; he is more potent, and 
 tragical, less impetuous and passionate, and the 
 feeling of remorse is added to that of the uncer- 
 tainty of human knowledge. In the management 
 of the plot, the two pieces have no similarity, and 
 the impressions they leave on the reader are as 
 different as possible. Byron is not a copyist, but 
 a generous imitator, who rivals what he imitates. 
 
 91 
 
FAUSTUS 
 
 We have not heard that Goethe has given in any 
 claim to a right of property in Don Juan. Perhaps 
 he might, with some prospect of success; but the 
 advantage of succeeding would be small. Mephis- 
 tophiles is unfortunately, not a character very 
 difficult to conceive; nor has our countryman 
 presented it under a form likely ever to become 
 very pleasing, or permanently useful. The Ger- 
 man devil is a much shrewder fellow than the 
 biographer of Don Juan ; he sneers as keenly and 
 as comprehensively; he despises with fully more 
 sprightliness and tact; and the taste for physical 
 impurity in all its most disgusting shapes, which 
 his English rival manifests so strongly, is one of 
 the few qualities which the great "Denyer" seems 
 to have acted wisely in denying. 
 
 92 
 
FAUST'S CURSE 
 
FAUST'S CURSE 
 
 [From Goethe] 
 
 By Thomas Carlyle 
 
 "Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," said 
 the Corporal, "but it was nothing to this." 
 
 "If, through th' abyss of terror stealing, 
 
 Those touching sounds^ my purpose' stay'd— 
 
 Some lingering touch of childish feeling. 
 
 With voice of merrier times betray'd, — 
 
 I curse the more whate'er environs 
 
 The cheated soul with juggling shows, 
 
 Those heart's allurements, fancy's syrens, 
 
 That bind us to this den of woes. 
 
 A curse on all, one seed that scatters 
 
 Of hope from death or Name to save; 
 
 Of all as earthly Good that flatters, 
 
 As Wife or Child, as Plough or slave; 
 
 A curse on juice of Grapes deceiving, 
 
 On Love's wild thrill of raptures first; 
 
 A curse on Hoping, on Believing, 
 
 And Patience more than all be cursed!" 
 
 'Of the Christmas Hymns from the neighboring church. 
 ^On Suicide. 
 
 95 
 
HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION 
 OF BURNS 
 
HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION 
 OF BURNS' 
 
 [ ' ' Examiner, ' ' September, 1840.] 
 
 Genius, like murder, "will out." Here is the 
 Scottish Ploughman done partly into German 
 verse. It is very curious to see the old familiar 
 face of the "Peasant Thunder God," as our own 
 engravers have a hundred times given it (for want 
 of a better and truer to give) reproduced here 
 from German copper, with the rugged facsimile, 
 Robert Burns, Poet, engraved by Schwerdgeburth 
 of Weimar. 
 
 This man wrote in the dialect of obscure peas- 
 ants; as a ploughman in the shire of Ayr, as a 
 gauger in the little burgh of Dumfries; but he has 
 travelled far since then. A polished, almost fas- 
 tidious, Goethe is drawn from his artistic height 
 to comment lovingly on the fiery son of Nature, 
 whom he recognizes for a brother; and Goethe's 
 countrymen, we find have produced f oar versions, 
 or select versions, of him this summer! 
 
 iLieder und Balladen des Schotten Robert Burns: Ubertragen 
 von Heinrich Julius Heintze. (Songs and Ballads of the Scotch- 
 man, Robert Burns, translated by Heinrich Julius Heintze) 
 Brunswick, George Westermann, I840/ 
 
 99 
 
 LofC. 
 
HEINTZE'S GERMAN 
 
 So goes it. Let but any son of Adam, in the ob- 
 scurest slough of human existence, in the rudest 
 dialect of men, utter from the heart of him a gen- 
 uine word, — all sons of Adam feel it to ^e genuine, 
 and will lay hold of it as the undoubted possession 
 of all. Such a word, if it do come from the heart, 
 has by and by to go into all hearts; to be repro- 
 duced in all corners of the articulate- speaking 
 world; till, consciously or unconsciously, all man- 
 kind have got the good of it. For indeed, not this 
 man or that man, but mankind, is the true owner 
 of such a word; — it was spoken from the general 
 heart that belongs to us all. 
 
 Whether the Germans mean now to run upon 
 Burns, and produce translation on translation 
 of him, thick as blackberries, — thick as English 
 Faust's, — we cannot say. Four in one summer do 
 seem to be enough! But the Germans themselves 
 can look to that. What we have to report is 
 that there are four: Kaufmann's of Berlin, this of 
 Heintze's from Brunswick, — both these reported 
 to be good; then two others, names not given, 
 which probably are rather bad. We ourselves 
 know little of Kaufmann, of the other two nothing 
 at all. But this Heintze, in smart blue octavo, 
 from "the firm of George Westermann Brauns- 
 chweig," — him we will salute with some kind of 
 welcome, if merely as the first that has arrived 
 here. 
 
 Considering all things, it must be said that Herr 
 Heintze has done his task in a decidedly credit- 
 
 100 
 
TRANSLATION OF BURNS 
 
 able manner. The selection of pieces is good; if 
 perhaps not the best. "For a' thaU and a' thai/' 
 is not one of the songs chosen; the German lati- 
 tude, we suppose, did not well admit it. One could 
 have liked to see 
 
 The rank is but the guinea-stamp, 
 The man's the gowd for a' that, 
 
 how it would have sounded in German: — but 
 perhaps some Schmidt-Phiseldeck would not have 
 liked ! 
 
 Heintze in general has seized the grammatical 
 sense very correctly; a thing which in translating 
 from Ayrshire Scotch cannot always have been 
 easy. Neither has the poetical expression entirely 
 evaporated, as the risk was: for the most part 
 there /5 a kind of poetical expression; if not Burns, 
 then something which a German may have taken 
 to be Burns's. Herr Heintze himself has clearly 
 some music in his head. In one or two instances, 
 of singular felicity, we have, as it were, the very 
 Burns, with all his graces and rhythms; and always, 
 over and above the mere prosaic sense, there is a 
 poetic something which afar off resembles Burns. 
 We should say in general, that Herr Heintze had 
 not always learnt the tune of his song. Burns's 
 songs have a tune, so as few or rather as no mod- 
 ern songs we know of have. Every thought, every 
 turn of phrase, sings itself: the tune modulates it 
 all, shapes it as a soul does the body it is to dwell 
 in. The tune is always the soul of a song, in this 
 
 lOI 
 
HEINTZE'S GERMAN 
 
 sense; that is to say, provided the song be a true 
 song, and have any soul! As Herr Heintze, it 
 would seem, purposes to go on translating Burns, 
 let us recommend him to procure Thomson' s 
 Collection, or some such musical work; and be- 
 fore entering on any song, fill his head and heart 
 with the melody of it, and never start till his whole 
 mind is singing to it; — the words will then come 
 dancing to the right measure, in every syllable of 
 them a tune. ' 
 
 '*Green groiu the rashes, 0,"isbut indifferent- 
 ly given here: "Griin werden nun die Binsen, O," is 
 even grammatically incorrect; the meaning is not 
 that the rushes are now becoming green, but that 
 they stand habitually in that state: "griin wachst 
 
 ' Remembering Carlyle's inability to write rhythmical verse the 
 fact that he nevertheless had a keen ear for the 'tune' of rhythm 
 is noteworthy. It is likely that he got the hint of this from an 
 American correspondent as early as 1838. 
 
 When soliciting Carlyle's permission to dedicate to him the 
 translation of Goethe and Schiller's poems the chief translator 
 wrote: "I have adopted the principle, in translating these 
 poems, of preserving the form [or rhythm] always with the spirit. 
 Generally, I have caught the music [or lilt] of the piece, and 
 walked with it ringing through me, while I pondered and digested 
 the substance, and this way has the literal imitation become 
 natural and free." 
 
 Carlyle replied, "Your mood of mind is the right one for the 
 translator. The tune of a poem, especially if it be a Goethe's 
 poem, is the soul of the whole, round which all, the very thoughts 
 no less than the words, shapes and modulates itself. The tune is 
 to be got hold of before anything else is got. And yet each lan- 
 guage has its genius, its capabilities. Your task is a difficult one. 
 For the rest there is no alchemy like good will." — John Sut' 
 ti'va.n D^vight. A Biography. 
 
 102 
 
TRANSLATION OF BURNS 
 
 das Binsenkraut" gives the sense, and would have 
 also preserved the tune. However, that is not the 
 worst. Rashes, except as a kind of rough rhyme 
 for lasses, is of no particular significance; but as 
 such a rhyme, the whole song rests on it; and 
 Heintze's accordingly is either no song or another. 
 A perfect translator would have to find some equiv- 
 alent German word signifying this or that, rushes, 
 ragweed, watercresses, it matters little, — but rhym^ 
 ing to "madchen" (to "weiberchen" were better), 
 as this does to "lasses;" otherwise it is not to the 
 purpose. 
 
 Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 
 Her noblest work she classes, O; 
 Her 'prentice hand she tried on man. 
 And then she made the lasses O. 
 Green grow the rashes O, &c. 
 
 Perhaps about a half of Herr Heintze's songs are 
 decidedly below what he could make them, did 
 he know the tune, and stand honestly by it. We 
 have met grammatically with no important blunder 
 but one ; a very excusable blunder, but of a rather 
 sad effect where it stands. In '* Macpherson' s 
 Fare<iueir' Herr Heintze has considered that those 
 words, "He played a spring, and danced it round 
 below the gallows tree," must signify the leap a 
 condemned robber gives from the ladder, and his 
 dance — alas, too hideous a dance for singing of! 
 ''Spring'* he did not know to mean dancing^tune, 
 which a man plays on his fiddle, dancing to it ; 
 and so, of this wild burden, 
 
 103 
 
HEINTZE'S GERMAN 
 
 Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 
 
 Sae dauntingly gaed he; 
 He played a spring and danced it round 
 
 Below the gallows tree, 
 
 Herr Heintze has made this altogether horrible 
 one, 
 
 So ging er froh und Wohlgemuth, 
 
 Und unerschrocken fort ; 
 Ein Sprung — dann tantzt'er in der Luft {Ach Go ft!) 
 
 Am Galgenstamme dort. 
 
 But let us now by way of counterpoise, give 
 Heintze's best translation, the best we have fallen 
 in with: that of ** Duncan Gra.y/' Readers who 
 know, and all song readers and singers might as 
 well know, what the jovial, genial humour of the 
 original is, will find that it bounds along with little 
 less expressiveness in German than in Scotch, 
 ^^Freit/' indeed, is far inferior as a singing or 
 speaking phrase to **<Tvooing o'i;'' but that and 
 several other things we must even put up with. 
 Hear Heintze: 
 
 Duncan Gray kam her zu frein, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit ! 
 Als zu Christnacht wir voll Wein, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Gretchen that gewaltig dick. 
 Gab ihm manchen schnoden Blick; 
 Duncan fuhr erschreckt zuriick, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 
 Duncan bat und Duncan fleht,' 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Sie blieb taub wie Ailsa-Craig, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Duncan seufzt' in Liebesncth, 
 Weinte sich die Augen roth, 
 104 
 
TRANSLATION OF BURNS 
 
 Sprach von Strick und Wasscrtod, 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit ! 
 
 Zeit und Gliick sind Ebb' und Fluth, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit ! 
 Berschmahte Lieb' gar wehe thut. 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Soil ich, sprach er, wie ein Fant 
 Sterben, weil sie hirnverbrant? 
 Geh sie doch — ins Pfefferland ! 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 
 Wie's nun kam, genug's hat Grund, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Sie ward krank — als er gesund. 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Ihren Busen Etwas driickt. 
 Bis ein Seufer sie erquickt, 
 Und was aus dem Aug' ihr blickt! 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 
 Duncan hatt' ein weiches Herz, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Und mit Gretchen war's kein Scherz, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
 Duncan konn't ihr Tod nicht sein, 
 Und den Lorn wiegt' Mitleid ein; 
 Nun sind froh sie in Berein, 
 
 Ha, ha, die lust 'ge Freit! 
 
 We shall be glad to hear of Herr Heintze's prog- 
 ress in this work of translating Burns. Probably 
 not more than half his songs are given here; of his 
 poems only some three, "To the Daisy," "The 
 Mouse," and "Man was made to Mourn," — an 
 imperfect sample. To a man meritoriously bent 
 on making Burns known to his Countrymen, we 
 would recommend, as more decisively legible at 
 least, the Letters of Burns, The whole or part of 
 
 105 
 
HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION OF BURNS 
 
 these, intercalated at the due place in the Poets' 
 history, would show the Germans a man they 
 have not yet seen, and perhaps would like to see. 
 Heintze has given a praiseworthy sketch by way 
 of Life; but it is hardly Burns yet, or a very for- 
 midably diluted Burns. He quotes Lockhart's 
 Life, but seems not to have read it well. He has 
 not even sufficiently consulted his Goethe. Let 
 him read Cunningham, Currie, above all, the Let^ 
 ters themselves; and then see what he does see, 
 and what he has got to tell his people about that. 
 Right good speed to him. 
 
 106 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 It is much to be regretted that no individual of 
 the many large classes whose business and interest 
 it might seem to be, has yet taken any effective 
 steps towards opening to our population the im- 
 mense resource of Indian corn as an article of 
 food. To all that have well considered it, this 
 grain seems likely henceforth to be the staff of 
 life for over-crowded Europe; capable not only of 
 replacing the deceased potato which has now left 
 us, but of infinitely surpassing in usefulness and 
 cheapness all that the potato ever was. 
 
 For general attainability, there was no article of 
 food ever comparable to it before; a grown man, 
 in any part of Europe accessible by sea, can be 
 supported on it, at this date, wholesomely, and if 
 we understood the business, even agreeably, at 
 the rate of little more than a penny a day; — which 
 surely is cheap enough. Neither, as the article is 
 not grown at home, and can be procured only by 
 commerce, need political economists dread new 
 'Irish difficulties' from the cheapness of it. Nor 
 is there danger, for unlimited periods yet, of its 
 becoming dearer: it grows in warm lattitudes of 
 the earth, profusely, with the whole impulse of 
 
 109 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 the sun; can grow over huge tracts and continents 
 lying vacant hitherto, festering hitherto as pestif- 
 erous jungles, yielding only rattlesnakes and yel- 
 low fever: — it is probable, if we were driven to it, 
 the planet Earth, sown where fit with Indian corn, 
 might produce a million times as much food as it 
 now does, or has ever done ! In the single Valley 
 of the Mississippi alone, were the rest of the earth 
 all lying fallow, there could Indian corn enough 
 be grown to support the whole Posterity of Adam 
 now alive: let the disconsolate Malthusian fling 
 his 'geometrical series' into the corner; assist 
 wisely in the 'free trade movement;' and dry up 
 his tears. For a thousand years or two, there is 
 decidely no danger of our wanting food, if we do 
 not want good sense and industry first. In a word, 
 this invaluable foreign corn is not calculated, as 
 we said, to replace the defunct potato, but to sur- 
 pass it a thousand fold in benefit for man: and if 
 the death of the potato have been the rneans of 
 awakening us to such an immeasurably superior 
 resource, we shall, in addition to our sorrowful 
 Irish reasons, have many joyful English, European, 
 American and universal reasons, to thank Heaven 
 that the potato had been so kind as to die ! 
 
 In the meanwhile, though extensively employed 
 in the British Islands within these three years, 
 Indian corn cannot yet be said to have come into 
 use; for only the bungled counterfeit of it is 
 hitherto in use; which may be well called not the 
 use of Indian corn, but the abuse of it. Govern- 
 
 IIO 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 ment did indeed, on the first failure of the potato, 
 send abroad printed papers about the cooking of 
 this article, for the behoof of the poor; and once 
 I recollect there circulated in all the newspapers, 
 for some weeks, promulgated by some 'Peace 
 Missionary,' a set of flowery prophetic recipes for 
 making Indian meal into most palatable puddings, 
 with 'quarts of cream,' 'six eggs well whipt,' &c., 
 — ingredients out of which the British female in- 
 tellect used to make tolerable puddings, even 
 without Indian meal, and by recipes of its own ! 
 These recipes were circulated among the popula- 
 tion, — of little or no value, I now find, even as 
 recipes; — but in the meanwhile there was this 
 fatal omission made, that no Indian meal on fair 
 terms, and no good Indian meal on any terms at 
 all, was or is yet attainable among us to try by 
 any recipe. In that unfortunate condition, I say, 
 matters still remain. 
 
 The actual value of Indian meal by retail with a 
 free demand, is about one penny per pound; or 
 with a poor demand, as was inevitable at first, but 
 need not have been necessary long, let us say 
 three half-pence a pound. The London shops, 
 two years ago, on extensive inquiry, were found 
 not to yield any of it under three pence a pound, — 
 the price of good wheaten flour; somewhere be- 
 tween twice and three times the real cost of 
 Indian meal. But farther and worse, all the Indian 
 meal so purchasable was found to have a bitter 
 fusty taste in it; which, after multiplied experi- 
 
 in 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 ments, was not eradicable by any cookery, though 
 long continued boiling in clear water did abate it 
 considerably. Our approved method of cookery 
 came at last to be, that of making the meal with 
 either hot or cold water into a thick batter, and 
 boiling it, tied up in linen cloth or set in a crockery 
 shape, for four or sometimes seven hours; — which 
 produced a thick handsome-looking pudding, such 
 as one might have hoped would prove very elegi- 
 ble for eating instead of potatoes along with meat. 
 Hope however did not correspond to experience. 
 This handsome-looking pudding combined readily 
 with any kind of sauce, sweet, spicy, oleaginous; 
 but except the old tang of bitterness, it had little 
 taste of its own; and along with meat, 'it could,' 
 like Charles of Sweden's bread, 'be eaten,' but 
 was never good, at best was barely endurable. 
 
 Yet the Americans praised their Indian meal; 
 celebrated its sapid excellencies, and in Magazine- 
 Novels, as we could see, 'lyrically recognized' 
 them. Where could the error lie? This meal, of 
 a beautiful golden colour, equably ground into 
 fine hard powder, and without speck or admixture 
 of any kind, seemed to the sight, to the feel and 
 smell, faultless; only to the taste was there this 
 ineradicable final bitterness, which in bad samples 
 even made the throat smart; and, as the meal 
 seemed otherwise tasteless, acquired for it, from 
 unpatriotic mockers among us, the name of 'soot- 
 and-sawdust meal.' 
 
 American friends at last informed us that the 
 
 112 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 meal was fusty, spoiled; that Indian meal, espe- 
 cially in warm weather, did not keep sweet above 
 a few weeks; — that we ought to procure Indian 
 corn, and have it ground ourselves. Indian corn 
 was accordingly procured; with difficulty from the 
 eastern City regions; and with no better result, nay 
 with a worse. How old the corn might be we, of 
 course, knew only by testimony not beyond sus- 
 picion; perhaps it was corn of the second yzdiV in 
 bond; but at all events the meal of it too was 
 bitter; and the new evil was added of an intoler- 
 able mixture of sand; which, on reflection, we 
 discovered to proceed from the English millstones; 
 the English millstones, too soft for this new sub- 
 stance, could not grind it, could only grind them- 
 selves and it, and so produce a mixture of meal 
 and sand. Soot-and-sawdust meal with the ad- 
 dition of brayed flint: there was plainly no stand- 
 ing of this. I had to take farewell of this Indian 
 meal experiment; my poor patriotic attempt to 
 learn eating the new food of mankind, had to 
 terminate here. My molendinary resources (as 
 you who read my name will laughingly admit) were 
 too small; my individual need of meal was small; — 
 in fine my stock of patience too was done. 
 
 This being the condition under which Indian 
 meal is hitherto known to the British population, 
 no wonder they have little love for it, no wonder 
 it has got a bad name among them ! ' Soot-and- 
 sawdust meal, with an admixture of brayed flint:' 
 this is not a thing to fall in love with; nothing but 
 
 113 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 starvation can well reconcile a man to this. The 
 starving Irish paupers, we accordingly find, do but 
 eat and curse; complain loudly that their meal is 
 unwholesome; that it is bad and bitter; that it is 
 this and that; — to all of which there is little heed 
 paid, and the official person has to answer with a 
 shrug of the shoulders. In the unwholesomeness, 
 except perhaps for the defect of boiling, I do not 
 at all believe; but as to the bitter uncooked un- 
 palatability my evidence is complete. 
 
 Well three days ago I received, direct from the 
 barn of an American friend, as it was stored there 
 last autumn, a small barrel of Indian corn in the 
 natural state; large ears or cobs of Indian corn, 
 merely stripped of the loose leaves. On each ear, 
 which is of the obelisk shape, about the size of a 
 large thick truncated carrot, there are perhaps 
 five hundred grains, arranged in close order in 
 their eight columns; the colour gold-yellow, or in 
 some cases with a flecker of blood-red. These 
 grains need to be rubbed off, and ground by some 
 rational miller, whose millstones are hard enough 
 for the work: that is all the secret of preparing 
 them. And here comes the important point. 
 This grain, I now for the first time find, is s<weet, 
 among the sweetest; with an excellent fine rich 
 taste something like that of nuts; indeed it seems 
 to me, perhaps from novelty in part, decidely 
 sweeter than wheat, or any other grain I have 
 ever tasted. So that, it would appear, all our ex- 
 periments hitherto on Indian meal have been 
 
 114 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 vitiated to the heart by a deadly original sin, or 
 fundamental falsity to start with; — as if on experi- 
 menting on Westphalian ham, all the ham present- 
 ed hitherto to us for trial had been — in a rancid 
 state. The difference between ham and rancid 
 ham M. Soyer well knows, is considerable! This 
 is the difference however, this highly considerable 
 one, we have had to encounter hitherto in all our 
 experiences of Indian meal. Ground by a reason- 
 able miller, who grinds it and not his millstones 
 along with it, this grain, I can already promise, 
 will make excellent, cleanly, wholesome, and pala- 
 table eating; and be fit for the cook's art under all 
 manner of conditions; ready to combine with 
 whatever judicious condiment, and reward what- 
 ever wise treatment, he applies to it: and indeed 
 on the whole, I should say a more promising 
 article could not well be submitted to him, if his 
 art is really a useful one. 
 
 These facts, in a time of potato failures, appre- 
 hension of want, and occasional fits of wide-spread 
 too-authentic want and famine, when M. Soyer 
 has to set about concocting miraculously cheap 
 soup, and the Government to make enormous 
 grants and rates-in-aid, seem to me of a decidedly 
 comfortable kind; — well deserving practical in- 
 vestigation by the European Soyers, Governments, 
 Poor-law Boards, Mendicity Societies, Friends of 
 Distressed Needlewomen, and Friends of the Hu- 
 man Species, who are gotten sadly in alarm as to 
 the 'food prospects,' — and who will have, if they 
 
 115 
 
INDIAN MEAL 
 
 will clear the entrance, a most extensive harbour 
 of refuge. Practical English enterprise, indepen- 
 dent of benevolence, might now find, and will by 
 and bye have to find, in reference to this foreign 
 article of food, an immense development. And 
 as for specially benevolent bodies of men, whose 
 grand text is 'food prospects,' they, I must declare, 
 are wandering in darkness with broad day beside 
 them, till they teach us to get Indian meal, such 
 as our American cousins get, that we may eat it 
 with thanks to Heaven as they do. New food, 
 whole continents of food; — and not rancid ham, 
 but the actual sound Westphalia ! To this con- 
 summation we must come; there is no other har- 
 bour of refuge for hungry populations: — but all the 
 distressed population fleets and disconsolate Mal- 
 thusians of the world may ride there; and surely 
 it is great pity the entrance were not cleared a 
 little, and a few buoys set up, and soundings taken 
 by competent persons. 
 
 C. 
 
 I8th of April, 1849. 
 
 116 
 
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR 
 OF THE TIMES 
 
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR 
 OF THE TIMES 
 
 To the Editor of the Times. 
 
 Sir:— 
 
 The following document, ar.d the proposal or 
 appeal now grounded on it, require to be made 
 known to the British public, for which object we, 
 as the course is apply to the Editor of "The 
 Times." 
 
 In the month of May last there was presented to 
 Lord Palmerston, as head of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, a memorial on behalf of a certain Miss 
 Lowe and her sister, which memorial will suffi- 
 ciently explain itself, and indicate who the Misses 
 Lowe are, to those who read it here: — 
 
 "The undersigned beg respectfully to submit to 
 Lord Palmerston a statement of reasons which 
 appear to them to constitute, on behalf of the two 
 aged surviving daughters of Mauritius Lowe, there- 
 in described, a claim to such small yearly pension 
 as in your Lordship's judgement may consist with 
 other demands for the ensuing year, upon the 
 fund appropriate to literature. 
 
 "In Dr. Samuel Johnson's last will is this pas- 
 
 119 
 
A LETTER TO THE 
 
 sage, — 'I also give and bequeath to my godchildren, 
 the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, 
 each of them £ JOO of my stock in the Three per 
 Cent. Consolidated Annuities, to be disposed of 
 by and at the discretion of my executors in the 
 education or settlement in the world of them my 
 said legatees.' 
 
 "The Mauritius Lowe mentioned here, who was 
 once a man of great promise in his art, favorably 
 know in the Royal Academy and in the world as 
 a man of refined manners and real talent and 
 worth (though probably with something of morbid 
 or over-sensitive in his character), died ten years 
 after Johnson without fulfilling the high hopes en- 
 tertained of him. The godson, or younger Lowe, 
 mentioned in the will, who at one time (J8J0-J3) 
 appears to have held some small appointment in 
 Barbadoes, creditably to himself, but with loss of 
 health — the crown and consummation of other 
 losses he had met with — is also long since dead. 
 Of these Lowes and their hopes and struggles 
 there is now nothing to be said. They are sunk 
 under the horizon. Nor can they pretend to have 
 any hold of the world's memory except what is 
 derived from their father's intimacy with Johnson, 
 of which and of Johnson's helpfulness and real 
 esteem and affection for the man there are still 
 abundant proofs, printed and not printed, beside 
 this of the will. 
 
 "But the goddaughter mentioned in the will has 
 not yet sunk under the horizon. She still survives 
 
 120 
 
EDITOR OF THE TIMES 
 
 among us, a highly respectable old person, now in 
 the 78th year, with all her faculties about her, liv- 
 ing with her younger sister, aged 72, the only 
 other remnant of the family, in a house they long 
 occupied— No. 5, Minerva place, New Cross, Dept- 
 ford — with numerous memorials of Johnson in 
 their possession, which vividly bring home to us 
 and present us a still living fact, their connection 
 with that great man. They have lived there for 
 many years in rigorous though not undignified 
 poverty, which now, by some unforseen circum- 
 stances, theatens to become absolute indigence in 
 these their final years. 
 
 "They are gentlewomen in manners; by all evi- 
 dence, persons of uniformly unexceptionable con- 
 duct; veracity, sense, ingenious propriety, notice- 
 able in them both, to a superior degree. The 
 elder, especially, must have been a graceful lively 
 little woman, something of a beauty in her younger 
 days, and by no means wanting for talent. She 
 still recollects in a dim but ineffacable manner 
 the big, awful figure of Samuel Johnson, to whom 
 she was carried shortly before his death, that he 
 might lay his hand on her head and give her his 
 blessing; her awe and terror very great on the 
 occasion. Both sisters are in perfect possession of 
 their faculties — the younger only is slightly hard 
 of hearing; the elder (on whose head lay Johnson's 
 hand) has still a light step, perfectly erect carriage, 
 and vivacious memory and intellect. The younger, 
 who is of very honest and somewhat sterner 
 
 121 
 
A LETTER TO THE 
 
 features, appears to be the practical intellect of 
 the house, and probably the practical hand. They 
 are very poor, but have taken their poverty in a 
 quiet, unaffectedly handsome manner, and have 
 still hope that, in some way or other, intolerable 
 want will not be permitted to overtake them. 
 They have an altogether respectable, or, we might 
 say (bringing the past and the present into con- 
 tact), a touching and venerable air. There, in 
 their little parlor at Deptford, is the fir desk 
 (capable of being rigorously authenticated as such) 
 upon which Samuel Johnson wrote the 'English 
 Dictionary;' the best dictionary ever written, say 
 some. 
 
 " It is in behalf of these two women, of Johnson's 
 goddaughter fallen old and indigent, that we vent- 
 ure to solicit from the Government, some small 
 public subvention, to screen their last years from 
 the worst misery. It may be urged that there is no 
 public fund appropriated for such precise objects, 
 and that their case cannot, except in a reflex way, 
 be brought under the head of 'literary pensions;' 
 but, in a reflex way, it surely can; and we humbly 
 submit withal, that this case of theirs is, in some 
 measure, a peculiar and unique one. 
 
 "Samuel Johnson is such a literary man as prob- 
 ably will not appear again in England for a very 
 great length of time. His works and his life, 
 looked at well, have something in them of heroic, 
 which is of value beyond most literature, and 
 much beyond all money and money's worth to the 
 
 122 
 
EDITOR OF THE TIMES 
 
 nation which produced him. That same 'English 
 Dictionary,' written on the poor fir desk above 
 spoken of, under sternly memorable circumstances, 
 is itself a proud possession to the English nation, 
 and not in the philological point of view alone. 
 Such a dictionary has an architectonic quality in 
 it; and for massive solidity of plan, manful correct- 
 ness and fidelity of execution, luminous intelli- 
 gence, rugged honesty and greatness of mind 
 pervading every part of it, is like no other. This, 
 too, is a Cathedral of St. Paul's^ after its sort; 
 and stands there for long periods, silently remind- 
 ing every English soul of much that is very neces- 
 sary to remember. 
 
 "Samuel Johnson himself is far beyond the reach 
 of our gratitude. He has left no child or repre- 
 sentative of any kind to claim pensions or distinc- 
 tions from us; and here, by accident, thrown upon 
 the waste sea beach, is something venerably human 
 with Johnson's mark still legible upon it; Johnson 
 as it were, mutely bequeathing it to us, and to 
 what humanity and loyalty we have, for the few 
 years that may be still be left. Our humble request 
 in the name of literature withal, is that the English 
 nation will, in some small adequate way, respond 
 to this demand of Johnson's. 
 
 [The letter is signed by Henry Hallam, James 
 Stephen, S. Oxon, Thomas Carlyle, Alexander 
 Dyce, B. W. Proctor, C. L. Eastlake, John Forster, 
 T. B. Macaulay, W. M. Thackeray, Alfred Ten- 
 nyson, A. W. Fonblanque, Charles Dickens, E. 
 
 123 
 
A LETTER TO THE 
 
 Bulwer Lytton, G. R. Gleig, Richard Owen, R. E. 
 Murchison, B. Disraeli, and H. H. Milman. 
 
 Beyond question the only document in Great 
 Britain that out-shines the parchment of Runny- 
 mede — in the right light ! ] 
 
 To this memorial his Lordship made answer, 
 with great courtesy and without undue delay, 
 that the fund set apart for the encouragement of 
 literature could not be meddled with for a pension 
 to the goddaughter of Johnson; but that, in con- 
 sideration of the circumstances, his Lordship, from 
 some other fund, had made her a donation of £ JOO, 
 which sum of £J00 was accordingly paid to Miss 
 Lowe in June last a very welcome gift and help — 
 all that the Prime Minister could do in this matter, 
 and, unfortunately, only about the fifth part of 
 what was, and is, indispensible to get done. 
 
 It was still hoped that the last resource of an 
 appeal to the public might be avoided; that there 
 might be other Government helps, minute chari- 
 table funds, adequate to this small emergency. 
 And new endeavours were accordingly made in 
 in that direction, and new expectations enter- 
 tained; but these likewise have all proved ineffect- 
 ual: and the resulting fact now is, that there is 
 still needed something like an annuity of £30 for 
 the joint lives of these two aged persons; that, 
 strictly computing what pittances certain and 
 precarious they already have, and what they 
 still want, their case cannot be satisfactorily left 
 on lower terms— that is to say, about £400, to 
 
 124 
 
EDITOR OF THE TIMES 
 
 purchase such an annuity, is still needed for them. 
 
 If the thing is half as English as we suppose it to 
 be, a small pecuniary result of that kind is not 
 doubtful, now when the application is once made. 
 At all events, as the English Government is not 
 able to do this thing, we are now bound to apprise 
 the English nation of it, and to ask the English 
 nation in its miscellaneous capacity — Are you 
 willing to do it ? 
 
 Messrs. Coutts, bankers, will receive subscrip- 
 tions from such as feel that this is a valid call upon 
 English beneficence; and we have too much 
 reverence for Samuel Johnson, and for the present 
 generation of his countrymen, to use any solicit- 
 ing or ignoble pressure on the occasion. So soon 
 as the requisite amount has come in, the subscrip- 
 tions will cease; of which due notice will be given. 
 
 We are, Sir, your obedient servants, 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 Charles Dickens. 
 John Forster. 
 
 Athenaeum Club, Oct. 31 [1855]. 
 
 125 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 The year of Grace, J820, found Thomas Carlyle 
 at Edingburgh, a plucky post-graduate, in the 
 twenty-fifth year of his age and with the world 
 before him. He had forsworn Pedagogy when 
 himself and Edward Irving left 'the lang toun of 
 Kircaldy' behind them. Unlike his companion, he 
 had also turned his back on the Church— that 
 summum bonum of the needy Scotch scholar. He 
 was also destined to shake his head at the Law. 
 He took humble lodgings at No. 3 Moray Street, 
 and sought to earn his sustenance as a private 
 teacher of Mathematics. A fortunate introduction 
 to David Brewster led that learned quid nunc to 
 offer him work in the preparation of the forth- 
 coming Edingburgh Encyclopaedia; and thus 
 Thomas Carlyle became an 'entered apprentice' 
 to Literature. He had found his life-work without 
 knowing it ! 
 
 He wrote seventeen articles for his first Task- 
 master, and, as Brewster himself alloted the topics, 
 one can but wonder, if he foresaw the unfolded 
 capabilities of his impecunious scribe — for twelve 
 
 129 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 of these contributions are biographical. But Car- 
 lyle then wrote in shackles, being limited to some- 
 what meagre space, and he found the work not 
 only incongenial, but of niggardly recompense; he 
 often makes mention of it in the correspondence 
 of those days with something between a groan 
 and a curse. He had no previous literary experi- 
 ence save as a rather voluminous correspondent 
 with schoolday friends, and he had not yet settled 
 into a 'style.' Beside his University training, 
 which, it must be said, he held but lightly, his 
 only qualifications were an unusal store of multi- 
 farious reading — for he was ever liberivorous — 
 and the higher qualities of industry, self-reliance, 
 courage and an indomitable will. It remained to 
 be seen what might be the freak of heredity in his 
 case; whether he would inherit the paternal apti- 
 tude for using words in a singularly forceful man- 
 ner; his unlettered father's utterance being said to 
 be of such vigor as to "nail things to the wall." 
 His first contribution to the Encyclopaedia is 
 the article on Montaigne; and it is noteworthy 
 that of all who have written of Carlyle, our own 
 Lowell is the first who appears to have "sought 
 the sources of the Nile." He wrote: "Carlyle, in 
 these first Essays, already shows the influence of 
 his master, Goethe, the most receptive of all 
 critics." At that early period of Carlyle's career 
 Goethe could hardly be called an 'influence' inas- 
 
 130 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 much as his fervent Scottish disciple had began 
 the study of German only a year before the brief 
 essay was written. Lowell continues, "in a com- 
 pact notice of Montaigne, there is not a word as 
 to his religious scepticism. The character is 
 looked at from its human and literary sides." The 
 American critic did not read closely or he would 
 have found that Carlyle had discerned an insin." 
 ceriiy in the Gascon's scepticism; which fact 
 clearly proves that Thomas Carlyle's detestation 
 of Shams was nascent and by no means the assum- 
 ed quality of a later day. 
 
 But let us take a closer look at Carlyle's 'pren- 
 tice work. Of the "Gascon gentleman's" Essays 
 he writes: 
 
 "In this singular production, Montaigne com- 
 pletely fulfils the promise of painting himself in 
 his natural and simple mood, without study or 
 artifice. And though Scalinger might perhaps 
 reasonably ask, 'what matters it whether Mon- 
 taigne liked white wine or claret?' — a modern 
 reader will not easily cavil at the patient and good- 
 natured, though exuberant, egotism which brings 
 back to our view the "form and pressure of a time 
 long past." The habits and humours; the mode 
 of acting and thinking which characterized a Gas- 
 con gentleman in the sixteenth century, cannot 
 fail to amuse an enquirer of the nineteenth, while 
 the faithful delineation of human feelings in all 
 their strength and weakness, will serve as a mirror 
 to every mind capable of self-examination. But if 
 
 131 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 details, otherwise frivolous, are pardoned, because 
 of the antique charm which is about them, no ex- 
 cuse or even apology of a satisfactory kind can be 
 devised for the gross indelicacy which frequently 
 deforms these Essays; and as Montaigne, by an 
 abundant store of bold ideas and a deep insight 
 into the principles of our common nature, deserves 
 to be ranked high among the great men of his own 
 original age, he also deserves the bad pre-eminence 
 in love at once of coarseness and obscenity. 
 
 "The desultory, careless mode in which the 
 materials of the Essays are arranged, indicates a 
 feature of the author's character to which his 
 style has likewise a resemblance. With him, more 
 than with any other, words may be called the 
 garment of thought; the expression is frequently 
 moulded to fit the idea, never the idea to fit the 
 expression. The negligence and occasional ob- 
 scurity of his manner are more than compensated 
 by the warmth of an imagination, bestowing on 
 his language a nervousness and often a pictu- 
 resque beauty which we would seek in vain else- 
 where." 
 
 One can but surmise whether David Brewster 
 ever for a moment turned aside from the scientific 
 aridities of the Encyclopaedia to admire the criti- 
 cal sagacity of his obscure contributor: neverthe- 
 less no truer judgement has ever been written of 
 Montaigne than that his 'words may be called the 
 garment of thought.' Surely, the spirit of Diogenes 
 Teufelsdrockh was a-stirring even then! 
 
 In even his appenticeship Carlyle's eye was keen 
 
 132 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 for the dramatic and he seized upon an incident 
 of Montaigne's death-hour: 
 
 "The disorder had deprived him of the use of 
 speech; but as his mental faculties remained un- 
 impaired, he desired his wife, in writing, to send 
 for certain of his neighbors that he might bid 
 them farewell. After the arrival of these persons 
 mass was said in his chamber. At the elevation of 
 the host, Montaigne, with an effort raised himself 
 upon his bed, and clasping his hands together, 
 expired in that pious attitude. 
 
 "The character of Montaigne is amply delineat- 
 ed in his Essays. On contemplating this picture, 
 we are surprised to find the principles of a stoic 
 incongruously mingled with the practice of an 
 epicure; and the pitlo<w of doubt, upon which 
 during the flow of health he professed to repose, 
 exchanged in sickness for the opiates of supersti- 
 tion." 
 
 "There is not a word as to his religious scepti- 
 cism," but there is an unmistakable recognition of 
 its quality. It is highly probable that Carlyle 
 wrote this paper with a keener zest than he found 
 in preparing any of the others — but who could 
 predict the Lectures on Heroes from such a be- 
 ginning ? 
 
 The exigencies of the alphabetical order of ar- 
 rangement adopted in the Encyclopaedia de- 
 manded from Carlyle the article on Lady Mary 
 Worthy Montagu, In it one sees that he was 
 restricted to narrow limits, but he nevertheless so 
 
 133 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 manages his materials as to justify Lowell's pro- 
 nouncing his work compact. He gives a fair 
 bird's-eye view of Lady Mary's varied life, but 
 athwart his periods we discern no shadow of the 
 facile workman of his riper years. Of her Poems 
 he writes awkwardly enough: "They are not pol- 
 ished, but across their frequent harshness and 
 infelicity of expression we can easily discern con- 
 siderable vivacity of conception [it is not difficult 
 to believe that she could be vivacious even in 
 conceiving], accompanied with some acuteness in 
 discriminating character and delineating man- 
 ners." How the fastidious De Quincey would have 
 scored him for his 'across,' 'vivacity of concep- 
 tion,' and like Scotticisms. But Carlyle in sum- 
 ming up her distinguishing characteristics says 
 very discriminatingly: "She seems to have been 
 contented with herself, and therefore willing to be 
 pleased with others; and her cheerful sprightly 
 imagination, the elegance, the ease, and airness 
 of her style are deservedly admired." A more 
 felicitous epithet than airiness, in this instance, it 
 were difficult to apply; and his general judgement 
 of her is clear and just. 
 
 There is no need to exhume the respectable 
 mediocrity that is mouldering in the papers on 
 Moniesque, and Bernard de Montfaucon; but the 
 latter contains a metaphor which is in striking 
 contrasy with the perspicuity of Carlyle's matured 
 
 I 34 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 expression: "The character originally impressed 
 upon Montfaucon's genius, though obscured, was 
 not obliterated." In youth, it appears, Montfau- 
 con evinced the qualities that give promise of a 
 student's life; in early manhood he took up the 
 profession of arms, and only after a seasoning 
 period returned to Letters. 
 
 A similar clumsiness is found in the article upon 
 Nelson: "The victory at Trafalgar, the greatest 
 ever gained, completed the fabric which a succes- 
 sion of brave men, since the time of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, had been slowly rearing with their toils and 
 their — b 1 o o d." It is more than difficult to imagine 
 the author of the Life of John Sterling writing 
 this. 
 
 The Netherlands^ the longest and ablest of his 
 Encyclopaedia work, gives evidence of much 
 carefully-digested reading and patient research 
 and it well displays Carlyle's capacity for faithful 
 toil; but we are concerned only with his style, and 
 the following specimen little presages The French 
 Revolution: "Posterity have learned, with a kind 
 of satisfaction, that in his old age Charles himself 
 began to doubt that the spirit which had never 
 felt for the fate of another, was doomed in its 
 feebleness to experience the blackest terrors for 
 its own fate, and to leave the world it had wasted 
 and deformed under a 'oj eight of Blood which 
 superstition itself could no longer alleviate." 
 
 135 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP . 
 
 The immediately succeeding effort — on Neiv" 
 foundtand — contains one faint flicker of that 
 humor which was to blaze brightly in his later 
 pages: "Mr. Anspach, a clerical person who lived 
 in the island several years, and has since written a 
 meagre and very confused book which he calls 
 a history of it." Incontinently, Carlyle cooly pro- 
 ceeds to appropriate eleven lengthy paragraphs 
 from the unfortunate 'clerical person's' history. 
 Why is it that of all cynics, your clerical recalci- 
 trant is ever the severest upon the Cloth ? Carlyle 
 never 'wagged hispowin a poupit;' Emerson had. 
 Remembering this, Carlyle squirted venom upon 
 'the black dragoons' in season and out; Emerson's 
 velvet gloves did not hinder the sharp nails from 
 occasionally scratching. Was it the Jordan that 
 rolled betTveen the unfrocked, the non-frocked, 
 and the sacerdotal shrine?^ 
 
 Carlyle must have lingered lovingly over his 
 picture of his fellow Scot, Mungo Park, the in- 
 trepid traveller. The warmth of his admiration 
 must have stirred the germ of the perfervid 'Hero- 
 Worship' that was to astonish not only London a 
 score of years later on. Carlyle instinctively dis- 
 cerned the intrinsic worth in a Man"and was not 
 deceived by the meretricious. Of Mungo Park's 
 
 ^ " So to the Jews old Canaan stood 
 
 While Jordan rolled between." 
 
 !36 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 Travels the son of the Eclefechan stone-mason 
 was moved to declare: 
 
 "We are shocked with the view of such extreme 
 wretchedness endured with so little advantage to 
 repay it. But the character of Park cannot fail to 
 rise in our estimation from perusing it. The same 
 qualities of calm intrepidity, strong resolution, and 
 unaffected kindliness which his former journey 
 had brought to light, are here exhibited under cir- 
 cumstances of a deeper and more painful interest; 
 and the friends of geographical discovery, while 
 they lament the loss of a person every way so 
 qualified to have extended its boundaries, will be 
 joined by the admirers of human worth in deplor- 
 ing the fate of a man whose energetic yet affec- 
 tionate character did honor to the country that 
 gave him birth 
 
 "Park may be pointed out as one of the most 
 unpretending, and at the same time valuable, 
 specimens of humanity that embellish the age and 
 country in which he lived." 
 
 There is a fervent glow in this that is not to be 
 found in any of Carlyle's other contributions to 
 the Encyclopaedia, He had written therein upon 
 Lord Nelson, who not so long before had died in 
 the halo of glory, but his faint and qualified fervor 
 is forced; whilst for one who perished miserably 
 in the wilds of Africa, resolutely doing his duty, 
 he has a tenderness that stops short of the tear 
 only for the sake of manful pride. But his eye 
 was not undimmed when he read Park's last letter 
 
 137 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 to Lord Camden: "My dear friend Mr. Anderson, 
 and likewise Mr. Scott, are both dead; but though 
 all the Europeans who are with me should die, 
 and though I were myself half dead, I would still 
 persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object 
 of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger." 
 
 A man with a deathless purpose; him Carlyle 
 the hack-writer could revere, and Carlyle 'the 
 writer of books,' defend and magnify. This did 
 he for the Christian Cromwell and Mohammet 
 the Infidel. 
 
 Carlyle's Encyclopaedia task-work was done 
 between the years J820-23, and meanwhile the 
 budding reputation thereby acquired procured for 
 him an engagement as an avowed liiieraieur from 
 the editor of the Ne<iv Edinburgh Re<vie<w* "Jo- 
 anna Baillie's Metrical Legends" incited, if they 
 did not inspire, Carlyle's first spontaneous "re- 
 view." 
 
 Six months later and in the same magazine this 
 was followed by a decidedly authoritative utterance 
 concerning an English publisher's rechauffe of 
 Goethe's masterpiece; **Faustus, From the Ger- 
 man of Goethe." Carlyle had made his debut; he 
 was, to be sure, still a hack-writer, but it was as a 
 volunteer, not a conscript. These efforts and his 
 work on the Encyclopaedia served to bring the 
 young aspirant into notice, and towards the end 
 of the year J823 his Life of Schiller ^as being 
 
 138 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 published in The London Magazine, The two 
 papers in Waugh's ill-omened Edinburgh Re-viem) 
 Carlyle allowed to lie quietly buried in the ob- 
 scurity of that speedily-defunct journal; but he 
 lived to see the Life of Schiller reproduced in a 
 German translation and also in its fifth English 
 edition. He spake slightingly of this his first 
 "book," but the London Times at once reprinted 
 the introduction to Part Second; quickly discern- 
 ing a new star in the firmanent of Letters. 
 
 It is a stately opening, but Carlyle had not yet 
 found his marvelous voice : 
 
 "If to know wisdom were to practice it; if fame 
 brought true dignity and peace of mind; or hap- 
 piness consisted in nourishing intellect with ideal 
 food, a literary life would be the most enviable 
 which the lot of this world affords. But the truth 
 
 is far otherwise Look at the Newgate 
 
 Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the 
 history of man 
 
 "Talent of any sort is generally accompanied 
 with a peculiar fineness of sensibility; of genius this 
 is the most essential constituent; and life in any 
 shape has sorrows enough for hearts so formed. 
 The employments of literature sharpen this natural 
 tendency; the vexations that accompany them 
 frequently exasperate it into morbid sourness. 
 The cares and toils of literature are the business 
 of life; its delights are too etherial and too tran- 
 sient to furnish that perennial flow of satisfaction, 
 coarse, but plenteous and substantial, of which 
 
 139 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 happiness in this world of ours is made. The 
 most finished efforts of the mind give it little 
 pleasure, frequently they give it pain; for men's 
 aims are ever far beyond their strength. And the 
 outward recompense of these undertakings, the 
 distinctions which they confer, is of still smaller 
 value; the desire for it is insatiable even when 
 successful; and when baffled, it issues in jealousy 
 and envy, and every pitiful and painful feeling. 
 So keen a temperament with so little to restrain 
 or satisfy, so much to distress or tempt it, produces 
 contradictions which few are able to reconcile. 
 Hence the unhappiness of literary men, hence 
 their faults and follies." 
 
 Did the son of Margaret Carlyle write thus re- 
 membering his mother's confession that he was 
 "gey ill to live wi'," or was this the 'second 
 sight' of genius enabling him to cast his own 
 horoscope ? 
 
 Carlyle's next toilful task was the translating of 
 "Wilhelm Meister," and for which DeQuincey, 
 pouncing with something of jealousy upon sundry 
 Scotticisms that stole into the translator's text, 
 flayed the young writer in the pages of the very 
 London Magazine that conveyed the "Life of 
 Schiller" to the Jannie Welsh whom 'oor Tam' 
 was then courting with "desperate hope!" Yet 
 sixty years later, as great a critic said, "To this 
 day — such is the force of youthful associations — 
 I read the Wilhetm Meister with more pleasure in 
 Carlyle's translation than in the original." 
 
 140 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 The next year found Carlyle hard at work upon 
 the four volumes of "German Romance" that 
 were finally published, although only after much 
 tribulation, in J 827, and which, somewhat singular- 
 ly, have never been reprinted in their entirety. 
 
 Now it was that Francis Jeffrey, who had once 
 rejected him, admitted Carlyle into the simon- 
 pure Edinburgh Revieiv; and thus began that 
 series of essays of which Emerson said, in the 
 introduction to the first collected edition of them: 
 "Many readers will find here pages which, in the 
 scattered anonymous sheets of British maga- 
 zines, spoke to their youthful minds with an em- 
 phasis that hindered them from sleep." 
 
 The first four of these essays were written at 
 the Comely Bank residence in Edinburgh; then 
 followed his removal in the utter loneliness of 
 Craigenputtock where, between July, J828 and 
 July, J83J, he wrote fourteen other essays and 
 also "Sartor Resartus." At last Carlyle had ended 
 his long and weary Lehrjahre; then, with Teu- 
 felsdrockh's strange manuscript in his hand he 
 started upon his Wa.nderja.hre, 
 
 Three years later he was in Cheyne Row, 
 Chelsea, at work on the French Re'voluiion, 
 
 On the seventh of January, J 824, when Carlyle 
 had read the extract from his Life of Schiller 
 which appeared in the London Times, he jotted 
 
 141 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 in his Journal: "Certainly no one ever wrote with 
 such tremendous difficulty as I do. Shall I ever 
 learn to write ease?" After ten years of arduous 
 apprenticeship he had won a place in the front 
 rank of reviewers, but the verdict of the world 
 upon a book that had come from the very heart 
 of him was yet to be heard. In the solitude of 
 Craigenputtock he found not only the Philosophy 
 of Clothes; there he also found his authentic 
 voice. Before going thither he had written after 
 the received models; there he learned to let the 
 soul of him speak as his peasant father spoke, 
 "nailing things to the wall." Henceforth in the 
 world of Literature, it was, undoubtedly "Thomas 
 Carlyle, his mark." 
 
 The style is the man; the tricks of Art pale into 
 insignificance when the materials Thought are 
 fused in the fire of Feeling. Given earnestness, 
 insight, vivid imagination, marvelous memory, 
 and deep convictions, he who is thus endowed 
 will leave the imprint of himself upon his day and 
 generation; and all these shining qualities and 
 splendid capacities are now known to have been 
 Thomas Carlyle's. 
 
 The crowning consummation of his Apprentice- 
 ship is the finding of himself, and the mint-mark 
 of his fifty years of Mastership is seen in the dis- 
 regard for all models, the unfaltering trust in him- 
 
 142 
 
CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 self, and the high courage to be that for which the 
 
 Infinite had made and intended him. 
 
 The example that he has left for every scholar 
 
 is found in the industry that did not loiter, the 
 
 toil that quailed before no task, the devotion to 
 
 principle that never faltered, and the confidence 
 
 in the Eternal Justice that could not be dismayed. 
 
 Such also are the rewards of his Apprenticeship — 
 
 "a possession forever." 
 
 S. A. J. 
 
JUL 26 1904 
 
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