:
THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY
ce
COMMUNE VINCULUM
OMNIBUS ARTIBUS
OF MINNESOTA.
ACCESSION.
6927
SHELF.
820.9
Y 8
1
THREE CENTURIES
OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
BY
CHARLES DUKE YONGE,
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN
QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST; AUTHOR OF A SCHOOL HISTORY OF ENGLAND,' ETO
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1879.
TO THE
REVEREND P. SHULDHAM HENRY, D.D. M.R.I.A.
PRESIDENT OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST,
This Volume
ORIGINALLY COMPILED FOR THE USE OF THE STUDENTS OF QUEEN'S COLLLGE,
Is Inscribed
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE WARM INTEREST
*
WHICH HE HAS AT ALL TIMES TAKEN IN THE WELFARE OF THE COLLEGE,
AND OF GREAT AND CONSTANT KINDNESS
EXPERIENCED BY THE AUTHOR,
C. D. YONGE
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
3
112 ∞ CO +
4
Introduction
The connection between different kinds of literature
References to science in the great poets
The wisdom of confining our studies to the works of the best writers
Exceptions to be made in the case of histories
Standard of taste
•
Standard of excellence
The criteria by which we judge of authors and their works
Classification of writers
The age of Elizabeth
Writers of the 14th century. Chaucer
John Barbour
Changes in the language in the 15th century
The objects to be attained by the study of English literature
Spenser
Shakespeare
Chronology of his plays
Numerous criticisms on his works
Extent of his acquired knowledge
The variety and versatility of his genius
Racine's Plaideurs'
Anachronisms in Shakespeare
CHAPTER II.
5
6
7
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9
9
10
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12
13
15
16
17%
The difficulty of giving quotations from Shakespeare
Extracts from 'King John'
'Henry V.'.
'Richard II.'
19
20
21
23
The wit of Shakespeare. Extract from Much Ado about Nothing' 24
Extract from Romeo and Juliet'
'King John'.
The character of Falstaff
Extract from 'Henry VIII.'
27
29
31
36
viii
CONTENTS,
CHAPTER III.
PAGE
Ben Jonson.
39
Is educated at Westminster
Makes acquaintance with Shakespeare
40
41
Produces his first play in 1598
42
Character of his plays
Is appointed Poet Laureate.
'Every Man in his Humour'
• Cateline
Otway
43
44
45
47
His early career
'Venice Preserved'
48
49
50
CHAPTER IV.
Character of the comic writers of the end of tho 17th century
Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar
Birth of Goldsmith
His travels.
His poverty
He becomes a writer in magazines
The Chinese Letters'
He becomes a member of the Literary Club
'The Traveller'
'The Vicar of Wakefield'
The-Good-natured Man,'' She stoops to Conquer'
Dies in 1774
Sheridan
Eights a duel with Captain Matthews
The Rivals, The Duenna
The School for Scandal, The Critic '
He becomes a member of Parliament
The impeachment, of Hastings
He becomes intimate with the Prince of Wales
Is made Treasurer of the Navy
Dies
Extract from 'The Rivals'
•
"The School for Scandal'
. 57
58
59
61
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66
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80
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81
82
83
87
CHAPTER V.
The qualifications necessary for a historian
Birth of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon
90
91
He becomes a lawyer and member of Parliament.
He opposes the Court
92
93
CONTENTS.
ix
He joins the Royalists
Begins his history at Jersey
Becomes Lord Chancellor
Falls into disgrace
Is banished, and dies
Character of his writings
His character of Charles I.
His character of Cromwell
CHAPTER VI.
Dr. Robertson
Previous position of Presbyterian ministers in Scotland
He supports Home
He publishes the History of Scotland'
Is appointed Historiographer for Scotland
"History of Charles V.'
History of America'
Dies
His account of Fiesco's conspiracy
Character of Queen Mary.
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
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x
The difference between Hume and Robertson, also between English
and French writers in that age
Birth of Hume
Devotes himself to literature
Begins to publish
►
Is appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates
The first volumes of his history are ill received
The subsequent volumes are more successful
Becomes secretary to the embassy at Paris
Dies in 1776
Character of his history
Great value of his appendices
Extracts: The effects of the feudal system
Causes which led to the gradual depression of the nobles
The literature of England under Elizabeth
The trial of Charles I.
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CHAPTER VIII.
The magnitude of Gibbon's undertaking
130
He is born in 1737
131
•
Forsakes and returns to the Church of England
Publishes a work in French
131
132
K
CONTENTS.
Undertakes the History of the Roman Empire
Becomes a member of Parliament
Publishes the first volumes of his history
Attacks upon his account of Christianity
Completes the work in 1788
Settles in Switzerland
Dies in England in 1794
•
Extracts: The State of Italy in the Middle Ages
The Religion of the Arabs.
The Crusades
Capture of Constantinople
Mahomet
CHAPTER IX.
Influence of Lord Macaulay on the style of composition
Gains distinction at the University
Contributes to the Edinburgh Review'
Becomes a member of Parliament.
Died in 1859
Publication and character of his 'History of England'
Peculiarities of his style
Authority due to his history
Extracts: The early ages of England
The historical literature of England
The character of Lord Halifax.
The relief of Derry
Birth of Prescott
His eyesight is injured
Publishes a history of Ferdinand and Isabella
His Conquest of Mexico, and of Peru'
Dies before he has completed the Life of Philip II.'
Motley's History of the Revolt of the Netherlands'
Description of a tournament
Character of Cortés
PAGE
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Birth of Dean Milman
He appears as a dramatic author
•
Attacks on his 'History of the Jews'
CHAPTER X.
167
168
168
169
169
•
170
170
173
175
His History of Latin Christianity'
Is made Dean of St. Paul's
Dies
His character of St. Benedict
Alison's History of Europe'
Extract from the description of the Russian expedition
CONTENTS.
xl
Napier's 'Peninsular War' and ' Conquest of Scinde
Arnold's History of Rome'
Extract from the 'Conquest of Scinde
Grote's History of Greece'
Grote's description of Socrates
Dr. Arnold's description of the civilisation of Rome
Value of memoirs, diaries, &c., to the students of history
Evelyn, Pepys, Lord Malmesbury, Walpole, Mrs. Hutchinson
Southey's 'Life of Nelson'
The lectures of Smythe and Stephen
CHAPTER XI.
The difficulty of classifying poets.
Character of epic poems
•
Versatility of Milton
·
•
Birth of Milton
Writes Comus' and other minor poems
Travels in foreign countries
Becomes a schoolmaster
Espouses the cause of the Puritans
Becomes Latin Secretary to the Council of State
Writes his 'Defence of the People of England'
He loses his sight.
'Paradise Lost'
'Samson Agonistes
Dies
Johnson's condemnation of Lycidas'
'L'Allegro,' ' Comus'
Criticism on 'Paradise Lost'
Variety in his description of the devils
His imitations of Homer
Description of Paradise
Of the meeting of Adam and Eve
Extract from 'Comus'
( |
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206
206
208
Birth of Dryden
•
CHAPTER XII.
Writes panegyrics on Cromwell and on Charles II.
'Annus Mirabilis
He becomes a dramatist
Rochester hires ruffians to assault him
He writes satires and translations-becomes Poet Laureate
• Absalom and Achitophel'
'The Medal'
211
212
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213
214
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215
xii
CONTENTS.
}
PAGE
MacFlecknoe
'Religio Laici' and the 'Hind and Panther'
He becomes a Roman Catholic
Loses the Laureateship at the Revolution .
Publishes translations from the classics, with critical prefaces
216
216
216
217
218
Translates Virgil .
218
Publishes Alexander's Feast'
218
Modernises parts of Chaucer
219
Dies in 1700
219
•
The respect in which he was held in his later years
219
Character of himself, and of his poetry
Extracts from the 'Fables'
From Absalom and Achitophel'
220
221
228
Birth of Pope
CHAPTER XIII.
His early fondness for poetry
Becomes acquainted with Wycherley, Addison, and Swift
Publishes his 'Essay on Criticism
'
The Rape of the Lock'
He translates Homer
He quarrels with Addison.
The 'Dunciad'
C
The Essay on Man'
The idea suggested by Bolingbroke
Imitations of Horace
Dies in 1744
His character and genius
•
Extracts from the Rape of the Lock'
'Essay on Man'
Moral Essays'
GOLDSMITH.
232
233
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235
235
236
237
238
238
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238
•
240
•
241
241
242
245
•
246
Extracts from The Traveller'
• Deserted Village'
247
248
CHAPTER XIV.
The Lake Poets
251
•
Birth of Wordsworth
He visits France during the Revolution
Publishes a volume of poems
Becomes acquainted with Coleridge
Publishes 'Lyrical Ballads' with Coleridge
Criticisms of Jeffrey
Is made distributor of stamps
252
253
253
253
•
254
•
255
•
257
CONTENTS.
xiii
Publishes The Excursion
The White Doe of Rylstone'
He becomes Poet Laureate
Dies in 1850
Extracts from 'The Excursion'
Extract from the
White Doe'
Sonnet on the Fall of Napoleon
Birth of Coleridge .
CHAPTER XV.
He makes acquaintance with Southey
He writes for newspapers
·
Writes a tragedy, 'Remorse '-and 'Christabel '
Dies in 1834
Geneviève.
Extracts from Christabel'
Birth of Southey
Publishes Joan of Arc'
Devotes himself wholly to the study of literature
Character of his poetry
He is appointed Poet Laureate
'Wat Tyler;' 'Roderick the Last of the Goths'
His prose works: the 'Life of Nelson'
Becomes imbecile and dies
Comparison of the three Lake Poets
Extracts from the Curse of Kehama'
Extracts from Roderick'
Birth of Scott
CHAPTER XVI.
His early fancy for the old ballads
Studies the law
Translates Burger's 'Leonora'
Marries, and is made Sheriff of Selkirkshire
Edits the ballads of the Scottish border
Publishes the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'
Edits Dryden's works
Publishes Marmion'
His vigour and delicacy
The Lady of the Lake'
His lesser poems
Edits Swift's works
The Bridal of Triermain
The Lord of the Isles
Publication of Waverley
•
PAGE
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276.
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xiv
CONTENTS.
Scott's freedom from envy
Character of Scott's poetry
Of his works
Bankruptcy of the Ballantynes
Great energy of Scott
'Woodstock'
The Life of Napoleon'
He is attacked by paralysis
Dies
Extracts from the 'Lay'
Lady of the Lake'
'Marmion'
CHAPTER XVII.
Birth of Lord Byron
He is educated at Harrow
He publishes English Bards and Scotch Reviewers'
The first cantos of Childe Harold'
Rapidity of his subsequent publications
His marriage
Leaves England and lives abroad
'Don Juan'
•
He espouses the cause of the Greeks
Dies at Missolonghi
Extracts from Childe Harold'
'The Giaour'
PAGE
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339
342
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343
346
347
The Bride of Abydos'
The Corsair'
Character of Shelley
Extract from 'Adonais'
CHAPTER XVIII.
Birth of Francis Bacon
353
The Cecils are jealous of him
354
Essex's friendship for him.
355
His ingratitude to Essex
356
Under James he becomes Attorney-General
356
He publishes his Essays
356
Archbishop Whately's edition of them
357
Publishes his treatise on the Advancement of Learning, and the
Novum Organum
357
Character of Bacon's philosophy
358
•
His corruption as Attorney-General and Chancellor
359
He dies in 1626
359
Specimens of his Essays
360
CONTENTS.
XV
CHAPTER XIX.
PAGE
Birth of Addison .
Makes acquaintance with Dryden and Congreve
Writes a poem on the peace of Ryswick
Publishes The Campaign'
364
364
365
366
Becomes a member of Parliament.
366
Becomes Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
366
The Tatler' and 'Spectator'
367
The wit and humour of Addison
368
He publishes Cato'
368
Quarrel between Pope and Addison
Addison marries Lady Warwick
Becomes Secretary of State
The Freeholder'
369
370
370
•
371
Dies
Johnson's eulogy of his style
372
372
Extracts from the 'Spectator'-the Vision of Mirza
373
CHAPTER XX.
Character of Goldsmith's Essays
Extracts from the Chinese Letters'
CHAPTER XXI.
379
379
Birth of Johnson
Marries, and becomes a schoolmaster in Lichfield
He settles in London
He publishes London'
And The Vanity of Human Wishes'
389
390
300
391
392
•
And his Dictionary
393
His quarrel with Lord Chesterfield
394
Publishes the 'Rambler'
395
And 'Rasselas '
395
The Literary Club
396
His acquaintance with Boswell
397
Character of Boswell's abilities and work.
397
Johnson's political pamphlets
399
His 'Lives of the Poets'
399
Dies
Extracts from the Rambler'
400
401
xvi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXII.
Birth of Charles Lamb. (Elia)
•
He publishes a volume of poems in conjunction with Coleridge
Character of his Essays
Extracts from them
Extract from Macaulay's Essay on Machiavelli
PACK
407
407
408
409
412
CHAPTER XXIII.
The general fondness for lyric poetry. David, Sappho, Horace
Sappho, Horace, Tyrtæus.
· 415
417
The ancient ballads: Chevy Chase'
418
The Nut-brown Maid'
427
CHAPTER XXIV.
Ben Jonson's 'Ode to the Moon'
431
Sir R. Lovelace to Althea .
432
Character of Edmund Waller
Odes of Waller
Extracts from Milton's 'Ode on the Nativity'
Dryden's Alexander's Feast'
Pope's 'Odo on St. Cecilia's Day'.
433
434
·
435
437
442
•
CHAPTER XXV.
Sketch of Gray's career
446
'The Bard'
447
The Elegy written in a Country Churchyard'
452
The miserable career of Collins
455
'Ode on the Passions'
456
CHAPTER XXVI.
Birth of Burns
Publishes a volume of poems in 1786
Becomes a farmer and an exciseman
He sympathises with the French Revolution
He dies in 1796
Character of his genius and poetry
Extracts from The Vision'
'Lament of Mary Queen of Scots
'Ode to a Mountain Daisy'
'Ae fond kiss'
459
460
•
461
•
461
462
462
463
•
467
469
470
CONTENTS.
xvii
PAGR
'Highland Mary'.
To Mary in Heaven'
•
471
472
•
'Scots wha hae'
473
'On the Seas and Far Away
474
Extracts from The Cotter's Saturday Night'
475
CHAPTER XXVII.
Birth of Moore
Publishes Little's Poems,' and duel with Jeffrey
He becomes acquainted with Byron
Publishes the Irish Melodies'
Character of his odes
Publishes Lalla Rookh'
He settles on the Continent
Publishes humorous poems
Writes prose a life of Sheridan
And a life of Byron
And a history of Ireland
Dies in 1852
'Melologue on National Music'
Extracts from Irish Melodies'
Extract from Lalla Rookh'
'Song of Miriam'.
Sketch of Campbell
•
CHAPTER XXVIII.
'Ye Mariners of England
'The Battle of Hohenlindon'
'The Last Man'
•
'Ode to the Rainbow'
Scott's Ode on the Massacre of Glencoe'
'Young Lochinvar'
Byron's 'Destruction of Sennacherib?
'The Isles of Greece'
477
478
•
479
479
480
480
480
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481
481
•
481
482
482
485
•
489
490
•
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493
494
495
497
499
•
500
502
533
CHAPTER XXIX.
Eloquence has always flourished in Britain
506
Halifax, Walpole, Bolingbroke, Pitt
507
Burke's are the earliest speeches which are fully reported
507
Birth of Burke
507
Imitates the style of Bolingbroke
508
•
Treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful'
Plans and edits the Annual Register'
508
·
508
xviii
CONTENTS.
Marries and seeks a consulship at Madrid
Becomes Secretary to Mr. G. Hamilton
Becomes Secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham
Is returned to Parliament.
He at once establishes a character for eloquence
•
He heads the opposition to the Duke of Grafton's measures
Character of his political pamphlets
He becomes Agent to the State of New York
Loses his seat for Bristol .
Burke holds office in Lord Rockingham's second ministry
His Bill for Economical Reform
Lord Rockingham dies
Burke joins the Coalition Ministry
The impeachment of Hastings
Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution'
His 'Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs'
His 'Thoughts on a Regicide Peace'
He dies in 1797
Character of his eloquence
Extracts from his speeches on American affairs
Extract from his Speech to the Bristol electors
PAGE
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519
520
526
CHAPTER XXX.
Birth of W. Pitt
His pre-eminent statesmanship
Enters at Lincoln's Inn
Is returned to Parliament for Appleby
528
•
528
529
530
He brings forward a motion for parliamentary reform
He becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer.
531
532
Receives and refuses the offer of the Treasury
533
The Coalition Ministry
534
Pitt becomes prime minister
535
His enlightened policy towards Ireland
535
•
The Union with Ireland
536
He dies in 1806
536
Character of his administration
536
Character of his eloquence
537
Extract from his speech on the slave trade
539
Speech on the Union
543
CHAPTER XXXI.
Birth of Grattan
546
Becomes a student of law in England
546
Applies himself to poetry.
547
CONTENTS.
xix
The Octennial (Irish) Bill
Becomes a member of the Irish House of Commons
The repeal of Poyning's Act
His quarrel with Flood
He follows Fox on the Regency question
•
Agrees with Burke on the French Revolution
Opposes the Union
Dies in 1820
Extracts from his speeches on Irish rights
Extract from his speech on the return of Napoleon from Elba
CHAPTER XXXII.
Literary splendour of the era of the Restoration
Birth of Jeremy Taylor
He attracts the notice of Laud
He joins the King at the beginning of the Rebellion
Becomes à schoolmaster in Wales
His theological works: his 'Life of Christ'
He is thrown into prison
He removes to Ireland
Is made Bishop of Down
Dies in 1667
Extract from his sermoms
Character of Dr. Chalmers
Extracts from his sermons
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Resemblances of the novelist to the poet
Universality of the novel. The Cyropædia
Cervantes, Le Sage, Madame de Staël
Birth of Defoe
He joins Monmouth's army
Is favoured by William III.
Writes political pamphlets
Is put in the pillory for his 'Shortest Way with Dissenters'
Is employed by the ministry of George I.
Publishes Robinson Crusoe
The Memoirs of a Cavalier,' and of Captain Carleton'
He dies in 1731
•
Extract from 'Robinson Crusoe'
'The Memoirs of a Cavalier'
PAGE
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579
. 579
XX
CONTENTS.
Birth of Swift
CHAPTER XXXIV.
He is introduced by Sir W. Temple
Becomes a clergyman
His essay on the contests of Athens and Rome
He becomes acquainted with the chief English scholars
The Tale of a Tub'
Is appointed Dean of St. Patrick's
He joins the Tories
Writes in the Examiner
Stella and Vanessa
He marries Stella
Death of Stella
The 'Drapier's Letters'
Gulliver's Travels.
The Voyage to the Houyhnhnms
He loses his faculties
He dies in 1745
Character of his genius and writings
Extracts from Gulliver's Travels'
CHAPTER XXXV.
Charactor of the novelists of the 18th century
Fielding, Smollett.
Sterne
Walter Scott's novels. Extracts from Rob Roy
Extracts from 'Ivanhoe'
'Waverley'
'The Antiquary'
Birth of Miss Edgeworth .
PAGE
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592
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596
597
598
599
604
606
608
•
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Extract from The Absentee'
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Birth and services of Captain Marryat
Character of his naval novels
612
•
613
Birth of J. F. Cooper
Extract from 'Peter Simple'
Character of his novels
Birth of Dickens
614
618
•
618
Extract from The Last of the Mohicans'
619
623
Publishes Sketches by Boz'
623
i
The Pickwick Papers'
623
His other works: Oliver Twist,' &c.
624
CONTENTS.
xxi
Dies in 1870
Character of his writings
Extract from 'Pickwick'
Birth of Thackeray
His travels on the Continent
Publishes Vanity Fair'
'Pendennis,' 'Esmond'
The Newcomes'
·
General character of Thackeray's genius and writings
He dies in 1863
Extracts from Vanity Fair'
'Pendennis'
'Esmond'
•
Birth of Chaucer
•
APPENDIX.
He is sent as ambassador to Genoa and to France
Becomes a member of Parliament.
Plot of the Canterbury Tales'
Character of Chaucer's writings
Extract from the 'Knight's Tale'.
Birth of Spenser
•
Goes to Ireland as Secretary to the Lord Deputy
Becomes a friend of Sir W. Raleigh
Publishes the Faerie Queene'
His own description of the poem
The Irish rebels burn his house
Character of his writings
•
Extract from the 'Faerio Queonu
PAGE
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LECTURES
ON
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
THERE is probably no subject whatever which does not
gain or lose in proportion as it is treated in a more or less
comprehensive manner. There is perhaps also none to
which this observation applics with greater truth and force
than the study of literature; because, while literature itself
is susceptible of many divisions and subdivisions, there is
scarcely a single class or description of pure literature which
may not, it might be said must not, derive illustration from
other classes; there is not one which does not lose some-
thing if studied exclusively by itself; not one which does
not derive additional embellishment and attraction by being
placed in juxtaposition with, varied by, it may even be con-
trasted with, some other. This observation seems equally
applicable to writings of every kind, whether they bo
grounded on facts, or whether they be the pure offspring of
the fancy and imagination. Even if we take history to be,
as it certainly deserves to be accounted, the most important
of all branches of literature, it is still too plain to need more
than a bare assertion that the work of the historian often
has fresh light thrown upon it not only by those kindred
artists the orator and the essayist, but by poets also; by
epic poets, still more by dramatists, and not unfrequently
by satirists. The historian also should have, if not actually
some portion of the poctic spirit, at least such an acquaint-
2
[CH. I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ance with the finest productions of the Muse as may serve
to animate himself, and to enable him to display in vigorous
or picturesque portraiture those striking periods and events
which the annals of every country occasionally present.
Since, without such variations from the ordinary sobriety
of the narrative, a history would be flat and uninteresting;
and uniform tediousness is even more intolerable than an
uniform appearance of labour. Poets again, and most es-
pecially those of the highest class, epic poets and tragedians,
usually presuppose in the reader an acquaintance with the
writings of the historian; not unfrequently with those also
of the labourer in the paths of science, as (to name a single
instance, which the slightest reference to the works of
Homer, Virgil and Milton, will abundantly exemplify) of the
astronomer. It may be added, that a familiarity with the
works of the best prose writers is as serviceable, as neccs-
sary, to form or at least to enrich the style of the poct, as a
knowledge of great poems is to the prose writers, a fact
which was singularly brought out by the acknowledgment
of no less a poet than Byron, who, being praised by an
eminent critic for his unequalled mastery of our language in
all its prodigal richness, which perhaps no other poet has
exhibited in an equal degree, attributed it to his early
familiarity with the sermons of Jeremy Taylor. The doc-
trine, therefore, of the connection between poets and prose
writers, and their mutual dependence on each other, may, I
think, be looked upon as sufficiently established; and may
indeed be summed up in the brief rule that he who would
attain the highest rank in any species of composition must
be acquainted with the most perfect specimens of every
kiad of literature. It will therefore be very useful to point
out first the various divisions into which literature in
general, and especially that of our own country, naturally
seems to fall, and then to endeavour to direct the atten-
tion of the youthful reader to those authors in each section
who have most nearly attained excellence.
For the most important admonition of all to be inculcated
on students at a time of life when their eagerness for know-
ledge is (I will not say unfortunately) in advance of their
judgment, is to avoid all that is of an inferior class, and to
CIL 1.]
3
INTRODUCTION.
fix their attention solely on the most perfect specimens of
cach. Those whose scheme of life and ample fortune enable
them to pass their time, if so disposed, in literary leisure,
may without injury, nay with a certain degree of profit, pass
downwards to second-rate writers, after having mastered the
best. But I am addressing myself to those, by far the
larger part of every society in every country, to whom lite-
rature is a relaxation, not an occupation. And for them
it is almost self-evident that, as they cannot read every-
thing, it is best to confine themselves to those authors and
to those works which most nearly approach perfection.
The excellent, the first-rate writers in each department, will
afford a sufficiently wide field of study; and every hour
which is devoted to the perusal of authors of inferior power
or merit must necessarily be so much time taken from the
study of what is better.
The only exception that, as it seems to me, should be
made to this rule, is in the case of history. The great, the
universal, the paramount interest of the subject, the impor
tant position which a knowledge of history must ever
occupy, as the groundwork of almost all other literary
knowledge, necessitates the exception. For every period of
history, even of our own country, is not equally well treated;
still less is the history of other nations: of France, of
Germany, of Italy, of Spain. And therefore, of historians,
the student must often be contented with what is only
comparatively good; the best attainable; remembering also
that the standard by which we determine the merit of his-
torical works differs from that which we apply to literature
of other kinds. We turn to the historians for information as
to facts, and therefore must not judge of them by their style
so much as by their fidelity and accuracy; but where we can
depend upon the soundness of their judgment, their patience
in investigating the truth, and their honesty and candour
in relating it, we must excuse them if they be somewhat
deficient in the graces of composition. We must be con-
tented to trust where we cannot admire; and, if we bo
called on to make our election between different qualities,
must prefer impartiality and truth to vividness and vigour,
when purchased at the expense of these more sterling qualities.
2
4
[CH, I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
But in other departments of literature we should make
no such allowances. We must study no oratory but that of
the most eloquent statesmen. A middling speaker is at
least as great a weariness to men, gods, and the readers of
the newspaper columns, as a mediocre poet. To bear us
out in passing unheeded the less gifted votaries of the
Muse we have the highest classical and critical authority.
Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa.
A middling essayist or a middling preacher is even
worse. He not only sends us to sleep, the most innocent
effect of his tediousness, but he runs the risk of leading us
to impute to his subject the deficiency of interest which of
right attaches only to his mode of treating it. With respect
to dramatists the case is stronger still. They, writing solely
for the sake of amusing and interesting the spectator, are
wholly destitute of excuse, and disentitled to toleration, if
they fail; as, if insipid, void of character, consistency and
vivacity, fail they must.
But sound and universally applicable as this rule is, I
am not unaware that there are those who may feel a wish
to controvert, if not the rule itself, at least the right of any
one person to direct another how he is to apply it, or to
dictate to him by what standard he is to measure excellence;
and in support of this objection they will quote the old pro-
verb that tastes vary, that the differences of opinion among
mankind are as numerous as men themselves. Such arguers
mistake the meaning of the adages on which they rely.
Certainly tastes differ; that they do so is well not only for
the comfort of individuals, but for the benefit of the world
at large. The difference of tastes is itself the parent of
excellence in all the various arts and sciences which em-
bellish human life. The advantages which all mankind
has derived from one man being led by his natural taste,
or by what we may call in other words the bent of his
genius, to the study of abstract sciences; from another pre-
ferring the more practical arts; from a third devoting him-
self to the more flowery though less fruitful field of literature,
is too obvious not to be generally admitted. On the same
principle it is well that different students prefer different
CH. I.]
5
INTRODUCTION.
classes of composition; one may place prose above poetry,
another may assign it by far the lower rank. Again, of
prose writers, one may give the palra to the philosophical
essayist, others to the historian, to the orator, to the no-
velist; or in poetry, this reader may dwell with admiration
on the grandeur of the epic poet; that one, with inclinations
of a lighter cast, may yawn over elaborate works in many
books, and may turn from such with eagerness to the airy
strains of the lyric minstrel. To this extent tastes may
justifiably, nay beneficially differ, the only condition which
a critic or a teacher has a right to exact being that in every
case what is so preferred shall be excellent of its kind. But
as to what excellence is in the various kinds of composition,
there no such license of differing is allowable or even in-
telligible; though, again, it must be remembered that the
qualities which confer excellence in one class of writing
are not in every case the same as those which entitle
another to high praise; as in nature, the beauty of an
animal differs from that of a flower; and, again, as the pro-
perties of different animals vary: as we look for strength
in the horse, for speed in the deer, for accuracy of scent in
one kind of hound, for keenness of vision in another, so do
we by no means require the same qualities in writers of
different classes, though some points of perfection are of
course common to all. That what are beauties in a poet
would often be objectionable in a prose writer is sufficiently
obvious; but we do not even require the same beauties in
all poets, nor in all prose writers. In an epic bard we look
chiefly for vigour and grandeur; in a didactic or moral
poet for correctness of sentiment and clearness of precept;
in a lyric minstrel we expect grace and tenderness. So,
again, the copious illustration, the fiery energy of the orator,
would be out of place in a history; the easy flow of narra-
tive, mingled with judicious reflection, which we chiefly
seek in the pages of the historian, would seem tame and
lifeless in a speech whose object is to produce an instant
effect on the feelings and passions. On the other hand,
there are some qualities which are indispensable to all;
some which all can display, and without which, though
caprice, fashion, or, perhaps oftener still, the absence for
6
[CH. 1.
ENGLISII LITERATURE.
the moment of any formidable rival, may invest a writer
with a temporary popularity, none can achieve a lasting
reputation. Such are a thorough understanding and an
accurate appreciation of the subject; harmony of the style
with the subject; mastery of language; richness and variety
of expression; a deep feeling for and correct judgment of
the beautiful and the good; fidelity to general character
alike in the description of animated or inanimate nature.
It is equally undeniable that, in every kind of composition,
pomposity, prolixity, irrelevance, inconsistency, homeliness,
obscurity, false metaphors, unnatural ornaments, are vices
of style carefully to be avoided by the writer, and equally
to be shunned by the reader, in spite of the perverted or
partial criticisms which would dignify bombast as loftiness,
or give to prosy baldness the undeserved honours of sim-
plicity. On these points there is, as I have said, an agree-
ment, so fixed by the general common sense of mankind,
that no dissent from it can be allowed. To use the com-
parison of Burke: 'What appears to be light to one eye
appears light to another; what seems sweet to one palate
is sweet to another; on the contrary, what is dark or bitter
to one man is dark or bitter to another;' and with a still
further unanimity, 'all men agree in the effect of these
qualities with regard to pleasure and pain; all concur in
calling sweetness and light pleasant, sourness, bitterness
and darkness unpleasant; and, if any one denied this, we
should pronounce his palate vitiated, his organs corrupted,
his whole judgment and himself absolutely deranged or mad.'
One more general remark it seems desirable to make, that
the criterion by which we estimate the genius of an author
differs from that by which we judge of the perfection of his
writings. In gauging the ability of the man, we must look
at his finest passages, his loftiest bursts of sublimity, his
tenderest pathos, his richest efforts of imaginative painting.
In rating his work we must have regard at least as much
to the just proportions of the whole, to the harmony of the
several parts, to the degree in which at times it sinks, ag
well as to the height to which it occasionally rises.
Writers may be classed in two ways: according to their
style and subject, or according to the periods at which they
CH. I.]
INTRODUCTION.
lived. In other words, we may divide them into writers of
prose and writers of poetry; and again we may subdivide
the first into historians, orators, essayists and novelists,
and the second into epic poets, dramatists, lyric poets, di-
dactic poets; or we may arrange them with reference to the
eras in which they lived, as the authors of the reign of Eliza-
beth, or of Anne, or of George III. It is well to keep both
classifications in mind, and to a certain extent to employ
both. And therefore I propose to divide the authors whose
works we are about to examine into seven classes: dramatists
in verse and prose; poets, whom again I shall subdivide
into two classes, so as to take lyric poetry separately
from that of other kinds; historians; essayists; orators,
both in the senate and in the pulpit; and novelists; while
the writers in each class I shall take in chronological order.
For students in general our literature may be taken as
commencing in the reign of Elizabeth; or, in other words,
young students should not be recommended to devote their
attention to any writers of an earlier date. It is true in-
deed that, though, for some centuries after the Conquest,
Latin was the language employed by all the votaries of learn-
ing in these islands, there were those who, before the close
of the fourteenth century, built up for themselves a high
reputation as composers of works in the language which
was beginning to be called English, a reputation which, in
one instance, has survived to the present day. I allude to
Geoffrey Chaucer, who, though a layman, attained a degree
of learning not surpassed among his contemporaries by
any monastic student, being aided by a genius of singular
richness and delicacy. Fertile in invention, acute in ob-
servation, he set his countrymen an example of felicity of
expression which, in all likelihood, could not have been
without its fruit in exciting successful imitation, had not, in
the first place, the minds of men been turned in another
direction by the troubles which shortly afterwards fell on
the land; and had not, secondly, the language itself been so
greatly altered in the latter part of the next century, as to
prevent his diction from being looked upon as a model.
Nor was Chaucer the only poet who in that age courted the
Muse in his own tongue. A Scotch minstrel, John Bar-
8
[CH. I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
bour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, wrote as nearly as possible
at the same time; and his poem on the exploits of the
Bruce contains passages of a noble and peculiarly classical
spirit.
We for our lyvys,
And for our childee and for our wyvys,
And for our fredome, and for our land
As strengeit into battle stand,¹
reads like a translation of Eschylus.'
But the study of works of this age belongs rather to the
antiquarian than to the modern scholar. The language, at
the end of the fourteenth century, when Chaucer wrote,
was in a state of transition, differing so greatly in inflection,
and even in grammar, from our present usage, that Hallam
speaks of it as 'an old obsolete English which went out of
use about the accession of Edward IV.' 2 And our business
is with modern English: that which we use at the present
day, and which in the last three centuries has undergone
but little alteration. Within that period all our greatest
writers have lived; and it would be but a waste of time to
go back from them, and to their exclusion, to the works of
others, which, however curious and interesting as indica-
tions of the gradual growth and progress of the language,
and however admirable as proofs of the power of genius
to surmount the greatest difficulties and hindrances (for
Chaucer and Barbour lived before the invention of printing,
and therefore knowledge had unrolled for them but few of
her stores), are nevertheless not examples of English as it
exists now. And we must keep in view what has been the
principal object which has influenced those who of late have
so strongly urged the addition of the study of English
literature to the courses formerly adopted at schools and
colleges. They have evidently hoped that, by acquiring a
correct knowledge of the structure and grammar of the
English language, and by devoting a fair portion of time
1 Compare Eschylus
Ω παίδες Ελληνῶν ἴτε,
ἐλευθεροῦτε πατρίδ᾽, ἐλευθεροῦτε δὲ
παῖδας, γυναῖκας, θεῶν τε πατρῴων ἕδη,
θήκας τε προγόνων' νῦν ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀγών.—Pers@ 403.
CH. I.]
9
INTRODUCTION.
and labour to the study of the works of its greatest
masters in their respective lines, students should them-
selves attain a facility and correctness in the use of that
language; should write with purity and elegance, it may
be letters, it may be essays, it may in future time be
sermons, or (where nature and enthusiasm lend their in-
spiration) it may be poetry. But, whatever may be the
species of composition which they select, it is clear that
their models must be sought for among those who have
written since our language was brought into its present
form; and therefore, however worthy he may be of the
attention of ripe scholars, I shall for the present pass
over Chaucer. And, though he flourished in the very reign
in which I have placed the commencement of modern Eng-
lish literature, yet, as a writer, Spenser resembles the
older bard in one point too closely to be separated from
him. Spenser's richness of imagination, delicacy of senti-
ment, and vivid brilliancy of description, would indeed
place him in the very front rank, if he had not himself, with
a deliberate perverseness of taste or, to say the least, a
wilful and wayward disdain of popularity, shut up his
writings from the ordinary reader by an adoption of what
even his own learned contemporary, Ben Jonson, calls
Chaucerisms, the old forms of the language, that is, which
had been used by Chaucer, but which had long become
obsolete, and which, except to the studious few, were already
unintelligible; indeed in another passage Jonson complains
that Spenser had not really understood the antique style
which he professed to imitate; but, in copying the ancients,
had written what was in fact no language at all.' The de-
sultory intricacy of the allegory which forms the plot of his
principal poem, the 'Fairy Queen,' is perhaps an equal draw-
back to its attaining any general favour. At all events the
two causes combined always have prevented, and always
will prevent, his works from being extensively studied;
and, though it is recorded of Gray that he made a practice
of reading over a portion of them whenever he desired to
attune his own genius to composition, still to minds of any
other frame they must in general be so useless as a model,
that I do not propose to include Spenser in the list of
*
10
[CH. I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
those writers of whom I design to present sketches and
specimens.¹
SHAKESPEARE.
A.D. 1564-1616.
IN any classification of English writers, Shakespeare, in
the division to which he belongs, must come first. But in
respect to him it is impossible to follow the plan which
in general it seems desirable to pursue with other authors,
of giving a short sketch of his personal history, since the
most careful research has failed to ascertain anything more
than the following bare outline of his career; and it must
be added that the authority for portions of that is so slight
that even of the circumstances which seem to be the best
ascertained some have been doubted, others positively
denied; though more perhaps because, to the zeal of his
admirers, they seem inconsistent with their enthusiastic
reverence for their idol, than because they have any more
trustworthy account to substitute.
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in
Warwickshire, on St. George's Day, 1564. He was the
eldest son of a tradesman of some importance in so small a
town; indeed, in some accounts, his father is described as
a merchant; and, at one time, was one of the municipal
magistrates, though, during his son's boyhood, he appears to
have fallen into difficulties, so that he was forced to resign
the office of alderman. And William himself, as he grew
up, got into trouble for poaching on the deer-park of Sir
Thomas Lucy, the great man of the district, and was, in
consequence, obliged to quit the neighbourhood, and to
remove to London, to escape prosecution. There, for a
time, he seems to have led a hard life. When he was only
eighteen he had married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a
neighbouring yeoman; and he was reduced, on first reaching
the metropolis, to support himself and his wife by working,
according to one tradition, as a call-boy, or prompter's ser-
vant, at one of the theatres; according to another story,
1 But biographical sketches of Chaucer and Spenser, with extracts
from their works, are added in an Appendix to Chapter III.
1564-1616.]
11
SHAKESPEARE.
by the still more precarious employment of holding the
horses of the gallants who rode down of an afternoon
to see the play. Whichever was his occupation, it seems
to have introduced him to the notice of the actors, through
the interest of some of whom he was made known to the
manager, and promoted to tread the stage himself. Here
he soon made two discoveries: one, that he was not highly
qualified to shine as a performer; the other, of far greater
importance, that he had a genius, such as the world has
produced no equal example of, for writing plays, which
others should perform under his instruction. As an author
he not only became instantly famous beyond all his con-
temporaries and predecessors, but he also earned a fortune
sufficient to enable him, after a few years, to become the
proprietor of one of the principal theatres, the Globe; and,
when he had barely reached middle age, to return to his
native town, and settle there in the enjoyment of a respect-
able competency. There, on his fifty-second birthday, he
died, leaving two daughters and a widow, who, however,
seems to have lost her hold on his affections, as we may judge
from his at first omitting all mention of her in his will,
and, when reminded of her claims upon him, bequeathing
her nothing beyond a legacy which was hardly of a com-
plimentary, much less of an affectionate character, his
'second best bed and furniture.' He had had one son, who
died in his boyhood. His daughters both married well,
and had children; but neither of them had any grand-
children; and, before the end of the century, the great
dramatist's family was extinct.
This is but little to be able to tell of him whom, with a
rare unanimity, all admit to be the chief glory of our
English literature. Yet it is all that we know. Attempts
have been made by some of his editors to frame what might
be called a sort of literary biography of him by arranging
his plays in the order of their composition or representa-
tion, but the ill-success of those who have made the attempt
is proved by the extent to which they differ. One tragedy,
Macbeth,' is indeed so proved by internal evidence to have
been written subsequently to the accession of the Scottish
king to the English throne, that all unite in fixing that
12
[CH. L
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
play to the year 1606. But as to his other works, except
that the Tempest,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'Othello' are
generally regarded as among the very latest, and the
dramas founded on Roman history as but little earlier, the
disagreement could hardly be wider. No aid is to be
obtained from the conduct of Shakespeare himself, since he
was either so indifferent to posthumous fame,¹ or so modest
in his own appreciation of his writings, that he gave him-
self no trouble about their publication; and, though a few
of them were published in his lifetime by the booksellers,
it seems to have been done without any concert with him,
and certainly without his bestowing any pains on their
revision and correction. So that of the history of his plays,
as well as of himself, we must be content to remain in com-
parative ignorance.
But if biographers have found little to say about Shake-
speare, on the other hand no writer has ever existed who
has furnished so inexhaustible a theme for critics. While,
without endorsing the biting sarcasm of a great writer of
the present day that, as a general rule, critics are men who
have tried their own hands at original composition only to
fail in it, we may fairly say that he has been far more
fortunate than usual in his judges, since those who in his
case have taken that office on themselves are for the most
part among the most brilliant and renowned ornaments of
our literary annals: Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Scott, Camp-
bell, and Hallam, have left names so universally esteemed
as to raise a strong presumption in favour of the correctness
of their judgment when they agree, and to command
respect even if in any points we may feel constrained to
differ from them. Four of them are among our most
exquisite poets; the other two are of the very highest esti-
mation for many of the qualities which give the greatest
weight to writings in prose. And all of them, poets as
¹ Coleridge (Biog. Lit. i. p. 33) quotes some of Shakespeare's sonnets,
to prove that he was not unconscious of his claims to immortal fame.
But the very sonnet he quotes, though it speaks of the 'virtue of his
pon' as able to embalm his friend, does also say-
'Your name from hence immortal fame shall havə,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die.'
1564--1516.]
13
SHAKESPEARE.
well as prose writers, agree in ascribing to Shakespeare a
genius equalled by no predecessor or successor; though, as
might be expected from the great diversity that exists
between the characters of the critics themselves, they
assign different, though not inconsistent, grounds for their
homage. Availing ourselves in some degree of the gui-
dance of them all, we may pronounce in the first place
that if, as I think must be confessed, Shakespeare had
but slight acquaintance with any language except his
own,' there yet never was any poet who could so well
dispense with adventitious aid; and that, in one point of
view, his ignorance of classical literature was even of
actual advantage to him, since he might otherwise have
been led to take the works of the great dramatists of
classical antiquity for models, and to fetter his genius by
an attempt to imitate others instead of drawing solely on
his own unassisted and unfettered genius. For, in entering
on the career of a dramatist, Shakespeare was launching
his barque on what he must, in a great degree, have looked
upon as an untried ocean. The very earliest compositions
in our language which can be called dramas had been
composed since the accession of Elizabeth; and, if Malone
be correct in believing that the first part of Henry VI. '
was written the year after the destruction of the Armada,
only a quarter of a century had elapsed since the very first
play, which was neither a Mystery nor a Morality, had
been exhibited on the public stage,2 when Shakespeare first
appeared on it as an author; and none of the works pro-
duced in this brief interval deserved to be remembered
after they had served their turn; or gave any indication
that England was about to vindicate to herself the pre-
¹ Johnson, in his preface to Shakespeare, points out that in the story
of Romeo and Juliet, he is observed to have followed the English trans-
lation wherever it deviates from the Italian original, and that the only
Latin play from which he has borrowed anything (the Menæchmi' of
Plautus) was also the only classical play which at that time existed in
an English translation; very curious coincidences, if, as has been con-
tended, he understood both Italian and Latin.
(
2 Gammer Gurton's Needle' was acted by the students of Christ's
College, Cambridge, in 1564; and Gordobuc, or Ferrex and Porrex,' by
the students of the Inner Temple, not above a year or two earlier.
14
[CH. I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
eminence in dramatic composition, a superiority over even
the grand Athenian literature, a faithful imitation of which
his French contemporaries confessed to be so far beyond
their power, that their highest aim was to copy the Ro-
mans,' as and because the Romans had copied the Greeks.
Yet, to the glory of having won this triumph for his
native land, Shakespeare has a claim which is hardly
contested by the critics of any nation but these same
French, still bowing in slavish obedience to the dictates of
Boileau, and recognising no other standard of excellence.
but the code into which he enlarged the brief rules or
principles which he imagined himself to have found in
Aristotle. Whether the great Athenian dramatists did
really regulate their practice of their art by the laws which
the logical Stagyrite deduced from their works or not, it is
quite certain that Shakespeare followed no laws but those
prescribed by his own genius, his own innate sense of pro-
priety, taking that word in the very widest sense for all
that was suitable to the work he had before him, in
whatever aspect it could be regarded; and recognised no
rules of composition which did not approve themselves to
his own untrammelled reason. It is to no pedantic ad-
herence to any fixed system that he owes his unrivalled
and increasing fame, but to qualities as far superior to any
technical knowledge or skill as nature is superior to art,
to his deep insight into the heart of man in whatever rank,
and under whatever circumstances he deals with him; to
his exact appreciation of every emotion or passion by which
man's feelings are agitated, or man's conduct is governed.
Indeed, it may be questioned whether this universality or
versatility of comprehension was not his greatest and most
distinctive attribute. It is a great triumph for the human
intellect to portray with all the vividness of reality the
horrors of insanity, the fierce audacity of guilt and some-
times of despair, the remorseful cruelty of jealousy, the
endurance and self-devotion of patriotism, the stern forti-
tude and fiery energy of warlike ambition, the unswerving
resolution of hatred and revenge: but our admiration is
1 Du Bellay, a French writer under Henry II., urges his countrymen
to copy the Romans, as the Romans had copied the Greeks.
1564-1616.]
15
SHAKESPEARE.
immeasurably increased if the mind which is capable of
successfully grappling with these grander topics can range
with equal power in another and an opposite direction; if it
can with equal fidelity set before us the ardour and anxieties
of love, the devotion of filial duty, the grace and delicacy
of female purity, the divine beauty of compassion, the
nobleness of resignation under calamity and disgrace; the
feeling is augmented still further if to the vigour exerted
in delineations of the one class, and to the tenderness dis-
played in those of the other, be added philosophy to
instruct, wit and humour to amuse; and if, beyond these
qualities, which are mainly the fruit of keen observation
and intelligence, an original and creative imagination at
times transports the poet within the boundaries of the
invisible world, and enables him to turn into shape' and
bring before the reader or spectator' the forms of things
unknown;' and if, lastly, this combination of mental eu-
dowments be set off by technical skill, by a mastery
of the resources of the language which should enable the
anthor to display and embellish them with all the felicity
of a rich and varied diction and musical versification, it
would be difficult to conceive what more could be required
to entitle him in whom these gifts might be found to the
glory of having attained as great perfection as the finite
faculties of man can arrive at. Yet it is not too much to
say that they all do meet in Shakespeare, and that even
this long enumeration does not exhaust the catalogue of his
claims on our attention and admiration: nay, perhaps, in
the eyes of those who regard chiefly the artistic skill of the
dramatist, it does not include the highest of all, the union
of fearless boldness and unerring correctness displayed in
his delineation of character. His vehemence may at times
swell into bombast, his wit may not unfrequently degenc-
rate into that paltry play upon words which was the fashion
of his day; or, still worse, may be tainted with coarseness
and indecency; but no Zoilus has ever discovered a flaw
in the consummate art with which he sets before us not
only each separate character, but all the chief characters in
each play, so combining and contrasting them that they
serve to bring out each other's peculiarities. So great was
1.6
[Cu. I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his capacity for transporting himself into every situation, and
identifying himself with every disposition, that, in whatever
conjuncture any of his personages are placed, they in-
variably conduct themselves in it according to the general
laws of nature; they never seem to do or say anything
merely on account of the audience; and yet the poet, by
their conduct and language, communicates to the spectator
or the reader the faculty of looking, as it were, into the
most secret recesses of their minds, so that Goethe has
ingeniously compared his characters to watches in crystal
cases, which not only tell the time correctly, but, at the
same time, enable us to perceive the inward springs by
which this end is accomplished.
I have spoken of his extraordinary versatility; and it
must always be remembered that he is the first writer in
any language who ever attempted to shine both in tragedy
and comedy. Plato, indeed, represents Socrates as con-
tending that every tragic poet of the first class must have
within him the qualities requisite to enable him to excel in
comedy also; because, as he lays it down, opposites can
only be understood by and through each other; and, con-
sequently, we can only feel what is grand and serious if
we know also what is mirth-provoking and laughable. He
was probably thinking of the satyric drama of his country-
man; but that corresponded to the modern burlesques
rather than to any other kind of composition. It had cer-
tainly no claim to the dignified name of comedy; and no
dramatist of ancient days apparently regarded the assertion,
even though supported by two such philosophers, as any-
thing better than an ingenious paradox. Certainly, none
ever tried to exemplify its truth by his own practice. That,
as well as other triumphs, was reserved for the poet who
could draw Lear as well as Falstaff; Benedick or Malvolio,
as truthfully as Hamlet or Macbeth.
His example was followed by many of our own drama-
tists in the course of the next century; not one of whom,
however, can be said to have succeeded in both; and by
the great French tragedian, Racine, who, in his 'Plaideurs,'
imitated the Wasps' of Aristophanes, but who, apparently,
was not very well pleased with his own performance, since
he never repeated the experiment. But Shakespeare's
6
1564-1616.]
17
SHAKESPEARE.
triumph in both has been so complete that his warmest
panegyrists have doubted which style was the most suited
to his natural genius. It is singular that he abstains from
one source of attraction on which comic writers in general
mainly rely: the portrayal of the manners of his own age
and country, which, as being such, are of necessity the
most easily apprehended by, and most keenly appreciated
by the audience. For the scene of his comedies is mostly
laid in Italy; and, when he introduces a comic English
character on the stage, he places him in an earlier genera-
tion of very different habits. Yet he has surmounted this
drawback so completely that we never perceive it to be one:
or, it may be more correct to say, so universal, so natural,
so thoroughly human, was his genius, that the situations in
which he places the personages in his comedies are as appro-
priate to the time and place of their first representation as
to the era or region in which the scene is laid, and to the
present day as to that of their original composition. For
He was not of an age, but of all time.
That there are occasional blemishes in his works it
would be vain to deny. Indeed it is an injudicious eulogy
that represents any man, or work of man, as absolutely
faultless; and does not content itself with showing the
defects to be so far outnumbered and outweighed by the
excellences as not to deserve to be taken into serious
account. And with such a feeling we may certainly regard
and speak of the flaws in Shakespeare; too few and too
insignificant to be put into the scale for a moment against
the variety and greatness of the beauties which have been
enumerated. We may agree with Schlegel that it is a not
impermissible license in a poet to transfer lions and deadly
serpents, the accredited horrors of all forests, to the Ar-
dennes, though it certainly had been free from such mon-
sters for ages before the date of 'As You Like It;' but
when he represents Hamlet as having studied at Witten-
berg, where no university was founded till Hamlet had
been centuries in the grave; when he makes Richard III.
quote Machiavelli, though the subtle author of 'Il Prin-
cipe' was a boy at school when the Great Hunchback fell
1-8
[CH. I.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
at Bosworth; and when he makes ships land their crews in
Bohemia; we can certainly not conclude with the acute but
enthusiastic German that Shakespeare committed all these
blunders, knowing them to be such, of set purpose and
deliberately;' but we set them down to the deficiencies of
his early education, and while doing so admit at the same
time that they in no degree affect the real merits of the
pieces in which they occur; and that, if they are spots in
the sun, they yet cause no visible diminution of his lustre.
The obscurity of some of his expressions and sentences is a
far greater blemish, which cannot always be explained as
arising from errors of the copyist or the printer. Probably
this also must be imputed to the same cause as the slips in
geography and chronology, and may also be passed over on
the same ground, since it fortunately happens that the
sentences which can neither be understood as they stand,
nor be corrected with any probability, occur for the most
part in comparatively unimportant scenes, and in scarcely
one instance spoil the effect of his grand speeches or inte
resting situations.
1564-1616.]
19
SHAKESPEARE.
CHAPTER II.
SHAKESPEARE—continued.
A.D. 1564-1616.
Ir is absolutely impossible, by isolated quotations, to give
the faintest idea of the pre-eminent merit of Shakespeare.
It is difficult to do so with writers of other classes, so that
Johnson has compared the critic who attempts such a task
to the man mentioned by the old Greek anecdote-monger,
who, being desirous to sell his house, pulled a brick out of
the wall, and took it into the market-place. And it must
be harder so to deal with a dramatist than with any other
writer, because there is no other whose work so impera-
tively requires to be judged as a whole. The suitableness
of any speech to the personage in whose mouth it is put
cannot be fairly estimated unless we take into our view all
the other occurrences in the play which throw a light on
the speaker's character. The propriety of any situation,
the humour of any complication, still more requires that
we should have all the surrounding circumstances in view,
that we may be able adequately and fairly to appreciate
them. It must therefore be recollected that to present
detached scenes, or parts of scenes, as specimens of his
genius and art, is to exhibit Shakespeare at a great disad-
vantage; but it may be hoped that the passages so pre-
sented will prove sufficiently attractive to induce a study of
his different plays in their entirety.
We will begin with the first of that series of dramas on
the history of England, to which so many readers in former
generations were chiefly indebted for their notions of many
of the most important events and characters in our annals.
I have mentioned the truthful vigour with which the
patriot and the warrior speak in his pages. The Bastard
Faulconbridge in King John' is both patriot and warrior.
2
20
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And it is in a fine strain of manly eloquence that he tries
to inspire his base sovereign with courage, when John is
trembling at the report that—
London hath received
Like a kind host the Dauphin and his powers;
and that the English nobles
are gone
To offer service to the enemy.
I should remark, in passing, that in this play, as after-
wards (in a lesser degree) in 'Henry IV.,' the poet does
injustice to one of the great men of our early history. The
Hubert who in this scene is called 'a villain,' and, in a
former act,
A fellow by the hand of nature marked,
Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame,
so that it was his 'abhorred aspect' that had tempted John
to his foulest actions, was in reality the great justiciary
Hubert de Burgh, to whom John's son was as deeply in-
debted as to any baron in the land for the expulsion of the
French and the peaceful enjoyment of his kingdom.
The desertion of the nobles had been caused by their dis-
covery of the death of Arthur, whom Hubert, in a previous
scene of great power, had assured John that he had forborne
to destroy, though the king had commanded his murder.
K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live.
Bast. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviour from the great
Grow great by your example; and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away; and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field :
Show boldness, and aspiring confidence;
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble there ?
O, let it not be said!—Forage, and run
1564-1616.]
21
SHAKESPEARE.
To meet displeasure further from the doors;
And grapple with him, ere he come so nigh.
K. John. The Legate of the Pope hath been with me,
And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promised to dismiss the powers
Led by the Dauphin.
Bast. O inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,
To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd silken wanton, brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.
In a subsequent play, where the speaker, a brave man,
speaks to brave men, his tone is even more noble. Every-
one recollects the circumstances that preceded the battle of
Agincourt; how Henry V. had invaded France with an
army wholly disproportioned to such an enterprise; and
how at last, on October 24, the eve of St. Crispin's day, he
found himself confronted by a host of which the cavalry
alone outnumbered his whole force. He himself would
willingly have avoided a conflict in which success appeared
almost hopeless, and volunteered proposals of peace, but
the French princes were too confident of triumph to grant
him such as he deemed consistent with his honour. He
was compelled, therefore, to prepare to risk all on the
chance of a battle; and, as great men always feel, his cou-
rage and the resources of his mind rose with the demands
made upon them. It was not strange, however, that
among his officers some who had less responsibility should
have a less buoyant spirit; nor, indeed, that there should
not be a general wish that some of their comrades who
were still in England were now standing by their side ; and
Shakespeare accordingly gives us the expression of such a
wish by one who was no faint-hearted warrior, and the
king's reproof of it.
(Henry V. Act iv. Sc. iii.)
Westmoreland. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England,
That do no work to-day!
"
22
[CH. IL
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
K. Henry. What's he, that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin :
If we were marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more,
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not, if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires :
But, if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most oflending soul alive.
No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he, which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company,
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian :
He, that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He, that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
And say To-morrow is saint Crispian :
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, these wounds I had on Crispian's day.
Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,—
Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he, to-day, that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
1564--1616.]
23
SHAKESPEARE.
This day shall gentle his condition :
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed, they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks,
That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day.
It may be unnecessary to point out that 'to gentle his
condition' means to raise him to the rank of gentleman;
but it is worth noticing how, while giving expression to
the resolution of his own unconquerable spirit, the king
mingles with it the motives most powerful to animate his
followers; the prospect of immortal fame, contrasted with
the shame of him who, fearing to die in his company, would
take money for his passage home and desert his comrades;
and not only glory for those already noble and illustrious,
but advancement and honour for those who as yet are but
of lowly rank. We have seen the lifelike utterances of
courage which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of heroes.
We may contrast with them the expressions of despair
extorted from one whose fault was not so much timidity
as levity and irresolution; and who now, feeling his sceptre
falling from his grasp, and his dignity if not his life menaced
by a kinsman at once bold, perfidious, and unscrupulous,
might well feel almost unmanned and hopeless. Intelli-
gence has reached him of the progress of Bolingbroke,
and of the sad fate of some of his own adherents who had
fallen into his hands, and been executed as having given
their sovereign pernicious advice; and after such a disaster
a weak man may well see no comfort.
(Richard II. Act iii. Sc. ii.)
Aumerle. Where is the duke my father, with his power?
K. Richard. No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so,-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own, but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,
24
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:-
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd!
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill'd ;
All murder'd :-For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits,
Scothing his state; and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while;
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends:-Subjècted thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
Of wit and humour Shakespeare has given us an infinite
variety. We have the wit of high-breeding, or what was
then accounted such, in Benedick and Beatrice, whose con-
versation is more lively raillery than very sparkling
brilliancy of idea. And as a contrast to it we have the
jovial, boisterous, ever ready recklessness, of Falstaff. We
have the more deliberate wit of jesters by profession, such
as Touchstone, the nameless fools in ‘Lear' and 'Twelfth
Night;' and the unconscious humour of ignorant boors, such
as Bottom or Dogberry; while in theatrical effect, perhaps,
no contest of repartee or playfulness of set description
surpasses the scenes in which bragging cowardice is brought
to shame, as Pistol by Fluellen; or vanity like Malvolio's,
held up as a jest even to men who are not much wiser than
himself. We will first take Benedick and Beatrice, the hero
and heroine of 'Much Ado about Nothing;' both the gentle-
man and the lady are of similar tempers, professed enemies
to love, while in reality each cherishes a secret liking for
1564-1616.]
25
SHAKESPEARE,
the other; and each has railed so much about matrimony
as to be ashamed to own or to show it.
Beatrice is the niece of Leonato, Governor of Messina,
and her first meeting with Benedick in the play is where
he comes in the train of Don Pedro, the Prince of Aragon,
to pay his respects to her uncle; her cousin Hero, Leonato's
daughter, is likewise present, and Benedick cannot forbear
addressing to his prince some eulogistic remarks on her
beauty, on which Beatrice, who apparently has sufficient
fancy for him to be somewhat jealous, breaks in.
(Act i. Sc. i.)
Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick;
nobody marks you.
Bene. What, my dear lady Disdain! are you yet living ?
Beat. Is it possible disdain should die, while she hath such
meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must
convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.
Bene. Then is courtesy a turn-coat. But it is certain I am
loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find
in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly, I love none.
Beat. A dear happiness to women: they would else have been
troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold
blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog
bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.
Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some
gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.
Beat. Scratching could not make it worse were it such a face
as yours were.
Bene. Well you are a rare parrot-teacher.
Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and
so good a continuer: but keep your way o' God's name: I bave
done.
Beat. You always end with a jade's trick—I know you of old.
A jade is an animal easily tired. In a subsequent scene
we have a soliloquy of Benedick in denunciation of love.
Claudio, his bosom friend, is in love with Hero; but Bene-
dick has no belief that the woman exists on earth who can
induce him to commit himself in like manner.
Bene. Boy.
Boy. Signor.
(Act ii. Se. iii.)
C
26
[CH. IL
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Bene. In my chamber window lies a book; bring it hither to
me in the orchard.
Boy. I am here already, sir.
Bene. I know that; but I would have thee hence and here
again. I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love,
will, after he has laughed at such shallow follies in others, become
the argument of his own scorn by falling in love. And such a
man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with
him but the drum and fife, and now had he rather hear the tabor
and the pipe; I have known when he would have walked ten
mile a-foot to see a good armour, and now will he lie ten nights
awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to
speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier;
and now he is turned orthographer: his words are a very fantastical
banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted, and
sce with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be
sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my
oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make
me such a fool. One woman is fair; yet I am well: another is
wise; yet I am well: another virtuous; yet I am well: but till
all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.
Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or
I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or
come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse,
an excellent musician, and her hair shall be whatever colour it
please God. Ha! the prince and monsieur Love! I will hide me
in the arbour.
He does not, however, hide himself as effectually as he
imagines. Monsieur Love, that is, Claudio, sees him, and
gives a hint of his position to Don Pedro, who, knowing
that Benedick is within hearing, leads Leonato to talk of
his niece's real love for Benedick, in spite of her 'in all
outward behaviours and seeming ever to abhor him.' 'She
swears she will never make known her affections to him.'
Claudio adds that she takes on so that Hero is sometimes
afraid she will do herself a desperate outrage,' and Hero
says, 'she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere
she make her love known.' Leonato's speech was no trick,
though Pedro's leading him on to make it, and the obser-
vations with which Claudio corroborates it, are; and Bene-
dick, hearing the tale, is softened.
1564-1616.]
27
SHAKESPEARE.
BENEDICK advances from the arbour.
Bene. This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne.
They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the
lady; it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!
why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say,
I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her;
they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection.
-I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud. Happy
are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to
mending. They say the lady is fair: 'tis a truth I can bear them
witness and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but
for loving me: By my troth, it is no addition to her wit; nor no
great argument for her folly, for I will be horribly in love with
her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit
broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage.
But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in
his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and
sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from
the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live
till I were marrried. Here comes Beatrice: by this day, she's a
fair lady; I do spy some marks of love in her.
Enter BEATRICE.
Beat. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.
Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you take
pains to thank me; if it had been painful I would not have come.
Bene. You take pleasure in the message ?
Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point
and choke a daw withal :-You have no stomach, Signor;
fare you
well.
[Exit.
Bene. Ha! Against my will I am sent to bid you come to
dinner-there's a double meaning in that. I took no more pains
for those thanks, than you took pains to thank me-that's as much
as to say, any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks :-If
I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am
a Jew. I will go get her picture.
From these dissembling lovers we may fitly proceed to
those who did not disguise their affections. Romeo and
Juliet, the son and daughter of two unfriendly families in
Verona, who nevertheless have found to make such ac-
quaintance as has proved sufficient to inspire them with
3
28
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ardent mutual love. Romeo, like a faithful wooer, ventures
into her father's garden by night to speak with her at her
window; and poetry has never clothed the aspirations of
true love with more exquisite imagery than he addresses
to his mistress, nor is the lady insensible to his eloquent
passion.
(Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. ii.)
Enter ROMEO.
Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.
[Juliet appears above, at a window.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!-
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she :
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.—
It is my lady; O, it is my love:
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing: What of that ?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.—
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Juliet. Ah me!
Rom. She speaks:
O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white upturned wond'ring eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
1564-1616.]
29
SHAKESPEARE.
Juliet. Thou know'st, the mask of night is on my face;
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek,
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment!
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say-Ay;
And I will take thy word: yet, if thou swear'st,
Thou may'st prove false ; at lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs. O, gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully,
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou may'st think my haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,
My true love's passion: therefore pardon me;
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.
But woman is not always uncertain, coy, and hard to
please like Beatrice, nor ardent and passionate like Juliet.
The affection of a mother is deeper than that of any maiden,
however beloved and loving; her distress, if the treasure
on which her heart is set, her child, be reft from her, more
painful and more touching than even the despair which
leads such a maiden to immolate herself on the dead body
of him whose she had hoped to be in life, but who finds
that she can only be united to him by death. And the
mother's love and agony are depicted with painful lifelike-
ness in the lamentation of Constance for her son Arthur,
who, she doubts not, has either been put to death by his
uncle, John of England, or is in his power so completely
that no hope can be entertained of his being allowed to live.
(King John, Act iii. Sc. iv.)
King Philip. Bind up your hairs.
Constance. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it ?
I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud,
O that these hands could so redeem my son,
As they have given these hairs their liberty!
30
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
But now I envy at their liberty,
And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prisoner.—
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As thin and meagre as an ague's fit;
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven,
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
Pundulph. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
Constance. He talks to me, that never had a son.
'Too heinous a respect of' grief seems to mean, to cherish
grief to such excess as to be hardly excusable.
Pandulph, as a Roman ecclesiastic, was forbidden to marry
and become a father, and therefore could not possibly sym-
pathise with a bereaved mother. There is no more subtle
touch of nature in all Constance's lamentation; none but
those who have been in her position are entitled even to
judge of her grief; and when Philip in some degree endorses
Pandulph's reproof, the simile with which she replies to
the king, endowing her very sorrow with the personality of
her child, is an exquisite specimen of the union of poetry
with the deepest feeling.
K. Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child.
Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief.
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.--
1 will not keep this form upon my head,
[Tearing off her head-dress.
1564-1616.]
31
SHAKESPEARE.
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, ny all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's care!
We have seen Benedick's wit, such as we may be sure
was fashionable in the days of Elizabeth, though it is some-
what too unceremonious, too wanting in respect for the sex
to be quite in keeping with the chivalrous feelings that
ought to animate a high-bred noble. But the scenes in
which Falstaff is brought on the stage are more widely
celebrated as specimens of wit than probably any passages
in any play that ever was written. It is curious why
Shakespeare should have chosen for his dissolute old brag-
gart the name of one who, so far from deserving such a
character, was in fact one of the most gallant knights who
upheld the credit of the English arms in France during the
infancy of Henry VI., for the real Falstaff was the com-
mander who defeated the very bravest of the French knights,
the celebrated Dunois, in the battle of Herrings. And in the
way of doing justice, at the same time, to one of our most
brilliant national heroes, I may point out that the irregu-
larity and license of Henry's own conduct are unduly exag-
gerated by the poet. Even in 'Richard II.' (Act v. Sc. ii.)
Shakespeare represents Bolingbroke as grieving over 'his
unthrifty son' frequenting the taverns' with 'his unre-
strained loose companions, beating the watch and robbing
the passengers,' though he was then a boy of but eleven
years old. And though the general tradition of his youthful
excesses cannot but have had some foundation, it is clear
that he was actually employed in the command of his father's
army during a great part of the time that he is represented
as rioting in London. But we must not blame too severely
an exaggeration for which we are indebted to some of the
richest comedy which any language can boast. As the
prince is portrayed to us in the play of 'Henry IV.,' he is
the head of a party of boon companions, of which Falstaff is
the chief; of the others, Bardolph and Gadshill are copies of
the worst part of Falstaff's character, drunken and cowardly;
Poins is more like the Prince himself, a roisterer, but frank
and fearless, with a just scorn of the braggart humour of his
6
32
¿CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
>
mates. And he is introduced proposing to the whole party
a robbery of some pilgrims about to go 'to Canterbury with
rich offerings for the shrine of Thomas-à-Beckett; his
secret plan being, as he subsequently explains to the prince,
that the prince and he shall fail in keeping their appoint-
ment with the rest; and when the others have accomplished
the robbery, the prince and he shall set upon them and
carry off the booty. He has provided 'visors and cases of
buckram;' and in reply to a question whether the four 'will
not be too hard for them,' he answers:-
(First Part of King Henry IV. Act i. Sc. ii.)
Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred
cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fights longer
than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest
will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell
us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with;
what words, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the
reproof of this lies the jest.
The plot succeeds exactly as Poins has designed it, and
its development is related in the following scene. The
Prince and Poins are sitting at supper at their favourite
Boar's-head, Eastcheap, when Falstaff and the rest come in.
(Act ii. Sc. iv.)
Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?
Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too!
Marry, and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy.-Ere I lead this
life long, I'll sew netherstocks, and mend them, and foot them too.
A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there
no virtue extant?
[He drinks.
P. Henry. Did'st thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter?
pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the son! If
thou did'st, then behold that compound.
Falstaff. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too: There is
nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: Yet a coward
is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it, a villainous coward.—
Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good
manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a
shotten herring. There live not three good men unhang'd in
England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God help the
while! A bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing
psalms or anything: a plague of all cowards, I say still.
1564-1616.]
33
SHAKESPEARE.
P. Henry. How now, woolsack ? what mutter you?
Falstaff. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy king-
dom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee
like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more.
You prince of Wales !
P. Henry. Why, you great round man! what's the matter?
Falstaff. Are you not a coward? answer me to that; and
Poins there?
Poins. 'Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I'll stab
thee.
Falstaff. I call thee coward! I'll see thee damned ere I call
thee coward: but I would give a thousand pound I could run as
fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you
care not who sees your back: call you that backing of your
friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will
face me. Give me a cup of sack:—I am a rogue if I drunk to-day.
P. Henry. O villain thy lips are scarce wiped since thou
drunk'st last.
Falstaff. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, still
say I.
[IIe drinks
P. Henry. What's the matter?
Falstaff. What's the matter? there be four of us here have
ta'en a thousand pound this morning.
P. Henry. Where is it, Jack? where is it?
Falstaff. Where is it? taken from us it is: a hundred upon
poor four of us.
P. Henry. What, a hundred, man?
Falstaff. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a
dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle.
I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four through the
hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked
like a hand-saw, ecce signum. I never dealt better since I was a
man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards!-Let them
speak: if they speak more or less than truth they are villains, and
the sons of darkness.
P. Henry. Speak, sirs; how was it?
Gadshill. We four set upon some dozen,-
Falstaff. Sixteen, at least, my lord.
Gadshill. And bound them.
Peto. No, no, they were not bound.
Falstaff. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them;
or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.
Gadshill. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set
upon us,-
3
34
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Falstaff. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.
P. Henry. What, fought ye with them all?
Falstaff. All! I know not what ye call all; but if I fought
not with fifty of them I am a bunch of radish: if there were not
two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-
legged creature.
Poins. Pray God you have not murdered some of them.
Falstaff. Nay, that's past praying for: for I have peppered two
of them: two, I am sure, I have paid: two rogues in buckram
suits. I tell thee what, Hal,—if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face,
call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward;-here I lay, and thus
I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,-
P. Henry. What, four? thou said'st but two, even now.
Falstaff. Four, Hal; I told thee four.
Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.
Falstaff. These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me.
1 made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my
target, thus.
P. Henry. Seven? why there were but four, even now.
Falstaff. In buckram.
Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.
Falstaff. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
P. Henry. Prythee, let him alone; we shall have more anon.
Falstaff. Dost thou hear me, Hal?
P. Henry. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
Falstaff. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in
buckram, that I told thee of,-
P. Henry. So, two more already.
Falstaff. Their points being broken,-
Poins. Down fell their hose.
Falstaff. Began to give me ground: but I followed me close,
came in foot and hand; and with a thought seven of the eleven I
paid.
P. Henry. O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of
two.
Falstaff. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten
knaves in Kendal Green came at my back, and let drive at me ;-
for it was so dark, Hal, that thou could'st not see thy hand.
P. Henry. These lies are like the father that begets them;
gross as a mountain, open, palpable.
Falstaff. What, art thou mad f art thou mad? is not the truth
the truth?
P. Henry. Why, how could'st thou know these men in Kendal
Green, when it was so dark thou could'st not see thy hand? Come,
tell us your reason; what sayest thou to this?
1564-1616.]
34
SHAKESPEARE.
Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
Falstaff. What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strap-
pado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on com-
pulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as
plenty as blackberries I would give no man a reason upon compul-
sion, I.
P. Henry. I'll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine
coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of
flesh;-
Falstaff. Away, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's
tongue, you stock-fish,-O, for breath to utter what is like thee!
-you tailor's yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing
tuck;-
P. Henry. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again: and
when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak
but this.
Poins. Mark, Jack.
P. Henry. We two saw you four set on four; you bound them,
and were masters of their wealth.-Mark now, how plain a tale
shall put you down. Then did we two set on you four: and, with
a word, out-faced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can
show it you here in the house :-and Falstaff, you carried your
guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for
mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What
a slave art thou to hack thy sword as thou hast done; and then
say, it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-
hole, canst thou now find out, to hide thee from this open and
apparent shame ?
Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack: What trick hast thou now?
Falstaff. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye.
Why, hear ye, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir appa-
rent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest
I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware instinct; the lion will
not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a
coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee,
during my life; I, for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince.
But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.-Hostess,
clap to the doors; watch to-night, pray to-morrow.-Gallants,
lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to
you! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore ?
P. Henry. Content;-and the argument shall be, thy running
away.
Falstaff. Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.
In the last scene of the same play, he, Falstaff, is again
C
36
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
introduced on a different field of action at the battle of
Shrewsbury, but still preserving the same character of
willingness to avoid danger and willingness to obtain
credit as a forward encounterer of it. Yet when the battle
is on the point of commencing, he cannot altogether stifle
his alarms. He would it were bed-time and all well.'
The prince reminds him that he owes God a death,' and
this gives occasion for a soliloquy on honour, which I quote
the more because we shall hereafter have an opportunity of
comparing with it another description of honour drawn by
the wittiest of our modern dramatists.
(Act v. Sc. i.)
Falstaff. 'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before
his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on
me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how
if honour prick me off when I come on ? how then? Can honour
set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of
a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No.
What is honour? A word. What is in that word, honour?
What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning!—Who hath it?
He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he
hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But
will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will
not suffer it:—therefore, I'll none of it:-Honour is a mere
scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.
But it would not be fair to Shakespeare's higher attri-
butes that the last impression of him be conveyed to your
minds by Falstaff's buffooneries. We have seen Richard
fall with despairing weakness. We will close our extracts
with the contemplation of the dignified resignation of a
greater man.
(Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. ii.)
Wolsey. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me
Out of thy honest truth to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And,-when I am forgotten, as I shall be;
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of,—say, I taught thee,
Say, Wolsey,--that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour;
1564-1616.]
37
SHAKESPEARE.
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee:
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;
And,-Prythee, lead me in:
There take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe,
And my integrity to heaven, is all
I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
In this beautiful passage we shall not be doing full justice
to Shakespeare if we omit to notice not merely the beauty
of the sentiments, wearing nothing but devotion, patriotism
and sincerity, here put in Wolsey's mouth, but their con-
sistency with his real feelings of repentance, prompted, it
may be, by the change in his fortunes. But that that
penitence was real is proved by the fact that the last lines
in his speech are but a poetical rendering of his real words.
'If I had served God as diligently as I have done the
king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs,
howbeit this is my just reward for my worldly diligence
and pains to do him service, not regarding my godly duty.'
An almost similar incident is related of the great Colbert:
When he was on his death-bed Louis wrote him a letter,
but its contents are not known. Dreading that it might
contain fresh reproaches, the heart-sick old man refused
to open it, exclaiming to his attendants, in language which
he might almost seem to have borrowed from our own
Wolsey, 'If I had but served my God as faithfully as I
¹ Sharon Turner, Modern History of England, ii. 205, quoting Cave.
1
38
[CH. II.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
have served this man, I might long since have worked
out my salvation, but now what awaits me?'1
There is a remarkable resemblance, too, to the sentiment
here expressed, in Sadi's 'Gulistan,' translated by Ross,
p. 171, Apologue 29.—‘One of the king's ministers went to
Züannün (Jonah), the Egyptian, and asked his blessing,
saying, "Day and night I am occupied in the service of my
prince, hoping for his favour and dreading his displeasure."
Züannun wept and answered, "Had I feared the Most High
God as you have feared the king, I should have been among
the number of the elect. Were there not the hope of re-
ward and punishment hereafter, the foot of the dawēsh had
stept into the celestial sphere. Had the vizier stood in the
same awe of God that he did of the king, he might have
been an angel of heaven. ”
History of France under the Bourbons, ii. 290.
1575-1637.]
39
BEN JONSON.
•
CHAPTER III.
BEN JONSON.
A.D. 1575-1637.
THE genius of Shakspeare throws all the other dramatists
of his own and the succeeding age so completely into the
shade, that, on the principle which I laid down as that which
should guide us in these lectures, of speaking of no authors
but those of absolutely first-rate excellence, I might per-
haps be justified in passing them over altogether; and shall
only speak of one of those who followed in what may in
some sense be called the same school of the drama. I shall
pass over Massinger, though he has left us one excellent
acting-play, the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts;' Beaumont
and Fletcher, who, with very different tastes, and talents
of a very dissimilar caste, entered into a strange sort of
partnership to write plays together, though there is pro-
bably no sort of composition which so imperatively requires
the impress of a single mind as a drama; Dryden, who has
left us such a number of specimens both in tragedy and
comedy that they might have been supposed sufficient to
occupy all his time; but whose genius was so wholly un-
suited to the theatre, that even his great name has not
been able to make a single play popular, either on the stage
or in the closet, though, as might be expected, several are
adorned with passages of great energy, spirit, and poetic
beauty. And the only two of whom I propose to speak are
Jonson, Ben Jonson as he is universally called, who was a
contemporary of Shakespeare himself, and who was looked
on by the great poet so much as a friend, that he performed
a principal part in at least two of his plays; and Otway, who
wrote in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and
who, though dying at an early age, had already achieved a
reputation beyond that of any contemporary tragedian, and
40
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
who has even been extolled by modern critics of the highest
eminence as rivalling Shakespeare himself in some points,"
though I confess that that praise appears to me to be greatly
exaggerated. Of Jonson's personal history we have not
been left in the ignorance which we are forced to confess.
when speaking of Shakespeare: on the contrary, the chief
events of his life have been handed down to us with a ful-
ness of detail which goes back even into his early youth.
He was originally of a Scotch family, but his grandfather
had crossed the border, and had obtained a post under the
English government at Carlisle. His father, with the desire
which the Johnson of the last century considered the most
natural feeling for every Scotchman, to withdraw still
further from Scotland, removed to the south, took orders,
and settled in Westminster; and, at the great school just
founded in that city by Elizabeth, who, with all her faults,
was a steady encourager of learning and a generally judi-
cious patroness of men of learning and genius, the young
Jonson was placed, and there acquired that classical learning
of which he was very proud, and of which in more than one
of his works he makes an unseasonable parade. But, his
father having died in his infancy, or, according to some ac-
counts, before he was born, his mother after a time married
a builder, who caring little for learning, and seeing that his
stepson was a stout and strong-limbed boy, took him, by a
destiny the exact opposite to that of Demosthenes, from
school, and employed him in his own trade. He was not
well pleased with the change; he had acquired not only a
tincture of, but a real fondness for classical studies; and it
is said that he constantly carried books in his pocket; and
the future favourite of the court, with his hod on his
shoulder, would halt on the ladder's steps, and beguile his
time by stopping to refresh his memory with some of the
masterpieces of ancient literature. To his stepfather such
2
''The talents of Otway in his scenes of passionate affection, rival at
least, and sometimes excel, those of Shakespeare.'-Scott's Essay on
the Drama.
2 Quem pater ardentis massæ fuligine lippus
A carbone, et forcipibus, gladiosque parante
Incude, et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit.-Juv. x. 130.
575-1637.]
41
BEN JONSON.
a diversion seemed a sad waste of time; but it led to that
other change in his mode of life to which we owe our ac-
quaintance with him. As his story is commonly told, a
lawyer at Lincoln's Inn, where some new buildings were in
progress, saw the youth resting on the scaffolding, and
heard him recite or read a passage of Homer with a zest
which showed that he felt its beauties. He enquired his
history, and procured him aid sufficient to enable him to
resume his more congenial studies to greater advantage.
Ben was sent to Cambridge, and there he studied for a while
with great assiduity, though his stay there is understood
not to have been uninterrupted. Why he quitted the uni-
versity we do not know, but there seems no doubt that,
shortly after his first admission to it, he left it, and enlisted
in an expedition which was sent to the Continent, probably
that which in the year 1591 the Queen sent under the
command of Essex to the aid of Henry IV., then engaged
in a contest which his inferiority to the great Duke of
Parma rendered terribly unequal. The English troops,
however, distinguished themselves by their steadiness and
good conduct; and Jonson himself, though only a youth of
seventeen, is said to have won the favourable notice of his
officers. But apparently military glory was as little to his
taste as the more useful labours of the builder. At all
events his period of service was of short duration: he re-
turned to Cambridge, only however to quit it again after a
brief probation, probably from want of pecuniary means; as,
at the beginning of 1594, when he was hardly twenty
years of age, we find him married and supporting, or en-
deavouring to support himself and his wife by engaging in
a theatrical company which had a small theatre in the
north of London. His acting was bad: but it led him to
fortune by procuring him the acquaintance of Shakespeare,
who conceived his talents to be better fitted to produce
plays of his own than to represent those of others; and en-
couraged him to write for the stage, giving him valuable
hints and even assistance. His occupation in this way was
interrupted, and in a less creditable way than his Cambridge
studies had been; he was of a jealous, imperious and quar-
relsome temper, and, having killed a brother actor in a
42
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
brawl, he was committed to prison, though he must have
been acquitted of legal guilt, or at all events have escaped
with but a short confinement, since, as early as 1598, he
produced his first play, which in some respects is his best,
Every Man in his Humour.' One scene in it, where the
jealous merchant Kitely is called off to important business
(Act iii. Sc. iii.), when he believes his wife is expecting
visitors of whom he is suspicious, and when he is anxious
to station his servant as a spy over her, and yet ashamed
and afraid to discover his jealousy to him, is extolled by
Schlegel as such a masterpiece that if he had always
written so we must have been obliged to rank him among
the first of comic writers.' But he does not always write
80. On the contrary he seems to have conceived that his
genius lay more in tragic delineation of character; per-
haps because such gave him greater opportunities of dis-
playing his classical scholarship, of which he was immo-
derately proud; but in which in truth he has exhibited
rather his want of taste than his dramatic genius. His
scholarship in his own eyes gave him a superiority over
Shakespeare, whom, in spite of his great obligations to him,
he took great delight in decrying; but, though Shakespeare's
classical dramas are far from being his best, the worst of
them is greatly superior to the best of Jonson's. Shake-
speare had the art of being true to history, and yet satis-
fying the demands of poetry. In Jonson's hands the sub-
ject continues history without becoming poetry. 'Catiline'
and 'Sejanus' are solid dramatic studies after Sallust and
Cicero, but not dramas. They are a history in dialogue.
And in the last scenes of 'Catiline' the poet has actually
translated whole passages out of the speeches as given by
Sallust, and in Cicero's works, without attempting to raise
them to any poetical elevation. It is no wonder that pieces
written on such a plan and in such a spirit failed to attain
the popularity of Shakespeare. But Jonson was not inclined.
to accept the verdict of the public. He was conscious of
considerable abilities, of a solid understanding, and of great
industry and earnestness. And when he found that the
spectators would not accept these qualities in lieu of, or as
equivalent to skill in the contrivance of plots, acuteness in
1575-1637.]
43
BEN JONSON.
the portrayal of character, judgment in the preservation of
it, and that subtle art easier felt than described, which in
Shakespeare gives not only life to the personages of the
play, but reality to the most improbable incidents, he blamed
everyone but himself. He blamed his rivals or contempo-
raries whose works were preferred to his own, and scattered
over his prologues and epilogues, and even over his later
plays, comments in disparagement of their most admired
compositions, with sarcastic allusions to those qualities to
which he conceived them to owe their popularity; at
times even venting his displeasure on the actors and
spectators themselves, saying for instance in one case, that
one of his plays had been 'not acted, but most negligently
played by some, the king's servants, and more squeamishly
beheld and censured by others, the king's subjects.'
I have said that he began with comedy; after two attempts
at tragedy he returned to comedy again; but he had no skill
in the management of his plots; and he was equally defi-
cient in that light and easy raillery which plays harmlessly
round its scenes, seeming to be the natural effusion of a
gay and happy temperament. Jonson, on the contrary, did
everything by rule; and even when, as in one or two in-
stances he did, he had contrived a happy or ingenious plot,
he devoted so much space to what he conceived to be the
full delineation of his characters, that he lost sight of the
action necessary to keep alive the attention of the specta-
tors. Schlegel compares him in this respect to those over-
accurate portrait painters who, to insure a likeness, think
they must copy every carbuncle or freckle; but though
he fails to present us with characters which fix themselves
in the memory, he has succeeded to a great degree in
seizing the manners of his age and nation; and it is for
these qualities that his plays are now chiefly valuable.
In
the Alchemist, for instance, he shows us, though with too
much profuseness of detail, the almost universality of the
belief in alchemy. In 'Every Man in his Humour' (Act i.
Scene i.) he satirises the extreme devotion to field sports,
which many considered then, as indeed many do now,
the sole occupation worthy of a gentleman. But there is
no lightness in the dialogue; and I cannot better show the
44
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE,
difference between his and Shakespeare's wit than by sub-
joining one of the most celebrated scenes in which Bobadil
gives the rein to his boastful spirit, and which every
reader's recollection will lead him instinctively to compare
with Falstaff's indulgence of the same propensity.
His plays, as I have said, were not very successful. One
of them, or rather one in which he had but a third share
with two other writers, Chapman and Marston, had nearly
proved disastrous to him; since some reflections on the
Scotch, which appeared in the preface, so offended King
James, that the whole trio were thrown into prison and
threatened with the pillory. But Jonson's peace with the
vain and irritable monarch was soon made by some of
the courtiers, whose favour he secured by his skill and ra-
pidity in composing the semi-dramatic entertainments then
known as Masques, which even Milton did not think be-
neath his Muse. And before the end of the reign he
received the appointment of poet laureat, the emolument of
which was afterwards augmented by King Charles. He
received also a pension from the city of London; and thus
in his latter years had the means of living in comfort, and
even in luxury. He died in 1637 at the age of sixty-one,
and was buried in Westminster, which, as a schoolboy, he
had attended, and where a stone with the quaint inscrip-
tion ‘O rare Ben Jonson' still marks his resting-place.
I have said that he was of a jealous and quarrelsome
temper, and this can hardly be better illustrated than by a
circumstance mentioned by no less a person than the great
Lord Clarendon, who records that he was intimate with
him in his youth, but that Jonson discarded him out of
pique on finding that he applied himself to the study of his
profession, which he believed ought never to be preferred
before his company.' Clarendon bestows high praise upon
him, but it is such as belongs rather to a critic than to a
poet, saying with great judgment and truth that his
natural advantages were judgment to govern the fancy
rather than excess of fancy. And that as he did exceed-
ingly exalt the English language in eloquence, propriety,
and masculine expressions, so he was the judge of, and
fittest to prescribe rules to poetry and poets of any man
<
1575-1637.]
45
BEN JONSON.
who had lived with or before him, or since, if Mr. Cowley
had not made a flight beyond all men, with that modesty
yet as to ascribe much of this example and learning to Ben
Jonson.'
Our first extract is that to which I have already alluded,
in which Captain Bobadil (whose name has become almost
proverbial as synonymous with a braggart) boasts of his
prowess to Master Matthew, out of whose combined
timorousness and simplicity he contrives to extract a liveli-
hood.
(Every Man in his Humour, Act iv. Sc. vii.)
Kno'well. Captain, did you ever prove yourself upon any of our
masters of defence here?
Matthew. O good sir! Yes, I hope he has.
Bobadil. I will tell you, sir. Upon my first coming to the city,
after my long travel, for knowledge (in that mystery only) there
came three or four of 'em to me, at a gentleman's house, where it
was my chance to be resident at that time, to intreat my presence
at their schools; and withal so much importuned me, that (I pro-
test to you as I am a gentleman) I was asham'd of their rude
demeanour out of all measure: well, I told 'em that to come to a
public school, they should pardon me, it was opposite (in diameter)
to my humour; but, if so be they would give their attendance at
my lodging, I protested to do them what right or favour I could,
as I was a gentleman, and so forth.
Kno'well. So, sir, then you tried their skill?
Bobadil. Alas, soon tried! You shall hear, sir. Within two
or three days after they came; and, by honesty, fair sir, believe me,
I grac'd them exceedingly, shew'd them some two or three tricks
of prevention, have purchas'd 'em since a credit to admiration!
They cannot deny this: and yet now they hate me, and why?
Because I am excellent, and for no other vile reason on the earth.
Kno'well. This is strange and barbarous ! as ever I heard.
Bobadil. Nay, for a more instance of their preposterous natures;
but note, sir. They have assaulted me some three, four, five, six
of them together, as I have walked alone in divers skirts i' th'
town, as Tothill, Whitechapel, Shoreditch, which were then my
quarters; and since, upon the exchange, at my lodging, and at my
ordinary; where I have driven them afore me the whole length of
a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them,
believe me. Yet all this lenity will not o'ercome their spleen ;
they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may
spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure. By myself I could have
46
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
slain them all, but I delight not in murder. I am loth to bear any
other than this bastinado for 'em : yet I hold it good polity not to
go disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may be oppress'd with mul-
titudes.
Kno'well. I believe me, may you, sir: and, in my conceit, our
whole nation should sustain the loss by it, if it were so.
Bobadil. Alas, no: what's a peculiar man to a nation? not seen.
Kno'well. O, but your skill, sir.
Bobadil. Indeed, that might be some loss; but who respects it?
I will tell you, sir, by the way of private, and under seal; I am a
gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but were 1
known to her majesty and the lords (observe me), I would under-
take, upon this poor head and life, for the public benefit of the
state, not only to spare the entire lives of her subjects in general;
but to save the one half, nay, three parts of her yearly charge in
holding war, and against what enemy soever. And how would I
do it, think you?
Kno'well. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive.
Bobadil. Why thus, sir. I would select nineteen more to my-
self throughout the land; gentlemen they should be of good spirit,
strong and able constitution; I would choose them by an instinct,
a character that I have; and I would teach these nineteen the
special rules: as your punto, your reverso, your stoccato, your
imbroccato, your passado, your montanto, till they could all play
very near, or altogether as well as myself. This done, say the
enemy were forty thousand strong, we twenty would come into the
field the tenth of March or thereabouts; and we would challenge
twenty of the enemy; they could not in their honour refuse us;
well, we would kill them; challenge twenty more, kill them ;
twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus
would we kill every man his twenty a day, that's twenty score,
that's two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a thousand;
forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty; two hundred
days kills them all up by computation. And this will I venture
my poor gentleman-like carcass to perform, provided there be no
treason practised upon us, by fair and discreet manhood; that is,
civilly by the sword.
Our second extract is from one of his classical plays; since
a comparison of this scene, in which he has done little more
than translate the speeches which are recorded by Sallust,
or were actually delivered by Cicero, with Shakespeare's
tragedies on classical subjects, and especially with Anthony's
noble funeral oration over Cæsar, will show in a very re-
1575-1637.]
47
BEN JONSON.
markable and sufficient manner the vast difference between
the genius of the two men.
(Catiline's Conspiracy, Act v. Sc. vi.)
Cicero. Your sentence, Caius Cæsar.
Cæsar. Conscript fathers,
In great affairs, and doubtful, it behoves
Men that are asked their sentence, to be free
From either hate or love, anger or pity;
For where the least of these do hinder, there
The mind not easily discerns the truth.
I speak this to you in the name of Rome
For whom you stand; and to the present cause;
That this foul fact of Lentulus, and the rest,
Weigh not more with you than your dignity;
And you be more indulgent to your passion,
Than to your honour. If there could be found
A pain or punishment equal to their crimes,
I would devise and help but if the greatness
Of what they've done exceed all man's invention,
I think it fit to stay where our laws do.
Poor petty states may alter, upon humour,
Where, if they offend with anger, few do know it,
Because they are obscure; their fame and fortune
Is equal and the same. But they that are
Head of the world, and live in that seen height,
All mankind knows their actions. So we see
The greater fortune hath the lesser license.
They must not favour, hate, and least be angry;
For what with others is call'd anger, there
Is cruelty and pride. I know Syllanus,
Who spoke before me, a just, valiant man,
A lover of the state, and one that would not,
In such a business, use or grace or hatred;
I know too, well, his manners and his modesty ;
Nor do I think his sentence cruel (for
'Gainst such delinquents what can be too bloody ?)
But that it is abhorring from our state,
Since to a citizen of Rome offending,
Our laws give exile, and not death. Why then
Decrees he that? Twere vain to think, for fear;
When by the diligence of so worthy a consul,
All is made safe and certain. Is't for punishment ?
Why death's the end of evils, and a rest
48
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Rather than torment: it dissolves all griefs;
And beyond that, is neither care nor joy.
You hear, my sentence would not have 'em die.
How then? Set free, and increase Catiline's army?
So will they, being but banish'd. No, grave fathers,
I judge 'em first to have their states confiscate;
Then that their persons remain prisoners
In the free towns, far off from Rome, and sever'd;
Where they might neither have relation,
Hereafter, to the senate, or the people.
Or, if they had, those towns then to be mulcted,
As enemies to the state, that had their guard.
Senate. 'Tis good, and honourable, Cæsar hath utter'd.
Cicero. Fathers, I see your faces and your eyes
All bent on me, to note, of these two censures
Which I incline to. Either of them are grave,
And answering the dignity of the speakers,
The greatness of th' affair, and both severe.
One urgeth death: and he may well remember
This state hath punish'd wicked citizens so:
The other, bonds, and those perpetual, which
He thinks found out for the more singular plague.
Decree which you shall please: you have a consul,
Not readier to obey than to defend,
Whatever you shall act for the republick ;
And meet with willing shoulders any burden,
Or any fortune, with an even face,
Though it were death: which to a valiant man
Can never happen foul, nor to a consul
Be immature, nor to a wise man wretched.
OTWAY.
A.D. 1651-1685.
A SATIRIST has called a coat out at elbows the livery of
the Muses, and of all the poets of whom we shall have to
speak there is no one who experienced the misery and
degradation of want more than Thomas Otway, the only
dramatist of the Restoration period from whose works it is
possible to produce extracts. That in so licentious an age
he should have avoided its besetting and foulest sin is very
creditable to him, and he has need that what can be said in
1651-1685.]
49
OTWAY.
his favour should not be suppressed, for his distresses seem
to have been attributable to nothing but his own mis-
conduct. He was born in 1651, and being the son of a
Sussex clergyman, received a good education at Winchester
and Oxford, but he left the university without taking a
degree; and when he was twenty-one he appeared in one
of the London theatres as an actor. In that profession he
was unequal to his competitors for fame: his talents in that
respect, like those of Shakespeare, were more suited to
dramatic composition than to the representation of the
writings of others; but he acquired from his engagement
an insight into the requirements of stage effect which he
speedily began to turn to good account, and very soon
afterwards he came out as an author of tragedies, choosing
first a classical subject, 'Alcibiades;' taking for his next
theme the tragical fate of Don Carlos, a transaction still
shrouded in some degree of mystery, and being encouraged
by the success of these two pieces to an imitation of the
‘Berenice' of Racine, the play of the great French dramatist
which more perhaps than any other displays a genius akin
to his own. Adopting the fashion of the day, he wrote
them in rhyme, and this no doubt contributed to their
success, which was very decided, though they are pieces of
very moderate merit, which have long been judged un-
worthy of preservation. The money they produced him his
extravagance soon dissipated; but they procured him a
friend and patron, Lord Plymouth, who introduced him
to a less precarious profession by obtaining for him a
commission in the army. But in this honourable position
his conduct became worse than ever. He was cashiered
for misbehaviour, and returned to his old employment of
writing for the stage, following now a more natural model
than the rhyming French dramatists, and adopting the
blank verse of Shakespeare and his contemporaries; and in
one respect he has his reward. It may be doubted whether
plays which he now produced were more popular in his own
day than 'Don Carlos' or 'Titus' and 'Berenice' had been;
but posterity has unanimously assigned 'The Orphan' and
'Venice Preserved' a high place among dramatic composi-
tions, attributing to the author in his pathetic passages a
50
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
power only inferior to that of Shakespeare himself. Walter
Scott has gone even further, saying, that 'the talents of
Otway, in his scenes of passionate affection, rival at least, and
sometimes excel those of Shakespeare. More tears have been
shed probably for the sorrows of Belvidera and Monimia
than for those of Juliet and Desdemona.' Most readers will
deem this exaggerated praise; but there can be no ques-
tion that the scenes between Jaffier and Belvidera have
high merit.
They not only breathe the purest senti-
ments of tenderness, but are strictly in keeping with the
characters of the speakers, a point of which the poet
was at times so careless that in a tragedy which he
wrote about the same time, and of which the hero was
the great Roman conqueror of the Cimbri, he actually
borrowed a number of scenes from Shakespeare's 'Romeo
and Juliet,' with nothing but a few verbal alterations, and
put the impassioned speeches of the lover of Verona into the
mouth of the least sentimental soldier who ever led his pro-
cession in triumph to the Capitol. Otway's end was
peculiarly miserable; though he received considerable sums
from the managers for the performance of his plays, they
were always insufficient to support his extravagant profli-
gacy. Within three years of the production of 'Venice
Preserved' he was actually starving; and it is said that his
death was produced by the charity of one who, pitying his
miserable condition, gave him a piece of bread, which he
swallowed with such ravenous eagerness that it choked
him. The story rests, perhaps, on somewhat doubtful
authority; but it is certain that he died in the greatest
distress in 1685, when he was barely thirty-four years old.
The subject of 'Venice Preserved' resembles partly that of
'Othello,' partly that of 'Marino Faliero.' Jaffier, a citizen
of Venice, had won the heart of Belvidera, daughter and
heiress of the Senator Priuli, by saving her from drown-
ing. She had become his wife, and the mother of a son;
but Priuli had never forgiven her; he curses her husband
for having stolen her from him like a thief at dead of
night,' and announces his determination to leave them both
to beggary. While Jaffier is brooding angrily over his
denunciations, he meets Pierre, who is at the head of a con-
1651-1685.]
51
OTWAY.
spiracy to overthrow the oligarchy which has long tyran-
nised over the city, and who tells him that Priuli has just
signed a decree to seize all his property, which the officers
of the law are at that moment executing. Maddened at
the intelligence, Jaffier agrees to join the conspiracy, but
reveals it to Belvidera, who, to save her father, persuades
him to abandon it; he yields to her entreaties, betrays the
conspiracy to the Doge, on promise of pardon to the con-
spirators, of whom he gives a list. But the Senate violates
the promise, and condemns them all to death; and on the
scaffold, Jaffier, to save Pierre from the ignominy of a
public execution, stabs him to the heart, kills himself with
a second blow, and Belvidere dies of a broken heart.
(Venice Preserved, Act i. Sc. i.)
Enter BELVIDERA.
Belvi. My lord, my love, my refuge!
Happy my eyes, when they behold thy face!
My heavy heart will leave its doleful beating
At sight of thee, and bound with sprightful joys.
Oh, smile! as when our loves were in their spring,
And cheer my fainting soul!
As when our loves
Jaffier.
Were in their spring! has, then, my fortune chang'd thee?
Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same▬▬▬
Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee?
If thou art alter'd, where shall I have harbour P
Where ease my loaded heart? Oh, where complain?
Belvi. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,
With all the resolution of strong truth?
I joy more in thee (embracing him)
Than did thy mother, when she hugg'd thee first,
And bless'd the gods for all her travail past.
Jaffier. Can there in woman be such glorious faith ?
Sure, all ill stories of thy sex are false !
Oh, woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you!
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There's in you all that we believe of heav'n;
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love!
Belvi. If love be treasure, we'll be wond'rous rich;
4
52
[Cu. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
I have so much, my heart will surely break with't;
Oh ! lead me to some desert, wide and wild,
Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul
May have its vent, where I may tell aloud
To the high heavens, and ev'ry list'ning planet,
With what a boundless stock my boson's fraught,
Jaffier. Oh, Belvidera! doubly I'm a beggar;
Undone by fortune, and in debt to thee.
Want! worldly want! that hungry meagre fiend,
Is at my heels, and chases me in view.
Canst thou bear cold and hunger? Can these limbs,
Fram'd for the tender offices of love,
Endure the bitter gripes of smarting poverty ?
When banished by our miseries abroad
(As suddenly we shall be) to seek out
(In some far climate where our names are strangers)
For charitable succour, wilt thou then,
When, in a bed of straw we shrink together,
And the bleak winds shall whistle round our heads,
Wilt thou then talk thus to me?
Wilt thou then
Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love?
Belvi. Oh! I will love thee, ev'n in madness, love thee!
Tho' my distracted senses should forsake me,
I'd find some intervals, when my poor heart
Should 'suage itself, and be let loose to thine.
Tho' the bare earth shall be our resting-place,
Its roots our food, some cliff our habitation,
I'll make this arm a pillow for thine head;
And as thou sighing liest, and swell'd with sorrow,
Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love
Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest;
Then breathe a prayer, and watch thee till the morning.
Jaffier. Hear this, you heav'ns, and wonder how you
made her!
Reign, reign, ye monarchs that divide the world;
Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know
Tranquillity and happiness like mine;
Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall,
And rise again, to lift you in your pride;
They wait but for a storm, and then devour you.
I, in my private bark, already wreck'd,
Like a poor merchant driven to unknown land,
That had, by chance, pack'd up his choicest treasure,
In one dear casket, and sav'd only that;
651-1685.]
53
OTWAY.
Since I must wander farther on the shore,
Thus hug my little, but my precious store,
Resolv'd to scorn, and trust my fate no more.
Enter BELVIDERA.
Belvi. Whither shall I fly?
Where hide me and my miseries together ?
Where's now the Roman constancy I boasted ?
Sunk into trembling fears and desperation !
Not daring to look up to that dear face,
Which us'd to smile, ev'n on my faults, but down,
Bending these miserable eyes to earth,
[Exeunt.
Must move in penance, and implore much mercy.
Jaffier. Mercy! kind heaven has surely endless stores
Hoarded for thee, of blessings yet untasted :
Let wretches loaded hard with guilt as I am,
Bow with the weight, and groan beneath the burthen,
Creep with a remnant of that strength they've left,
Before the footstool of that heav'n they've injur'd.
O, Belvidera! I'm the wretched'st creature
F'er crawl'd on earth! now, if thou'st virtue, help me;
Take me
Into thy arms, and speak the words of
peace
To my divided soul, that wars within me,
And raises every sense to my confusion.
Belvi. Alas! I know thy sorrows are most mighty.
I know thou'st cause to mourn; to mourn, my Jaffier,
With endless cries, and never-ceasing wailings;
Thou'st lost
Jaffier.
Oh, I have lost what can't be counted;
My friend, too, Belvidera-that dear friend,
Who, next to thee, was all my heart rejoic'd in,
Has us'd me like a slave-shamefully us'd me:
'Twould break thy pitying heart to hear the story.
What has he done?
Belvi.
Jafier.
Thoud'st hate me, should I tell thee.
O, my dear angel! in that friend I've lost
All my soul's peace; for every thought of him
Strikes my sense hard, and deads it in my brains!
Belvi. Speak
Jaffier. Before we parted—wouldst thou believe it ?—
Ere yet his guards had led him to his prison,
Full of severest sorrows for his suff'rings,
As at his feet I kneel'd, and sued for mercy,
54
[CH. III,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
$
Forgetting all our friendship,
With a reproachful hand he dash'd a blow:
He struck me, Belvidera! by heav'n, he struck me!
Buffetted, call'd me traitor, villain, coward.
Am I a coward ? am I a villian ? tell me ?
Thou'rt the best judge, and mad'st me, if I am so.
Damnation coward!
Belvi.
Oh! forgive him, Jaffier:
And, if his suff'rings wound thy heart already,
What will they do to-morrow?
Jaffier.
Belvi.
Ah!
To-morrow,
When thou shalt see him stretch'd in all the agonies
Of a tormenting and a shameful death,
What will thy heart do then? Oh! sure 'twill stream,
Like my eyes now.
Jaffier. What means that dreadful story ?
Death and to-morrow?
Belvi. The faithless senators, 'tis they've decreed it,
They say, according to our friend's request,
They shall have death, and not ignoble bondage?
Declare their promis'd mercy all as forfeited;
False to their oaths, and deaf to intercession-
Warrants are pass'd for public death, to-morrow.
Jaffier. Death! doom'd to die! condemn'd unheard! un-
pleaded! (Gazing wildly at her)
Belvi. Nay, cruel'st racks and torments are preparing
To force confession from their dying pangs,
Oh! do not look so terribly upon me!
How your lips shake, and all your face disorder'd !
What means my love?
Jaffier. Leave me, I charge thee, leave me ! Strong
temptations
Wake in my heart.
Belvi.
Jaffier.
Belvi
For what?
No more, but leave me.
Why?
Jaffier. Oh! by heav'n, I love thee with that fondness,
I would not have thee stay a moment longer
Near these cursed hands.
(pulls the dagger half out of his bosom, and puts it back
again unseen by her)
There's a lurking serpent
Ready to leap and sting thee to thy heart :
Art thou not terrified ?
1851-1685.]
55
OTWAY.
Belvi.
Jaffier.
No.
Call to mind
What thou hast doue, and whither thou hast brought me.
Belvi.
Jaffier.
Ha!
Where's my friend? my friend, thou smiling
mischief!
Nay, shrink not, now 'tis too late, for dire revenge
Is
up, and raging for my friend. He groans!
Hark, how he groans! his screams are in my ears!
Already! see they've fixed him on the wheel.
And now they tear him-Murder! perjur'd senate !
Murder! Oh! hark thee, traitress, thou'st done this!
Thanks to thy tears, thou false persuading love.
(feels for his dagger)
How her eyes speak! oh, thou bewitching creature!
Madness can't hurt thee-come, thou little trembler,
Creep ev'n into my heart, and there lie safe;
'Tis thy own citadel.-Hah! yet stand off,
Heav'n must have justice, and my broken vows
Will sink me else beneath its reaching mercy.
I'll wink, and then 'tis done-
Belvi.
What means the lord
Of me, my life, and love? What's in thy bosom,
Thou grasp'st at so?
(JAFFIER draws the dagger, and offers to stab her)
Ah! do not kill me, Jaffier! pity-pity.
(falls on her knees)
Jaffier. No, Belvidera! when we parted last,
I gave this dagger with thee, as in trust,
To be thy portion, if I e'er proved false.
On such condition was my truth believ'd:
But now 'tis forfeited, and must be paid for.
Belvi. Oh! mercy!
Jaffier.
(offers to stab her again)
Nay, no struggling.
Belvi. (leaps on his neck and kisses him) Now, then, kill me,
While thus I cling about thy cruel neck,
Kiss thy revengeful lips, and die in joys
Greater than any I can guess hereafter.
Jaffier. I am, I am a coward-witness't, heav'n,
Witness it, earth, and ev'ry being witness:
"Tis but one blow! yet, by immortal love,
I cannot longer bear a thought to harm thee.
(he throws away the dagger and embraces her)
56
[CH. III.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The seal of Providence is sure upon thee;
And thou wast born for yet unheard-of wonders.
Oh! thou wert either born to save or damn me!
By all the pow'r that's given thee o'er my soul—
By thy resistless tears and conqu❜ring smiles-
By thy victorious love that still waits on thee-
Fly to thy cruel father, save my friend,
Or all our future quiet's lost for ever.
Fall at his feet, cling round his reverend knees,
Speak to him with thy eyes, and with thy tears
Melt his hard heart, and wake dead nature in him;
Crush him in thy arms, torture him with thy softness:
Nor till thy prayers are granted, set him free,
But conquer him, as thou hast vanquish'd me.
[Exeunt.
1728-1774.]
57
GOLDSMITH.
CHAPTER IV.
GOLDSMITH.
1728-1774.
Ar the same time that Otway was moving the sympathies
of the audience by the sorrows of Belvidera, there arose
another school of dramatists, whose object seemed to be to
set all feeling as well as all propriety at defiance. So far
as the especial office of comedy is to represent the scenes
of everyday life, they were the most genuine comedians
that the country had at that time witnessed, since they
certainly professed to portray the manners of their own time
with far greater fidelity than had been consistent with either
Jonson's plan or Jonson's abilities. And if their plays
were a true picture of the state of English society in the
latter part of the seventeenth century, it is hard to conceive
a greater condemnation of it. The protest which the pro-
fligacy of the court of Charles II. seemed intended to utter
against the pharisaical strictness of the Puritans who had
recently oppressed the land, was not unnaturally re-echoed
still more loudly by the dramatists, who had been altogether
silenced under the Commonwealth; and it may be feared
that those writers were but following the taste of the nation
when they set themselves to work to hold up not only
religion, but virtue, and even decency to scorn, and to
preach licentiousness and vice as the one duty of all men and
all women. The most celebrated of the class are four in
number: Wycherly, Congreve, Farquhar, and Sir John
Vanbrugh; the last of whom combined theatrical talent
with another, which seems to have but slight connection
with it. He was an architect; the builder of Blenheim
and of more than one other of the great baronial palaces of
England. A strong family likeness runs through the whole
quartet, and I confess that it seems to me that none of
58
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
them quite deserve the praise which has been lavished on
them. Critics have been in the habit of ascribing to them
a peculiar skill in the delineation of character; but, in that
branch of their art, they are certainly very deficient in the
first requisite of all, variety. The chief personages in every
one of their plays are as monotonous as their pursuits, which
are limited to two: intrigue and gambling, a pastime im-
ported by Charles from France. Their wit, especially that
of the two first, is greatly extolled, some critics having
even gone the extravagant length of saying that Congreve
has too much wit; a charge afterwards brought against
Sheridan. Perhaps a more correct judgment would find
fault rather with its quality than with its quantity; and
would allege that, abundant as Congreve's wit unquestion-
ably is, it is not of the right kind, but displays an epi-
grammatic sparkle rather than the true comic vein. It is
the wit not of a man naturally witty, but of one who plans
and polishes his jokes beforehand with a constant straining
after effect, which is so perceptible, that it deprives them
of it. Those who look upon a natural liveliness as one of
the most essential qualities of a good comedy, may perhaps
give the palm to Farquhar. Vanbrugh is decidedly the
least attractive of the four; but were they ever so witty or
ever so lively, wit and liveliness would still not be the pre-
dominant feature of their plays. The one feature which,
above all others, forces itself on our notice in every work
of the whole school, is the absolute shamelessness of every
person portrayed, male or female. Not one of their leading
characters is represented with the slightest conception that
the grossest vices are things to be concealed; chastity is
derided by the ladies as unblushingly as by the gentlemen,
and vice is not only rampant but triumphant. So glaring
was their iniquity that, in the last years of the century, it
provoked a chastisement from a clergyman of great learning
as well as courage, and by no means destitute of the power
of appreciating true wit, since he was himself endowed with
it in no slight degree. In 1698 he published an essay on
"The Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage,' in
which he attacked not only Wycherley and Congreve, but
Dryden also, whose comedies, very poor as compositions,
1728-1774.]
59
GOLDSMITH.
were nearly as licentious as those of the others. Dryden,
now sinking into the grave, frankly and gracefully owned
his error, and avowed his repentance. But Wycherley,
Congreve, and Vanbrugh resolved to show that the shame-
lessness with which they invested the characters of their
plays belonged to themselves also. They wrote pamphlets
in their own defence, but had the mortification to find that
the majority of their readers sided with Collier. They
scorned, indeed, to amend, and their plays written after the
commencement of the controversy are not more decent
than their earlier works, but they had no imitators. The
dramatists of the next generation, if, on the whole, rather
dull, were decorous; nor was it till George III. was on the
throne that the stage was enlivened by plays which showed
the possibility of uniting the most absolute propriety with
the most lively humour and the most brilliant wit. The
authors of the most brilliant comedies of that age were two
Irishmen, Goldsmith and Sheridan; the first-mentioned of
whom is remarkable as having been the first writer in our
language who sought and attained the praise of first-rate
excellence in more than one line of composition. Dryden,
indeed, had written prose, and good prose, but it was
ancillary to his poetry, and only criticism on poetry; while
his plays were confessedly poor. But the subject of our
present consideration was multifarious beyond him or any
other man. Johnson's epitaph on him, though dictated by
friendship, was no exaggeration. 'Nullum fere scribendi
genus non tetigit; nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.'¹ And
it is no slight testimony to his power as well as to his
versatility, qualities which are not often combined, that we
shall have to recur to his works in no fewer than three
of our divisions, and may, perhaps, have our judgment
called in question if we do not also speak of him in relation
to a fourth.
Oliver Goldsmith was born in 1728, at Pallas, in the
county of Longford, where his father, a younger son of a
gentleman of good family, had a curacy. He was a sickly
There was hardly any kind of writing which he did not attempt,
and there was not one which he did attempt to which he failed to do
honour.
60
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and ungainly child. A severe attack of small-pox, which
permanently disfigured his features, impaired his health
also, till he gradually outgrew the weakness which it had
left behind it; and these combined infirmities made him a
butt for the rough schoolboy ill-nature of his playmates,
whose inconsiderate wantonness cowed his spirits, so that
he was commonly accounted a dunce of more than usual
hopelessness. But it was a character which one or two of
those who were set over him saw from the first he did not
deserve; and, indeed, to those who cared enough about him.
to remark him carefully, he showed decided indications of
latent ability. From his childhood he was fond of rhyming ;
and, of his quickness, far beyond his years, at repartee,
many instances were preserved. From school at Elphin
he was removed to Trinity College, Dublin, by which time
he had so entirely outgrown the ill-effects of his early
bullying, and recovered the gaiety of temper which was
natural to him, that he was more distinguished for riot
than for learning; though, in at least one noted instance,
he bore the discredit of irregularities in which others had
really taken the leading share. In 1749 he took his de-
gree. But, if this termination of his university career was
in one sense the end of his troubles, in another it was only
the beginning of them; since it rendered it necessary for
him at once to decide on a profession, and there was none
for which both his friends and himself thought him qualified.
Of his perplexities, and generally of the anxieties and diffi-
culties that beset him for some years, we obtain a fair
notion from his own writings; not of a direct or autobio-
graphical kind, but through his fondness for drawing on
his own experience for incidents to enliven his different
works. And thus we learn that his family wished him to
take orders; but, when the Bishop of Elphin refused him
ordination, he did not take the disappointment greatly to
heart, because 'to be obliged to wear a long wig when he
liked a short one, or a black coat when he generally dressed
in brown,' he thought too great a restraint on his liberty.'
He would have preferred the bar; but he does not seem
ever to have made any serious attempt to become a lawyer,
a profession for which his desultory disposition and absent
1728-1774.]
61
GOLDSMITH.
manner wholly unfitted him. While he was doubting, a
friend procured him employment as a private tutor, of
which he soon became so weary that he resolved to emi-
grate in preference to continuing in it, and actually paid
his passage to America, but the ship sailed sooner than he
expected, leaving him behind; and, as his fare had taken
nearly all his money, he was reduced to greater straits than
ever. It is characteristic of his impulsive good-nature
that though he had but five shillings left to carry him back
home, a distance of more than 100 miles, he gave half-a-
crown of it to a poor woman who met him on the road
with a tale of grievous distress; hoping, indeed, to obtain
a further supply from a friend whom he had often obliged
in the same way, but who ungratefully turned his distress
into ridicule, and gave him no aid beyond the present of an
oak stick, which, following, in all likelihood unconsciously,
the advice of Bishop Jewel to Hooker, he facetiously called
a safe nag to carry him forward on his journey. Goldsmith
was in some doubt whether he should not in the first in-
stance apply it to his pate,'' but his unworthy friend's head
was saved by the arrival of another visitor. And when he
reached his mother's house at Ballymaton, his family pro-
vided him with some more funds, with which he crossed
over to Edinburgh to study medicine, a science for which
apparently he was as unsuited as for the law, but for which
the frequency with which he resumed the idea seems to show
that he had a real predilection. But the Scotch metropolis
did not at that time deserve the high reputation as a school
of medicine which it has since attained, and in May, 1753,
he decided on removing to Leyden. And a comical distress
which delayed his voyage saved his life. He went by sea
to Newcastle, intending from that port to cross over to the
continent; but some of his messmates were Scotchmen in
the French service, and on his arrival at Newcastle he was
arrested with them on the charge of enlisting soldiers for
the French king, or perhaps for the Pretender, and was
6
1
'You are going, my boy,' cried I, 'to London on foot, in the manner
Hooker, your great ancestor, travelled there before you. Take from me
the same horse that was given him by the good Bishop Jewel, this staff
-Vicar of Wakefield, chap. 3.
62
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
6
thus prevented from embarking in the ship in which he had
intended to sail, and which was wrecked on her passage,
every one of the crew being drowned. At the end of a
year he got tired of Leyden, and resolved to spend some
time in travelling, not being daunted by his poverty, because
a Denmark scholar had recently traversed almost the whole
of Europe on foot, without money, recommendations, or
friends; a good voice and a trifling skill in music being
the only finances he had to support an undertaking so ex-
tensive; so he travelled by day, and at night sang at
the doors of peasants' houses to get himself a lodging.'
Goldsmith had no voice, but he played the flute with con-
siderable taste and some skill, and his instrument was often
put in requisition to pay for the hospitality exercised
towards him. Oft
Would the village praise his wondrous power,
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour?
, 1
But he lived not entirely among the lower classes; some-
times, when in possession of more resources than usual (not
impossibly obtained from the gaming-table, to which he
was too much addicted), he mixed in higher society; in one
of his letters he speaks of having beheld the beauty which
graced the Court of Versailles; and he was a visitor of
Voltaire, for whose high-breeding, general ability, and more
especially of whose wit and conversational powers, he con-
ceived the most enthusiastic admiration. It is a strong
testimony to his possession of that quality, for which he
has rarely been given credit, shrewd good sense, that his
appreciation of the brilliancy of the author of ‘Candide’
and 'Zaire' did not in the least blind him to the faults of the
French character. Very few prose writers, in grave essays,
have more graphically or more correctly delineated the
frivolous capricious vanity of the nation, or have pointed
out how it was the parent of that intellectual demoralisation
from which such fearful miseries soon began to flow in a
stream which, even down to the present day, seems as
rapid and as turbid as at its first outpouring. In 'The
1 Enquiry into the State of Polite Learning, chap. vi.
1728-1774.]
63
GOLDSMITH.
Traveller,' which he began at this period, he points how
'praise,' the sole object of a Frenchman's ambition—
Too dearly loved or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought.
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause ;
while, with an equal acuteness of political speculation, he
discerned in the language and acts of the Parliament indi-
cations of a disposition to throw off the shackles which had
hitherto deprived the people of all freedom; and, in a peri-
odical which he began to publish shortly after his return
to England, he ventured to predict the coming struggle, at
a time when, with the single exception of Lord Chesterfield,
whose letters show that he had conceived the same opinion,
probably no statesman in Europe had a suspicion of danger.
From France he proceeded into Italy, and at Padua he
is generally believed to have received the degree of Doctor
of Medicine, but he did not extend his travels further to
the southward, being probably deterred by the signs of a
speedy renewal of hostilities between France and England,
and in 1756 he returned to England, having apparently
exhausted his resources; for the variety of occupations in
which during the next few months he engaged, is of itself
a proof of the extreme difficulty he found in maintaining
himself. In spite of his former dislike of the profession of
a tutor, he became an usher in a school, then a chemist's
assistant, then he set up on his own account as a physician
in Southwark, where he got no patients but such as were
too poor to seek more experienced advice, or to pay for his.
There are vague stories, not authenticated, but not dis-
proved, of his having even formed a company of strolling
players. He complained that there was, in London, a pre-
judice against his countrymen which was sufficient to keep
him unemployed; and on one occasion, in later years, he
spoke of himself, probably in allusion to this period of his
career, as having 'lived among the beggars in Axe Lane.'
His distresses had almost broken even his unconquerable
cheerfulness. In a letter to a friend he describes himself
as having been at last left without 'friends, recommenda
64
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
༔
tions, money, or impudence;' and declares that many in
such circumstances would have had recourse to the friar's
cord or the suicide's halter.' But with all his follies he had
principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the
other. In truth, there was a manliness in Goldsmith's
disposition which prevented him for ever despairing. He
could hardly be unconscious of the possession of great
talents for literature, the only path of life for which his
poverty was no disqualification. On the contrary, he con-
ceived that it was a natural guide to the gates of the
Muses,' the mischief being that it often persisted in favour-
ing poets with its company after their introduction within
the temple. However, before the end of the next year, he
obtained employment as a regular writer on the 'Monthly
Review,' published by a man named Griffiths, who gave
him board, lodging, and a regular salary; but who, though
perfectly illiterate, not only took upon himself to correct
his writings, but allowed his wife the same privilege. Such
a connection was not likely to last long, nor did it. Gold-
smith broke it off at the end of five months, and was again
for a time in great poverty. Once more he resumed the
idea of practising medicine, but the College of Surgeons.
refused to pass him as possessed of knowledge sufficient to
qualify him to act as mate of a hospital; and he was thrown
back, sorely against his will, on literature as a profession.
Scott has called literary work a good stick but a bad crutch;
good as an auxiliary, miserable as the sole means of liveli-
hood; and few have had greater reason to adopt this view
than Goldsmith, for his principal employment was still for
some time only as a writer in reviews and magazine work,
which, even at the present day, is very inadequately paid,
and for which, in his day, the remuneration was miserably
scanty. Nor, if we may take George Primrose's account
of his literary talents, intended for a picture of his own, did
he himself conceive his abilities calculated for such tasks.
George Primrose found that 'the easy simplicity of his
style, and the harmony of his periods, were unnoticed by
the public; ' while the writers of far inferior power were
preferred by the booksellers because they wrote with greater
rapidity; and reviews, for which the publishers were most
1 Vicar of Wakefield, chap. xx.
1728-1774.]
65
GOLDSMITH.
anxious, were especially distasteful to him. Yet the relief
which he first sought was almost identical with his griev
ance, except that he became his own master. A treatise
which, in 1759, he had published under the title of ‘An
Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in
Europe,' had attracted a good deal of attention, and had
made his name known to thoughtful readers by whom his
anonymous magazine articles had been unnoticed. And
the reputation which it had procured him gave him self-
reliance enough to undertake a periodical of his own, on
the plan of the 'Spectator,' to which he gave the name of
the 'Bee.' But it failed to answer his expectations, and
after eight numbers he discontinued it and formed a regular
engagement with another publisher of the name of New-
bery, to contribute a series of essays, similar to those of
the 'Bee,' to a new paper or magazine which was to come
out in January 1760. They were called Chinese letters,
professing to be written by a Chinese traveller who had
taken up his residence in England, and who aimed at giving
his friends at home an idea of the manners of the singular
people in the West among whom he had settled. The idea
was not new; one or two works on the same plan had lately
been published in France, and, at the beginning of the cen-
tury, Swift had contemplated a similar series in the character
of an Indian, but afterwards complained that he had men-
tioned the plan to Steele, who had used it in the 'Spectator,'
but had compressed into a single number what he himself
had designed to work out into a volume. But Swift's
talents, great as they were, were of a less playful cast than
Goldsmith's; as a satirist he was more like Juvenal than
Horace, and we may well doubt whether he would have
been able to set off the lucubrations of his Indian with the
felicitous sportiveness that still makes the letters, now
better known by the name under which they were subse-
quently published in a collected form, of The Citizen of
World,' the most popular work of their class. John-
son, with whom Goldsmith had lately become acquainted,
and who, with his 'Rambler' and 'Idler,' was a worker in
the same field, praised them highly, declaring that no one
could pen an essay with such case and elegance as Gold.
66
[CH. IV
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
smith.' But ease and elegance were not the highest qualities
perceptible in either the 'Letters' or the 'Bee.' If he re-
sembled Horace, as he perhaps does, more than any other
English writer, resemble him in the slyness of his humour
and the delicacy of his raillery, he is not less distinguished
by acuteness of observation, strong good sense, and invari-
ably correct feeling. In more than one instance these
essays prove him in advance of his age, as when he raises
his voice against the severity of the penal laws, which in
his day were not only a disgrace to civilisation but a bar
to it; and, again, when he pleads for religious toleration,
while some of the sentiments which he from time to time
lets drop, have passed into proverbs, or have been quoted
as witticisms of men of still greater eminence or rather of
more recent notoriety.¹
No greater proof could perhaps be given of the reputa-
tion which these writings procured him among those whose
praise was honour, than is supplied by the circumstances
that when, at the beginning of 1764, Johnson and his friends
established the celebrated Literary Club, he was invited to
become one of the original members, with such men as
Burke and Reynolds, to whom indeed the merit of first
proposing the club is ascribed. And he had hardly joined
it when he placed his claim to belong to such a society on
a higher foundation by the publication of 'The Traveller,' a
poem which, if its comparative brevity compels us to rank
it as but a cabinet picture by the side of other works of
more pretentious magnitude, yet for truth and purity of
feeling, correctness of imagery and delicacy of execution,
need fear a comparison with few of its bulkier rivals. As
has been already mentioned, he had begun it several years
before, and it is chiefly founded on his own experiences:
as is The Deserted Village,' an equally exquisite, and
unluckily equally short poem which he wrote six years
afterwards.
C
1 For instance, in the third number of the Bee' we read that'the
true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal
them,' an apothegm which Voltaire thought worth stealing for his tale
of 'Le Chapon et la Poularde,' and which has since been constantly at
tributed (with a slight verbal alteration) to Talleyrand.
1728-1774.]
67
GOLDSMITH.
Between the publication of the two he came before the
world in two new characters: as a novelist, and as a dra-
matist. In 1762 or 1763 he one day sent for Johnson in
great distress, having been just arrested by his landlady;
Johnson, whose roughness of manner never checked the
eagerness of his friendship, hastened to obey his summons;
and, learning from him that he had a novel ready for the
press, took a rapid glance at a few pages of it, carried it to
Newbery, and sold it for 607.; but apparently the book-
seller did not think much of his bargain, for he kept it by him
for some time, till 'The Traveller' had become universally
celebrated; then, in 1766 he published it, and it at once sur-
passed in general popularity not only all his previous works,
but, it may almost be said, every work of fiction in the lan-
guage. It was translated into most European languages;
and its attractiveness is but little diminished at the present
day. It has been to no purpose that critics have pointed
out numerous absurdities in the construction of the plot.
He, as it may be said, had already pleaded guilty to them
in the preface, saying that there were 'a hundred faults in
it, and a hundred things might be said to prove them
beauties, but it is needless; a book may be amusing with
numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single
absurdity.' And with such unanimity has posterity en-
dorsed the approbation of his contemporaries, that his tale
has had the singular good fortune of eliciting the warmest
panegyrics from the three greatest writers of this century :
Göethe, Byron, and Walter Scott. The incidents are no
doubt improbable, if not impossible; but the characters are
faultless in their drawing and exquisite in their concep-
tion. Goldsmith's uniform purity of feeling is nowhere set
off with more exquisite humour. So that, to borrow the
words of the greatest of all novelists, 'we bless the memory
of an author who continues so well to reconcile us to human
nature.'
The next year he tried his talents in a new field, which
has led to our placing our sketch of him here among the
dramatists, rather than among the poets, essayists, or nove-
lists. It is a remarkable proof of the technical principles
on which critics in general exercise their judgment that his
68
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
6
first play was rejected by Garrick, though a personal friend,
and that Colman, a manager only second to Garrick, could
hardly be prevailed upon to accept the second. Yet The
Good-natured Man' is distinguished by keenness of observa-
tion and great skill in drawing and maintaining character,
qualities which he afterwards displayed in a striking man-
ner in his amusing poem of 'Retaliation;' and 'She Stoops to
Conquer,' by its wit and originality, on its first appearance
charmed both the audience at the theatre, and critics like
Johnson in the closet; and to this day, by its constant viva-
city and genuine comic power, keeps possession of the stage,
one of the incidents in it being actually borrowed after-
wards by Sheridan, not for one of his own plays, but for a
scene in real life, when, to trick Madame de Genlis into
prolonging a visit which she was paying to him, he bribed.
her post-boy to drive her about a number of cross-lanes in
a perfect circuit for several hours; till, finding that she was
engaged in a journey which seemed to have no end, and no
entertainment save a set of views from the window which
seemed rather monotonous, she became so alarmed that she
bade the man drive her back to the house where Sheridan,
exulting in the success which he had anticipated to his
trick, received her with well-feigned surprise.
By 'She Stoops to Conquer' he made several hundred
pounds; but he had long before accumulated such a mass
of debt that the supply thus furnished could only mitigate,
but by no means removc, his distresses; which, as he grew
older, pressed upon his spirits more than he had allowed
them to do in his youth. His friends recommended him to
publish a collected edition of all his works by subscription,
which, we can hardly doubt, would have proved profitable;
but, while he was revolving this and other plans, he was at-
tacked by a fever, which in the opinion of a friendly phy-
sician, Dr. Turton, was aggravated by anxiety of mind, and
in the first week of April 1774 he died, leaving behind him
a literary reputation the genuine quality of which, as I
have intimated in speaking of his different works, is suffi-
ciently proved by its durability.
The first of the following extracts is from 'The Good-
natured Man.' Mr. Honeywood is the hero, who devotes
1728-1774.]
69
GOLDSMITH
himself with such good nature to the affairs of his friends
that he has no time to spare for his own, which in conse-
quence go to ruin. But the most humorous character is
Croaker, whose name indicates his character; and of which,
according to Boswell, Goldsmith owned that he had taken
the idea from the description of Suspirius in the 'Rambler.'
(The Goodnatured Man, Act i.)
Honeywood. Besides, Jarvis, though I could obtain Miss Rich-
land's consent, do you think I could succeed with her guardian, or
Mrs. Croaker, his wife; who, though both very fine in their way,
are yet a little opposite in their dispositions, you know?
Jarvis. Opposite enough, heaven knows! the very reverse of each
other she all laugh and no joke; he always complaining and never
sorrowful; a fretful poor soul, that has a new distress for every
hour in the four-and-twenty-
Honeywood. IIush, hush! he's coming up, he'll hear you.
Jarvis. One whose voice is a passing bell.
Honeywood. Well, well; go, do.
Jarvis. A raven that bodes nothing but mischief; a coffin and
cross-bones; a bundle of rue; a sprig of deadly nightshade; a—
(Honeywood, stopping his mouth, at last pushes him off.)
[Exit JARVIS.
Honeywood. I must own my old monitor is not entirely wrong.
There is something in my friend Croaker's conversation that en-
tirely depresses me. His very mirth is quite an antidote to all
gaiety, and his appearance has a stronger effect on my spirits
than an undertaker's shop.-Mr. Croaker, this is such a satisfac-
tion-
Enter CROAKER.
Croaker. A pleasant morning to Mr. Honeywood, and many of
them. How is this? You look most shockingly to-day, my dear
friend. I hope this weather does not affect your spirits. To be
sure, if this weather continues-I say nothing. But God send we
be all better this day three months!
Honeywood. I heartily concur in the wish, though, I own, not
in your apprehensions.
Croaker. May be not. Indeed, what signifies what weather we
have in a country going to ruin like ours? Taxes rising and trade
falling. Money flying out of the kingdom, and Jesuits swarming
into it. I know at this time no less than a hundred and twenty
Jesuits between Charing Cross and Temple Bar.
Honeywood. The Jesuits will scarce pervert you or me, I should
hope.
70
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Croaker. May be not. Indeed, what signifies whom they per-
vert in a country that has scarce any religion to lose. I'm only
afraid for our wives and daughters.
Honeywood. I have no apprehensions for the ladies, I assure
you.
Croaker. May be not. Indeed, what signifies whether they be
perverted or no? The women in my time were good for some-
thing. I have seen a lady drest from top to toe in her own manu-
factures formerly. But now-a-days, the devil a thing of their
own manufacture's about them, except their faces.
Honeywood. But, however these faults may be practised abroad,
you don't find them at home, either with Mrs. Croaker, Olivia, or
Miss Richland.
Croaker. The best of them will never be canonised for a saint
when she's dead. By the bye, my dear friend, I don't find this
match between Miss Richland and my son much relished, either by
one side or t'other.
Honeywood. I thought otherwise.
Croaker. Ah, Mr. Honeywood, a little of your fine serious ad-
vice to the young lady might go far: I know she has a very
exalted opinion of your understanding.
Honeywood. But would not that be usurping an authority that
more properly belongs to yourself?
Croaker. My dear friend, you know but little of my authority at
home. People think, indeed, because they see me come out in a
morning thus, with a pleasant face, and to make my friends merry,
that all's well within. But I have cares that would break a heart
of stone. My wife has so encroached upon every one of my
privileges, that I'm now no more than a mere lodger in my own
house.
Honeywood. But a little spirit exerted on your side might per-
haps restore your authority.
Croaker. No, though I had the spirit of a lion! I do rouse
sometimes. But what then? Always haggling and haggling.
A man is tired of getting the better before his wife is tired of
losing the victory.
Honeywood. It's a melancholy consideration indeed, that our
chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and that an in-
crease of our possessions is but an inlet to new disquietudes.
Croaker. Ah, my dear friend, these were the very words of poor
Dick Doleful to me not a week before he made away with himself.
Indeed, Mr. Honeywood, I never see you but you put me in mind
of poor Dick. Ah, there was merit neglected for you! and so true
a friend! We loved each other for thirty years, and yet he never
asked me to lend him a single farthing.
1728-1774.]
71
GOLDSMITH.
Honeywood. Pray what could induce him to commit so rash an
action at last ?
Croaker. I don't know: some people were malicious enough to
say it was keeping company with me, because we used to meet
now and then and open our hearts to each other. To be sure I
loved to hear him talk, and he loved to hear me talk; poor dear
Dick! He used to say that Croaker rhymed to joker, and so we
used to laugh. Poor Dick!
In 'She Stoops to Conquer' the fun is of a more lively
kind. Mrs. Hardcastle, by a previous marriage, has a son
named Tony Lumpkin, whom she has let run wild till he
is a mere lout, with a taste for nothing but low company
and practical jokes. She has also a wealthy niece, Con-
stance Neville, of whom she is guardian, and whom she
wishes to marry to her son. Constance, however, has
another lover, with whom she is prepared to elope, and
with this view demands from her aunt a casket of jewels
which are in Mrs. Hardcastle's keeping. Mrs. Hardcastle
seeks to evade giving them; but Tony, who has no fancy
for Miss Neville, gets possession of the jewels and gives
them to her lover.
(She Stoops to Conquer, Act iii.)
Such a
Mrs. Hardcastle. Indeed, Constance, you amaze me.
girl as you want jewels? It will be time enough for jewels, my
dear, twenty years hence, when your beauty begins to want re-
pairs.
Miss Neville. But what will repair beauty at forty, will certainly
improve it at twenty, madam.
Mrs. Hard. Yours, my dear, can admit of none. That natural
blush is beyond a thousand ornaments. Besides, child, jewels are
quite out at present. Don't you see half the ladies of our acquaint-
ance, my lady Killdaylight, and Mrs. Crump, and the rest of them,
carry their jewels to town, and bring nothing but paste and mar-
casites back.
Miss Neville. But who knows, madam, but somebody that shall
be nameless would like me best with all my little finery about me?
Mrs. Hard. Consult your glass, my dear, and then see if with
such a pair of eyes you want any better sparklers. What do you
think, Tony, my dear? Does your cousin Con, want any jewels
in your eyes to set off her beauty?
Tony. That's as hereafter may be.
Miss Neville. My dear aunt, if you knew how it would oblige me.
72
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Mrs. Hard. A parcel of old-fashioned rose and table cut things.
They would make you look like the court of King Solomon at a
puppet-show. Besides, I believe, I can't readily come at them.
They may be missing, for aught I know to the contrary.
Tony. (Apart to Mrs. Hardcastle.) Then why don't you tell her
so at once, as she's so longing for them? Tell her they're lost. It's
the only way to quiet her. Say they're lost, and call me to bear
witness.
Mrs. Hard. (Apart to Tony.) You know, my dear, I'm only
keeping them for you. So if I say they're gone, you'll bear me
witness, will you? He! he! he!
Tony. Never fear me.
with my own eyes.
Ecod! I'll say I saw them taken out
Miss Neville. I desire them but for a day, madam. Just to be per-
mitted to show them as relics, and then they may be locked up again.
Mrs. Hard. To be plain with you, my dear Constance, if I
could find them you should have them. They're missing, I assure
you; lost for aught I know; but we must have patience wherever
they are.
She departs under pretence of searching for them; but
finds that they are gone, and during her absence Tony tells
his cousin that he has taken them, and has given them for
her to Mr. Hastings.
Tony. Don't be a fool. If she gives you the garnets, take what
you can get. The jewels are your own already. I have stolen
them out of her bureau, and she does not know it. Fly to your
spark; he'll tell you more of the matter. Leave me to manage her.
Miss Neville. My dear cousin!
Tony. Vanish. She's here, and has missed them already. (Exit
Miss NEVILLE.) Zounds how she fidgets and spits about like a
catherine wheel.
Enter Mrs. HARDCASTLE.
Mrs. Hard. Confusion! thieves! robbers! We are cheated,
plundered, broke open, undone.
Tony. Oh! is that all? Ha! ha! ha! By the laws, I never
saw it acted better in all my life. Ecod, I thought you was
ruined in earnest, ha! ha! ha!
Mrs. Hard. Why, boy, I am ruined in earnest; my bureau has
been broken open, and all taken away.
Tony. Stick to that; ha! ha! ha! stick to that. I'll bear wit-
ness you know; call me to bear witness.
Mrs. Hard. I tell you, Tony, by all that's precious, the jewels
are gone, and I shall be ruined for ever.
1728-1774.]
73
GOLDSMITH.
Tony. Sure I know they are gone, and I'm to say so.
Mrs. Hard. My dearest Tony, but hear me. They're gone, I say.
Tony. By the laws, mamma, you make me for to laugh, ha! ha!
I know who took them well enough, ha! ha! ha!
Mrs. Hard. Was there ever such a blockhead, that can't tell
the difference between jest and earnest? I tell you I'm not in
jest, booby.
Tony. That's right, that's right; you must be in a bitter passion,
and then nobody will suspect either of us. I'll bear witness that
they are gone.
Mrs. Hard. Was there ever such a cross-grained brute, that
won't hear me? Can you bear witness that you're no better than
a fool? Was ever poor woman so beset with fools on one hand,
and thieves on the other?
Tony. I can bear witness to that.
Mrs. Hard. Bear witness again, you blockhead you, and I'll
turn you out of the room directly. My poor niece, what will be-
come of her! Do you laugh, you unfeeling brute, as if you en-
joyed my distress ?
Tony. I can bear witness to that.
Mrs. Hard. Do you insult me, monster? I'll teach you to vex
your mother, I will.
Tony. I can bear witness to that. (He runs off, she follows him.)
SHERIDAN.
A.D. 1751-1816.
SHERIDAN in his own day earned a brilliant fame in two
capacities, as one of the greatest orators as well as one of
our greatest comic writers; certainly as the most brilliant
of all whose wit is not defaced by such indecorum as pre-
vents their being quoted, and should forbid them being
read. In Goldsmith there is great humour and occasional
wit; in Sheridan there is even keener humour united to
wit of the highest quality, and so overflowing in quantity
that the only charge that has been brought against 'The
School for Scandal' is that he has scattered it too profusely
over all his characters; giving even the underlings and
servants a conversation as sparkling as their masters. In
this perhaps he is not richer than Congreve, though we may
think the edge of his wit has a more delicate polish. But
74
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in decorum and propriety he is infinitely his superior.
Thackeray's description of Congreve is that in him we have.
a humorous observer to whom the world has no moral at
all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should
eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce
(if there be a deuce) when the time comes.' Whether
life had a moral for him or not, it is too plain that it had no
morality; but the tone of Sheridan's plays is free from such
impurity. In one, 'The School for Scandal,' an intrigue
indeed is aimed at, but is baffled, and the intended seducer is
covered with confusion and disgrace; and, though the hero
of the piece, as Charles Surface may be called, is repre-
sented as a spendthrift and a libertine, it is as a reformed
rake that he is finally rewarded; and if precise virtue
might require some more distinct evidence of an amended
life, we cannot reasonably expect such a rigorous censor-
ship on the stage; but may fairly own that the defeat of
Joseph's machinations, and the promised reformation of
his humbled though still light-hearted brother, are as clear
a homage to virtue as one could expect from a comic writer
whose very business is to present everything in the lightest
point of view. In his other plays, in 'The Rivals,' which
George III., an ardent play-goer, preferred to 'The School
for Scandal,' and in 'The Critic,' no hint of intrigue or
libertinism whatever occurs, and Sheridan is fairly entitled
to the praise of never transgressing the rules of decorum
and propriety.
Unhappily of his speeches, unrivalled as they were in
the effect that more than one of them produced on his
hearers, we have no sufficient record to enable us to give
specimens of his eloquence; but even had it been possible
to do so, it would still have seemed more appropriate to
give a sketch of his life here, in connection with the stage,
because in truth his whole life was a comedy or succession
of entanglements, extrications, changes of fortune, both
good and bad, troubles, successes, marvellous triumphs
ending in degradation and misery, that seemed to belong
rather to the theatre than to real life. His very marriage
was preceded by a duel that looked like a farce, but
threatened at one time to prove a tragedy; and it may
1751-1816.]
75
SHERIDAN.
be doubted whether a more ridiculous encounter ever took
place than that, as it was described at the time by the
Somersetshire county paper. His antagonist was a Mr.
Matthews. Both their swords breaking upon the first
lunge, they threw each other down, and with the broken
pieces hacked at each other rolling on the ground, the
seconds standing by quiet spectators.'
This was in 1772, when Sheridan was twenty-one years
of age. His father had been a distinguished performer on
the London stage, and afterwards a schoolmaster.
His
mother had a high fame as the authoress of a novel, much
admired in its day, 'Sidney Biddulph,' and of two at least
equally popular plays. Between writing plays and acting
them the couple made money enough to afford to send
their son, Richard Brinsley, to Harrow, where he probably
acquired a good deal of his manly independent spirit and
polished manners; but certainly very little knowledge of
Greek and Latin, though it may well be that while still a
Harrow boy he became imbued with the rudiments of that
science in which he was afterwards so unrivalled a proficient,
the art of living upon nothing. For, when he was barely
fifteen, his father was driven by his embarrassments to
retire to France; and, though Richard remained at school
three years longer, it may be doubted whether his stay
proved expensive to anyone but his tutor. That when he
left Harrow he should have tried to support himself by his
pen is natural enough. In partnership with another boy,
name Halhed, he began by a burlesque farce, to which he
gave the name of Jupiter,' which, however, nó manager
would accept. Then they tried a periodical with scarcely
better success, as the publisher declined venturing on a
second number; and, as neither plan answered, Sheridan
at twenty tried a third expedient, and fell in love, despe-
rately in love, with a most amiable and accomplished girl,
a Miss Linley of Bath, who, in addition to her charms of
mind and person, had the substantial attraction of 3,000l.
As we have already seen, his wife (for such the lady be-
came before either of them were one-and-twenty) cost him
a duel, and very nearly his life. But she seems to have
been a woman worth any danger and any suffering, and
(
5
76
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
though (had she been a less perfect woman than she was,
loving and admiring her husband with her whole heart,
and only clinging to him the more the more they were
surrounded with troubles,) she might well have repented
marrying him, it is certain that she never did, and equally
unquestionable that he never once wavered in his deep
affection towards her. Yet it was a trying life on which
the young couple entered. Three thousand pounds was, it
is true, a larger sum then than it is now; but still it could
even then produce no great income; and it was every
farthing, except Sheridan's own earnings, that they ever
had in their lives. I have said that Sheridan's whole life
was a play, and it would be impossible to exaggerate its
strange scenes. No doubt others before and since have
lived, that is, have endured life on resources equally, or
even more scanty; but Sheridan on his 3,000l. lived for
nearly forty years in the most fashionable and aristocratic
circles in England, associating with peers and princes of
the blood, and sought by them rather than seeking them.
Nor was this all. He, without money, did the very things
that are supposed to require the greatest supply of money,
and that ready money. He bought a theatre, he became a
member of Parliament; and if, as a manager, he set all the
ordinary rules of business at defiance by the most invari-
able irregularity and unpunctuality, it must be owned, on
the other hand, to his high honour, that as a politician he
never sacrificed his principles to his necessities. As a rule,
he was steadily faithful to his party and its leaders, even
when adherence to it was not only adverse to his personal
interests, but not wholly in accordance with his private
opinion as to what would have been the most political
justifiable line of conduct. But in great national emer-
gencies he disengaged himself from party ties, and showed
that he considered his first duty of all was to his country.
And in spite of some vices and many weaknesses, the
evident sincerity of his patriotism has secured him a per-
manent reputation which his wit and even his eloquence
would have been unable to preserve for him. It was not, of
course, till after he had obtained a seat in Parliament that
it became known how brilliant, how powerful, how occa
1761-1816.]
77
SHERIDAN.
sionally irresistible was his eloquence; but before that day
his extraordinary powers of social conversation had opened
to him the door to the most fashionable society in London;
and afterwards he rapidly achieved so high a reputation
that, within two years of his first appearance in the House,
when he was little more than thirty years of age, he was
allotted a place in the ministry which was appointed with
the special object of terminating the American war.
As has been already intimated, his first essays in author-
ship gave no great promise of future success or excellence.
And he took the literary and play-going world by surprise
when, in January 1775, when he was only a month or two
more than twenty-three years old, he produced 'The Rivals,'
which, as soon as a bad actor, who on the first night spoilt
one of the most prominent parts, was superseded by one of
greater talent, was generally recognised as the best comedy
of its class that had ever been acted on a British stage; and
which, if it has since in any degree lost that character, owes
its comparative humiliation to nothing but the still greater
brilliancy of 'The School for Scandal.' Theatrical success
of any kind is full of fascinations, and Sheridan yielded
to them in more ways than one; following up 'The Rivals'
with a lively farce, St. Patrick's Day,' which however rc-
quires no further mention; with an opera, 'The Duenna,,
acted at the end of the same year 1775, and which was de-
servedly described by Byron as the best opera in the lan-
guage, being, in truth, of a higher character than other
pieces with the same title, in which the music is the only
thing of consequence. In 'The Duenna' many of the scenes
are of the same high order of comedy as those of 'The
Rivals,' while the songs show great poetical talent of the
lighter kind. The success of 'The Duenna' surpassed even
that which 'The Rivals' had met with; and kindled in
him a desire for a more permanent connection with the
stage; which resulted in a negotiation for the purchase of
half of Drury Lane Theatre from Garrick, who was desirous
to retire. Where he procured the money is a mystery
which his biographer, Moore, confesses himself wholly
unable to solve; but in the spring of 1776 he became the
purchaser of two-sevenths of Garrick's share in the theatre;
78
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the other shares being divided between his father-in-law
and a couple of other friends; and a year or two later he
became the purchaser of the other half, paying or promising
to pay for the different shares of which he obtained posses-
sion no less a sum than 72,000l.
In whatever way he had obtained the money or the credit,
the purchase was a speculation on the success of which his
whole future prospects depended; and the consciousness of
this stimulated him to greater exertions, which at the
beginning of the next year brought forth their fruit in 'The
School for Scandal,' which for liveliness, knowledge of dra-
matic effect, and above all for striking wit, surpasses all the
efforts of Farquhar or Congreve; and, though there were
still some who preferred the humour of 'The Rivals,' seems
fairly to deserve the character generally given to it of being
the most perfect comedy which has been composed since the
time of Shakespeare. The animation is incessant, the wit
never flags; and the only fault which hyper-criticism itself
has been able to discover is, as I have already mentioned,
that the smart sayings and brilliant repartees are distri-
buted to all the characters with almost equal profusion, and
that this prodigality of cleverness displays a want of correct
judgment; but, though it may perhaps be admitted that
some of the speeches are too refined for the speakers, it
would be captious indeed to quarrel with a play for no
other fault than being too uniformly diverting, and the
justice of the general verdict of its pre-eminent excellence
is sufficiently confirmed by its remaining undisturbed after
the lapse of little less than a century.
Two years later he brought out another play: 'The Critic,'
but little inferior to either of his masterpicces. It is
usually called a farce in three acts, the two last being a
mock tragedy, and the first an introduction rich in all the
qualities of a great comedy, though perhaps it may be
looked upon as an offence against the strict rules of a
modern comedy that one of the chief characters, Sir Fretful
Plagiary, was notoriously meant to satirise another dramatic
author, Richard Cumberland, a writer of some consideration
in his day, but one whose jealous, not to say envious,
temper seemed to point him out as a mark for satire con-
1751-1816.]
79
SHERIDAN.
ceived in something of the spirit in which Aristophanes
brings Euripides on the stage in his 'Frogs.'
But before the appearance of 'The Critic' the author had
already yielded to a stronger fascination than that of the
stage, in spite of the way in which his fortunes were
involved in his theatrical property, the management of
which required all his attention. He had become ac-
quainted with Fox, and yielding to the influence which
that eminent party leader exerted over nearly all who
came within its range, he had become a politician; adopt-
ing all his political views, and supporting them by
pamphlets and articles in political magazines. And at
the general election of 1780 he was returned for Stafford,
and in October of that year took his seat as a member
of Parliament.
From this time his theatre obtained but little of his
attention; he gave himself up wholly to politics, and very
soon established his position as an orator on a height which
few speakers in any country have attained, by the part
which he took in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
In the present day probably no one will be found to deny
that his country has had few greater servants than the
Governor-General to whose vigorous and large-minded
administration more than to any other single cause is owing
the establishment of our Indian empire; and that no one,
not even Clive himself, was ever treated with such gross
ingratitude; but time had not yet been given to learn the
extent of his services to the state. The general wisdom
and great practical genius displayed throughout his career,
crowned though it had been with general success, was not
so manifest, so patent to a cursory observation as the deeds
of violence and injustice by which occasionally his adminis-
tration had been tarnished; the severities of which Cheyte
Singh, the Begums, and others, had been the victims,
afforded a splendid theme for an orator; and, by the con-
fession of all who heard him, no speaker ever availed
himself of the varied opportunities of a great subject with
more admirable power and effect than Sheridan.
It was probably owing to the solid fame acquired by his
great efforts on this occasion that he became the most
80
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
trusted of all the friends and advisers of the Prince of
Wales; a prince whose life at this time was one of the
most discreditable and ostentatious excess, but who was
nevertheless endowed with an acuteness of perception and
soundness of intellectual judgment that enabled him to
estimate with great accuracy the abilities of his various
friends, and their capacity for aiding him in the way in
which he needed their help; and, among all his associates,
there was none on whose talents in that way he relied so
habitually as on Sheridan's. It was Sheridan to whom he
applied to appease Mrs. Fitzherbert by doing away with
the effect of Fox's denial of his marriage. It was Sheridan
who composed for him the most important of his letters to
the Queen at the time of the painful divisions in the royal
family on the occasion of the King's derangement; and,
after his recovery, to the King himself, to justify his own
and his brother's conduct. While so honourable was the
disinterestedness with which he used his influence over his
royal friend, that there was no advice which he gave him
more frequently or more earnestly than that, as heir apparent,
it was his duty to avoid connecting himself with any party;
and that, as one placed by his birth above such divisions,
he ought to extend his favour, or at least his courtesy, to
all alike. In the division of the Whig party, which was
caused by the extravagance with which Fox extolled the
conduct of the movers of the French Revolution, and the
equal vehemence with which Burke denounced them,
Sheridan sided with Fox; and, during all the early years
of the revolutionary war, put himself forward as the most
unsparing critic of the minister, who looked upon him as
by far the most formidable of his adversaries, though more
than once, in great emergencies, as at the time of the
mutiny of the fleet, he laid aside party feeling and stood
manfully forward in support of the Government. And his
honourable conduct on these occasions impressed George III.
himself so strongly in his favour, that he would willingly
have made a distinction between him and the other friends
of his son, whom, and especially Fox, he regarded with
unmixed disapprobation, if Sheridan himself had not
declined accepting any honour which might separate him
1751-1816.]
81
SHERIDAN.
from his friends. Yet he was in fact beginning to differ
from Fox in opinion on the one subject which engrossed
the nation, the war and the character of Buonaparte, whose
ambitious violation of the rights of nations he more than
once denounced with great vigour; and his pecuniary em-
barrassments were becoming so heavy that any place or
pension would have been of almost vital consequence to
him. In the year 1804 the Prince of Wales did confer on
him the first office that it had ever been in his power to
bestow, that of Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall, but, by
that time, he was so deeply in debt that an increase of
income could do no more than stave off the evil day. He
was compelled to part with a portion of his theatre, and,
though in the ministry which came into office on the death
of Pitt he returned to his old and lucrative post of
Treasurer of the Navy, his occupation of it was too brief
for its emoluments to be of any solid benefit to him. In
less than a year and a half the leaders of the ministry,
Lord Grenville and Lord Grey, as he said, not only ran
their heads against a wall, but built a wall for that
express purpose. And with their retirement, Sheridan's
political life may almost be said to have ended. One more
honour, to which, from the peculiar circumstances under
which it was attained, he attached a high value, did indeed
fall to his share. He was elected as Fox's successor for
Westminster; but it was his last gleam of good fortune,
soon to be counterbalanced by a calamity which would
have been scarcely sustainable by a man of greater resources,
but which to one in his position was overwhelmning: in
1809 Drury Lane Theatre, in which he still retained a large
interest, was burnt down. He was absolutely ruined.
The unabated esteem, indeed, in which the Prince of Wales
held his judgment was once more displayed in the discussions
which arose on the establishment of the Regency in 1811,
when the framing of the Prince's public letters was entrusted
to him; and when (though, if the Whigs had returned to
office, he was to have had the post which, as an Irishman,
he might be supposed especially to have coveted, that of
Chief Secretary for Ireland) it is understood to have been
principally owing to his advice that the Prince, now Regent,
82
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
determined to retain Percival as prime minister. It was
his last political act. At the general election in 1812 he
lost his seat in Parliament. And through the short re-
mainder of his life, it is,' as Moore says, 'a melancholy task
to follow him.' Creditors pressed upon him; to meet their
demands he was forced gradually to part with the small
relics of his property, even with his books and the different
memorials of regard and esteem that had been given him
by private friends or public bodies. He gave way more and
more to habits of intoxication, to which (it was the vice of
the age) he had always been too much addicted; and
excess of this kind, joined to mortification and anxiety of
mind, brought on an illness, of which, in July 1816, he
died, at the age of sixty-five.
A short time before his death, Byron, with the generous
enthusiasm of youth for great and brilliant talents, declared
that whatever Sheridan had done had been, par excellence,
the best of its kind. He was the wittiest man in a society
where there were many wits; he had written the best
comedy in the language; he had delivered the best speech
ever heard in the country. And the praise is hardly over-
strained. The extraordinary power of his eloquence was
attested by those who heard it; though, as I shall have
occasion to mention hereafter, the speeches themselves do
not survive, and their dazzling and persuasive power we
must take on trust. But of the brilliancy of his dramatic
genius, surpassed by that of Shakespeare alone, we have
ample means of judging for ourselves. The 'Rivals' was
his earliest play. The 'School for Scandal' is generally
reckoned his masterpiece, and extracts from both are sub-
joined. The heroine of the 'Rivals,' Miss Lydia Languish,
is a young heiress, whose head has been so turned by
reading romances that she fancies perfect happiness is only
to be secured by a love match, which will offend all her
relations and involve the forfeiture of her estate; and a
Captain Absolute, heir to a testy old baronet, who has fallen.
in love with her, knowing that, if she were aware how
eligible a match he really is, she would reject him, has
represented himself to her as a penniless Ensign Beverley.
Meanwhile, his father proposes him to Lydia's aunt,
1751-1816.]
83
SHERIDAN.
Mrs. Malaprop, as a desirable husband for the niece; and
Mrs. Malaprop is highly pleased with the proposal, but is
aware of the difficulties which her engagement to the sup-
posed Beverley will cause. However, having explained
the case to Sir Anthony, she brings him in to introduce
him to the young lady.
(The Rivals, Act i. Sc. ii.)
Enter Mrs. MALAPROP and Sir ANTHONY ABSOLU TE.
Mrs. Mal. There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate sim-
pleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a
fellow not worth a shilling.
Lydia. Madam, I thought you once—————
Mrs. Mal. You thought, Miss! I don't know any business you
have to think at all-thought does not become a young woman.
But the point we would request of you is, that you will promise
to forget this fellow, to illiterate him, I say, quite from your
memory.
Lydia. Ah! madam, our memories are independent of our
wills; it is not so easy to forget.
Mrs. Mal. But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on earth so
easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I
have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never
existed--and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you,
Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young woman.
Sir Anth. Why, sure she won't pretend to remember what she's
ordered not! ay, this comes of her reading!
Lydia. What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated
thus?
Mrs. Mal. Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the
matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it.-But tell me
will you promise to do as you're bid? Will you take a husband
of your friend's choosing?
Lydia. Madam, I must tell you plainly that, had I no preference
for anyone else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.
Mrs. Mal. What business have you, Miss, with preference and
aversion? They don't become a young woman; and you ought
to know that, as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matrimony to
begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear
uncle before marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor, and yet, Miss,
you are sensible what a wife I made! and when it pleased heaven
to release me from him, 'tis unknown what tears I shed! But
suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you pro-
mise us to give up this Beverley ?
84
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Lydia. Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise,
my actions would certainly as far belie my words.
Mrs. Mal. Take yourself to your room.
for nothing but your own ill-humours.
You are fit company
Lydia. Willingly, ma'am; I cannot change for the worse.
But when Sir Anthony proposed marriage to his son
without naming the lady, he found him as unwilling as
Mrs. Malaprop had found Lydia. A violent quarrel en-
sued, in which he threatened to disinherit him; but he
had hardly quitted him when the Captain found that his
intended bride was the very girl of whom he was ena-
moured. So he resolves to reconcile himself to his father,
under pretence of submitting his own wishes to the parental
authority.
(Act iii. Sc. i.-The North Parade.)
Enter Captain ABSOLUTE.
Abs. 'Tis just as Fag told me indeed. Whimsical enough,
faith! My father wants to force me to marry the very girl I am
plotting to run away with! He must not know of my connection
with her yet awhile. He has too summary a method of proceeding
in these matters. However, I'll read my recantation instantly.
My conversion is something sudden, indeed, but I can assure him
it is very sincere. So, so-here he comes. He looks plaguy gruff.
[Steps aside.
Enter Sir ANTHONY ABSOLUTE.
Sir Anth. No-I'll die sooner than forgive him. Die, did I
say? I'll live these fifty years to plague him. At our last meeting
his impudence had almost put me out of temper. An obstinate,
passionate, self-willed boy! Who can he take after? This is my
return for getting him before all his brothers and sisters! for
putting him at twelve years old into a marching regiment, and
allowing him fifty pounds a year besides his pay ever since! But
I have done with him; he's anybody's son for me. I never will
see him more, never, never, never!
Abs. Now for a penitential face.
Sir Anth. Fellow, get out of my way.
Abs. Sir, you see a penitent before you.
Sir Anth. I see an impudent scoundrel before me.
Abs. A sincere penitent. I am come, sir, to acknowledge my
error, and to submit entirely to your will.
Sir Anth. What's that?
1751-1816.]
85
SHERIDAN.
Abs. I have been revolving and reflecting, and considering on
your past goodness and kindness and condescension to me.
Sir Anth. Well, sir?
Abs. I have been likewise weighing and balancing what you
were pleased to mention concerning duty and obedience and
authority.
Sir Anth. Well, puppy?
Abs. Why then, sir, the result of my reflections i-a resolution
to sacrifice every inclination of my own to your satisfaction.
Sir Anth. Why now you talk sense-absolute sense-I never
heard anything more sensible in my life. Confound you! you
shall be Jack again.
Abs. I am happy in the appellation.
Sir Anth. Why then, Jack, my dear Jack, I will now inform
you who the lady really is. Nothing but your passion and vio-
lence, you silly fellow, prevented my telling you at first. Pre-
pare, Jack, for wonder and rapture-prepare. What think you of
Miss Lydia Languish ?
Abs. Languish! What, the Languishes of Worcestershire?
Sir Anth. Worcestershire! no. Did you never meet Mrs.
Malaprop and her niece, Miss Languish, who came into our country
just before you were last ordered to your regiment?
Abs. Malaprop! Languish! I don't remember ever to have
heard the names before. Yet, stay-I think I do recollect
something. Languish! Languish! She squints, don't she? A
little red-haired girl?
Sir Anth. Squints! a red-haired girl! Zounds! No!
Abs. Then I must have forgot; it can't be the same person.
Sir Anth. Jack! Jack! what think you of blooming, love-
breathing seventeen.
Abs. As to that, sir, I am quite indifferent. If I can please
you in the matter, 'tis all I desire.
Sir Anth. Nay, but Jack, such eyes! such eyes! so innocently
wild; so bashfully irresolute! not a glance but speaks and kindles
some thought of love! Then, Jack, her cheeks! her cheeks!
Jack! so deeply blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes!
Then, Jack, her lips! O Jack, lips smiling at their own discretion;
and, if not smiling, more sweetly pouting; more lovely in sullen-
ness!
Abs, That's she, indeed. Well done, old gentleman.
Sir Anth. Then, Jack, her neck! O Jack! Jack!
[Aside.
Abs. And which is to be mine, sir, the niece, or the aunt ?
Sir Anth. Why, you unfeeling, insensible puppy, I despise you!
When I was of your age, such a description would have made me
86
[CH. IV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
fly like a rocket! The aunt, indeed! Odd's life! when I ran
away with your mother, I would not have touched anything old
or ugly to gain an empire.
Abs. Not to please your father, sir?
Sir Anth. To please my father! zounds! not to please—Oh,
my father-odd so! yes, yes; if my father indeed had desired—
that's quite another matter. Though he wa'n't the indulgent
father that I am, Jack.
Abs. I dare say not, sir.
Sir Anth. But, Jack, you are not sorry to find your mistress is
so beautiful.
Abs. Sir, I repeat it,—if I please you in this affair, 'tis all I
desire. Not that I think a woman the worse for being handsome;
but, sir, if you please to recollect, you before hinted something
about a hump or two, one eye, and a few more graces of that kind.
Now, without being very nice, I own I should rather choose a
wife of mine to have the usual number of limbs, and a limited
quantity of back; and though one eye may be very agreeable, yet
as the prejudice has always run in favour of two, I would not wish
to affect a singularity in that article.
Sir Anth. What a phlegmatic sot it is! Why, sirrah, you're
an anchorite, a vile, insensible stock. You a soldier! You're a
walking block, fit only to dust the company's regimentais on!
Odd's life! I have a great mind to marry the girl myself.
Abs. I am entirely at your disposal, sir; if you should think
of addressing Miss Languish yourself, I suppose you would have
me marry the aunt; or if you should change your mind, and take
the old lady-'tis the same to me--I'll marry the niece.
Sir Anth. Upon my word, Jack, thou'rt either a very great
hypocrite, or—but come, I know your indifference on such a subject
must be all a lie-I'm sure it must-come, now-damn your
demure face-come, confess, Jack, you've been lying-ha'n't you!
You have been playing the hypocrite, hey !—I'll never forgive you,
if you ha'n't been lying and playing the hypocrite.
Abs. I am sorry, sir, that the respect and duty which I bear to
you should be so mistaken.
Sir Anth. Hang your respect and duty! But come along with
me; I'll write a note to Mrs. Malaprop, and you shall visit the lady
directly. Her eyes shall be the Promethean torch to you. Come
along; I'll never forgive you if you don't come back stark mad
with rapture and impatience—if you don't, egad, I will marry the
girl myself.
[Exeunt.
In the 'School for Scandal,' Lady Teazle, a beautiful
country-bred girl, has married Sir Peter Teazle, a man
1751-1816.]
87
SHERIDAN.
nearly three times her age, whom she rather wearies by
her eagerness for amusement, though he is so fond of her
that he would willingly procure her every gratification,
were it not that his fretfulness and her petulance lead them
to continual quarrels. But at bottom they are both tho-
roughly amiable and good-hearted, so that the play ends
by the establishment of a perfect reconciliation between
them. The following scene is an admirable picture of the
way in which quarrels between sincere friends often arise
out of nothing but little infirmities of temper.
(The School for Scandal, Act iii. Sc. i.)
Enter LADY TEAZLE.
Lady Teaz. Lud! Sir Peter, I hope you haven't been quarrelling
with Maria? It is not using me well to be ill-humoured when I am
not by.
Sir Pet. Ah, Lady Teazle, you might have the power to make
me good-humoured at all times.
Lady Teaz. I am sure I wish I had; for I want you to be in
a charming sweet temper at this moment. Do be good-humoured
now, and let me have two hundred pounds, will you?
Sir Pet. Two hundred pounds; what an't I to be in a good
humour without paying for it! But speak to me thus, and, i' faith,
there's nothing I could refuse you. You shall have it, but seal
me a bond for the repayment.
Lady Teas. Oh, no; there-my note of hand will do as well.
Sir Pet. And you shall no longer reproach me with not giving
you an independent settlement. I mean shortly to surprise you;
but shall we always live thus, hey?
Lady Teaz. If you please. I'm sure I don't care how soon we
leave off quarrelling, provided you'll own you were tired first.
Sir Pet. Well, then, let our future contest be, who shall be
most obliging.
Lady Teaz. I assure you, Sir Peter, good nature becomes you.
You look now as you did before we were married, when you used
to walk with me under the elms, and tell me stories of what a
gallant you were in your youth; and chuck me under the chin you
would, and ask me if I thought I could love an old fellow who
would deny me nothing-didn't you?
Sir Pet. Yes, yes, and you were as kind and attentive—————
Lady Teaz. Ay, so I was, and would always take your part,
when my acquaintance used to abuse you, and turn you into
ridicule.
88
[CH. IV.
ENGLISII LITERATURE.
Sir Pet. Indeed!
Lady Teaz. Ay, and when my cousin Sophy has called you a
stiff, peevish, old bachelor, and laughed at me for thinking of
marrying one who might be my father, I have always defended
you, and said I didn't think you so ugly by any means.
Sir Pet. Thank you.
Lady Teaz. And I dared say you would make a very good sort
of a husband.
Sir Pet. And you prophesied right; and we shall now be the
happiest couple-
Lady Teaz.
And never differ again?
Sir Pet. No, never-though, at the same time, my dear Lady
Teazle, you must watch your temper very seriously; for in all our
little quarrels, my dear, if you recollect, my love, you always began
first.
Lady Teaz. I beg your pardon, my dear Sir Peter; indeed you
always gave the provocation.
Sir Pet. Now see, my angel! take care-contradicting isn't the
way to keep friends.
Lady Teaz. Then don t you begin it, my love!
Sir Pet. There, now, you—you are going on. You don't per-
ceive, my life! that you are just doing the very thing which you
know always makes me angry.
Lady Teaz. Nay, you know if you will be angry without any
reason, my dear-
Sir Pet. There! now you want to quarrel again.
Lady Teaz. No. I'm sure I don't: but, if you will be so
peevish-
Sir Pet. There now! who begins first ?
Lady Teaz. Why, you, to be sure. I said nothing-but there's
no bearing your temper.
Sir Pet. No, no, madam; the fault 's in your own temper.
Lady Teaz. Ay, you are just what my cousin Sophy said you
would be.
Sir Pet. Your cousin Sophy is a forward, impertinent gipsy.
Lady Teaz. You are a great bear, I'm sure, to abuse my rela-
tions.
Sir Pet.-Now may all the plagues of marriage be doubled on
me if ever I try to be friends with you any more!
Lady Teaz. So much the better.
Sir Pet. No, no, madam: 'tis evident you never cared a pin
for me, and I was a madman to marry you,-a pert, rural coquette
that had refused half the honest squires in the neighbourhood.
Lady Teaz. And I am sure I was a fool to marry you—an old
1751-1816.]
89
SHERIDAN.
dangling bachelor, who was single at fifty only because he never
could meet with anyone who would have him.
Sir Pet. Ay, ay, madam; but you were pleased enough to
listen to me; you never had such an offer before.
Lady Teaz. No! didn't I refuse Sir Tivy Terrier, who everybody
said would have been a better match? for his estate is just as good
as yours, and he has broke his neck since we have been married.
Sir Pet. I have done with you, madam! You are an unfeeling,
ungrateful-but there's an end of everything. I believe you
capable of everything that is bad. Yes, madam, I now believe the
reports relative to you and Charles, madam. Yes, madam, you
and Charles are, not without grounds
Lady Teaz. Take care, Sir Peter; you had better not insinuate
any such thing! I'll not be suspected without cause, I promise
you.
Sir Pet. Very well, madam! very well! A separate main-
tenance as soon as you please. Yes, madam, or a divorce! I'll
make an example of myself for the benefit of all old bachelors.
Let us separate, madam.
Lady Teaz. Agreed! agreed! and now, my dear Sir Peter, we
are of a mind once more, we may be the happiest couple, and never
differ again you know: ha! ha! ha! Well, you are going to be
in a passion, I see, and I shall only interrupt you-so, bye! bye!
Sir Pet. Plagues and tortures? can't I make her angry either.
Oh, I am the most miserable fellow! But I'll not bear her pre-
suming to keep her temper; no! she may break my heart, but
she sha'n't keep her temper.
[Exit.
*
90
[CH. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER V.
CLARENDON.
A.D. 1608-1674.
We have spoken of history as affording an exception,
the only exception, to the rule which young students should
inflexibly lay down for themselves, of studying the writings
of none but the finest writers, because the object with
which we fix our attention on historical works is different
from that which leads us to linger over the effects of the
poet, the dramatist, or the orator. Their writings we seek
for amusement and relaxation, of a high and intellectual
class, indeed, and calculated to have a really beneficial
effect on our minds, to refine our taste, and to elevate our
feelings, but still amusement. And that will not be
attained unless the style of the writers whom we select for
our companions is good in all points. Our taste will not
be refined by reading middling poetry, nor our feelings
and aspirations elevated by heavy, ill-argued, and worse-
expressed speeches. But choice language and well-turned
periods, though not less attractive in a historical work
than elsewhere, and perhaps not less indispensable to its
permanent reputation and popularity, are nevertheless not.
the first qualities which we seek. We read such works
for information. The first thing, therefore, that we require
is to be able to depend on the correctness of the account
presented to us; in other words, on the strict veracity,
candour, and impartiality of the writer. When we have
obtained this confidence in the general accuracy of the
statements submitted to us, our next wish is to be enabled
to form a sound estimate of the value of the facts related,
of their bearing on subsequent events and on the charac-
ters of the chief actors in them. And with this desire we
next demand in a historian weight of thought, grasp of
1608-1674]
91
CLARENDON.
mind, largeness of view, and sobriety of judgment. These
qualities, therefore, in a historian are of far greater im-
portance than any graces of style. Not, indeed, that pic-
turesqueness, vivacity, vigour, are less admirable here
than elsewhere. As making the study attractive they are
far from insignificant. It is only meant that they do not
come first, and are no substitute for the more sterling
qualities. Without impartiality and fidelity in relating
the facts, history is no better than a romance or a party
pamphlet. Without judgment in estimating their value
it is still but a bald chronicle, little better than an old
almanac. But, as long as these qualities are found in a
historical work, we must not be deterred from the study of
it because the author does not add to them descriptive
power, or skill in rounding off his sentences. It is, however,
our peculiar good fortune that the literature of our country
presents a most unusual number of writers in whom all the
requisites of a great historian are combined. And in many
respects he who comes first in chronological order yields
to none of his fellow-labourers in the same field.
The life of Edward Hyde, better known by his title of
Earl of Clarendon, belongs to the history of his country.
He was born in 1608, as the son of a country gentleman in
Wiltshire, and on leaving Oxford he was sent to London
to study law, a profession in which the eminence of his
uncle, Nicholas Hyde, at that time Chief Justice, seemed to
afford him a prospect of early advancement. The contest
between the King and his Parliament had, in the opinion
of many, terminated by Charles's assent to the Petition of
Right; but Hyde's father apparently did not agree with
that opinion, but foresaw other disputes of the same kind,
since it is recorded that, when his son first engaged in
the law, he exhorted him with great earnestness to shun the
practice, too common in that profession, of straining every
point in favour of prerogative, and perverting so useful a
science to the suppression of liberty.'1 The admonition was
impressed on the young man's mind with peculiar solem-
nity, since, as Hume, who has given us the account, con-
tinues: In the midst of these rational and virtuous
1 Hume, ch. lxiv.
*
92
[CM. V
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
counsels he was suddenly seized with apoplexy and died.'
And for many years Hyde showed how strongly he was
imbued with its spirit, in the Parliament of 1640 enrolling
himself in the country party, and when he strained
points of law at all, straining them rather against than in
favour of the King and his ministers.
It was soon seen that his abilities were such as to make
him independent of his uncle's patronage; he rapidly rose.
into notice both as a sound lawyer and a powerful advo-
cate, but he was not a mere lawyer. From his youth he
was an eager student of general literature, and especially
cultivated the acquaintance of Ben Jonson, then by general
consent esteemed the chief ornament of the literary world;
though after a time this familiarity was lessened by the
peevish ill-temper and absurd pretensions of the poet, who
thought himself slighted because the young lawyer would
not entirely neglect the study of his profession for his
society. In the year 1638 he greatly raised his forensic
reputation by venturing to appear as counsel for some
merchants in a suit which they had instituted against the
Lords of the Treasury; though it was an evil sign of the
times when it could be thought that any man ran any
risk, or could possibly give the least offence, by discharg
ing so plain a professional duty. But in the opinion of
his contemporaries it marked him out as a man of an un-
usually independent spirit; many expressed a wish to see
him in the House of Commons, and when, in 1640, Charles
found himself compelled again to seek the advice of the
great council of the nation, and issued writs for a new
Parliament, the first that had been summoned since Hyde
had come of age, he was returned as member for Shaftes-
bury, and found the leaders of the country party predis-
posed to welcome him as a valuable acquisition to their
ranks, to which, on many subjects, his legal knowledge
made him a recruit of great importance, since many of the
abuses which Pym and Hampden were most eager to
extinguish were connected with the administration of the
law, as carried out in the Earl Marshal's Court, the Star
Chamber, and other tribunals.
But he was of too independent and honest a spirit to
1608-1674]
93
CLARENDON.
bind himself wholly to that party. He was not afraid to
oppose Hampden when factiously endeavouring to procure
a repeal of supply by a side wind; while, on the other
hand, having some personal acquaintance with Laud, he
strove more than ever to persuade him to recommend
moderation to the King, especially urging him to prevent
the threatened dissolution of the ‘Short Parliament,' giving
advice which did not succeed, since that Parliament, by one
of Charles's most fatal acts of impolicy, was dissolved a few
weeks after its meeting.
In the Long Parliament Hyde sat as member for Saltash.
And, as in the interval the conduct of the Court had been
inore arbitrary than before, he now, addicting himself
almost exclusively to politics, became more earnest in
opposition, being very forward in procuring the abolition
of the Star Chamber, the High Court of Prerogative, and
other tribunals which had been perverted into becoming
mere engines for lawless oppression. He was also very de
cided in the language in which he denounced the decision of
the judges on the celebrated question of ship money, a deci-
sion which was undoubtedly inconsistent, not only with
Magna Charta, but with the Petition of Right which had
been assented to in that very reign. Unluckily, as is not
unfrequently the case in such contests, his zeal in the cause
of his party grew fiercer with each successive step; and we
soon find him worse employed in advocating some of the
most iniquitous of all the proceedings of the Parliament,
such as the impeachment of Strafford, and when that states-
man's innocence of all legal offence was established, his
attainder. And he also supported the bill to prevent the
dissolution of the Parliament without its own consent;
though he afterwards so deeply repented of his conduct in
this respect that he called the bill' a measure to remove the
landmarks and destroy the foundations of the kingdom.'
Indeed the only act of his at this period which gives any
token of his old manliness of spirit was his opposition to
his friend Lord Falkland on the subject of the exclusion of
the bishops from Parliament, for his attachment to the
Church and religion was sincere and undeviating.
And it was the strength and sincerity of this feeling
94
[CH. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
which, when he saw that the popular party as a body was
resolved on the destruction of the Church, determined him
on breaking off all connection with it, and joining the
Royalists, by whom his talents and honesty were so fully
appreciated that, when, in November 1641, the Parliament
issued the mischievous manifesto which they called their
remonstrance, it was to him that Charles entrusted the task
of drawing up his reply. Shortly afterwards he became
one of his ministers, with Falkland and Colepepper; and
though, like all men of sense and attachment to the mo-
narchy, he greatly disapproved of the King's unconstitu-
tional and impolitic attempt to arrest the five members, he
still continued to draw up all the papers which the Govern-
ment issued from time to time, and which were so power-
ful in argument, and produced so great an effect on the
country in general, that the leaders of the other side began
to attack him with virulence; one member even giving
notice of a motion to enquire by whose advice the King
was acting, a motion which evidently was meant as a
threat of impeachment. In the spring of 1642 he withdrew
from the House of Commons to join his royal master in
the North, was present at the raising of the standard at
Nottingham and at the battle of Edgehill, and was very
useful in obtaining supplies for the King, being especially
instrumental in inducing the Universities to send in their
plate to be coined. When the difficulties of the Exchequer
became too great for Colepepper's skill to manage, Hyde
succeeded him as Chancellor, and for the next three years
was practically the Prime Minister, fixing his residence at
Oxford, to manage all the proceedings of the King's Par-
liament which sat in that venerable and faithful city. In
the negotiations at Uxbridge he was the leading Com-
missioner on the King's side, where again he distinguished
himself by the resolute stand which he made in support of
the Church and Episcopacy. But his efforts to effect an
accommodation were vain, as unquestionably one portion of
the Parliamentary Commissioners had from the first resolved
that they should be; and there was no peace for England
till that more violent section of the King's opponents had
overborne not only him but their own milder and honester
1608-1671]
95
CLARENDON.
colleagues, and had attained the power to involve both
religion and monarchy in one common destruction.
In 1645 Hyde relinquished the guidance of affairs at
Oxford, to undertake what the King considered a still more
important duty. Though the Prince of Wales was but a
boy of fourteen, so many of the leading gentlemen of the
western counties, in which lay a great portion of the King's
strength, urged the propriety of sending him thither as a
head around whom the well-affected might rally, that he
was appointed 'General of all the King's forces in that
district, and Commander of the Western Association,'
and Hyde received the appointment of president of a council
of both civil and military officers by whose advice his
operations were to be guided. And at the beginning of
the next year, when, after the fatal battle of Naseby, the
towns in Somersetshire fell one after another into the hands
of the conquerors, and it was judged unsafe for the Prince
to remain in any part of the kingdom, Hyde, by the King's
express command, conducted him to Jersey, and though
the Prince shortly afterwards joined his mother at Paris,
he himself remained in that island for above two years, in
order to be the more easily able to keep up a communication
with his sovereign, to whom his misfortunes seemed only
the more closely to attach him.
It was during his residence at Jersey that he commenced
the great work to which he owes his literary reputation:
his History of the Rebellion,'
quæque ipse miserrima vidit
Et quorum pars magna fuit,
with the avowed object of vindicating the sounder part of
the nation from the charge of 'universal apostasy from
their religion and allegiance' to which the prosperous
wickedness of those times of which he wrote 'might seem
to lay it open-though he probably was as yet far from
foreseeing the fouler crimes on which the leaders of the
army had already secretly resolved-and 'that the memory
of those who, out of duty and conscience, had opposed that
torrent which did overwhelm them, might not lose the
recompense due to their virtue.' It was not strange that
96
[CH. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Charles, to whom the undertaking was communicated,
should take, as he did take, the most lively interest in a
work thus designed to do with posterity that justice to his
character and abilities which bis own age refused him: he
even assisted in it, sending the historian a narrative of the
most important transactions which had taken place between
the time when Hyde quitted Oxford and his own escape to
the Scottish camp, and of which therefore Hyde could
have no personal knowledge; as, at a later period, he re-
ceived from the Prince detailed memorials of Rupert's
operations.
Shortly before the King's murder, Hyde, always regulat-
ing his movements by his direction, rejoined the Prince at
Paris; and till the Restoration acted continually as his chief
councillor and minister, though often thwarted by Queen
Henrietta, who, desiring to exercise over her son the same
fatal influence which had been so pernicious to her too facile
husband, sought to determine his mind to such arbitrary
principles of government as are utterly at variance with
the spirit of English law, and were at least equally calculated
to prevent all chance of his recovery of his kingdom; and
which, on both grounds, Hyde opposed with all his power.
The purport of the advice which he gave was so generally
known and correctly estimated in England, that on Crom-
well's death, Charles, shrewdly perceiving how greatly it
would aid his cause to make, as it were, public avowal of his
influence over him, appointed him Lord Chancellor, an
office which he retained for the first seven years of his
actual reign. On the Restoration he received the title of
Earl of Clarendon, by which he has ever since been known,
and was so generally recognised as the head of the
Government that the Duke of Ormond advised him to take
the Lord Treasurer's staff, and to become in name what
everyone knew him to be in fact. But he preferred to
leave that to Lord Southampton, and to content himself
with that office which marked him out as the head of his
profession. And of that we have the testimony of a suc-
cessor of his in our own times, that he discharged the duties
with a profound knowledge of law, and with the most un-
bending integrity. To this last virtue indeed he was too
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97
CLARENDON.
•
steadfast for his permanent prosperity: it was not one much
in favour with either King or courtiers, to whose licentious-
ness every part of his conduct was a continual reproof.
While, from one of those delusions to which the mob is
subject, after a few years he lost the favour of the people
also, who attributed to him the sale of Dunkirk to Louis
XIV., believing that he had been privately enriched by the
transaction. Dunkirk House, a nickname given to a stately
mansion which he was building on a plot of ground that
Charles had granted to him, and part of which still exists
in the Clarendon Hotel, long preserved the memory of the
calumnies with which ignorant prejudice, or perhaps the
artful malice of the courtiers, contrived to load him; and
presently, when two great calamities, the Plague and the
Fire of London, and one great disgrace, the sailing of the
Dutch fleet up the Thames, had irritated the whole nation,
one general desire to make him the scapegoat of all these
calamities and errors seemed to seize the whole people. So
general was the feeling that the eccentric Lord Bristol
thought to win popularity for himself by impeaching him:
but it was properly decided that one Peer could not impeach
another;
while his friends demonstrated that all the
charges which it had been intended to bring against him
could not, whether taken separately or united, amount to
high treason. And the King himself, though weary of him,
had grace enough to try to save him, though in a very
irregular and unparliamentary way, by sending down a
message to the House of Lords, in which he affirmed that,
of his own certain knowledge, many of Lord Bristol's
statements were untrue. But in 1667 the disgraces of the
war, though in fact owing not to his mismanagement, but
to the neglect of his advice (the money which had been
voted for the campaign having been diverted to feed the
rapacious extravagance of the king's mistresses), overthrew
him. The persevering resentment of Lady Castlemaine at
last overcame Charles's scruples at abandoning a servant of
such tried fidelity; and, to please that most shameless of
women, Charles deprived him of the seals, the Duke of York,
who had married his daughter, being unable to save him.
Charles did indeed make a feeble effort to protect him from
98
LUн. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
further blows by promising the Parliament never again to
employ him in any post whatever; but the lady's influence
was more mighty than even his, and Sir Edward Seymour
moved his impeachment in the House of Commons. So
ridiculous, however, in the eyes of the Commons themselves
were the grounds of complaint which he alleged that, though
the resolution for his impeachment was carried by a large
majority, his enemies were actually ashamed to specify the
charges, and limited their accusation to one of treason in
general, which the House of Lords rightly pronounced to be
illegal. However, Clarendon, to avoid the storm, retired
from the country; and a bill was passed, one of the most
shameless acts of that most shameless reign, to condemn
him to perpetual exile, unless he should return to England
to submit to a trial before a certain day. An illness which
attacked him prevented his complying with the condition
thus imposed, and accordingly he was banished; while
Louis, to requite the general subserviency of the English
Court to his policy, gratified its malice against him by
refusing to allow him to reside in France. Subsequently,
when the French king was offended by Charles's accession to
the Triple Alliance, he withdrew that prohibition; and the
exiled statesman, after spending a few months in the South,
finally settled at Rouen, where, in 1674, he died, having,
when he found his end approaching, in vain implored his
ungrateful master's leave to return to his native land. He
had occupied his last years in the completion of his History,
which, however, he desired should not be made known to
the world till all those who were directly affected by the
narrative should have passed from the scene; and which,
accordingly, was not published till the beginning of the next
century; and even then it was not given to the world as
the author left it, but was mutilated by the injudicious
prudence of the editors; nor was it till 1826 that his own
University, in whose great Library the manuscript had
been preserved, printed it in its complete form, with a very
elaborate autobiography.
Even political animosity has not ventured to deny the
great merit of the History. It is said that, so deeply was he
imbued with a reverence for the great classical writers that,
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99
CLARENDON.
'to turn his mind to historical composition and to improve
his taste, he read over Livy and Tacitus and almost all the
works of Cicero.' 1 But, if the anecdote be true, it affords a
curious instance of the difficulty which even the ablest men
often find in carrying out their preconceived ideas, since few
historians have written in a style less resembling the flowing
picturesqueness of Livy; while from the sententious brevity
of Tacitus he is still further removed. His merits are his
own, as indeed are his faults; the latter (in point of style)
may perhaps be limited to an extreme redundancy of
expression, leading him into a length of sentence which is
absolutely unparalleled. The former are great gravity of
reflection, dignity and justness of sentiment, keen delicacy
of observation, and a most acute discrimination of character.
In the most important qualification of a historian, fidelity,
he displays a degree of candour and impartiality hardly
to have been expected in one who had played so important
a part in most of the transactions which he was relating that
he could hardly avoid looking at them without a strong
prejudice on one side or the other. Yet his relation of facts
and of the conduct of others has not been successfully
impeached in any material instance; the only exception that
is to be made to his uniform correctness seems to be when
he is describing his own conduct, and there it must be ad-
mitted that we cannot implicitly rely on his statements. It
was indeed not unnatural, when he reflected afterwards on
the atrocious and horrible result to which the opposition
of the country party to the King's lawless proceedings had
led, that he should have learnt to think more of the evils
which had actually ensued, of the death of one king, of the
protracted exile of another, of the downfall of the Church,
of the still severer tyranny of Cromwell, than of the dangers
which that opposition had checked in the bud and had never
allowed to be felt as evils. And, as he himself had been
for years a prominent member of that party on whose
measures he had thus learnt to look with abhorrence, it was
perhaps not greatly to be wondered at that he should
endeavour at times to conceal how large a share he had
borne in them; though nothing is more certain than that
¹ Lord Campbell, ch. Ixxvi.
6
100
[CH. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in some of the most inexcusable of them he had been a
leader. But it is only as to his own share in transactions
of which he does not in the least palliate the guilt or dis-
guise the character, that any deduction from his credibility
is required to be made. On all other matters subsequent
writers of every shade of politics have agreed in regarding
his work as a trustworthy record of the most eventful
period in our annals, and as one, even if we look at nothing
beyond the style, whose merits so greatly outweigh its
defects that the attention of the reader is as closely rivetted
by its dignity and force, as by the lighter graces of more
rhetorically trained artists.
The first extract contains his character of the King;
dictated indeed by strong affection, but drawn with such
discernment and impartiality that even those least friendly
to the memory of Charles I. have found but little to cavil
at in it; while the language is so felicitously chosen, the
sentences are so well balanced, and the whole style is so full
of dignity, that, even were the matter of far inferior value,
the passage would still deserve to be studied as a model
for compositions of such a kind.
(History of the Rebellion, book xi.)
But it will not be unnecessary to add a short character of his
person, that posterity may know the inestimable loss which the
nation then underwent, in being deprived of a Prince whose ex-
ample would have had a greater influence upon the manners and
piety of the nation than the most strict laws can have. To speak
first of his private qualifications as a man, before the mention of
his princely and royal virtues; he was, if ever any, the most
worthy of the title of an honest man; so great a lover of justice,
that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongful action, except
it was so disguised to him that he believed it to be just. He had
a tenderness and compassion of nature which restrained him from
ever doing a hard-hearted thing; and therefore he was so apt to
grant pardon to malefactors, that the judges of the land repre-
sented to him the damage and insecurity to the public that flowed
from such his indulgence. And then he restrained himself from
pardoning either murders or highway robberies, and quickly dis-
cerned the fruits of his severity by a wonderful reformation of
those enormities. He was very punctual and regular in his devo-
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CLARENDON.
tions; he was never known to enter upon his recreations or sports,
though never so early in the morning, before he had been at
public prayers; so that on hunting days his chaplains were bound
to a very early attendance. He was likewise very strict in ob-
serving the hours of his private cabinet devotions; and was so
severe an exactor of gravity and reverence in all mention of reli-
gion, that he could never endure any light or profane word, with
what sharpness of wit soever it was covered: and though he was
well pleased and delighted with reading verses made upon any
occasion, no man durst bring before him anything that was profane
or unclean. That kind of wit had never any countenance then.
He was so great an example of conjugal affection, that they who
did not imitate him in that particular durst not brag of their
liberty: and he did not only permit, but direct his bishops to
prosecute those scandalous vices, in the ecclesiastical courts,
against persons of eminence and near relation to his service.
His kingly virtues had some mixture and alloy, that hindered
them from shining in full lustre, and from producing those fruits
they should have been attended with. He was not in his nature
very bountiful, though he gave very much. This appeared more
after the Duke of Buckingham's death, after which those showers
fell very rarely; and he paused too long in giving, which made
those to whom he gave less sensible of the benefit. He kept state
to the full, which made his Court very orderly; no man pre-
suming to be seen in a place where he had no pretence to be. He
saw and observed men long before he received them about his
person, and did not love strangers nor very confident men. He
was a patient hearer of causes, which he frequently accustomed
himself to at the Council Board, and judged very well, and was
dexterous in the mediating part, so that he often put an end to
causes by persuasion, which the stubbornness of men's humours
made dilatory in courts of justice.
He was very fearless in his person; but, in his riper years, not
very enterprising. He had an excellent understanding, but was
not confident enough of it, which made him oftentimes change
his own opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of men that did
not judge so well as himself. This made him more irresolute than
the conjuncture of his affairs would admit; if he had been of a
rougher and more imperious nature, he would have found more
respect and duty. And his not applying some severe cures to
approaching evils proceeded from the lenity of his nature, and the
tenderness of his conscience, which, in all cases of blood, made
him choose the softer way, and not hearken to severe counsels
how reasonably soever urged. This only restrained him from pur-
102
[CH. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
suing his advantage in the first Scottish expedition, when, humanly
speaking, he might have reduced that nation to the most entire
obedience that could have been wished. But no man can say he
had then many who advised him to it, but the contrary, by a
wonderful indisposition all his council had to the war, or any other
fatigue. He was always a great lover of the Scottish nation,
having not only been born there, but educated by that people, and
besieged by them always, having few English about him till he
was king, and the major number of his servants being still of that
nation, who he thought could never fail him. And among these
no man had such an ascendant over him, by the humblest insinua-
tions, as Duke Hamilton had.
As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so
strict, that he abhorred all debauchery to that degree, that at a
great festival solemnity where he once was, when very many of the
nobility of the English and Scots were entertained, being told by
one who withdrew from thence what vast draughts of wine they
drank, and 'that there was one Earl who had drank most of the
rest down, and was not himself moved or altered,' the king said
'that he deserved to be hanged;' and that Earl coming shortly
after into the room where his Majesty was, in some gaiety, to show
how unhurt he was from that battle, the king sent one to bid
him withdraw from his Majesty's presence, nor did he in some days
after appear before him.
So many miraculous circumstances contributed to his ruin, that
men might well think that heaven and earth conspired it. Though
he was, from the first declension of his power, so much betrayed
by his own servants that there were very few who remained faith-
ful to him, yet that treachery proceeded not always from any trea-
sonable purpose to do him harm, but from particular and personal
animosities against other men. And afterwards the terror all men
were under of the Parliament, and the guilt they were conscious of
themselves, made them watch all opportunities to make themselves
gracious to those who could do them good; and so they became
spies upon their master, and from one piece of knavery were
hardened and confirmed to undertake another; till at last they had
no hope of preservation but by the destruction of their master.
And after all this, when a man might reasonably believe that less
than a universal defection of three nations could not have reduced
a great king to so ugly a fate, it is most certain that, in that very
hour when he was thus wickedly murdered in the sight of the sun,
he had as great a share in the hearts and affections of his subjects
in general, was as much beloved, esteemed, and longed for by the
people in general of the three nations, as any of his predecessors
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103
CLARENDON.
had ever been. To conclude: he was the worthiest gentleman, the
best master, the best friend, the best husband, the best father, and
the best Christian that the age in which he lived produced. And
if he were not the greatest king, if he were without some parts
and qualities which have made some kings great and happy, no
other prince was ever unhappy who was possessed of half his
virtues and endowments, and so much without any kind of vice.
The candour and inflexible honesty with which Claren-
don judges his contemporaries is, perhaps, even more
shown by his character of Cromwell, whom he had still
greater reason to hate, as the cause of his long banishment
from his native land, than he had to love Charles; but even
his detestation of Cromwell's crimes does not blind him to
his talents.
(Book xv.)
IIe was one of those men, quos vituperare ne inimici quidem
possent, nisi ut simul laudent, whom his very enemies could not
condemn without commending him at the same time: for he could
never have done half that mischief without great parts of courage,
industry, and judgment. He must have had a wonderful under-
standing in the natures and humours of men, and as great a dex-
terity in applying them, who, from a private and obscure birth
(though of a good family), without interest or estate, alliance or
friendship, could raise himself to such a height, and compound and
knead such opposite and contradictory tempers, humours, and in-
terests into a consistence that contributed to his designs and to
their own destruction; whilst himself grew insensibly powerful
enough to cut off those by whom he had climbed, in the instant
that they projected to demolish their own building. What was
said of Cinna may very justly be said of him: 'ausum eum quæ
nemo auderet bonus; perfecisse quæ a nullo, nisi fortissimo, per-
fici possent': he attempted those things which no good man durst
have ventured on, and achieved those in which none but a valiant
and great man could have succeeded. Without doubt, no man
with more wickedness ever attempted anything, or brought to pass
what he desired more wickedly, more in the face and contempt of
religion and moral honesty. Yet wickedness as great as his could
never have accomplished those designs without the assistance of
a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity, and a
most magnanimous resolution.
When he appeared first in the Parliament he seemed to have a
person in no degree gracious, no ornament of discourse, none of
those talents which use to conciliate the affections of the stander-
104
[CH. V.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
by; yet as he grew into place and authority his parts seemed to be
raised, as if he had had concealed faculties till he had occasion to
use them, and when he was to act the part of a great man he did it
without any indecency, notwithstanding the want of custom.
After he was confirmed and invested Protector by the humble
petition and advice, he consulted with very few upon any action
of importance, nor communicated any enterprise he resolved upon,
with more than those who were to have principal parts in the exe-
cution of it, nor with them sooner than was absolutely necessary.
What he once resolved, in which he was not rash, he would not
be dissuaded from, nor endure any contradiction of his power and
authority, but extorted obedience from them who were not willing
to yield it.
Thus he subdued a spirit that had been often troublesome to the
most sovereign power, and made Westminster Hall as obedient and
subservient to his commands as any of the rest of his quarters. In
all other matters which did not concern the life of his jurisdiction
he seemed to have great reverence for the law, rarely interposing
between party and party. As he proceeded with this kind of in-
dignation and haughtiness with those who were refractory, and
durst contend with his greatness, so towards all who complied with
his good pleasure, and courted his protection, he used great civility,
generosity, and bounty.
To reduce three nations, which perfectly hated him, to an entire
obedience to all his dictates, to awe and govern those nations by an
army that was indevoted to him, and wished his ruin, was an in-
stance of a very prodigious address. But his greatness at home
was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad. It was hard to dis-
cover which feared him most: France, Spain, or the Low Coun-
tries, where his friendship was current at the value he put upon it.
As they did all sacrifice their honour and their interest to his
pleasure, so there is nothing he could have demanded that either of
them would have denied him. To manifest which there needs
only two instances. The first is, when those of the valley of
Lucerne had unwarily risen in arms against the Duke of Savoy,
which gave occasion to the Pope and the neighbour princes of Italy
to call and solicit for their extirpation, and their Prince positively
resolved upon it, Cromwell sent his agent to the Duke of Savoy, a
prince with whom he had no correspondence or commerce, and so
engaged the Cardinal, and even terrified the Pope himself, without
so much as doing any grace to the English Roman Catholics
(nothing being more usual than his saying 'that his ships in the
Mediterranean should visit Civita Vecchia, and that the sound of
his cannon should be heard in Rome') that the Duke of Savoy
thought it necessary to restore all that he had taken from them,
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CLARENDON.
and did renew all those privileges they had formerly enjoyed and
newly forfeited.
6
To conclude his character, Cromwell was not so far a man of
blood as to follow Machiavel's method, which prescribes, upon a
total alteration of government, as a thing absolutely necessary, to
cut off all the heads of those, and extirpate their families, who are
friends to the old one. It was confidently reported that in the
council of officers it was more than once proposed that there
might be a general massacre of all the royal party, as the only ex-
pedient to secure the government,' but that Cromwell would never
consent to it; it may be out of too great a contempt for his ene-
mies. In a word, as he was guilty of many crimes against which
damnation is denounced, and for which hell-fire is prepared, so he
had some good qualities which have caused the memory of some
men in all ages to be celebrated. He will be looked upon by
posterity as a brave, wicked man.
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[CH. VI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER VI.
ROBERTSON.
A.D. 1721-1793.
TILL the middle of the eighteenth century there had
been several causes which had contributed to prevent those
who were capable of such an undertaking from devoting
themselves to historical writing. For, above all other
classes of literature, historical composition, if the writer
desires success, by which I mean literary reputation and
profit in his own day, requires a time free from any extreme
violence of party animosity. And so conscious of this was
the great historical writer whom I have already mentioned,
Lord Clarendon, that though, as we have seen, he devoted
great labour to writing a history of his own time, he ab-
stained from publishing his work, which was not given to
the world till many years after his death. But by the
close of the reign of George II., the bitterness of party
feeling had been greatly subdued, if not wholly extin-
guished by the failure of the last rebellion; it was no longer
dangerous to express one's opinion on past events. And
the consequence was that those who felt within themselves
the qualities necessary to enable them to shine in such
works eagerly betook themselves to the composition of
history, and almost simultaneously three writers of great
ability descended into the field which had been so long
entirely neglected, and as yet, as far as Britain was con-
cerned, at best but partially cultivated. Two of them
came from Scotland, a proportion which might seem to
foreshadow the special industry and ability with which
since that day her sons have applied themselves to historical
researches. Dr. Robertson was born at Borthwick in the
county of Edinburgh, in 1721, being the son of the Presby-
terian minister of that town, who brought him up to
his own profession. His talents speedily procured him
1721-1793]
107
ROBERTSON
preferment; and, as the preacher at the Grey Friars'
Church in Edinburgh, he won a high reputation for
eloquence. Nor, even when he began to apply him-
self to literature, did he so wholly devote himself to it as
to neglect or even greatly to abate his attention to his
clerical duties. It is remarkable that the circumstance
which seems first to have suggested to him the idea of
attaining a more widespread fame than his position as a
parish priest could open to him, arose from the agitation
which in the present generation has caused a schism in the
Presbyterian body. A party within the Scotch Church
was already raising a clamour against the system of
patronage, which Robertson put himself forward to resist.
He regarded the existing arrangement as a condition on
which the Estates and Parliament substituted Presbytery
for Episcopacy, and considered any attempt to subvert it in
some degree a breach of faith; while, since to make any
alteration would be a mere concession to unreasoning agi-
tation, he thought it still more objectionable as a precedent.
In the meetings of the General Assembly he therefore
contended with great earnestness and ability against any
change; and in his different speeches displayed such
historical knowledge, and such skill in drawing historical
inferences, as opened to him a wider acquaintance with
society, and led his friends, and probably himself also, to
form a higher idea of his general ability than had been
previously conceived. For we have the testimony of some
of their own body that till this time the Presbyterian clergy
had been but poorly esteemed in Scotland. There are few
who have not read the description which Macaulay, in the
third chapter of his history, has drawn of the English clergy
of the preceding century, tinctured, indeed, with that
habitual exaggeration which makes him less trustworthy
as a guide than he is fascinating as a painter, and in this
instance additionally embittered by his recollection of tho
resistance which many, and those not the least distinguished
of their body, offered to his favourite hero, William III., but
still having a foundation of truth: he, it will be remem-
bered, though he admits that a few men of high family,
younger sons of peers and others of that class, might still
108
[CH. VI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
be found in holy orders, affirms that the view which, as
a general rule, was taken of their position, and especially
of the position of the rural as distinguished from the town
clergy, was that they were scarcely gentlemen, while their
learning and manners corresponded rather to the estima-
tion in which they were held than to the expectations
which might have been formed of the members of a pro-
fession which both requires a high education and also
affords unusual opportunities to the scholar. The opinion
entertained of the Presbyterian ministers in Scotland as a
body in the early part of the last century was certainly
not higher. And, among his other claims to notice, Dr.
Robertson seems fairly entitled to this praise also, that he
was the man who principally contributed to elevate their
position as members of society; and by so doing to raise
the standard of knowledge and accomplishment among
them. For no surer stimulus excites a man to acquire
knowledge than the feeling that he is placed in a situation
in which learning and refinement are expected of him. And
we may see a signal proof of the reputation which Robert-
son's exertions in the General Assembly had procured him,
and likewise of the opportunities for further improvement
which it opened to him, in the circumstance of his being
admitted as a member of a society in Edinburgh, which
met weekly for the discussion of literary and scientific sub-
jects, and of which men of such pre-eminent ability and
celebrity as Wedderburn (afterwards Lord Chancellor of
England), Sir Gilbert Elliot (one of the English ministry),
Lord Hailes, Lord Monboddo, and Lord Elibank (judges
whose names have come down even to our day), David
Hume, and Adam Smith were already members. For a
man to hold his ground in such a company required no
scanty capacity and acquirements; but there is no doubt
that Robertson not only maintained but increased his
reputation. And he made honorable use of his growing
influence when he stood forward as the champion of Home,
who was also a Presbyterian minister, on the occasion
of his being arraigned at the bar of the General Assembly
for writing a play.
His exertions for his friend were unsuccessful, for Home
1721-1793]
109
ROBERTSON.
was compelled to resign his living; but the result did not
abate the inclination which his champion had begun to enter-
tain of seeking fame as an author of a different class. Next
to theology, history had ever been his favourite study; and
in 1759 he came before the world as the historian of his
native land. He entitles his work, indeed, only 'The
History of Scotland during the reigns of Mary and James;'
but his first book, which is devoted to a preliminary sketch
of the earlier annals of the country, contains as much
information as could be collected relating to the different
sovereigns who had ruled the country from the days of
the first who bore the name of James, the prince whom
Henry IV. of England intercepted, detained, and educated
in England: a training from which, in the opinion of the
historian, both he and his kingdom derived great benefit.
ance.
It may probably be said with truth that no first work of
an author was ever equally successful. It was at once
recognised as a work of first-rate excellence. It was as
warmly praised by men of fashion and superficial accom-
plishments, such as Horace Walpole, as by Hume, who, as
a labourer in the same field, must be considered a sounder
judge of the difficulties of the task. The success. of the
work is the more remarkable if compared with the fate of
Hume's first volumes, which had been published a few
years before, and which, as I shall have occasion to mention
hereafter, were very coldly received on their first appear-
It procured him preferment of the kind which was
at once most honourable and most congenial to his own
inclinations. He was made Principal of the University of
Edinburgh, and Historiographer for Scotland to the King;
and, stimulated by the general approbation, he at once
began to deliberate on the subject of a fresh work. The
King himself recommended him the history of England;
but he had formed a more correct judgment than His
Majesty of the real excellence of Hume's work, and of the
renown which it must eventually attain; and, after con-
sulting many friends, he finally decided on taking the
reign of the great Emperor Charles V. for his theme. It
was a fortunate choice; the very extensiveness of the
subject was well calculated to display his peculiar talent
110
[CH. VI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of connecting transactions apparently detached and dis-
tinct in one harmonious narrative; the importance of
the religious movement which was the especial feature of
the time, afforded him a singular opportunity of displaying
his impartiality and candour; while the remarkable character
of the Emperor and his chief rival, Francis I., severely
tested his powers of discrimination and the correctness of
his judgment. It is not too much to say that he proved
fully equal to the difficulties of his undertaking. And a
most convincing proof of the ability with which he executed
his task is supplied by the fact that, after all the additional
light which has been thrown on a great portion of the
history of Spain by the opening to scholars of the Spanish
archives, the most recent author who has treated of the
transactions of that age, Mr. Prescott, has found nothing
to correct or alter in his narrative of the reign of the great
Emperor while he retained his throne; and has only been
able to add some details of his life after his abdication, of
which, till the treasures of Simancas were unlocked, there
were no means of arriving at a knowledge. This second
work at once made him a rich man; and eight years after-
wards, in 1777, he produced his third great work, the
History of America, which was almost equally praised,
though the outbreak of the war between Britain and
the American colonies, which broke out while the work
was in progress, prevented his making it as comprehen-
sive as he had originally designed. He felt that while
the war was still raging, 'enquiries and speculations con-
cerning ancient forms of policy and laws of the colonies,
which existed no longer, could not be interesting.' And
therefore, with the exception of a brief account of the early
history of New England and Virginia, he confined himself
to the history of the Spanish settlements in the New
World, the voyages and discoveries of Columbus, and the
conquests of Mexico and Peru by Cortez and Pizarro.
This work has in the present day been in some degree
superseded by the more elaborate and detailed narratives
of Prescott, as his history of Scotland has been by the
more recent volumes of Tytler and Burton, who have had
access to sources of information which were not open to
1721-1793]
111
ROBERTSON.
him; but when it originally came out it was deservedly
admired as much as either of those which had preceded it.
And it greatly extended his fame in England, where Burke
made it the subject of his constant panegyric in all literary
societies.
Almost at the same time he lost the favour of a portion
of his own countrymen, or at least of the citizens of Edin-
burgh, whose bigotry was offended by the liberal views
which he took of religious differences. The fanaticism
which disgraced London with the Protestant riots of 1780
was not confined to the English metropolis; but outbreaks
little less furious were excited in Edinburgh by the intelli-
gence of the measures which were passed in 1778 for tho
relief of the Roman Catholics from some of the political
disabilities which had been enacted at the time of the
Revolution, but which the notorious abandonment of all
the plans for the restoration of the Stuarts rendered no
longer necessary or even defensible. The mob attacked the
houses of all those whom they understood to have been
favorable to the bill; and as Robertson's celebrity had made
his opinions on the subject especially notorious, they fell on
his house with peculiar fury, hoping to lay hands on him-
self and murder him, nor was it without difficulty that
he was protected by the troops who were sent down to the
scene of outrage. But the blind malice of a band of ruffians
could not diminish the esteem in which he was held by all
whose judgment was valuable; and he enjoyed the respect
of all those who were able to appreciate virtue and talent,
till his death, which happened in 1793, when he had just
completed his seventy-second year.
The circumstance that, above a hundred years after its
publication, his account of one of the most important
periods of European history, the reign of Charles V., is
still the standard work on the subject, is of itself a sufficient
proof of his great merit. His style may, perhaps, too often
bear the appearance of labour. It certainly has not the
simple, natural ease of his great countryman and contem-
porary, David Hume; but it is often powerful, not rarely
picturesque, and uniformly correct and perspicuous, while
his work is rich in qualities still more important in a
112
[CH. VI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
history than perfection of style. It shows him throughout
to have been a man of inflexible honesty and impartiality,
laborious in ascertaining the truth, fearless in stating it;
and, if he does not display either the penetrating sagacity
or largeness of view which distinguishes not only Hume,
but the third writer to whom we have alluded, the historian
of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, he never
allows prejudice to warp his judgment, and has never
written a single line which could taint the principles of the
innocent, or shake the faith of the weak-minded.
Our first extract, in which our historian relates that
singular conspiracy of Fiesco which took such a hold on
the fancy of the busy de Retz, is a good specimen of his
more elaborate style.
(Charles V. chap. viii.)
Fiesco, having thus fixed and encouraged his associates, before he
gave them his last orders, he hastened for a moment to the apart-
ment of his wife, a lady of the noble house of Cibo, whom he
loved with tender affection, and whose beauty and virtue rendered
her worthy of his love. The noise of the armed men who crowded
the court and palace having long before this reached her ears, she
concluded some hazardous enterprise to be in hand, and she
trembled for her husband. He found her in all the anguish of un-
certainty and fear; and as it was now impossible to keep his design
concealed, he informed her of what he had undertaken. The
prospect of a scene so full of horror as well as danger completed
her agony; and foreboding immediately in her mind the fatal issue
of it, she endeavoured, by her tears, her entreaties, and her despair,
to divert him from his purpose. Fiesco, after trying in vain to
soothe and to inspire her with hope, broke from a situation into
which an excess of tenderness had unwarily seduced him, though
it could not shake his resolution. 'Farewell!' he cried, as he
quitted the apartment, 'you shall either never see me more, or
you shall behold to-morrow everything in Genoa subject to your
power.'
As soon as he rejoined his companions he allotted each his pro-
per station; some were appointed to assault and seize the different
gates of the city, some to make themselves masters of the principal
streets or places of strength. Fiesco reserved for himself the attack
of the harbour where Doria's gallies were laid up, as the post of
chief importance and of greatest danger. It was now midnight,
end the citizens slept in the security of peace, when this band of
1721-1793.]
113
ROBERTSON.
conspirators, numerous, desperate, and well-armed, rushed out to
execute their plan. They surprised some of the gates without
meeting with any resistance. They got possession of others after
a sharp conflict with the soldiers on guard. Verrina, with the
galley which had been fitted out against the Turks, blocked up the
mouth of the Darsena, or little harbour where Doria's fleet lay.
All possibility of escape being cut off by this précaution, when
Fiesco attempted to enter the gallies from the shore, to which they
were made fast, they were in no condition to make resistance, as
they were not only unrigged and disarmed, but had no crew on
board, except the slaves chained to the oar. Every quarter of the
city was now filled with noise and tumult, all the streets resound-
ing with the cry of Fiesco and Liberty. At that name, so popular
and beloved, many of the lower rank took arms, and joined the
conspirators. The nobles and partisans of the aristocracy, as-
tonished or affrighted, shut the gates of their houses, and thought
of nothing but of securing them from pillage. At last the noise
excited by this scene of violence and confusion reached the palace
of Doria; Giaunetino started immediately from his bed, and
imagining that it was occasioned by some mutiny among the
sailors, rushed out with a few attendants, and hurried towards the
harbour. The gate of St. Thomas, through which he had to pass,
was already in possession of the conspirators, who, the moment he
appeared, fell upon him with the utmost fury, and murdered him
on the spot. The same must have been the fate of the elder Doria,
if Jerome de Fiesco had executed his brother's plan, and had pro-
cceded immediately to attack him in his palace; but he, from the
sordid consideration of preventing its being plundered amidst the
confusion, having forbid his followers to advance, Andrew got in-
telligence of his nephew's death, as well as of his own danger, and
mounting on horseback, saved himself by flight. Amidst this
general consternation a few senators had the courage to assemble
in the palace of the republic. At first some of the most daring
among them attempted to rally the scattered soldiers, and to at-
tack a body of the conspirators; but, being repulsed with loss, all
agreed that nothing now remained but to treat with the party
which seemed to be irresistible. Deputies were accordingly sent
to learn of Fiesco what were the concessions with which he would
be satisfied, or rather to submit to whatever terms he should please
to prescribe.
But by this time Fiesco, with whom they were empowered to
negotiate, was no more. Just as he was about to leave the har-
bour, where everything had succeeded to his wish, that he might
join his victorious companions, he heard some extraordinary
114
[CH. V1.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
uproar on board the Admiral's galley. Alarmed at the noise, and
fearing that the slaves might break their chains, and overpower
his associates, he ran thither; but the plank which reached from
the shore to the vessel happening to overturn, he fell into the sea,
whilst he hurried forward too precipitately. Being loaded with
heavy armour, he sunk to the bottom, and perished in the very
moment when he must have taken full possession of everything
that his ambitious heart could desire.
Our second quotation may serve to show his discrimina-
tion in the discernment of character, and his candour in
judging of one of whom it has been sometimes said that none
of his countrymen can speak except in the character of a
partisan.
(History of Scotland, chap. ix.)
Such was the tragical death of Mary, Queen of Scots, after a life
of forty-four years and two months, almost nineteen years of which
she passed in captivity. The political parties which were formed
in the kingdom during her reign have subsisted under various
denominations ever since that time. The rancour with which they
were at first animated hath descended to succeeding ages, and
their prejudices as well as their rage have been perpetuated and
even augmented. Among historians who were under the dominion
of all these passions, and who have either ascribed to her every
virtuous and amiable quality, or have imputed to her all the vices
of which the human heart is susceptible, we search in vain for
Mary's real character. She neither merited the exaggerated
praises of the one, nor the undistinguished censure of the other.
To all the charms of beauty, and the utmost elegance of external
form, she added those accomplishments which render their impres-
sion irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable
of speaking and of writing with equal ease and dignity; sudden,
however, and violent in all her attachments, because her heart was
warm and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she
had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen.
No stranger on some occasions to dissimulation, which in that
perfidious court where she received her education was reckoned
among the necessary arts of government. Not insensible of flattery,
or unconscious of that pleasure with which almost every woman
beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the
qualities which we love, not with the talents that we admire, she
was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The
vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judg-
ment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times
1721-1793.]
115.
ROBERTSON.
under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and
into crimes. To say that she was always unfortunate will not ac-
count for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities
which befel her. Her passion for Darnley was rash, youthful, and
excessive, and though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme
was the natural effect of her ill-requited love, and of his ingrati-
tude, insolence, and brutality; yet neither these, nor Bothwell's
artful address and important services, can justify her attachment
to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they
were, are no apology for this unhappy passion; nor can they induce
us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon
it with less abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part
of her character, which it cannot approve, and may perhaps prompt
some to impute some of her actions to her situation, more than to
her dispositions; and to lament the unhappiness of the former,
rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's suffer-
ings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical dis-
tresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration,
and while we survey them we are apt altogether to forget her
frailties, we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve
of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained
much nearer to pure virtue.
With regard to the queen's person, a circumstance not to be
omitted in writing the history of a female reign, all contemporary
authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of counte-
nance and elegance of shape of which the human form is capable.
Her hair was black; though, according to the fashion of the age,
she frequently wore borrowed locks, and of different colours. Her
eyes were a dark grey; her complexion was exquisitely fine; and
her hands and arms remarkably delicate, both as to shape and
colour. Her stature was of a height that rose to the majestic.
She danced, she walked, and rode with equal grace. Her taste for
music was just, and she both sung and played upon the lute with
uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life, long confinement,
and the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned,
brought on a rheumatism, which often deprived her of the use of
her limbs. No man,' says Brantome, 'ever beheld her person
without admiration and love, or will read her history without
sorrow,'
116
[CH. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER VII.
HUME.
A.D. 1711-1776.
THE second of these historians, taking them in the order
of the publication of their works, was David Hume, a
countryman of Robertson, from whom, however, like
Gibbon, of whom we shall speak next, he differs lamentably
in one most important respect. The historian of Charles V.
was a devout believer in, and an earnest inculcator of, the
truths of religion: Hume was a sceptic, if not an infidel;
though he never allowed his indifference to religion to taint
his narrative, being led indeed by his political opinions
to look on the Church chiefly as an engine of government,
and as such to exalt her claims rather than to disparage
them. And, as it happened that nearly all the eminent
writers of France who lived at the same time were also
infected with a similar disposition to unbelief, it might
suggest a curious question how it came to pass that, while
too nearly coinciding with our great historians in their
irreligion, they yet took such different views of politics and
systems of government? For both Hume and Gibbon were
staunch supporters not only of monarchy in the abstract,
but of our own government in particular; both, indeed,
towards the end of their lives, accepting ministerial offices;
while the French authors to whom I have alluded,
Voltaire, Rousseau, and the whole body of the Encyclo-
pédistes, were the bitterest assailants of the existing order
of things, the heralds, and, in a great degree, the prompters
of that terrible revolution which swept all away in un-
equalled ruin. It would occupy too much of our space to
work out a full explanation of the causes of this difference;
1711-1776.]
117
HUME.
but it seems to have arisen in a great degree from a cir-
cumstance which bears testimony to the superior excel-
lence of onr own constitution. Hume and Gibbon came
to the examination of political questions as to an exercise
to which the British mind had long been accustomed. They
could examine deliberately and soberly, because they had
no need to hurry their investigations lest the interference
of authority should suddenly compel them to desist from
them. They could venture to applaud because they could
have ventured to blame if their judgment had led them to
disapprove. And they were under no necessity of satisfy-
ing their pride by a parade of independence which all around.
them had long possessed equally with themselves. The
French writers were differently situated. Till the licence of
the Regent and Louis XV. had gradually relaxed all the
restraints of authority, and those most which were most
founded on reason or propriety, no one in France could
promulgate any opinion unfavorable to the existing Govern-
ment without imminent risk. Under Louis XIV., when
all had been slaves, literature had been more slavish than
anything else: servility and the basest adulation found
their way into the preacher's pulpit, and into the critic's
satire. A writer of the new generation was eager to show
his fearlessness of such shackles as had trammelled the
genius of his predecessors; and thus, to place himself
above the suspicion of submissiveness to the Court's dicta-
tion, he selected Court, and Church, and every principle
on which the one had received the reverence, and the other
claimed the obedience of his fellow-citizens, for attacks of
which the weapons varied with the bent of his natural
genius: with ribald scoffing, or sentimental casuistry, or
the cold elaboration of metaphysical argument.
Of his life Hume has himself left us a short autobiograph-
ical sketch, written with great frankness and modesty:
from which we learn that, in spite of the spelling of the
name which his branch of the family adopted, he belonged
to the great 'Border clan,' as Scott terms it, of Home.
He was born at Edinburgh in 1711, his father being a
country gentleman of considerable estate. He, however, as
one of the younger sons, had only a scanty patrimony, and,
118
[CII. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
on leaving the university, was sent by his father to the study
of the law. But the desire of riches, which had suggested
the choice of that profession for him, had no charms for
himself: he had already imbibed a passion for literature, and
choosing the Muse for his mistress, was resolved to seek
her for herself alone. To quote his own words, ‘he found
an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuit
of philosophy and general learning; and while his family
fancied he was poring over the works of lawyers and
jurists, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which he was
secretly devouring.'
He
He overworked himself, fell ill, and for a while applied
himself to commerce; but found that pursuit still more
uncongenial to his disposition than the law, and 'went
over to France with a view of prosecuting his studies in a
country retreat; resolving to make a very rigid frugality
supply his want of fortune, to maintain unimpaired his
independence, and to regard every object as contemptible
except the improvement of his talents in literature.'
is probably the first instance of a man without fortune, and
yet with connections by whose influence he might have
hoped to rise to riches, deliberately devoting himself to
literature, to the exclusion of any more profitable scheme of
life. But, singular as his resolution must have seemed, he
had embraced it so firmly that it was not to be shaken even
by ill-success; for his first work, 'A Treatise on Human
Nature,' which he gave to the world in 1738, wholly failed
to attract attention. Still he continued his studies with
unabated ardour, devoting himself especially to the culti-
vation of a proficiency in Greek, a language in which, many
years later, a not unfriendly critic declared his countrymen
were not formed to excel. Four years later he published
some essays, which at first met with a better reception, but
which, he had the mortification to find, did not long retain
their popularity. They procured him, however, the ap-
pointment of tutor to the Marquis of Annandale; and,
when, at the end of a twelvemonth, he relinquished that
employment, the post of secretary to General St. Clair, the
1 Sydney Smith said Greek was a witch, and so could not cross the
Tweed, that boautiful river being 'running water.'
1711--1776.]
119
HUME.
commander of an expedition against some of the French
ports, and afterwards ambassador to the Courts of Vienna
and of Turin. These employments proved more profitable
than his publications: they made him reach a fortune
which he called independent, though most of his friends.
were inclined to smile when he said so,' and modern readers
will generally be disposed to share their mirth, since the
sum which he looked upon as a competency fell short
of a thousand pounds. But he was 'ever more disposed to
see the favorable than the unfavorable side of things; a
turn of mind which it is more happy to possess than to
be born to an estate of ten thousand a year."
At all events, being in his own opinion thus placed out
of the reach of the frowns of fortune, he resumed his studies,
and his habits of composition more eagerly than ever; being
encouraged by learning that, during his absence abroad, hist
essays had recovered their popularity: they had been re-
published: they had been answered: they had even been
thought worthy of being severely attacked by Dr. War-
burton, then preacher to Lincoln's Inn: a man who at
that time enjoyed such a reputation for learning, acuteness,
and general ill-nature that it was thought an honour even
to be abused by him. He published more essays, which met
with various success, some being praised and others
wholly unnoticed; till at last, in 1752, Fortune smiled on
him in the very way in which, if he himself had had the
choice, he would probably have preferred to receive her
favours, and which contributed to direct his labours for
the future into the path to which he owes his undying repu-
tation. 'In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh
elected him their librarian-an office from which he received
little or no pecuniary emolument, but which gave him the
command of a large library,' and suggested to him the idea of
writing the History of England. He did not indeed at first
contemplate a complete history. Being frightened with the
notion of continuing a narrative through a period of 1,700
years, he commenced with the accession of the House of
Stuart, an epoch when, he thought, the misrepresentations
of faction began chiefly to take place. And he was sanguine
in his expectations of success, thinking himself the only his-
120
[CH. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
torian that had at once neglected present power, interest,
and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices.' The
first volume was published in 1754, but its reception was
more disappointing than that of his essays had been. His
impartiality, instead of, as he had expected, gratifying all
parties, had been approved by none. 'He was assailed by
one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation:
English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, Churchman
and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier,
united in their rage against the man who presumed to shed
a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of
Strafford. And, after the first ebullitions of their fury
were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed
to sink into oblivion. In a twelvemonth the bookseller
only sold forty-five copies of it. He scarcely, indeed, heard
of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or
letters, who could endure the book.' The disappointment
created an effect on his mind which the neglect of his for-
mer publications had been unable to produce. He was at
last thoroughly disheartened. He declared afterwards that
if he had not been prevented by the imminence of war
between France and England, which broke out shortly
afterwards, he would have retired to some provincial town.
in France, would have changed his name, and would never
have returned to his country. Happily this plan, so suicidal
to his fame, was thus rendered impracticable by circum-
stances, and despair was too foreign to his nature to last
long. He resolved to continue his history; and in 1756
published a second volume, containing the period between
the death of Charles I. and the Revolution, which was
much better received, and even 'helped,' as he says, 'to
buoy up its unfortunate brother.' Probably he had now
written as much as he had designed when he originally
commenced the work; but familiarity with the subject had
so dispelled the apprehensions with which he at first con-
templated 'a narrative of 1,700 years,' that he now resolved
to complete the history of the country from the time of the
occupation of the Romans; adopting, however, the extra-
ordinary plan of not beginning at this point, but working
backwards; so that his next volume contained the account
1711-1776.]
121
HUME.
of the reigns of the Tudors, and that which described the
earliest events was the last written. He tells us that the
clamour against the first of these later volumes 'was
almost equal to that which had assailed his history of the
two first Stuarts;' but that the other met with somewhat
better fortune, 'with tolerable, but only tolerable success.'
This accurate and candid record of the original reception
of the different portions of his great work seems especially
worthy of preservation, because scarcely anything can be
more interesting in the case of a work of pre-eminent and
standard merit than to compare the opinion formed of it by
its contemporaries with the calm deliberate judgment of
posterity. Nor is the lesson which it conveys without
encouragement to those authors who prefer devoting their
talents to undertakings of solid and permanent usefulness
rather than to works of a lighter stamp which fall in more
with the taste and fashion of the day; though they are
only writers conscious of great abilities and of a high pur-
pose that can thus postpone present, though transitory,
applause to eventual but enduring fame.
In one way, however, Hume's writings were from the first
not wholly unsuccessful: they brought him money. He
tells us that 'the copy-money given him by the booksellers
much exceeded anything previously known in England, so
that he became not only independent but opulent.' And
he was preparing to retire into the country, and to pass
the rest of his life in philosophical studies, when he was
invited by the Marquis of Hertford, who, on the restoration
of peace, was sent as ambassador to Paris, to accompany him
as Secretary to the Embassy. He accepted the post, and
on Lord Hertford's resignation, he became Under Secretary
of State, under that nobleman's brother General Conway.
But the trammels of office were not to his taste: in 1769
he returned to Scotland, and there, seven years afterwards,
he died.
The rapidity with which his history was executed, at a
time when but little aid was to be derived from the labours
of any predecessors in the same field, shows, not, if fairly
considered, that he did not devote himself to such diligent
research as is the boast of some modern historians; but
122
[CH. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
that, in fact, the means for such investigation were not at
that time accessible. Original documents, where they were
known to exist, were jealously guarded. And Hume had
to trust to his innate sagacity to extract the truth from
sources which to a less penetrating intellect would scarcely
have conveyed any indication of information. Yet so great
was his native shrewdness that, while drawing only from
materials open to all, he threw a perfectly new light on
many of the most important transactions and greatest
characters in our annals, which since his time has been
generally admitted to be the true one. Thus, to take a
single instance, Hallam gives him the just praise of having
been the first to call attention to the real character of
Edward I. Professor Smyth has charged him with writing,
especially when describing the reign of Charles I., in the
spirit of an advocate rather than of an umpire, with
having looked for evidence chiefly on one side of the
question, while wilfully neglecting the arguments which
might be and indeed which had been adduced on the other.
But the accusation is only true to a small extent. For
though undoubtedly he espouses the cause of the King after
the struggle in Parliament developed into armed rebellion,
yet he never conceals, and does not greatly palliate, his early
errors; and he points out the imprudence of his partisans,
and the degree to which their injudicious violence exaspe-
rated the fury of his enemies, with unshrinking candour;
while, in his account of the earlier ages, during which the
foundations of the constitution were being laid, he shows
an invariable leaning to the side of liberty. The man who
wrote that 'on the whole the English have no reason, from
the example of their ancestors, to be in love with the picture
of absolute monarchy or to prefer the unlimited authority
of the prince, and his unbounded prerogatives, to that noble
liberty, that sweet equality, and that happy security by
which they are at present distinguished above all nations in
the universe,' certainly has no right to be branded as the
champion of arbitrary power; and the severe condemnation
with which he visits the conduct of the party opposed to
Charles's government, with all its subdivisions, both religious
1 Appendix III. to ch. xliv.
1711–1776.]
123
AUME.
and political, proceeaed scarcely more from his own political
principles than from the general moderation and calmness
of his temper, to which violence of any kind was odious.
Besides his penetrating sagacity, which has been already
mentioned, the qualities most conspicuous in his history, as
to its matter, are a depth of thought and comprehensive
largeness of view which find constant vent in reflections
which, though specially pertinent to the facts which he has
under his contemplation, are at the same time susceptible
of a wider, often of an universal application; and nowhere
are these qualities more seen than in his Appendices, which
it is the more desirable to point out to the notice of the
student, because, if his attention were not thus drawn to
them, he might be tempted to overlook them, as probably
containing matter not immediately bearing on the subject.
If we regard his manner, his style is universally acknow-
ledged to be a most perfect model for historical composition.
Gibbon, with all his genius and mastery of the language,
avowed his despair of ever equalling 'his careless inimitable
beauties,' though this description of his excellence makes
it somewhat difficult to point out those beauties, as not
lying on the surface. The chief characteristic of his style
may probably be said to be its perfect ease, its naturalness,
if it be allowable to coin a word: there is a total absence
of that elaborate straining after effect, of that meretricious
accumulation of ornament, which are visible in some histories
not devoid of attractiveness or merit, but which seem as if
they were designed to confuse and bewilder the imagination
rather than to instruct and guide the judgment. There
are not indeed wanting passages of such descriptive power
as show that he might have attained a high place among
those who have been called 'word-painters,' if he had not
deliberately preferred a more sober tone as more befitting
the judicial gravity with which the historian should ap-
proach a worthy subject. And with such a passage this
examination of his works will conclude: but as the object
for which we turn to the pages of the historian is, as has
been said before, instruction rather than entertainment, the
majority of the subjoined extracts will be calculated to dis-
play his depth of thought rather than his clegance of
ご
​7
124
[CH. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
composition; though even from them the student who
would himself become an author may learn how greatly
felicity of language and terse vigour of expression can lend,
not only effect, but attractiveness to the gravest lessons.
The following passage, in which he examines and sets
before us the effects, both direct and indirect, of the old
feudal system, deserves attention, not only for its own sake,
but as a specimen of the acuteness of his penetration into
recondite causes, and of his thorough comprehension of the
objects of the rulers and of the feelings of the nation at
large in an age very remote from that in which he was
writing.
(Appendix to chap. xi.)
Thus, a kingdom was considered only as a great barony, and a
barony as a small kingdom. The barons were peers to each other
in the national council, and in some degree companions to the
king: the vassals were peers to each other in the court of barony,
and companions to their baron.
But though this resemblance so far took place, the vassals, by
the natural course of things, universally in the feudal constitutions
fell into a greater subordination under the baron, than the baron
himself under his sovereign; and these governments had a neces-
sary and infallible tendency to augment the power of the nobles.
The great chief, residing in his country-seat, which he was com-
monly allowed to fortify, lost, in a great measure, his connection
or acquaintance with the prince, and added every day new force
to his authority over the vassals of the barony. They received
from him education in all military exercises; his hospitality invited
them to live and enjoy society in his hall: their leisure, which
was great, made them perpetual retainers on his person, and par-
takers of his country sports and amusements: they had no means
of gratifying their ambition, but by making a figure in his train:
his favour and countenance was their greatest honour: his
displeasure exposed them to contempt and ignominy: and they
felt every moment the necessity of his protection, both in the
controversies which occurred with other vassals, and, what was
more material, in the daily inroads and injuries which were com-
mitted by the neighbouring barons. During the time of general
war, the sovereign, who marched at the head of his armies, and
was the great protector of the state, always acquired some accession
to his authority, which he lost during the intervals of peace and
tranquillity; but the loose police incident to the feudal constitutions
maintained a perpetual, though secret, hostility between the
1711–1776.]
125
HUME.
several members of the state; and the vassals found no means
of securing themselves against the injuries to which they were
continually exposed, but by closely adhering to their chief, and
falling into a submissive dependence upon him.
If the feudal government was so little favourable to the true
liberty even of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of
the independence and security of the other members of the state,
or what, in a proper sense, we call the people. A great part of
them were serfs, and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villain-
age: the other inhabitants of the country paid their rent in
services, which were in a great measure arbitrary; and they could
expect no redress of injuries, in a court of barony, from men who
thought they had a right to oppress and tyrannize over them: the
towns were situated either within the demesnes of the king, or the
lands of the great barons, and were almost entirely subjected to the
the absolute will of their master. The languishing state of com-
merce kept the inhabitants poor and contemptible; and the political
institutions were calculated to render that poverty perpetual. The
barons and gentry, living in rustic plenty and hospitality, gave no
encouragement to the arts, and had no demand for any of the more
elaborate manufactures: every profession was held in contempt
but that of arms; and if any merchant or manufacturer rose, by
industry and frugality, to a degree of opulence, he found himself
but the more exposed to injuries, from the envy and avidity of the
military nobles.
These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong
a bias towards aristocracy that the royal authority was extremely
eclipsed in all the European states; and instead of dreading the
growth of monarchical power, we might rather expect that the
community would everywhere crumble into so many independent
baronies, and lose the political union by which they were cemented.
In elective monarchies, the event was commonly answerable to
this expectation; and the barons, gaining ground on every vacancy
of the throne, raised themselves almost to a state of sovereignty,
and sacrificed to their power both the rights of the crown and the
liberties of the people. But hereditary monarchies had a principle
of authority which was not so easily subverted; and there were
several causes which still maintained a degree of influence in the
hands of the sovereign.
The greatest baron could never lose view entirely of those prin-
ciples of the feudal constitution which bound him, as a vassal, to
submission and fealty towards his prince; because he was every
moment obliged to have recourse to those principles in exacting
fealty and submission from his own vassals. The lesser barons,
126
[CH. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
finding that the annihilation of royal authority left them exposed,
without protection, to the insults and injuries of more potent
neighbours, naturally adhered to the crown, and promoted the
execution of general and equal laws. The people had still a
stronger interest to desire the grandeur of the sovereign; and the
king being the legal magistrate, who suffered by every internal
convulsion or oppression, and who regarded the great nobles as his
immediate rivals, assumed the salutary office of general guardian
or protector of the commons. Besides the prerogatives with which
the law invested him, his large demesnes and numerous retainers
rendered him, in one sense, the greatest baron in his kingdom; and
where he was possessed of personal vigour and abilities (for his
situation required these advantages) he was commonly able to
preserve his authority, and maintain his station as head of the
community, and the chief fountain of law and justice.
An extract from another appendix displays in a marked
degree his power of tracing effects to causes which to
ordinary apprehensions would seem to have but a slight
connection with them, if indeed they were admitted to
have any.
(Appendix to chap. xliv.)
Queen Elizabeth, sensible how much the defence of her kingdom
depended on its naval power, was desirous to encourage commerce
and navigation; but as her monopolies tended to extinguish all
domestic industry, which is much more valuable than foreign
trade, and is the foundation of it, the general train of her conduct
was ill calculated to serve the purpose at which she aimed, much
less to promote the riches of her people.
The retrenchment of the ancient hospitality, and the diminution
of retainers, were favourable to the prerogative of the sovereign:
and by disabling the great noblemen from resistance, promoted the
execution of the laws, and extended the authority of the courts of
justice. There were many peculiar causes in the situation and
character of Henry the Seventh which augmented the authority
of the crown. Most of these causes concurred in succeeding
princes; together with the factions in religion and the acquisition
of the supremacy, a most important article of prerogative. But
the manners of the age were a general cause which operated during
this whole period, and which continually tended to diminish the
riches, and still more the influence, of the aristocracy, anciently
so formidable to the crown. The habits of luxury dissipated the
immense fortunes of the ancient barons; and as the new methods
of expense gave subsistence to mechanics and merchants, who lived
1711-1776.]
127
HUME.
in an independent manner on the fruits of their own industry, a
nobleman, instead of that unlimited ascendancy which he was wont
to assume over those who were maintained at his board, or sub-
sisted by salaries conferred on them, retained only that moderate
influence which customers have over tradesmen, and which can
never be dangerous to civil government. The landed proprietors
also, having a greater demand for money than for men, endeavoured
to turn their lands to the best account with regard to profit, and
either inclosing their fields, or joining many small farms into a
few large ones, dismissed those useless hands, which formerly were
always at their call, in every attempt to subvert the government
or oppose a neighbouring baron. By all these means the cities
increased; the middle rank of men began to be rich and powerful;
the prince, who in effect, was the same with the law, was impli-
citly obeyed; and though the further progress of the same causes
begat a new plan of liberty, founded on the privileges of the
commons, yet in the interval between the fall of the nobles and
the rise of this order, the sovereign took advantage of the present
situation, and assumed an authority almost absolute.
Another extract from the same appendix affords a fair
specimen of his critical taste and judgment; of the candour
with which he admits the existence of great beauties in a
poet whom nevertheless he cannot endure to read; and of
the acuteness with which he points out the causes which pro-
duce the weariness of which he complains; so that subse-
quent criticisms on Spenser are little more than an expansion
of the eulogies and objections which our historian has com-
pressed into a single page.
Unhappily for literature, at least for the learned of this age, the
queen's vanity lay more in shining by her own learning than in
encouraging men of genius by her liberality. Spenser himself,
the finest English writer of his age, was long neglected, and after
the death of Sir Philip Sydney, his patron, was allowed to die
almost of want. This poet contains great beauties, a sweet and
harinonious versification, easy elocution, a fine imagination ; yet
does the perusal of this work become so tedious, that one never
finishes it from the mere pleasure which it affords: it soon
becomes a kind of task reading; and it requires some effort and
resolution to carry us on to the end of his long performance. This
effect, of which everyone is conscious, is usually ascribed to the
change of manners: but manners have more changed since Homer's
age; and yet that poet remains still the favourite of every reader
128
[CH. VII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of taste and judgment. Homer copied true natural manners,
which, however rough or uncultivated, will always form an agree-
able and interesting picture; but the pencil of the English poet was
employed in drawing the affectations and conceits and fopperies
of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as soon as they lose the re-
commendation of the mode. The tediousness of continued allegory,
and that too seldom striking or ingenious, has also contributed to
render the Faery Queene peculiarly tiresome; not to mention the
too great frequency of its descriptions, and the languor of its stanza.
Upon the whole, Spenser maintains his place upon the shelves,
among our English classics; but he is seldom seen on table: and
there is scarcely anyone, if he dares to be ingenuous, but will
confess that, notwithstanding all the merit of the poet, he affords
an entertainment with which the palate is soon satiated. Several
writers of late have amused themselves in copying the style of
Spenser; and no imitation has been so indifferent as not to bear a
great resemblance to the original; his manner is so peculiar that
it is almost impossible not to transfer some of it into the copy.
We will conclude with a portion of one of his most
claborate descriptions, in which he narrates one of the
most striking events in the history of modern Europe; and
which is the more worthy of attention since, as we have
seen, it was to the sympathy which this and other passages
evince for the fallen monarch that he attributed the un-
favorable reception with which his work met on its first
appearance.
(Vol. vii. page 138.)
The pomp, the dignity, the ceremony of this transaction, corres-
ponded to the greatest conception that is suggested in the annals
of human kind; the delegates of a great people sitting in judgment
upon their supreme magistrate, and trying him for his misgovern-
ment and breach of trust. The solicitor, in the name of the commons,
represented that Charles Stuart, being admitted king of England,
and entrusted with a limited power, yet nevertheless, from a wicked
design to erect an unlimited and tyrannical government, had trai-
torously and maliciously levied war against the present parliament,
and the people whom they represented, and was therefore im-
peached as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacablo
enemy to the commonwealth. After the charge was finished, the
president directed his discourse to the king, and told him that the
court expected his answer.
The king, though long detained a prisoner, and now produced
as a criminal, sustained, by his magnanimous courage, the majesty
1711-1776.]
129
HUME.
of a monarch. With great temper and dignity he declined the
authority of the court, and refused to submit himself to their
jurisdiction. He represented that, having been engaged in treaty
with his two houses of parliament, and having finished almost every
article, he had expected to be brought to his capital in another
manner, and ere this time to have been restored to his power,
dignity, revenue, as well as to his personal liberty: that he could
not now perceive any appearance of the upper house, so essential
a member of the constitution; and had learned that even the
commons, whose authority was pretended, were subdued by
lawless force, and were bereaved of their liberty: that he himself
was their native hereditary king, nor was the whole authority of
the state, though free and united, intitled to try him, who derived
his dignity from the Supreme Majesty of Heaven: that, admitting
those extravagant principles which levelled all orders of men, the
court could plead no power delegated by the people, unless the
consent of every individual, down to the meanest and most ignorant
peasant, had been previously asked and obtained: that he acknow-
ledged without scruple that he had a trust committed to him, and
one most sacred and inviolable--he was intrusted with the liberties
of his people, and would not now betray them, by recognising a
power founded on the most atrocious violence and usurpation:
that, having taken arms, and frequently exposed his life in defence
of public liberty, of the constitution, of the fundamental laws of
the kingdom, he was willing, in this last and most solemn scene, to
seal with his blood those precious rights for which, though in
vain, he had so long contended: that those who arrogated a title
to sit as his judges, were born his subjects, and born subject to
those laws which determined that the king can do no wrong:
that he was not reduced to the necessity of sheltering himself under
this general maxim, which guards every English monarch, even
the least deserving; but was able, by the most satisfactory reasons,
to justify those measures in which he had been engaged: that, to
the whole world, and even to them his pretended judges, he was
desirous, if called upon in another manner, to prove the integrity
of his conduct, and assert the justice of those defensive arms to
which, unwillingly and unfortunately, he had had recourse; but
that, in order to preserve an uniformity of conduct, he must at
present forego the apology of his innocence; lest, by ratifying an
authority no better founded than that of robbers and pirates, he
be justly branded as the betrayer, instead of being applauded as
the martyr, of the constitution.
130
CH. VIII
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER VIII.
GIBBON.
A.D. 1737-1794.
THE writer of whom I am now about to speak to you stands,
in some very important respects, absolutely at the head of
all historical writers. If we except authors such as Raleigh,
who propose to themselves works of such enormous preten-
sions that they never fairly complete even the plan of them,
much less execute them, no man has ever undertaken so
gigantic a subject, nor one of greater importance, nor one
involving more prodigious labour; and certainly no one
has ever completed a far easier task with more consummate
success. "The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire' is the history of the birth of all the king-
doms which have risen out of its ruins and fragments to a
grander civilisation and a more real power. It is the
history at once of the old world and of the new; of the old
civilisation and of the new; of the old religions and of the
new; and not solely of that new worship which we all pro-
fess, but of that unhallowed and imperfect copy of it which
the Arabian impostor with such skill adapted to the sensual
imaginations and licentious habits of his Eastern followers.
Yet, vast as such a field is, Gibbon has occupied the whole
of it with an industry and penetration equal to its vastness.
He has left nothing untold, or even partially told; he has
even indulged in episodes such as those of the origin of
Mahometanism, and of the Crusades, which might fairly
have been considered extraneous to his subject by anyone
who was not resolved to make his work complete on all
sides, and who did not feel that in fact the title of his work,
1737-1794.]
131
GIBBON.
large as it was, was scarcely as comprehensive as the matter,
which included the whole world, as known in the ages of
which he was recording the events and describing the
character. From him, almost alone among the writers of
our own language, we learn the history of Clovis ; of his con-
version to Christianity, and of his establishment of a
Frankish sovereignty over the noble country previously
known as Gaul, but which now began to borrow from the
race of its new prince its new appellation. It is to his
pages we turn if we would learn how the mighty son of the
warrior who extinguished the line, or at least the power, of
the sons of Clovis, extended the authority of France over the
whole of civilised Europe, with the exception of our own
islands. To him the English reader owes his knowledge
of the revolutions in Spain, of the tyranny of Roderic, the
unpatriotic, though almost excusable, vengeance of Count
Julian, and of the consequent invasion and triumph of the
Moors, who for centuries wrested from Christianity the
finest provinces of the Peninsula. While, Tory as he was,
his innate love of liberty, joined perhaps to the historian's
feeling of the opening afforded by it to forcible and pictu-
resque description, inspired the eloquent minuteness with
which he details the singular career of 'Rienzi, last of
Romans.'
And it may be added that, in Gibbon's case, the perfection
and accuracy of his work is so far from having been taken
for granted that no book has ever been subjected to more
searching examination and criticism, a criticism even not
confined to his own countrymen; for his volumes have
been translated by one of the most eminent foreign writers
of our time, himself as profoundly versed in the history of
his own and other nations as any of his contemporaries,
M. Guizot; who, in preparing different works of his
own, has had incessant occasion to refer to Gibbon, and
to others who have treated of subjects which constitute
sections of the 'Decline and Fall;' to writers on Roman
finance, on Roman chronology, on Roman jurisprudence,
and other kindred matters; and the result of his comparison
of them all is merely a continually increasing conviction and
admiration of not only the industry and the accuracy, but
<
132
[CH. VIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the philosophical sagacity and vast general knowledge of
the author; while his latest English editor, Dean Milman,
editing his work with the express design of guarding the
youthful reader against his irreligious bias, bears the same
testimony to his generally conscientious truthfulness.¹
Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, being the eldest son
of a gentleman of fair estate in Hampshire; who was, at
the time, member for Petersfield in that county. At twelve
years old he was sent to Westminster, but his health was
so delicate that, after a year or two, he was removed to the
care of a private tutor, Mr. Francis, who was a scholar of
some celebrity, as the translator of Horace, and who was
also the father of the notorious author of the 'Letters of
Junius,' Sir Philip Francis. However, country air soon
re-established his strength, and in 1752 he was removed to
Oxford, and entered at Magdalen College, where, again, he
did not remain long; for in the course of the next year he
renounced the Protestant for the Roman Catholic religion,
the adoption of which was at that time incompatible with
his position as a member of the university. The occurrence,
however, shows that at that time he was not a sceptic, nor
indifferent to religion. Indeed the events which followed
proved that he was rather restless in his anxiety on the sub-
ject. His father, in sorrowful displeasure, refused to receive
him at home, lest he should pervert his younger children,
but sent him to Lausanne, where the teaching of a
Protestant minister of the Genevese school, M. Pavillard,
reconverted him to the Reformed religion. He remained at
Lausanne for five years, studying industriously and pro-
fitably, for M. Pavillard was a man of considerable acquire-
ments, and diversifying his studies by falling in love with
a young lady, Mdlle. Curchod, who seems to have returned
his affection; but his father objected to his marriage with
a foreigner, and their engagement was broken off. He
remained single throughout his life, but she soon afterwards
married a man of a very different character, destined to a
celebrity in some points of view more extended than that
of Gibbon himself, and one whose influence over the for-
tunes of his adopted country and the world is felt to this
'Milman's Preface, xiv.-xvii.
1737-1794.]
133
GIBBON.
day, M. Necker, a man of amiability, liberality, and integrity,
but placed by an unfortunate combination of circumstances
in a position to which his capacity was wholly unequal,
and where the state of affairs was so critical that any
misunderstanding of their real character and consequent
mismanagement could not fail to be ruinous. Gibbon,
however, maintained an intimacy with Madame Necker
during her life, and more than one passage in the most
brilliant work of her celebrated daughter, Madame de Stael,
contains unmistakable and not unfriendly allusions to the
great historian of the Roman Empire.
While in Switzerland he adopted the habit of keeping a
journal, which has been preserved; and the character which
he gives of himself at the age of twenty-six is curious in
its impartiality and frankness. He seems to have set him-
self to work to examine his own mental and moral qualities
(his personal gifts he omits, and, if one may judge from his
portraits, they were not calculated to excite any particular
admiration) with as perfect coolness of judgment as if he
had been contemplating a perfect stranger. 'It appeared
to me,' he says, 'upon enquiry, that my character was
virtuous, incapable of a base action, and formed for generous
ones, yet proud, violent, and disagreeable in society. Wit
I have none. My imagination is rather strong than
pleasing; my memory both capacious and retentive. The
shining qualities of my understanding are comprehensive-
ness and penetration, but I want both quickness and
exactness.' Nor is the candour of his avowal more striking
than the accuracy of his judgment, for the qualities for which
he gives himself credit are exactly those which are most
conspicuous in his work, while some of the defects which
he confesses are also unconcealable. It was, in fact,
the idea that he had thus formed of his own talents that
probably dictated the line of literature which he afterwards
selected for especial cultivation.
He early conceived the desire of distinguishing himself
as an author; but his first work, though published after
his return to England, was composed in the French lan-
guage, which a residence of five years abroad had made
almost as familiar to him as English. It came out in
134
[CH. VIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1761, being entitled Essai sur l'Etude de la Literature,'
and was highly praised for its style even by the very
French writers whose theories it opposed. But as his
father, to whom he was now fully reconciled, was not very
solicitous about his literary fame, but rather desirous that
he should settle down as a country gentleman, to gratify
him he accepted a company in the Hampshire militia, and
as he was not inclined to do anything superficially, or by
deputy, he began to study the theory of the military art in
the treatises of professional writers, and its practice by
making himself master of the details of discipline and the
principles of the different evolutions and manœuvres used
in the handling of a regiment, an employment which, in
his own opinion, was of material service to him afterwards,
as he obtained from it a much clearer notion of ancient
tactics than he ever had before;' and, in describing
them in his great work, derived great advantage from his
acquaintance with the modern discipline and exercise of
a battalion.'
(
But still he cast many a longing, lingering look at the
reputation of a scholar, which was more in accordance with
his inclination, inconsistent with it as were his present
occupations, and which was presently revived by a visit to
Paris. Hume subsequently pointed out that the purity of
his English style had been impaired by his study of French
authors, who indulge in more figurative and less natural
forms of expression than are consistent with our severer
taste and the genius of our language. But the celebrity of
his Essai procured him now the acquaintance of the leaders
of the literary world in the French capital; and, though
that was far from being an advantage, since, if it did not
first implant in his mind the seeds of infidelity by which
nearly all the learned men of France were at that time
disgraced, it certainly ripened and strengthened them; it
also led him to cherish more ardently than ever the desire
to make a name equal to them for himself by some elaborate
work 'which might do him credit if well treated.' He
revolved many subjects in his mind, nearly all of a warlike
character: the Crusades; the wars of the barons against
John and Henry III.; the French invasions of Italy under
1737-1794.]
135
GIBBON.
Charles VIII. and his successors; but, having continued
his journey to Italy, the spectacle which the old Mistress
of the World presented to his well-instructed eyes suggested
a new theme, and at once determined his choice. According
to his own account, it was 'at Rome, on the 15th of October,
1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol,
while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the
temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the Decline and
Fall of the City first started to my mind. But my original
plan was circumscribed to the decline of the city rather
than of the empire.' Some years elapsed before he began
to put the design thus happily conceived into execution;
but he seems never to have lost sight of it, and his studies,
with which it was not in his nature to allow any distractions
of business long to interfere, henceforth assumed the
character of a preparation for the task he had thus imposed
upon himself.
He was not without occupations of other kinds. A year
or two afterwards, the death of his father put him in
possession of the family estate, and he became also a mem-
ber of Parliament, without any intention of taking any
active part in the debates; but valuing his seat more for
the introduction which it opened to him to fashionable life,
of which he was somewhat fond or vain, than for the
political influence attached to it, though that also was pre-
sently placed within his reach when, in 1779, he accepted the
post of a Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantations
under Lord North. He had earned it by his proficiency in
French, which led the minister to request his aid in drawing
up a manifesto to be delivered as a State paper to the
different cabinets of Europe in reply to a similar document
published by the French when they declared war against
us as allies of the Americans. But before he took office he
had completed the two first volumes of his history. They
were published in 1776, and met with a very different fate
from that which Hume's first volume had experienced.
They became at once famous; a fresh edition was called
for almost immediately, and copies could hardly be supplied
with sufficient rapidity. But after awhile, the fifteenth and
sixteenth chapters, which described the rise and progress of
>
136
[CH. VIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Christianity, began to attract the attention and to provoke
the unfavourable comments of those readers and critics
whose honest zeal for piety and religion was sharpened by
a prevailing suspicion that the author was, to say the least,
indifferent, if not hostile, to revelation. Gibbon was sur-
prised. His astonishment, which seems to have been
genuine, has in it something hardly creditable to his insight
into character, or to his penetration in estimating the feelings
of his countrymen. In his memoirs we find him ascribing
the tone in which he had treated the subject of the chapters
thus called in question to his ignorance of or disbelief in
the sincerity of their attachment to religious or doctrinal
truth. And perhaps one who is himself unfortunate enough
to regard such topics with his feelings could not well esti-
mate the sensitiveness of a sincerely pious and reverent heart.
In a memoir which he left behind him he mingles something
of regret that he should have offended the susceptibility of
such readers, with a surprise at their having taken umbrage
at his language, and, according to his too usual custom, a
sneer at their sincerity. Had I,' says he, 'believed that
the majority of English believers were so fondly attached
even to the shadow and name of Christianity; had I fore-
seen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent would feel,
or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility, I might
perhaps have softened the two invidious chapters, which
would create many enemies and conciliate few friends.'
Not, indeed, that the condemnation of them, even by men
of unquestioned piety and shrewd judgment, was unanimous.
Robertson praised the two volumes without the slightest
deduction; though Hume, more acutely, while expressing
his personal approbation of his tone on the subject, warned
him to expect
a clamour.' In reply to the numerous
pamphlets which were published on the subject, he put
forth a vindication of himself, which, however, satisfied but
few, and which provoked rejoinders the more vehement
that, in the later editions, he abstained from altering any
of the passages most complained of. Fortunately, in the
subsequent volumes no occasion was afforded for a repe-
tition of the offence, or a renewal of the controversy. And
they were received with a favour, as each came out, which
C
1737-1794.]
137
GIBBON.
had certainly never been accorded before to so voluminous
a work, which required industry to read as well as to com-
pose. His last volumes were not published till the spring
of 1788. And as he has told us of his original conception
of the work, so, with equal minuteness, has he recorded the
very moment of its complete execution. 'It was on the
day, or rather the night of June 27, 1787, between the
hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of
the last page in a summer-house in my garden' (at Lau-
sanne, where he had been living ever since the dissolution
of Lord North's ministry). 'After laying down my pen, I
took several turns in a berceau or covered walk of acacias,
which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and
the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was
serene. The silver orb of the moon was reflected from the
waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the
first emotion of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and
perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was
soon bumbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my
mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of
an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatever might
be the future date of my history, the life of the historian
must be short and precarious.'
The last sentence apparently alludes to his consciousness
of a painful disease, which he concealed from his most
intimate friends, and even from his doctor, till he had suf-
fered from it more than thirty years, not taking any advice
for it till no skill could afford him relief. After the pub-
lication of his history he returned to Lausanne, and re-
mained in Switzerland nearly five years, till the advances
of the French revolutionists alarmed him for his safety.
In June 1793 he returned to his own country, and there,
towards the end of the autumn, he first consulted a phy-
sician; but it was too late. On the 15th of January in the
next year he died; though he himself had previously been so
little aware of his danger that, on the very day before, he
had declared that he considered himself still a good life for
ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years.
We have seen his own opinion of the qualities of his
mind, and Hume's criticism on his style. The penetrating
الله
138
[CH. VIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
sagacity and large comprehensiveness which he looked
on as the predominant features of his intellect, and which
enabled him to take in at once the event itself which
was before him, with its original causes and its remote
consequences, were sharpened for their work by the most
invincible industry and patience, with their fruit, the most
extensive learning. Of his style the chief defect is an appa-
rent want of ease; not that it was really laboured: on the
contrary, his manuscripts are said to have been singularly
free from alteration or erasure. In describing grand and im-
portant events, he is stately and vigorous. He is not so
destitute of wit as he conceived himself to be; but his
irony, of which he was immoderately fond, is that of a
rhetorician, rather than of a calm historian whose object is
the truth. If he fails in any of the attributes of a great
writer, it is probably in pathos. For the scepticism which,
as I have mentioned, has provoked such severity of hostile
comment, he is perhaps to be pitied rather than blamed.
A still more indefensible defect is an indelicacy of taste
which led him to gloat over the coarsest and most impure
transactions and images, and which is in no degree excused
by his practice (to which he appeals as his justification) of
leaving the objectionable passages in what he calls the
obscurity of a learned language.' Perhaps the surest
proof that can be given of the real greatness of his work is
that it has triumphed over these two grave objections, and,
in spite of them, is admitted to be one a knowledge of which
is indispensable to every man of education.
The following extract presents a favourable specimen of
the sagacity which he often exerts in laying down general
principles of government and policy; and an equally
remarkable instance of his power of compression and terse
description.
(Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xlix.)
There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason
than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in
opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of barbarians
may pass over the earth, but an extensive empire must be sup-
ported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre,
an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swiſt
1737-1794.]
139
GIBBON.
and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to
check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to pro-
tect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, with-
out provoking discontent and despair. Far different was the situa-
tion of the German Cæsars, who were ambitious to enslave the
kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial estates were stretched along
the Rhine, or scattered in the provinces; but this ample domain
was alienated by the imprudence or distress of successive princes;
and their revenue, from minute and vexatious prerogative, was
scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of their households. Their
troops were formed by the legal or voluntary service of their feudal
vassals, who passed the Alps with reluctance, assumed the licence
of rapine and disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of
the campaign. Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential
influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the bones of
their princes and nobles, and the effects of their own intemperance
were often imputed to the treachery and malice of the Italians, who
rejoiced at least in the calamities of the barbarians. This irregular
tyranny might contend on equal terms with the petty tyrants of
Italy; nor can the people, or the reader, be much interested in the
event of the quarrel. But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the Lombards rekindled the flame of industry and freedom; and
the generous example was at length imitated by the republics of
Tuscany. In the Italian cities a municipal government had never
been totally abolished; and their first privileges were granted by
the favour and policy of the Emperors, who were desirous of erect-
ing a plebeian barrier against the independence of the nobles. But
their rapid progress, the daily extension of their power and preten-
sions, were founded on the numbers and spirit of these rising com-
munities. Each city filled the measure of her diocese or district :
the jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of the marquises and
counts, was banished from the land; and the proudest nobles were
persuaded or compelled to desert their solitary castles, and to em-
brace the more honourable character of freemen and magistrates.
The legislative authority was inherent in the general assembly;
but the executive powers were intrusted to three consuls, annually
chosen from the three orders of captains, valvassors, and commons,
into which the republic was divided. Under the protection of
equal law, the labours of agriculture and commerce were gradually
revived; but the martial spirit of the Lombards was nourished by
the presence of danger; and as often as the bell was rung, or the
standard erected, the gates of the city poured forth a numerous and
intrepid band, whose zeal in their own cause was soon guided by
the use and discipline of arms. At the foot of these popular ram-
140
[CH. VIII,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
parts the pride of the Cæsars was overthrown; and the invincible
genius of liberty prevailed over the two Frederics, the greatest
princes of the middle ages: the first, superior perhaps in military
prowess; the second, who undoubtedly excelled in the softer
accomplishments of peace and learning.
The two passages which follow, descriptive of the early
religion of the Arabs, and of the qualifications of Mahomet
for the enterprise which he undertook, are worked up with
great depth of thought; while the vigour of the second sets
the individual portrayed in it before us with a power and
precision which has been rarely equalled.
(Chap. 1.)
The religion of the Arabs, as well as of the Indians, consisted in
the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars; a primitive
and specious mode of superstition. The bright luminaries of the
sky display the visible image of a Deity: their number and dis-
tance convey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar eye, the idea of
boundless space: the character of eternity is marked on these
solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay the regu-
larity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or
instinct; and their real or imaginary influence encourages the vain
belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their
peculiar care. The science of astronomy was cultivated at Baby-
lon; but the school of the Arabs was a clear firmament and a
naked plain. In their nocturnal marches, they steered by the
guidance of the stars: their names, and order, and daily station
were familiar to the curiosity and devotion of the Bedoween;
and he was taught by experience to divide in twenty-eight parts
the zodiac of the moon, and to bless the constellations who
refreshed, with salutary rains, the thirst of the desert. The reign
of the heavenly orbs could not be extended beyond the visible
sphere; and some metaphysical powers were necessary to sustain
the transmigration of souls, and the resurrection of bodies:
camel was left to perish on the grave, that he might serve his
master in another life; and the invocation of departed spirits im-
plies that they were still endowed with consciousness and power.
I am ignorant, and I am careless, of the blind mythology of the
barbarians; of the local deities, of the stars, the air, and the
earth, of their sex or titles, their attributes or subordination.
Each tribe, each family, each independent warrior, created and
changed the rites and the object of his fantastic worship; but the
nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the
language, of Mecca.
a
1737-1794.]
141
GIBBON.
According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet was dis-
tinguished by the beauty of his person-an outward gift which is
seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a
public or private audience. They applauded his commanding pre-
sence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his
flowing beard, his countenance that painted every sensation of the
soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue.
In the familiar offices of life, he scrupulously adhered to the grave
and ceremonious politeness of his country; his respectful attention
to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and
affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca: the frankness of his
manner concealed the artifice of his views; and the habits of
courtesy were imputed to personal friendship, or universal bene-
volence. His memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy
and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and
decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action
and, although his designs might gradually extend with his success,
the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the
stamp of an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallahı
was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the
purest dialect of Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was cor-
rected and enhanced by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence.
With these powers of eloquence Mahomet was an illiterate bar-
barian: his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading
and writing; the common ignorance exempted him from shame
or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence,
and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our
mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature
and of man was open to his view, and some fancy has been in-
dulged in the political and philosophical observations which are
ascribed to the Arabian traveller. He compares the nations and
the religions of the earth; discovers the weakness of the Persian
and Roman monarchies; beholds with pity and indignation the
degeneracy of the times; and resolves to unite, under one God and
one king, the invincible spirit and primitive virtues of the Arabs.
We have seen that our author has been charged, and too
deservedly, with indifference, if not hostility, to Christianity.
Yet few will deny the candour with which he speaks of the
motives which influenced the Crusaders; and probably
the superiority, not only in vigour, but in lifelike truth, of
his brief sketch of the Crusades to the more prolix elabora-
tion of other narratives, will be as rarely questioned.
142
[CH. VIIL
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(Chap. lviii.)
Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I
will dare to affirm that all were prompted by the spirit of enthu-
siasm, the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the assurance
of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded that in many it was
not the sole, that in some it was not the leading principle of action.
The use and abuse of religion are feeble to stem, they are strong
and irresistible to impel, the stream of national manners. Against
the private wars of the barbarians, their bloody tournaments, licen-
tious loves, and judicial duels, the popes and synods might in-
effectually thunder. It is a more easy task to provoke the meta-
physical disputes of the Greeks, to drive into the cloister the
victims of anarchy or despotism, to sanctify the patience of slaves
and cowards, or to assume the merit of the humanity and bene-
volence of modern Christians. War and exercise were the reigning
passions of the Franks or Latins. They were enjoined, as a pen-
ance, to gratify those passions, to visit distant lands, and to draw
their swords against the nations of the East. Their victory, or
even their attempt, would immortalise the names of the intrepid
heroes of the cross; and the purest piety could not be insensible
to the most splendid prospect of military glory. In the petty
quarrels of Europe, they shed the blood of their friends and
countrymen, for the acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village.
They could march with alacrity against the distant and hostile
nations who were devoted to their arms; their fancy already
grasped the golden sceptres of Asia; and the conquest of Apulia
and Sicily by the Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of
the most private adventurer. Christendom in her rudest state
must have yielded to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan
countries; and their natural and artificial wealth had been magni-
fied by the tales of pilgrims, and the gifts of an imperfect com-
merce. The vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to
believe every wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of
mines and treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble
and jasper, and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense.
In this earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to
carve a plenteous and honourable establishment, which he measured
only by the extent of his wishes. Their vassals and soldiers
trusted their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a
Turkish emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and
the flavour of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, were
temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession, of
the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful
incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or
1737-1794.]
143
GIBBON.
ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and
burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might
escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their
families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself
from the discipline of his convent, the debtor might suspend the
accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and out-
laws and malefactors of every cast might continue to brave the
laws, and elude the punishment of their crimes.
These motives were potent and numerous: when we have
singly computed their weight on the mind of each individual we
must add the infinite series, the multiplying powers of example
and fashion. The first proselytes became the warmest and most
effectual missionaries of the cross: among their friends and
countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recom-
pense of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were in-
sensibly drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority.
Our quotations may fitly end with the capture of Con-
stantinople, in his description of which, Gibbon paints with
great vividness the heroic efforts of Palæologus to avert
the fall of the empire, and the well-directed audacity and
inflexible severity of Mahomet, which, aided in a slight
degree by the chance shot which drove Giustiniani from
the field, defeated his exertions, and established the infidel
in the city which bore, and still bears, the name of the first
Christian Emperor.
(Chap. Ixviii.)
Far different was the state of the Christians, who, with loud
and impotent complaints, deplored the guilt or the punishment of
their sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had been exposed in
solemn procession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their
entreaties: they accused the obstinancy of the Emperor for refus-
ing a timely surrender, anticipated the horrors of their fate, and
sighed for the repose and security of Turkish servitude. The
noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest of the allies, were sum-
moned to the palace, to prepare them, on the evening of the
twenty-eighth for the duties and dangers of the general assault.
The last speech of Palæologus was the funeral oration of the
Roman Empire: he promised, he conjured, and he vainly attempted
to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his own mind. In
this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and neither the Gospel
nor the Church have proposed any conspicuous recompense to the
heroes who fall in the service of their country. But the example
*
144
[CH. VIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of their prince, and the confinement of a siege, had armed these
warriors with the courage of despair, and the pathetic scene is de-
scribed by the feelings of the historian Phranza, who was himself
present at this mournful assembly. They wept, they embraced;
regardless of their families and fortunes, they devoted their lives;
and each commander, departing to his station, maintained all night
a vigilant and anxious watch on the rampart. The Emperor, and
some faithful companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which
in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque; and devoutly
received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the Holy Com-
munion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which re-
sounded with cries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all
whom he might have injured; and mounted on horseback to visit
the guards, and explore the motions of the enemy. The distress
and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long
prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars.
At daybreak, without the customary signal of the morning gun,
the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitudo
of a twined or twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and
continuity of their line of attack. The foremost ranks consisted of
the refuse of the host, a voluntary crowd, who fought without
order or command; of the feebleness of age or childhood, of
peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the
blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove
them onwards to the wall; the most audacious to climb were in-
stantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians
was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But their strength
and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence; the
ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported the
footsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard, the
death was more serviceable than the life. Under their respective
bashaws and sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Roumania were
successively led to the charge: their progress was various and
doubtful; but after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still main-
tained and improved their advantage; and the voice of the
Emperor was heard, encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last
effort, the deliverance of their country. In that fatal moment the
Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The Sultan him-
self, on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the spectator
and judge of their valour; he was surrounded by ten thousand of
his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the decisive occasions;
and the tide of battle was directed and impelled by his voice
and eye. His numerous ministers of justice were posted behind
the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish; and if danger was in
1737-1794.]
145
GIBBON.
the front, shame and inevitable death were in the rear of the fugi-
tives. The cries of fear and of pain were drowned in the martial
music of drums, trumpets, and attaballs; and experience has proved
that the mechanical operation of sounds, by quickening the circu-
lation of the blood and spirits, will act on the human machine
more forcibly than the eloquence of reason and honour. From the
lines, the gallies, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered
on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks,
were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled
by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman Empire.
The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our
fancy and engage our affections: the skilful evolutions of war
may inform the mind, and improve a necessary though pernicious
science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general
assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion; nor shall I strive,
at the distance of three centuries and a thousand miles, to delineate
a scene of which there could be no spectators, and of which the
actors themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate
iden.
*
146
¡CH IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER IX.
MACAULAY.
A.D. 1800-1859.
THE prose writer who has probably had more part than
any other in influencing the taste and forming the style
of the present generation is Lord Macaulay. He is remark-
able also in another way, as the only literary man in our
history who has won a place in the peerage by his pen.
Not, perhaps, that the rank which he attained is wholly to
be ascribed to the recognition of his literary services. His
acquisition of it, was, no doubt, assisted by his position as
a member of the House of Commons, who had even won
himself a place in the Cabinet; but still his fame as a writer
altogether overshadows any reputation which he may, for
a time, have achieved among his own party, as a politician
or a speaker; and, moreover, he had entirely ceased taking
a prominent part in the debates of Parliament for some
years before he was promoted to a peerage. In truth, he
was not successful as a minister, and hardly more so as a
debater: weighty matter was, no doubt, occasionally to be
found in his speeches, choice language and pregnant ex-
pressions still more frequently; but it was the diction and
style of an essayist rather than of an orator, while his
delivery was monotonous and unimpressive to the last
degree. It is as an author, as a historian and essayist
alone, that he will be known to posterity, or indeed is
already remembered; and it is in those characters only that
we shall here speak of him.
He was the son of a Mr. Zachary Macaulay, well known
in his generation as an earnest follower of Wilberforce in
that excellent and able man's pursuit of the great object of
his life, the Abolition of the Slave Trade. As a boy he
had only the education of a private school; but he was
1800-1859.]
147
MACAULAY.
afterwards sent to Cambridge, where he distinguished
himself highly by his classical proficiency, obtaining
the second place in the classical tripos, the first being
adjudged to that most profound and accurate scholar
Mr. G. Long. And his attainments subsequently procured
him a fellowship at Trinity College, the highest honour
in the University. He then entered himself as a law
student at Lincoln's Inn, and in due time was called
to the bar; but he soon abandoned the profession of the
law for literature, becoming early known as a contributor
of most striking and brilliant essays to the Edinburgh
Review.' His articles on Milton and Machiavelli made a
great impression on the reading public; and already in-
dicated the line which he would eventually take: since,
though they were apparently literary, rather than historical
subjects, it was on the historical aspect of the times in
which the writers lived that he expatiated, far more than
on their distinctive qualities as writers. And it was as a
historical rather than as a literary critic that his turn of
mind qualified him to excel. As one of the chief orna-
ments of the great Whig review, he naturally became
known to the Whig leaders; and at the election of 1830,
the interest of the Marquis of Lansdowne procured his
return to the House of Commons as member for the
borough of Calne. As such he supported the Reform Bill
with great zeal; but, though he made one or two elaborate
speeches in its support, and attained a subordinate office
in the ministry as Secretary to the Board of Control, he
evidently saw that any great parliamentary distinction was
beyond his reach; and in 1834 ho accepted an appointment
in India as legal adviser to the Supreme Council, with the
especial employment of reducing the body of Indian law
into a formal code. In 1838 he returned to England, and
in 1839 was appointed Secretary of War in Lord Mel-
bourne's Government. But that minister was already
tottering; and when, in 1841, he gave way to Sir Robert
Peel, Macaulay found more congenial occupation in making
preparations for a continuation of Hume's 'History of Eng-
land.' On this arduous undertaking he worked with great
diligence for five years; and though, in 1846, when Peel
8
148
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Prime
was driven from the Government, the new
Minister, Lord John Russell, tempted him to return to
ministerial office as Paymaster of the Forces, with a seat in
the Cabinet, an honour which had rarely if ever been
attached to that post before, he did not retain it long.
He had been for some years representative of Edinburgh,
but the bigotry of his constituents so deeply resented his
vote in favour of Peel's statesmanlike measure for putting
the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth on a more satis-
factory footing, that, at the election of 1847, they deprived
him of his seat, and he was thus left at leisure to devote
his whole energies to the work on which he no doubt felt
his fame would be most surely founded; for, though in 1852
the Edinburgh voters, repenting of their injustice and folly,
again returned him to the House of Commons; and though
in 1857 Lord Palmerston raised him to the peerage, during
his latter years he scarcely ever took any share in the
debates of either House of Parliament, and ended life as
he had commenced it, as an author, dying, after a brief ill-
ness, in December 1859.
The first two volumes of his History were published in
1848, and, high as had been the expectations which had
been formed of it, it was almost universally acknowledged
that they were more than fulfilled. The second pair came
out in 1856, and a small portion of the fifth volume was in
such a state of forwardness at his death that his executors
subsequently published that also. The four volumes which
are all that can fairly be said to have been thoroughly
finished comprise the history of only twelve years, and
prove that his work had far exceeded the dimensions which
he had assigned to it when he first undertook it. The first
lines of the first chapter announce his intention of' writing
the History of England from the accession of King James II.
down to a time within the memory of men still living': a
phrase which manifestly implies a design of bringing it
down at least to the beginning of the century: to the peace
of Amiens, if not to the battle of Waterloo. Yet not one
of these four volumes covers a longer space of time than four
years; while so vast was the accumulation of materials
from which they were compiled, that each volume occupied
1800--1859.]
149
MACAULAY.
four years in its composition. At the same rate the history
of the next century would have occupied nearly forty
volumes, and the whole lifetime of four authors, not only
as industrious, but as skilful in arriving at sound deductions
and conclusions as experience had rendered him. A more
pregnant warning has never been given of the impossibility
of calculating beforehand the degree in which a work will
grow under the author's hand, the difficulty being increased
instead of being diminished by his genius, by his keenness
of observation, and his breadth of view. It is clear that the
history, of which he has thus left us but a fragment, is by
many times longer than he had originally designed to make
it. But no one wishes it shorter. Like all other human
productions, it has faults; faults both in manner and in
matter; but still it is a work as attractive as it is im-
portant and useful. Two of its faults of manner, that is
of style, seem in some degree inconsistent with each other.
On the one hand there is a straining for effect by the con-
tinual employment of antithesis and contrast, which it is
impossible not very often to look upon as forced and inap-
propriate. At other times a desire for perspicuity leads
the author into inelegant repetition: as in this strange
sentence, 'Even the wisest cannot, while it is still recent,
weigh quite fairly the evils which it has caused against
the evils which it has removed; for the evils which it has
caused are felt, and the evils which it has removed are
felt no longer.' Such iteration seems almost like affectation,
as if it arose from a resolution not to write like other people.
But in other respects it must be admitted that Lord
Macaulay's general style is deserving of high admiration.
It is not only invariably perspicuous and clear, but it is
vivid and picturesque in a very eminent degree. Though
not a poet, Lord Macaulay was not without a considerable
portion of poetical fire. A volume of classical ballads which
he entitled 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' and which reads
almost like a translation from passages in Ovid's ‘Fasti,' is
instinct with an energy and animation not unlike that which
inspired the authors of our old national ballads; and the
spirit which dictated them he infused into his description of
Vol. iii. p. 7.
1
*
150
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
many an event which afforded an opportunity for embellish-
ment at once florid and vigorous, governing his inclination
for such display with such judicious taste that, throughout
his History and his later essays, I do not recollect one in-
stance where his skill in what has been called word-painting
seems misplaced or unwarranted.
I fear that his matter, that is to say his treatment of his
subject, in the still more important points of impartiality
and fairness, is hardly entitled to equal praise. He has
himself given reasons why 'it is not surprising that those
who have written concerning the limits of prerogative and
liberty in the old polity of England should generally have
shown the temper, not of judges, but of angry and uncandid
advocates.' '1 And it is not surprising that one who took so
keen an interest in the politics of the day as he did, should
at times have allowed the zeal of the politician to overcome
the equable moderation of the historian. But Lord
Macaulay's faults in this respect seem to arise from a less
excusable source: from a deliberate perversion or misunder-
standing of the first duty of a historian when dealing with
the characters of individuals. He guides his pen by a con-
sideration not so much of the correctness of his narrative
as of its effectiveness of the impression it may produce on
the minds or passions of his readers. And we have a right to
call this his misconception of the historian's duty deliberate,
because, in one of his earliest essays (one which, for the
sagacity of its general observations, and for a correct appre-
ciation of the writer whom he was criticising, and of his
countrymen, of Machiavelli and the Italians of the 15th and
16th centuries, he rarely surpassed in any of his later produc-
tions), he formally disparages careful accuracy of narrative.
He contrasts the classical histories, which he says 'may
almost be called romances founded on fact,' with 'the fashion
of later times; ' Heroditus and Tacitus (one would fancy he
meant to say Livy) with Davila and Clarendon. He admits
that the latter 'give the more exact narrative.' 'It may
be doubted,' he adds, whether more exact notions are
conveyed to the reader. The best portraits are perhaps
those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature, and
:
6
we are not certain that the best histories are not those in
1 Vol. i. p. 27.
1800-1859.]
151
MACAULAY.
which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is
judiciously employed: something is lost in accuracy, but
much is gained in effect.' It does seem to me that this is
not only an utterly mistaken view but also a most per-
nicious misapprehension of the duties of a historian, the
very first of which unquestionably is to give a scrupulous,
truthful, and uncoloured account of the transactions which
he professes to relate. And, as if it were not enough to lay
down so mischievous a maxim as a rule of composition, he
carries it out in the most unfair way; for, if the licence of
lending a little colour of exaggeration or invention could
ever be justifiable, it must certainly be limited to general
descriptions, to circumstances or events, if indeed such
could be found, in which the character of individuals is
not concerned. But the cases in which Macaulay especially
gives the rein to his preference for such artist-like tricks
are the deeds and reputations of particular persons. He
determined to make one man the principal figure on his
canvas; and as a painter might do, he not only portrayed
him throughout in the most brilliant colours, dwelling with
minute carefulness on every favorable incident in his career,
and glossing over, often wholly suppressing every act or
propensity of a different character, but he also blackened
the surrounding figures for the mere purpose of making his
chosen hero appear brighter by the contrast. It was not
enough to praise the sagacity with which William III.
wrought out the Revolution to which Britain owes so much
of its subsequent prosperity, and the statesman-like skill
and military hardihood with which he framed the League
against Louis XIV., and, in spite of many a disappointment
and discomfiture, stubbornly made head against his generals,
till, at Ryswick, he won the recognition of his own position.
in England from the especial champion of the exiled
James; to slur over and almost to conceal his weaknesses,
his errors, and his crimes, his ungrateful and impolitic pre-
ference of the Dutch companions of his enterprise to those
English nobles and statesmen whose support had alone made
that enterprise successful; his preposterous liberality to
these foreigners and other still more unworthy favourites,
shown in grants so enormous that Parliament compelled the
152
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
revocation of many of them; his infidelity to his admirable
wife, though it was to her position as the eldest daughter of
the fugitive tyrant that he owed his elevation to the
throne; his sanction and approval of the hideous massacre
of Glencoe; unless, at the same time, Marlborough was black-
ened, his every act of political meanness and timeserving
studiously brought into the light and dwelt upon with
malicious exaggeration, in order to make William (the one
hero whom, we are told by a high authority,' all Whigs
must especially delight to honour) look the fairer by the
contrast.
Still, in spite of this gravest of faults, so exquisite is the
skill with which the writer connects his narrative, so brilliant
the picturesqueness of his description, so varied the fertility
of his illustration, so judicious the generality of his comments,
even though rarely profound, and, it must be confessed,
not always or altogether original, so acute his apprehension
and so vivid his portraiture of the manners, feelings, and
principles of the age which he describes, and of the different
parties which influenced it, that we are, even against our
calmer conviction, driven to forget the imperfections of his
work; and linger over, and turn again and again to his
narrative, feeling that, in a degree at least equal to any
modern writer, he has rivalled the fame of the great
classics, Heroditus and Livy, in their own field.
There is something of a poetical richness of fancy in the
comparison with which the following extract opens, and
which lends a glowing colour to the subsequent sentences,
which display the patriot's pride in the solid greatness of
our national character; the statesman's acknowledgment
of the sterling value of our constitution to all classes.
alike; the scholar's appreciation of the richness of our
language, unsurpassed by any modern tongue, and of the
skill with which it has been employed by our long and
varied train of writers of every class, among whom the author
''Indeed, a high regard for the memory of William III. may justly
be reckoned one of the tests by which genuine Whiggism, as opposed
both to Tory and republican principles, has always been recognised.'-—
Hallam, Const. Hist. iii, 200.
1800-1859.]
153
MACAULAY.
can hardly conceal his confidence that he was successfully
asserting his right to no mean or unhonoured place.
(Vol. i. p. 17.)
The sources of the noblest rivers, which spread fertility over
continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought
in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps,
and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of
our country during the thirteenth century may not unaptly be
compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it
is there that we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our pro-
sperity, and our glory. Then it was that the great English people
was formed, that the national character began to exhibit those
peculiarities which it has ever since retained, and that our fathers
became emphatically islanders: islanders not merely in geographical
position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners.
Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution which has
ever since, through all changes, preserved its identity; that con-
stitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world are
copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded
as the best under which any great society has ever yet existed
during many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the
archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet,
either in the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it
was that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly
became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then
it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude
barques of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible
on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which
still exist at both the great national seats of learning were founded.
Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than the
languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in aptitude for all
the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator,
inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then, too, appeared the
first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most splendid and the
most durable of the many glories of England.
A few pages later he points out, with acuteness sharpened
by personal experience, how even the peculiar advantages.
of our constitution have a tendency to increase the diffi-
culties of the historical student.
(P. 25.)
The historical literature of England has indeed suffered grievously
from a circumstance which has not a little contributed to her pro-
154
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
sperity. The change, great as it is, which her polity has undergone
during the last six centuries, has been the effect of gradual develop-
ment, not of demolition and reconstruction. The present constitution
of our country is, to the constitution under which she flourished five
hundred years ago, what the tree is to the sapling, what the man
is to the boy. The alteration has been great. Yet there never
was a moment at which the chief part of what existed was not old.
A polity thus formed must abound in anomalies. But for the
evils arising from mere anomalies we have ample compensation.
Other societies possess written constitutions more symmetrical.
But no other society has yet succeeded in uniting revolution with
prescription, progress with stability, the energy of youth with the
majesty of immemorial antiquity.
This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks; and one of
those drawbacks is, that every source of information as to our
early history has been poisoned by party spirit. As there is no
country where statesmen have been so much under the influence
of the past, so there is no country where historians have been so
much under the influence of the present. Between these two
things, indeed, there is a natural connection. Where history is re-
garded merely as a picture of life and manners, or as a collection of
experiments from which general maxims of civil wisdom may be
drawn, a writer lies under no very pressing temptation to misrepre-
sent transactions of ancient date. But where history is regarded
as a repository of title-deeds, on which the rights of governments
and nations depend, the motive to falsification becomes almost irre-
sistible. A Frenchman is not now impelled by any strong interest
either to exaggerate or to underrate the power of the kings of the
house of Valois. The privileges of the States-General, of the States
of Brittany, of the States of Burgundy, are now matters of as little
practical importance as the constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim,
or of the Amphictyonic Council. The gulf of a great revolution
completely separates the new from the old system. No such chasm
divides the existence of the English nation into two distinct parts.
Our laws and customs have never been lost in general and irrepar-
able ruin. With us the precedents of the middle ages are still
valid precedents, and are still cited on the gravest occasions, by the
most eminent statesmen. Thus, when King George the Third was
attacked by the malady which made him incapable of performing
his regal functions, and when the most distinguished lawyers and
politicians differed widely as to the course which ought, in such
circumstances, to be pursued, the Houses of Parliament would not
proceed to discuss any plan of regency till all the examples which
were to be found in our annals, from the earliest times, had been
1800-1859.]
155
MACAULAY.
collected and arranged. Committees were appointed to examine
the ancient records of the realm. The first precedent reported was
that of the year 1217: much importance was attached to the pre-
cedents of 1326, of 1377, and of 1422; but the case which was
justly considered as most in point was that of 1455. Thus in our
country the dearest interests of parties have frequently been staked
on the results of the researches of antiquaries. The inevitable
consequence was, that our antiquaries conducted their researches
in the spirit of partisans.
In his Essays, as well as in his History, Macaulay has
evidently aimed at the fame of a vivid delineator of cha-
racter. And his portrait of the Lord Halifax of Charles II.'s
reign, which he seems to have laboured with a peculiar
fondness, shows that he was well qualified to attain his
object by a great nicety of observation and discrimination,
and by an appreciation of good or great qualities of the
most varied kind, which rarely failed him.
(P. 243.)
Among the statesmen of that age Halifax was, in genius, the first.
Ilis intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished,
luminous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his
voice, was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation
overflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. IIis political tracts well
deserve to be studied for their literary merit, and fully entitle him
to a place among the English classics. To the weight derived
from talents so great and various, he united all the influence which
belongs to rank and ample possessions. Yet he was less successful
in politics than many who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed,
those intellectual peculiarities which make his writings valuable
frequently impeded him in the contests of active life. For he
always saw passing events, not in the point of view in which they
commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the
point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear
to the philosophic historian. With such a turn of mind, he could
not long continue to act cordially with any body of men.
prejudices, all the exaggerations of both the great parties in the
State moved his scorn. IIe despised the mean arts and unreason-
able clamours of demagogues. Ile despised still more the doctrines
of divine right and passive obedience. IIe sneered impartially at
the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry of the Puritan.
Ile was equally unable to comprehend how any man should object
to saints'-days and surplices, and how any man should persecute
any other man for objecting to them. In temper he was what, in
All the
156
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
our time, is called a Conservative. In theory he was a Republican.
Even when his dread of anarchy and his disdain for vulgar delu-
sions led him to side for a time with the defenders of arbitrary
power, his intellect was always with Locke and Milton. Indeed,
his jests upon hereditary monarchy were sometimes such as would
have better become a member of the Calf's Head Club, than a
Privy Councillor of the Stuarts. In religion he was so far from
being a zealot, that he was called by the uncharitable an atheist;
but this imputation he vehemently repelled; and in truth, though
he sometimes gave scandal, by the way in which he exerted his
rare powers both of argumentation and of ridicule on serious sub-
jects, he seems to have been by no means insusceptible of religious
impressions.
He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties
contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this
nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated with
great vivacity the dignity of the appellation. Everything good,
he said, trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims be-
tween the climate in which men are roasted and the climate in which
they are frozen. The English Church trims between the Ana-
baptist madness and the Papist lethargy. The English constitu-
tion trims between Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue
is nothing but a just temper between propensities any one of
which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the perfection
of the Supreme Being himself consists in the exact equilibrium of
attributes none of which could preponderate without disturbing
the whole moral and physical order of the world. Thus Halifax
was a Trimmer on principle. He was also a Trimmer by the con-
stitution both of his head and of his heart. His understanding
was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and ob
jections; his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite ; his
temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone
either to malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration. Such a man
could not long be constant to any band of political allies. He
must not, however, be confounded with the vulgar crowd of rene-
gades. For though, like them, he passed from side to side, his
transition was always in the direction opposite to theirs. He had
nothing in common with those who fly from extreme to extreme,
and who regard the party which they have deserted with an ani-
mosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies. His place was
between the hostile divisions of the community, and he never
wandered far beyond the frontier of either. The party to which
he at any moment belonged was the party which, at that moment,
he liked least, because it was the party of which at that
1800-1859.]
157
MACAULAY.
moment he had the nearest view. He was, therefore, always
severe upon his violent associates, and was always in friendly re-
lations with his moderate opponents. Every faction, in the day of
its insolent and vindictive triumph, incurred his censure; and
every faction, when vanquished and persecuted, found in him a
protector. To his lasting honour it must be mentioned that he
attempted to save those victims whose fate has left the deepest
stain both on the Whig and on the Tory name.
Of all his efforts at brilliant description, few, if any, sur-
pass in animation his picture of the relief of Derry.
(Vol. iii. p. 235.)
It was the twenty-eighth of July. The sun had just set; the
evening sermon in the cathedral was over, and the heart-broken
congregation had separated, when the sentinels on the tower saw
the sails of three vessels coming up the Foyle. Soon there was a
stir in the Irish camp. The besiegers were on the alert for miles
along both shores. The ships were in extreme peril, for the river
was low, and the only navigable channel ran very near to the left
bank, where the head-quarters of the enemy had been fixed, and
where the batteries were most numerous. Leake performed his
duty with a skill and spirit worthy of his noble profession, exposed
his frigate to cover the merchantmen, and used his guns with great
effect. At length the little squadron came to the place of peril.
Then the 'Mountjoy' took the lead, and went right at the boom.
The huge barricade cracked and gave way; but the shock was such
that the 'Mountjoy' rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell of
triumph rose from the banks, the Irish rushed to their boats,
and were preparing to board; but the 'Dartmouth' poured on them
a well-directed broadside, which threw them into disorder. Just
then the 'Phoenix' dashed at the breach which the 'Mountjoy'
had made, and was in a moment within the fence. Meantime the
tide was rising fast. The 'Mountjoy' began to move, and soon
passed safe through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her
brave master was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had
struck him; and he died by the most enviable of all deaths, in
sight of the city which was his birthplace, which was his home,
and which had just been saved by his courage and self-devotion,
from the most frightful form of destruction. The night had closed
in before the conflict at the boom began; but the flash of the guns
was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean and ghastly multitude
which covered the walls of the city. When the 'Mountjoy' grounded,
and when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides
of the river, the hearts of the besieged died within them. One
*
158
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
who endured the unutterable anguish of that moment has told us
that they looked fearfully livid in each other's eyes. Even after
the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible half-hour of
suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the quay.
The whole population was there to welcome them. A screen
made of casks filled with earth was hastily thrown up to protect
the landing-place from the batteries on the other side of the river;
and then the work of unloading began. First were rolled on shore
barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal. Then came great
cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of
peas and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before, half a
pound of tallow and three-quarters of a pound of salted hide had
been weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The
ration which each now received was three pounds of flour, two
pounds of beef, and a pint of peas. It is easy to imagine with
what tears grace was said over the suppers of that evening. There
was little sleep on either side of the wall. The bonfires shone
bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns
continued to roar all night; and all night the bells of the rescued
city made answer to the Irish guns with a peal of joyful defiance.
Through the three following days the batteries of the enemy con-
tinued to play. But, on the third night, flames were seen arising
from the camp; and when the first of August dawned, a line of
smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the
besiegers; and the citizens saw far off the long column of pikes
and standards retreating up the left bank of the Foyle towards
Strabane.
PRESCOTT.
A.D. 1796-1859.
FAR from unimportant have been the contributions which,
of late years, writers of the United States have made to our
historical literature; their efforts being the more valuable
inasmuch as they have been chiefly exerted over a field but
little known to English authors, the affairs of Spain and
her vast dependencies during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. The most eminent of them was William Hick-
ling Prescott, who was born in a town called Salem, in
Massachusetts, in 1796. While a very young man, he met
with an accident which threatened at first to destroy his
eyesight, and which did in fact greatly impair it; but in
spite of this calamity, he adhered to a plan which he had
1796-1859.]
159
PRESCOTT.
previously formed of addicting himself wholly to literature
and authorship; not for the sake of a livelihood, for he was
possessed of an independent fortune; but from a thirst
after knowledge which has been often found to overcome
all difficulties, but which has rarely had more serious ob-
stacles to contend with than in his case. He chose a great
subject, the reign of the Catholic Sovereigns whose marriage
united the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and thus con-
solidated Spain under one compact government; but he
had hardly commenced the necessary studies when his
eyes wholly failed him; and he was forced for years to rely
wholly on the aid of a secretary who was often unacquainted
with the language of the books and documents which he
was reading. Fortunately, before his work was completed,
his eyes regained sufficient strength to allow him to revise
what he had written; and in 1838 the 'History of the
reign of Ferdinand and Isabella' was published. It at once
established his reputation in the very first rank of living.
historians. He had chosen his subject with great judg-
ment; since, besides the great importance of many of the
events which it comprised: the union of the Spanish crowns,
the expulsion of the Infidels from the Peninsula, the dis-
covery of America, and wars in Italy, it had for the
British reader all the charm of novelty, as, with the ex-
ception of Robertson's narrative of the exploits of Columbus,
the transactions which he related had scarcely been touched
upon by any writer in the language. And his treatment of
them was worthy of their importance. He had not indeed
the dignity of Gibbon, nor did he equal the penetration and
depth of Hume; but his style was easy, flowing, and pure
in expression; his descriptions were vivid and picturesque,
his delineations of character discriminating; and the whole
work was animated by a general soundness of judgment
and correctness of feeling.
It might seem that the enterprises of Columbus were the
events of the reign which had taken the strongest hold of
his fancy; since his next labours were devoted to a detail
of the exploits of the most successful of the adventurers
who rendered the achievements of the great admiral really
profitable to Spain; of Cortez, who conquered Mexico, and
•
160
[CH IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Pizarro, who founded the empire of Peru. These two works
fully maintained his reputation, if indeed the narrative of
the Conquest of Mexico' did not augment it; and, having
completed them, he returned to the History of Spain in
Europe. Of the reign of Charles V. who succeeded Ferdi-
nand, Robertson had left little to be said, and Prescott
confined his labours to an edition of his great work, with
the addition of a chapter or two which describe the life of
Charles after his abdication with a precision and fulness for
which the documents which alone were accessible to the
elder historian did not afford materials. But the history of
Philip II., the sovereign whose reign was even more impor-
tant than that of Charles in its bearing on the subsequent
history of Europe, did not appear to him to have been
treated by any previous writer with such knowledge and
skill as barred that subject against other aspirants. And
accordingly he at once applied himself to it; judging per-
haps that to an English reader the reign in which the
Armada was destroyed, and the foundation laid of the
Commonwealth which sent forth William of Orange to de-
fend and preserve the constitution of their country, would
be especially interesting. But he was not permitted to
complete the work. Like many others, it grew under his
hands to a size beyond that on which, in all likelihood, he
had originally calculated; three volumes only covered
seventeen years, and he had but just arrived at the destruc-
tion of the Turkish fleet at Lepanto, when a sudden attack
of paralysis carried him off in the first month of 1859. The
third book contains an account of the earlier years of Alva's
administration in the Netherlands, which drove those
provinces into rebellion, and thus laid the seeds of that
decay which rapidly reduced Spain to the insignificant
position which she has ever since held. And his narrativo
of this part of the subject may be said to have been con-
tinued by a countryman of his own, who, if he be not quite so
skilled in the graces of composition, yet brought to his task
equal industry, candour, and love of truth; but of whom, as
he is still living, the plan of this work forbids us to say more.
The first of the subjoined extracts presents a very favor-
able specimen of our historian's style when he seeks to
1796-1859.]
161
PRESCOTT.
enliven his narrative by the introduction of picturesque
incidents, while the transaction which it relates is also
worthy of particular mark, as characteristic of the times
when, as was especially the case in Spain, the spirit of
ancient chivalry still lingered in the breasts of the knights,
diversifying and softening the horrors of war.
(Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii., chap. xi.)
The war now began to assume many of the romantic features of
that of Granada. The knights on both sides, not content with
the usual military rencontres, defied one another to jousts and
tourneys, eager to establish their prowess in the noble exercises
of chivalry. One of the most remarkable of these meetings took
place between eleven Spanish and as many French knights, in con-
sequence of some disparaging remarks of the latter on the cavalry
of their enemies, which they affirmed inferior to their own. The
Venetians gave the parties a fair field of combat in the neutral
territory under their own walls of Irani. A gallant array of well-
armed knights of both nations guarded the lists, and maintained
the order of the fight. On the appointed day (September 20, 1502)
the champions appeared in the field, armed at all points, with
horses richly caparisoned and barbed or covered with steel panoply
like their masters. The roofs and battlements of Irani were
covered with spectators, while the lists were thronged with the
French and Spanish chivalry, each staking in some degree the
national honour on the issue of the contest. Among the Castilians
were Diego de Paredes and Diego de Vera, while the good knight
Bayard was most conspicuous on the other side.
As the trumpets sounded the appointed signal, the hostile parties
rushed to the encounter. Three Spaniards were borne from their
saddles by the rudeness of the shock, and four of their antagonists'
horses slain. The fight, which began at ten in the morning, was
not to be protracted beyond sunset. Long before that hour all
the French, save two, one of them the chevalier Bayard, had been
dismounted, and their horses, at which the Spaniards had aimed
more than at the riders, disabled or slain. The Spaniards, seven
of whom were still on horseback, pressed hard on their adversaries,
leaving little doubt of the fortune of the day. The latter, how-
ever, intrenching themselves behind the carcases of their dead
horses, made good their defence against the Spaniards, who in
vain tried to spur their terrified steeds over the barrier. In this
way the fight was protracted till sunset; and, as both parties
continued to keep possession of the field, the palm of victory was
162 .
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
adjudged to neither, while both were pronounced to have demeaned
themselves like good and valiant knights.
The tourney being ended, the combatants met in the centre of
the lists, and embraced each other in the true companionship of
chivalry, 'making good cheer together,' says an old chronicler,
before they separated. The Great Captain was not satisfied with
the issue of the fight. We have at least,' said one of his
champions, 'disproved the taunt of the Frenchmen, and shown
ourselves as good horsemen as they.' 'I sent you for better,'
coldly retorted Gonsalvo.
6
A more tragic termination befel a combat à l'outrance between
the chevalier Bayard and a Spanish cavalier, named Alonso de
Sotomayor, who had accused the former of uncourteous treatment
of him while his prisoner. Bayard denied the charge, and defied
the Spaniard to prove it in single fight, on horse or on foot, as he
best liked. Sotomayor, aware of his antagonist's uncommon horse-
manship, preferred the latter alternative.
At the day and hour appointed (February 2, 1503), the two
knights entered the lists, armed with sword and dagger, and
sheathed in complete harness; although, with a degree of temerity
unusual in these combats, they wore their visors up. Both com-
batants knelt down in silent prayer, for a few moments, and then
rising and crossing themselves, advanced straight against each
other; the good knight Bayard,' says Brantome, moving as
light of step as if he were going to lead some fair lady down the
dance.'
The Spaniard was of a large and powerful frame, and endeavoured
to crush his enemy by weight of blows, or to close with him
and bring him to the ground. The latter, naturally inferior in
strength, was rendered still weaker by a fever, from which he had
not entirely recovered. He was more light and agile than his
adversary, however; and superior dexterity enabled him not only
to parry his enemy's strokes, but to deal him occasionally one of
his own, while he sorely distressed him by the rapidity of his
movements. At length, as the Spaniard was somewhat thrown
off his balance by an ill-directed blow, Bayard struck him so
sharply on the gorget that it gave way, and the sword entered
his throat. Furious with the agony of the wound, Sotomayor
collected all his strength for a last struggle; and, grasping his
antagonist in his arms, they both rolled in the dust together.
Before either could extricate himself, the quick-eyed Bayard, who
had retained his poniard in his left hand during the whole com-
bat, while the Spaniard's had remained in his belt, drove the steel
with such convulsive strength under his enemy's eye, that it
1796-1859.]
163
PRESCOTT,
pierced quite through the brain. After the judges had awarded
the honours of the day to Bayard, the minstrels, as usual, began to
pour forth triumphant strains in praise of the victor; but the good
knight commanded them to desist, and having first prostrated him-
self on his knees, in gratitude for his victory, walked slowly out
of the lists, expressing a wish that the combat had had a different
termination, so that his honour had been saved.
His skill as a delineator of character is shown in the
following passage, which sums up the great qualities which
distinguished one who was, as he deserved to be, among
his favourite heroes.
(Conquest of Mexico, chap. v.)
The personal history of Cortés has been so minutely detailed in
the preceding narrative, that it will be only necessary to touch on
the more prominent features of his character. Indeed the history
of the conquest, as I have already had occasion to remark, is
necessarily that of Cortés, who is, if I may so say, not merely the
soul, but the body, of the enterprise, present everywhere in person,
in the thick of the fight, or in the building of the works, with his
sword or with his musket, sometimes leading his soldiers, and
sometimes directing his little navy. The negotiations, intrigues,
correspondence, are all conducted by him; and, like Cæsar, he
wrote his own commentaries in the heat of the stirring scenes
which form the subject of them. His character is marked with
the most opposite traits, embracing qualities apparently the most
incompatible. He was avaricious, yet liberal; bold to desperation,
yet cautious and calculating in his plans; magnanimous, yet very
cunning; courteous and affable in his deportment, yet inexorably
stern; lax in his notions of morality, yet (not uncommon) a sad
bigot. The great feature in his character was constancy of purpose:
a constancy not to be daunted by danger, nor baffled by disappoint-
ment, nor wearied out by impediments and delays.
He was a knight-errant in the literal sense of the word. Of all
the band of adventurous cavaliers whom Spain, in the sixteenth
century, sent forth on the career of discovery and conquest, there
was none more deeply filled with the spirit of romantic enterprise
than Hernando Cortés. Dangers and difficulties, instead of de-
terring, seemed to have a charm in his eyes. They were ne-
cessary to rouse him to a full consciousness of his powers.
grappled with them at the outset, and, if I may so express myself,
seemed to prefer to take his enterprises by the most difficult side.
He conceived, at the first moment of his landing in Mexico,
the design of its conquest.
When he saw the strength of its
He
A
164
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
civilization, he was not turned from his purpose. When he was
assailed by the superior force of Narvaez, he still persisted in it;
and, when he was driven in ruin from the capital, he still
cherished his original idea. How successfully he carried it into
execution we have seen; after the few years of repose which
succeeded the Conquest, his adventurous spirit impelled him to
that dreary march across the marches of Chiapa; and, after
another interval, to seek his fortunes on the stormy Californian
Gulf. When he found that no other çontinent remained for him
to conquer, he made serious proposals to the Emperor to equip a
fleet at his own expense, with which he would sail to the Moluccas,
and subdue the Spice-Islands for the Crown of Castile.
This spirit of knight-errantry might lead us to undervalue his
talents as a general, and to regard him merely in the light of a
lucky adventurer. But this would be doing him injustice; for
Cortés was certainly a great general, if that man be one who per-
forms great achievements with the resources which his own
genius has created. There is probably no instance in history where
so vast an enterprise has been achieved by means apparently so
inadequate. He may be truly said to have effected the conquest
by his own resources. If he was indebted for his success to the
co-operation of the Indian tribes, it was the force of his genius
that obtained command of such materials. He arrested the arm
that was lifted to smite him, and made it do battle in his behalf.
He beat the Tlascalans, and made them his staunch allies. He
beat the soldiers of Narvaez, and doubled his effective force by it.
When his own men deserted him, he did not desert himself. He
drew them back by degrees, and compelled them to act by his will.
till they were all as one man. He brought together the most
miscellaneous collection of mercenaries who ever fought under one
standard: adventurers from Cuba and the isles, craving for gold;
hidalgos, who came from the old country to win laurels; broken-
down cavaliers, who hoped to mend their fortunes in the New
World; vagabonds flying from justice; the grasping followers of
Narvaez, and his own reckless veterans ;—men with hardly a
common tie, and burning with the spirit of jealousy and faction;
wild tribes of the natives from all parts of the country, who had
been sworn enemies from their cradles, and who had met only to
cut one another's throats, and to procure victims for sacrifice ;-men,
in short, differing in race, in language, and in interests, with
scarcely anything in common among them. Yet this motley con-
gregation was assembled in one camp, compelled to bend to the
will of one man, to consort together in harmony, to breathe, as it
were, one spirit, and to move on a common principle of action! It
1796-1959.]
165
PRESCOTT.
is in this wonderful power over the discordant masses thus
gathered under his banner, that we recognise the genius of the
great commander, no less than in the skill of his military opera-
tions.
His character has been unconsciously traced by the hand of a
master.
'And oft the chieftain deigned to aid
And mingle in the mirth they made ;
For though, with men of high degree,
The proudest of the proud was he,
Yet, trained in camps, he knew the art
To win the soldier's hardy heart.
They love a captain to obey,
Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May;
With open hand, and brow as free,
Lover of wine and minstrelsy ;
Ever the first to scale a tower,
As venturous in a lady's bower;-
Such buxom chief shall lead his host
From India's fires to Zembla's frost.'
Cortés, without much violence, might have sat for this portrait
of Marmion.
Cortés was not a vulgar conqueror. He did not conquer from
the mere ambition of conquest. If he destroyed the ancient
capital of the Aztecs, it was to build up a more magnificent
capital on its ruins. If he desolated the land, and broke up its
existing institutions, he employed the short period of his adminis-
tration in digesting schemes for introducing there a more improved
culture and a higher civilization. In all his expeditions he was
careful to study the resources of the country, its social organiza-
tion, and its physical capacities. He enjoined it on his captains to
attend particularly to these objects. If he was greedy of gold,
like most of the Spanish cavaliers in the New World, it was not to
hoard it, nor merely to lavish it in the support of a princely estab-
lishment, but to secure funds for prosecuting his glorious dis-
coveries. Witness his costly expeditions to the Gulf of California.
His enterprises were not undertaken solely for mercenary objects;
as is shown by the various expeditions he set on foot for the dis-
covery of a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
In his schemes for ambition he showed a respect for the interests
of science, to be referred partly to the natural superiority of his
mind, but partly, no doubt, to the influence of early education. It
is, indeed, hardly possible that a person of his wayward and
mercurial temper should have improved his advantages at the
166
[CH. IX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
University; but he brought away from it a tincture of scholarship,
seldom found among the cavaliers of the period, and which had its
influence in enlarging his own conceptions. His celebrated letters
are written with a simple elegance that, as I have already had
occasion to remark, have caused them to be compared to the
military narrative of Cæsar. It will not be easy to find in the
chronicles of the period a more concise yet comprehensive state-
ment, not only of the events of his campaign, but of the circum-
stances most worthy of notice in the character of the conquered
countries.
1790-18C8.]
167
MILMAN.
CHAPTER X.
MILMAN.
A.D. 1790-1868.
Nor unconnected with portions of the 'Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire' is the 'History of Latin Christianity' by
the late Dean of St. Paul's, which necessarily travels over
part of the same ground which, to less enquiring and less
courageous minds, might have seemed to have been too
completely made his own by Gibbon for any subsequent
writer to approach the subject; but the Dean had pub-
lished an edition of Gibbon's work, and it was very pro-
bably the preparation for that task which suggested to him
the idea of becoming himself the narrator of events which
had no slight influence on the fortunes of the Roman
Empire in its latter days; but to describe which with the
minuteness which those interested above all things in the
progress of religion would desire, was beside Gibbon's plan,
and even, from his unhappy scepticism, beyond his powers.
Henry Hart Milman, the youngest son of a physician of
eminence, Sir Francis Milman, was one of those men who,
having given extraordinary promise of excellence during
their career at Eton and at Oxford, are only excited by their
early success to labour to keep up their reputation, and
who are so richly endowed by nature that every succeeding
year of study tends further to develop and mature their
abilities. At Eton he was a very distinguished boy. At
Oxford the number of prizes which he carried off was great
almost beyond all previous example; and, what is not
very common, indicated the possession of apparently equal
powers in both prose and poetical composition, since he
obtained medals for both, in English and Latin. Greek
composition, strange to say, was in his day, and for long
168
[CH. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
afterwards, wholly neglected in that which boasted to be
the classical University; though at Cambridge the medals
for a Greek ode had long been among the most coveted
prizes; and, while Milman was an undergraduate at Oxford,
the Cambridge authorities established the Porson prize.
His first public ventures as an author were, however,
not of the kind to which he owes his present, and will owe
his future, fame. They were confined to poetry, chiefly to
dramatic poetry. His first play, called 'Fazio,' was acted
at Bath and in London with no inconsiderable success, and
is still occasionally represented; but those which followed.
were not calculated for the stage, being dramas on religious
subjects; on the fall of Jerusalem; on Belshazzar; on the
Martyr of Antioch. It is well known what a storm was
raised in Scotland when a Presbyterian minister wrote
'Douglas.' And though the same narrow-mindedness is
not very common in English congregations, yet it is
recorded that some of the good people of Reading (of which
Milman had been appointed Vicar) were inclined to be
scandalised at their spiritual guide thus coming forward as
a supporter of the theatre, though it appeared that the
production of 'Fazio' on the stage was not in accordance
with the author's original intention, and hardly with his
wish. But it was received with no disapproval by his
university, which lost no opportunity of conferring dis-
tinctions on him. He was appointed Professor of Poetry in
1821, and Bampton Lecturer in 1827. And shortly after
receiving this last appointment he made his first appear-
ance as a prose writer. He had indeed been for some years
a contributor to the 'Quarterly Review,' but no prose work
of mark had appeared with his name, when in 1829 he pub-
lished a History of the Jews. It was severely attacked in
some quarters, as handling historical facts with a freedom
which, to nervous people, seemed tainted with the spirit
of German rationalism; but a continued study of the
subject only confirmed Milman in his original views; and
when, twenty-five years later, he published a revised
edition of the work, with little or no alteration of the
passages which had been most objected to, the objections
were not repeated. Meantime he had commenced what
may be looked on as a continuation of that work, the
1790-1868.]
169
MILMAN.
History of Christianity, publishing in 1840 'The History
of Christianity to the Extinction of Paganism in the
Roman Empire,' and completing it fifteen years later by
The History of Latin Christianity, including that of the
Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V.,' the Prelate so splen-
didly eulogised by Gibbon, in whose reign the victorious
Mahomet expelled the cross from the eastern regions of
the Empire.
6
The History of Latin Christianity' is the work on which
Milman's fame rests. It does not display equal mastery of
language with the 'Decline and Fall'; nor was the author
gifted with the same philosophical penetration, nor with
equal power of combining complicated details into one har-
monious and picturesque narrative, with the writer of that
immortal work. But he had what Gibbon wanted, a sincere
feeling of the vast importance of the subject; a resolute
candour which made him desirous to do justice to all whose
views and differences of opinion his narrative led him to
notice; and he added to these qualities a rich store of
varied learning, which qualified him to form, and which
gave weight to, the judgments which he calmly but reso-
lutely expressed. The great merit of the work was
promptly and universally acknowledged, and is sufficiently
attested by the fact that its bulk (it consists of six large
volumes) did not prevent its rapidly going through four
editions in a very few years.
His services to the cause of learning and religion were
not unrecognised by those who have the distribution of the
ecclesiastical patronage of the Crown. And it is remark-
able, as a tribute to his reputation for general fairness and
moderation, that in each instance his promotion came from
the party to which he was politically opposed. In 1835
one Whig prime minister, Lord Melbourne, gave him a
canonry at Westminster, with the vicarage of St. Margaret's.
In 1850 another Whig, Lord John Russell, promoted
him to the Deanery of St. Paul's. And in that easy and
honourable retirement which no man had better earned, he
passed the last eighteen years of his life, not even in
his old age resting from his labours, for death found him
engaged on the annals of the cathedral over which he
presided, and which were almost ready for publication.
D
170
[CH. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
That he should have been occupied on a work necessarily
involving such a vast amount of research and labour is a
sufficient proof that he was still enjoying the full possession
of his rich mental endowments, when in August 1868 he
was suddenly attacked by paralysis, to which before the
end of the next month he yielded; leaving behind him a
reputation of the first class, in an age which has rarely
been equalled for the number or the value of its contribu-
tions to historical learning.
The account of St. Benedict is a very favorable speci-
men of the author's style.
(History of Latin Christianity, book iii. chap. vi.).
History, to be true, must condescend to speak the language of
legend; the belief of the times is part of the record of the times;
and though there may occur what may baffle its more calm and
searching philosophy, it must not disdain that which was the
primal, almost universal, motive of human life.
Benedict was born at Nursia, in the province of Spoleto, of
respectable parents. He was sent to Rome, according to still-
prevailing custom, to be instructed in the liberal arts. But his
pure spirit shrunk instinctively from the vices of the capital. He
gave up the perilous study of letters, and preferred a holy igno-
rance. He fled secretly from the society of his dangerous associates,
from the house of his parents, who, it seems, had accompanied him,
as of old the father of Horace his son, to Rome. His faithful
nurse alone discovered his design, and accompanied his flight.
This incident seems to imply that his flight took place at a very
tender age; a circumstance, told at a later period, intimates that it
was not before the first impulses of youthful passion. He took
refuge in a small village called Effide, about two miles from
Subiaco. The rustic inhabitants, pleased with his modesty and
sweetness of disposition, allowed him to inhabit a cell near their
church. Here took place his first miracle.
The faithful nurse,
Cyrilla, had borrowed a stone sieve, commonly used in that part of
the country to make bread. It fell from her hands, and broke in two.
Benedict, moved by her distress, united the two pieces, prayed
over them, and the vessel became whole. The wondering rustics
are said to have hung the miraculously restored sieve over the
church door. But the sensitive youth shrunk from fame, as he
had from vice: he sought a deeper solitude. In the neighbourhood
of Subiaco, by the advice and assistance of a monk, named
Romanus, he found a wild and inaccessible cavern, into which he
1790-1868.]
171
MILMAN.
crept, and for three years the softly and delicately educated boy
lay hid in this cold and dismal dwelling from the sight of men.
His scanty food was supplied by Romanus, who took it by stealth
from his own small pittance in his monastery. The cave was at
the foot of the hill on which the monastery stood, but there was
no path down the precipitous rock. The food, therefore, was let
down by a rope, and a small bell tied to the rope gave notice of its
coming. Once the devil broke the rope, but he could not baffle
the inventive charity of Romanus. To an imagination so prepared,
what scene could be more suited to nurture the disposition to
wonders and visions than the wild and romantic region about
Subiaco. The cave of Benedict is still shown as a hallowed place,
nigh on the crest of a toppling rock, with the Anio roaring beneath
in a deep ravine, clothed with the densest forest, and looking on a
another wild precipitous crag. Half-way up the zigzag and laborious
path stands the convent of Benedict's sister, St. Scolastica. So
entirely was Benedict cut off from the world that he ceased to mark
not merely the progress of ordinary time, but even the fasts and
festivals of the Church. A certain priest had prepared for himself
some food of unusual delicacy for the festival of Easter. A
mysterious admonition within his heart reproved him for this
luxurious indulgence while the servant of God was pining with
hunger. Who he was, this holy and heaven-designated servant,
or where he dwelt, the priest knew not, but he was led through
the tangled thickets and over the rugged rocks to the cave of
Benedict. Benedict was ignorant that it was Easter, and not till
he was assured that it was that festal day would he share in the
heaven-sent banquet.
The secret of his hiding-place was thus betrayed, and some of
the rude shepherds of the country, seeing the hermit in his coarse
attire, which was no more than a sheepskin thrown round him,
mistook him at first for a wild beast; but when they approached
him, they were so melted by his gentle eloquence that their
hearts yielded at once, and they were subdued to courtesy of
manners and Christian belief. But the young hermit had not
´escaped the notice or the jealousy of the enemy of mankind. One
day (we must not omit puerilities so characteristic, and this is
gravely related by a late serious and learned writer) he appeared
in the shape of a blackbird, and flapped him over the eyes with
his wings, so as almost to blind him. The evil one took a more
dangerous form, the unforgotten image of a beautiful woman,
whom young Benedict had known at Rome (he could not, then,
have left it so very young). This was a perilous probation, and it
was only by rushing forth, and rolling his naked body upon the
9
172
[CH. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
brambles and sharp points of the rocks, that Benedict obtained the
hard-wrung victory. Never after this, as he said to his familiar
friends, was he exposed to these fleshly trials. Yet his warfare
was not over. He had triumphed over sensual lust: he was to be
tempted by religious ambition. A convent of monks in the
neighbourhood, excited by the fame of his sanctity, determined to
choose Benedict for their head. He fairly warned them of the
rigorous and uncompromising discipline which he should think it
his duty to enforce. Either fondly believing their own sincerity,
or presuming on the latent gentleness of Benedict, they could not
be dissuaded from the design. But in a short time the firm
severity of the young abbot roused their fierce resentment;
hatred succeeded to reverence and love. They attempted to
poison him; but the cup with the guilty potion burst asunder in
the hands of Benedict, who calmly reproved them for their crime,
prayed for the divine forgiveness, reminded them of his own
warnings, before he undertook their government, and withdrew
into his happier solitude.
It was no longer a solitude. The sanctity of Benedict, and the
fame of his miracles, drew together daily fresh aspirants to the
holiness or the quietness of his recluse life. In a short time arose
in the poetic district on the peaks and rent cliffs, under the oaks
and chestnuts round Subiaco, twelve monasteries, each containing
twelve votaries (Benedict considered that less or more than this
number led to negligence or to discord). The names of many of
these cloisters designate their romantic sites: the Monastery of
the Cavern; St. Angelo and St. Clement by the Lake; St. John by
the Stream; St. Victor at the foot of the Mountain; Eternal Life,
or the Holy Valley; and one now called Santa Scolastica, rising
amid embowering woods on a far-seen ridge of the Apennines.
The fame of these institutions soon spread to Rome. Some of the
nobles joined the young fraternities, others sent their sons for the
benefit of a severe and religious education; and already consider-
able endowments, in farms and other possessions, were bestowed by
the piety and gratitude of parents or admirers.
Three virtues constituted the sum of the Benedictine discipline :
silence, with solitude and seclusion; humility; obedience, which, in
the strong language of its laws, extended to impossibilities. All
is thus concentrated on self. It was the man isolated from his
kind who was to rise to a lonely perfection. All the social, all
patriotic virtues were excluded, the mere mechanic observance of
the rules of brotherhood, or even the corporate spirit, are hardly
worthy of notice, though they are the only substitutes for the
rejected and proscribed pursuits of active life.
1790-1868.]
173
MILMAN.
The three occupations of life were the worship of God, reading,
and manual labour. The adventitious advantages, and great they
were, of these industrious agricultural settlements, were not con-
templated by the founder; the object of the monks was not to
make the wilderness blossom with fertility, to extend the arts and
husbandry of civilised life into barbarous regions; it was solely to
employ in engrossing occupation that portion of time which could
not be devoted to worship and to study.
ALISON.
A.D. 1795-1860.
Ir the importance of a subject, and unwearied industrypro-
ceeding from and constantly animated by an honest desire
to do justice to everyone of whom he speaks, could entitle
a writer to be ranked among historians of the first class,
a very high place could not be refused to Sir Archibald
Alison. He has told us that, being in Paris at the
time of the triumphant entry of the allied sovereigns into
that capital, he, though then little more than a boy, con-
ceived the idea of writing the history of the great and
awful event which had led to that triumph, the first French
Revolution. The idea, however vague at first, speedily
ripened into a fixed resolution to carry it out. And he took
extraordinary pains to qualify himself for so arduous an
undertaking. He travelled over the greater part of Europe
to make a personal inspection of the scenes of the chief
events, and of the fields of the principal battles. He
examined almost every publication of every kind, news-
papers, despatches, memoirs, speeches, which threw or
pretended to throw any light upon the different transactions
which he proposed to relate; and at length, after twenty-
five years of incessant labour, he published the first volumes
of his work, which he entitled 'The History of Europe from
the commencement of the French Revolution to the resto-
ration of the Bourbons.' It originally consisted of ten
volumes, which were subsequently expanded to fourteen;
the last volumes appearing in 1846; and he followed them
with a second series, in eight volumes, carrying the story
174
[CH. X
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
down to the establishment of the Second Empire in 1852.
This second series is universally admitted to be a failure as
a composition; though it is not without its value as an
honest record of events. On the merits of the first series
opinions have greatly differed; and perhaps it neither de-
serves the excessive praise which it has received in some
quarters, nor the contempt which has been expressed for it
in others. To judge it fairly we should separate the
author's narrative of facts from his expression of his own
opinions. With respect to the former, his industry put
him in possession of the truth concerning the most impor-
tant events, as far as it was attainable by study and research.
His honesty prevented his ever wilfully distorting a fact or
misrepresenting an individual. But his opinions can very
rarely be pronounced valuable; his criticisms on military
operations do not usually command the assent of competent
judges; while his judgments on statesmen and their
measures are coloured by his peculiar views of political
cconomy: he seems equally fond of truisms and of falla-
cies.
As a judge and painter of character, he falls far short of
every one of the other writers whose works we have been
examining. No man ever showed himself less capable of
distinguishing sterling metal from its spurious imitation,
or pretentious inanity from moral or intellectual greatness.
His style is very unequal; at times, especially in the rela-
tion of exploits of personal gallantry, it is spirited and
vigorous, though too often needlessly prolix. But in the
discussion of political questions, it is often pompous and
turgid; his sentences become involved and unintelligible;
while his language on all subjects is constantly incorrect
and ungrammatical. Still, so absorbing is the interest of
his theme, that, though the book is undoubtedly unneces-
sarily long, it is but rarely tedious. And as it contains by
far the best account in the language of many of Napoleon's
campaigns, and especially of those in Germany and Russia,
it must be studied by everyone who would form a correct
notion of the most important series of transactions in
modern history, and of the most extraordinary man who
has ever influenced the destinies of nations.
1795-860.]
175
ALISON.
The following passage may be taken as a favorable
example of his style, being a carefully worked up picture of
one of the most striking scenes in the invasion of Russia.
The weather was calm and serene, and the unclouded sky re-
minded the Italian soldiers of the sunsets in their beautiful country.
To the roar of artillery, and the tumult of mortal conflict, succeeded
a night of tranquillity unusual in the midst of such numerous
assemblages of men, the result of the fatigue and exhaustion of
the preceding days. During this momentary repose the fire spread
with unresisted violence, and a vast column of flame ascended from
the interior of the city. Around this blazing centre the corps of
the French army were grouped in dense masses for several miles
in circumference; the light of their watch-fires illuminated the
heavens; but every eye was arrested by the spectacle of the burning
city within. A dark band in front marked the yet unbroken line
of the battlements; every loophole and embrasure was clearly
defined by the resplendent light behind, whence volumes of flame
and burning smoke arose, as from a vast volcano, over half the
heavens a lurid light like that of Vesuvius, was cast over the
extended bivouacs of the French army, while the lofty domes of
the cathedral, still untouched by the conflagration, stood in dark
magnificence above the ocean of fire. The troops beheld with awe
the splendid spectacle, and, uncertain of the event, rested in suspense
all night on their arms.
At three in the morning, a patrol of Davoust's scaled the walls,
and penetrated without resistance into the interior of the town.
Having met with neither inhabitants nor opponents, he returned to
his corps, and the French advanced guard speedily entered the
walls. They found the streets deserted. The work of destruction
begun by the French howitzers, had been completed by the
voluntary sacrifice of the inhabitants, who had fled with the
retiring corps of their countrymen; and the invading columns, in
all the pomp of military splendour, traversed in silence a ruined
city, filled only with smoking walls and dying men. Never did
the horrors of war appear in more striking colours than to the
invading troops as they entered that devoted city. Almost all the
houses were consumed or in ruins; dying soldiers or citizens
encumbered the streets; a few miserable wretches were alone to
be seen ransacking the yet smoking remains for any relics of their
property which might have survived the conflagration. In the
midst of this scene of woe, the cathedrals and churches which had
withstood the flames alone offered an asylum to the unfortunate
inhabitants; while the martial columns of the French army,
marching in the finest order to the sound of military music through
2
176
[CH. X
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the wreck occasioned by their arms, presented a grand and imposing
spectacle. So skilfully, however, had the Russian retreat been
conducted, that the magazines in the town had all been destroyed;
the wounded, and great part of the inhabitants, withdrawn; and
the bridges over the Dnieper broken down, amidst the horrors of
the nocturnal conflagration following that dreadful day; leaving
naked walls, and the cannon which mounted them, as the only
trophies to the conqueror.
Writers of what may be called technical or professional
history hardly come within the scope of a work on general
literature. Yet the present century has been adorned by
one author of that class of such pre-eminent merit that it
can hardly be unseasonable to mention that the achieve-
ments in the Peninsular war of the greatest of British
Generals have been described by an officer who served
under him, Colonel Napier of the 43rd Regiment, not only
with the military knowledge and skill of an experienced
soldier, but with a mastery of all the arts of composition,
with a command over all the resources of the language,
with an animation and vigour which few authors by pro-
fession have ever equalled; and that his narrative of the
Conquest of Scinde by his own brother, an undertaking still
more gratifying to his fraternal pride, rivals his greater and
better known work in all the qualities which can confer
renown on an author, and which deservedly procure for the
writings in which they are displayed a longevity more.
durable, as the Roman poet affirms, than brass or marble.
And thus again, though, in the selection of historians, I
have confined myself to those writers who speak of modern
Europe, using the term here in contradistinction to Europe
of the classical ages; 1 and yielding in this to the ordinary
way of speaking which seems to confine the study of the
history of the Greeks and Romans to classical scholars; yet
I feel that it is a limitation unsupported by reason, and I
know not why, in truth, even those who have little or no
familiarity with the great classical languages should on
¹ The mention of Gibbon is but a seeming exception to this rule,
since his work does not begin before the end of the first century A.D.
And its principal interest arises from its connection with the history of
modern Europe.
1820-1870.]
177
GROTE.
that account be debarred from acquiring some knowledge
of the history of the great nations which used those lan-
guages; of the mighty deeds of Alexander and Cæsar; of
the struggles which animated the eloquence of Demosthenes
and Cicero; or of the principles of that subtle philosophy
and imaginative wisdom which Plato expounded to his dis-
ciples among the groves of the Academy. And those who,
though unversed in Greek and Latin, would nevertheless
fain learn something of these great events and noble-minded
men, may fitly be informed here that the great school of
English historians is as far beyond its Continental rivals in
its treatment of the classical ages as in its delineation of
events nearer to our own time, and, as such, apparently
more interesting. They may be referred to Arnold's
learned, accurate, and animated pages for a description of
Annibal's campaigns, which, borrowing brilliancy from Livy,
and accuracy from Polybius, presents to English readers.
as correct an idea of the mighty Carthaginian as, in the
absence of Carthaginian annals, has ever been attainable
by the modern student. And, while they perceive that it
is equally correct and luminous in its explanation of the
changes in and gradual development of the Roman consti-
tution, they will lament, with all lovers of sound learning,
that so great a work was broken off by the premature death
of its accomplished author.
Again, though they must thus be reminded of a heavy
loss which the nation has sustained, even since this volume
has been in the press, they may be glad to be led to the
pages of Grote, who in his History of Grecce, has pene-
trated more deeply than any writer of any country, into all
the depths of the ancient philosophy. Others may have
equalled him in descriptions of the heroism with which the
Greeks, under Leonidas and Themistocles, repelled the in-
vasion of the Persian monarch at Thermopyla and Salamis,
and retaliated it by the overthrow of his descendant at
Issus and Arbela; or of the more painful contest when
Athenians and Spartans turned their fratricidal arms against
each other, and when the intestine strife of rival factions
laid the greater nation prostrate at the mercy of its rival,
and a way was thus prepared for the supremacy over both
178
[CHI. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of a northern people who in the days of Xerxes were hardly
acknowledged to be Greeks. But the teachings of philoso-
phy are of wider and more enduring influence than the
triumphs of the warrior; and in a judicious appreciation, in
a clear and eloquent explanation, of the doctrines of Plato
and Aristotle, of their diversity, and of their value, not
only to the Athenians of their own day, but to the people
of all other countries and of all subsequent generations, no
one has approached Mr. Grote.
A short extract from the writings of each will be a suffi-
cient indication of what those whose inclination leads them
to the study of such subjects may expect to find.
The following is Napier's description of the battle of
Meeanee.
(Napier's Conquest of Scinde, p. 187.)
Thick as standing corn, and gorgeous as a field of flowers, were
the Beloochees in their many-coloured garments and turbans.
They filled the broad deep bed of the Fullaillee; they were
clustered on both banks, and covered the plain beyond. Guarding
their heads with large dark shields, they shook their sharp swords,
gleaming in the sun, and their shouts rolled like a peal of thunder,
as, with frantic might and gestures, they dashed against the front of
the 22nd. But with shrieks as wild and fierce, and hearts as big,
and arms as strong, the British soldiers met them with the queen
of weapons, and laid their foremost warriors wallowing in blood.
Then also the few guns that could be placed in position on the
right of the 22nd, flanked by Henderson's small band of Madras
sappers, swept diagonally the bed of the river, tearing the rushing
masses with a horrible carnage. Soon the sepoy regiments, 12th
and 25th, prolonged the line of fire to the left, coming into action
successively in the same terrible manner. Clibborne's grenadiers
were distant, skirmishing with the matchlock men in Kottree,
when they should have charged them: but that was their com-
mander's fault.
Now the Beloochees closed in denser masses, and the dreadful
rush of their swordsmen was felt, and their shouts, answered by
the pealing musketry, were heard along the line, and such a fight
ensued as has seldom been told of in the records of war.
For ever
those wild fierce warriors, with shields held high and blades drawn
back, strove with might and valour to break through the British
ranks. No fire of small arms, no sweeping discharges of grape, no
push of bayonets could drive them back; they gave their breasts to
1785-1860.]
179
NAPIER.
the shot, their shields to the bayonets, and, leaping at the guns,
were blown away by twenties at a time; their dead rolled down the
steep slope by hundreds; but the gaps were continually filled from
the rear, the survivors pressed forward with unabated fury, and the
bayonet and sword clashed in full and frequent conflict.
Thus they fought, never more than five yards apart, often inter-
mingled; and several times the different regiments were violently
forced backwards, staggering under the might and passion of the
swordsmen. But always their general was there to rally and cheer
them. At his voice their strength returned, and they recovered
ground, though nearly all their regimental leaders were down: for
fast those leaders had fallen, dying as British officers always will
do when they cannot win.
The next extract exhibits Mr. Grote's view of the ancient
philosophers in his description of Socrates.
(History of Greece, vol. viii. p. 621).
Having thus touched upon Sokrates, both as first opener of the
field of ethics to scientific study-and as author of a method,
little copied and never paralleled since his time, for stimulating
in other men's minds earnest analytical inquiry, I speak last
about his theoretical doctrine. Considering the fanciful, far-
fetched ideas, upon which alone the Pythagoreans and other pre-
decessors had shaped their theories respecting virtues and vices,
the wonder is that Sokrates, who had no better guides to follow,
should have laid down an ethical doctrine which has the double
merit of being true, as far as it goes, legitimate, and of compre-
hensive generality; though it errs, mainly by stating a part of the
essential conditions of virtue (sometimes also a part of the ethical
end) as if it were the whole. Sokrates resolved all virtue into
knowledge or wisdom; all vice into ignorance or folly. To do
right was the only way to impart happiness, or the least degree of
unhappiness compatible with any given situation: now this was
precisely what everyone wished for and aimed at—only that many
persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road; and no man was
wise enough always to take the right. But as no man was
willingly his own enemy, so no man ever did wrong willingly; it
was because he was not fully or correctly informed of the conse-
quences of his own actions; so that the proper remedy to apply
was enlarged teaching of consequences and improved judgment. To
make him willing to be taught, the only condition required was
to make him conscious of his own ignorance; the want of which
consciousness was the real cause both of indocility and of vice.
That this doctrine sets forth one portion of the essential con-
180
[CH. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
3
ditions of virtue, is certain; and that too the most commanding
portion, since there can be no assured moral conduct except under
the supremacy of reason. But that it omits to notice, what is
not less essential to virtue, the proper condition of the emotions,
desires, etc., taking account only of the intellect, is also certain;
and has been remarked by Aristotle as well as by many others. It
is fruitless, in my judgment, to attempt by any refined explanation
to make out that Sokrates meant by 'knowledge' something more
than what is directly implied in the word. He had present to his
mind, as the grand depravation of the human being, not so much
vice as madness; that state in which a man does not know what
he is doing. Against the vicious man, securities, both public and
private, may be taken with considerable effect; against the mad-
man there is no security except perpetual restraint. He is in-
capable of any of the duties incumbent on social man, nor can he,
even if he wishes, do good either to himself or to others. The
sentiment which we feel towards such an unhappy being is indeed
something totally different from moral reprobation, such as we feel
for the vicious man who does wrong knowingly. But Sokrates
took measure of both with reference to the purposes of human life
and society, and pronounced that the latter was less completely
spoiled for those purposes than the former. Madness was ignorance
at its extreme pitch, accompanied too by the circumstance that the
madman himself was unconscious of his own ignorance, acting
under a sincere persuasion that he knew what he was doing. But
short of this extremity, there were many varieties and gradations
in the scale of ignorance, which, if accompanied by false conceit
of knowledge, differed from madness only in degree, and each of
which disqualified a man from doing right, in proportion to the
ground which it covered. The worst of all ignorance, that which
stood nearest to madness, was when a man was ignorant of him-
self, fancying that he knew what he did not really know, and that
he could do, or avoid, or endure what was quite beyond his
capacity; when, for example, intending to speak the same truth,
he sometimes said one thing, sometimes another, or, casting up
the same arithmetical figures, made sometimes a greater sum,
sometimes a less. A person who knows his letters, or an arith-
metician, may doubtless write bad orthography, or cast up
incorrectly, by design, but can also perform the operation
correctly, if he chooses; while one ignorant of writing, or of
arithmetic, cannot do it correctly, even though he should be
anxious to do so. The former therefore comes nearer to the good
orthographer or arithmetician than the latter. So if a man knows
what is just, honourable, and good, but commits acts of a contrary
character, he is juster, or comes nearer to being a just man,
1795-1842.]
181
ARNOLD.
than one who does not know what just acts are, and does not
distinguish them from unjust; for this latter cannot conduct
himself justly, even if he desires it ever so much.
Our last extract from these historians gives us Dr.
Arnold's view of the civilisation of Rome at the beginning
of its sixth century.
(History of Romo, chap. xxvi.)
There was as yet no regular drama, for Livius Andronicus did
not begin to exhibit his plays till after the first Punic war; but there
were pantomimic dances performed by Etruscan actors; there
were the saturæ, or medleys, sung and acted by native performers;
and there were the comic or satirical dialogues on some ludicrous
story (fabellæ atellanæ), in which the actors were of a higher rank,
as this entertainment was rather considered an old national custom
than a spectacle exhibited for the public amusement. There were
no famous poets, nor any Homer, to embody in an imperishable
form the poetical traditions of his country; but there were the
natural elements of poetry, and the natural love of it, and it was
long the custom at all entertainments that each guest in his turn
should sing some heroic song, recording the worthy deeds of some
noble Roman. So also there was no history, but there was the
innate desire of living in the memory of after ages; and in all the
great families, panegyrical orations were delivered at the funeral
of each of their members, containing a most exaggerated account
of his life and actions. These orations existed in the total absence
of all other statements, and from these chiefly the annalists of the
succeeding century compiled their narratives; and thus every war
is made to exhibit a series of victories, and all the most remarkable
characters in the Roman story are represented as men without
reproach, or of heroic excellence.
But whilst literature was unknown, and poetry, and even the
drama itself, were in their earliest infancy, the Romans enjoyed
with the keenest delight the sports of the circus, which resembled
the great national games of Greece. Every year, in the month of
September, four days were devoted to the celebration of what were
called, indifferently, the Great or the Roman Games. Like all
the spectacles of the ancient world, they were properly a religious
solemnity, a great festival in honour of the three national divinities
of the Capitoline temple, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. On the
first day of the festival, the whole people went in procession from
the Capitol through the Forum to the Circus; there the sacrifice
was performed, and afterwards the exhibition of the various games
began, which was so entirely a national ceremony that the
magistrate of the highest rank who happened to be in Rome
*
182
[CH. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
gave the signal for the starting of the horses in the chariot-race.
The circus itself was especially consecrated to the sun, and the
colours by which the drivers of the chariots were distinguished
were supposed to have a mystical allusion to the different seasons.
Originally there were only two colours, white and red; the one a
symbol of the snows of winter, the other of the fiery heat of
summer; but two others were afterwards added, the spring-like
green, and the autumnal grey or blue. The charioteers, who wore
the same colours, were called the red, or white, or green, or blue
band (factio), and these bands became in later times the subject of
the strongest party feeling; for men attached themselves either to
one or the other, and would as little have been induced to change
their colour in the circus as their political party in the Common-
wealth. It does not appear that these colours were connected with
any real differences, social or political; there were no ideas of which
they were severally the symbols; and thus, while the Common-
wealth lasted, the bands of the circus seem to have excited no
deeper or more lasting interest than the wishes of their respective
partizans for their success in the chariot-race. But afterwards,
when the emperor was known to favour any one colour more than
another, that colour would naturally become the badge of his
friends, and the opposite colour the rallying-point of his enemies ;
and when a real political feeling was connected with these symbols
it was not wonderful that the bands of the circus became truly
factions, and that their quarrels in the Lower Empire should have
sometimes deluged Constantinople with blood.
Before closing this part of our subject, it is necessary to
call attention also to the circumstance that regular histories
are not the only works which should be studied by those
who would acquire a correct knowledge of past ages, es-
pecially in our own country. Historians themselves have
made constant use of writings contemporary with the
events which they record, which from time to time have
been given to the world under the name of diaries, journals,
or correspondence; to which, of lato years, has been added
a variety of biographies of men of ability and influence on
the transactions of their time; of ministers, warriors, ora-
tors, and men of learning and science; so that it may
almost be said that as correct an insight into the past may
be acquired from the perusal of these lighter works as from
the more laborious study required by the pages of the pro-
fessed historian. In some points they are even more valu-
able. No history written in a subsequent age can give an
EVELYN-PEPYS-WALPOLE.
183
equally correct idea of the feelings with which each impor-
tant occurrence was regarded at the time when it took
place; nor of the manners of the people, as indicated by
a thousand minute entries in the pages of the journalist or
letter-writer. Among the most deservedly celebrated are
the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys, which give a most lively
picture of the state of England, and especially of the Court
during the reign of Charles II. They are deservedly popu-
lar, not only for the animation with which they describe
what the writers saw, but for the unpretending and engaging
simplicity of their style; and in later times Lord Malmes-
bury's diary deserves almost equal praise for those quali
ties; while, as the author was at different times employed
on diplomatic missions of the highest importance, his reve-
lations have a solid importance of which the somewhat
gossipping journals of those old chroniclers are necessarily
destitute. Of letter-writers, Horace Walpole, the youngest
son of the great minister, stands at the head by universal
admission; though the same praise of simplicity of style
cannot be awarded to his letters. In truth they may be
said to be only nominally letters. They were not unpre-
meditated effusions to correspondents; but carefully elabo-
rated accounts of the transactions of the day, drawn up
with a view to subsequent publication, and largely coloured
by the writer's political feelings, and often by what he con-
ceived to be his duty of disparaging all who had ever becn
in opposition to his father. Still they are almost invariably
lively and amusing; they give an excellent notion of the
manners of people in the higher ranks of society, for the
latter half of the last century. And as the writer was, above
most men, behind the scenes, being cousin of Marshal
Conway, Secretary of State in more than one Administra-
tion, he unfolds to us the secret motives of the conduct of
his party in many most important transactions.
Of memoir-writers few surpass Mrs. Hutchinson, the
widow of an officer who bore arms against the King in the
great Rebellion, and even permitted himself to sit as one
of his judges, and to sign the warrant for his death. Even
those who most execrate the crime can pardon a wife
pleading in defence of her husband. And when the fact
that it is the advocacy of a bad cause is put out of sight,
*
184
[CH. X.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
all must admit the value of the book, not only for the light
which it throws on the views of the more respectable portion
of Cromwell's supporters, but also for the feminine purity
and delicacy of mind which pervade the work, which, with
the correctness and elegance of the style, bespeak the
virtuous and accomplished English lady.
Of modern biographies, the life of our great admiral, by
the prolific writer of whom we have spoken in our sketches
of poets, Southey, has long been unanimously placed at the
head; a rank which it well deserves by the vigour of its de-
scriptions, the extreme beauty of its style, and its admirable
conciseness; that quality being attributable in part to the
circumstance that it was originally drawn up, not as an in-
dependent memoir, but as a review of a biography which
had few of these qualities. The history of the Life of
Nelson may prompt a desire that Macaulay had recast and
enlarged the articles on Lord Chatham, Warren Hastings,
and Clive in a similar manner.
And, though they are neither letters nor memoirs, but
bear the unattractive name of lectures, any description of
the sources of historical knowledge in our language would
be very defective which did not direct the attention of the
young reader to two series of lectures on the history of
France. We owe them to two professors of history at
Cambridge, Professor Smythe and Sir James Stephen;
neither of whom give a connected narrative of the events
of any period; but of whom the latter, by his comments on
the most important parts of the French constitution as it
was seen in operation to the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury, illustrated as they are by vigorous sketches of St.
Louis, of Sully, of Richelieu, of Colbert and Louvois, and
of one or two of the most remarkable sovereigns: and the
former by his minute and penetrating and most impartial
investigation of the causes of the French Revolution; of
the objects of the chief men of all parties during the earlier
part of that terrible convulsion; and of the views taken of
it among ourselves; have furnished us in a brief compass
with better materials for arriving at a correct comprehen-
sion of the character of the French people than are supplied
by the more pretentious works of any historian in either
our language or their own.
1608-1674.]
185
MILTON.
CHAPTER XI.
MILTON.
A.D. 1608-1674.
THE next class which our arrangement will lead us to
examine is that of the poets, though I do not propose to
include every description of poetry; but as I have already
spoken of the dramatists separately, though the greatest of
them are poets, and though the drama has always been
accounted one branch of poetry; so I do not design to speak
of lyric poetry at this moment, but, for the convenience of
comparison, shall treat of that in a subsequent chapter, as
a distinct species of composition; and shall now confine
myself to more elaborate works; composed, that is, on a
larger scale to epic, narrative, didactic, descriptive poems,
and, in one or two instances, to satires. Shakespeare him-
self is not more confessedly at the head of dramatic poets
than Milton is superior to all other writers of what may be
called perhaps general poetry. And he also comes first on
the list in point of time, since, for reasons which I have
already mentioned, we may pass over Spenser, great in
some respects as is the beauty of his writings.
It is not perhaps very easy to distinguish with precision
between epic and narrative poetry. For, in fact, all epic
poetry is narrative, and the terms might appear to be con-
vertible; but the general understanding and assent of
mankind supplies the want of an accurate definition, and
has confined the use of the term epic to those works whose
subject is of a grand and important character, and which
treat of it with great copiousness, that is to say, at great
length. Some critics have called such works heroic poems,
and have distinguished those of a lighter class or smaller
dimensions as minor epics, under which head Professor
Conington classes not only such works as the 'Rape of the
Lock,' but satires like the 'Dunciad.' But the old term epic
186
[Cır. XI,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
seems more convenient, and, however strict logicians may
cavil at the confinement of it to poems of the highest class
alone, in point of fact it is never misunderstood.
Milton was far from confining himself to epic poetry.
He wrote sonnets; lyric poems of enduring popularity, such
as 'L'Allegro,' with its contrast 'Il Penseroso,' and several
others; with some even of a dramatic character, one of
which, 'Comus,' is almost as admirable for its delicate
purity and felicity as 'Paradise Lost' is for its lofty solem-
nity and vigour. But the fame of all his other works is
so completely overshadowed by that of 'Paradise Lost'
that it is as an epic poet alone that he is chiefly re-
garded, and it is principally in that character that I
shall speak of him. Milton derived his name from the
manor of Milton in Oxfordshire, which had belonged to
his family for several generations, but which was lost
to his father, who was disinherited on account of his
abandonment of the Roman Catholic religion, of which
his grandfather was a staunch adherent, and who in
consequence became an attorney, and made a consider-
able fortune in that profession. The poet was born in
London, in December 1608; and, after receiving the
foundation of a good education at the city school which
then bore the highest reputation, St. Paul's, he was sent
to Christ's College, Cambridge, to complete it, where he
certainly acquired a very high degree of scholarship, but
where he is believed to have incurred the marked disfavour
of his tutors, probably on account of his plunging into the
theological controversies of the day, and taking the side
which was not approved by the University authorities. It
is, at all events, certain that, from scruples at certain oaths,
he laid aside at that time the idea which he had originally
entertained of taking holy orders, though some of his sub-
sequent compositions prove that he had not yet adopted
the rigorously puritanical doctrines which he subse-
quently maintained. He soon began to distinguish himself
by the exercise of his poetical talents. His Hymn on the
Nativity is assigned to his twenty-first year. And when,
three years later, his father quitted London to establish
himself at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, the more poetical
1608-1674.]
187
MILTON.
scenery of the banks of the Thames had the not unnatural
effect of filling his mind with rural images, which found
expression in his verse; and in the two or three years which
followed his removal from the city he wrote 'Lycidas,' a
monody on a deceased friend; the 'Arcades,' a couple of
songs, connected by a speech, to form part of a dramatic
entertainment, for representation at a private house; and
the more elaborate masque of ' Comus,' which was composed
for a similar object, and was acted by the family of the
Earl of Bridgewater, and of which I shall speak hereafter.
But he became restless in retirement; and after wavering
for a time between plans of studying the law in London
and travelling, he finally decided on foreign travel; and
having, while at Horton, made the acquaintance of the
celebrated Provost of Eton, Sir Henry Wotton, he pro-
cured from that eminent man, whose long experience as a
diplomatist had rendered him especially competent to give
advice on such a subject, instructions to guide him in his
travels, and likewise introductions to many of the most
distinguished men of learning in the countries which he
designed to visit. In France he made the acquaintance
of Grotius, then residing at Paris as the ambassador of
Sweden. In Italy he was able to procure admission to
Galileo, though that great discoverer was at the time expiat-
ing his great services to science in the dungeons of the In-
quisition; while some of the scholars at Florence bestowed
such panegyrics on the poems which he showed them as
bred in him the conviction that, by labour and intense
study, he might be able to leave something so written to
after times as that they should not willingly let it die.'
Even he, conscious as he must have been of intellectual
powers far surpassing those of ordinary men, did not con-
ceive that without great diligence and labour he could
achieve anything worth remembering. He had already
implied the same truth in his 'Lycidas,' in which he had
coupled the attainment of fame with the 'scorning of
delights, and living laborious days.' And on his return to
England, after a sojourn in foreign countries of little more
than a year, he at once applied himself to hard work,
though not of the kind that was most congenial to his
188
[Cu. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
disposition. He became a schoolmaster, with the design,
singular in one who was to found his own renown on emi-
nence of a purely literary kind, of introducing a reform
into education, and instructing his pupils in scientific
subjects, to the exclusion of the more usual studies of
history and poetry. But his attention was not wholly
given to teaching. He had a keen appetite for controversy,
and plunged with great zeal and vehemence into the
political and theological disputes which were beginning to
agitate the nation from one end to the other. At what
time or under what circumstances he adopted the opinions
which he henceforward advocated is not known. His con-
duct was so far from being influenced by any advantage
in argument that the enemies of the Church had hitherto
gained over its champions that he avowed, apparently as
his principal reason for taking up the cause of the
Puritans, that they were inferior to the prelates in learning;
but, whatever were his motives, he at once assailed the
Church and Episcopacy with unwearied bitterness and
perseverance, coupling the University with them in his
denunciations, in a way which may perhaps lead to a
suspicion that the disapproval with which the college
authorities had visited his conduct as an undergraduate
had some share in causing him to regard with ill-will an
institution so intimately connected with the University as
the Church.
But with this feeling was apparently combined a general
spirit of insubordination, which inclined him to spurn at
all restraints of law and order, and which was displayed
in a not very creditable manner in his married life. In
1643 he married a Miss Powell, who, singularly enough,
considering the earnestness with which he proclaimed
himself an adherent of the Parliament, was the daughter of
a gentleman distinguished for his loyalty. But he soon
quarrelled with her; and when she left his house, and
refused to return to him, he wrote a pamphlet to advocate
liberty of divorce, and contemplated exemplifying ite
doctrines by his own practice, repudiating his wife by his
own authority, and marrying another. But he was saved
from taking such a step, which even in those days of dis-
1608-1674.]
189
MILTON.
order might have brought him into unpleasant contact
with the law, by the good sense of some common friends,
who ventured to reconcile the pair. And so complete was
the reconciliation that, when he became a person of influ-
ence, and the Royalists were borne down and persecuted,
he sheltered her father and her brothers in his own house.
However, neither domestic nor political agitations had
power so to absorb his attention as to make him lay aside
the pursuit of literature, to which, as we have seen, he
trusted, as the ladder by which he was to mount to an
immortal fame. Even while the Rebellion was at its height,
and civil war was raging over the land, he found time to
publish a prose treatise in support of the right of all men
to print whatever they might choose, without being depen-
dent on the licence of the magistrate; and a small
volume of poems, chiefly Latin, but containing two English
lyrics of great excellence, 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso,' in
which the cheerful and the pensive man are ingeniously
contrasted, though even the latter is exhibited as deriving
a pleasure from the objects which surround him equal to
that which excites the cheerful man, different as of course
the emotions which impart that pleasure must be in the
two cases. They were published in 1645, though Johnson,
arguing from the delight which the pensive man takes in
the cathedral's
where
storied windows, richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light,
the pealing organs blow
To the full-voic'd choir below,
and which indicates a feeling utterly at variance with that
of the fierce fanatics who took a savage pleasure in destroy-
ing all the memorials of ancient devotion, and stalled their
horses in Winchester Cathedral, infers that these poems
must have been written before the author became a deserter
from and an enemy to the National Church.
To those fanatics, the vigour of his prose style was a
greater recommendation than the gracefulness of his poetry.
After the murder of the king, he was appointed Latin
Secretary to the Council of State; and in this capacity he
190
[CH. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
was employed to write, first, a treatise that might weaken
the effect of the Eikon Basilike, which on its first publication
had a powerful effect on the minds of men from being
believed to have been the work of Charles himself, though
it is now almost universally admitted to have been written
by Dr. Gauden; and afterwards, a second essay, in reply
to one which Charles II. had procured from Salmasius, a
Leyden professor, in defence of the cause of his father and of
monarchy. To this Milton gave the title of 'A Defence of
the People of England,' as if the English people had con-
sented to the atrocious crime perpetrated by Cromwell and
a part of his army; or as if Lady Fairfax's statement that
'not one-tenth part of the people' assented to the deed,
were not notoriously within the truth. Charles is said to
have given Salmasius 1001. for his performance: Milton
was paid 1000l., but neither treatise was worth the money.
Milton's was made up partly of personal abuse of his an-
tagonist, partly of pedantic criticisms on his Latin; for, as
both parties desired to plead their cause to all Europe, both
works were written in that language, which was still the
chief medium of communication between scholars of dif-
ferent countries. The importance of the principles at stake
kindled feelings of personal animosity in the two antago-
nists, though they had never seen each other. Before many
months had passed Salmasius died, and Milton became
blind; and, to quote the description of Johnson, As
Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the
quarrel, Milton delighted himself with the belief that he
had shortened Salmasius' life, and both, perhaps, with
more malignity than reason.'
•
His blindness, which by the year 1652 or 1653 became
total, would seem to have disqualified him for the perform-
ance of his official duties; and, as he did not at once resign
his post, may probably have been the reason why the cele-
brated Andrew Marvell was given him as a colleague in it.
But bitterly as his works prove that he felt that severest
of all afflictions, it was fortunate for the world; for it
gradually drew off his attention from politics, and drove
him to resume his poetical labours on a grander scale: so
that it is to his blindness, in a great degree, if not entirely,
1608-1671.]
191
MILTON.
that we owe Paradise Lost.' For many years he had con-
templated, or at least, had desired to undertake, some great
work, but he was long perplexed by the difficulty of de-
ciding on a worthy subject; and when he had chosen his
theme, he at first conceived it more suited to a tragedy
than to an epic poem, and even drew out a plan for a
drama, though, as Johnson points out, it would have re-
sembled those early performances which had been common
a couple of centuries earlier under the name of mysteries,
rather than the tragedies of the regular stage. The pro-
gress of political events and the restoration of the king
threatened for a moment to put a violent interruption to
his work, on which, by the time when Charles recovered
his throne, he was labouring with great assiduity; though
during half of each year he nearly laid it aside, from a
curious fancy that his imagination and invention were less.
ready and rich in the spring and summer than in the
autumn and winter. His defence of the murder of the
King's father, with some tracts that he had very recently
written, even after Cromwell's death, against the Church,
and in favour of a republic, had marked him out as one of
those who were hardly entitled to the full benefit of the
Act of Oblivion. His 'Defence of the People of England'.
was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman; and
the Attorney-General was directed to presecute him as the
writer. But in some way or other he escaped punishment.
It is generally understood that, in the time of the Rebellion,
he had successfully exerted his influence with Cromwell to
save the life of Sir William Davenant, a zealous royalist;
and that now, when he, in his turn, was in danger, Dave-
nant requited his kindness by an equally seasonable pro-
tection. It is certain, at all events, that he was released,
after a very short imprisonment. And shortly afterwards,
he married a Miss Marshall, a lady of good family in
Cheshire. She was his third wife. His first had died
seven years before; leaving him three daughters; and the
second, whom he married soon afterwards, died in her firsu
confinement. But the third was the most unlucky match
of all, according to the account of his nephew, Mr. Phillips,
who left a brief memoir of him, to which all his subsequent
192
[CH. XI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
biographers have been indebted for most of their know-
ledge. For she proved a genuine stepmother, ill-treating
his daughters while he lived, and cheating them after he
was dead. I have mentioned his living at Horton, in
Buckinghamshire, as a young man; and he retired for a
while to another small town in the same county, Chalfont
St. Peters, when the Great Plague drove out of London all
who were masters of their own movements. But he re-
turned to London as soon as the danger was over; and
then, in 1667, he published his great poem, which had oc-
cupied him for at least twelve.years.
It was well that he had confidence enough in its merit
to look to fame as his paymaster; for the entire price
which he could obtain from a publisher was only five pounds,
with a claim to further sums of the same amount, till, by
the time that four thousand copies had been sold, he was
to have received twenty pounds. Such a price seems
ridiculous to us at the present day, but there is no reason
to think that the publisher realised an unfair profit by his
bargain. He certainly did not think so himself, for, after
he had acquired the entire copyright by purchase from the
poet's widow, he sold it to another publisher for twenty-five
pounds. But, though the mention of these sums seems to
show that the poem was neglected or disapproved, this was
not the case. In eleven years three thousand copies were
sold of it. And there is no reason to believe that an equal
number of copies of any large work had been ever sold in
the same time. Johnson has pointed out that in the forty
years which ended two years before the publication of
Paradise Lost, only two editions of Shakespeare, in all
probability 'not making together a thousand copies,' were
called for. The truth is that the seventeenth century was
not a reading age. There were a few scholars of varied
accomplishments and deep learning, but very few who read
for amusement, and none who read for fashion's sake; for
study was not fashionable in the reign of the Merry Monarch.
In the third book of 'Paradise Lost,' Milton speaks with
a manly resignation, though with a deep feeling of the
privation, of his blindness; and in 1670 he published a
drama, 'Samson Agonistes,' full of allusions to his own cor.-
dition, the scene being laid in the days when Samson, too,
1608-1674.]
193
MILTON.
C
And in the same year
suffered under the same infliction
he also sent forth a sequel to 'Paradise Lost,' called 'Para-
dise Regained,' which he himself preferred to it but
neither in his own day, nor since, has the general verdict
coincided with his opinion. Such as it was, it was his last
poetical work. He wrote one or two more tracts, the last
of which, a Treatise on True Religion,' shows, in the
judgment of Johnson, a less unfriendly spirit towards the
Church than he had formerly entertained. But his return-
ing reverence for her, if indeed he was beginning to admit
such a feeling into his heart, had no time to ripen. His
early blindness probably arose from some weakness of con-
stitution; and in 1674, an attack of gout carried him off
when he was on the point of completing his sixty-sixth
year.
To speak first of his lesser poems, Johnson has attacked
'Lycidas' with a severity of criticism which not only re-
sembles personal acrimony, but which, if admitted, would
condemn no small portion of all the poetry that ever has
been written. Because Milton, borrowing the ideas and
figures of the old classical pastorals, represents himself and
the friend whom he laments as two shepherds, driving
a-field together, and both together hearing
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening their flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Johnson, with a matter-of-factness (if one may coin such a
word) which, if it were not diverting, would be ridiculous,
declares his and our knowledge that 'they never drove a-
field, and that they had no flocks to batten; pronounces that
the inherent improbability' of such images 'always forces
dissatisfaction on the mind' that 'nothing can less display
knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a shep-
herd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks
alone without any judge of his skill in piping; and how one
god asks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how
neither god can tell.' It seems to me that we may admit
that Milton has chosen to copy the ancients in the use of
pastoral allegory, without allowing, as a necessary conse-
quence, that such allegory is 'vulgar, and therefore dis-
C
194
[Cır. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1
gusting;' that, if we grant to poets the right of employing
such figurative modes of speech, Milton has certainly not
availed himself of the licence in any degree not abundantly
borne out by the examples of other poets, whom all critics.
have agreed in admiring; while, short as the monody is,
it contains one passage of original beauty, one or two lines
of which have become almost proverbial, and which, if they
stood alone, might well have saved far worse companions
from such unshrinking condemnation.
Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate 2 the thankless Muse ?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble minds)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the praise,'
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
• Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistening foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of ali-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in IIeaven expect the meed.'
(
;
L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' even Johnson admits to
bo charming; and Comus' he praises still more highly,
even discerning in it the dawn or twilight of 'Paradise
Lost.' It is indeed an exquisite cabinet picture, combining
rich fancy with delicate taste; while the heroine is placed
in a situation of danger sufficient to excite interest and
Pictoribus atque poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.
2 A translation of the Latin Meditor, as in
Sylvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena.-VIRG. Ecl. i. 2.
rather than an employment of the verb in its ordinary English meaning,
1008-1674.]
195
MILTON.
sympathy without overpowering the reader with too great
alarm. Perhaps Milton has given no greater proof of the
instinctive purity and refinement of his imagination than he
has afforded here by the skill with which, while borrowing
some of the most perilous parts of the Greek fable (for Comus
and his crew are obviously descendants of Pan and his
satyrs), he had yet avoided every indecorous image or idea.
But, however great may be the beauty of these, his minor
poems, as they are generally called, their fame is so completely
overshadowed by that of his great epic, that on that we
must dwell a little more minutely. Johnson and Hallam
have agreed in praising the subject, as the finest that has
ever been chosen for an epic poem: 'It is not the destruc-
tion of a city, such as is that of the Iliad;'' nor the conduct
of a colony, nor the foundation of an empire,' like that of the
Eneid: the subject is the fate of worlds; the revolutions
of heaven and earth.' But the praise which they afterwards
bestow on him for the skill with which he has extricated
himself from its difficulties seem to show that in reality the
choice was not so judicious as they assert; that the sub-
ject, though grand, solemn, and all-important, was, in fact,
too grand and solemn to be treated at once with adequate
vigour and due reverence; and that one more on a level with
human faculties would have been better. Johnson com-
mends the poet for having put into Satan's speeches little
that can give pain to a pious ear: because to make him
speak as a rebel without any such expressions as might
taint the reader's imagination was one great difficulty of
the undertaking.' We may surely doubt the wisdom of a
choice which involved such a difficulty. But even allowing,
as Johnson affirms, that he has 'extricated himself from it
with great happiness,' and that in a poem on such a sub-
ject he could not dispense with introducing the archfiend
as one of his characters, I question whether the same
necessity existed for bringing the Deity himself, if one may
use such an expression, on the stage. And it seems to me
that none of the blasphemy put into the mouth of Satan,
justified as it is in some degree by the necessity of making
his language consistent with his character and situation,
approaches the irreverence of introducing a dialogue be-
6
10
196
[C. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
tween God the Father and the Son; and that it is an act
of presumption wholly without excuse for an uninspired
man to venture upon. Milton may have been unconsciously
led to overlook the impropriety of such a personification of
the Almighty by being habituated to the irreverent and
indecent familiarity with which his idol Cromwell and his
followers were wont to speak of the communications which
they pretended to hold with the Supreme Being, and to
represent themselves as direct ministers of his will: but,
even if the surmise be correct, it is but an explanation of,
not an excuse for, his conduct. The imprudence of putting
himself in a situation in which he was compelled to make
Satan speak at all may be illustrated by the history of
Byron's drama of 'Cain.' In that, also, Satan is one of the
chief interlocutors, by his blasphemous subtleties tempting
the previously contented and happy Cain into the com-
mission of fratricide. In the opinion of two most com-
petent conscientious judges, the language of Cain' is in no
respect more irreligious than that in 'Paradise Lost.' Sir
Walter Scott, while admitting that 'it might shock one class
of readers,' declared that the same men 'must condemn the
"Paradise Lost," to be consistent.' 1 And a still higher au-
thority on such a point, Bishop Heber, who reviewed the
drama in the 'Quarterly Review,' expressly affirms that
'the expressions of Cain and Lucifer are not more offensive
to the ears of piety than such discourses must necessarily
be, or than Milton, without offence, has put into the mouths
of beings similarly situated; '2 while Byron (as he took
credit to himself for having done) had avoided introducing
the Deity, as in Scripture (though Milton does, and not
very wisely either), and had adopted His angel as sent to
Cain instead.' 3 On the justification of Byron's language
afforded by the precedent of Milton, the Bishop's opinion
may be surely taken as decisive. Unhappily, while Milton
was believed to have been animated with devout feelings,
and holy purposes, in composing 'Paradise Lost,' no such
favorable interpretation was put on Byron's motives in
writing 'Cain;' and the Lord Chancellor decided that 'Cain'
Byron's Life and Works, vol. xiv. p. 9.
2 lbid. p. 106.
• Ibid. p. 5.
6
1608-1674.]
197
MILTON.
was too blasphemous a production to be entitled to the
protection of the law of copyright. If Lord Eldon's judg-
ment was sound, and no greater judge has ever adorned
the woolsack, it was not wise of Milton to choose a subject
which, with a judge who might have happened to take an
unfavorable view of his character and motives, would have
exposed him to a similar condemnation.
To recur to Johnson's criticism; another, and perhaps, if
the poem be looked at as a work of art, and with reference
to its effect, a more serious drawback to the subject, is that
it comprises neither human action nor human manners; the
man and woman who act and suffer are in a state which
no other human beings can ever know; and the inevitable
consequence is that the reader can feel little or no interest in
their fortunes. And again, in the warfare between the devils
and the Almighty, no act can prevent us from constantly
perceiving that the result of the conflict is not, and cannot
be, dubious; and some fluctuations of hope and fear are
indispensable, if human sympathy is to be excited. That,
if we keep the deficiencies inseparable from such a subject
out of sight, the composition of the poem is admirable from
the order and clearness with which the different events pro-
ceed to their accomplishment, we may readily agree;
though Johnson has also pointed out some strange incon-
sistencies, arising from the way in which Milton has 'un-
happily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy. His in-
fernal and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit, and
sometimes animated body.' A much more serious error, as
being a radical defect of taste, arising apparently from a
pedantic pride of scholarship, is his continual intrusion of
allusions to the heathen mythology; and one strange pas-
sage in the second book is hardly to be paralleled for the
strange perversity of judgment which it displays in its
misapplication of a classical allegory. Virgil, in that beauti-
ful passage in which the Sibyl conducts Eneas through
the Elysian fields, has represented the spirits or shades of
the blessed as enjoying the same pastimes that formed the
recreation of the men themselves while on earth. The
magnanimous heroes' of old wars still find pleasure in
the brightness of their armour and the speed of their
*
193
[Cu. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
horses. Others still, as while in life, of milder mood, hang
with delighted admiration on the sweet song of Orpheus.¹
It is strange indeed that, because Ilus and Assaracus, and
Dardanus, the founder of Troy, were permitted such enjoy-
ments, by the gods whose descendants they were, Milton
should think it consistent with common sense or propriety
to represent the devils as similarly indulged by their justly
offended Maker. He even amplifies Virgil's picture; ag-
gravating, if possible, the indecency by choosing as the
moment of their holiday the breaking up of the Council,
the Stygian Council, as he calls it, in which each fiend has
vied with the other in blasphemous and threatening
machinations against the Most High.
(Book ii. 528.)
Part on the plain, or in the air sublime,
Upon the wing, or in swift race contend,
1 Necnon Threïcius longâ cum veste sacerdos
Obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum;
Jamque eadem digitis, jam pectine pulsat eburno.
Hic genus antiquum Teucri, pulcherrima proles,
Magnanimi heroës, nati melioribus annis;
Ilusque, Assaracusque, et Troje Dardanus auctor.
Arma procul, currusque virum miratur inanes.
Stant terrâ defixæ haste, passimque soluti
Per campos pascuntur equi; quæ gratia curruum
Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes.
Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos. Æn. vi. 645.
Thus translated by Dryden :-
The Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest,
There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest,
His flying fingers and harmonious quill
Strike seven distinguished notes, and seven at once they fell.
Here found they Teucer's old heroic race,
Born better times and happier years to grace,
Assaracus and Ilus here enjoy
Perpetual fame with him who founded Troy;
The chief beheld their chariots from afar,
Their shining arms, and coursers trained to war;
Their lances fixed in earth, their steeds around,
Free from their harness, graze the flowery ground :
The love of horses, which they had alive,
And care of chariots after death survive.
DRYDEN, Æn. vi. 885.
1608-1674.]
199
MILTON.
As at th' Olympian games or Pythian fields;
Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal
With rapid wheels, or fronted brigades form.
Others more mild,
Retreated in a silent valley, sing
With notes angelical to many a harp
Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall
By doom of battle; and complain that fate
Free virtue should enthrall to force or chance.
Their song was partial; but the harmony
(What could it less when spirits immortal sing ?)
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience.
It is almost superfluous to point out that he is here giving
Satan and his followers joys which, before they had forfeited
God's power, would have been as much beneath their
notice as in their fallen state they were above their
deserts. To counterbalance this, we must point out that
there are other passages in which a happier imitation of
the classic poets has inspired him with thoughts of noble
and most appropriate sublimity. There is hardly a grander
picture in the whole 'Iliad' than that of the universal tumult
which was spread through all creation by the battle of the
gods; when Strife sprung to her feet, and Minerva, as
she stalked along, shouted, now standing by the wall, and
now on the storm-lashed shore; and Mars, like a whirlwind,
raised his battle-cry on the other side; and Jupiter gave
forth his thunders; and from below, Neptune shook the
earth and the lofty mountain-tops; and Ida quivered, and
the city of the Trojans, and the ships of the Greeks; and
1
1 ἔδδεισεν δ' ὑπένερθεν ἄναξ ενέρων, Αϊδωνεύς·
δείσας δ᾽ ἐκ θρόνου ἆλτο, καὶ ἴαχε, μή οἱ ὕπερθε
γαλαν αναρρήξειε Ποσειδάων ενοσίχθων,
οἰκία δὲ θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισι φανήῃ
σμερδαλές, ευρωέντα, τά τε στυγέουσι θεοίπερ.-Ι. ΧΧ. 65.
As Pope translates it:-
Deep in th' infernal regions of the dead,
Th' infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head,
Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay
His dark dominions open to the day,
And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes,
Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful even to gods.-Il. xx. 62.
200
[CH. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Pluto himself, the king of the dead, trembled, and sprang
from his throne, and yelled with alarm lest Neptune should
break up the very foundations of his realm, and lay open
his lurid depths to the light of day. But, grand as the pic-
ture is, Milton's description of the awful confusion when
the victoricus Messiah drove the defeated rebels thunder-
struck before him down into the gulf is worthy of his
model:-
(Book vi. 867.)
Iell heard th' insufferable noise; Hell saw
Heav'n ruining from heaven, and would have fled
Affrighted; but strict fate had cast too deep
Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound.
Nine days they fell: Confounded Chaos roar'd,
And felt tenfold confusion in their fall
Through his wild anarchy; so huge a rout
Encumber'd him with ruin.
And it seems to me that it is in detached passages such as
this, of a sublimity unequalled in our language, that Milton's
claim to pre-eminence is best founded. Another equal,
and not unlike it, is his description of Death when the
monster advances to his first meeting with Satan :—
(Book ii. 666.)
The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none,
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seemed,
For each seemed either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd its head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
The monster moving onward came as fast
With horrid strides: Hell trembled as he strode.
Coleridge has remarked that Satan is Milton's hero, and
that his distinctive character is pride and sensual in-
dulgence, finding in itself the motive of action. But it
must be observed that Milton's devils do not all resemble
one another. On the contrary, there are perhaps no pas-
sages in which his invention is more advantageously dis-
played than in the different character which he assigns to
each fiend in the grand council of war which opens the
1808-1674.]
201
MILTON.
second book. Satan, of course, comes first, and is intro-
duced with great porap as the presiding spirit:-
common.
(Book ii. 1.)
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat; by merit rais'd
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high; insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav'n; and, by success untaught,
His proud imaginations thus displayed.
Despair is the one feeling which all the devils have in
It is a part, and not the least dreadful part, of
their punishment; and despair makes all its victims fierce ;
but Moloch, being less proud than Satan, is fiercer still; he
is more cunning, and still more desperate and reckless :-
(Book ii. 43.)
He ceas'd; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in Heav'n, now fiercer by despair:
His trust was with the Eternal to be deem'd
Equal in strength; and rather than be less
Car'd not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, cr Hell, or worse,
He reck'd not; and these words thereafter spake.
The character of the next in order, Belial, seems borrowed
in some degree from that of Drances in the Æneid: ¹ fair to
look at, eloquent and plausible, but cowardly.
¹ Tum Drances idem infensus, quem gloria Turni
Obliquâ invidia stimulisque agitabat amaris:
Largus opum, et linguâ melior, sed frigida bello
Dextera, consiliis habitus non futilis auctor,
Seditione potens.-En. xi. 336.
Thus translated by Dryden:
Then Drances took the word, who grudg'd long since
The rising glories of the Daunian prince ;
Factious and rich, bold at the council board,
But cautious in the field, he shunn'd the sword,
A close cavalier and tongue-valiant lord.-Æn. x. 510.
C
202
[Cu. XI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(Book ii. 106.)
He ended frowning, and his look denounc'd
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods. On th' other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane;
A fairer person lost not Heav'n; he seem'd
For dignity compos'd, and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low:
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began.
Of Mammon we have no specific description: his name
speaks for itself; but Beëlzebub is presented with rare dig-
nity; he seems intended as a personification of the highest
worldly wisdom; of the most profound statesmanship
which can exist without religion. And it is he who desires
a diversion, by carrying their attacks into another world,'
and its inhabitants, 'some new race call'd man.'
(Book ii. 299.)
Which when Beelzebub perceiv'd, than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat, with grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic, though in ruin: sage he stood
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or Summer's noon-tide air, while thus he spake.
It deserves to be remarked, as indicative of the poet's
very peculiar views on some subjects, that he not only
endows the devils with great capacity, in which he is
clearly warranted, but also with some of the loftiest and
purest of human virtues; with disinterestedness, and if I
may so say, patriotism. Satan breaks up the council, and
undertakes in person the investigation of the position of
earth and its new-born inhabitants; recognising it at the
1608-1674.]
203
MILTON.
same time as a task of no trifling difficulty and danger.
The devils gratefully acknowledge his self-devotion:
(Book ii. 480.)
Nor fail'd they to express how much they prais'd
That for the general safety he despis'd
His own: for neither do the spirits damn'd
Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast
Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,
Or close ambition, varnish'd o'er with zeal.
That the chief circumstances of the different battles
should be imitated from Homer is natural enough. The
combat of Abdiel with Satan is full of resemblances to
descriptions in the 'Iliad,' too obvious to require pointing
out:
(Book vi. 189.)
So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,
Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield,
Such ruin intercept: ten paces huge
He back recoil'd; the tenth on bended knee
Ilis massy spear upstay'd; as if on earth
Winds under ground, or waters forcing way,
Sidelong had push'd a mountain from his sent,
Half sunk with all his pines. Amazement seiz'd
The rebel Thrones, but greater rage, to see
Thus foil'd their mightiest; ours joy fill'd, and shout,
Presage of victory, and fierce desire
Of battle: where at Michaël bid sound
Th' Arch-Angel trumpet; through the vast of IIeav'n
It sounded, and the faithful arnies rung
IIosannah to the Iligh'st: nor stood at gaze
The adverse legions, nor less hideous join'd
The horrid shock. Now storming fury rose,
And clamour such as heard in Heav'n till now
Was never; arms on armour clashing bray'd
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots rag'd; dire was the noise
Of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rush'd
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
204
[CH. XI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And inextinguishable rage. All Heaven
Resounded; and had Earth been then, all Earth
Had to her centre shook. What wonder? when
Millions of fierce encount'ring Angels fought
On either side, the least of whom could wield
These elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions: how much more of power
Army against army numberless to raise
Dreadful combustion warring, and disturb,
Though not destroy, their happy native seat;
Had not th' eternal King omnipotent,
From his stronghold of Heav'n, high over-rul'd
And limited their might; though number'd such
As each divided legion might have seem'd
A numerous host; in strength each armed hand
A legion; led in fight, yet leader seem'd
Each warrior single as in chief, expert
When to advance, or stand, or turn the sway
Of battle, open when, and when to close
The ridges of grim war: no thought of flight,
None of retreat, no unbecoming deed
That argued fear; each on himself rely'd,
As only in his arm the moment lay
Of victory: deeds of eternal fame
Were done, but infinite; for wide was spread
That war and various; sometimes on firm ground
A standing fight, then, soaring on main wing,
Tormented all the air; all air seem'd then
Conflicting fire. Long time in even scale
The battle hung; till Satan, who that day
Prodigious pow'r had shown, and met in arms
No equal, ranging through the dire attack
Of fighting Seraphim confus'd, at length
Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and fell'd
Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway
Brandish'd aloft the horrid edge came down
Wide wasting; such destruction to withstand
He hasted, and oppos'd the rocky orb
Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield,
A vast circumference.
But when Milton represents the Almighty as having re-
course to the same expedicnt for preventing a combat
between Gabriel and Satan, which Jupiter in the Iliad
employs to determine whether Achilles or Hector shall
1608-1674.]
205
MILTON.
conquer, he is led by his fondness for copying the great
Greek into an inconceivable disparagement of the omnipo-
tence of the Almighty. It is strange indeed that anyone
with a rightful feeling of reverence for the Lord of Lords
should represent Him as in a state of alarm lest any deed of
inferior spirits could affect His unapproachable, imperishable
throne. Yet when Satan confronts the angel, Milton tells
us
(Book iv. 990.)
Now dreadful deeds
Might have ensued, nor only Paradise
In this commotion, but the starry cope
Of Heaven perhaps, or all the elements
At least had gone to wrack, disturb'd and torn
With violence of this conflict, had not soon
Th' Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in Heav'n his golden scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astræa and the Scorpion sign,
Wherein all things created first he weigh'd.
In these he put two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight:
The latter quick up flew, and kick'd the beam.¹
It is a proof, worth noting (though I will content myself
with pointing out the passage, instead of quoting it at
length), of Milton's preference for Homer over Virgil that,
though the idea of Michael conducting Adam to a hill from
which he may look down on the future generations of man-
kind is manifestly taken from Virgil, the passage in which
we have the most unmistakable imitation of either is a
copy not of the vision granted to Æneas, but of the shield
of Achilles. The warriors who
1 καὶ τότε δὴ χρύσεια πατὴρ ἐτίταινε τάλαντα
ἐν δ᾽ ἐτίθει δύο κῆρε τανηλεγέος θανάτοιο,
Τὴν μὲν ᾿Αχιλλῆος, τὴν δ᾽ Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο·
ἕλκε δὲ μέσσα λαβών· ῥέπε δ᾽ Ετορος αἴσιμον ἦμαρ.-ΙΙ. Χ. 209.
Jove lifts the golden balances, that show
The faults of men, and things below,
Here each contending hero's lot he tries,
And weighs with equal hand their destinies,
Low sinks the scale uncharg'd with Hector's fate,
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.
206
[CI. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
to a city strong
Lay siege encamped.
The council at the city gates,' the heralds; even
The herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine
From a fat meadow-ground,
•
read almost like a translation of the description of the orna-
ments with which Vulcan's handiwork was made worthy
of the hero who was to bear it.
Milton is more original in his softer passages: in his
description of
(Book iv. 132.)
Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung,
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamell'd colours mix'd:
On which the Sun more glad impress'd his beams
Than on fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seemed
That landscape.¹
And there was no source but his own warm, genial, yet
ever-pure imagination from which he could derive the
account which Adam gives to Raphael of his rapturous
admiration of Eve when first seen as the cause and partner
of his happiness:-
(Book viii. 462.)
Abstract as in a trance, methought I saw,
Though sleeping, where I lay, and saw the shape
1 See Il. xviii. 490-545.
1008-1674.]
207
MILTON.
Still glorious before whom awake I stood:
Who stooping open'd my left side, and took
From thence a rib, with cordial spirits warm,
And life-blood streaming fresh; wide was the wound,
But suddenly with flesh fill'd up and heal'd:
The rib he form'd and fashion'd with his hands;
Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Manlike, but different sex; so lovely fair,
That what seem'd fair in all the world, seem'd now
Mean, or in her summ'd up, in her contain'd
And in her looks; which from that time infus'd
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before,
And into all things from her air inspir'd
The spirit of love and amorous delight.
She disappeared, and left me dark; I wak'd
To find her, or for ever to deplore
Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure:
When out of hope, behold her, not far off.
Such as I saw her in my dream, adorn'd
With what all Earth or Heav'n could bestow
To make her amiable: On she came,
Led by her heavenly Maker, though unseen,
And guided by his voice; nor uninform'd
Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites:
Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
I, overjoy'd, could not forbear aloud.
This turn hath made amends; Thou hast fulfill'd
Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,
Giver of all things fair! but fairest this
Of all thy gifts! nor enviest. I now see
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself
Before me: Woman is her name; of Man
Extracted for this cause he shall forego
Father and mother, and to his wife adhere;
And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul.
She heard me thus; and though divinely brought,
Yet innocence, and virgin modesty,
Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won,
Not obvious, nor obtrusive, but, retir'd,
The more desirable; or, to say all,
Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought,
Wrought in her so, that, seeing me, she turn'd:
心
​208
[CB. XI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
I follow'd her; she what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv'd
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn: all Heaven,
And happy constellations, on that hour
Shed their selectest influence; the earth
Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;
Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
Whisper'd it to the woods, and from their wings
Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub,
Disporting, till the amorous bird of night
Sung spousal, and bid haste the evening star
On his hill-top to light the bridal lamp.
I have already spoken of Comus.' No praise of its
elegance or delicacy can be expressed that is not borne ori
by the following passages. The lady, who has been be
nighted, and has lost her way in the dense wood, yet fears
no evil, so strong is her faith in the Author of all good, and
in His ever-watchful protection of the innocent; while
even the dissolute god of revelry, to whom her song betray's
her neighbourhood, is still more awed by her dignity than
tempted by her beauty.
(Line 201.)
Comus. This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, conscience.
O welcome pure-ey'd Faith; white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering Angel, girt with golden wings;
And thou, unblemish'd form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme Good, t' whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
1608--1674.]
209
MILTON.
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night ?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove:
I cannot halloo to my Brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture; for my new-enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.
SONG.
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy aëry shell,
By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroider'd vale,
Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
Oh, if thou have
IIid them in some flowery cave,
Tell me but where,
Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!
So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaver's harmonies.
Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness, till it smil'd! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Syrens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs;
Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause:
Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense,
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;
*
210
[Cu. Xỉ.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.-Hail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan; by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
Lady. Nay, gentle Shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is address'd to unattending ears;
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my sever'd company,
Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
1631-1700.]
211
DRYDEN.
CHAPTER XII.
DRYDEN.
A.D. 1631-1700.
CONTEMPORARY with Milton, and in his own day enjoying
a reputation hardly second to his, was John Dryden. He
was a member of a knightly family in Northamptonshire,
being the grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden of Canon's
Ashby in Northamptonshire, who was one of the first
baronets created when James I. hit upon that singular
method of replenishing his exchequer by inventing a new
title for the purpose of putting it up to sale. He was born
in 1631, and was educated at Westminster, and at Trinity
College, Cambridge, as a scholar of which noble foundation
he took his degree in 1653; and the next year, on the death
of his father, who was the youngest son of the old baronet,
he succeeded to a small estate, which, though not sufficient
to render him independent, was enough, in his own opinion,
to justify him in addicting himself to literature instead of
following a more regular and lucrative profession. While
a boy he had won the praise of the great headmaster of West-
minster, Dr. Bushy, by the extreme facility and elegance of
his poetical translations from the classics; and at Cambridge
he had distinguished himself less pleasantly by another
kind of poetry, in which he was destined afterwards to reap
pre-eminent fame: satire, which involved him in a quarrel
with a young nobleman, from which he did not extricate
himself without some discredit. But these early produc-
tions of his muse have perished; and the first of his poems.
which has come down to us, which is probably, also, the
first that he ever published, gave little indication of his
future career, though it supplies but too clear a proof of
his utter want of steadiness to any principle, political or
212
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
religious, which was his besetting fault throughout his life.
His nearest relations, his uncle Sir John Dryden, and his
cousin Gilbert Pickering were both zealous Puritans, and
warm admirers of Cromwell. With Sir Gilbert Pickering
he is understood to have lived for some time as a secretary,
and by him he seems to have been imbued with such a
belief in the durability of the usurper's dynasty, that, after
his death, he published a panegyric on him, which he
entitled 'Heroic Stanzas on the late Lord Protector,' and
which was generally admitted to be the best poem which
the subject had elicited, though the veteran Waller was one
of his rivals.
But he soon found out that he had been mistaken in his
anticipations; Charles II. recovered his throne amid the
acclamations of the nation, and Dryden hastened to efface
the recollection of his eulogies of the departed tyrant by
an equally elaborate prediction of the glories and blessings
which were to be showered over the land through the
restoration of the king, whom Astræa Redux, 'Returning
Justice,' was leading back to his country. His prophetic
praise of the Sovereign who was to betray the interests of
his kingdom to Louis XIV., and to sacrifice the lives of
subjects whom he knew to be innocent to the perjuries of
Titus Oates, was not much better justified than his glori-
fication of the man who had massacred, not only the garrison,
but the unarmed inhabitants of Drogheda and Wexford in
cold blood, and had sold hundreds of Englishmen to work
as slaves in the West Indies for no offence but that of
having fought for their king.
However, his wit and his flattery gained him the favour
not only of the Merry Monarch, but probably led to his
being appointed, in 1662, one of the Fellows of the newly-
constituted Royal Society, an honour which, as Scott fairly
points out, 'is an evidence of the respect in which his
talents were already held,' and which was very fairly de-
served by his learning, which was both extensive and
accurate, though not of a scientific character. He became
the author of numerous small poems, addresses to great
men, songs and prologues, training himself for some
more elaborate work, and labouring especially to purify
1631-1700.]
213
DRYDEN.
English poetry of the false metaphysical wit which had been
in fashion during the earlier part of the century, and polish-
ing its measures into a greater regularity and smoothness;
and at last, in 1666, he celebrated the exploits of Prince
Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle in the naval campaign
of the preceding year, in a poem written in the four-line
stanza, to which he gave the name of 'Annus Mirabilis, the
Year of Wonders,' and which Hallam has praised as pro-
bably the best poem which had as yet been produced in the
language: though I think myself that the frequent in-
stances of bad taste with which it abounds, and of which
the friendly critic admits the existence, disentitle it to a
praise which would put it above the minor poems of Shake-
speare and Milton.
Work of this kind, however, was not very profitable. The
age of Charles II. was not a reading age; and the sale of
'Paradise Lost' is a proof how little booksellers could afford
to pay for copyrights; but (partly, perhaps, because the
Puritans had denounced all theatres as hotbeds of iniquity
and all abomination) it was eminently a playgoing age;
and the author of a successful play was entitled to very
considerable payments from the managers. Dryden, there-
fore, very soon betook himself to dramatic composition,
pouring forth tragedies and comedies with unexampled
rapidity, and greatly adding to both his reputation and his
income by their popularity; though they did not escape
severe criticism, which he provoked by the jealous temper
which he at all times displayed towards all whom he con-
sidered as his competitors for the public applause. He
wrote in rhyme, in compliance with the fancy of the king,
whose taste, during his exile on the Continent, had been
formed on the French models; but, though that practice is
at variance with the modern idea of the kind of verso most
suitable to the drama, it is by no means the sole or even the
chief reason why his plays have fallen into oblivion. Many
of them contain bold, impetuous characters, into whose
mouths he has occasionally put fine, spirited pasages; but his
genius was essentially undramatic; he had no skill in em-
bodying character, nor in delineating the passions: he had
great knowledge and keen perception, but neither feeling
214
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
>
nor sympathy with feeling. The Duke of Buckingham, who
had taken under his patronage a wretched poet named
Elkanah Settle, whose plays Dryden in consequence at-
tacked with a malignity which did more dishonour to him-
self than to Settle, in revenge satirised Dryden as Bayes in
the 'Rehearsal,' a farce of some ability, which afterwards
suggested to Sheridan his inimitable Critic; and the
Rehearsal' is better known than any of the works which it
held up to ridicule. One of his comedies he dedicated to
Charles's especial favourite, the Earl of Rochester, who,
however did not always regard him with the good-will which
he must have entertained for him when he accepted the
dedication; for, when in 1679 the poet offended the Duchess
of Portsmouth by some lines in his 'Essay on Satire,'
Rochester sent a gang of ruffians to waylay him, who beat
him so severely that for some time it was a question whether
his life was not in danger.
By this time he had relinquished the stage, and had begun
to divide his attention between satire, which of all poetry
seems to have been most in accordance with the real bent
of his genius, and translations from the classics, for which
tho publishers were more inclined to pay; and in 1681 he
came out with the satire which is deservedly accounted the
finest production of his genius, 'Absalom and Achitophel.'
He had succeeded Sir John Davenant as poet-laureate
several years before, and he probably thought that his occu-
pation of this post gave the Government a claim on his
services in the extreme difficulties in which, in 1680 and
1681, it was placed by the intrigues of Monmouth and
Shaftesbury; the Duke making almost royal progresses.
through different parts of the country, and Shaftesbury,
his chief supporter and instigator, employing every means
which the most unscrupulous ingenuity could suggest to
raise a party to espouse his pretensions to the throne, which
he knew to have no other foundation than imposture and
perjury. To put the imposture in its true light, and to
expose the characters of those who were Monmouth's chief
abettors, seemed almost a duty of the poet-laureate ;
and
as the chiefs among them happened to be the very men
whom Dryden had the greatest reason to regard as his
1631-1700.]
215
DRYDEN.
personal enemies, it was one with which pleasure was not
unmingled. The poet was a sufficiently shrewd courtier to
deal gently with Monmouth himself, whom he knew to be
his father's favourite son, and for whom, therefore, he pre-
saged a return of his tenderness when his present irritation
should have passed away: but he made up for his mercy
towards him by his delineations of Shaftesbury, as Achito-
phel, and Buckingham as Zimri, whom he has handed down
to posterity stamped with a reputation and ridicule which
will never die, adding subsequently a second part, in which
he condescended to brand some of the contemporary poets
such as Settle and Shadwell, as 'Og' and 'Doeg' exerting
for their exposure a genius from which it is impossible to
withhold an admiration, but displaying at the same time a
bitterness of temper which, when we consider the insignifi-
cance of the objects, it is impossible not to lament.
'Absalom and Achitophel' was not his only attack on
Shaftesbury; a second, the 'Medal,' which is said to have
been suggested to him by the king himself, was intended
to ridicule the zeal of the arch-intriguer's friends, who, when
the grand jury of London had refused to find a true bill
on the charge of high treason which the law-officers of the
Crown had brought against him, struck a medal in his
honour with the sun emerging from a cloud, the date of the
rejection of the bill, and the motto 'Lætamur' on the
reverse; Shaftesbury's own head and name being on the
other side. In a thorough and scathing exposure of
Shaftesbury's whole career, which was its object, the
'Medal' exceeded the previous satire; in the vigour and
elegance of the poetry it equalled it, and was regarded, both
by friends and foes, as a work which was of real service to
the Crown in the strange contest which was now being
maintained. But neither these nor any others of his works
had done much to enrich the poet. In one of them he is
said indeed to have received 100l. from the king; but,
besides his estate, the value of which did not exceed 601. a
year, his sole permanent dependence was his salary as poet-
laureate, and that was very irregularly paid. A letter
from him to Lord Rochester has been preserved, in which,
in a very pathetic though not unmanly tone, he entreats
216
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
that nobleman, as one of the chief ministers, to allow at least
half of his salary for the year to be paid him at once; and
to bestow on him some more lucrative post, either in the
Customs or Excise, or some other department. He does not
set his hopes high; 'he only thinks he merits not to starve ;
and pleads for what is his due only to enable him to support
'his three sons, growing up to man's estate;' whom 'he
has bred up to learning, beyond his fortune; but they are
too hopeful to be neglected, though he wants.' We are
allowed to infer from passages in some of his subsequent
writings that, though his application for some additional
office was unsuccessful, his salary was henceforth paid with
greater regularity. Another of his satires, 'Mac Flecknoe,"
which may be looked upon as the model for Pope's more
celebrated ‘Dunciad,' was a bitter, semi-burlesque attack on
Sottle, Shadwell, and the other contemporary writers of
little merit who had in different ways, even by their success,
excited his jealousy and ill-will. But a poem which he
published in 1682, with the somewhat unpoetical title of
Religio Laici,' deserves to be read with greater attention,
from the light which it throws on his subsequent adoption
of the Roman Catholic religion, which, as his conversion
took place in the first year of the reign of the Roman
Catholic king James II., has almost invariably, and not
unnaturally, been regarded as an unprincipled apostasy,
prompted by no more respectable motive than the wish of
obtaining the royal favour. But Scott, analysing the
Religio Laici,' and a subsequent poem The Hind and
Panther,' which he wrote on the difference between the
Church of England, personified as the Panther, and the
Romish Religion, portrayed as the Milk-white Hind, shows
that in his earlier years Dryden had been not a convinced
and attached son of the Church of England, but a waverer,
inclined by reason to scepticism, though discontented with
himself for entertaining doubts on subjects of such im-
portance; and sighing for an 'Omniscient Church' which
should lay down the law on all such disputable and difficult
matters with an authority which should compel his obedience.
Such an authority he fancied that he had found in the
Religio Laici, v. 285.
(
6
6
1
1631-1700.]
217
DRYDEN.
pretensions of the Church of Rome; and this phantom led
him, as it has led others who have studied the question
far more deeply, to decide on embracing a creed which
(as even his friendly critic admits) was probably not the
less recommended to him by the prospect of royal patron-
age which it opened to him.
In this last expectation, however, he was painfully dis-
appointed. The notions of absolute power which James
engrafted on his theological opinions led even those who
had been foremost in refusing to exclude a Roman Catholic
from the throne, to be equally zealous in driving from
it one whose acts proved that he looked on popery as
authorising tyranny, and who, claiming to hold his au-
thority of divine right, looked on all the liberties of the
nation as dependent solely on his own absolute will; and
one of the consequences of the Revolution which ensued
led to all who professed the fallen sovereign's religion
being deprived of their offices. Dryden, in consequence,
ceased to be poet-laureate, though the Earl of Dorset, the
lord chamberlain, a great patron of learned men, and
himself not without merit as a poet, generously continued
to pay him out of his own pocket the salary of which his
official duty had compelled him to deprive him.
His dismissal from the laureateship was the more morti-
fying to him that it was bestowed on Shadwell, whom he
had so constantly disparaged and vilified; but in some
respects it was not unfortunate, since it drove him to apply
himself to kinds of poetry which he had not previously tried,
and to which he owes no small portion of his present fame.
His genius was in no degree dimmed, nor his industry
abated by advancing years. And though he was now
nearly sixty years of age, he poured forth work after work
during the last ten years of his life with a rapidity and
profusion which, when their excellence is also taken into
account, may be considered almost marvellous. He had
always kept up the classical scholarship with which he
had been imbued by Dr. Bushy, and now he conceived the
idea of rendering the great poets of antiquity better known
to his countrymen by a series of poetical translations of
Juvenal, Persius, parts of Ovid and of Homer, which he
218
[CI. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
prefaced by prose introductions, in which he discusses the
various kinds of poetry and the different styles of those
whom he was translating with an acuteness of discernment
and elegance of language which has induced Johnson to
ascribe to him the honour of being 'the father of English
criticism;' and, encouraged by the success these minor
attempts met with, he undertook the translation of the
whole of Virgil, which he published in 1697, and which
is, beyond dispute, the noblest work of the kind ever pro-
duced in any language. It is pleasant to be able to add
that it placed him in easy circumstances; he received for
it, at the lowest computation, more than 1,2007., a sum
which, though very inadequate to its merit, or to his
labour, was nevertheless far larger than had been gained
as yet by any literary undertaking in the world. And it
was hardly finished when he began to think of doing the
same office for Homer which he had done for his Roman
imitator. He translated the first book, and found 'the
blind old man,' as he wrote to Lord Halifax, 'a poet more
according to his genius than Virgil, and consequently one
whom he hoped to do more justice to in his fiery way of
writing.' But he postponed it for a time, and did not live
to resume it. That for any work in which 'fire' was re-
quired he was qualified above all other men, he gave ample
evidence in the noble ode on 'Alexander's Feast,' which he
wrote in 1698, finishing it in a single night. Nearly forty
years afterwards it was set to music worthy of it by the
great Handel; but it had not to wait till that time to have
its excellence universally acknowledged. Dryden himself
ventured to affirm that 'a nobler ode never had been pro-
duced, and never would be.' And the great modern poet,
to whose biography of him I have been frequently indebted
in this sketch, comments thus upon the boast: 'This singu-
larly strong expression cannot be placed to the score of
vanity. It was an inward consciousness of merit which
burst forth, probably almost involuntarily, and, I fear, must
be admitted, as prophetic.'
But the task for which Dryden laid aside the 'Iliad' was
the clothing in a modern and an English dress some of
Chaucer's tales, which the obsoleteness of their original
1631-1700.]
219
DRYDEN.
language had rendered long unintelligible; and selections
from Boccaccio's 'Decameron.' They were published in 1699
in a single volume, to which he gave the name of 'Fables,'
and are distinguished by all his characteristic excellences:
animation of description, propriety of expression, varied
harmony of rhythm, and (what was perhaps less to be
expected in works avowedly taken from others) fertility of
invention, in so high a degree that they are unanimously
reckoned his masterpieces. They were his last works. He
was revolving the idea of translating Homer, which, in
intention at least, he had only laid aside for a while, when
an attack of erysipelas, neglected or unskilfully treated,
produced a mortification in his foot, of which, on May 1,
1700, he died, 'taking of his friends,' as one of them has
recorded, 'so tender and obliging a farewell as none but
he himself could have expressed.'
His death procured him a greater recognition of his
merits than he had received during his life. By the
influence of Lord Halifax and other admirers of his genius,
he was honoured with a public funeral in Westminster
Abbey, where
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well,
and where a tablet, erected in the next generation by the
celebrated Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, bears the name
of 'Dryden' alone, as if no laboured epitaph could do
equal justice to the most brilliant of the many men of
genius who make the 'Poets' Corner' in that noble cathe-
dral its most interesting spot.
In Santa Croce's sacred precincts lie
Ashes which make it holier.
Yet the last years of the old poet's active life had not
been without honour and comfort. It is a pleasing picture
that has been preserved of him, sitting of an afternoon at
Will's Coffee House, in the arm-chair in the chimney-corner,
which all reserved for him, and round which all the scholars
of the day, and all who could appreciate, or who wished to
be thought able to appreciate learning and genius, collected,
gathering up with respectful attention the bits of criticism,
~
11
220
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the jests, the repartees, and occasionally the solid, spon-
taneous reflections which dropped from his lips. He had
faults of temper; he had for enemies most of the contempo-
rary anthors, and we fear, it must be admitted, he had
deserved their enmity by his jealous carpings at all whom
any portion of the public ever regarded with any degree of
favour; but it must be allowed, as some palliation of his
bitterness, that they deserved his scorn by the wretchedness
of their productions; and some praise must be given to the
man who, in an age when servility was so general, had
courage to dare the hostility of nobles as powerful and
unscrupulous as Shaftesbury and Buckingham. It must
be added that, in a licentious age, his life was eminently
correct and free from reproach; and even had his errors
been far greater than they were, much might be forgiven to
one to whom our language is so deeply indebted.
For, though there have been disputes about his character,
provoked probably, by his conversion to popery, his literary
merits have been admitted with complete unanimity. John-
son, in a more than usually elaborate criticism, has insti-
tuted a comparison between him and Pope; giving him,
though not without hesitation, the praise of superior
genius and energy; but allowing, on the other hand, that
he was so inferior to Pope in industry that, though he has
produced finer passages, he has completed no entire poem
of greater excellence, for Dryden was easily satisfied with
what he had done; Pope was never contented as long as
he thought it possible to improve his work. If I wished
to show Dryden's merit by any comparison, I would rather
place his works by the side of those of Donne, Andrew
Marvel, and others of his immediate predecessors, whose
verses, though highly popular in their day, are so absolutely
destitute of rhythm and harmony that it might be supposed
that, in their idea, all that was needed to distinguish
poetry from prose was the recurrence, at stated intervals, of
some more or less correct rhyme; and I would point to the
vast improvement produced in a single lifetime both in
melody of versification and in purity of expression as
examples of what English literature owes to Dryden. But
all comparisons are apt to lead to injustice to one party;
1631-1700.]
221
DRYDEN.
and Dryden has sufficient claims to our admiration without
its being necessary to elevate him by the disparagement of
any other poet in any quality. They are founded on his
extensive knowledge, his sound judgment, his masculine
sense, his lively wit, his shrewd though too often sar-
castic humour, his great fertility of fancy, set off by an
almost unvarying propriety of language, by great energy,
or, as he would himself have called it, fire of descrip-
tion and illustration, in which he excels so much that, even
to what in most hands would be dry and tedious, passages
of grave disquisition, of political or theological argument,
he can lend a vividness and animation which carries us
along with him; and by a mastery over both regular and
irregular metre such that we owe to him not only the intro-
duction of the regular ten-syllable line which in the next
century Pope (who gloried in being his disciple) polished
and refined till he led readers to think that, if it were faulty,
the fault lay only in its being susceptible of such regular
sweetness as to become monotonous; but also the proof,
in his unrivalled ode on 'St. Cecilia's Day,' how nearly, in
its richness, variety, and adaptability to every change of
feeling and expression, the language of England approaches
that of Greece.
Our first extract is from one of the fables which he re-
modelled, or, as he called it, translated from Chaucer.
And in the appendix to this section the original passage is
also given, that the student may be able to compare the
two, and to judge how greatly Dryden improved upon the
work of the earlier poet.
(Palamon and Arcite, book i.)
Thus year by year they pass, and day by day,
Till once, 'twas on the morn of cheerful May,
The young Emilia, fairer to be seen
Than the fair lily on the flowery green,
More fresh than May herself in blossoms new.
For with the rosy colour strove her hue,
Wak'd, as her custom was, before the day,
To do th' observance due to sprightly May:
For sprightly May commands our youth to keep
The vigils of her night, and breaks their sluggard sleep;
222
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves;
Inspires new flames, revives extinguished loves.
In this remembrance, Emily, ere day
Arose, and dress'd herself in rich array;
Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair,
Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair;
A riband did the braided tresses bind,
The rest was loose, and wanton'd in the wind :
Aurora had but newly chas'd the night,
And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light,
When to the garden walk she took her way,
To sport and trip along in cool of day,
And offer maiden vows in honour of the May.
At every turn she made a little stand,
And thrust among the thorns her lily hand
To draw the rose, and every rose she drew
She shook the stalk, and brush'd away the dew:
Then party-colour'd flowers of white and red
She wove, to make a garland for her head;
This done she sung and carolled out so clear,
That men and angels might rejoice to hear;
Ee'n wondering Philomel forgot to sing,
And learned from her to welcome in the spring.
In the next extract, from the same poem, he has lavished
all the riches of his imagination on the description of the
decorations of the gates and towers. If any fault could be
found with the magnificence of the passage, it could only
be that the poet has been too prodigal of ornament; just
as it has been objected that the work of Vulcan which
Homer describes never could have been contained on a
shield of a size to be borne by mortal man. But such ob-
jections are hypercritical. In judging of such a description
we do not measure the surface of the wall, but the extent
of the poet's imagination. If it be the poet's gift to turn
to shape the forms of things unknown, he must clearly also
have a right to determine the possibility of combining them
within the space which his imagination assigns to them.
Eastward was built a gate of marble white;
The like adorn'd the western opposite.
A nobler object than this fabric was,
Rome never saw, nor of so vast a space:
1631-1700.]
223
DRYDEN.
For, rich with spoils of many a conquer'd land,
All arts and artists Theseus could command:
Who sold for hire, or wrought for better fame;
The master-painters and the carvers came.
So rose within the compass of the year
An age's work, a glorious theatre.
Then o'er its eastern gate was rais'd above
A temple, sacred to the Queen of Love;
An altar stood below; on either hand
A priest with roses crown'd, who held a myrtle wand.
The dome of Mars was on the gate appos'd,
And on the north a turret was inclos'd,
Within the wall of alabaster white,
And crimson coral for the Queen of Night,
Who takes in sylvan sports her chaste delight.
Within these oratories might you see
Rich carvings, portraitures, and imagery :
Where every figure to the life express'd
The godhead's power to whom it was address'd.
In Venus' temple on the sides were seen
The broken slumbers of enamour'd men,
Prayers that even spoke, and pity seem'd to call,
And issuing sighs that smok'd along the wall.
Complaints, and hot desires, the lover's hell,
And scalding tears that wore a channel where they fell:
And all around were nuptial bonds, the ties
Of love's assurance, and a train of lies,
That, made in lust, conclude in perjuries.
Beauty, and youth, and wealth, and luxury,
And sprightly hope, and short-enduring joy;
And sorceries to raise th' infernal powers,
And sigils fram'd in planetary hours:
Expense, and after-thought, and idle care,
And doubts of motley hue, and dark despair;
Suspicions, and fantastical surmise,
And jealousy suffus'd, with jaundice in her eyes,
Discolouring all she view'd, in tawny dress'd;
Down-look'd, and with a cuckoo on her fist,
Oppos'd to her, on t'other side advance
The costly feast, the carol, and the dance,
Minstrels and music, poetry and play,
And balls by night, and tournaments by day.
All these were painted on the wall, and more;
With acts and monuments of time before :
224
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And others added by prophetic doom,
And lovers yet unborn, and loves to come:
For there th' Idalian mount, and Citheron,
The court of Venus was in colours drawn:
Before the palace gate in careless dress,
And loose array, sat portress Idleness;
There, by the fount, Narcissus pin'd alone;
There Samson was: with wiser Solomon,
And all the mighty names by love undone.
Medea's charms were there, Circean feasts,
With bowls that turned enamour'd youths to beasts.
Here might be seen that beauty, wealth, and wit,
And prowess to the power of love submit:
The spreading snare for all mankind is laid;
And lovers all betray, and are betray'd.
The goddess' self some noble hand had wrought;
Smiling she seem'd, and full of pleasing thought:
From Ocean as she first began to rise,
And smooth'd the ruffled seas, and clear'd the skies;
She trod the brine, all bare below the breast,
And the green waves but ill conceal'd the rest;
A lute she held; and on her head was seen
A wreath of roses red, and myrtle green;
Her turtles fann'd the buxom air above;
And by his mother, stood an infant Love,
With wings unfledg'd; his eyes were banded o'er,
His hands a bow, his back a quiver bore,
Supplied with arrows bright and keen, a deadly store.
But in the dome of mighty Mars the red
With different figures all the sides were spread;
This temple, less in form, with equal grace,
Was imitative of the first in Thrace:
For that cold region was the lov'd abode
And sovereign mansion of the warrior god.
The landscape was a forest wide and bare,
Where neither beast nor humankind repair;
The fowl, that scent afar, the borders fly,
And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about the sky;
A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground,
And prickly stubs instead of trees are found,
Or woods with knots, and knares deform'd and old,
Headless the most, and hideous to behold,
A rattling tempest through the branches went,
That stripp'd them bare, and one sole way they bent.
1631-1700.]
225
DRYDEN.
Heaven froze above, severe the clouds congeal,
And through the crystal vault appeared the standing hail.
Such was the face without; a mountain stood
Threatening from high, and overlook'd the wood;
Beneath the low'ring brow, and on a bent,
The temple stood of Mars armipotent.
The frame of burnish'd steel, that cast a glare,
From far, and seem'd to thaw the freezing air.
A straight long entry to the temple led,
Blind with high walls, and horror overhead ;
Thence issued such a blast and hollow roar
As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door;
In through that door a northern light there shone,
"Twas all it had, for windows there were none,
The gate was adamant, eternal frame !
Which hew'd by Mars himself, from Indian quarries came
The labour of a god; and all along
Tough iron plates were clench'd to make it strong.
A ton about was every pillar there;
A polish'd mirror shone not half so clear.
There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor's thought.
And midwife Time the ripen'd plot to murder brough
There the red anger dar'd the pallid fear;
Next stood hypocrisy, with holy leer,
Soft smiling and demurely looking down,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown;
Th' assassinating wife, the household fiend,
And, far the blackest there, the traitor friend.
On t' other side there stood destruction bare,
Unpunish'd rapine, and a waste of war,
Contest, with sharpen'd knives, in cloisters drawn,
And all with blood bespread the holy lawn.
Loud menaces were heard, and foul disgrace,
And bawling infamy, in language base,
Till sense was lost in sound, and silence fled the place;
The slayer of himself yet saw I there,
The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair;
With eyes half clos'd and gaping mouth he lay,
And grim as when he breath'd his sullen soul away.
In midst of all the dome, Misfortune sate,
And gloomy Discontent, and fell Debate,
And Madness laughing in his ireful mood,
And arm'd complaint on theft, and cries of blood,
226
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
There was the murder'd corpse in covert laid,
And violent death in thousand shapes display'd,
The city to the soldiers' rage resign'd:
Successless wars, and poverty behind;
Ships burnt in sight, or forc'd on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars :
The new-born babe, by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire he made,
All ills of Mars's nature, flame and steel;
The gasping charioteer, beneath the wheel
Of his own car; the ruin'd house that falls
And intercepts her lord betwixt the walls:
The whole division that to Mars pertains,
All trades of death that deal in steel for gains
Were there; the butcher, armourer, and smith,
Who forges sharpen'd faulchions, or the scythe.
The scarlet conquest on a tower was plac'd,
With shouts and soldiers' acclamations grac'd;
A pointed sword hung threat'ning o'er his head,
Sustain'd but by a slender twine of thread.
There saw I Mars's ides, the capitol,
The seer in vain foretelling Cæsar's fall,
The last triumvirs and the wars they move,
And Antony, who lost the world for love.
These, and a thousand more, the fane adorn;
Their fates were painted ere the men were born,
All copied from the heavens, and ruling force
Of the red star, in his revolving course.
The form of Mars high on a chariot stood,
All sheath'd in arms, and gruffly look'd the god;
Two geomantic figures were display'd
Above his head, a warrior and a maid;
One when direct, and one when retrograde.
Dryden's energy and fire can hardly better be seen than
in his account of a combat; which is also selected for the
opportunity which it affords of comparing his genius in
that respect with that of the two great poets of the present
century, Scott and Byron, both of whom have exerted their
genius in descriptions of similar events, as will be seen
presently.
The heralds last retired, and loudly cry'd,
'The fortune of the field be fairly try'd.
1631-1700.]
227
DRYDEN.
At this, the challenger, with fierce defy,
His trumpet sounds; the challenged makes reply:
With clangour rings the field, resounds the vaulted søy.
Their vizors clos'd, their lances in the rest,
Or at the helmet pointed, or the crest,
They vanish from the barrier, speed the race,
And, spurring, see decrease the middle space.
A cloud of smoke envelopes either host,
And all at once the combatants are lost:
Darkling they join adverse, and shock unseen,
Coursers with coursers jostling, men with men :
As labouring in eclipse, awhile they stay,
Till the next blast of wind restores the day.
They look anew: the beauteous form of fight
Is changed and war appears a grisly sight:
Two troops in fair array one moment show'd;
The next, a field with fallen bodies strow'd:
Not half the number in their seats are found;
But men and steeds lie grovelling on the ground,
The points of spears are stuck within the shield;
The steeds without their riders scour the field.
The knights, unhors'd, on foot renew the fight,
The glittering faulchions cast a gleaming light;
Hauberks and helms are hew'd with many a wound,
Out spins the streaming blood, and dyes the ground;
The mighty maces with such haste descend,
They break the bones, and make the solid armour bend.
This thrusts amid the throng with furious force;
Down goes at once the horseman and the horse;
The courser stumbles on the fallen steed,
And floundering throws the rider o'er his head.
One rolls along, a football to his foes,
One with a broken truncheon deals his blows.
This halting, this disabled with his wound,
In triumph led, is to the pillar bound,
Where by the king's award he must abide :
There goes a captive led on t'other side.
By fits they cease, and, leaning on the lance,
Take breath awhile, and to new fight advance.
Full oft the rivals met, and neither spar'd
His utmost force, and each forgot to ward.
The head of this was to the saddle bent,
The other backward to the crupper sent;
228
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Both were by turns unhors'd; the jealous blows
Fall thick and heavy, when on foot they close.
So, deep their faulchions bite, that every stroke
Pierc'd to the quick; and equal wounds they gave and took.
Borne far asunder by the tides of men,
Like adamant and steel they met again.
So when a tiger sucks the bullock's blood,
A famish'd lion, issuing from the wood,
Roars lordly fierce, and challenges the food.
Each claims possession, neither will obey,
But both their paws are fasten'd on the prey;
They bite, they tear, and while in vain they strive,
The swains come arm'd between, and both to distance drive.
Satire was with Dryden a very favourite exertion of his
genius. His greatest satire is undoubtedly 'Absalom and
Achitophel,' Achitophel being meant for the Earl of
Shaftesbury. In the first edition he poured forth all his
indignation on this 'troubler of the State' without any
counterbalancing eulogy. In the second, for some reason
which is not entirely clear, he sought to counteract or
soften his censure by the addition of a panegyric on his
exercise of his judicial authority, which Lord Campbell, in
his 'Lives of the Chancellors,' declares to have been wholly
undeserved.
(Absalom and Achitophel.)
Of these the false Achitophel was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and wicked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place,
In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er inform'd the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity:
Pleased with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are, sure, to madness near ally'd,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
1631-1790.]
229
DRYDEN.
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease P
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son,
Gat while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.
To compass this, the triple bond he broke;
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke.
Then, seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will;
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own?
Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge,
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge;
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Uubrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress:
Swift of despatch, and easy of access.
Oh! had he been content to serve the crown,
With virtues only proper to the gown;
Or, had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed,
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
Whether his praise of Shaftesbury were deserved or not,
there can be no question that the admiration which the
following lines express of the Duke of Monmouth (Absa-
lom) was wholly unwarranted.
Auspicious prince, at whose nativity
Some royal planet rul'd the southern sky,
Thy longing country's darling and desire;
Their cloudy pillar, and their guardian fire;
Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas, and shews the promised land;
Whose dawning day, in every distant age,
Has exercis'd the sacred prophet's rage;
ورم
230
[CH. XII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young man's vision, and the old man's dream ?
Thee, saviour, thee the nation's vows confess,
And, never satisfied with seeing, bless:
Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim,
And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name.
How long wilt thou the general joy detain,
Starve and defraud the people of thy reign;
Content ingloriously to pass thy days,
Like one of virtue's fools that feed on praise;
Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright,
Grow stale and tarnish with our daily sight?
Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be,
Or gathered ripe or rot upon the tree.
Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late,
Some lucky revolution of their fate;
Whose motions, if we watch and guide with skill,
For human good depends on human will,
Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent,
And from the first impression takes the bent;
But, if unseized, she glides away like wind,
And leaves repenting folly far behind.
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize,
And spreads her locks before you as she flies.
Zimri was the Duke of Buckingham, a man satirised by
Pope also, who, however, not being stimulated by the
remembrance of personal injuries or affronts, as Dryden
was (for Buckingham's play of the 'Rehearsal' had been
written for the express purpose of ridiculing him), is less
severe, and uses his example only to point a moral,
sparing his vices, and lamenting rather than vituperating
his follies.
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land,
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long,
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon,
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,
1631-1700.]
231
DRYDEN.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy,
Railing, and praising, were his usual themes;
And both, to shew his judgment, in extremes:
So over-violent, or over-civil,
That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.
ام
232
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XIII.
POPE.
A.D. 1688-1744.
FROM Dryden we naturally pass on to Pope, not only in
obedience to chronology, but because he is generally looked
on as the poet who continued and completed the work
which Dryden had begun, the perfecting of the versifica-
tion and harmony of the ten-syllable rhyming couplet.
It was a light in which he wished to be regarded, as he
avowedly took Dryden for his model; and, as Ovid had
seen Virgil, though that was all that he could say, so
Pope had seen Dryden, having, even as a child, conceived
such an admiration of him that he induced a friend of his
father to take him to Will's coffee-house, where in his
later years the old poet sat in state, as it were, receiving
the homage of his friends, which included everyone who
desired to be regarded as a wit or a scholar.
1
It was a singular direction for the enthusiasm of so
young a boy to take, for Dryden died when Pope was only
twelve years old. But Pope's infirmity of constitution
debarred him from the sports more natural to his age, and
confined him to study. And his selection of Dryden as the
special object of his admiration is a proof of a soundness
of critical judgment even more rare than his early addic-
tion to literature.
He was born May 22,1688, just at the time when James II.
was crowning his violation of the constitutional rights of
his people by his insane prosecution of the bishops. Had he
succeeded, it might have affected the fortunes of the child
in after life, for his parents were rigid Roman Catholics,
and his own adherence to the same form of religion was, as
1 Virgilium vidi tantum, nec avara Tibullo
Tempus amicitiæ fata dedere meæ.
1688-1744.]
233
POPE.
"
matters turned out, a great bar to his advancement. His
father is generally said to have been a linendraper, though
Johnson seems to discredit the story, saying that 'the rank
or station of his parents was never ascertained,' but that
they were certainly of gentle blood.' But he also quotes
a remark, which he had heard made, that Pope, in his
màturer years, seemed more willing to say what his father
had not been than what he had, and adds that 'it is allowed
that he had got rich by trade.' Whatever he had been,
about the time of the poet's birth he quitted London, and
retired to Binfield, a pretty village in Windsor Forest,
where he was careful to give his son as good an education
as could be procured in the neighbourhood, which, however,
consisted in engaging a Popish priest to be his occasional
tutor, from whose instruction he obtained a fair acquain-
tance with Latin, but very little with Greek, and some
knowledge also of French and Italian. But his favourite
study was the poetry of his own country, especially the
works of Waller and Dryden. And at a very early age he
began to show his familiarity with both them and the
Romans of the Augustan era, imitating Dryden in modern-
ising some of Chaucer's poems, and making elaborate
translations from Ovid before he was fifteen. They are
works of remarkable merit for a boy; and were followed
the next year by a volume of Pastorals. His father, ac-
cording to the account which in after life he gave of his
boyhood, used to encourage and take pride in his precocity,
often suggesting subjects for his poetical efforts; but he
also represented his own inclination for composition as so
innate and irrepressible as to need no such stimulus.
Ovid had recorded that in his childhood everything he
attempted to write naturally fell into verse, and, in what
seems like a translation of the Roman's confession,' or
boast, Pope declares-
While still a child, a stranger yet to fame,
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
1 Sepe Pater dixit studium quid inutile tentas?
Mæonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.
Sponte suâ numeros carmen veniebat ad aptos,
Et quod tentabam scribere versus erat.
234
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
He did not publish his 'Pastorals,' or indeed any of his
works, till some years after their composition; but they
were shown in manuscript to many of the most celebrated
and influential writers of the day. A statesman of some
eminence in his generation, Sir W. Trumball, who had been
ambassador at Constantinople, on retiring from public life,
settled near Binfield, and, taking a fancy to the precocious
cleverness of young Pope, introduced him to Wycherley, the
lively author of the 'Plain Dealer,' who distinguished him
for a time with special favour, writing verses in his praise,
which were instantly circulated among the fashionable
world. He even showed Pope some poems of his own, and
invited his comments on them, a display of friendship which
led to its speedy dissolution; for Wycherley was a careless
writer; while Pope was a born critic, who, young as he was,
had already settled in his own mind that correctness was
the most indispensable of qualities in any composition. He
found fault and suggested corrections, and Wycherley, in
high displeasure at the disrespect thus shown him by a
mere boy, broke off the intimacy, though, according to
Johnson, Pope always retained a regard for his old friend,
and after a time prevailed on him to renew the friend-
ship. Meantime Wycherley's praises had recommended
him to the acquaintance of other literary men, which he
extended by frequenting the coffee-house which even after
Dryden's death retained its celebrity as their favourite place
of meeting. He became known to Swift and Addison, who
both conceived a high esteem for his talents. And it is
creditable to his judgment that the praise of men so dis-
tinguished never led him to neglect that perseverance in
study which could alone enable him to retain their good
opinion. He was an indefatigable reader, changing his
subjects and objects as he grew older, but never abating
his industry. The account given by himself of his studies
was, that from fourteen to twenty he read for amusement,
desiring only to know; from twenty to twenty-seven he
read for instruction, endeavouring to learn to judge.
But even before, according to this statement, he had
begun to learn to judge, he had undertaken not only to
form, but to pronounce judgment. For he had already
1688--1744.]
235
POPE.
written The Essay on Criticism,' which Johnson has
praised with a warmth which amounts to extravagance,
and which, were it really deserved, would lead us to
infer that criticism is an art of more pretension than real
value, if excellence in it be so independent of maturity of
intellect as to be attainable by a youth of less than twenty
years of age. It is said that Pope originally wrote it in
prose (which Dryden had chosen as the vehicle for his own
masterly criticisms), and that the clothing of his notions
on the subject in verse was a subsequent idea, dictated,
perhaps, by the example of Boileau, and still more by that
of two noble and fashionable authors in our own country,
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, and Lord Roscommon, who
had written poetical essays on satire, and on translated
verse, and both of whom he warmly compliments in his
own work. Years after its publication Lady Mary Wortley
declared it was 'all stolen,' a charge so far true that it
probably contains few maxims which had not been incul-
cated by earlier writers. But, whether original or not, it
was received with very general favour. Addison extolled
it in the Spectator'; Antony Hamilton translated it into
French, and it laid the foundation of his reputation with
the public, which was fully established three years after-
wards by the Rape of the Lock.'
The Rape of the Lock' may be pronounced his master-
piece. His own description of it on the title-page, as a
heroi-comical poem, scarcely gives an adequate idea of
the poet's pre-eminent richness in all the qualities which
the lighter Muses can bestow on their votaries. Exubc-
rance of fancy, elegance of diction, musical sweetness of
rhythm, grace of sentiment, cultivated and refined wit,
are not more conspicuous in any poem in our own, nor, as
far as I am aware, in any other language, ancient or
modern. Nor is there any on the merits of which critics
have been more unanimous. On its first appearance it
was received with enthusiastic applause, and with the
exception of his inveterate enemy, John Dennis, I do not
know anyone who has attempted to disturb the general
verdict.
He was now, though ouly twenty-four, at the very
236
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
height of literary fame. As a Roman Catholic, he was
inclined to Toryism in politics, and was cordially received,
I might almost say courted, by the principal writers on
that side, by Swift and Arbuthnot, and even by their
patron, Bolingbroke, while, as we have already seen, he
was almost equally intimate with Addison, the chief writer
among the Whigs. And he availed himself of his universal
popularity to put forth proposals for a work of great mag-
nitude, though not original, which he designed to publish
by subscription, a favourite mode in those days, and from
which he expected a large profit. It was the translation
of the greatest of all poems, the 'Iliad' of Homer into
English verse. Translations from the classics were so
fashionable in that day that there had been few poets
during the preceding century who had not attempted that
species of composition. Dryden, as we have seen, had not
only translated the whole of Virgil, but had afterwards
contemplated the 'Iliad' also, and had published the first
book, professing to look on Homer's genius as more akin
to his own than that of Virgil, but doing far less justice to
the great Greek. One might suppose that all that he
meant was that the 'Iliad' was more simple, less elaborate,
less carefully polished than the ' Æneid,' and that, therefore,
in translating it, he might, with less blame, indulge his own
careless indolence, and save himself the trouble of refining
his language or correcting his versification. Pope's offer,
therefore, fell in with the prevailing taste. Swift and
others of his friends took up the idea with fervour, canvas-
sing for subscriptions for him. Though the price was
greater than had ever been obtained for any literary work
before, six guineas a copy, it soon became apparent that
the poet's expectations would be greatly exceeded by the
real returns. In fact, as he boasted afterwards, with ex-
cusable pride, the profits of the work rendered him inde-
pendent for life.
And it cannot be denied that the success
it met with was deserved. He devoted five years to the
work, and, numerous as have been the translations of the
same poem since his day, it remains unapproachable, not
only in poetical excellence, but in fidelity to the author, the
point in which it might have been the more expected to
1688-1744.]
237
POPE.
fail, since Pope notoriously knew little if any Greek. But
it was successful beyond the author's warmest expectations.
Even the scholars who disparaged it at its first appearance
as a rendering of Homer, like Bentley, who told Pope him-
self that he must not call it Homer, admitted, like him also,
that it was 'a pretty poem.' Its beauty, as such, was of
course more highly appreciated by those who were less
able to compare it with the original: the great majority of
readers. The demand for it was so great that it was
pirated in Holland: the first English book, I believe, that
ever was so treated; and that it should have been worth
while to perpetrate such a piece of roguery, if a great loss.
to the publisher, was a great compliment to the author.
The one drawback to his success was that it lost him the
friendship of Addison. A great deal of warm advocacy has
been spent on the question who was most in fault; but
it seems plain that Addison gave the provocation. The
genus irritabile vatum has passed into a proverb, and no
doubt both were men of jealous tempers; while to Addison's
vexation at finding that one so much younger than himself
had superseded him in the general opinion as the literary
dictator of the day, was added political difference, which
just at this time was unusually bitter. Stories are told of
wranglings between them and mutual reproaches a year
or two before; but the quarrel was rendered irreconcileable
when, two days after the publication of the first volume
of Pope's 'Iliad,' a rival translation came out by Tickell, a
friend of Addison, in which Addison himself was believed
to have had a considerable share, and which, at all events,
he took every opportunity of extolling above Pope's. He
so little succeeded in inducing the public at large to agree
with him, that Tickell did not find it worth his while to
proceed with his task, while Pope was encouraged by the
success of his translation to follow it up with proposals for
translating the 'Odyssey,' of which, however, he only did a
part, many of the books being the work of Fenton and
Broome, whom he took as colleagues in the undertaking,
Broome being the scholar to whom he is believed to have
been indebted for most of the notes in the Iliad.'
6
As I
am only speaking of Pope as a poet, I should not think it
238
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
necessary to mention his edition of Shakespeare, which he
undertook at the same time that the 'Odyssey' was proceed-
ing, were it not that it is connected in some degree with
his celebrated satire, the 'Dunciad,' since the writer whom
in the first edition he enthroned as King of the Dunces
was Theobald, whose real crime, as Johnson says, was that
he had 'revised Shakespeare more happily than himself.'
Nor shall I stop to discuss the satire itself. It is, no doubt,
as a work of art, among the most brilliant of his produc-
tions; but, unless those attacked are men in whose charac-
ters, for good or evil, posterity takes an interest, few satires
command attention after the occasion which has provoked
them has passed by. And the main object of the 'Dun-
ciad' is to prove that those whom it condemns as deserving
oblivion never ought to have attracted notice. When, in
the course of the poem, Pope took upon himself to decide
on the merits not only of British versifiers, but of classical
scholars, and ranked the great author of the 'Dissertation
on the Epistles of Phalaris' beneath the editor of those
clumsy forgeries, he exposed his own presumption in
taking on himself to pronounce an authoritative decision
on matters in which he had not sufficient knowledge to
enable him even to form an opinion. The 'Dunciad' was
published in 1729, but before he began it he had been
planning, and no doubt in part composing, the work which
is more known at the present day, with the exception,
perhaps, of the 'Rape of the Lock,' than any of his other
writings; the Essay on Man;' and in 1732 he published
the first book, anonymously, as he did the second and third,
fearing, according to Johnson, the criticism of the crowd of
writers whom he had provoked by the 'Dunciad,' and
hoping, while the work was not known to be his, to entrap
them into praises which they would be unable afterwards
to recant. It was not till the fourth and last book came
out that he avowed himself to be the author, and inscribed
it to Bolingbroke, to whose suggestion he owed the idea
of the undertaking, with many of the principles laid down
in the poem. Bolingbroke had returned from exile a few
years before, and had at once renewed his intimacy with
the poet, whose fame had by this time reached such a
C
1688-1744.]
239
POPE.
height that he was caressed, it would hardly be too much
to say courted, by the leaders of all parties, not only by
him and other Tories, such as the daring and eccentric
Peterborough, of whose friendship he boasts with excusable
pride, coupling them together in one of his earlier imitations
of Horace :
Then St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul;
And he, whose lightning pierc'd the Ibnian lines,
Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines,
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain
Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain : ¹
but by the minister also whom they regarded as their
implacable enemy, and who generally cared but little for
literature or art; the great Sir Robert Walpole; but who
admitted him to the intimacy of
his happiest hour
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power;
and himself presented the 'Dunciad' to the King and
Queen. Indeed, the list of men whom in the Epilogue to the
Satires Pope enumerates as those whom
he long had lov'd, nor lov'd in vain,
Rank'd with their friends, not numbered with their train,2
comprises nearly all the names of the highest reputation
in the kingdom during the first half of the last century.
Johnson mentions a report that Bolingbroke, an avowed
sceptic, in private ridiculed Pope for having adopted his
advice; as having, in consequence, in the poem 'advance、l
principles of which he did not perceive the consequences,
and as blindly propagated opinions contrary to his own.'
This, if true, would be the severest condemnation conceiv-
able: it is countenanced a little by the circumstance that
onc or two lines in the first edition did involve a denial, or
at least, a disparagement of the wisdom of the Almighty,
as the Creator of the universe, which in later editions were
altered. And it may well be that Pope did not fully discern
all the conclusions to which his arguments might lead,
Sat. I. v. 127.
2
Epilogue, ii. 90.
240
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
since his mind was hardly of that accurate cast which is suited
to carry on a profound philosophical investigation. He
tells us himself, in his preface, that he might have discussed
the subject in prose, but he chose verse; partly because he
found he could express his maxims 'more shortly' in verse
than in prose; and also because when 'so written, they
both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are
more easily retained by him afterwards.' The object im-
plied in this latter has been, to a great extent, answered.
As an argumentative work indeed the poem is probably
never referred to or consulted. But the illustrations, of
exquisite beauty, which are lavished so prodigally on every
part of the poem, are still read, re-read, and quoted as
frequently as any verses in the language; the perfection
of separate parts is allowed to make up for any defects
which the poem shows as a whole, and deservedly con-
stitutes it one of the most enduring pillars of his great
fame.
All his later works are of a similar kind. The four
'Moral Essays' are, as it were, a second part of the Essay
on Man,' in which the maxims laid down are enforced by
a more express reference to real, sometimes to living cha-
racters, than in the more important work. The 'Imitations
of Horace' greatly resemble the Essays. Rochester had set
the example of imitating one of Horace's Satires, and giving
them new point by the application to modern instances; and
Bolingbroke suggested to Pope the idea of imitating his
example. The same plan, at almost the same moment, had
occurred to Johnson, as yet unknown, and sceking any
subject for his pen by which he might hope to earn a liveli-
hood; and, singularly enough, 'London,' his imitation of
Juvenal's third Satire, came out the very same morning on
which Pope's imitations of Horace were published. They of
course display no original genius, but are admirable as
works of art; while the prologue and epilogue have higher
merit; and contain some of the most powerful delineations
of personal character, whether friendly or satirical, that ever
came from his pen.
Of his 'Ode on St. Cecilia's Day,' I shall speak when I
come to compare it with Dryden's, in our examination of
1688-1744.]
241
POPE.
lyric poetry in general. And his other works, being of
inferior importance, scarcely require special notice. And for
the same reason we may pass over his prose writings, though
many of his squibs, such as the 'Life of Martinus Scriblerus,'
and his treatise On the Art of Sinking in Poetry,' display
a lively humour. His health had always been delicate, and
in May 1744 he died, after a short illness, at the age of
fifty-six, evincing (though he had never shown any special
regard for religion in his life) a desire to die in union with
the Romish Church, and sending for a priest to administer
to him the last sacraments: a proceeding at which Boling-
broke professed to be greatly scandalised, though, to all
appearance, he was sincere in his sorrow for his loss, and
in the eulogy which he passed upon him, that he had
'never known a man who had so tender a heart for his
particular friends, or a more general friendship for man-
kind.' His private character has been discussed with a
warmth almost amounting to acrimony, almost within the
recollection of the present generation; one writer, while
editing his works, doing his best to fix on him the imputa-
tions of malignity and treachery; while Byron, in a warm
vindication of him, strove, on the other hand, to represent
him as nearly faultless in temper and disposition. His
constant panegyrics on Dryden, and confession of his
superiority, may be allowed to prove that, though jealous
of living rivals, he was not envious of well-deserved fame.
But it is not quite so easy to believe his assertion that in his
'Moral Essays' no character was taken from real life; nor
to acquit him of ingratitude in selecting, as the objects of
his covert attacks, more than one person to whom he was
under obligations which ought to have disarmed his hos-
tility. On his merit as a poet there is less difference of
opinion. Johnson, in an examination of it so masterly as
to leave succeeding critics little to do but to copy or
abridge it, affirms the 'constituent and fundamental prin-
ciple of his intellect to be good sense, a prompt and intuitive
perception of consonance and propriety.' To this he adds,
'genius, a mind active, ambitious, and adventurous;' and,
comparing him with Dryden, while he allows the elder
poct a richer fancy, a greater degree of poetical vigour,'
242
[CH XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(
<
or, in other words, a loftier natural genius, he assigns to
Pope the superiority in workmanship, and denies that
Dryden's are the better poems. If,' he says, the flights of
Dryden are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing; if
of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is
more regular and constant. If Dryden often surpasses
expectation, Pope never falls below it. If Dryden is read
with frequent astonishment, Pope is read with perpetual
delight.' And in another part of his criticism we find a
sentence which explains why, in spite of an inferiority of
natural powers which he discerns in Pope, he yet places
the works of the two in an equal rank; and which marks
Pope out in an especial degree as the best of models for the
youthful student: Pope was not content to satisfy he
desired to excel; and therefore he always endeavoured
to do his best.'
C
:
The following extract contains the greater part of the
second canto of the Rape of the Lock,' than which none
of his works more completely justify the verdict of Johnson
that, even if Dryden's natural gifts were of a higher order,
he has not produced more perfect poems. It may be
doubted whether Dryden was capable of giving such
delicate touches as those with which Pope has embellished
his portrait of the lady, or the sprightly playfulness with
which the voyage of the painted vessel' is described;
while the duties of the sylphs and sylphids are expounded
by their chief with an impressive dignity very appropriate
to the title he himself gave the poem, of heroi-comical.
Not with more glories, in th' ethereal plain,
The sun first rises o'er the purple main,
Than issuing forth, the rival of his beams,
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs and well-drest youths around her shone,
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those :
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends,
Oft she rejects but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
1688-1744.]
243
POPE.
t
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide her faults, if belles have faults to hide:
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind
In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck
With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck.
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.
With hairy springes we the birds betray,
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
Th' adventurous Baron the bright locks admir'd;
He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspir'd.
Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover's toils attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.
For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implor'd
Propitious heav'n, and every pow'r ador'd,
But chiefly Love-to Love an altar built,
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,
And all the trophies of his former loves;
With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three am'rous sighs to raise the fire.
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes,
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize:
The Pow'rs gave ear, and granted half his prayer,
The rest the winds dispers'd in empty air.
But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides:
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And soften'd sounds along the waters die;
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay.
All but the Sylph, with careful thoughts opprest,
Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
He summons straight his denizens of air,
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair;
Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe,
That seem❜d but Zephyrs to the train beneath.
12
244
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
Transparent forms too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light,
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew,
Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies,
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes;
While ev'ry beam new transient colour flings,
Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings.
Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,
Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd;
His purple pinions op'ning to the sun,
He rais'd his azure wand, and thus begun :-
Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear,
Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Demons, hear!
Ye know the spheres, and various tasks assign'd,
By laws eternal, to th' aërial kind.
Some in the fields of purest ether play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.
Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high,
Or roll the planets through the boundless sky.
Some, less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light,
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain.
Others, on earth, o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide:
Of these the chief the care of nations own,
And guard with arms divine the British Throne.
Our humble province is to tend the fair,
Not a less pleasing though less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let th' imprison'd essences exhale;
To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow'rs ;
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in show're,
A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs;
Nay, oft in dreams, invention we bestow,
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow.
This day, black omens threat the brightest fair
That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care,
1688-1744.]
245
POPE.
Some dire disaster, or by force or slight;
But what, or where, the fates have wrapped in night.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail china jar receive a flaw
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade,
Forget her pray'rs, or miss a masquerade:
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball,
Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall.
Haste then, ye spirits! to your charge repair:
The flutt'ring fan be Zephyretta's care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;
And Momentilla, let the watch be thine;
Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite Lock;
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.
The observations on the Essay on Man' contained in the
biographical sketch are borne out by the extreme beauty
of the following passage :-
(Essay on Man, I. 77.)
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know,
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n :
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruins hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, He gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.¹
We may compare with this the following passage from Pope's most
successful disciple of the present century: Campbell.
What potent spirit guides the raptur'd eyo
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
133
246
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The soul (uneasy and confin'd) from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat❜ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire ;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
The following passage is that to which allusion was made
on presenting Dryden's portrait of Zimri.
(Moral Essays, Epistle iii. 299.)
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies,-alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay in Cliefden's proud alcove,
The bow'r of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at Council, in a ring
Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter, left of all his store !
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame; this lord of useless thousands ends.
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heav'nly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?
Ah no! she darkly sees the fate of man,
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;
Or, if she hold an image to the view,
'Tis nature painted too severely true.
With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heav'nly light,
That pours remotost rapture on the sight.
Pleasures of Hope, i, 24.
1688-1744.]
247
POPE.
The following exquisite portrait of a perfect woman is
believed to have been meant for Mrs. Martha Blount.
(Moral Essays, Epistle ii. 256.)
Oh! blest with temper whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;
She who can love a sister's charms, or hear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;
She who ne'er answers till her husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shews she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humour most when she obeys;
Let fops or fortune fly which way they will;
Disdains all loss of tickets, or codille;
Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all,
And mistress of herself, though china fall.
And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at best a contradiction still.
Heav'n, when it strives to polish all it can
Its last best work, but forms a softer man;
Picks from each sex to make the fav'rite blest,
Your love of pleasure, our desire of rest :
Blends, in exception to all gen'ral rules,
Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools
Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied,
Courage with softness, modesty with pride
Fix'd principles, with fancy ever new;
Shakes altogether, and produces—You.
GOLDSMITH.
Or Goldsmith's life we have spoken under the head of
the dramatists. The poems to which the following extracts
belong are both, as we have said, believed to have been
drawn mainly from his own experiences. The character
given of the French is as remarkable for its nice dis-
crimination and sound judgment as for its poetry. The
portrait of the vicar in the second extract is generally
understood to be meant for the poet's own father.
(The Traveller, v. 239.)
To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
248
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And, freshen'd from the wave, the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch faltʼring still,
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour,
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
So blest a life these thoughtless realmis display,
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here.
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or e'en imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleas'd; they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.
(The Deserted Village, v. 137.)
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
1728-1774.]
249
GOLDSMITH.
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learnt to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain;
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bid to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won,
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.¹
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismay'd,
The reverend champion stood. At his controul,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
' Goldsmith is not perhaps very likely to have been a student of
Chaucer, but there is a remarkable similarity between this line and one
in the older poet's description of the 'pore persoun.'
But Criste's lore and his apostles twelve,
He taught, and ferst he followed it himselve.
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 528.
C.
250
[CH. XIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children follow'd with endearing wile
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
1770-1850.]
251
WORDSWORTH.
CHAPTER XIV.
WORDSWORTH.
A.D. 1770-1850.
GOLDSMITH was evidently a pupil of the school of Pope.
But towards the end of the century there sprang up a
band of writers who made a parade of their contempt for
every poet since Milton; and showed, as far as their own
practice went, that they did not hold even the author of
Paradise Lost' in very high esteem. The first years of
the present century produced other poets of greater power
than those already alluded to, who partly agreed with
them, in their works departing as widely as they from the
examples of Dryden and Pope; but who partly differed
from them, inasmuch as they professed and sincerely enter-
tained the highest respect for the genius of the old bards,
and even acknowledged the inferiority of their own works
to theirs, and their own perversity in departing from such
models.
Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor,
was the spirit in which Byron spoke of Pope's poems and
his own; while Scott devoted many of his most indus-
trious hours to a careful edition of and criticism on Dryden's
works, and a minute and most elaborate biography of
the poet himself. I design to speak of all those to whom
I have here alluded, taking first those who first came
before the public as authors, the poets of the Lake School
as they are commonly called; though no more absurd
misnomer was ever given, for instead of forming a school,
an expression which clearly implies a close resemblance
between the men, or at least between their works, there
never were three writers more entirely different from each
other in the frame and structure of their minds, or in the
252
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
style of their composition, than Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Southey, the friends who, sixty years ago, were classed
together under this designation.
We will take Wordsworth first, not so much because he
was the eldest, though he was so by a year or two; nor
as the first in genius and poetical power, for in those
qualities he was probably inferior to one, if not to both
of his friends; but because, in another point of view, I look
on him as the most important of the three at the present
day, as having influenced in a far greater degree the style
of the pocts of the present generation, or, at all events,
that of the most fashionable of them, Tennyson, his suc-
cessor in the post of poet-laureate. His life, as is that of
most men wholly given up to literature, was so uneventful
as to afford a biographer little more to relate than the
names of his works. He was the son of a Cumberland
attorney, whose chief business was the agency to a part of
Lord Lonsdale's estates. He was educated at one of the
small grammar-schools of the county, where, apparently,
very little pains were taken with the education of the
pupils in school-hours, and no care whatever was devoted
to them at other times. They learnt but little Latin and
Greek (and in those days nothing else was ever taught),
and they roved about the country wherever they pleased
when they were not learning: a training, if it can be so
called, which was less injurious to him than it would be
to most boys, and which probably contributed to give him
that keen insight into and relish for the beauties of creation
which are the peculiar and most attractive features of his
poetry, and to which he mainly owes his reputation.
When he was fourteen he lost his father: his mother had
been dead some years; and, being left to the guardianship
of her brothers, his only near relatives, one of whom was
a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, he was entered
there at eighteen, and remained there till he took his de-
gree in 1791, spending his last long vacation in a walking
tour through France, which he repeated the next year,
making a long sojourn in the country for the purpose of
learning the language. This he accomplished to a certain
extent; but, unluckily, he became at the same time in-
ا
1770-1850.]
253
WORDSWORTH.
fected with the revolutionary mania then raging in that
country, which was not quenched in his mind even by the
horrors of the September massacres. Before the end of
1792 he returned home, and the next year embarked in
the career which he pursued unceasingly to the end of his
days, publishing a very small volume of poems, part of
which had been written in the first year of his Cambridge
life. In the judgment of most of his friends, they showed
very little power, or even originality; the most remark-
able thing about them being perhaps the complete differ-
ence which they prove between his idea at that time what
poetry should be, and the system which he afterwards
proclaimed; for the longer poem, 'Descriptive Sketches
taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps,' is a
manifest imitation of Goldsmith's Traveller.' Yet some-
thing in them struck a young aspirant after fame in the
same field, who afterwards became his warm friend and
most enthusiastic admirer: Coleridge, who, to quote his
own words, saw in the language, which he thought
'peculiar and strong,' and in the novelty and struggling
crowd of images,' 'the emergence of an original poetic
genius above the literary horizon.' He conceived an
earnest desire for the writer's acquaintance; and at last,
when it seemed unlikely to be attained in any other way,
he paid him a visit at a little cottage in Dorsetshire,
where Wordsworth was living, with a sister, who kept
house for him. They soon returned his visit; he was
living in an equally humble way in Somersetshire, and the
friendship thus formed led to a poetical partnership. They
resolved on taking a trip together; and as both were
nearly destitute of funds, they proposed to raise the neces-
sary supplies by another volume of poems. By this time
Wordsworth (though his original preparation for a poetical
career had been mainly a study of the old English poets,
especially Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton) had
convinced himself that they and everyone else who had
written verse in England were, to a certain extent, in a
wrong track; or, at all events, that an equal effect might
be produced by taking subjects of a different class,
1 Biographia Literaria, i. 75.
な
​254
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
'1
describing matters of everyday life, and directing the
attention to the loveliness and wonders of the ordinary
world and common out-of-door nature. Coleridge appre-
ciated his friend's ideas and aim, but conceived his own
powers to lie in a different direction, in the 'portrayal of
persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic;
and, both apparently feeling that a volume containing speci-
mens of each style would have a better chance of a favorable
reception from the public than one confined to subjects of
one class only, in 1798 they published a volume of
'Lyrical Ballads,' which, however, was nearly all Words-
worth's; Coleridge, who was at all times indolent, and,
even when working, most desultory in his industry, con-
tributing little more than one piece, short for a poem if
long for a ballad, the 'Ancient Mariner.' For our present
purpose, therefore, we may speak of the volume as Words-
worth's alone. It was at first but ill received; so ill that
when, a few months afterwards, the publisher retired from
business, and sold his copyrights, that of the 'Lyrical Bal-
lads' was valued at 'nothing,' and returned to him. But
when, a year or two afterwards, he republished them with
the addition of a few more pieces from his own pen, though
they were then accompanied by a preface which laid down
some new principles of poetry which bore the appearance
of a challenge to critics that some of them were not slow to
take up, they rose in popularity. In truth the volume was
a type of all his subsequent works, alike in its beauties and
in its faults. It contained some poems marked by exquisite
pathos, and bursts of natural feeling admirably expressed.
with others, trivial, and puerile in the last degree. There
is certainly no poet in our language, probably none in any,
in estimating whose talent it is more necessary to bear
constantly in mind the rule which I ventured to lay down at
the beginning of this volume, that the standard by which we
estimate the genius of the poet differs from that by which
we judge of the excellence of his work; since, in measuring
the former, we have regard chiefly to the height to which
he at times rises, and avert our eyes, as far as possible,
from the depths to which he occasionally sinks. That
1 Biographia Literaria, ii. 2.
1770-1850.]
255
WORDSWORTH.
Wordsworth should often sink to depths to which none of
his predecessors had descended was inseparable from his
system, even as he himself explained it. In the preface
above-mentioned, he declared his object to be to choose
his 'incidents and situations from common life,' from
'humble and rustic life,' and to adopt the language of men
of that class of life, because, being less under the influence
of vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple
and unelaborated expressions; adding that, so far from
'what is usually called poetic diction being found in his
volumes, as much pains had been taken to avoid it as is
usually taken to produce it;' he wished, in short, to show,
as he sums up his views, 'that the language of prose may yet
be well adapted to poetry.' It was inevitable that poems
composed on these principles should often be tame, trivial,
and unattractive: it is almost surprising that they were not
at times coarse and vulgar; but from such errors his instinc-
tive purity kept him free: nor, severe as were the criticisms
which the puerilities visible in every one of his publications
provoked, did anyone ever accuse him of offending, either
in idea or in expression, against the strictest rules of well-
bred propriety. Indeed, the judgments passed on his works
even by those who condemned his system most severely,
were neither animated by an unfriendly spirit, nor ever
failed to do justice to the real talent which was also dis-
cernible in them. Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh
Review,' was perhaps of all his reviewers the most earnest
and the most powerful of those who denounced his succes-
sive volumes; and he is so far from denying the praise of
high ability to the man, that he assigns as the principal
reason for the zeal he shows in the condemnation of his
works, his vexation at such 'perverseness and bad taste '
being allowed to mar the effect which might have been
produced by the 'genius and laudable feeling' which was
equally conspicuous. And again, in a review of the 'Excur-
sion' written several years later, he deplores the dispro-
portion which exists between the author's taste and his
genius, and the devotion with which he has sacrificed so
many precious gifts at the shrine of his idols.' Scott also,
who was a personal friend of the poet, expressed in a letter
256
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
a similar regret that he should so often choose to crawl on
all fours when God had given him a noble countenance to
lift up to heaven.'
But the evidences of candour and goodwill thus displayed
had not the slightest influence in inducing him to amend the
faults which such friendly critics pointed out. As a boy, he
had been remarkable for wayward, wilful stubbornness in
a singular degree, and he had preserved these qualities.
undiminished. If the critics disapproved of a single ballad,
so much the worse for the critics. On the publication of
one of his works, a lady whose husband had shown himself
one of his most efficient, as well as most judicious friends,
expressed her wishes for its success; but he replied that it
was sure not to succeed, for the generation was stiff-
necked, and would never bow down before him,' and of
deferring to its opinions for a single moment, or in a single
point, he had no notion. Even the desire of profit, though,
till he was past forty, he was in painfully narrow circum-
stances, could not induce him to make the least attempt to
humour the public. So limited was the sale of even his
most popular volumes that, when he had been continually
writing and publishing for more than twenty years, he
found, on making the calculation, that in all that time he
had received but little more than 1007. But he was con-
tented not to sell; and so far was superior to Horace's
philosopher ¹ that he continued to applaud himself even
when he had no money in his strongbox to testify that
others coincided in the panegyric.2
1
'Horace's maxim rather was to postpone such obstinacy till he was
rich :--
Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.
2 It was a graver fault than mingling poor poems with good ones, that
he was himself a most uncandid judge of others, whether living or dead.
A judicious and evidently friendly critic in the Quarterly Review'
(Dec. 1852), to whose article the present writer is much indebted, ad-
mits that the harshest reviewer did him more justice than he was wont
to deal out to his greatest contemporaries. His mind was not merely
dead to their beauties and alive to their faults, but he sometimes in-
dulged in an extravagance of censure that had no foundation whatever.
Verses which stirred the most cultivated minds like the sound of
•
1770-1850.]
257
WORDSWORTH.
At last, when he was forty-one, fortune smiled on him,
though in a most unpoetical way. Lord Lonsdale procured
him the office of distributor of stamps for Westmoreland,
which was worth above 5001. a-year. So that he could now
devote himself more freely than ever to the task which he
had set himself of teaching the world that its judgment of
all the poetry which it had hitherto been wont to admire
was wrong, and that he alone, for some generations at
least, had understood and shown how poetry ought to be
conceived and written. The only difference was that he
now put forth his lessons at greater length. Up to this
time he had only written short poems, sonnets, and odes ;
but in 1814 he published what, if it had been completed,
would have been the longest poem ever written in any
language the 'Excursion,' in nine books, the whole being
but 'a part of the second part of a long and laborious
work,' which was to consist of three parts. Even had not
inequality been the characteristic of all his works, this was
likely to be unequal, since portions of it had been written
twenty years before. And it was soon seen that, in this
and other respects, it was thoroughly characteristic of him.
In its weakest portions it was not much better than the worst
of the Lyrical Ballads;' while the scale of the work ex-
hibited another defect in his talents which had not been
seen while he confined himself to short pieces. He was
clearly destitute of the ability to plan an elaborate work, as
is made plain by his own words in the preface in explana-
tion of the apparent strangeness of publishing the middle
of a poem before its beginning. He does so because this
part does not depend upon the preceding to a degree which
will materially injure its own peculiar interest.' Another
and a heavier fault was its frequent obscurity: he raises
questions on disputed doctrines, both of philosophy and
religion, which need not have been mooted, but which, if
they were, required clear and distinct answers. But his
solutions of them are more mystical and unintelligible than
a trumpet, found no echo in his, because he was bound up in the thral-
dom of a system, that is, in the eternal contemplation of his own theories,
as exemplified in his own performances.'
258
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the difficulties themselves. And, if he was unconscious of
the absurdity of putting long philosophical speeches de-
signed to explain and enforce all his own peculiar doctrines
and favourite principles into the mouth of a pedlar,¹ he
certainly was the only man who was so. The rhythm too
(the poem is in blank verse) was often very harsh, not
probably from indifference on the subject, but from a want
of ear which is apparent in most of his works. But at the
same time, in its better parts, the 'Excursion' showed a great
increase, and also a variety, of power which he had hardly
displayed in any of his previous works, with a greater
knowledge of the heart and the feelings. Some of the pic-
tures of rustic life are distinguished by great delicacy; some
are drawn with great force, and nearly all with subtle dis-
crimination and truth. The next year he published the
'White Doe of Rylstone,' which is said in some respects.
to have been his own favourite among all his compositions.
And perhaps the first canto has passages of descriptive
beauty which may almost warrant the preference; but the
story, which relates how a girl suddenly bereaved of father
and mother could find no relief from her sorrow till a white
doe fawned upon her, with a kind of living intelligence,
when the caresses of the dumb animal healed the wound
whose anguish neither time nor reason nor religion had
been able to allay, is repugnant to common sense; while
the closing incident, the doe's apotheosis, finds no echo in
the reader's fancy, while it shocks his belief. In his pre-
face to a later edition of the 'White Doe' he protests against
his work being compared with Scott's, because, while 'Sir
Walter pursued the customary and very natural course of
conducting an action presenting various turns of fortune
to some outstanding point on which the mind might rest
as a termination or catastrophe,' his own course had been
1 Even Coleridge, writing in the avowed character of a warm friend
and champion, asks, 'Is there one word attributed to the pedlar in the
"Excursion" characteristic of a pedlar?' (Biog. Lit. ii. 150). Words-
worth is said to have stated, in explanation of his choice of such a hero,
that he has made him what he conceived that he himself should have
been had he been placed in such a station of life.
1770-1850.]
259
WORDSWORTH.
wholly different. The heroine here knew that her duty
was not to interfere with the current of events, either to
forward or delay them; but to abide
The shock, and finally secure
O'er pain and grief a triumph pure;
and, even with respect to the most objectionable part of his
plan, the apotheosis of the doe, while admitting it to be
far too spiritual a catastrophe for instant or widely spread
sympathy, he yet maintains that it is not on that account
the less fitted to make a deep and permanent impression.
on independent minds.' The metre too required either a
more vigorous hand, or a more musical ear to manage. It
was that eight-syllabled verse of which, according to Byron,
Scott alone had mastered 'the fatal facility,' till he himself
in the 'Giaour,' parts of the 'Bride of Abydos' and one or
two other poems, had shown himself equally competent to
handle it; and it was bold in an inferior artist to commit
himself to what looked like a challenge to such contempo-
raries. Yet, though for many years he continued his dili-
gence, he never wrote so well afterwards. 'Peter Bell' and
the 'Waggoner,' which he published five years later, were
almost beyond the ingenuity of his friends to excuse, and
the gems with which the volumes of miscellaneous poems,
which he continued to publish for fourteen or fifteen years
longer, occasionally sparkled, were of rarer occurrence and
feebler lustre.
He lived to the age of eighty. On Southey's death, he
had succeeded him as poet-laureate, but he was seventy-
three before he received that honour, which certainly could
not have been so fitly conferred on any living rival; and
he was justified in looking on it rather as an acknowledg-
ment of past services than as an incentive to fresh labours.
In 1850 he died, a few days after his birth-day; and was
buried at Grasmere, by the side of two of his children who
had preceded him to the grave.
In the following passage from the 'Excursion,' which is a
favorable specimen of his style, he evidently designs to
present a portrait of himself and of his own mind:
260
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
While yet a child, and long before his time,
Had he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
So vividly great objects that they lay
Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
Perplexed the bodily sense. He had received
A precious gift; for, as he grew in years,
With these impressions would he still compare
All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms;
And, being still unsatisfied with aught
Of dimmer character, he thence attained
An active power to fasten images
Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines
Intensely brooded, even till they acquired
The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail,
While yet a child, with a child's eagerness
Incessantly to turn his ear and eye
On all things which the moving seasons brought
To feed such appetite-nor this alone
Appeased his yearning:-in the after day
Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,
He sate, and even in their fixed lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne,
Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind,
Expression ever varying!
In his heart,
Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,
Was wanting yet the pure delight of love
By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,
Or by the silent looks of happy things,
Or flowing from the universal face
Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power
Of Nature, and already was prepared,
By his intense conceptions, to receive
Deeply the lesson deep of love which he
Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught
To feel intensely, cannot but receive.
Such was the boy--but for the growing Youth
What soul was his, when, from the naked top
1770-1850.
261
WORDSWORTH.
!
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked—
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
Beneath him :-Far and wide the clouds were touched,
And in their silent faces could he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form,
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request;
Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him; it was blessedness and love.
A herdsman on the lonely mountain tops,
Such intercourse was his, and in this sort
Was his existence oftentimes possessed.
Oh then how bright, how beautiful appeared
The written promise! Early had he learned
To reverence the volume that displays
The mystery, the life that cannot die;
But in the mountains did he feel his faith.
All things responsive to the writing, there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,
And greatness still revolving; infinite:
There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite, and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe,- he saw.
What wonder if his being thus became
Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires,
Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart
Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he called those ecstacies to mind,
And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired
Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he learned
In oft-recurring hours of sober thought
To look on Nature with a humble heart,
Self-questioned where it did not understand,
And with a superstitious eye of love.
*
262
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The passage which follows, explaining the principles which
led the heathens to the strange mythological worship which
even Socrates and Cicero could not venture to disown, is of
a far higher class of poetry.
The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,
Rivers, and fertile plains, and sounding shores,
Under a cope of sky more variable,
Could find commodious place for every god,
Promptly received, as prodigally brought
From the surrounding countries, at the choice
Of all adventurers. With unrivalled skill,
As nicest observation furnished hints
For studious fancy, his quick hand bestowed
On fluent operations a fixed shape;
Metal or stone idolatrously served.
And yet triumphant o'er this pompous show
Of art, this palpable array of sense,
On every side encountered; in despite
Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets
By wandering Rhapsodists; and in contempt.
Of doubt and bold denial hourly urged
Amid the wrangling schools-a spirit hung,
Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombs ;
And emanations were perceived; and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were fell
As bonds, on grave philosopher imposed
And armed warrior; and in every grove
A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed,
When piety more awful had relaxed.
'Take, running river, take these locks of mine'—
Thus would the Votary say-' this severed hair,
My vow fulfilling do I here present,
Thankful for my beloved child's return.
Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
Thy murmurs heard; and drunk the crystal lymph
With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
And all day long moisten these flowery fields!'
And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of life continuous, being unimpaired;
That hath been, is, and where it was, and is
1770-1850.]
263
WORDSWORTH.
There shall endure,-existence unexposed
To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution safe, and weakening age;
While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart, and leave no vestige where they trod.
There is an exquisite tenderness in the following passage,
and the imaginative delicacy with which he expresses his
delight in becoming a father may well make us regret, with
his contemporary critics, that a perverse taste should so
often have been allowed to mar such high gifts. It is a
strong condemnation of his system that, while other poets
lose rather than gain by the quotation of isolated passages
from their works, such a plan leads to a far more favor-
able judgment of him than could be justified by an examina
tion of any poem of his in its completeness
This fair Bride-
In the devotedness of youthful love,
Preferring me to parents, and the choir
Of gay companions, to the natal roof,
And all known places and familiar sights
(Resigned with sadness gently weighing down
Her trembling expectations, but no more
Than did to her due honour, and to me
Yielded, that day, a confidence sublime
In what I had to build upon)—this Bride,
Young, modest, meek, and beautiful, I led
To a low cottage in a sunny bay,
Where the salt sea innocuously breaks,
And the sea breeze as innocently breathes,
On Devon's leafy shores;—a sheltered hold,
In a soft clime encouraging the soil
To a luxuriant bounty !-As our steps
Approach the embowered abode-our chosen seat-
See rooted in the earth, her kindly bed,
The unendangered myrtle, decked with flowers,
Before the threshold stands to welcome us!
While in the flowering myrtle's neighbourhood,
Not overlooked, but courting no regard,
Those native plants, the holly and the yew,
Gave modest intimation to the mind
How willingly their aid they would unite
With the green myrtle, to endear the hours
264
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Of winter, and protect that pleasant place.
Wild were the walks upon those lonely Downs
Track leading into track; how marked, how worn
Into bright verdure, between fern and gorse,
Winding away its never-ending line
On their smooth surface, evidence was none;
But, there, lay open to our daily haunt,
A range of unappropriated earth,
Where youth's ambitious feet might move at large;
Whence, unmolested wanderers, we beheld
The shining giver of the day diffuse
His brightness o'er a tract of sea and land
Gay as our spirits, free as our desires;
As our enjoyments, boundless.-From those heights
We dropped, at pleasure, into sylvan combs;
Where arbours of impenetrable shade,
And mossy seats, detained us side by side,
With hearts at ease, and knowledge in our hearts
'That all the grove, and all the day was ours.'
O happy time! still happier was at hand;
For Nature called my Partner to resign
Her share in the pure freedom of that life,
Enjoyed by us in common.-To my hope,
To my heart's wish, my tender Mate became
The thankful captive of maternal bonds
And those wild paths were left to me alone.
There could I meditate on follies past;
And, like a weary voyager escaped
From riek and hardship, inwardly retrace
A course of vain delights, and thoughtless guilt,
And self-indulgence-without shame pursued.
There, undisturbed, could think of and could thank
Her whose submissive spirit was to me
Rule and restraint-my guardian-shall I say
That earthly Providence, whose guiding love
Within a port of rest had lodged me safe;
Safe from temptation and from danger far.
Of the 'White Doe of Rylstone' we have already spoken.
Its prettiest passage is that with which it opens :
From Bolton's old monastic tower
The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun shines bright, the fields are gay
With people in their best array
1770-1850.]
265
WORDSWORTH.
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,
Through the vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands see,
What sprinklings of bright company !
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they ?
And thus in joyous mood they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.
What would they there? Full fifty years
That sumptuous pile, with all its peers,
Too harshly hath been doomed to taste
The bitterness of wrong and waste:
Its courts are ravaged; but the tower
Is standing with a voice of power,
That ancient voice which wont to call
To mass or some high festival;
And in the shattered fabric's heart
Remaineth one protected part;
A Chapel, like a wild-bird's nest,
Closely embowered and trimly drest;
And thither young and old repair,
This sabbath day for praise and prayer.
Fast the churchyard fills;-anon
Look again, and they all are gone,
The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the Prior's Oak !
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard :
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel;
For 'tis the sunrise now of zeal;
Of a pure faith the vernal prime-
In great Eliza's golden time.
A moment ends the fervent din
And all is hushed without and within
For though the priest more tranquilly
Recites the holy liturgy,
The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near
266
[CH. XIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
When soft! the dusky trees between,
And down the path through the open green,
Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon gateway where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the churchyard ground—
Comes gliding in, with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in, serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,
A solitary Doe.
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in Heaven;
Or like a ship some gentle day
In sunshine sailing far away,
A glittering ship, that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain.
What harmonious pensive changes
Wait upon her as she ranges
Round and through this pile of state
Overthrown and desolate!
Now a step or two her way
Leads through space of open day,
Where the enamoured sunny light
Brightens her that was so bright;
Now doth a delicate shadow fall,
Falls upon her like a breath,
From some lofty arch or wall,
As she passes underneath :
Now some gloomy nook partakes
Of the glory that she makes,—
High-ribb'd vault of stone, or cell,
With perfect cunning framed as well
Of stone, and ivy, and the spread
Of the elder's bushy head;
Some jealous and forbidding cell,
With perfect cunning framed as well,
Of stone, and ivy, and the spread
Of the elder's bushy head;
Some jealous and forbidding cell,
That doth the living stars repel,
And where no flower hath leave to dweil.
1770-1850.]
267
WORDSWORTH.
Sonnets are a class of composition of which he was
especially fond. A poem limited to fourteen lines seems to
cramp the genius in unnecessary fetters. But the date of
that which follows, marking the close of the year in which
Napoleon struck down Prussia, shows how completely he
had overcome his early predilection for revolutionary prin-
ciples, while it exhibits also a fine manly feeling of patriotic
courage and self-reliance.
(Sonnet, November 29, 1606.)
Another year! another deadly blow!
Another mighty empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the foe.
'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must he wrought;
That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.
O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.
13
*
268
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XV.
COLERIDGE.
A.D. 1772-1834.
If we regarded his works only, our mention of Coleridge
would more properly be postponed till we come to the
lyric poets; but in his lifetime he was so constantly
associated with Wordsworth and Southey in the opinion of
the public, that it seems better to speak of him here in
connection with them.
If Southey be, as we shall presently see, the one of the
poetical brotherhood of the Lakes who unquestionably did
the most, Coleridge was the one, in the opinion of all their
friends, who might have done the most, had any circum-
stances whatever been powerful enough to bind down his
brilliant, profound, but most desultory genius to the steady
application necessary for the successful prosecution of any
pursuit, or the completion of any laborious task. In age
he came between the two; being two years younger than
Wordsworth, and as many older than Southey. He was
the youngest of a large family, the son of the Vicar of
Ottery, a small town in Devonshire, who combined with
the living the mastership of the grammar-school which
Henry VIII. had founded there. And there he would pro-
bably have received his education, had not his father died
suddenly in 1781, when he was nine years old, on which
his friends procured him a nomination to Christ's Hospital.
In an autobiographical series of letters he relates that he
was a timid boy, taking no delight in the ordinary sports
of his schoolfellows, but a most incessant and indiscriminate
reader. At eighteen he was removed to Jesus College,
Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by gaining the
gold medal for the Greek ode in his first year. But before
he could take his degree he got disgusted with the Uni-
versity, and enlisted as a dragoon, a line of life for which
1772-1834.]
269
COLERIDGE.
I am
he was especially ill-qualified, as he could learn neither to
ride nor to groom his horse; but his family soon bought
his discharge and sent him back to Cambridge. He did
not, however, take a degree. In fact, at that time he had
learnt to entertain doubts on the teaching of the Church
on certain points, and would not have signed the Thirty-
nine Articles. And he was apparently hesitating what
career to choose, when an acquaintance which, in the
course of 1794, he made with Southey, then an under-
graduate at Oxford, led to the formation of the wildest
plan that was ever conceived by men of, not only ability,
but common sense and right feeling. He, Southey, and
one or two more men of the same age, formed what they
called a pantisocratic society, on the principle of the aboli-
tion of all individual property; and, as they could not hope
to be allowed to carry out these views, much less to obtain
proselytes to them in England, they resolved to emigrate
to the banks of the Susquehanna, where they expected
better fortune. The very time of the intended emigration,
March 1795, was fixed upon, and during the preceding
autumn, the quartet (for the credit of common sense,
glad to say, the society numbered only four members)
applied themselves diligently to learning' the theory and
practice of agriculture and carpentry,' to fit them for their
new mode of life. But before the spring Southey's heart
failed him; his defection led to the renunciation of the
project, of which the only permanent result was that
Coleridge, as well as Southey, fell in love with the sisters
of the wife of Mr. Lovell, who was one of the club; and,
in October 1795, Coleridge married, and resolved to devote
himself to literary composition; writing poems for plea-
sure and a magazine in which politics and literature were
combined for profit. It was called the Watchman.'
The politics were of the most revolutionary type, and he
took a tour through the midland counties to obtain sub-
scribers, in which object he was more successful than might
have been expected, considering the extent to which he
allowed his politics to interfere with his desire to puff his
wares: as, when at Sheffield, on finding that the editor of
a radical newspaper 'was in gaol for a libel on a bloody-
minded magistrate,' he declined 'advertising or even dis-
270
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
posing of' the 'Watchman' in that town for fear of clashing
with the interests of the amiable prisoner. On the other
hand, he furthered his scheme in a somewhat novel manner
by preaching in Unitarian chapels in a blue coat and white
waistcoat, and giving the audience sermons preciously
peppered with politics.' In later life he renounced both
the political and religious views of his youth, becoming a
sincere churchman and an earnest Tory. But his scheme
failed. After a few numbers his subscribers fell off; one
anonymous letter, which he preserved, in a great measure
explaining the reason.
Sir, I detest your principles: your prose I think very so-so;
but your poetry is so beautiful that I take in your 'Watchman'
solely on account of it. In justice therefore to me and some others
of my stamp, I entreat you to give us more verse and less demo-
cratic scurrility.-Your admirer, not esteemer.
But he did not comply with his admirer's request, keep-
ing most of his poems for separate publication, and publishing
a volume of them in the course of the summer, which con-
tained most of those which, in the collected edition of his
works, are entitled 'Poems written in Youth.' One of these,
called 'Religious Musings,' which seems to have been a pecu-
liar favourite of his own, provoked criticism from some of his
friends as being 'too metaphysical for common readers.' His
reply, conceived quite in the same spirit as animated Words-
worth, was that 'it was not written for common readers; '
but he differed from his friend in the candour with which
he admitted, and the docility with which he corrected
faults. He had ventured upon the manufacture of new
words: unshuddered, unaghasted, meaning, I presume, not
standing aghast, not terrified into shuddering, or perhaps
not shuddered at. And such he admitted to be instances
of vicious phraseology, and expunged them. But neither
poetry nor politics paid; and, as it was indispensable that
he should earn money, he began to revolve two plans in
his mind one, that of abjuring literature, and becoming
a Dissenting minister; the other, that of perfecting himself
in German, taking up his residence at Jena, where Schiller
was living, translating all that great writer's works to
support himself, while studying at the University in that
:
1772-1834.]
271
COLERIDGE.
town; and, having finished that task, and acquired a suffi-
cient knowledge of chemistry, anatomy, German theo-
logy and metaphysics, he proposed to return to England.
and open a school on an entirely novel system, but one
which should make his 'scholars better senators than
perhaps any one member in either House of Parliament.'
Both those schemes, however, were abandoned, as were
several others. He began to suffer from ill-health, which,
with the remedies to which he had recourse for relief, his
chief medicine being opium, gradually produced an effect
on his nerves, which, to a certain extent, incapacitated him
for settled, systematic work. It was probably the real
cause of the scantiness of his contributions to the 'Lyrical
Ballads' of which I spoke in my sketch of Wordsworth: and
it certainly prevented his ever executing any work worthy
of his great powers. Yet, a year or two later, he undertook
an employment which, above all other talents, requires
method, readiness, and a power of instantly applying the
mind to any subject. He had always taken a keen interest.
in politics, and in 1799 he entered into an engagement with
the editor of a London paper, the 'Morning Post,' to supply
it with a daily article. When the editorship of the 'Post'
passed into other hands, he made a similar engagement
with the 'Courier.' And to both he contributed not only
many prose articles far beyond the usual run of newspaper
writing in that day, but many short poems; raising the
character, and, it is believed, increasing the sale of the
papers. But the work was wholly unsuited, if not to his
talents, to his habits. He could not write to order; neither
when he was wanted, nor what was wanted. One of the
editors rated his abilities so highly that he declared that,
as a writer of 'leading paragraphs, he would prefer him
to Mackintosh, Burke, or any man he ever heard of.'1
But he said, at the same time, that he 'never wrote a
thing he was requested to write.' 'When he got into his
study, if the printer's devil was not at his elbow hurrying
him for "
copy" he lost himself.' Still this kind of em-
ployment was his chief support for above ten years; varied
by an occasional trip to other countries for the sake of his
¹ Biog. Lit. ii. 395.
272
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
health, and by other occupations, such as that of a lecturer,
principally on literary subjects. He wrote a tragedy also,
'Remorse ;' which, in 1813, was performed with great
success at the time, though, I believe, it was never repro-
duced; and in fact, it is strange that it should have
succeded at all, for Coleridge's genius was far from being
dramatic, and though it contains some fine passages, the
plot is full of the wildest improbabilities. He succeeded
better when he rendered Schiller's Wallenstein' into
English, executing that translation with a skill which, as
far as I know, is absolutely unequalled, and which presents
the play to the English reader with all the vigour and
effect of an original composition; with more, indeed,
according to Walter Scott, than the original possessed.¹ In
1816 he published the poem which by many has been ex-
tolled as his most beautiful production,' Christabel;' which
had, indeed, been written many years before, and had been
shown in portions to so many persons that the greatest
expectations had been raised of it. It was known even
to have had the honour of suggesting to Scott the metre
for The Lay of the Last Minstrel.' But, when it was
published as a whole, it certainly did not equal the expec-
tations that had been formed of it, either in the music of
its metre, or in the richness of its imaginative beauties.
If Scott had taken the metre for a model, both he and
Byron had far surpassed it in energy, in sweetness, and in
variety, while some of the lines and even passages sank to
the level of Wordsworth's most trivial ballads. The
'Sibylline Leaves,' which appeared the next year, contained
some very pretty, tender ballads; but nothing of anything
like first-rate excellence; nor, though he was not yet five-
and-forty, did he ever afterwards produce anything of
greater importance. He has been especially fortunate in
one thing: in having his works edited by a son-in-law of
rare abilities, too early cut off, and his memoir begun by
him and completed by that son-in-law's wife, a woman in
intellectual accomplishments worthy of her husband. And
it is remarkable that she, writing of her father with a natural
fondness and pride, fixes the year 1797 as that of his 'poetical
Coleridge made Schiller's Wallenstein' far finer than he found it.
Lockhart's Life, chap. xlii
1772-1834.]
273
COLERIDGE.
zenith,' apparently being contented to rest his fame as a
poet on his 'Ancient Mariner,' a work which may, indeed,
be wild and imaginative, but which seems to me greatly
overrated when it is spoken of as not only the foundation of
a great fame, but the superstructure also. Walter Scott,
whose unrivalled genius could allow him to be candid to all
his contemporaries, while his equally admirable disposition
rendered him incapable of jealousy, much more of envy,
characterises him as one whom fancy and diction would
have placed above all his contemporaries, had they been
under the direction of a sound judgment and steady
will. For want of these qualities (a want probably greatly
caused by constant infirmity of health), he certainly did
nothing indeed worthy of his talents, nothing equal to the
productions of very inferior men. He died in 1834.
The most perfect of his lyric poems is probably the little
lyric of 'Genevieve,' which tells a tale of love with extreme
tenderness and simplicity.
(Geneviève.)
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
She leaned against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope, my joy, my Genevieve !
She loves me best whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve
274
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The lady of the land.
I told her how he pined; and ah !
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.
But when I told the cruel scorn
Which crazed this bold and lovely knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
But sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once,
In green and sunny glade,
There came and looked him in the face,
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable knight!
And that, unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved, from outrage worse than death,
The lady of the land;
772--1834.]
275
COLERIDGE.
And how she wept and clasped his knees,
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain.
And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves,
A dying man he lay ;
His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense,
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve-
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng;
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued, and cherished long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved, she stept aside;
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace,
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel than see
The swelling of her heart.
X
276
[CH. XV
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
I calmed her fears; and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous bride !
'Christabel,' though only a fragment, has a peculiar
interest from having suggested to Scott the metre of the
'Lay of the Last Minstrel.' The following, which is the
most celebrated passage, will show how close is the resem-
blance in the rhythm of the two poems, though Scott
added a variety to it which Coleridge does not seem to
have conceived. The metre, however, had often been
used before. It is, when regular, the metre of Milton's
'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso,' and also of the inimitable
'Hudibras.'
But when he heard the lady's tale
And when she told her father's name,
Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,
Murmuring o'er the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Triermain.
It is remarkable, too, that this name is that of the hero
of Scott's exquisite little poem, the Bridal of Triermain.'
C
Alas, they had been friends in youth,
But whispering tongues can poison truth,
And constancy lives in realms above,
And life is thorny, and youth is vain,
And to be wroth with one in love
Doth work like madness in the brain;
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline:
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother;
They parted,—ne'er to meet again !
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs that have been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between :-
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
1772-1834.]
277
COLERIDGE.
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been,
Sir Leoline, a moment's space,
Stood gazing on the damsel's face :
And the youthful lord of Triermain
Came back upon his heart again.
SOUTHEY.
A.D. 1774-1843.
THE youngest of the triumvirate of the Lake poets was
Southey, who was born in 1774. He was the lowliest born
of the three, being the son of a Bristol linendraper; but,
like Wordsworth, he was so fortunate as to have a maternal
uncle who took an interest in his education, and who sent
him to Westminster at fourteen, and to Balliol College,
Oxford, at eighteen. But he gained little favour in the
eyes of the authorities at school, as he had not had any
proper or sufficient preparation beforehand, and still
less at college, where, like his future friends, of whom
I have already spoken, he took a wrong-headed delight
in proclaiming his adherence to the most extreme doc-
trines of the French revolutionists. And finding himself,
both by his political views, and also by his deficiency
in accurate scholarship, debarred from all prospect of
university distinction, he also betook himself to literature
as an occupation, making a most ambitious beginning, and
at the age of twenty publishing an epic poem in twelve
books, on the subject of Joan of Arc, the most remarkable
circumstances in connection with which are: first, that he
wrote it in six weeks; and secondly, that it was favorably
received, on account not so much of its poetical merits as of
its republican sentiments, since, as he records in a preface
to a subsequent republication of it, such opinions were at
that time' cherished by most of the critical journals,' and
the eulogies of the reviewers raised for him a reputation
which no condemnation by them of his later works could
ever entirely demolish. Of his pantisocratic scheme we
278
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His
have already spoken in our sketch of Coleridge.
democratic mania did not, however, last long. His uncle,
who had a chaplaincy at Lisbon, persuaded him to accom-
pany him to Portugal, hoping gradually to wean him from
his mischievous opinions, and to induce him to enter his
own profession. In a couple of years he was completely
converted to Toryism, but preferred the bar to the Church,
and on his return to England he entered himself at Gray's
Inn as a student of law. But, though few men were ever
blessed with a more industrious or resolute spirit, the study
of statutes and cases was utterly distasteful to him. And
when an old schoolfellow, who was possessed of a fair
fortune, and who had a high idea of his talents and dispo-
sition, offered to settle an annuity on him, which, though
small, was yet sufficient to relieve him from the necessity
of working, as it were, for daily bread, he frankly accepted
the kindness. And (with but one brief exception, when
he accepted the post of secretary to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer for Ireland, coupled with that of tutor to the
minister's son; a combination of inconsistent employments
for neither of which was he qualified, and which he threw
up at the end of six months) he henceforth devoted himself
wholly to literary composition, which, both in prose and
verse, he poured forth with a rapid fertility which has
never been equalled, save by his greater contemporary,
Walter Scott. His publications were so numerous that it
would be almost impossible even to give a complete list of
them: epics, histories, translations from foreign poets,
editions of English poets, essays, odes, biographies, and
reviews, followed one another in uninterrupted succession,
And if there was hardly one which was admired without
qualification, there was not one which was not admitted to
prove the possession by the author of very eminent abilities,
enriched by most extensive reading. He could hardly have
expected more indulgent treatment, for he was so far from
any attempt to propitiate the critics that he rather went
out of his way to provoke their hostility. Because, as
it might almost seem, they agreed in looking on an epic
poem as the greatest effort of poetical genius, he announced
in his preface to 'Madoc' that that poem disdained that
1774-1843.]
279
SOUTHEY.
C
'degraded title.' He placed as the motto to the Curse of
Kehama ':
For I will for no man's pleasure
Change a syllable or measure;
Pedants shall not tie my strains
To our antique poets' veins;
Being born as free as these,
I will sing as I shall please.
But they forebore to avenge themselves on him, and
Iningled with their condemnation of the defects and faults
of his different poems a free admission of and even warm
admiration for the great mental endowments of which they
likewise saw evidence. I shall almost confine the extracts
which I propose to subjoin to the two of his long poems.
which are generally considered the best: the 'Curse of
Kehama' and 'Roderick, the last of the Goths': the one,
a wild poem in irregular metre, on a subject drawn from
the superstitions of the Hindoo mythology; the other, in
blank verse, on the well-known story of the revenge taken
by Count Julian of Spain for Roderick's licentious violation.
of his home, of the king's defeat on the plains of Xeres, and
the establishment of the Moorish dominion in the Peninsula.
No two subjects could well be more dissimilar in their
character, or in the poet's treatment of them; for ‘Roderick'
was a systematic and regular narrative, founded on fact,
Kehama,' a wild rhapsody, owing nearly everything to the
imagination. But the very same beauties and faults were
conspicuous, and equally conspicuous in both. Purity of
sentiment and feeling, richness of imagination, great power
of depicting the simple and innocent affections: these
natural endowments being set off by the most ample
learning, great copiousness and facility of diction, and,
generally speaking, a great mastery of metrical sweetness:
were the beauties. The faults were partly errors of taste
The writer's imagination labours too incessantly after effect
to allow the reader those intervals of repose which the
mind requires in order to appreciate the excellences pre-
sented to it. Every detail is worked up with an almost
painful fulness, with an exaggerated minuteness, till the
poems remind us of the efforts of a rhetorician aiming at an
(
280
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
:
artificial climax rather than of the spontaneous ease of a
poet. They also arose partly from a deficiency in one or two
qualities which, if of secondary magnitude in the genius of
the writer, are of the very first importance as enabling him
to interest the attention of the reader. Of that passion which
generally constitutes so large an ingredient in all works
of fiction, and deservedly, indeed necessarily so, if they
would be true pictures of human life of love, and the
power of love, he seems either to have no conception, or
else, on some mistaken principle, he abstains throughout
from conveying any adequate impression. His heroines.
are as passionless as they are amiable; his heroes as indif-
ferent to the softer feelings of love as to the baser emotions
of fear. It is partly, perhaps, a consequence of this absti-
nence from what is so favourite a topic of all other poets,
that he is also very defective in his exhibitions of variety
of character, while his language, though copious, is rarely
forcible, his sentences frequently by far too long; an
error which has an inevitable tendency to obscure his
meaning.
In 1813 the minister of the day, Lord Liverpool, gave
him the office of poet-laureate, as twenty-one years after-
wards another minister, Sir R. Peel, gave him a literary
pension, and would have made him a baronet had not the
scantiness of his fortune disinclined him to accept an
honour which in some respects would have been expensive ;
and a few years earlier a third admirer had procured his
return to parliament for a borough in which he had influ-
ence; but the laws requiring the possession of a certain
quantity of freehold land from every member of the House
of Commons were still in force, and Southey, by his want
of such an estate, was prevented from taking his seat.
I have mentioned the entire change of his political views,
which, however, was in no degree caused by the favour
shown him by the Tory ministers; inasmuch as it took
place long before he was known to them; but it was
resented by some of the Radical party as if it had been
the direct result of corruption, and they took a comical
way of revenging themselves. They by some means
obtained a copy of a play which he had written in his
1774-1843.]
281
SOUTHEY.
youth at a time when his opinions were of the most Jaco-
binical character, and to which he had given the name of
'Wat Tyler,' and reprinted it in the hope of embroiling
him with his patrons in office; but the malice, though full
of annoyance to himself, was wholly ineffective. Nor did
this revival of the recollection of his early follies excite
the least distrust of the soundness and steadiness of his
present patriotism.
'Roderick' was the last of his long poems, though he
published some volumes of what he called minor poems
afterwards; which, however, it is not necessary to notice
more particularly, since, if, being in a simpler style, they
are free from his most conspicuous faults, they are likewise,
for the most part, devoid of his most striking excellences.
But, though he still continued writing for full twenty years,
he gradually almost confined himself to prose. Besides
countless articles in reviews, chiefly in the Quarterly,' to
which he was from its first establishment an unwearied
contributor, he wrote a 'History of the Church,' for which
the purity of his prose style secured a favour to which it
was hardly entitled by its depth or accuracy of view; and a
"History of the Peninsular War,' which would have been
better known if it had not had to encounter the competition
of Colonel Napier, who, having been himself a distinguished
soldier in Wellington's army, added to the inestimable
advantage of a personal knowledge of many of the most
striking incidents and most important achievements, a
vigour of description and a mastery of appropriate lan-
guage which no professional writer could surpass, and
which very few have equalled. But among his prose
writings one has defied rivalry, and he is probably better
known by his 'Life of Nelson,' in two small volumes, skil-
fully expanded from a review of a more ponderous work,
than by any of the poems which he himself ventured to
compare to 'Paradise Lost.'
His end was a melancholy one. One of the greatest
prose writers of the preceding century had
Expired, a driveller and a show,
and Southey's fate was not more happy than Swift's. His
282
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
wife, who had been deranged for many years, died in 1837,
and he had scarcely laid her in the grave when he himself
fell into a state of mental imbecility. He was tended with
affectionate care by his surviving relatives and friends.
Miss Bowles, the daughter of the critic whose edition of
Pope had provoked such indignant criticisms from Byron,
sympathised with his affliction so deeply that she married
him to acquire a right to nurse and comfort him. But no
care or medical skill could avail him. Foreign travel was
tried, but change of air produced no improvement in hist
health; change of scene brought no excitement to his
mind; and in the spring of 1843 he died.
If we take a comparative view of the character of the
poetry of the three friends together, we may probably
think that Wordsworth is too subjective: that he wants
energy, life, and lifelikeness. No one has a deeper feeling
for the beauties of nature; but no one tells us less about
man, or, in spite of one or two pretty pictures, such as that
of Margaret in the Excursion,' has less power of describing
man. There is too much contemplation, and too little
action. There can, perhaps, hardly be a stronger proof of
the want of poetical charm (proportioned to its length) in
the 'Excursion' than that a very discerning and candid
critic of the present day, and one by no means inclined to
take a low estimate of Wordsworth's talents, more than
hints a wish that the 'Excursion' had been in prose.
Southey has far more action, more energy, with consider-
able powers of description; but his action, and indeed all
his poetry, seems to lack originality; to be derived rather
from a study of excellent models than from native force;
and he fails in the nice distinctiveness of character which
is indispensable to interest the reader. This defect is
perhaps more visible in his European than in his Oriental
tales, because we ourselves know more of European than
of Oriental feelings. But it exists alike in all. And
probably it must be the case in all poems where the scene
is laid in a country to which the writer is a total stranger.
One or two of Byron's most beautiful works are called
Eastern tales, but in fact they do not go beyond the coast
of Asia Minor, beyond the countries which he himself had
1774-1843.]
283
SOUTHEY.
seen, and of whose inhabitants he had caught the tone
and feeling from personal acquaintance. Southey, on
the contrary, had no personal knowledge of India; but
gathered all his ideas on the subject from books. On all
subjects, however, he writes like a man of great learning,
great industry, great mastery over language, with a man-
agement of blank verse superior, I think, to anyone but
Milton, and with a very musical flow in his poems of
irregular metre. And so important are these qualities that
his works, especially' Roderick' and 'Kehama' have always
had readers and admirers, and I doubt not will a hundred
years hence be far better known than the generality of the
poems of the present day, which are, generally speaking,
open to the same strictures, without the learning and
painstaking diligence which in him nearly counter-
balances his deficiencies. Coleridge has written so little
that the highest praise which any but his own immediate
circle of family and friends can give him is that much of
what he has done shows a degree and a variety of power
which might have enabled him to take a much higher place
among our poets had not all his gifts been marred by an
unsteadiness and irresolution, proceeding probably from
ill-health, which prevented his ever devoting himself with
a continuous and persevering exertion to any single work
of magnitude or importance.
(
The Curse of Kehama' is certainly the poem which
shows to the greatest advantage the richness of Southey's
imagination; and the description of a Suttee with which it
opens, proves him to have possessed a great power of
awakening sympathy; the despair of the young Nealliny,
sacrificed to a barbarous superstition ere her honeymovn
was over, is depicted with great vividness and truth.
(The Curse of Kehama.)
O sight of grief! the wives of Arvalan,
Young Azla, young Nealliny, are seen!
Their widow-robes of white,
With gold and jewels bright,
Each like an Eastern queen
Woe! woe! around their palankeen,
As on a bridal day,
*
284
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
With symphony, and dance, and song,
Their kindred and their friends come on.
The dance of sacrifice! the funeral song!
And next the victim slaves in long array,
Richly bedight to grace the fatal day,
Move onward to their death;
The clarions' stirring breath
Lifts their thin robes in every flowing fold,
And swells the woven gold,
That on the agitated air
Flutters and glitters to the torch's glare.
A man and maid of aspect wan and wild,
Then, side by side, by bowmen guarded, came;
O wretched father! O unhappy child!
Them were all eyes of all the throng exploring.
Is this the daring man
Who raised his fatal hand at Arvalan ?
Is this the wretch condemn'd to feel
Kehama's dreadful wrath ?
Then were all hearts of all the throng deploring;
For not in that innumerable throng
Was one who loved the dead; for who could know
What aggravated wrong
Provoked the desperate blow!
Far, far behind, beyond all reach of sight,
In order'd files the torches flow along,
One ever-lengthening line of gliding light:
Far. . . far behind,
Rolls on the undistinguishable clamour,
Of horn, and trump, and tambour;
Incessant as the roar
Of streams which down the wintry mountain pour,
And louder than the dread commotion
Of breakers on a rocky shore,
When the winds rage over the waves,
And Ocean to the Tempest raves.
And now toward the bank they go,
Where winding on their way below,
Deep and strong the waters flow.
Here doth the funeral pile appear
With myrrh and ambergris bestrew'd,
And built of precious sandal wood
1774-1843.]
285
SOUTHEY,
They cease their music and their outcry here,
Gently they rest the bier;
They wet the face of Arvalan,
No sign of life the sprinkled drops excite;
They feel his breast,
•
•
no motion there
They feel his lips, no breath;
For not with feeble, nor with erring hand,
The brave avenger dealt the blow of death.
Then with a doubling peel and deeper blast,
The tambours and the trumpets sound on high,
And with a last and loudest cry,
They call on Arvalan.
Woe! woe! for Azla takes her seat
Upon the funeral pile!
Calmly she took her seat,
Calmly the whole terrific pomp survey'd
As on her lap the while
The lifeless head of Arvalan was laid.
Woe! woe! Nealliny,
The young Nealiny!
They strip her ornaments away,
Bracelet and anklet, ring, and chain, and zone
Around her neck they leave
The marriage knot alone,
That marriage band, which when
Yon waning moon was young,
Around her virgin neck
With bridal joy was hung.
Then with white flowers, the coronal of death,
Her jetty locks they crown.
O sight of misery!
You cannot hear her cries,
• •
their sound
In that wild dissonance is drown'd;
But in her face you see
The supplication and the agony
•
•
See in her swelling throat the desperate strength
That with vain effort struggles yet for life;
Her arms contracted now in fruitless strife,
Now wildly at full length
Towards the crowd in vain for pity spread,
They force her on, they bind her to the dead.
C
286
[CH. XV
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Then all around retire;
Circling the pile, the ministering Bramins stand,
Each lifting in his hand a torch on fire.
Alone the father of the dead advanced
And lit the funeral pyre.
At once on every side
The circling torches drop,
At once on every side
The fragrant oil is pour'd,
At once on every side
The rapid flames rush up
Then hand in hand, the victim band
Roll in the dance around the funeral pyre;
Their garments' flying folds
Float inward to the fire;
•
In drunken whirl they wheel around ;
One drops, another plunges in;
And still with overwhelming din
The tambours and the trumpets sound;
And clap of hand, and shouts, and cries
From all the multitude arise;
While round and round, in giddy wheel
Intoxicate they roll and reel,
Till, one by one, whirl'd in they fall,
And the devouring flames have swallow'd all.
Then all was still; the drums and clarions ceased;
The multitude were hushed in silent awe;
Only the roaring of the flames was heard.
In two subsequent passages he exerts his talents in
painting the beauties of nature, the magnificence of old
forest trees, and the elaborate beauty of an Eastern garden.
But, turning from the view her mournful eyes,
Oh, whither should we wander, Kailyal cries,
Or wherefore seek in vain a place of rest?
Have we not here the earth beneath our tread
Heaven overhead,
A brook that winds through this sequester'd glade,
And yonder woods, to yield us fruit and shade ?
The little all our wants require is nigh;
Hope we have none; why travel on in fear?
We cannot fly from Fate, and Fate will find us here.
• •
1774-1843.]
287
SOUTHEY.
'Twas a fair scene wherein they stood,
A green and sunny glade amid the wood,
And in the midst an aged banian grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,
For o'er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propt its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to strike its root,
Straight like a plummet, grew towards the ground.
Some on the lower boughs which crossed their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound,
Some to the passing wind at times, with sway
Of gentle motion swung;
Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern's fretted height!
Beneath was smooth and fair to sight,
Nor weeds nor briars deform'd the natural floor,
And through the leafy cope which bower'd it o'er
Came gleams of chequer'd light.
So like a temple did it seem, that there
A pious heart's first impulse would be prayer.
And now his feet attain that royal fane
Where Baly held of old his awful reign;
What once had been the Gardens spread around
Fair Gardens, once which wore perpetual green,
Where all sweet flowers through all the year were found,
And all fair fruits were through all seasons seen;
A place of Paradise, where each device
Of emulous Art with Nature strove to vie;
And Nature, on her part,
Call'd forth new powers wherewith to vanquish Art.
The Swerga-God himself, with envious eye,
Survey'd those peerless gardens in their prime;
Nor ever did the Lord of Light,
Who circles Earth and Heaven upon his way,
Behold from eldest time a goodlier sight
Than were the groves which Baly, in his might,
Made for his chosen place of solace and delight.
It was a Garden still beyond all price,
Even yet it was a place of Paradise;
288
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CH. XV.
For where the mighty Ocean could not spare,
There had he with his own creation,
Sought to repair his work of devastation,
And here were coral bowers,
And grots of madrepores,
And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye
As e'er was mossy bed
Whereon the wood-nymphs lie
With languid limbs in summer's sultry hours.
Here too were living flowers
Which, like a bud compacted,
Their purple cups contracted,
And now in open blossom spread,
Stretch'd like green anthers many a seeking head.
And arborets of jointed stone were there,
And plants of fibres fine as silkworm's thread;
Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair
Upon the waves dispread.
Others, that like the broad banana growing,
Raised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue,
Like streamers wide outflowing.
And whatsoe'er the depths of Ocean hide
From human eyes, Ladurlad there espied,
Trees of the deep, and shrubs and fruits and flowers,
As fair as ours,
Wherewith the sea-nymphs love their locks to braid,
When to their father's hall, at festival
Repairing they, in emulous array,
Their charms display,
To grace the banquet, and the solemn day.
The golden fountains had not ceased to flow;
And where they mingled with the briny sea,
There was a sight of wonder and delight,
To see the fish, like birds in air,
Above Ladurlad flying.
Round those strange waters they repair,
Their scarlet fins outspread and plying,
They float with gentle hovering there;
And now upon those little wings,
As if to dare forbidden things,
With wilful purpose bent,
Swift as an arrow from a bow,
They shoot across, and to and fro,
In rapid glance, like lightning go
Through that unwonted element.
1774-1843.]
289
SOUTHEY.
verse.
'Roderick, the Last of the Goths,' is written in blank
In the first of the following passages we have a
powerful, though perhaps prolix, description of the agitation
of Roderick's mind when preparing for the conflict that, he
was painfully conscious, was brought on him by his own
vices, of which, indeed, he recognised it as the deserved
chastisement. In the second, the battle itself is described
with a great deal of poetic fire and energy, though the
labour with which it is worked up is too manifest, and it
lacks the vigour, arising from compression, which his great
contemporaries, Scott and Byron, could infuse into similar
scenes.
For his lost crown
And sceptre never had he felt a thought
Of pain; repentance had no pangs to spare
For trifles such as these,
•
•
the loss of these
Was a cheap penalty; that he had fallen
·
•
But to lose
Down to the lowest depth of wretchedness,
His hope and consolation.
His human station in the scale of things,
To see brute nature scorn him, and renounce
Its homage to the human form divine
Had then Almighty vengeance thus revealed
His punishment, and was he fallen indeed
Below fallen man, below redemption's reach,
Made lower than the beasts, and like the beasts
To perish!... Such temptations troubled him
By day, and in the visions of the night;
And even in sleep he struggled with the thought,
And waking with the effort of his prayers
The dream assailed him still.
A wilder form
Sometimes his poignant penitence assumed,
Starting with force revived from intervals
Of calmer passion or exhausted rest;
When floating back upon the tide of thought
Remembrance to a self-excusing strain
Beguiled him, and recall'd in long array
The sorrows and the secret impulses
Which to the abyss of wretchedness and guilt
Led their unwary victim. The evil hour
Return'd upon him, when reluctantly
Yielding to worldly counsel his assent,
290
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
In wedlock to an ill-assorted mate
He gave his cold unwilling hand: then came
The disappointment of the barren bed,
The hope deceived, the soul dissatisfied,
Home without love, and privacy from which
Delight was banish'd first, and peace too soon
Departed. Was it strange that when he met
A heart attuned, a spirit like his own,
Of lofty pitch, yet in affection mild,
And tender as a youthful mother's joy, .
Oh was it strange if at such sympathy
The feelings which within his breast repell'd
And chill'd had shrunk, should open forth like flowers
After cold winds of night, when gentle gales
Restore the genial sun? If all were known,
Would it indeed be not to be forgiven? .
(Thus would he lay the unction to his soul,)
If all were truly known, as Heaven knows all,
Heaven that is merciful as well as just, .
A passion slow and mutual in its growth,
Pure as fraternal love, long self-concealed
And when confess'd in silence, long controll'd;
Treacherous occasion, human frailty, fear
Of endless separation, worse than death,
The purpose and the hope with which the Fiend
Tempted, deceived, and madden'd him,
As at a new temptation would he start,
Shuddering beneath the intolerable shame,
And clench in agony his matted hair
While in his soul the perilous thought arose,
How easy 'twere to plunge where yonder waves
Invited him to rest.
• • •
Oh for a voice
. but then
Of comfort, for a ray of hope from Heaven!
A hand that from these billows of despair
May reach and snatch him ere he sink engulph'd!
With that he fell upon the old man's neck;
Then vaulted in the saddle, gave the reins,
And soon rejoin'd the host. 'On, comrades, on !
Victory and Vengeance!' he exclaim'd, and took
The lead on that good charger, he alone
Horsed for the onset. They with one consent
Gave all their voices to the inspiring cry,
Victory and Vengeance!' and the hills and rocks
1774-1813.]
291
SOUTHEY.
Caught the prophetic shout and rolled it round.
Count Pedro's people heard amid the heat
Of battle, and return'd the glad acclaim.
The astonish'd Musselmen, on all sides charged,
Hear that tremendous cry; yet manfully
They stood, and everywhere with gallant front
Opposed in fair array the shock of war.
Desperately they fought, like men expert in arms,
And knowing that no safety could be found
Save from their own right hands. No former day
Of all his long career had seen their chief
Approved so well; nor had Witiza's sons
Ever before this hour achieved in fight
Such feats of resolute valour. Sisibert
Beheld Pelayo in the field afoot,
And twice essay'd beneath his horse's feet
To thrust him down. Twice did the prince evade
The shock, and twice upon his shield receiv'd
The fratricidal sword. 'Tempt me no more,
Son of Witiza,' cried the indignant chief,
'Lest I forget what mother gave thee birth!
Go meet thy death from any hand but mine!'
He said, and turn'd aside. Fitliest from me!'
Exclaim'd a dreadful voice, as through the throng
Orelio forced his way, 'fitliest from me
Receive the rightful death too long withheld!
'Tis Roderick strikes the blow!' And as he spake,
Upon the traitor's shoulder fierce he drove
The weapon, well-bestow'd. He in the seat
Totter'd and fell. The Avenger hasten'd on
In search of Ebba; and in the heat of fight
Rejoicing and forgetful of all else,
Set up his cry as he was wont in youth,
'Roderick the Goth!' . . . his war-cry known so well.
Pelayo eagerly took up the word,
And shouted out his kinsman's name beloved,
'Roderick the Goth! Roderick and Victory!
Roderick and Vengeance!' Odoar gave it forth;
Urban repeated it, and through his ranks
Count Pedro sent the cry. Not from the field
Of his great victory, when Witiza fell,
With louder acclamations had that name
Been borne abroad upon the winds of heaven.
The unreflecting throng, who yesterday,
14
292
[CH. XV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
If it had pass'd their lips, would with a curse
Have clogg'd it, echoed it as if it came
From some celestial voice in the air, reveal'd
To be the certain pledge of all their hopes,
'Roderick the Goth! Roderick and Victory!
Roderick and Vengeance!' O'er the field it spread,
All hearts and tongues uniting in the cry ;
Mountains, and rocks, and vales re-echoed round;
And he, rejoicing in his strength, rode on,
Laying on the Moors with that good sword, and smote,
And overthrew, and scatter'd, and destroy'd,
And trampled down; and still at every blow
Exultingly he sent the war-cry forth,
'Roderick the Goth! Roderick and Victory!
Roderick and Vengeance!'
Thus he made his way,
Smiting and slaying through the astonish'd ranks
Till he beheld, where on a fiery barb,
Ebba, performing well a soldier's part,
Dealt to the right and left his deadly blows.
With mutual rage they met. The renegade
Displays a scymitar, the splendid gift
Of Walid from Damascus sent; its hilt
Emboss'd with gems, its blade of perfect steel,
Which, like a mirror sparkling to the sun,
With dazzling splendour flash'd. The Goth objects
His shield, and on its rim receives the edge
Driven from its aim aside, and of its force
Diminish'd. Many a frustrate stroke was dealt
On either part, and many a foin and thrust
Aim'd and rebated; many a deadly blow
Straight or reverse, delivered and repell'd.
Roderick at length with better speed hath reach'd
The apostate's turban, and through all its folds
The true Cantabrian weapon making way
Attain'd his forehead. 'Wretch!' the avenger cried,
'It comes from Roderick's hand! Roderick the Goth,
Who spared, who trusted thee, and was betray'd!
Go tell thy father now how thou has sped
With all thy treasons!' Saying thus he seized
The miserable, who, blinded now with blood,
Reel'd in the saddle; and with sidelong step
Backing Orelio, drew him to the ground.
IIe shrieking, as beneath the horse's feet
1774-1843.]
293
SOUTHEY.
He fell, forgot his late-learnt creed, and called
On Mary's name. The dreadful Goth pass'd on,
Still plunging through the thickest war, and still
Scattering, where'er he turned, the affrighted ranks.
Oh who could tell what deeds were wrought that day;
Or who endure to hear the tale of rage,
Hatred, and madness, and despair, and fear,
Horror, and wounds, and agony, and death,
The cries, the blasphemies, the shrieks, and groans,
And prayers, which mingled with the din of arms
In one wild uproar of terrific sounds;
While over all predominant was heard,
Reiterate from the conquerors o'er the field,
'Roderick the Goth! Roderick and Victory!
Roderick and Vengeance!'
294
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XVI.
WALTER SCOTT.
A.D. 1771-1832.
Ir has been mentioned that Coleridge's Christabel' had
suggested to Walter Scott the metre for the 'Lay of the
Last Minstrel.' So that it is almost in a natural order
that we now come to consider the works and character of
that great writer who, since the days of Milton, must be
accounted the chief pride and glory of British literature.
He is the only author in any country who by general con-
sent is admitted to stand in the very front rank as a
composer of both poetry and prose; his prose, that is to
say, his novels, being indeed in many points akin to his
poetry.
Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on August 15,
1771, being one of the younger sons of a writer to the
Signet of the same name. He was, as he has recorded
in a short autobiographical sketch of his carly days, of
gentle birth, his father belonging to the Scotts of Harden,
a branch of the great Border family of Buccleuch, and his
mother being descended from the Swintons, a knightly
house of great distinction in the feudal ages.
In one
respect his childhood was unfortunate, since, before he was
two years old, he was attacked by a fever which left his
right leg shrunk and greatly enfeebled; but the judicious
pains which were taken to remove the infirmity, though
they did not succeed in that object, taking the direction
of giving him abundant fresh air, and as much exercise as
he was capable of, rendered him a remarkably strong and
healthy boy. His infirmity, however, necessarily disabled
him from taking part in the games of his schoolfellows, and
drove him to find his chief amusement in reading. He
was not indifferent to the beauties of the Latin poets, and
1771-1832.]
295
SCOTT.
before he was fifteen gained considerable credit with the
Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, where he was
educated, for some volunteer translations of Horace and
Virgil, which were considered to show great poetical
facility; but his favourite studies were not so much the
classical authors which win the commendation of school-
masters, as old ballads, records of the early history of
his native land, and of the sufferings of the Royalists in
the Stuart cause; his minute acquaintance with which had
different influences on the different people with whom he
was brought into contact. Some of the staid old visitors
of his father thought a boy who disturbed the house by
shouting out stanzas of 'Hardyknute,' and other legendary
tales of that class, little better than a nuisance; but his
schoolfellows, as boys are apt to do, appreciated highly a
talent which to them had the additional charm of novelty.
And, as he had the skill to impart his knowledge to others,
a knot of them would gather round the fire on winter
evenings to listen to the tales which he had culled from
his favourite books, and which he poured forth with a
memory and power of embellishment that gave general
delight, and won him warmer admiration than if he had
been the best golf or football player in the school. The
practice of this pastime in his schoolboy days was the
foreshadowing of the renown he was destined to achieve,
and of the universal delight he was hereafter to give to
the whole nation.
He did not, however, remain long at school. His father
destined him for his own profession; and, before he was
fifteen, he was removed from school to learn the law in his
father's office, where he managed to combine with the due
performance of the tasks allotted to him there, a tolerably
free indulgence in studies more congenial to his taste, and
even to open for himself a wider and richer field by learning
French and Italian. At the age of twenty-one he was
called to the bar, and, being aided by his professional con-
nections, speedily began to get a little business, and a fair
reputation as a rising young advocate; still, however,
keeping up and extending his school character, as one
deeply versed in all the traditions of past ages, and un-
296
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
rivalled in his faculty of relating tales founded on them.
Even then it might have been safe to predict that he would
hereafter aspire to the fame of the novelist. But in 1794
the accidental hearing of an unpublished version of a
German ballad, Burger's 'Leonora,' re-awakened his
poetical talent. He remembered the praise he had won
while a boy by his translations of Virgil and Horace, and
undertook to furnish another version of 'Leonora,' which
he executed with a fidelity and vigour that earned him
warm praise from all who were allowed to see it, a verdict
which was fully confirmed when, a couple of years after-
wards, he published his translation with others of one or
two more poems by the same author.
6
The fondness for writing, like other appetites, is increased
by indulgence; he executed other translations from the
German, which were published in Monk Lewis's Tales of
Wonder;' and, being emboldened by the praise he met with,
he presently ventured on some original ballads in something
of the same style, varying his literary occupations with
what he calls an 'office most inconsistent with romance,'
that of organising a body of volunteer cavalry to provide
against a hostile invasion, which was known to be a
favourite project of the rulers of France at that period, of
which force he himself became quartermaster, discharging
his new duties with characteristic zeal, and with an unfail-
ing heartiness of merriment which rendered his comrades
as enthusiastic in the service as himself; and also by
falling in love with a Miss Carpenter, who shortly after-
wards became his wife. The lady had a competent fortune,
and at the end of 1799 her husband was placed in a situa-
tion to indulge his literary tastes with less scruple, by
being appointed to the office of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with
a salary of 3001. a year. He began almost at once to
slacken in his attention to his profession, except as far as
the duties of his new office were concerned; though the
first work of importance which he took in hand was not
an original composition, but the collecting and editing the
ballads of the Scottish border, a task of great difficulty and
labour, since many of them were only preserved in single
broadsheets scattered here and there among the illiterate
1771-1832.]
297
SCOTT.
population of the farmers and shepherds of the district,
and for some he had nothing to trust to but the memories
of those who had recited or sung them in their youth.
But the labour was to him, indeed, a labour of love; and,
as he undertook it with enthusiasm, he executed it with
complete success, building up a high reputation among
the lovers of literature in England as well as in Scotland,
which made everyone look with eagerness for some com-
position of his own. They were not long before they were
gratified in a far higher degree than could have been antici-
pated by his warmest admirers. He had added to the last
volume of the 'Border Minstrelsy' a few original ballads
in professed imitation of the style and in the old-fashioned
stanza, and was planning some more elaborate work, but was
perplexed by the difficulty of finding a suitable subject, when
Lady Dalkeith, then lately married, was attracted by an old
goblin tradition which one of her new neighbours on the
Border had related to her, and suggested it to her clansman,
as the poet was proud to consider himself, as a theme for
another ballad. 'To hear was to obey;' but he was
anxious to try some other metre than the old quatrain, and
was doubting what to substitute for it, when the recitation
by a friend of a fragment of Coleridge's Christabel,' not
yet published, struck his ear as presenting the very metre
which of all others was the most suitable for a poem on so
fanciful a subject. A happier idea never occurred to any
poet. He improved upon his model, imparting to the
rhythm a variety and also an energy which is to be found
in the works of no previous employer of the metre, and in
the beginning of 1805 he published the 'Lay of the Last
Minstrel,' which at once placed him immeasurably above
all existing poets, and on a level with all who had written.
since Milton. Its popularity certainly exceeded that of
any poem that had ever been published; new editions
could hardly be printed with sufficient rapidity. Even the
critics by profession, who at that time seemed to think
criticism inconsistent with praise, could scarcely find any-
thing to blame in it, beyond the introduction of a few
homely Scotch names, while everyone else was loud and
unanimous in admiration. Even the great minister, amid
298
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the overwhelining cares which were helping to bow him
down to an early grave, stole an hour from Nelson's
despatches, for the last of all the bards who sang of border
chivalry,' and owned that he had derived from the poem a
greater idea than he had hitherto had of the power of
poetry. Some of the descriptions, he said, had impressed
him with a sense of reality which he should previously
have thought within the reach perhaps of painting, but
utterly unattainable by the descriptive powers of any writer.¹
And the 'Lay' did, indeed, deserve all the praise it re-
ceived. No poem in the language showed a greater feeling
of the beauties of nature, or combined with it a richer
power in describing human feelings, or a more accurate
acquaintance with the character of the age, though bygone,
in which the scene was laid. The Minstrel himself, in
whose mouth the 'Lay' is put, is confessedly among the
most beautiful creations of any poet. And I might speak
of the vigour of his warlike pictures, of the exquisite
delicacy of his female portraiture, as equal in merit, were
not these qualities shown still more conspicuously in some
of the works which followed. For it was impossible that
success such as he had met with could fail to beget an
appetite for another triumph. And the 'Lay' was hardly
published before he began to arrange the plot of a second
poem; though first giving himself a respite which no
man but one of such vast knowledge of our early literature,
and unwearied industry, would have thought a relief, by
editing Dryden's works, and writing an elaborate memoir
of 'Glorious John.' 'Poetry,' as he wrote to one of his
most valued friends, 'is a scourging crop, and should not
be hastily repeated. Editing is a green crop of turnips,
extremely useful for those who cannot afford a summer
fallow.' And it took so long to get this green crop out of
the ground that it was not till three years after the pub-
lication of the 'Lay' that 'Marmion,' a tale of Flodden
¹ Lockhart's Life of Scott, c. 34. Pitt probably had in his mind
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.'
2 Lockhart, ibid.
1771-1832.]
299
SCOTT.
0
Field, was published. The 'Lay' had not more outrun all
the anticipations of its excellence than 'Marmion' now
exceeded the still warmer expectations to which the beauty
of its predecessor had given birth. When the Edinburgh
reviewer, who is understood to have been the editor him-
self, the redoubted Jeffrey, declared that 'no epic bard
whom he could remember carried the reader forward with
a more rapid, sustained, and lofty movement than Scott, in
his description of the' fatal field,
Where shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield,
readers in general agreed with him, and were for a moment
hardly inclined to quarrel with a verdict which seemed to
place the poet of their own age and country on a level even
with Homer. And in truth it was not only in the marvellous
energy of his battle-pieces that Scott trod, though at a
respectful distance, in the steps of the great father of
poets. If Helen and Andromache delight the classical
scholar by the contrast they present to Hector and Achilles;
our own poet has drawn Margaret, and Constance, and
Ellen with a delicacy of touch and a keen appreciation of
pure and womanly feeling which, as a female portrait
painter, bespeak him inferior to Homer alone. Yet great
as 'Marmion' is, in enduring popularity it has hardly
equalled the 'Lady of the Lake,' which after an interval of
two years succeeded it. The 'Lady of the Lake' differed
from both Marmion' and the 'Lay' in having a more
carefully elaborated plan, a more highly polished diction,
with a versification more uniformly melodious, if not more
richly varied or more vigorous, which apparently showed
it to be the author's favourite: in other respects it partook
of the excellences of both its predecessors. Pitt might
again have marvelled that language should ever be able to
impress the mind with such a feeling of lifelike reality as
was produced by Roderick's clansmen starting from the
heather to overwhelm the hardy stranger who affronted
their chief in his own district. If a single combat can ever
be compared to a general battle, then the duel between the
chieftain and Fitzjames may be placed alongside even
300
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Flodden. Nor must we omit to notice the discrimination
with which, in ‘Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake,' the
poet has painted the different characters of the two kings,
fully preserving the dignity of both, but drawing a careful
distinction between the courtly stateliness with which the
father leads out the Lady Heron to the dance, and the con-
descending affability with which the son
was bending low
To his white jennet's saddle-bow,
Doffing his cap to city dame,
Who smiled and blushed for pride and shame
C
so that Byron declared he was especially the poet of
princes,' and the Regent himself, a very accomplished and
competent judge, assented, with the addition that Scott's
kings' were no less royal than poetical.'¹ Another peculiar
charm of the 'Lady of the Lake' was to be found in the
descriptions of rural or rather mountain and sylvan scenery
which are profusely scattered over it, showing his right,
in another point of view, also to the title of the most pic-
turesque of modern poets.
These three are usually reckoned his masterpieces, though
they were followed by others which would have established
the reputation of any unknown writer. The scene of his
next, 'Rokeby,' was laid in England, at the time of the
Rebellion; and he himself hoped not only that it would
succeed with, but that it would also in some degree surprise,
the public, because 'the interest of the work turned upon
character,' while, in his own view, or at least in his own
intention, 'the force in the "Lay" had been thrown on style;
in "Marmion" on description; in the "Lady of the Lake
on incident.' He especially names Bertram, the 'villain'
of the piece, as a Caravaggio sketch, quite in keeping with
nature, whatever critics may say to the contrary.' But in
all probability he was thinking more, even if he did not
acknowledge it to himself, of Matilda, whom he admits to be
drawn from life, and of whom Lockhart believes the original
to have been a lady with whom in his youth he had fallen
2 Ibid. c. 26.
I Lockhart's Life, c. 25.
,
1771-1832.]
301
SCOTT.
ardently in love, conjecturing further that the rivalry for
Matilda's hand, described in the poem, presented
< some-
thing more than a shadow' of the circumstances and dis-
appointment of Scott's own love-suit.
It
I mentioned before his undertaking a 'Life of Dryden'
and an edition of his works as a sort of holiday. At the
same time that he was writing the 'Lady of the Lake' and
'Rokeby' he was also engaged in a similar way on Swift.
And he now carried his fancy for relieving his mind by
occupying it with different employments at the same
time further than before, by adding to Swift and 'Rokeby' a
second poem, the 'Bridal of Triermain,' in the publication
of which he also indulged himself in mystifying the public
in something of the same way that he tried afterwards on
a larger scale. In less than two months after the publica-
tion of Rokeby,' the 'Bridal' came out anonymously.
certainly seemed almost impossible that the author of
'Rokeby' should have written it in the time. And the
most experienced and judicious critics treated it as an
imitation of his style; the critic in the Quarterly Review,'
himself an intimate friend of Scott, but one who had not
been let into the secret, even pronouncing that, ‘if inferior
in vigour to some of his productions, it equalled or surpassed
them in elegance and beauty.' To equal the vigour of
'Marmion' was perhaps almost impossible; but certainly
Scott, in the tournament for Gyneth's hand has surpassed
everyone
but himself. Even the admirers of Dryden, who
alone of our poets since the Restoration had been distin-
guished for his energy, and who has drawn a similar scene,
must allow that the tournay in 'Palamon and Arcite' can
bear no comparison with this; while the tenderness and
delicacy of the scene in which Arthur, like Æneas, takes
leave of Guendolen, another Dido of gentler temper, was
wholly beyond the conception of Dryden, or the genius of
his age.
Once more, and once more only, did he woo the Muse.
And before that time he had laid the foundation of a fame
surpassing even that which his poems had won for him, by
the publication of 'Waverley.' I say fame, because, though
the great novel, like the 'Bridal,' was published anony
302
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
mously, the conviction that no one but Scott could be the
author was so strong and so universal that from the very
first it was spoken of as his. As his friend Morritt, of
Rokeby, told him, he wore his disguise something after
the manner of Bottom the weaver; and in spite of himself
the truth would soon peep out.' And in a very short time
the belief ripened into as much certainty as could attach to
an opinion which the author abstained from ratifying by
an open avowal. In his last poem he went back to his
native land for the scene, to the greatest of her sons for
his hero. The 'Lord of the Isles' is the title; the subject
is Bruce and Bannockburn; and Bruce's exploits do not
more exceed those of ordinary men than the celebration of
them here surpasses in beauty and vigour the pictures
drawn by any other modern poets of other heroes. The
'Lord of the Isles' is as brilliant in colouring as the 'Lay,'
as vivid in description as the 'Lady of the Lake; ' it even
introduces us to scenes which the author had previously
left untried, in the adventurous voyage of the great chief
among the
islets gay
That guard famed Staffa round;
and if we were to search through all his works in prose
and poetry for a proof of the inexhaustible richness and
variety of his imagination, it would not be possible to find
a more convincing example of it than is afforded by the
complete difference between his descriptions of two battles
which must have had so many features in common as
Flodden and Bannockburn, fought, as they were, by the
same nations, in the same district, with the same weapons.
But the 'Lord of the Isles' was his last poem. More than
one circumstance led to its being so. The unparalleled
popularity of Waverley,' and of the second novel, 'Guy
Mannering,' which came out a few weeks after the poem,
and which made him believe that he had lighted on a new
vein of his genius, less worked out, was, no doubt, the
principal fact which unconsciously influenced him; but he
himself attributed his abandonment of poetry to the percep
tion that the public taste was inclined to prefer a new
rival, Byron, who had lately been pouring forth, with a
1771-1832.]
303
SCOTT.
profusion and rapidity equal to his own, poem after poem
of sparkling brilliancy, vividness of passion, and energy of
action, these qualities being set off by the novelty of the
scenery, which was laid in distant and then but little
known lands; while, to the fashionable English world, like
other fashionable worlds, always inclined to whatever was
newest, the attractiveness of the works was further
heightened by a mood of melancholy and misanthropy
which ran through them, and by a general impression that,
whatever might be the names of the heroes, the characters
were all drawn, and that designedly, from the poet himself.
The combination of these different attractions was, for a
time, irresistible. Not even in their first flush of popu-
larity had as many copies of the 'Lay' or 'Marmion' been
sold in a month as were sold of the 'Corsair' or the 'Bride
of Abydos' in a single day. And Scott, who had always
entertained a far humbler idea of his own poetical genius
and of the striking value of his works than anyone else,
without a sigh relinquished the field to his youthful rival,
and, for the rest of his life, confined himself to his novels.
I should not do justice to the singularly amiable, honest
character of the man if I omitted to point out the absolute
freedom from jealousy or envy which his whole conduct
towards Byron evinces. Literary men, and especially poets,
have too often incurred the reproach of bearing 'no rival
near their throne.' We have seen the fierce ill-will which
Dryden and Pope bore to almost all the poetical brother-
hood of their own day. And if Scott had regarded Byron
with such a feeling, the younger poet would have had no
reason to complain, since, in his youth, he had gone out of
his way to provoke it, by a wanton attack on all of Scott's
poems that were before the world when he published his
satire. But Scott was too generous to resent a folly which
he knew had been repented of, and so far too magnanimous
to feel jealousy of contemporary merit, even when, for the
moment, it seemed to prevent his own works from receiving
their due meed of praise, that no one extolled Byron's
poems more warmly, nor, when the noble poet was attacked
on other grounds, did anyone stand forward more carnestly
or more judiciously in his defence.
304
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
If, before proceeding to speak of his novels, we pause to
estimate the rank to which Scott is entitled as a poet, we
may probably come to the conclusion that his poems are
deficient in no one quality requisite either to excite momen-
tary admiration or to create permanent interest in the mind
of the reader. They are distinguished by both richness
and boldness of imagination, by truth of character, by
picturesqueness of description, and, generally speaking, by
great propriety of language, and exquisite power and
variety of versification; though, on these latter points, he
is confessedly at times careless; nor does his car seem to
have that exquisite correctness, that keen perception of an
inharmonious line which distinguished Byron. But his
more especial characteristics seem to be, in the first place,
a grand antique simplicity, and in the second, an uninter-
rupted activity. There is no want of appropriate and
characteristic reflection when the occasion requires such;
but, on the other hand, there are no musings of contempla-
tive indolence, brought in suitably and unsuitably, in such
a guise that even admirers would as willingly see them
in
prose, and that detractors find a difficulty in distinguish-
ing them from prose, except by the form in which they
are printed. Scott's subjects are the antique themes, chosen
in the times when
the burden of minstrelsy
Was knighthood's dauntless deed, and beauty's matchless eye.
His conception of the poet's duty is, as he has implied in
another passage, to preserve in faithful song alike the true
love of the maiden,, the glory of the warrior, the feudal
grandeur of the royal chief, and an equally chivalrous
appreciation of what is due to them pervades the whole of
his works. Fashion, or what Byron pronounced to be
merely a surfeit of his beauties and a weariness of hearing
one name singled out for especial and continual praise,
may have caused him for a time to be superseded in
the popular favour, but the people are rarely unjust or
blind for any length of time. In the present day I think
he and Byron share with very tolerable equality the admi-
ration of readers of poetry; both being surpassed for the
1771-1832.]
305
SCOTT.
moment in the number of their present admirers by living
writers of immeasurably inferior powers. Nor is this to
be wondered at. In a state of society such as now exists,
it always will happen that the friends and panegyrists of
living bards will succeed for the moment in exalting them
above their predecessors. But though superficial qualities
may win temporary eulogy, nothing but solid merit can
permanently engross the attention of posterity; and there is
but little risk in predicting that in succeeding generations,
when the impartial verdict of time shall have superseded
the influences of partiality and fashion, much that is now
placed on a level with them will in its turn be supplanted
by newer favourites, and the poems of Scott and Byron
will be accounted classics of the language.
It remains to speak of his novels. It has been said
already that they were distinguished by many of the quali-
ties which had won such general favour for his poetry.
And in truth a great novelist must necessarily be endowed
with many of the qualities of the poet. Like him he must
have a fertile imagination, an appreciation of character, an
instinctive and unswerving sense of propriety, a mastery
of language, and a power of lively and diversified descrip-
tion. All these Scott of course brought to his new compo-
sitions, and thus shed over them a grace of which, without
his example, prose might hardly have been supposed
capable; adding, also, a liveliness of wit and humour for
which the poems had furnished little or no occasion. It
would carry us beyond our limits to attempt to give a
separate description of the different tales which, for the
next twelve or fourteen years, he poured forth with a
luxuriant and seemingly inexhaustible rapidity which was
not the least surprising circumstance connected with them.
With the exception of two, in which he turns aside to
foreign countries to bring before his readers the wily
Louis XI., with the bold or rash Charles of Burgundy, the
scenes are all laid in the British Isles, some being de-
signed to give an idea of the characters of one or other of
our ancient princes: of Richard I., of John, of Elizabeth,
of Mary of Scotland, of James I., of Charles II, or of their
>
306
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
luckless descendant, the young Pretender; others being
devoted to a representation of the domestic life and man-
ners of his own countrymen, or of their neighbours on the
northern frontier of England. And it is hard, indeed, to
say which class, or which separate tale, is the most excel-
lent. If, in portraying the fiery Richard or the irresistible
Queen of Scots, he shows himself, as brilliantly as in his
poems, the especial painter of princes, Guy Mannering,'
'The Antiquary,' and the 'Heart of Mid Lothian ' prove him
no less able to enter into the feelings of the humbler classes.
Perhaps the sorrow of others has never appealed to our sym-
pathies more tenderly than in the agony of the old fisherman
and his wife, suddenly bereft of the son who was not only
their pride, but, as they fondly believed, the admiration of
all their friends; or in the mute despair with which the old
Cameronian holds between his hands the evidence of his
daughter's shame and danger. The half-witted dependent of
the old Baron; the ever ready wit of Ravenswood's faithful
old servant, who fears neither ridicule in this world nor
judgment in the next, if he can only save the credit of the
family, and in whose eyes 'a good offcome is often better
than the thing itself,' are drawn with equal truth to nature;
while, though differing in the motives which led them to
the field, Dalgetty is not unworthy to be placed alongside
the immortal lover of Dulcinea. The point in which the
novels most closely resemble the poems is the exquisite
delicacy of the female portraits which are exhibited in both.
If poetry has rarely surpassed the pictures of Margaret,
and Ellen, and Edith, prose has certainly never approached
the delineation of the noble-minded Alice Lee, of the more
lively Die Vernon, of the lovely but ill-starred Amy Rob-
sart; and such masterly portraiture of the sex which,
generally speaking, presents less distinctive features than
are brought out by the more varied careers of their rougher
partners, is probably the surest proof of genius of the very
highest class.
1
It is sad to have to close this sketch with the statement
that circumstances connected with, and indeed immediately
(
Scotch, or Caleb Balderston, for an excuse.'
1771-1832.]
307
SCOTT.
seen.
arising out of the unprecedented merit and popularity of
these novels, led to misfortunes which clouded, and pro-
bably shortened, the latter days of their great author. He
had conceived a friendship for his chief publisher and
printers, of whom Constable was one, and two brothers
named John and James Ballantyne the others, so that he
had got into the habit of giving them assistance in their
pecuniary transactions, and, at last, had become a partner
in Ballantyne's house, and involved, to a considerable
extent, in the affairs of that of Constable also. With the
management of any part of the commercial transactions of
cither he had never interfered, leaving it entirely in the
hands of those ostensibly responsible, of whom Constable
was utterly reckless, and James Ballantyne incurably care-
less and indolent. The consequence might have been fore-
The winter of 1825-6 was fatal to many firms whose
business was conducted with prudence and energy; houses
such as those of these Scotch publishers and printers had
no chance of escaping, and in January 1826 Scott found
himself a partner of bankrupts and himself a bankrupt. It
was a calamity which might have bowed any man to the
earth, for it was no common misfortune that thus fell upon
him. The whole earnings of a long and honorable life were
swept away at one blow. He had conceived a hope that
he too, by acts very different from those practised by his
border ancestors, might found a distinct branch of the
great Scott family, and with this view he had gradually
purchased a tolerable estate, and had built on it a house in
something of the old baronial style, to which he had given
the name of Abbotsford, and where he hoped his descend-
ants might long preserve his memory. That hope, so
honorable to conceive, so long and so proudly cherished,
seemed struck from under him, for the liabilities in which
Ballantyne had involved him were more than enough to
absorb all his resources. But never did misfortune, often
as it brings out high qualities which might otherwise never
have been observed or never exerted, display any man's
strength of mind or inflexible honesty of purpose in a more
striking or honorable light. It did no slight honour also to
the sincerity of friendship and the warmth of admiration
308
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
which generous minds feel for genius exerted, as his had
been, for the honour of his country and the benefit of
mankind. It was not till the inevitable exposure of his
partner's affairs necessitated the disclosure that he formally
avowed himself the author of 'Waverley,' and of the
brilliant series of works which had hitherto been published
merely as the productions of that author. But he was
universally believed, if it might not be said known to be
the writer, and many of those to whom, as Lord Dudley
said,' he had given months of delight, hastened to show
their sense of the obligation. From all quarters offers of
the most liberal assistance flowed in, one anonymous ad-
mirer, whose incognito was never penetrated, even making
the munificent offer of placing 30,000l. at his disposal.
A musician named Pole, who had given lessons on the harp
to Miss Scott, tendered him 500l. or 600l., ‘probably his all'
as Scott remarked; but he declined all such aid; he
resolved that he would involve no friend, rich or poor.'
It was a gratification and a great one, to see, as he records
in his journal, such proofs that 'there is much good in the
world after all.' But he was resolved to owe his extrication
from debt to himself alone. He had once become rich by
his pen; he was resolved by his pen alone to free himself
from every claim which could be brought against him.
When the crash came, it found him at work on one of his
most exquisite novels, Woodstock; ' and he had also un-
dertaken, some time before, to write a life of the great
Napoleon for a miscellany which Constable had been pro-
jecting. The idea of the miscellany was of course dropped,
though only for a time. But the moment that 'Woodstock'
was published, Scott commenced the Life, and toiled at it
with such unceasing perseverance that he completed it in a
single year. It can hardly be said to be worthy of his
fame;
but it produced him a vast sum of money; a sum
which, as his affectionate biographer, his son-in-law Lock-
6
On hearing of his involvement in Ballantyne's bankruptcy, Earl
Dudley said to Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, 'Scott ruined! the author of
Waverley ruined! Let every man to whom he has given months of
delight give him a sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow richer than
Rothschild.'
1771-1832.]
309
SCOTT.
hart, says, startles him even to mention: 18,000l.: by far
the largest ever paid for any literary work of any kind. It
was very near having one other consequence scarcely less
remarkable; as General Gourgaud, an aide-de-camp of the
Emperor, who fancied the book represented him at some
disadvantage, threatened to cross over to England and
prove his innocence by challenging the author; and Scott,
resolved not to let 'his country be dishonoured through his
side' provided himself with a second against the arrival, of
his martial adversary. But the General's wrath found safer
vent in a pamphlet, and Scott was left at leisure to continue
his exertions to clear off his liabilities. The 'Fair Maid of
Perth' succeeded Woodstock; 'Anne of Geierstein,' a
tale of great power, followed the 'Fair Maid;' in two years
Scott actually paid off 40,0001. by his labours; and so
highly did Ballantyne's creditors appreciate his unequalled
efforts to satisfy their demands, efforts the more honorable
that a court had decided that they had no claim whatever
to any part of his earnings subsequent to the bankruptcy,
that they presented him with all the furniture, plate,
library, paintings, and,' as they expressed it, 'curiosities of
every description,' which were contained at Abbotsford, and
'in grateful acknowledgment of the unparalleled and most
successful exertions which he had made and continued to
make for them.'
But these exertions overtasked his strength, and in April
1831 brought on a severe stroke of paralysis, of which
indeed he had some warnings in an attack of illness nearly
two years before. He tried a milder air, and, by the advice
of his physicians, in the autumn exchanged the bleakness
of his native climate for the sunny shores of the Medi-
terrancan, the Government placing a frigate at his disposal.
to convey him to his destination. Yet, even when his
strength was thus broken, he would not lay aside work: he
had still two novels in hand, to which he put the finishing
strokes before he sailed; but they bear the trace of his ill-
ness, and are not worthy of his reputation. The winter in
Italy afforded a relaxation to his mind, but it could not
remove the bodily infirmities; and, longing once more to see
his home, he quitted Naples early in the spring. As he
R
310
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
travelled back overland through Germany, with perhaps
greater rapidity than consisted with his weakness, he had a
more serious attack than before, so that it was not without
difficulty that he reached London, and many weeks passed
before he could be removed northwards. At last, however,
in the middle of July, he reached Abbotsford, and there, after
two more months of debility, it may be hoped, rather than
of suffering, he died on the 21st of September. If literature
had made no man as wealthy as he for a time had been, still
more certainly may it be said that no literary man had
descended to the grave with such honour. 'Almost every
newspaper that announced the event in Scotland, and many
in England, had the signs of mourning usual on the demise
of the king." A general sorrow affected all classes, who felt
that they had lost one who was an honour, not only to his
country, but to his kind: a man at once of unsurpassed
genius and of stainless honour.
Our first extract gives Scott's own idea of the functions
of a poet, as the preserver from oblivion of every feeling,
and of every kind of renown.
(Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto v. stanzas 1, 2.)
Call it not vain: they do not err
Who say that, when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;
Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone,
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill,
That flowers in tears of balm distil;
Through his loved groves that breezes sigh,
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;
That rivers teach their rushing wave,
To murmur dirges round his grave.
Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap. lxxxiii.
2 Allan Cunningham mentions that, walking home late one night (in.
June 1832), he found several working-men standing together at the
corner of Jermyn Street, and one of them asked him-as if there were
but one deathbed in London-'Do you know, sir, if this is the street in
which he is lying?'
1771-1832.]
311
SCOTT.
Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn,
Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale,
Is vocal with the plaintive wail
Of those, who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song,
And with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.
The maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,
That love, true love, should be forgot,
From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear,
Upon the gentle minstrel's bier:
The phantom knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o'er the field he heaped with dead;
Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain,
And shrieks along the battle-plain :
The chief, whose antique crownlet long
Still sparkled in the feudal song,
Now, from the mountain's misty throne,
Sees, in the thanedom once his own,
His ashes undistinguished lie,
His place, his power, his memory die:
His groans the lonely caverns fill,
His tears of rage impel the rill;
All mourn the minstrel's harp unstrung,
Their name unknown, their praise unsung.
Another extract from the same poem has been often
quoted as embodying the spirit of true patriotism, with more
vividness than any other poet since Shakespeare has ex-
pressed that most noble and most beneficial of all feelings;
that parent of all dutiful service to the land; that source of
all that is honorable and disinterested in the person who
guides himself by its impulses.
(Canto vi. stanzas 1, 2.)
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand !
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
312
[Cu. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down,
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires, what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand !
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,
Sole friends, thy woods and streams were left:
And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.
By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettricke break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot stone
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan.
Our next extract from his most elaborate poem affords an
exquisite specimen of our poet's pre-eminent excellence as
a painter of the beauties of scenery.
(Lady of the Lake, canto i. stanzas 11-15.)
The western waves of ebbing day
Rolled o'er the glen their level way;
Each purple peak, each flinty spire,
Was bathed in flood of living fire;
But not a setting beam could glow,
Within the dark ravines below,
Where twined the path, in shadow hid,
Round many a rocky pyramid,
Shooting abruptly from the dell,
Its thunder-splintered pinnacle,
1771-1832.]
313
SCOTT.
Round many an insulated mass,
The native bulwarks of the pass,
Huge as the tower which builders vain
Presumptous piled on Shinar's plain.
The rocky summits, split and rent,
Formed turret, dome, or battlement,
Or seemed fantastically set
With cupola or minaret,
Wild crests as pagod ever decked,
Or mosque of eastern architect,
Nor were these earth-born castles bare,
Nor lacked they many a banner fair ;
For, from their shivered brows displayed,
Far o'er the unfathomable glade,
All twinkling with the dew-drop sheen,
The briar-rose fell in streamers green,
And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes,
Waved in the west-wind's summer sighs.
Boon nature scattered, free and wild,
Each plant or flower, the mountain's child.
Here eglantine embalmed the air,
Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale, and violet flower
Found in each cliff a narrow bower;
Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,
Emblems of punishment and pride,
Grouped their dark hues with every stain,
The weather-beaten crags retain,
With boughs that quaked at every breath,
Grey birch and aspen wept beneath;
Aloft, the ash and warrior oak
Cast anchor in the rifted rock;
And higher yet, the pine-tree hung
His shatter'd trunk, and frequent flung,
Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high
His boughs athwart the narrowed sky.
Highest of all, where white peaks glanced
Where glistening streamers waved and danced,
The wanderer's eye could barely view
The summer heaven's delicious blue;
So wondrous wild, the whole might seem
The scenery of a fairy dream.
314
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And now, to issue from the glen,
No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
Unless he climb, with footing nice,
A far-projecting precipice.
The broom's tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid;
And thus an airy point he won,
Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnish'd sheet of living gold,
Lock Katrine lay beneath him rolled ;
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light;
And mountains that like giants stand,
To sentinel enchanted land.
High on the south, huge Ben-venue
Down to the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world;
A 'wildering forest feather'd o'er
His ruined sides and summit hoar,
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.
From the steep promontory gazed
The stranger, 'raptured and amazed.
And, 'What a scene is here," he cried,
'For princely pomp, or churchman's pride!
On this bold brow, a lordly tower,
In that soft vale, a lady's bower;
On yonder meadow, far away
The turrets of a cloister gray.
How blithely might the bugle horn
Chide, on the lake, the lingering morn!
How sweet, at eve, the lover's lute
Chime, when the groves are still and mute!
And, when the midnight moon should lave
Her forehead in the silver wave,
How solemn on the ear would come
The holy matin's distant hum,
While the deep peal's commanding tone
Should wake, in yonder islet lone,
A sainted hermit from his cell,
To drop a bead with every knell—
1771-1832.]
315
SCOTT.
And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
Should each bewildered stranger call
To friendly feast and lighted hall.
Presently he winds his bugle again, and the Lady of the
Lake, Ellen Douglas, thinking the note came from another
and an expected visitor, comes to meet him across the lake.
Her portrait is touched with rare and Homeric delicacy.
(Stanzas 17-19.)
With head upraised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Grecian art,
In listening mood she seemed to stand
The guardian Naiad of the strand.
And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,
Of finer form or lovelier face!
What though the sun, with ardent frown,
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,
The sportive toil, which, short and light,
Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,
Served too in hastier swell to show
Short glimpses of a breast of snow:
What though no rule of courtly grace
To measured mood had trained her pace,-
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;
E'en the slight hare-bell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread!
What though upon her speech there hung
The accents of the mountain tongue,
Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear,
The list'ner held his breath to hear.
A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;
Her satin snood, her silken plaid,
Her golden brooch such birth betray'd.
And seldom was a snood amid
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid,
Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven's wing;
&
15
316
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And seldom o'er a breast so fair,
Mantled a plaid with modest care;
And never brooch the folds combined
'Above a heart more good and kind.
Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;
Not Katrine, in her mirror blue,
Gives back the shaggy banks more true
Than every free-born glance confessed
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claimed a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion poured a prayer,
Or tale of injury called forth
The indignant spirit of the north.
One only passion, unrevealed,
With maiden pride the maid concealed,
Yet not less purely felt the flame ;-
Oh, need I tell that passion's name?
The knight who is the hero of the tale, returning again
to the glen, learns that he is waylaid, and that his guide
has betrayed him. He slays the traitor, and, proceeding
alone on his path, in the twilight falls in with a mountaineer,
beside a watchfire, whom he conceives to be a follower of
Roderick Dhu, a chieftain in rebellion against the king,
against whom for other reasons he himself has vowed
an enmity only to be appeased by personal conflict. The
following extract begins with the last lines of his avowal of
his hostile purpose; which is replied to by the mountaineer,
who is Roderick himself, summoning all his clansmen, who
are lurking around. The energy of the stanzas which relate
the uprising and disappearance of the clansmen, is equalled
by few passages of any poet.
(Canto v. stanzas 8-10.)
'Enough, I am by promise tied
To match me with this man of pride;
Twice have I sought Clan-Alpine's glen
but when I come again,
In peace; but when
I come with banner, brand, and bow,
As leader seeks his mortal foe.
1771-1832.]
317
SCOTT.
For love-lorn swain, in lady's bower,
Ne'er panted for the appointed hour,
As I, until before me stand
This rebel chieftain and his band.'
'Have, then, thy wish!'--he whistled shrill,
And he was answered from the hill;
Wild as the scream of the curlew,
From crag to crag the signal flew.
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows,
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe
From shingles grey their lances start,
The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for strife
That whistle garrison'd the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill to heaven
A subterranean host had given.
Watching their leader's beck and will,
All silent there they stood and still,
Like the loose crags, whose threatening mass
Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass,
As if an infant's touch could urge
Their headlong passage down the verge,
With step and weapon forward flung,
Upon the mountain side they hung.
The mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,
Then fixed his high and sable brow
Full on Fitz-James-'How say'st thou now?
These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true ;
And, Saxon, I am Roderick Dhu!'
Fitz-James was brave: though to his heart
The life-blood thrilled with sudden start,
He mann'd himself with dauntless air,
Returned the chief his haughty stare,
His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before;
318
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
'Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as !
Sir Roderick marked, and in his eyes,
Respect was mingled with surprise
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
Short space he stood, then waved his hand;
Down sank the disappearing band;
Each warrior vanished where he stood,
In broom or bracken, heath or wood;
Sank brand, and spear, and bended bow
In osiers pale and copses low;
It seemed as if their mother earth
Had swallowed up her warlike birth.
The wind's last breath had tossed in air
Pennon, and plaid, and plumage fair-
The next but swept a lone hill-side,
Where heath and fern were waving wide;
The sun's last glance was glinted back,
From spear and glaive, from targe and Jack-
The next, all unreflected, shone
On bracken green and cold grey stone.
The knight is King James himself in disguise. And the
following stanzas relate his discovery of himself to Ellen
when she has gone to the Court to implore pardon for her
father and Roderick. They are as full of grace and high-
breeding as those last quoted are redolent of courage and
magnanimity.
(Canto vi. stanza 26.)
Within 'twas brilliant all and light,
A thronging scene of figures bright;
It glowed on Ellen's dazzled sight,
As when the setting sun has given
Ten thousand hues to summer even,
And from their tissue fancy frames
Aerial knights and fairy dames.
Still by Fitz-James her footing stayed;
A few faint steps she forward made,
Then slow her drooping head she raised,
And fearful round the presence gazed;
For him she sought, who owned this state,
The dreaded prince whose will was fate!
She gazed on many a princely port,
Might well have ruled a royal court;
1771-1832.]
319
SCOTT.
On many a splendid garb she gazed—
Then turned bewildered and amazed,
For all stood bare; and, in the room,
Fitz-James alone wore cap and plume.
To him each lady's look was lent,
On him each courtier's eye was bent;
Midst furs, and silks, and jewels' sheen,
He stood in simple Lincoln green
The centre of the glittering ring-
And Snowdoun's knight is Scotland's king!
If 'Marmion' be not Scott's finest poem, which however
is, I think, a question, there is no doubt that it contains the
finest passages of any of his poems. The two following
extracts present even a more striking specimen of his
versatility than those quoted from the 'Lady of the Lake.'
The grace of the description of Lady Heron, the tender
reverence with which the beautiful and virtuous but
neglected Queen is portrayed in her lonely and sorrowful
retirement, exhibit a wonderful contrast with the splendid
energy with which the battle of Flodden is related: a
description which (as the Edinburgh reviewer, Jeffrey, truly
said) had never been equalled since Homer told how
Achilles drove back the cowering Trojans to the Scan
gates.
(Marmion, canto v. stanzas 10, 11.)
O'er James's heart, the courtiers say,
Sir Hugh the Heron's wife held sway :
To Scotland's court she came,
To be a hostage for her lord,
Who Cessford's gallant heart had gored,
And with the King to make accord,
Had sent his lovely dame.
Nor to that lady free alone
Did the gay king allegiance own;
For the fair Queen of France
Sent him a turquoise ring, and glove,
And charged him, as her knight and love,
For her to break a lance;
And strike three strokes with Scottish brand
And march three miles on Southron land
And bid the banners of his band
In English breezes dance.
*
320
[CH. XVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And thus for France's Queen, he drest
His manly limbs in mailèd vest;
And thus admitted English fair
His inmost counsels still to share;
And thus, for both, he madly planned
The ruin of himself and land!
And yet, the sooth to tell,
Nor England's fair, nor France's Queen,
Were worth one pearl-drop, bright and sheen,
From Margaret's eyes that fell,-
His own Queen Margaret, who, in Lithgow's bower,
All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour.
The Queen sits lone in Lithgow pile,
And weeps the weary day,
The war against her native soil,
Her monarch's risk in battle broil :
And in gay Holy Rood, the while,
Dame Heron rises with a smile,
Upon the harp to play.
Fair was her rounded arm, as o'er
The strings her fingers flew:
And as she touched and tuned them all,
Even her bosom's rise and fall
Was plainer given to view;
For all, for heat, was laid aside,
Her wimple, and her hood untied.
And first she pitched her voice to sing,
Then glanced ber dark eye on the King,
And then around the silent ring;
And laughed, and blushed, and oft did say,
Her pretty oath, by Yea, and Nay,
She could not, would not, durst not play !
At length, upon the harp, with glee,
Mingled with arch simplicity,
A soft, yet lively air she rung,
While thus the wily lady sung.
(Canto vi. stanzas 25-27.)
'Unworthy office here to stay!
No hope of gilded spurs to-day.
But, see! look up-on Flodden bent,
The Scottish foe has fired his tent.'
1771--1832.]
321
SCOTT.
1
And sudden, as he spoke,
From the sharp ridges of the hill,
All downward to the banks of Till,
Was wreathed in sable smoke.
Volumed and vast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland's war,
As down the hill they broke;
Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,
Told England, from his mountain throne
King James did rushing come.
Scarce could they hear, or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close.
They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway, and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air.
Oh, life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair.
Long looked the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness nought descry.
At length the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And first the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew,
Then marked they, dashing broad and far
The broken billows of the war,
And plumèd crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave;
But nought distinct they see:
Wide raged the battle on the plain;
Spears shook, and faulchions flashed amain;
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ;
Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,
Wild and disorderly,
Amid the scene of tumult, high
り
​322
[CÙ. XVL
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly:
And stainless Tunstall's banner white,
And Edmund Howard's lion bright,
Still bear them bravely in the fight;
Although against them come,
Of gallant Gordons many a one,
And many a stubborn Highlandman,
And many a rugged Border clan,
With Huntley and with Home.
Far on the left, unseen the while,
Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle;
Though there the western mountaineer
Rushed with bare bosom on the spear
And flung the feeble targe aside,
And with both hands the broadsword plied.
'Twas vain. But Fortune, on the right,
With fickle smile, cheered Scotland's fight.
Then fell that spotless banner white,
The Howard's lion fell;
Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew,
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
Around the battle yell.
1788-1824.]
323
BYRON.
CHAPTER XVII.
BYRON.
A.D. 1788-1824
WE have seen that, according to Scott's own statement,
one of his reasons for relinquishing poetical composition
was the perception that a new luminary had arisen whose
light the public preferred to his own. In age Byron was
the younger by seventeen years, but he was only six years.
later in making his appearance as an original poet of the
highest class, as only that interval elapsed between the
publication of the 'Lay' and the first two cantos of Childe
Harold.' He was born on January 22, 1788, just 100
years after Pope, being the heir of one of the Conqueror's
Norman barons, whose descendants had been promoted
to an English peerage by Charles I., who had no more
devoted or gallant adherent than the first Lord Byron.
On his mother's side he was still more nobly descended,
his mother having been a Miss Gordon of Gight in Scot-
land, who traced her pedigree back to the royal line of the
Stuarts and Bruces. But this man, whose birth and cir-
cumstances placed him so high above all the other writers
of whom I have spoken or shall have to speak, was, as if
by some strange freak of the goddess who, to vary his own
expression,
never yet of human fortune,
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis,
in many most important respects the most unfortunate and
unhappy of all. Yet the very same cause to which, in all
probability, his diseased temper (that temper which made
him quarrel with all the world, and with himself also) may
be traced, existed in a greater degree in Walter Scott. Scott,
as I have mentioned, was crippled in one leg; but his misfor-
tune never affected his manly spirit and genial temper for
A
324
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
a single hour. Byron, from his birth, had a slightly
deformed foot. The malformation was so slight that not
only did it not interfere with his activity, for he excelled in
exercises that eminently required both firm footing and
quickness, but that after his death his friends could not
recollect which foot had been affected. But trifling as it
was, he believed from his childhood that it was his one
characteristic on which everyone's attention was fixed, and
that it made him an object of general scorn, which he was
bound to be prompt and watchful in retaliating. Much of
the difference of feeling with which the two poets regarded
their defect was, no doubt, caused by the difference in
their parents' conduct. Scott's, with judicious kindness,
took every means that science or affection could suggest to
remedy the evil. Byron's mother, a woman of violent
passions, never omitted any opportunity of taunting him
with his deformity. Captain Byron, the poet's father, was
a profligate man, who deserted his wife as soon as he had
squandered the whole of her fortune, and died in France.
when his son was three years old; and, for some years
afterwards, Mrs. Byron lived at Aberdeen in exceedingly
narrow circumstances; but, in 1794, the death of the only
lineal descendant of the existing Lord Byron, her husband's
uncle, left her son heir to the peerage; and, in 1795, the
peer himself died, and the future poet succeeded to the
title, and to the family estate of Newstead Abbey in
Nottinghamshire. He could now afford a better education
than was to be obtained in Scotland; and, as soon as he
was fit for an English public school, he was sent to Harrow,
where the chief impression which he made on the masters
seems to have been that he had a remarkable talent for
oratory, or at least for the delivery of speeches and decla-
mations, and on his schoolfellows that he was a ready
fighter and a good cricketer. But he was not yet suspected
of any inclination 'to subside into poesy,' as he calls it,
though in fact he had written verses enough to make a
small volume, which, with a few additions, he published
soon after his removal to Trinity College, Cambridge. He
called them 'Hours of Idleness,' and they neither bear the
marks of much labour, nor of any very remarkable talent;
1788-1824.]
325
BYRON.
certainly, they give no promise of the genius which was
hereafter to be developed; though, on the other hand, they
are equally far from deserving the unusually spiteful
attack which Mr. Brougham made on them in the Edin-
burgh Review.' Byron, from his childhood, was proud,
but he was also vain (a rare combination), and he was
likewise throughout his life so sensitive to blame that, even
when his fame was fully established, he avowed to a friend
that the disparaging comments of the lowest or most
incapable judges caused him more pain than the com-
mendation of the best and wisest gave him pleasure. But
the criticism of the 'Edinburgh' (which, if candour be an
ingredient in criticism, is really undeserving of the name)
missed its mark by the very violence with which it was
aimed. It angered him; it exasperated him; and prompted
him at once to resolve on retaliation, and he retaliated in
a satire, ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' in which,
however, he ran amuck like a Malay, dealing his blows
alike on those who had and those who had not offended
him. The Edinburgh reviewers had given him abundant
provocation, but the poets had given him none; and among
these were men of undoubted genius, some of whose works
in his soberer years he warmly admired and honestly
extolled. But on this occasion he assailed all, Scott and
Crabbe equally with Jeffrey; not scrupling to enter into
subjects with which no third person had any right to con-
cern himself at all, as, for instance, into the price a publisher
had given for a poem ; but, at the same time, seasoning his
attacks with a very keen wit, and displaying a command
of language and a power of versification from which many,
even of his victims, augured great things in future.
Comparatively speaking, they had not long to wait.
satire was published at the beginning of 1809, when he was
just one-and-twenty. As soon as he had concluded some
arrangements necessary to be completed on his coming of
age, he went abroad, travelling for a couple of years, first
in Spain and Portugal, and afterwards in Greece; and he
brought back with him a poem on the countries which he
had visited, of which he himself had formed no high opinion,
preferring to it indeed another satire, which he had also
The
326
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
<
written in the interval, but which was little more than a
paraphrase of Horace's 'Art of Poetry.' Luckily, however,
some friends to whom he showed his descriptive poem had
a sounder judgment; they persuaded him to lock up the
'Hints from Horace' in his bureau, and to publish his
'Childe Harold' with Murray. It came out at the begin-
ning of 1812. Its reception by the public can hardly be
better described than it was by himself, when he said, 'he
awoke one morning, and found himself famous.' Even the
'Lay of the Last Minstrel' had scarcely made a greater
impression; and for some years his literary career was a
series of triumphs absolutely unequalled in the history of
literature. The next year produced the 'Giaour' and the
'Bride of Abydos;' the spring of 1814 saw the publication
of the Corsair;' that was followed by 'Lara;' the
Siege of Corinth,' 'Parisina,' the Prisoner of Chillon,'
with several poems of smaller dimensions, followed in rapid
succession. 1816 produced a third, 1818 a fourth and
concluding canto of Childe Harold;' and the daily in-
creasing body of readers could scarcely admire and praise
them with sufficient warmth. If fame and popularity could
have cheered a morbid spirit, no one ever had more of
them for a time. But he refused to be comforted; and his
popularity was but short-lived. Even while the admiration
of his poetry continued as unanimous and cordial as ever,
the world of fashion suddenly turned against the poet. At
the beginning of 1815 he married a young lady of very
great expectations, a Miss Milbanke, the only daughter of
a Northumberland baronet. She was not deficient in other
gifts besides those of fortune, neither in personal attrac-
ticns nor in accomplishments; but those who knew him
best did not anticipate that the marriage would produce.
much happiness to either party, and dismal forebodings.
have rarely been more completely realised. It was not a
love match on either side; for the lady had refused him at
least once, and his last proposal, when she accepted him,
was made on the very morning that he had received a
refusal in another quarter. He had been ardently in love
once, when he was little more than a boy, with a distant
cousin of his own, a Miss Chaworth, between whose branch
1788-1824.]
327
BYRON.
of the family and his own there had been a deadly quarrel
at one time, owing to the last lord having killed a
Mr. Chaworth in a duel; and Byron flattered himself that
a marriage with her would be reckoned especially desirable
by their common relatives, as healing a family feud; but she
had married a still nearer kinsman, and namesake of her
own; and it does not seem that, since she had been lost
to him, anyone else had ever excited any warmer feelings
in his heart than a passing fancy. It would be to no pur-
pose, even were it possible, which it certainly is not, to
explain the causes that made the union that did take place
miserable. The only fact that is beyond question is that
they had scarcely been married more than a twelvemonth,
and their only child, a daughter, was little more than six
weeks old, when Lady Byron left him for ever. She never
explained what offence or injury had moved her to take
such a step; and he declared, with every mark of sincerity,
that he was wholly ignorant what provocation she imagined
herself to have received.
But it was not only, as was inevitable, most unfortunate
for his future comfort, but very fatal to his character. He
went abroad: first to Switzerland, where the mountain
scenery, for which his early bringing up among the Scotch
Highlands had given him an indelible preference, suggested
to him a new canto of 'Childe Harold,' and one or two other
poems; and from the Alps he moved on to Italy, where he
passed several years in a most ostentatious licentiousness;
redeemed in part by an extreme and generally judicious
beneficence towards all who stood in need of assistance ;
and embellished by a continued outpouring of magnificent
poetry of all kinds: a fourth canto of 'Childe Harold,' of
which the scene is laid in Italy, surpassing all its pre-
decessors; dramas, not intended nor suited for theatrical
representation, but for the most part brilliant with all his
characteristic beauties; burlesques, proving, what his
social companions had long known, that wit and humour
had been as largely bestowed on him as the loftier gifts of
imagination; and one poem of great length, indeed
unfinished when he died, which reflects but too often and
too faithfully the excesses of his life, but which, as an
2
328
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
6
exhibition of almost every quality that can be required in a
great work, has no equal in the English language. One of
the most judicious critics of the day, himself enjoying no
small popularity as a brother of the quill,' and one by no
means inclined to overlook the grievous faults which have
caused 'Don Juan' to be almost proscribed, nevertheless
admits it to be 'by far the most admirable specimen of the
mixture of ease, strength, gaiety, and seriousness extant in
the whole body of English poetry.' That much of the
licence which he permitted himself in the work was
prompted by a recklessness and spirit of vehement defiance
of a world by which he felt he had been undeservedly con-
demned, is unquestionable; it is equally certain that he
was not without some right to complain. It was not
known why he and his wife had quarrelled, nor on which
side the fault lay; but the fashionable world in London,
whose verdict was followed by that of the rest of the
nation, without hearing either party, for indeed neither had
spoken, had decided not only that he was alone to blame,
but that the offence by which he had compelled the lady to
abandon him was of some peculiarly unpardonable cha-
racter. To quote a statement of his own made many
years afterwards, 'the outcry against him was beyond all
precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political
notions have sharpened slander and doubled enmity: he
was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and
private rancour.' Even after he quitted England, in other
countries he was unremittingly pursued by the same
intensity of calumny; and compared himself, when sitting
by the Adriatic, to the stag at bay, who betakes him to the
waters' as the only refuge from the hunters who seek his
lifeblood. Such provocation may be a palliation for much
error, but is no excuse for such perversity as is visible in
too much of Don Juan.' Happily the last years of his life
present him to us in a different aspect. The Greeks were
just beginning to acquire courage to throw off the Turkish
yoke, which had so long weighed down the country so dear
to the recollections of every scholar. And in the spring of
1823, Byron, having already discussed the probability of
success with a Captain Blaquière, the agent of a committee
1788-1824.]
329
BYRON.
which had been formed in London with the object of aiding
the Greeks, conceived the idea of crossing over to Greece
in person, and carried it out with characteristic promp-
titude. Early in July he sailed from Genoa; and landed at
Cephalonia, where he stayed till the beginning of the next
year, when he crossed over to Missolonghi. It was a new line
of life for him; but he seems to have impressed all with whom
he came in contact with the highest idea not only of his
kindness of heart and general benevolence, but of his shrewd
practical sagacity, judicious energy, and likewise of his tact
in dealing with people of unpractical hopes, unbusinesslike
habits, and unmanageable temper. His opinion of the
Greek nation had not been improved by nearer ac-
quaintance. On the contrary, he learned to doubt even
their courage, and to feel convinced of their utter want of
all the higher moral qualities; but he persevered in his
desire to aid them, partly from his love of Liberty, which,
however, his interpretation rendered too synonymous with
liberalism, and partly no doubt from an innate obstinacy.
But the Greeks did not doubt him for a moment. On the
contrary, his arrival at Missolonghi was greeted with one
universal acclamation, prompted, it may be fancied, chiefly
by their expectations of what might be got out of him. He
soon found that he was expected to act not only as com-
mander-in-chief, but as paymaster also; but he was not
daunted. To a disposition like his, which could hardly dis-
guise from himself that his way of life in Italy was not a
thing to be proud of, the change to a scene of honorable
action, or at least of what a very little and very pardonable
self-delusion might easily represent as such, must have been
a welcome transition; and he was preparing to take the
field when, early in April 1824, he was attacked by a fever.
Though young in years he was old in constitution; he had
latterly accustomed himself to drink ardent spirits in great
quantities, and he had no strength to stand a severe illness.
After a few days of severe suffering, he died on the 19th
April; under circumstances which to charitable hearts may
justify the hope that, if a longer life had been allowed to
him, the remainder of his days would have been spent in a
manner more worthy of his genius, and more corresponding
330
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
to the many good and noble qualities which he unquestion-
ably possessed.
Our first extract shall be from the first canto of bis
'Childe Harold,' a splendid description of the war in Spain,
and of the Spanish character, which might well lead the
critics to predict, as they did predict, a brilliant career for
one who at the age of 22 could already display such power.
(Childe Harold, canto i. stanzas 53-57.)
And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave,
To swell one bloated Chief's unwholesome reign ?
No step between submission and a grave?
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?
And doth the Power that man adores ordain
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal?
Is all that desperate Valour acts in vain ?
And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal,
The Veteran's skill, Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart of steel.
Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused,
Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar,
And, all unsex'd, the anlace hath espoused,
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war?
And she, whom once the semblance of a scar
Appall'd, an owlet's larum chill'd with dread,
Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar,
The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread.
Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale,
Oh! had you known her in her softer hour,
Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil,
Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower,
Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power,
Her fairy form, with more than female grace,
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower
Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face,
Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase.
Her lover sinks-she sheds no ill-timed tear;
Her chief is slain-she fills his fatal post;
Her fellows flee-she checks their base career;
The foe retires-she heads the sallying host;
1788-1824.]
331
BYRON.
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost?
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ?
What maid retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost?
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall ?
Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons,
But form'd for all the witching arts of love:
Though thus in arms they emulate her sons,
And in the horrid phalanx dare to move,
'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove,
Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate.
The following stanza may serve to show how far his
unhappy scepticism was removed from the daring impiety
of others with whom his enemies maliciously sought to
confound him.
(Canto ii. stanza 8.)
Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be
A land of souls beyond that sable shore,
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee
And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore;
How sweet it were in concert to adore
With those who made our mortal labours light!
To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more!
Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight,
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right.
The second stanza of the following extract is not more
distinguished for beauty of expression than for the extreme
felicity with which the image is conceived.
(Canto iii. stanzas 32, 33.)
They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:
The tree will wither long before it fall;
The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ;
The rooftree sinks, but moulders on the hall
In massy hoariness; the ruined wall
Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;
The bars survive the captive they enthral;
The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:
332
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
In every fragment multiplies; and makes
A thousand images of one that was,
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,
Living in shatter'd guise, and still, and cold,
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,
Yet withers on till all without is old,
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.
The description of the battle of Waterloo is too long to
quote, and too perfect to mutilate. It may give a better
idea of the workings of Byron's mind to present his reflec-
tions on Napoleon himself, which show a singularly just
estimate of the great conqueror, whom those of the party
to which he had attached himself in general regarded with
such unmingled admiration.
(Canto iii. stanzas 36–38.)
There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,
Whose spirit antithetically mixt
One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixt,
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even now to reassume the imperial mien,
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!
Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
A god unto thyself; nor less the same
To the astounded kingdoms all inert,
Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.
Oh, more or less than man-in high or low,
Battling with nations, flying from the field;
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield :
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
1788-1824.]
333
BYRON.
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
However deeply in men's spirits skill'd,
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
The following stanzas are equally distinguished for the
richness of their poetry and a sort of indistinct, hesitating
reverence which pervaded his mind, though unhappily not
with sufficient clearness permanently or entirely to influ-
ence and purify it.
(Canto iii. stanzas 88-93.)
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep
All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,
All is concenter'd in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self: it is a tone,
The soul and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,
Binding all things with beauty ;-'twould disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.
Not vainly did the early Persian make
Ilis altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
334
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The Spirit in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!
The sky is changed !—and such a change! O night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contain'd no tomb,-
And glowing into day: we may resume
The march of our existence: and thus I,
Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room
And food for meditation, nor pass by
Much, that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly.
The third canto is, as it were, dedicated to his only
daughter, and these stanzas are valuable as showing the
sincerity of his affectionate feelings, and his yearnings after
home and a purer life than he was leading, against his
better consciousness.
(Canto iii. stanzas 115-117.)
My daughter! with thy name this song begun-
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end-
I see thee not, I hear thee not,—but none
Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend
To whom the shadows of far years extend:
Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend
And reach into thy heart,-when mine is cold,—
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.
1788-1824.]
335
BYRON.
To aid thy mind's development,—to watch
Thy dawn of little joys,-to sit and see
Almost thy very growth,-to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects,-wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,-
This it should seem was not reserved for me;
Yet this was in my nature:-as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.
Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt love me; though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation,—and a broken claim :
Though the grave close between us,-'twere the same,
I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
My blood from out thy being were an aim,
And an attainment,—all would be in vain,—
Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain.
The following extracts, describing Rome and its varied
fortunes, are among the most beautiful in the poem: as
passages of descriptive beauty, they are probably unequalled
in any modern language, while, as the second and third
extracts show, no scenery or contemplation of outward
things could long withdraw his mind from himself and his
own condition.
(Canto iv. stanzas 78, 79).
Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
Whose agonies are evils of a day—
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
336
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.
(Canto iv. stanza 121.)
Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art—
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring phantasy,
And to a thought such shape and image given,
As haunts the unquench'd soul-parch'd-wearied-wrung
-and riven.
(Canto iv. stanza 130.)
Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled -
Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love-sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it does defer
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift.
(Canto iv. stanzas 154, 155.)
But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
Standest alone-with nothing like to thee-
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook his former city, what could be,
Of earthly structures in his honour piled,
Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty,
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.
Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has
grown colossal, and can only find
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
1788-1824.]
337
BYRON.
The news of the death of the Princess Charlotte in her
confinement reached him while he was penning the last
stanzas of the poem; and national sorrow has never found
a more powerful or truly sympathetic interpreter.
(Canto iv. stanzas 167-170.)
Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
Such as arises when a nation bleeds
With some deep and immedicable wound;
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground,
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief
Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd,
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low
Some less majestic, less beloved head?
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,
Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled
The present happiness and promised joy
Which filled the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy.
Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be,
Oh thou that wert so happy, so ador❜d!
Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee,
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
Her many griefs for One; for she had pour'd
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord,
And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed!
The husband of a year! the father of the dead !
Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did entrust
Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd
Like stars to shepherds' eyes :-'twas but a meteor beam'd.
2
338
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
With respect to the stanzas which follow, Professor Wilson
writes: 'It was a thought worthy of the great spirit of
Byron, after exhibiting to us his pilgrim amidst all the
most striking scenes of earthly grandeur and earthly
decay; after teaching us, like him, to sicken over the
mutability and vanity and emptiness of human greatness,
to conduct him and us at last to the borders of "the Great
Deep." It is thus that we may perceive an image of the
awful and unchangeable abyss of eternity into whose bosom
so much has sunk, and all shall one day sink; of that
eternity wherein the scorn and the contempt of man, and
the melancholy of great and the fretting of little minds
shall be at rest for ever.'
(Canto iv. stanzas 179-183.)
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :- there let him lay.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
1788-1824.]
339
BYRON.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ?—
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving ;--boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity-the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy shrine
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
The 'Giaour' is written almost wholly in the octo-
syllabic metre, which Byron considered that Scott had
made so completely his own. As he tells us in the preface,
it is founded on an event which actually happened. Tho
second canto of 'Childe Harold' had been devoted to Greece;
but in this poem he reveals far more of the fascination
which the country had for him, and which grew with him
to the end of his life. The following passage, in which he
compares the land once so powerful and glorious, and still
so attractive, to a body in which, though the life has quitted
it, the beauty still lingers, is one which has often been
extolled both for its truth and for the exquisite skill with
which the image is wrought out.
(The Giaour, line 68.)
Ile who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled ;
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress
(Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines were beauty lingers,
And mark'd the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there,
>
16
340
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
:
1
The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,
The first, last look by death reveal'd!
Such is the aspect of this shore ;
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,
That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,
A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of feeling pass'd away!
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warns no more its cherished earth f
(The Giaour, line 388.')
As rising on its purple wing
The insect queen of eastern spring,
It may seem that Byron in some degree took the following descrip
tion of the butterfly and its flight from the 'Dunciad':
Of all the enamel'd race whose silvery wing
Waves to the tepid zephyrs of the spring,
Or swims along the fluid atmosphere,
Once brightest shined this child of heat and air;
I saw, and started from its vernal bower
The rising game, and chased from flower to flower;
It fled; I followed; now in hope, now pain;
It stopt, I stopt; it mov'd, I mov'd again;
At last it fixt; twas on what plant it pleased,
And when it fixt, the beauteous bird I seized.
1788-1824.]
341
BYRON.
O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So Beauty lures the full-grown child
With bue as bright, and wing as wild;
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears,
If won, to equal ills betrayed,
Woe waits the insect and the maid;
A life of pain, the loss of peace,
From infant's play, and man's caprice:
The lovely toy so fiercely sought
Has lost its charm by being caught,
For every touch that woo'd its stay
Has brush'd the brightest hues away,
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,
"Tis left to fly or fall alone.
With wounded wing, or bleeding breast,
Ah! where shall either victim rest?
Can this with faded pinion soar
From rose to tulip as before?
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower?
No: gayer insects fluttering by
Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim
Except an erring sister's shame.
The 'Bride of Abydos' is chiefly in the same metre as the
'Giaour;' but the following passage in the ten-syllable
verse of Dryden and Pope shows that metre to be capable
of an energy which even Dryden could scarcely infuse into
Rose or carnation was beneath my care,
I meddle, goddess, only in my sphere;
I tell the naked fact without disguise,
And, to excuse it, need but show the prize,
Whose spoils this paper offers to your eye,
Fair ev'n in death, the peerless buttery --iv 421.
心
​342
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1
it. It would be hard to find one in the language in which
the feelings of passionate and at the same time pure love
are expressed with greater spirit and force, combined with
all possible tenderness and delicacy; while the rich profu-
sion with which he throws off image after image is peculiar
to Byron among modern poets.
(The Bride of Abydos, canto ii. stɑnza 20.)
Ay! let me like the ocean-Patriarch roam,
Or only know on land the Tartar's home!
My tent on shore, my galley on the sea,
Are more than cities and Serais to me :
Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail,
Across the desert, or before the gale,
Bound where thou wilt, my barb! or glide, my prow!
But be the star that guides the wanderer, Thou!
Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark-
The dove of peace and promise to mine ark!
Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife,
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
Blest-as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's wall
To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call;
Soft-as the melody of youthful days,
That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise;
Dear-as his native song to Exile's ears,
Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears.
For thee in those bright isles is built a bower
Blooming as Aden in its earliest hour.
A thousand swords-with Selim's heart and hand,
Wait-wave-defend-destroy-at thy command !
Girt by my band, Zuleika at my side,
The spoil of nations shall bedeck my bride.
The Haram's languid years of listless ease
Are well resign'd for cares-for joys like these :
Not blind to fate, I see, where'er I rove,
Unnumber'd perils,-but one only love!
Yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay,
Though fortune frown, or falser friends betray.
How dear the dream in darkest hours of ill,
Should all be changed, to find thee faithful still!
Be but thy soul, like Selim's, firmly shown;
To thee be Selim's tender as thine own;
1788-1824.]
343
BYRON.
To soothe each sorrow, share in each delight,
Blend every thought, do all-but disunite!
The same mastery over the ten-syllable metre, which
Byron displayed in parts of the Bride,' is shown more
sustainedly in the 'Corsair.' In his hands it is completely
free from the monotony of which it has been accused in
Pope's hands; and from which Pope's precocious disciples,
Goldsmith and Campbell, had not relieved it. In the
following passages the variety of rhythm is very con-
spicuous, showing Byron almost as great in the mechanical
department of his art as in the still more indispensable
qualities of vivacity and power.
(The Corsair, canto i.)
O'er the glad waters of the deep blue sea.
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
These are our realms, no limits to their sway-
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;
Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!
Whom slumber soothes not, pleasure cannot please—
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
And danc'd in triumph o'er the waters wide,
The exulting sense-the pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?
That for itself can woo the approaching fight,
And turn what some deem danger to delight;
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal,
And where the feebler faint-can only feel-
Feel-to the rising bosom's inmost core,
Its hope awaken, and its spirit soar?
No dread of death-if with us die our foes-
Save that it seems even duller than repose:
Come when it will, we snatch the life of life--
When lost-what recks it-by disease or strife ?
Let him who crawls enamour'd of decay,
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head
Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed.
=
344
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,
Ours with one pang-one bound-escapes control,
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,
And they who loath'd his life may gild his grave:
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
For us, even banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that crowns our memory;
And the brief epitaph in danger's day,
When those who win at length divide the prey,
And cry, Remembrance saddening o'er each brow,
How had the brave who fell exulted now!
(Canto ii. line 144.)
Up rose the Dervise with that burst of light,
Nor less his change of form appall'd the sight:
Up rose that Dervise-not in saintly garb,
But like a warrior bounding from his barb,
Dash'd his high cap, and tore his robe away-
Shone his mail'd breast, and flash'd his sabre's ray !
His close but glittering casque, and sable plume,
More glittering eye, and black brow's sabler gloom,
Glared on the Moslems' eyes some Afrit sprite,
Whose demon death-blow left no hope for fight.
The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow
Of flames on high, and torches from below;
The shriek of terror, and the mingling yell—
For swords began to clash, and shouts to swell,
Flung o'er that spot of earth the air of hell!
Distracted, to and fro, the flying slaves
Behold but bloody shore and fiery waves;
Nought heeded they the Pasha's angry cry,
They seize that Dervise !—seize on Zatanai !
He saw their terror-check'd the first despair
That urged him but to stand and perish there,
Since far too early and too well obey'd,
The flame was kindled ere the signal made;
He saw their terror-from his baldric drew
His bugle-brief the blast-but shrilly blew;
'Tis answer'd,—'Well ye speed, my gallant crew!
Why did I doubt their quickness of career?
And deem design had left me single here?
Sweeps his long arm-that sabre's whirling sway,
Sheds fast atonement for its first delay;
Completes his fury, what their fear begun,
And makes the many basely quail to ono:
1788-1824.]
345
BYRON.
If we compare Scott with Byron (and when two con-
temporaries stand so clearly at the head of all the poets of
the century the comparison seems almost forced upon us),
I think we may say that Scott exhibits a far greater variety
of character, that Byron displays greater power in drawing
a single portrait. In the expression of deep emotion and
vehement passion, Byron is far beyond his rival. As a
painter of energetic action and chivalrous feelings, rousing
to deeds of heroism, he is almost as far below him. Scott's
women, too, are drawn with far more delicacy and dis-
crimination than Byron's; for, though Byron has a keen
feeling for their attractions, and even for their higher
qualities; and though, as has been said by a not unfriendly
critic, his poems all seem to inculcate the principle that love
is a virtue, yet the love which he paints is an Oriental love,
deficient in the chivalrous and dignifying attributes which
are peculiar to the Christian civilisation of western
Europe, where alone woman is looked upon as a being
endowed with qualities as high and ennobling as, though
differing from, those of her lord, and where the affection
with which she is regarded is indeed inseparable from
respect. On the other hand, in prodigal richness of imagi-
nation, in condensed force of expression, Byron must be
pronounced unequalled even by Scott, or by any other of
those whom we boast as the mightiest masters of the lan-
guage, His ear for rhythm was infinitely more accurate.
Few indeed are the unmusical lines in Byron; not a few
passages, and those of great length, are unmatched for
melody; while Scott, though at times more powerful than
Byron in the variety which he has thrown into the octo-
syllabic metre, is often apparently careless and certainly is
often harsh and rugged. If we measure both by a severely
critical standard, by the degree in which they severally dis-
play the qualities which are admitted to be of the highest
necessity in a great poem, we must probably affirm Byron
to be the greater poet. If we judge them by the degree in
which they appeal to aud move our feelings, and move
those most which are best and purest, the palm must be
assigned to Scott. And we may probably decide that,
while Byron had the more powerful genius, Scott has pro-
ご
​346
[Cu. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
duced the more delightful works. I have left out of con-
sideration many matters which are often imported into an
estimate of this kind, such as the moral purity of each;
because in fact there is no taint of licentiousness in the
poems of Byron from which alone extracts have been given;
and though there are passages, especially in 'Childe Harold,'
which reveal the unhappy scepticism which agitated the
mind and clouded the happiness of the poet himself, they
are wholly free from the imputation of being designed to
make converts. They even show a wish to be able to be-
lieve more fully, and demand pity rather than condemnation.
On the whole it must be admitted that even the finest
passages of Byron breathe a lower tone than Scott's, and
fail in an equal degree to refine or elevate the feelings.
SHELLEY.
A.D. 1792-1822.
Or the life of him with whom we close our examination we
will forbear to speak. Percy Bysshe Shelley was so unfor-
tunate as not only to be indifferent or hostile to religion,
but to glory in his impiety in a way that can only be looked
upon with so indulgent a feeling as compassion by those who
remember that he did not live to reach his thirtieth birth-
day; but his poetical genius was freely confessed by those
who viewed his profession of atheism with the deepest dis-
gust. He was unquestionably gifted with a genius inferior
only to that of Byron among those who at the time of his
death were still wooing the Muse; and the following passage
from his elegy on his friend Keats, a youthful poet of no
inconsiderable promise, who had recently died of a decline,
may be sufficient to show the richness of his fancy and
tenderness of his pathos, and his perfect mastery of the
mechanical parts of his art, copiousness of language and
melody of rhythm.
1792--1822.]
SHELLEY.
347
(Adonais.-Elegy on the Death of John Keats.)
I weep for Adonais—he is dead!
Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow; say: with me
Died Adonais till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!
Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness! where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died! With veilèd eyes,
'Mid list'ning echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies,
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.
Oh, weep for Adonais-he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep,
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone where all things wise and fair
Descend:-oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.
Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania !-He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide,
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb:
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
348
[CH. XVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road,
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.
But now thy youngest, dearest one, has perished,
The nursling of thy widowhood who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished.
And fed with true love tears instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom whose petals nipt before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies-the storm is overpast.
To that high Capitol, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale Court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal.-Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.
He will awake no more, oh, never more!
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness and the law
Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.
Oh, weep for Adonais.-The quick Dreams,
The passion-wingèd ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not,
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
Round the cold heart, where after their sweet pain,
They ne'er will gather strength, nor find a home again.
.792-1822.]
SHELLEY.
349
And one with trembling hand clasps his cold head.
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries,
'Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ;
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
A tear some dream has loosened from his brain.'
Lost angel of a ruined Paradise !
She knew not 'twas her own, as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.
One from a lucid urn of starry dew
Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them ;
Another clipt her profuse locks, and threw,
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem
A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek.
All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aërial eyes that kindle day;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild winds flew around, sobbing in their dismay.
Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,
Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day;
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
Than those for whose disdain they pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds :-a drear
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.
Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,
Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,
For whom should she have waked the solemn year!
A
350
[CH. XVII,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear,
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both
Thou Adonais; wan they stand and sere
Amid the faint companions of their youth,
With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.
Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale,
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain,
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain
Her mighty youth, with morning doth complain.
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
As Albion wails for thee; the curse of Cain
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest.
Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year;
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;
The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season's bier
The amorous birds now pair in every brake,
And build their mossy homes in field and brere ;
And the green lizard and the golden snake,
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep-
He hath awakened from the dream of life-
'Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings. We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world's slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain ;
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn
1792-1822.J
SHELLEY.
351
He lives, he wakes,-'tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais. Thou, young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;
Ye caverns, and ye forests, cease to moan!
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou, Air,
Which like a morning veil thy scarf hadst thrown
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair !
He is made one with Nature: there is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder, to the song of Night's sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear,
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;
And bursting in its beauty and its might
From trees, and beasts, and men into the Heaven's light.
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou should'st now depart!
A light is past from the revolving year,
And man and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles,-the low wind whispers near:
'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join together.
That light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
*
352
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
[Cu. XVII.
:
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast, and earth and air and seɛ
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven !
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar !
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
1561-1626.]
353
BACON.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BACON.
A.D. 1561-1626.
THE great superiority of the modern to the old philosophy
is due to two of our countrymen, far above all others,
Bacon and Newton. Of the latter it will not come within
our plan to speak; but the former, besides his philosophical
works, which, in order to secure a wider circulation among
the students of many countries, he usually wrote in Latin,
published a volume of essays which justify the gracing our
list of composers of such writings with his name. It would
be well for his fame had he been only a philosopher and an
author; for the history of no man presents a more striking
and more melancholy contrast between his principles and
his practice than Bacon affords in his inculcation of all that
is manly, virtuous, upright, and magnanimous, while ex-
emplifying in his own conduct all that is base, treacherous,
ungrateful, and sordid.
He was a man born in what the French used to call La
Noblesse de la Robe; that is, of a family which had been
previously distinguished by attaining the highest honours
of the law; his father Sir Nicholas Bacon having been the
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for more than twenty years.
It was shortly after he first received it that his son Francis
was born in January 1561. His infancy gave little promise
of his attaining the comparatively long life which was
granted to him, since his health was peculiarly delicate; a
circumstance that perhaps contributed to give him an early
inclination to study, which in robuster natures finds so many
more powerful allurements to combat and often to over-
power it. From the very first moment the subjects which
most attracted his attention showed the bias of his mind
towards philosophical investigation; and a story is told of
*
354
[CH. XVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his being raissed by his playmates, and being found in a
vault in the neighbourhood, endeavouring to ascertain the
cause of an echo. Youths in that day were sent to the
University at an age at which they now go to school; and
Bacon was not thirteen when he was entered at Trinity
College, Cambridge; of which his father, and his uncle,
Elizabeth's celebrated minister Lord Burleigh, had formerly
been members. After taking his degree, he travelled for a
year or two on the Continent, but returned to England on
the death of his father, which happened when he was little
more than nineteen, and entered Gray's Inn as a student
of law. While in France his attention had been chiefly
given to statistics and diplomacy; and he would greatly
have preferred some official appointment which would have
allowed him to devote himself to literature and politics; and
such a post he endeavoured to obtain from his all-powerful
uncle. But Burleigh, with all his craft and wariness, which
the skill with which he so long guided the vessel of the
State among the most troubled waters seems to elevate into
wisdom and statesmanship, was essentially a mean-spirited
man: he had acuteness enough to discern extraordinary
abilities in his nephew, and baseness enough to envy and to
desire to stifle them, lest they should interfere with the pro-
motion of his own son Robert, whom he destined to succeed
him, who, to say the truth, had talents sufficient to war-
rant the father in forming high anticipations of his success
in life, and who, combined as those talents were with a
courage and firmness of which Bacon was destitute, was
certainly better fitted than his more contemplative cousin
to be the minister of a new sovereign and a new dynasty.
No record has been preserved of his early career as a
barrister; but he evidently met with considerable success:
he was made a bencher of Gray's Inn at twenty-five; four
years later he received a silk gown; and before he was
thirty-two he had acquired a sufficient fortune to enable
him to afford to enter Parliament as a county member, being
elected as representative of Middlesex in the election of
1593. In this new position he speedily established a high
reputation for eloquence, but unluckily he showed at the
same time the servility of his spirit, making the most abject
1561-1626.]
BACON.
355
'
apologies to the Prime Minister and the Lord Keeper,
whose favour, as the head of the law, he judged almost of
equal importance, because on one occasion, when the Crown
asked for a subsidy of unusual amount, he had ventured to
question the prudence of the demand, founding his objections
on arguments deduced from the strictest principles of the
constitution. It would seem that he obtained his pardon
from the Court, for when, the next year, the office of
Attorney-General became vacant, and the Earl of Essex, to
whom, on seeing the favour with which Elizabeth regarded
him, he had attached himself, endeavoured to procure it for
him, pressing his request on Burleigh with all his wonted
energy, he was refused, on the ground, not of his friend's
freedom of speech, but of his youth and rawness':
though he was in fact a few months older than Robert Cecil,
who almost at the same time attained the far more re-
sponsible office of Secretary of State. Unable to make him
Attorney, the gallant young Earl, indefatigable in the cause
of his friends, sought to procure him the post next in
honour of Solicitor-General. Being baffled in that too by
the constant jealousy of the Cecils, he presented him with an
estate worth 2,000l., a sum of no small importance in that
age, to compensate him for his disappointment; and when,
in 1596, he sailed to Spain to conduct the attack on Cadiz,
he charged the influential friends he left behind to watch
over Bacon's interests as over his own. Essex's was a brief
career; and the next, the closing passages of it, if dis-
passionately weighed, cover Bacon's memory with deeper
disgrace, as showing a worse heart than even the corruption
which brought on him public and more notorious dishonour.
Essex had been bound to him by no ties of relationship or
previous friendship when, from admiration of his great
capacity, he put himself forward to advance his interests.
When his influence with Court and Minister failed, he had
enriched him at his own expense; yet, when, by his rash
violence, the Earl had rendered himself liable to a pro-
secution for treason, Bacon not only did not scruple to
appear as counsel for the prosecution, but exerted the whole
of his argumentative skill and rhetorical ability to blacken
his case, and to deprive any excuses which his advocates
C
356
[CH. XVIII,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
might make for him not only of all legal but of all moral
validity. And, when he had perished on the scaffold, he
exerted a further and most foul ingenuity in defaming his
character; drawing up, for the gratification of the Queen,
a declaration of the practices and treasons, attempted and
committed by Robert, Earl of Essex.' More shameless in-
gratitude is recorded against no man; even Bacon him-
self was ashamed of, or at least repented of it, when he found
that all the Court favour which his baseness had won for
him could not shield him from universal reprobation; and
after the Queen's death, when a new sovereign was on the
throne, he sought to excuse his conduct by a tract in the
form of 'A Letter to the Earl of Devon.' His arguments,
though his ingenuity was sharpened by self-interest, were
worthless enough; but time did more for him than his logic :
the exciting events of the succeeding years threw those which
were older, though by a very few years, into comparative
oblivion; few care long to preserve the recollection of
offences which have been committed only against the dead;
and Bacon presently attained the offices which he had
coveted, without, so far as is known, any reproaches being
levelled against his earlier prostitution of his legal know-
ledge and his oratorical powers. In 1607 he became
Solicitor-General; in 1612 he was promoted to the place of
Attorney. But before this, and even before his treachery
to Essex, he had begun to lay the foundation of a fame far
greater and more enduring than is within the reach of any
mere lawyer by works of literature. In 1597 he published
the volume of essays which I have already mentioned, and
which were not only his earliest visitation but his last;'
since he was throughout his life revising, re-editing, and
making additions to them; the last edition, which he
published only a few months before his death, supplying
abundant evidence of his appreciation of the value of an
elegant style, in the superior polish which he gave his latest
compositions. They have retained their popularity to the
present day. Yet no writings can less resemble those
which the existing generation calls essays. The aim of a
modern writer is to exhaust his subject, to discuss it with
a completeness which shall leave nothing more to be said of
1561-1626.]
357
BACON.
"
it. Bacon formed his idea of what an essay should be
from the strict meaning of the word: an attempt ‘at a
subject; a slight sketch of it; a set of hints suggesting
further reflections to the reader: so that his essays are little
more than brief but most pregnant texts, to be pondered
on and enlarged upon by others. And a great logician and
rhetorician of the last generation, Archbishop Whately, who
in his last years edited them with great care, thought that
he was acting strictly in accordance with the intentions of
the author when he illustrated them with annotations
greatly exceeding the originals in bulk. The year 1605
saw the commencement of a still greater work. In that
same year which witnessed the defeat of the machinations
of the Jesuits for the overthrow of the Reformed religion
in these kingdoms, Bacon laid the foundation of a new
secular philosophy which was destined for the future to
exert an influence over the minds and conditions of men
second only to that which in still higher matters had been
already established over them by Luther and his followers.
He published the treatise on the 'Proficience and Advance-
ment of Learning, divine and human,' which in a sub-
sequent edition he expanded into a larger work, rewriting
it in Latin, and giving it the Latin name, De Augmentis
Scientiarum: wishing it to be regarded not as a complete
work, but as only the first part of a treatise in six parts,
which should smooth the way to the attainment of all
knowledge. The second part he called Novum Organum,
the new instrument, in which he fully developed the
inductive system; the third, Sylva Sylvarum, was devoted
to the facts and phenomena of natural science, including
observations made by himself, many of which, however, are
incorrect, and bear out the criticism of Whately that he is
not entitled to rank high as a natural philosopher. The
fourth, Scala Intellectûs, was so called from its pointing
out the succession of steps by which the understanding may
reach its end in the investigations it undertakes. The other
parts he did not live to complete. But what he did com-
plete has established his fame on an eminence which has
been attained by but one man besides. The task which he
proposed to himself may be said to have been a harder one
358
[CH. XVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
than it would have been to lead men's minds to the study
of philosophy if they had never heard of such a thing. He
undertook to reclaim them from a wrong path to a right
one; from a course sanctified by the great men who had
travelled on it with patience and industry, who had em-
bellished it with every resource of genius, who had recom-
mended it by all that imagination and eloquence could furnish
to allure and to convince, but which had been barren of
fruit, which had not led to a single discovery that could
benefit mankind in practical life, to a new road utterly
destitute of all ancient patronage, and which he could only
recommend by proclaiming that it should lead its followers
to a goal which Plato and Seneca considered alien to the
pursuits and beneath the notice of a wise man.
Our space
forbids our entering into a detailed examination of his phi-
losophical labours; and we may content ourselves here with
quoting a brief panegyric on the Novum Organum, in which
Professor Playfair, a most competent judge, has summed up
his merits, and our obligations to his labours: 'The power
and compass of a mind which could form such a plan before-
hand, and trace not merely the outline but many of the
minute ramifications of sciences which did not yet exist,
must be an object of admiration to all succeeding ages.
.. Nor was it a slight benefit to turn the attention of
philosophical enquirers from speculations and disputes upon
questions remote from use to investigations having reference
to works calculated to affect and benefit the life of man.'
And it must enhance our admiration of the intellect
which could undertake and accomplish this, to recollect
that he who displayed it was no solitary student able to
devote his whole time to such labours, but a busy lawyer
and politician, occupied with clients, and suitors, and
official duties; and only devoting to philosophy the few and
interrupted moments which he could spare from the toil, far
more ignoble, but equally dear to his spirit, of fawning upon
courtiers and caressing princes. It is painful to add that
the conduct by which he sought the favour of the favourite
(for in the Court of the worthless James no one could rise
without the protection of the favourite) was distinguished
hy something worse than mere servility: by the most open
1561-1626.]
359
BACON.
injustice, corruption, and cruelty. To secure his further
promotion he did not scruple, as Attorney-General, to put
to the torture an aged clergyman, in the vain hope of
wringing from his agony expressions which might support
as ridiculous a charge of treason as ever was preferred. As
Lord Chancellor he was convicted of having habitually taken
bribes to influence his decision in the cases which came
before him, and was branded by the unanimous sentence
of his brother peers as unworthy ever again to hold office in
the State, or to assist in their deliberations. For, on his
appointment as Chancellor, he had been ennobled as Baron
Verulam, and shortly afterwards had received an additional
step in the peerage as Viscount St. Albans.
In the long
list of those who have adorned the Bench in the different
Courts of Westminster Hall, but one other judge has been
stigmatised with similar infamy; not the less degrading
because the partiality of the King, under the influence of
Buckingham, who was not likely to see disgrace in any
mode of acquiring wealth, almost instantly remitted all the
penalties which had been imposed upon him.
However, he never resumed his seat in Parliament, but
spent his last years in the prosecution of those labours
for which even his contemporaries were inclined to pardon
his errors, and for which posterity has almost ignored them.
¹ There are few things much more strange than the mistake which
prevails as to his title. He is almost invariably spoken of as Lord
Bacon. Lord Macaulay, in the elaborate article on him which is pub-
lished among his Essays, has made a curious mistake in a sentence in-
tended to apologise for or explain the error. 'Posterity has felt that
the greatest of English philosophers could derive no accession of dignity
from any title which James could bestow, and, in defiance of the royal
letters patent, has obstinately refused to degrade Francis Bacon into
Viscount St. Albans.' But, without stopping to discuss the propriety of
representing a British peerage, honestly earned, as a degradation, the
mistake usually made is not that of calling him Francis Bacon, a name
by which he was at one time universally known, but Lord Bacon, a titlo
by which he was never in his lifetime known for a single moment ;
while, if a great philosopher was really degraded by a peerage, it is hard
to see how the degradation can have been less if the title conferred had
been Lord Bacon, which it was not, than Viscount St. Albans, which it
was. The very article in question (to which the writer has been in-
debted for portions of this sketch) is entitled 'Lord Bacon.'
•
360
[CH. XVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
One of his works, indeed, composed at this time, his history
of Henry VII., is of no great authority; but he commenced
a digest of the Laws of England, a work of the greatest
importance, and ono which the philosophical reflections of
such a commentator would have stamped with a peculiar
value; and he continued adding to, improving, and polishing
his Essays and his Novum Organum. His death was even
directly caused by his devotion to his favourite pursuit. In
the words of Lord Macaulay, the great apostle of ex-
perimental philosophy was destined to be its martyr.' He
had conceived the idea that snow would act as a pre-
servative of animal substances; and to test the truth of his
conjecture, in the spring of 1626 he stuffed a fowl with snow
with his own hands. While thus engaged, he was struck
with a sudden chill, which brought on a fever, of which,
after a week's illness, he died, on Easter-day. He was not
unprepared for death: his errors, grievous as they were,
had proceeded rather from weakness and timidity than
from any deliberate cruelty or dishonesty, and he had
throughout his life both expressed and felt a deep reverence
for religion. One of his sayings was that, 'A little phi-
losophy makes men apt to forget God, as attributing too
much to second causes; but depth of philosophy brings man
back to God again.' And his Essays, throughout the whole
series, show a constant desire to inculcate the practice of
virtue, even of those virtues of which his own infirmities
made him most forgetful. Of those infirmities, and of
their tendency to obscure his fame, he was painfully
conscious in his last moments, though not without a hope
that something might be forgiven to the great services.
which he was equally conscious that he had done to the
whole world. For my name and memory,' he says in his
last will, 'I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to
foreign nations, and to the next age.' And succeeding
ages, which think but little of the corrupt judge, and
remember only the great philosopher, in ranking him by the
side of the blameless Newton, have justified his confidence.
The following essay is not only a fair specimen of his
style of composition, but, by the' antitheta' at the end, shows
the way in which he marshalled his arguments in his own
mind, before beginning to write.
1561-1620.]
361
BACON.
(Essay 17. On Superstition).
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an
opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other
is contumely and certainly superstition is the reproach of the
Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose: 'Surely,' saith he,
'I had rather, a great deal, men should say there was no such a
man at all as Plutarch than they should say there was one Plutarch,
that would eat his children as soon as they were born, as the poet
speaks of Saturn: and as the contumely is greater towards God, so
the danger is greater towards men. Atheism leaves a man to
sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation-all
which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion
were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an
absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore atheism did
never perturb States; for it makes men wary of themselves, as
looking no further; and we see the times inclined to atheism, as
the time of Augustus Caesar, were civil times; but superstition
hath been the confusion of many States, and bringeth in a new
primum mobile that ravisheth all the spheres of government.
The master of superstition is the people, and in all superstition
wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practise in a
reversed order. It was gravely said by some of the prelates in the
Council of Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare great
sway, that the schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign
eccentrics and epicycles, and such engines of orbs, to save the
phenomena, though they knew there were no such things; and, in
like manner, that the schoolmen had framed a number of subtile
and intricate axioms and theorems, to save the practice of the
Church.
The causes of superstition are pleasing and sensual rites and
ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; over-great
reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the Church; the
stratagems of prelates for their own ambition and lucre; the
favouring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gate to
conceits and novelties; the taking an aim at divine matters by
human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations; and,
lastly, barbarous times, especially joined with calamities and
disasters. Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing; for
as it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man, so the simili-
tude of superstition to religion makes it the more deformed; and
as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms, so good forms and
orders corrupt into a number of petty observances. There is a
superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best if
362
[CH. XVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
they go farthest from the superstition formerly received; there-
fore care should be had that (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good
be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when
the people is the reformer.
(Antitheta on Superstition.)
Pro.—Qui zelo peccant, non probandi, sed tamen amandi sunt.
Those who go wrong from excess of zeal, cannot indeed be
approved, but must nevertheless be loved.
Contra-Ut simiæ, similitudo cum homine deformitatem
addit; ita superstitione, similitudo cum religione.
As an ape is the more hideous for its resemblance to a man, so
is superstition for its resemblance to religion.
Præstat nullam habere de diis opinionem, quam contumelio-
sam.
It is better to have no opinion at all of the gods, than a de-
grading one.
(Essay 18. Of Travel.)
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder,
a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country, before he
hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to
travel. That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant,
I allow well; so that he be such a one that hath the language,
and hath been in the country before, whereby he may be able to
tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where
they go, what acquaintances they are to seek, what exercises or
discipline the place yieldeth; for else young men shall go hooded,
and look abroad little. It is a strange thing that, in sea-voyages,
where there is nothing to be seen but sea and sky, men should
make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be observed,
for the most part they omit it—as if chance were fitter to be
registered than observation: let diaries therefore be brought in
use. The things to be seen and observed are the courts of princes,
especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of
justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories
ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments
which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and
towns; and so the havens and harbours, antiquities and ruins,
libraries, colleges, disputations, and lectures, where any are; ship-
ping and navies, houses and gardens of state and pleasure near great
cities; armouries, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, ware-
houses; exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and
the like; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do
1561-1626.]
363
BACON.
resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets and rarities; and,
to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go
-after all which the tutors, or servants, ought to make diligent
enquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals,
capital executions, and such shows, men need not be put in mind
of them; yet they are not to be neglected. If you will have a
young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time
to gather much, this you must do: first, as was said, he must
have some entrance into the language before he goeth; then he
must have such a servant, or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was
likewise said; let him carry with him also some card, or book, de-
scribing the country where he travelleth, which will be a good key
to his enquiry; let him keep also a diary; let him not stay long in
one city or town, more or less as the place deserveth, but not long;
nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his
lodging from one end and part of the town to another, which is a
great adamant of acquaintance; let him sequester himself from
the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places where
there is good company of the nation where he travelleth; let him,
upon his removes from one place to another, procure recommenda-
tion to some person of quality residing in the place whither he
removeth, that he may use his favour in those things he desireth
to see or know; thus he may abridge his travel with much profit.
As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel, that
which is most of all profitable is, acquaintance with the secretaries
ard employed men of ambassadors; for so, in travelling in one
country, he shall suck the experience of many. Let him also see
and visit eminent persons of all kinds, which are of great name
abroad, that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the
fame. For quarrels, they are, with care and discretion, to be avoided
;
they are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words
and let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and
quarrelsome persons, for they will engage him into their own
quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave
the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but
maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance
which are of most worth; and let his travel appear rather in his
discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse let
him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories;
and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for
those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he
hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.
17
A
364
[CH. XIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XIX.
ADDISON.
A.D. 1672-1719.
VERY different in the structure of his mind and in the
style of his composition from him of whom we have just
spoken is he who is generally accounted the most perfect
writer of the class, Joseph Addison. His essays, too, have
one claim to notice that belongs to no other works of the
same kind, that they procured him a place in the govern-
ment of his country.
He was born in 1672, being the son of a clergyman in
Wiltshire, who, when he was about twelve years old, was
promoted to be Dean of Lichfield. He was educated at
Charter House, and at Oxford, as a member first of Queen's
College, and afterwards of Magdalen, where he acquired a
considerable reputation for an undergraduate, by the
classical tone of his Latin verses.. But he had hardly
taken his degree when he came before the world at largo
as an English poet also, addressing Dryden, then uni-
versally acknowledged as
(
The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme,
and publishing a translation of the greater part of Virgil's
fourth Georgic; on which Dryden, won perhaps by the
youth's admiration of him, which was evidently sincere,
bestowed high commendation; declaring that, after it,
'his latter swarm' (the subject of the Georgic is the care
of bees, and second swarms are notoriously valueless),
was hardly worth hiving:' a verdict in which those who
examine it, without having any compliments from the
author to be grateful for, will hardly coincide. We may
even infer that he himself did not wholly agree with it, or
at least did not think his English equal to his Latin verse,
since in his next poem he returned to the ancient language.
Dryden had made him acquainted with a young man,
1672-1719.]
365
ADDISON.
William Congreve, who, though only of exactly his own
age, had been introduced earlier into the society of the
metropolis, and who, at the age of twenty-one, had made
himself famous by one of the best comedies that at that
time had been produced on the stage. 'The Old Bachelor'
had won him the favour of the accomplished Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Charles Montagu, as much devoted to
literature as to the weightier cares of finance, who had
given him a valuable place, and to the same friendly
minister Congreve presented his new friend. Montagu at
once showed a willingness to serve him, and Addison
wishing to recommend himself to Montagu's master, the
king, wrote a poem on the peace of Ryswick, which, as I
have already said, he composed in Latin, partly, perhaps,
from a knowledge that William, though no great scholar,
understood that language better than English. If the
treaty had needed a defence, the advocacy which it received
from the poem would not have been very effectual; but the
verses answered the end which was really aimed at by
them, since they procured the author a pension of 3007. a
year, which, however, is said not to have been very regu-
larly paid. It was given, however, professedly in order to
enable him to travel; and accordingly he went abroad,
visiting France and Italy, and wrote an account of his
travels, in which Johnson, partial as he is to him, can find
little to praise. His talent lay in observing men, not
countries, and as Johnson confesses, the greater part of his
book might have been written at home as easily as abroad.
The new reign did not greatly diminish his prospects
of ministerial patronage; Montagu, who had become Lord
Halifax, was still zealous to befriend him, and in 1704 the
events of the war gave him an opportunity. Everyone
who could pen a stanza tried his hand at celebrating
the great victory of Blenheim, a triumph especially grate-
ful to a people ashamed of Charles's naval campaigns
against the Dutch, and wearied with William's bloody and
profitless warfare against Louis. Blenheim seemed at
once to recall the glories of Crecy and Agincourt; and
Lord Godolphin, doubly interested, as minister and relative,
in the fame of the hero who had conquered, lamented to
C
366
[CIL. XIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1
Halifax the unworthiness of all the panegyrics which had
yet been pronounced on it. Halifax undertook to find a
poet who should celebrate the achievement in fitting strains,
provided the Treasurer would find a fitting reward; and
the fruit of the negotiation was Addison's poem of 'The
Campaign,' which is of itself quite sufficient to prove that the
author was no poet. It is now pretty generally admitted
that there are but six tolerable lines in the whole poem.
But those six lines gilded all the rest, and the poet's fortunes
with it. He at once received a lucrative post, the Com-
missionership of Appeals; two years afterwards he was
made an Under Secretary of State, and obtained a seat in
the House of Commons as member for Malmesbury ; and
when the Marquis of Wharton was sent to Ireland as
Lord Lieutenant, Addison accompanied him as his secre-
tary, thus filling the same post that had formerly been
occupied by Spenser. He obtained also a seat in the
Irish Parliament, as member for Cavan, and seems indeed
by this time to have been regularly enrolled as one of the
officials of the great Whig party, on whose fortunes his
own were henceforth to depend; though he probably was
never a very efficient man of business, and the only
peculiarity in his way of transacting the duties of his
various offices is one which has been preserved by Johnson,
who has recorded that from the beginning he made a rule
of never remitting any of his fees out of courtesy to his
friends.
But in 1709, while still in Ireland, he was led to try his
hand at a new species of composition, which speedily
developed a talent in him of which he himself was pro-
bably hitherto unconscious, but to which he has ever since
The simile of the angel: no very extraordinary effort of the imagi-
nation, in the opinion of Dr. Madden, a critic whose judgment Johnson
quotes with unusual deference.
So, when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
(Such as of late o'er palo Britannia pass'd)
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast,
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.'
1672-1719.]
367
ADDISON.
owed the whole of his reputation as a man of letters.
Richard Steele, an old Charter House schoolfellow, after
trying more than one expedient for earning money as an
officer of the Life Guards; as author of a solemn, semi-
religious treatise, and of one or two plays far from desti-
tute of humour, though not quite entitled to rank in the
first class of such works; in 1709 came before the world
with a composition of an almost entirely novel kind, a series
of periodical essays, the subjects of which were to be some-
thing like those of Juvenal's satires,
Whate'er men hope or fear, or love or hate,
Do, say, or feel, our volume shall relate.
They were to appear three times a week. Nothing was
to be foreign to them. They were to paint the manners
of the age, to laugh at the follies, sometimes to scourge
the vices, of society; to inculcate principles of virtue; to
lay down rules of criticism; occasionally to allure by a
lively allegory the attention of impatience or frivolity that
would not endure a sermon. To supply every number of
such a work was beyond the powers of any single in-
dividual. Steele sought the aid of friends, and especially
of his old schoolfellow, which was willingly given. And,
though his own papers were far from devoid of wit and
well-turned phrases, he frankly owned the superiority of
Addison. He even feigned a comical kind of distress at
the result of the alliance. 'He fared,' he said, 'like a
distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to
his aid. He was undone by his auxiliary. When he had
once obtained his aid, he could not subsist without depen-
dence on him.' The confession was the genuine expression
of Steele's honest heart, which he afterwards showed in
the most convincing way by giving up to his ally, when
the 'Spectator' was substituted for the 'Tatler,' the task of
filling up the character of Sir Roger de Coverley, of whom
he himself had drawn the original sketch, and his own age
and every succeeding generation has confirmed his judg-
ment. For, indeed, in keen observation of all the nicer
shades and more delicate varieties of human character,
Addison has no superior; in quiet, gentlemanlike humour
368
[CH. XIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
he has no rival; while some of the allegories and fables
which he at times scatters among his contributions display
so fertile an invention, so rich and playful a fancy, that
they excite our wonder that he did not shine more in poetry
when he had so many of the qualities of a poet. It may
be added that his pleasantry is invariably good-natured;
we look in his pages in vain for sneers or sarcasms; and
that, whether his mood be gay or serious, his pen is always.
exercised in the cause of virtue and religion.
'The Tatler' lasted till January 1711; and, after a rest
of a few weeks, as has been already intimated, was re-
placed by the 'Spectator,' of which Addison became the
ostensible chief, as Steele had been in the case of the
'Tatler.' The 'Spectator' was published daily; and, like
its predecessor, lasted about two years, during which time
it may be said almost to have created a body of readers
such as certainly no publication, unconnected with politics,
had ever previously attracted. It numbered nearly 4,000
subscribers;¹ of some particular articles 20,000 copies are
said to have been sold. And when it stopped, and was
republished in volumes, the number of purchasers more
than doubled that of the original subscribers. At the end
of 1712 the 'Spectator' was stopped, to be in its turn
replaced by a third periodical, entitled the 'Guardian,' with
which, however, Addison had but little connection, pro-
bably because, as Lord Macaulay surmises, he was occupied
in finishing 'Cato,' a tragedy on which he had been em-
ployed at intervals for many years, and which in the spring
of 1713 was produced on the stage. Lord Macaulay, one
of Addison's warmest champions, extends the admiration
which he lavishes on his 'Tatlers' and 'Spectators' to 'Cato'
likewise; allowing indeed its inferiority to the master-
pieces of the French stage, to 'Athalie' or 'Saul,' but
placing it 'not below "Cinna," and above many of the plays
of Corneille, Racine, or Voltaire. It is, indeed, only with
the dramas of the French school that it can be compared;
for it is written wholly on their model. But I confess it
'This is Lord Macaulay's statement; but Johnson infers from the
produce of the tax that, at all events after the imposition of the stamp
duty, the sale did not reach 2,000.
1672-1719.]
369
ADDISON.
seems to me that it has all the faults of the French trage-
dies, sometimes even in an exaggerated form, and but
little of their occasional fire. Cato' and 'Sempronius'
resemble Romans as little as the Titus' of Racine.
Racine's ancient heroes are fine gentlemen of the court of
Louis with classical names; and Addison's are members
of the Royal Society, or rather, perhaps, Oxford tutors, in
the same disguise, if it can be called one; while the unity
of place is so strictly preserved that the whole action
passes in a single room, the vestibule of Cato's house. But,
luckily for the author, its success on the stage did not
depend on its merits, but partly on the zeal of his friends,
and partly on the peculiar position of the two great political
parties at the moment. Pope wrote an admirable prologue
for it; Steele undertook the act of packing a house, and
exerted his skill with the most hearty energy. The Whigs,
in a body, came down to support their brother Whig.
The Tories, who affected a general disapproval of standing
armies on principle, and a particular dread lest Marlborough
might turn against his own country the arms which her
enemies had found invincible, professed to see an advocacy
of their own sentiments in the animadversions on Cæsar,
who had used his legions to subvert the old constitution
of Rome. And thus, as Pope describes the scene, 'the
numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one
side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the
other;
and after all the applause of the opposite
parties, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played
Cato, into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas,
as he expressed it, for defending the cause of liberty so well
against a perpetual dictator.'¹
The friendship, however, between Addison and Pope,
which the supply of the prologue seemed to intimate, did
not last long. The ostensible cause of quarrel was the
conduct of Addison on the subject of the translation of
Homer, which has been already mentioned in the sketch
of Pope; and which, as Pope believed, proceeded from a
jealousy of his abilities and reputation, which the 'Rape of
the Lock' had placed almost on a level with that of Dryden.
1 Letter to Sir W. Trumball.
370
[CH. XIX,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
When the feeling of ill-will was once kindled, other circum-
stances soon tended to exasperate it. The Earl of War-
wick, whose mother was Addison's wife, told Pope that a
pamphlet which contained some severe reflections on him.
had been prompted by Addison. And Pope, in retaliation,
wrote that stinging satire on Atticus, which he sent to
Addison to peruse, in order, apparently, to deter him from
venturing on any repetition of such unfriendly conduct,
and which many years afterwards he inserted in one of
his satires. The publishing of such an attack on Addison
after his death cannot be defended, and the question who
was most to blame for the whole quarrel has been revived
with some zeal in recent years, when Addison had the ad-
vantage which, a generation earlier, was enjoyed by Pope,
of having his cause advocated by writers of great power
and deserved popularity. But with all their ingenuity,
neither Macaulay nor Thackeray can prove that Addison
was capable of honest friendship, or do away with the
odious fact of his having put an execution into the house
of Steele, and sold off all his property to compel payment
of a small loan, though he himself was a wealthy man, and
his old schoolfellow was never out of difficulties. And on
the question of the pamphlet Lord Warwick's authority
seems indisputable. It may be added that it clearly was
not to Pope's interest to quarrel with Addison, for, under
the new Brunswick dynasty, the latter had become a person
of great political power. The council which carried on the
government till the arrival of the new king, appointed him
Secretary to the Board; in 1716 he married a highly-
dowered and noble wife, the Countess of Warwick, and in
1717, on the retirement of Lord Townsend and Walpole
from office, he became Secretary of State, a promotion
which was a remarkable tribute to his literary powers, as
he was not only destitute of eloquence, but so timid in the
House that he could hardly be induced to attempt to speak.
But, besides his articles in the 'Tatler' and 'Spectator,'
others of his writings had shown his pen to be as well-
suited for political warfare as for moral discussions or
humorous descriptions. In Anne's time he had not been
afraid to measure himself against Swift in the 'Whig
1672-1719.]
371
ADDISON.
Examiner,' which even Johnson, who disapproves of its
views, admits to be so full of humour that 'every reader of
every party must wish for more of it.' And at the begin-
ning of the new reign he supported his party with a new
serial, the 'Freeholder,' in which, according to the same
most impartial judge, he displayed the same characteristic
quality in as great perfection as ever. 'In argument he
had many equals; but his humour was matchless.' And
such a talent was more profitable to an author than it
would be at the present day. For while the publication of
the debates in Parliament was prohibited, a lively pamphlet,
which could be circulated abroad, was often of greater ser-
vice to its party than the most eloquent speech, which was
known to none but the few members who chanced to hear it.
But Addison was not fated long to enjoy his secretary-
ship, or his noble wife; the latter indeed being no great
addition to his happiness, since she was mean, imperious,
and jealous. At the beginning of 1718 he was compelled
to resign his office by a severe attack of asthma, ac-
cording to Macaulay, though Pope affirmed (and Johnson
quotes his assertion with evident belief and approval) that
he relinquished his post because he found by experience
his inability to discharge its duties. He was a victim to
his own nicety of taste, as Pope said: 'He could not issue
an order without losing his time in quest of fine ex-
pressions.' His colleagues, however, conferred on him a
pension of 1,500l. a year; and he began to occupy himself
in planning fresh literary works, when he was arrested by
the disease which, at all events, may have had some share
in determining him to retire from official life. He even
contemplated an English dictionary, a publication in which
his wit and humour would have been thrown away, his
elegance of style could have found no room to exert itself,
and for which we have no reason to think him possessed
of sufficient learning to be at all qualified. But, while
revolving such ideas, he was once more called on to exer-
cise his talents as a pamphleteer, and once more descended
into the political arena, with great zeal, in defence of the un-
constitutional and mischievous Peerage Bill.
Steele was
the chief writer on the other side, and Addison had the
372
[CH. XIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
mortification not only to be beaten by him in argument,
but to have some of his antagonist's keenest weapons
sharpened by quotations from his own favourite 'Cato.'
The controversy was not terminated when Addison died,
breathing his last with cheerfulness and pious resignation,
in June 1719, when he had but just completed his forty-
seventh year.
Johnson, imitating Quintilian's eulogy on Cicero, closes
a well-balanced panegyric on his virtues and talents with
the assertion that whoever wishes to attain an English
style familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostenta-
tious, must give his days and nights to the study of
Addison.' The author of the 'Rambler,' who was not
unconscious of the defects of his own style, not unnaturally
admired those qualities in which he felt himself to be most
deficient. And perhaps some deduction from such high
praise will be made by those who think that Addison
polished his style to such a degree as to deprive it of all
strength. The same panegyrist admits that his argumen-
tative powers were of no high order; and I confess I
think that, whenever his tone is serious, his manner is far
more valuable than his matter: that his phrases, if smooth,
are soft, and wanting in vigour; and that his moral re-
flections, like his criticisms, show but little depth of
thought. But from his wit and humour no deductions can
be made. He was certainly endowed with both qualities
in as high perfection as any writer in our language; and
it is a still greater praise that they were uniformly em-
ployed, as Johnson (quoting his friend Tickell) remarks,
on the side of virtue and religion.' His contemporary,
Congreve, seemed to think these faculties incompatible
with morality, and even with decency; but Addison 'not
only made the proper use of wit himself, but taught it to
others; and from his time it has been generally subservient
to the cause of reason and of truth. He dissipated the
prejudice that long connected gaiety with vice, and easi-
ness of manners with laxity of principle. He restored
virtue to its dignity, and taught innocence not to be
ashamed.' 1
Lives of the Poets, iii. 156.
1672-1719.]
373
ADDISON.
Of the following extracts, the first combines with his
habitual humour a richness of poetical invention of which
he has given us but few specimens. The second is more
characteristic of his style, and is one which it is not impos-
sible that the changes of fashion may again render appro-
priate to the time. It may be remarked, too, that they
show a difference in some usages of grammar or expression
from the mode which prevails now.
Thus Addison writes,
'stands in a readiness' and 'in course,' where a modern
writer would say 'in readiness' and 'of course.'
(The Spectator, No. 159.)
When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several Oriental manu-
scripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one
entitled the 'Visions of Mirza,' which I have read over with great
pleasure. I intend to give it to the public when I have no other
entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first vision,
which I have translated word for word, as follows:—
On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of
my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself,
and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of
Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and
prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains,
I fell into a profound contemplation of the vanity of human life;
and, passing from one thought to another, 'Surely,' said I, 'man is
but a shadow, and life a dream.' Whilst I was thus musing, I
cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from
me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a
musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied
it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was
exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were
inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different to anything I had
ever heard. They put one in mind of those heavenly airs that are
played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival
in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of their last agonies, and
qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart
melted away in secret raptures.
I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt of
a Genius, and that several had been entertained with music who
had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before
made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts by those
transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his
conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned
374
[CH. XIX,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
-
to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the
place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is
due to a superior nature, and as my heart was entirely subdued
by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and
wept. The Genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion
and affability that familiarised him to my imagination, and at
once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I
approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and, taking me
by the hand, 'Mirza,' said he, 'I have heard thee in thy soliloquies;
follow me.'
He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing
me on the top of it, 'Cast thy eyes eastward,' said he, 'and tell me
what thou seest.' 'I see,' said I, 'a huge valley, and a prodigious
tide of water rolling through it.' 'The valley that thou seest,' said
he, 'is the Vale of Misery, and the tide of water that thou seest,
is part of the great tide of Eternity.' 'What is the reason,' said I,
'that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again
loses itself in a thick mist at the other?' 'What thou seest,' said
he, 'is that portion of Eternity which is called Time, measured out
by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its
consummation. Examine now,' said he, 'this sea that is bounded
with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in
it.' 'I see a bridge,' said I, 'standing in the midst of the tide.'
'The bridge thou seest,' said he, 'is Human Life; consider it atten-
tively.' Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted
of three score and ten entire arches, with several broken arches,
which, added to those that were entire, made up the number about
a hundred. As I was counting the arches, the Genius told me
that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches; but that
a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the
ruinous condition in which I now beheld it. But tell me further,'
said he, 'what thou discoverest on it.' 'I see multitudes of
people passing over it,' said I, ' and a black cloud hanging on each
end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the
passengers dropping through the bridge into the great tide that
flowed underneath it; and, upon further examination, perceived
there were innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge,
which the passengers no sooner trod upon but they fell through
them into the tide, and immediately disappeared. These hidden
pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that
throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud but many of
them fell into them. They grew thinner towards the middle, but
multiplied and lay closer together towards the end of the arches
that were entire.
1672-1719.]
375
ADDISON.
1
There were indeed some persons, but their number was very
small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken
arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and
spent with so long a walk.
I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful
structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented.
My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several
dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and
catching at everything that stood by them to save themselves.
Some were looking up towards the heavens in a thoughtful
posture, and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out
of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of baubles
that glittered in their eyes and danced before them; but often
when they thought themselves within the reach of them, their
footing failed and down they sunk. In this confusion of objects
I observed some with scimitars in their hands, who ran to and
fro upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on trap-doors which
did not seem to lie in their way, and which they might have
escaped had they not been thus forced upon them.
The Genius, seeing me indulge myself in this melancholy
prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. Take thine
eyes off the bridge,' said he, and tell me if thou yet seest any-
thing thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up, 'What mean,'
said I, 'those great flights of birds that are perpetually hovering
about the bridge, and settling upon it from time to time? I see
vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and, among many other
feathered creatures, several little winged boys, that perch in great
numbers upon the middle arches.' 'These,' said the Genius,
are envy, avarice, superstition, despair, love, with the like cares
and passions that infest human life.'
6
6
I here fetched a deep sigh. Alas!' said I, 'man was made in
vain! How is he given away to misery and mortality! tortured in
life, and swallowed up in death!' The Genius, being moved
with compassion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a
prospect. Look no more,' said he, 'on man in the first stage of
his existence, in his setting out for eternity; but cast thine eye
on that thick mist into which the tide bears the several genera-
tions of mortals that fall into it.' I directed my sight as I was
ordered, and whether or no the good Genius strengthened it
with any supernatural force, or dissipated part of the mist that
was before too thick for the eye to penetrate, I saw the valley
opening at the further end, and spreading forth into an immense
ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant running through the midst
of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The clouds still rested
܀
376
[CH. XIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
on one half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in it;
but the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumer-
able islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and inter-
woven with a thousand little shining seas that ran among them.
I could see persons dressed in glorious habits with garlands upon
their heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the sides of
fountains, or resting on beds of flowers; and could hear a con-
fused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and
musical instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of
so delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I
might fly away to those happy seats; but the Genius told me there
was no passage to them, except through the gates of death that I
saw opening every moment upon the bridge. The islands,' said
he, 'that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which the
whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see,
are more in number than the sands on the sea-shore; there are
myriads of islands behind those which thou here discoverest,
reaching further than thy eye, or even thine imagination, can
extend itself. These are the mansions of good men after death,
who, according to the degree and kinds of virtue in which they
excelled, are distributed among those several islands, which abound
with pleasures of different kinds and degrees, suitable to the
relishes and perfections of those who are settled in them; every
island is a paradise accommodated to its respective inhabitants.
Are not these, O Mirza, habitations worth contending for?
life appear miserable that gives thee opportunities of earning such
a reward? Is death to be feared that will convey thee to so happy
an existence? Think not man was made in vain, who has such an
eternity reserved for him.' I gazed with inexpressible pleasure
on these happy islands. 'At length,' said I, 'show me now, I
beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds
which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant.
The Genius making no answer, I turned about to address myself
to him a second time, but I found that he had left me: I then
turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating;
but, instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy
islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdat, with
oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the sides of it.
(The Spectator, No. 102).
Does
'Mr. Spectator, Women are armed with fans, as men with
swords, and sometimes do more execution with them. To the end
1672-1719.]
377
ADDISON.
therefore that ladies may be entire mistresses of the weapon which
they bear, I have erected an academy for the training up of young
women in the exercise of the fan, according to the most fashionable
airs and motions that are now practised at Court. The ladies who
carry fans under me are drawn up twice a day in my great hall,
where they are instructed in the use of their arms, and exercised
by the following words of command. Handle your fans, Unfurl
your fans, Discharge your fans, Ground your fans, Recover your
fans, Flutter your fans. By the right observation of these few
plain words of command, a woman of a tolerable genius, who will
apply herself diligently to her exercise for the space of but one half-
year, shall be able to give her fan all the graces that can possibly
enter into that little modish machine.
But to the end that my readers may form to themselves a right
notion of this exercise, I beg leave to explain it to them in all its
parts. When my female regiment is drawn up in array, with every
one her weapon in her hand, upon my giving the word to Handle
their fans, each of them shakes her fan at me with a smile, then
gives her righthand woman a tap upon the shoulder, then presses
her lips with the extremity of her fan, then lets her arms fall in
an easy motion, and stands in a readiness to receive the next word
of command. All this is done with a close fan, and is generally
learned in the first week.
The next motion is that of Unfurling the fan, in which are com-
prehended several little flirts and vibrations, as also gradual and
deliberate openings, with many voluntary fallings asunder in the
fan itself, that are seldom learned under a month's practice. This
part of the exercises pleases the spectators more than any other, as
it discovers on a sudden an infinite number of cupids, garlands,
altars, birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like agreeable figures, that
display themselves to view, whilst everyone in the regiment holds
a picture in her hand.
Upon my giving the word to Discharge their fans, they give one
general crack that may be heard at a considerable distance when
the wind sits fair. This is one of the most difficult parts of the
exercise; but I have several ladies with me, who at their first
entrance could not give a pop loud enough to be heard at the
further end of a room, who can now discharge a fan in such a
manner that it shall make a report like a pocket-pistol. I have
likewise taken care, in order to hinder young women from letting
off their fans in wrong places or unsuitable occasions, to show
upon what subject the crack of a fan may come in properly: I
have likewise invented a fan, with which a girl of sixteen, by the
help of a little wind which is inclosed about one of the largest
378
[CH. XIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
sticks, can make as loud a crack as a woman of fifty with an
ordinary fan.
When the fans are thus discharged, the word of command in
course is to Ground their fans. This teaches a lady to quit her fan
gracefully when she throws it aside, in order to take up a pack of
cards, adjust a curl of hair, replace a falling pin, or apply herself
to any other matter of importance. This part of the exercise, as
it only consists in tossing a fan with an air upon a long table,
which stands by for that purpose, may be learned in two days'
time as well as in a twelvemonth.
When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I generally let
them walk about the room for some time; when on a sudden, like
ladies that look upon their watches after a long visit, they all of
them hasten to their arms, catch them up in a hurry, and place
themselves in their proper stations upon my calling out, Recover
your fans. This part of the exercise is not difficult, provided a
woman applies her thoughts to it.
The fluttering of the fan is the last, and indeed the masterpiece
of the whole exercise; but if a lady does not misspend her time,
she may make herself mistress of it in three months. I generally
lay aside the dog-days and the hot time of the summer for the
teaching this part of the exercise; for as soon as ever I pronounce,
Flutter your fans, the place is filled with so many zephyrs and
gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that season of the year,
though they might be dangerous to ladies of a tender constitution
in any other.
There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the
flutter of a fan. There is the angry flutter, the modest flutter, the
timorous flutter, the confused flutter, and the amorous flutter.
Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which
does not produce a suitable agitation in the fan; insomuch that if
I only see the fan of a disciplined lady, I know very well whether
she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a fan so very angry
that it would have been dangerous for the absent lover who pro-
voked it to have come within the wind of it; and at other times
so very languishing, that I have been glad, for the lady's sake, the
lover was at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add, that a
fan is either a prude or coquette, according to the nature of the
person who bears it. To conclude my letter, I must acquaint you
that I have from my own observations compiled a little treatise
for the use of my scholars, entitled, 'The Passions of the Fan,'
which I will communicate to you, if you think it may be of use
to the public.-I am, &c.
1728-1774.]
379
GOLDSMITH.
CHAPTER XX.
GOLDSMITH.
A.D. 1728-1774.
Or Goldsmith we have already spoken, both as a dramatist
and as a poet. He is almost equally admirable as an
essayist. He does not indeed quite equal Addison in
sly delicacy of humour; but in grasp of mind and sagacity
he is more than his equal; and it may be questioned
whether, while equal to Addison in the correctness and
polish of his style, he does not surpass him in animation
and vigour. It has been mentioned, in our biographical
sketch of him, how many passages in his works prove him
to`have been in advance of his age. And his enlightened
humanity appears to great advantage in the following
extract from No. 80 of his Chinese Letters.'
(On the evil tendency of increasing penal laws, or enforcing even those
already in being with rigour.)
I have always regarded the spirit of mercy which appears in the
Chinese laws with admiration. An order for the execution of a
criminal is carried from Court by slow journeys of six miles a day,
but a pardon is sent down with the most rapid dispatch. If five
sons of the same father be guilty of the same offence, one of them
is forgiven, in order to continue the family, and comfort his aged
parents in their decline.
Similar to this, there is a spirit of mercy breathes through the
laws of England, which some erroneously endeavour to suppress;
the laws, however, seem unwilling to punish the offender, or to
furnish the officers of justice with every means of acting with
severity. Those who arrest debtors are denied the use of arms;
the nightly watch is permitted to repress the disorders of the
drunken citizens only with clubs; justice, in such a case, seems to
hide her terrors, and permits some offenders to escape rather than
load any with a punishment disproportioned to the crime.
x
380
[CH. XX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Thus it is the glory of an Englishman that he is not only
governed by laws, but that these are also tempered by mercy. A
country restrained by severe laws, and those too executed with
severity (as in Japan), is under the most terrible species of tyranny:.
a royal tyrant is generally dreadful to the great, but numerous
penal laws grind every rank of people, and chiefly those least able
to resist oppression—the poor.
It is very possible thus for a people to become slaves to laws of
their own enacting, as the Athenians were to those of Draco. 'It
might first happen,' says the historian, 'that men with peculiar
talents for villany attempted to evade the ordinances already
established; their practices, therefore, soon brought on a new law,
levelled against them; but the same degree of cunning which had
taught the knave to evade the former statutes, taught him to evade
the latter also; he flew to new shifts, while justice pursued with
new ordinances; still, however, he kept his proper distance, and
whenever one crime was judged penal by the state, he left com-
mitting it, in order to practise some unforbidden species of villany.
Thus the criminal against whom the threatenings were denounced
always escaped free; while the simple rogue alone felt the rigour
of justice. In the meantime, penal laws became numerous;
almost every person in the state, unknowingly, at different times
offended, and was every moment subject to a malicious prosecution.'
In fact, penal laws, instead of preventing crimes, are generally
enacted after the commission; instead of repressing the growth of
ingenious villany, only multiply deceit, by putting it upon new
shifts and expedients of practising it with impunity.
Such laws, therefore, resemble the guards which are sometimes
imposed upon tributary princes, apparently indeed to secure them
from danger, but in reality to confirm their captivity.
Penal laws, it must be allowed, secure property in a State, but
they also diminish personal security in the same proportion: there
is no positive law, how equitable soever, that may not be some-
times capable of injustice. When a law, enacted to make theft
punishable with death, happens to be equitably executed, it can
at best only guard our possessions; but when, by favour or igno-
rance, justice pronounces a wrong verdict, it then attacks our lives,
since, in such a case, the whole community suffers with the innocent
victim if, therefore, in order to secure the effects of one man, I
should make a law which may take away the life of another, in
such a case, to attain smaller good, I am guilty of a greater evil;
tɔ secure society in the possession of a bauble, I render a real and
valuable possession precarious. And indeed the experience of
every age may serve to vindicate the assertion: no law could be
:
1728-1774.]
381
GOLDSMITH.
more just than that called lesne majestatis, when Rome was
governed by emperors. It was but reasonable that every conspi-
racy against the administration should be detected and punished;
yet what terrible slaughters succeeded in consequence of its enact-
ment! proscriptions, stranglings, poisonings, in almost every family
of distinction: yet all done in a legal way, every criminal had his
trial, and lost his life by a majority of witnesses.
And such will ever be the case where punishments are numerous,
and where a weak, vicious, but above all, where a mercenary
magistrate is concerned in their execution: such a man desires to
see penal laws increased, since he too frequently has it in his power
to turn them into instruments of extortion; in such hands, the
more laws the wider means, not of satisfying justice, but of satiating
avarice.
A mercenary magistrate, who is rewarded in proportion, not to
his integrity, but to the number he convicts, must be a person of
the most unblemished character, or he will lean on the side of
cruelty; and when once the work of injustice is begun, it is
impossible to tell how far it will proceed. It is said of the hyæna
that, naturally, it is no way ravenous, but when once it has tasted
human flesh, it becomes the most voracious animal of the forest,
and continues to persecute mankind ever after.
A corrupt
magistrate may be considered as a human hyæna; he begins,
perhaps, by a private snap, he goes on to a morsel among friends,
he proceeds to a meal in public, from a meal he advances to a
surfeit, and at last sucks blood like a vampyre.
He
Not into such hands should the administration of justice be
entrusted, but to those who know how to reward, as well as to
punish. It was a fine saying of Nangfu, the emperor, who, being
told that his enemies had raised an insurrection in one of the
distant provinces, 'Come then, my friend,' said he, follow me,
and I promise you that we shall quickly destroy them.'
marched forward, and the rebels submitted upon his approach. All
now thought that he would take the most signal revenge, but
were surprised to see the captives treated with mildness and
humanity. How,' cries his first minister, 'is this the manner in
which you fulfil your promise? your royal word was given that
your enemies should be destroyed, and behold you have pardoned
all, and even caressed some!' 'I promised,' replied the emperor,
with a generous air, 'to destroy my enemies; I have fulfilled my
word, for see, they are enemies no longer-I have made friends of
them.'
This, could it always succeed, were the true method of destroying
the enemies of a State. Well it were if rewards and mercy alone
could regulate the commonwealth; but since punishments are
$
382
[CH. XX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
sometimes necessary, let them at least be rendered terrible by
being executed but seldom, and let justice lift her sword rather to
terrify than revenge.
Letter 51 is probably derived, like other passages both in
his plays and his poems, from his own experience.
(A Bookseller's Visit to the Chinese.)
As I was yesterday seated at breakfast over a pensive dish of
tea, my meditations were interrupted by my old friend and com-
panion, who introduced a stranger, dressed pretty much like
himself. The gentleman made several apologies for his visit,
begged of me to impute his intrusion to the sincerity of his
respect, and the warmth of his curiosity.
As I am very suspicious of my company when I find them very
civil without any apparent reason, I answered the stranger's
caresses at first with reserve; which my friend perceiving, in-
stantly let me into my visitor's trade and character, asking Mr.
Fudge whether he had lately published anything new? I now
conjectured that my guest was no other than a bookseller, and his
answer confirmed my suspicions.
'Excuse me, sir,' says he, it is not the season; books have
their time as well as cucumbers. I would no more bring out a
new work in summer than I would sell pork in the dog-days.
Nothing in my way goes off in summer, except very light goods
indeed. A review, a magazine, or a sessions paper may amuse a
summer reader; but all our stock of value we reserve for a spring
and winter trade.' 'I must confess, sir,' says I, 'a curiosity to
know what you call a valuable stock, which can only bear a winter
perusal.' 'Sir,' replied the bookseller, 'it is not my way to cry up
my own goods; but, without exaggeration, I will venture to show
with any of the trade: my books at least have the peculiar
advantage of being always new; and it is my way to clear off my
old to the trunk-makers every season. I have ten new title-pages
about me, which only want books to be added to make them the
finest things in nature. Others may pretend to direct the vulgar
but that is not my way; I always let the vulgar direct me; where-
ever popular clamour arises, I always echo the million. For
instance, should the people in general say that such a man is a
rogue, I instantly give orders to set him down in print a villain;
thus every man buys the book, not to learn new sentiments, but to
have the pleasure of seeing his own reflected.' 'But, sir,' inter-
rupted I, 'you speak as if you yourself wrote the books you
1728-1774.]
383
GOLDSMITH.
publish. May I be so bold as to ask a sight of some of those
intended publications which are shortly to surprise the world? '
'As to that, sir,' replied the talkative bookseller, 'I only draw
out the plans myself, and though I am very cautious of communi-
cating them to any, yet, as in the end I have a favour to ask,
you shall see a few of them. Here, sir, here they are, diamonds
of the first water, I assure you. Imprimis: 'A Translation of several
Medical Precepts for the use of such Physicians as do not understand
Latin.' Item: 'The Young Clergyman's Art of Placing Patches
regularly, with a Dissertation on the different manners of Smiling
without Distorting the Face.' Item: "The Whole Art of Love made
perfectly easy;' by a broker of 'Change Alley. Item: 'The Proper
Manner of cutting Black-Lead Pencils, and making Crayons;' by the
Right Hon. the Earl of . . . . Item: The Muster-Master-General,
or the Review of Reviews'- 'Sir,' cried I, interrupting him,
'my curiosity with regard to title-pages is satisfied; I should be
glad to see some longer manuscript, a history or an epic poem.'
'Bless me,' cries the man of industry, 'now you speak of an epic
poem, you shall see an excellent farce. Here it is; dip into it
where you will, it will be found replete with true modern humour.
Strokes, sir! it is filled with strokes of wit and satire in every
line.' 'Do you call these dashes of the pen strokes,' replied I,
'for I confess I see no other?' 'And pray, sir,' returned he,
'what do you call them? Do you see anything good now-a-days
that is not filled with strokes-and dashes? Sir, a well-placed
dash makes half the wit of our writers of modern humour. I
bought last season a piece that had no other merit upon earth than
nine hundred and ninety-five breaks, seventy-two ha! ha!'s, three
good things, and a garter. And yet it played off, and bounced
and cracked, and made more sport than a firework.' 'I fancy
then, sir, you were a considerable gainer?' 'It must be owned
the piece did pay; but, upon the whole, I cannot much boast of
last winter's success: I gained by two murders, but then I lost by
an ill-timed charity sermon. I was a considerable sufferer by my
'Direct Road to an Estate,' but the 'Infernal Guide' brought me
up again. Ah, sir, that was a piece touched off by the hand of a
master, filled with good things from one end to the other. The
author had nothing but the jest in view; no dull moral lurking
beneath, nor ill-natured satire to sour the reader's good humour;
he wisely considered that moral and humour at the same time
were quite overdoing the business.' To what purpose was the
book, then, published ?' cried I. 'Sir, the book was published in
order to be sold, and no book sold better, except the criticisms
upon it, which came out soon after; of all kinds of writing, that
܀
384
[CH. XX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
goes off best at present, and I generally fasten a criticism upon
every selling book that is published.
'I once had an author who never left the least opening for the
critics: close was the word, always very right, and very dull, ever
on the safe side of an argument; yet with all his qualifications,
incapable of coming into favour. I soon perceived that his bent
was for criticism, and as he was good for nothing else, supplied
him with pens and paper, and planted him at the beginning of
every month as a censor on the works of others. In short I found
bim a treasure; no merit could escape him: but what is most
remarkable of all, he ever wrote best and bitterest when drunk.'
'But are there not some works,' interrupted I, 'that from the
very manner of their composition must be exempt from criticism,
particularly such as profess to disregard its laws?' 'There is no
work whatsoever but he can criticise,' replied the bookseller, 'even
though you wrote in Chinese he would have a pluck at you.
Suppose you should take it into your head to publish a book, let
it be a volume of Chinese letters, for instance, write how you will,
he shall show the world you could have written better. Should
you, with the most local exactness, stick to the manners and
customs of the country from whence you come, should you confine
yourself to the narrow limits of Eastern knowledge, and be per-
fectly simple, and perfectly natural, he has then the strongest
reason to exclaim. He may with a sneer send you back to China
for readers. He may observe that, after the first or second letter
the iteration of the same simplicity is insupportably tedious; but
the worst of all is, the public in such a case will anticipate his
censures, and leave you with all your instructive simplicity to be
mauled at discretion.
Yes,' cried I, 'but in order to avoid his indignation, and what
I should fear more, that of the public, I would, in such a case,
write with all the knowledge I was master of. As I am not
possessed of much learning, at least I would not suppress what
little I had, nor would I appear more stupid than nature made
me.' 'Here then,' cries the bookseller, 'we should have you en-
tirely in our power; unnatural, uneastern, quite out of character,
erroneously sensible, would be the whole cry; sir, we should then
hunt you down like a rat.' 'Head of my father!' said I, 'sure
there are but two ways; the door must either be shut or it must
be open. I must either be natural or unnatural.' 'Be what you
will, we shall criticise you,' returned the bookseller, and prove
you a dunce in spite of your teeth. But, sir, it is time that I
should come to business. I have just now in the press a history
of China; and if you will but put your name to it as the author,
1728-1774.7
385
GOLDSMITH.
I shall repay the obligation with gratitude.' 'What, sir,' replied
I, 'put my name to a work which I have not written! Never, while
I retain a proper respect for the public and myself.' The bluntness
of my reply quite abated the ardour of the bookseller's conversation,
and, after about half an hour's disagreeable reserve, he, with some
ceremony, took his leave and withdrew.
Our last extract shows the playful way in which he could
narrate a simple incident; and the sagacious humanity with
which he could derive lessons from the most ordinary
occurrences.
(On the Distresses of the Poor.-Letter 119.)
The misfortunes of the great, my friend, are held up to engage
our attention, are enlarged upon in terms of declamation, and the
world is called upon to gaze at the noble sufferers: they have at
once the comfort of admiration and pity.
Yet, where is the magnanimity of bearing misfortunes when the
whole world is looking on? Men in such circumstances can act
bravely, even from motives of vanity. He only who, in the vale
of obscurity, can brave adversity, who, without friends to encourage,
acquaintances to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his dis-
tresses, can behave with tranquillity and indifference, is truly great :
whether peasant or courtier, he deserves admiration, and should
be held up for our imitation and respect.
The miseries of the poor are, however, entirely disregarded;
though some undergo more real hardships in one day than the
great in their whole lives. It is indeed inconceivable what difficul-
ties the meanest English sailor or soldier endures, without mur-
muring or regret. Every day is to him a day of misery, and yet
he bears his hard fate without repining.
With what indignation do I hear the heroes of tragedy complain
of misfortunes and hardships, whose greatest calamity is founded
in arrogance and pride! Their severest distresses are pleasures
compared to what many of the adventuring poor every day sustain
without murmuring. These may eat, drink, and sleep; have
slaves to attend them, and are sure of subsistence for life; while
many of their fellow-creatures are obliged to wander, without a
friend to comfort or to assist them, find enmity in every law, and
are too poor even to obtain justice.
I have been led into these reflections from accidentally meeting,
some days ago, a poor fellow begging at one of the outlets of this
town, with a wooden leg. I was curious to learn what had re-
duced him to his present situation, and, after giving him what I
thought proper, desired to know the history of his life and misfor-
386
[CH. XX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
tunes, and the manner in which he was reduced to his present
distress. The disabled soldier, for such he was, with an intre-
pidity truly British, leaning on his crutch, put himself into an
attitude to comply with my request, and gave me his history as
follows:-
'As for misfortunes, sir, I cannot pretend to have gone through
more than others. Except the loss of a limb, and my being obliged
to beg, I don't know any reason, thank Heaven, that I have to
complain; there are some who have lost both legs and an eye,
but, thank Heaven, it is not quite so bad with me.
'My father was a labourer in the country, and died when I was
five years old, so I was put upon the parish. As he had been a
wandering sort of man, the parishioners were not able to tell to
what parish I belonged, or where I was born; so they sent me to
another parish, and that parish sent me to a third; till at last it
was thought that I belonged to no parish at all. At length, how-
ever, they fixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, and
had actually learned my letters, but the master of the workhouse
put me to business as soon as I was able to handle a mallet.
'Here I lived an easy kind of a life for five years. I only
wrought ten hours in the day, and had my meat and drink pro-
vided for my labour. It is true, I was not suffered to stir far
from the house, for fear I should run away, but what of that? I
had the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the door,
and that was enough for me.
'I was next bound out to a farmer, where I was up both early
and late, but I ate and drank well, and liked my business well
enough, till he died. Being then obliged to provide for myself, I
was resolved to go and seek my fortune. Thus I lived, and went
from town to town, working when I could get employment, and
starving when I could get none, and might have lived so still;
but happening one day to go through a field belonging to a magis-
trate, I spied a hare crossing the path just before me. I believe
the devil put it in my head to fling my stick at it: well! what
will you have on't? I killed the hare, and was bringing it away
in triumph, when the justice himself met me; he called me a
villain, and, collaring me, desired I would give an account of myself.
I began immediately to give a full account of all that I knew of my
breed, seed, and generation; but, though I gave a very long account,
the justice said I could give no account of myself, so I was
indicted, and found guilty of being poor, and sent to Newgate, in
order to be transported to the plantations.
(
People may say this and that of being in gaol, but for my part
I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I was in, in all my life.
I had my belly full to eat and drink, and did no work, but alas!
1728-1774.]
387
GOLDSMITH.
+
this kind of life was too good to last for ever: I was taken out of
prison, after five months, put on board of a ship, and sent off with
two hundred more. Our passage was but indifferent, for we were
all confined in the hold, and died very fast, for want of sweet air
and provisions; but, for my part, I did not want meat, because I
had a fever all the way. Providence was kind: when provisions grew
short, it took away my desire of eating. When we came ashore,
we were sold to the planters. I was bound for seven years, and
as I was no scholar, for I had forgot my letters, I was obliged to
work among the negroes; and served out my time as in duty
bound to do.
'When my time was expired, I worked my passage home, and
glad I was to see Old England again, because I loved my country.
O liberty liberty! liberty! that is the property of every English-
man, and I will die in its defence. I was afraid, however, that I
should be indicted for a vagabond once more, so I did not much
care to go into the country, but kept about town, and did little
jobs when I could get them. I was very happy in this manner
for some time, till one evening, coming home from work, two men
knocked me down, and then desired me to stand still. They
belonged to a press-gang: I was carried before the justice, and as I
could give no account of myself (that was the thing that always
hobbled me), I had my choice left, whether to go on board a
man-of-war or 'list for a soldier. I chose to be a soldier; and in
this post of a gentleman, I served two campaigns in Flanders, was
at the battles of Val and Fontenoy, and received but one wound
through the breast, which is troublesome to this day.
'When the peace came on I was discharged, and as I could not
work, because my wound was sometimes painful, I 'listed for a
land man in the East India Company's service. I here fought the
French in six pitched battles; and verily believe that, if I could
read or write, our captain would have given me promotion, and
made me a corporal. But that was not my good fortune; I soon
fell sick, and when I became good for nothing, got leave to return
home again, with forty pounds in my pocket, which I saved in the
service. This was at the beginning of the present war, so I hoped
to be set on shore, and to have the pleasure of spending my money;
but the Government wanted me, and I was pressed again, before
ever I could set foot on shore.
'The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow; he
swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I
shammed Abraham merely to be idle. God knows, I knew
nothing of sea business: he beat me without considering what he
was about. But still my forty pounds was some comfort to me
18
388
[CH. XX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
under every beating: the money was my comfort, and the money
I might have had to this day, but that our ship was taken by the
French, and so I lost it all.
6
'Our crew was carried into a French prison, and many of them
died, because they were not used to live in a gaol; but for my
part it was nothing to me, for I was seasoned. One night, however,
as I was sleeping on a bed of boards, with a warm blanket about
me (for I always loved to lie well), I was awakened by the
boatswain, who had a dark lantern in his hand. Jack,' says he
to me, 'will you knock out the French sentry's brains?' 'I don't
care,' says I, striving to keep myself awake, 'if I lend a hand.'
'Then follow me,' says he, ‘and I hope we shall do business.' So
up I got, and tied my blanket, which was all the clothes I had,
about my middle, and went with him to fight the Frenchmen.
We had no arms; but one Englishman is able to beat five French
at any time; so we went down to the door, where both the sen-
tries were posted, and rushing upon them seized their arms in a
moment, and knocked them down. From thence nine of us ran
together to the quay, and seizing the first boat we met, got out of
the harbour and put to sea. We had not been here three days
before we were taken up by an English privateer, who was glad
of so many good hands, and we consented to run our chance.
However we had not so much luck as we expected. In three days
we fell in with a French man-of-war of forty guns, while we had
but twenty-three, so to it we went. The fight lasted for three
hours, and I verily believe that we should have taken the French-
man, but, unfortunately, we lost almost all our men, just as we
were going to get the victory. I was once more in the power of
the French, and I believe it would have gone hard with me, had
I been brought back to my old gaol in Brest, but by good fortune
we were retaken and carried to England once more.
'I had almost forgot to tell you that in this last engagement I
was wounded in two places: I lost four fingers of the left hand,
and my leg was shot off. Had I had the good fortune to have lost
my leg and use of my hand on board a king's ship, and not a
privateer, I should have been entitled to clothing and maintenance
during the rest of my life, but that was not my chance; one man
is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and another with a
wooden ladle. However, blessed be God! I enjoy good health
and have no enemy in this world, that I know of, but the French,
and the justice of the peace.'
Thus saying, he limped off, leaving my friend and me in admi-
ration of his intrepidity and content: nor could we avoid acknow-
ledging that an habitual acquaintance with misery is the truest
school of fortitude and philosophy.
1709-1784.]
389
JOHNSON.
CHAPTER XXI.
JOHNSON.
A.D. 1709-1784.
THE writer of whom I am about to speak is very deserving
of our attention, not only on account of the variety of his
works, and the excellence of some of them, but likewise
for the example which he affords, as striking as any to be
found in all our literary history, of a man without any
of the higher gifts of genius, wholly destitute of imagination
or fancy, or even of a very correct taste in composition,
nevertheless, by unwearied industry, steadiness, and honesty
of purpose, raising himself to an eminence in the literary
world to which at least one of these qualities would
generally be reckoned indispensable. Nor was he indebted
for his rise to the adventitious aids of birth or manners; his
family, though respectable, was humble; his manners, to say
the least, uncourtly and repellent.
Samuel Johnson was the son of a bookseller in the
cathedral city of Lichfield: his father was himself a man
of fair education; and his trade was not ill-calculated to
engender a taste for learning in his child, which other
circumstances contributed to foster, since from his infancy
Samuel was afflicted with the scrofula, which attacked his
eyes with particular virulence, rendering him almost blind,
and consequently disqualifying him for the ordinary
amusements of boyhood. Having received what in those
days was accounted a fair education, he was sent to Pem-
broke College, Oxford, where it is understood that a friend
or neighbour, who had conceived a high opinion of his
abilities, had proposed to his father to defray his expenses ;
but, apparently, the gentleman failed to fulfil his promise;
bis father too fell into difficulties; and he was thus forced,
390
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
by want of means, to quit the University before he could
take a degree. He had acquired a considerable knowledge
of Latin, and a moderate acquaintance with Greek; and this
amount of scholarship procured him an ushership at a
school in Leicestershire, and a little employment from book-
sellers; but neither resource lasted long or was very pro-
ductive: he was in great poverty; and a year or two
afterwards, when he was not yet five-and-twenty, he took a
step not very well adapted to improve his circumstances:
he fell desperately in love with the widow of a bankrupt
linen-draper, who was more than twenty years older than
himself, and who, if she had ever had any beauty, had
certainly outlived it; and in July 1734 he married her, and,
to support her, opened a private school in the neighbourhood
of Lichfield. But he never got above three pupils; and the
skill by which the one of those who afterwards became
famous earned his renown he did not learn of his tutor. In
fact no man who knew enough to teach, not even his friend
Goldsmith, was so little suited as Johnson to be an in-
structor of youth. His disease had rendered him purblind;
he was of a most ungainly figure, addicted to awkward and
peculiar habits; violent in his manner; neither able nor
disposed to adapt his conversation or explanations to the
capacity of the ignorant or the young; and moreover of a
desultory turn of mind, and indolent habits, wholly in-
consistent with the regularity expected from a schoolmaster.
In the end the three pupils became reduced to one, David
Garrick; and with him, in 1737, Johnson removed to London,
in the hope of maintaining himself by his pen, which to a
certain extent he from the first succeeded in doing. He
became a contributor to the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' the
parent of all the monthly publications which have since.
appeared, and which still keeps its place among them, with
a fair reputation; writing articles of all sorts, brief
poems,
translations, essays, and, after a time, obtaining regular
employment, as a reporter for it of the debates in Parliament.
As yet the standing orders of both Houses forbad any report
of their proceedings being published openly; indeed in
the very same year that Johnson came to London, the
Commons discussed the propriety of relaxing their rule,
1709-1781.]
391
JOHNSON.
when it was found that both Walpole, the minister, and
Pulteney, the leader of the Opposition, though for different
reasons, were equally opposed to any relaxation. Johnson
therefore, though Cave, the publisher of the magazine, easily
procured him admission to the House of Commons, could
not venture to take notes of what he heard, but was forced
to trust to an unusually retentive memory, which, at a
time when a debate very rarely lasted more than three or
four hours, was not often too severely taxed in carrying
away all that was worth recording. Still less could Cave
dare to announce his reports as what they really were: they
were published as the transactions of the Senate of Lilliput,
the names of the speakers being disguised under anagrams,
or other symbols easily understood by the initiated, but not
so undeniably plain as to bring the reporter or publisher
within the grasp of a Speaker's warrant.
Work of this sort, however, though it earned him bread,
did not procure him fame: no one cared to learn the name
of the writer of a few verses in the poet's corner of a
magazine, and still less of a reporter; but in 1738 he put
forth a poem which, though he published it anonymously,
made all those who took an interest in literature eager to
learn what was to be learnt of the author. It was not an
original poem, but an imitation of the 3rd Satire of Juvenal,
which he entitled ' London,' and in which he transferred the
Roman satirist's denunciation of the vices of the city of the
Cæsars to those which he himself had observed to taint the
metropolis of his own country. Juvenal traced the evils of
which he complained to Greece: to Johnson the new vices
of England and her capital seemed to have been imported
from France; and his invectives against them were con-
ceived in the same spirit, and expressed with the same fire,
which animated his classical model. 'London' came out
on the very same morning on which Pope published his
imitations of Horace; but, though the two were thus placed
to some extent in the position of rivals, the elder poet,
whose fame was established, had the candour to appreciate
and the generosity to acknowledge the great merit of his
anonymous competitor. He prophesied that such a man
could not long be unknown; and when he had discovered
392
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his
name, and his objects in life, he made generous exertions
to serve him, by interesting men of influence in his behalf,
that he might not be starved to death in translating for
booksellers; but his want of a University degree prevented
him from getting the appointment of Head Master in an
endowed school, of which he was desirous; and many years
were to elapse before he could feel himself free from
dependence for his daily bread on his engagements with
publishers, who however, as has certainly been the general
practice of that which is called, par excellence, the trade
with authors of merit, treated him with great fairness and
liberality, though there were more occasions than one in
which he found himself reduced to great difficulties. A
second imitation, that of the 10th Satire, to which he gave
the name of 'The Vanity of Human Wishes,' greatly increased
his reputation: the maxims which Juvenal had illustrated
by examples drawn from the annals of his own country and
of Greece, Johnson illustrated by instances culled from the
history of modern Europe, selecting them with singular
felicity: Wolsey was his Sejanus; Charles XII. was his
Hannibal: while the poetical vigour of his portraits was
greatly superior to that of Juvenal, who had not indeed
made excellence of that kind his especial aim. But, still,
short poems, and those not original, could not be very
profitable; and though, before 1749, when he published this
latter poem, he had been for some time employed on a work
of far greater magnitude and importance, a Dictionary of
the English language, for which it was agreed beforehand
that he was to receive a very large sum, above 15007., that
failed materially to relieve his necessities, since it occupied
him many more years than he contemplated when he first
undertook the work. He had calculated on completing it
in three years; but it was not till 1755, eight years after
he had concluded the agreement, that it was published;
and it not only realised all the expectations that had been
formed of it, but must be admitted to be by far the most
complete work of the kind that as yet had ever been exe-
cuted in any language. That it had defects, if measured
by the present standard, is undeniable: in its etymologies
especially it was often incorrect; but its defects were such
1709-1784.]
393
JOHNSON.
as could gradually be supplied, its errors such as could be
easily corrected; and when it is remembered that it was
the work of a single man, relying almost solely on his own
knowledge and diligence, and having no predecessor to
whose work he could turn for guidance or aid, it is certainly
one of the most astonishing specimens of literary industry
on record. Succeeding compilers of similar works are but
followers in his steps, working on his plan, and to a great
extent availing themselves of his labours. One incident
connected with the publication of the work is worth
mentioning, as an illustration of the customs prevalent at
the time, and to a certain extent of Johnson's independence
of character; though I fear we must own that, while it
certainly shows him to have been above the meanness of
courting men of rank merely as such, it in an equal degree
proves him to have been ready to take offence where none
was intended, and to offer insults without provocation.
The celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who was not merely a
man of pleasure and fashion, but of the very first eminence
in the political world; who had filled more than one office
in the Home Government with great credit, and had
certainly been the ablest Lord Lieutenant of Ireland that
that country had enjoyed since the death of Strafford; who
was also, which is more to our present purpose, not ill-versed
in science, and was possessed of a taste in literature that
was sound and pure, even if it was a little over-refined, had
shown an inclination, the moment the idea was broached,
to patronise the Dictionary; and the belief that a noble
patron was indispensable to literary success had not yet died
out. Dodsley, the publisher, who had the largest share in
the work, knew the value of a patron of the rank, reputation,
and liberality of Chesterfield, and at his instigation the plan
or prospectus of the Dictionary was inscribed to him; but,
though Lord Chesterfield, who had already given his
opinion on one or two points of detail in the execution of the
work, willingly permitted the inscription, and, as far as can
be judged from a hint in a note of Boswell's, sent the author
a present of 101. as a sort of payment for it, Johnson was
disappointed at receiving no further act of assistance, word
•
394
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of encouragement, or smile of favour," during the progress
of the work. It is not very clear what form of favour,
encouragement, or assistance he expected; it seems to me
that at the critical moment, when the Dictionary was on
the eve of publication, Lord Chesterfield voluntarily came
forward with the most judicious and timely assistance, by
writing in the 'World,' a periodical of established reputa-
tion, two papers highly eulogistic of Johnson's talents and
warmly recommendatory of the work, as one of great
necessity, and which 'there was good reason to believe the
author would bring as near to perfection as any man could
do.' But Johnson was far from looking on this panegyric
in the same light. He declared that he had been neglected
by Lord Chesterfield, and wrote him a letter which Boswell
of course pronounced manly and spirited, but which, I
confess, appears to me uncalled for, not to say ungrateful:
he speaks of Lord Chesterfield's conduct in thus re-
commending his work to the literary world (and to others
also, for in one of the offending papers it is taken for
granted that everyone who can afford it will buy it), as the
act of 'one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling
for life in the water, and, when he has reached the ground,
encumbers him with help.' He declares that 'the notice
which Lord Chesterfield had taken of his labours had been
delayed till he was known and did not want it,' and that
he would not 'confess obligations where no benefit had been
received.' He even altered a line in his imitation of Juvenal
to stereotype his complaint, changing the word 'garret'
into 'patron' in his enumeration of the ills to which poor
authors are exposed; and, as long as Lord Chesterfield lived,
took every opportunity of sneering at and ridiculing him;
though Lord Chesterfield, too generous to take offence at
his letter, continued to speak of him as a man of great
abilities, and to praise his work. One can easily excuse a
man conscious of great powers and great industry, and at
the same time kept in constant anxiety by want of means,
for being irritable and unreasonable; but I confess I can-
not see what more Johnson could expect Lord Chesterfield
(who was now an elderly man, and so weak in health that
1 Letter to Lord Chesterfield, Boswell's Life, ii. 236.
1709–1784.]
395
JOHNSON.
he had been obliged to resign his post in the Ministry) to
do for him than he did do.
The Dictionary, however, was not allowed to occupy
the whole of his time. His necessities compelled him
to devise readier means of supplying them than could
be furnished by a work which would require years to com-
plete; and with this view he, in 1750, began a periodical in
imitation of Addison's 'Spectator,' which he called the
'Rambler,' which he continued for two years, and which
is a striking example of his industry and facility of com-
position, since, though two numbers were published every
week, they are nearly all his own unassisted composition. It
was not, however, very successful, as, though full of matter,
often of valuable instruction, and not seldom enlivened by
wit and humour, it wanted that lightness of style which is
indispensable to works of this kind. It, however, helped
to maintain him, and by so doing increased his reliance
on his own powers: a very needful feeling for a man who
still had, it may almost be said, to depend as much as any
ordinary artisan on his daily labour for his daily pay for
the Dictionary itself, as I have mentioned, left him as poor
as it found him; and for some years after its publication
he was still forced to rely on his pen for the supply of all
his necessities; while the rapidity of composition which her
had displayed in the 'Rambler' was still more strikingly
exemplified by the history of his one work of prose fiction,
'Rasselas,' which, in 1759, he wrote in a single week, to
defray the expenses of his mother's funeral and to dis-
charge her debts, selling it, even before it was finished,
for 1007. He also undertook a new periodical, which he
called the 'Idler,' not without reference to what he always
asserted to be his own natural inclination to indolence, had
his circumstances permitted him to indulge it. As with
the Rambler,' he wrote almost every number himself;
and as his reputation was now much higher than when he
published the Rambler,' he found his new work proportion-
ably more profitable. But one of the first acts of the new
reign was to confer a pension of 3001. on him, which for
the rest of his life placed him in easy circumstances, so
6
396
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1
that he could now afford to practise the inaction wbich,
when he wrote the 'Idler,' he could only profess and envy.
It was many years before he again came before the world
as an author; but no man had better earned a right to
rest, and he now gave himself up to enjoy it after his own
fashion. He had become so accustomed to London that
he still fixed his residence there, occupying chambers in
the Temple, which were frequented by a circle of friends
as distinguished for ability of the highest kind as ever
formed the society of anyone from whom nothing was to
be obtained but instruction or entertainment. He founded
a Club, known afterwards as the Literary Club, of which
these visitors of his chambers were the first members; and
though Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and Bishop Percy
were among the first members, to whom Gibbon, Sheridan,
Windham, Colman, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir William Jones,
Garrick, and many other men of literary eminence, and
many others of high rank, were subsequently added, he, by
the consent of all, continued the president till his death.
It was first a supping, and afterwards a dining Club;
but the real attraction which drew together so remarkable
a company was the conversation of the leading men: and,
great as was the learning and subtlety of Gibbon; universal
as was the knowledge, rich and varied the eloquence of
Burke; deeply versed in the early poetry and the an-
tiquarian literature of England and Ireland as was Bishop
Percy; profound as was the judgment in all that belonged
to his art that distinguished Reynolds; exquisite as was
the taste of Windham; brilliant as was the wit and fancy
of Sheridan; yet, in variety and extent of information, in
acuteness and appositeness of observation, in vigour, in
humour, and above all in readiness, not one of the whole
body surpassed Johnson himself. And he has had the
singular good fortune of having his conversations recorded
with a minuteness that has been employed on the history
of no other individual in the world. A young Scotch
gentleman of fair family and expectations, Mr. James
Boswell, had conceived so high an opinion of Johnson that
he procured an introduction to him; and, finding that
Johnson was inclined to encourage his acquaintance,
1709-1784.]
397
JOHNSON.
+
attached himself to him with the most singular and un-
wearied devotion, proposing to himself from the first to
become his biographer; and, with this view, taking notes
of every word that dropped from his lips, which, after
Johnson's death, he worked up into a memoir, which is
admitted to be one of the best biographies that has ever
been written. It has been the fashion with critics to dis-
parage Boswell himself, and even, while admitting the
excellence of his book, to pronounce not only that he nim-
self was a fool, but that his folly is the very cause of his
book's goodness; since no one but the silliest of men could
have deliberately and perseveringly devoted himself to the
task of merely recording the sentiments and expressions of
another, whether they were worth remembering and pre-
serving or not, and since every observation of his own
which he relates, and to which or on which Johnson's
remarks were commonly replies or comments, show a very
limited capacity, joined to a complete insensibility to the
exposure he makes of his own want of talent. But it
seems to me that there is a good deal of paradox in this
depreciation of Boswell. Unquestionably he had many
defects, and some grave faults. He was vain and restless;
he was addicted to drink; drunk or sober he was apt to
ask impertinent questions, silly questions, and to press for
answers that the goodnature of his wiser friends withheld
as long as they could: in short he was often a butt and
often a bore. He aped the philosopher at whose feet he
delighted to sit so unseasonably that he taught himself to
look down on all whom Johnson treated roughly, con-
descendingly, or familiarly; speaking with a patronising
tone, which must be admitted to be diverting, even of such
a man as Goldsmith, 'poor Goldy,' as he presumes to call
one, who, in many of the choicest gifts of intellect, had
scarcely a superior; and recording all his own imper-
tinences and sillinesses, and the rebuffs which they brought
on him, with a simple absence of shame, as if there were
something to be proud of in the mere fact of being
sufficiently well known to Johnson to be scolded or laughed
at by him. But with all this, he had also some, and those
not the least important of the qualities which go to make a
2
398
[CH. XXI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
good writer. He was so far from being, as Macaulay terms
him, a dunce, that, in a long letter, in which, at the beginning
of their acquaintance, he defends himself against some
criticisms which Johnson had pronounced on a Latin
epitaph which he had composed for a Scotch friend, he
clearly has the advantage over his critic. Nor did he carry
his veneration for Johnson so far as to surrender his
independence of judgment on matters of general taste.
He avowed his admiration of Gray's Odes, in spite of
Johnson's habitual depreciation of that poet; and, little as
Johnson liked contradiction, maintained his own opinion
with earnest argument and well-chosen instances. His
memory was tenacious and correct, his observation not
only quick but discriminating, his fidelity to truth most
conscientious. His reports of conversations and arguments
are admitted to be spirited and lifelike: in the narrative
parts of his work his style, if not vigorous or picturesque,
is fluent and easy; it is the writing of a gentleman; while,
by the confession of all, he has admirably succeeded in the
design which he proposed to himself of presenting us
with a real likeness of the object of his admiration; being
also not undeserving of praise in selecting his idol, if an
idol he was forced to have, with so much judgment and
disinterestedness.
At all events, whichever view of his own talents be
correct, Boswell has given us a singularly faithful picture
of Johnson's character, than which no man's is fuller of
marked contrasts; for his mind presented a strange union
of incredulity and superstition, of strong reason with im-
moveable prejudice: his disposition and manners an
equally curious combination of insolent rudeness with con-
siderate and active humanity; and has effected this object by
an account of his opinions and language on almost every con-
ceivable subject, so skilfully and judiciously drawn up that,
with all its minuteness, it is never wearisome; and while it
tends, as all biographies are designed to do, to raise our
estimate of the subject, it attains this object by the most
perfect candour and fairness, not only to Johnson himself,
but to all whc are mentioned in connection with him. The
ablest of all his friends, Burke, remarked on the appearance
1709-1781.]
399
JOHNSON.
6
of Boswell's book, that Johnson appeared greater in those
pages than in his own. And, strange as it seems to say so
of a professed author, Johnson was more careful in his con-
versation than in his writings. He would constantly defer
a number of the 'Rambler' or 'Idler' till the printer was
waiting for it, and then write it in such haste that he had
no time to read over the manuscript: but, as he delighted
more in talking, he took more pains with it. He used to
say that he made it a constant rule to talk as well as he
could, both as to sentiment and expression; by which
means what had been originally effort became familiar and
easy.' And conversation being thus easy to him, it has far
more the appearance of ease than his writings. It is, as a
rule, free from the besetting fault of his books, the fondness
for long words. Macaulay has ridiculed it, declaring that
it is evident that he did not think in the dialect in which
he wrote, but, while he thought in English, translated
his thoughts for the press into Johnsonese; and gives some
amusing instances derived from a comparison of his pub-
lished narrative of events that occurred to himself with his
account of the same circumstances at the moment in his
familiar letters. And, on the other hand, Boswell's whole
book abounds with examples of the acutest reasoning ex-
pressed in simple and powerful language which cannot be
surpassed for sense by any passages in his most elaborate
works.
I have said he wrote but little during the last twenty
years of his life; but he was not wholly idle. On the
breaking out of the American war, he, as an ardent Tory,
came to the support of the Ministers in a pamphlet, which
he entitled 'Taxation no Tyranny,' as he had done before
in the case of Wilkes, in the 'False Alarm:' but it cannot
be said that they added greatly to his reputation; nor,
though Boswell has probably been justified in his prediction
that his last publication, the 'Lives of the Poets,' would be
read by posterity 'the most generally and with the greatest
pleasure,' can the praise which that prophecy is intended
to imply be admitted without considerable deduction.
Some of his biographical sketches (though called lives,
they rarely amount to more than this) are spirited and
400
[CH. XXI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
happy; and in some cases, as most notably in the case of
Dryden and Pope, his criticisms are judicious, masterly,
and, to adopt a word now much in vogue, exhaustive; but
in others, as when he attacks Milton's 'Lycidas,' or all
Gray's works except the 'Elegy,' he seems to proceed on
principles so wholly false that no one who has read his
cavils has ever agreed with him.
In spite of his scrofula he was permitted to attain, what
he always greatly desired, old age; though his wish was
prompted rather by a fear of death than by a keen en-
joyment of life, in which he always maintained that
suffering preponderated over happiness.¹
And in the last year of his life he had greater reason
than ever for such an opinion: he was attacked by two
most painful complaints, dropsy and asthma; and though
he bore them with great fortitude, and the conviction of
his danger with manly resignation, his friends, and no
man had more, or more sincere friends, became anxious
that he should try a warmer climate. They tried to pro-
cure from the Government an augmentation to his income,
that he might go to Italy; but there was no fund available
for such a purpose, though the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow,
exerted himself strenuously on his behalf, and, when he
failed, proposed to supply what was needed from his own
resources; and the idea had hardly been abandoned when
he became so much worse that he would have been unable
to take so long a journey. On the 17th of December, 1784,
he died, and, as he himself had wished, was buried in
Westminster Abbey. By a curious inconsistency, the
monument which his friends of the Literary Club erected
in his honour was placed in St. Paul's; yet it was not
altogether unfitting that both the great London cathedrals
should thus contribute to preserve the memory of one who
made the great city his home for nearly half a century,
and who, constantly extolling it as the fittest home for one
who was at once, as he delighted to describe himself, both
a scholar and a man of the world, regarded it as such with
an affection which has been felt for it in an equal degree
by few of its native sons.
1 Boswell's Life, iv. 322.
1709-1784.]
401
JOHNSON.
(The Rambler, No. 19.)
I have for many years been making observations on the life of
Polyphilus, a man whom all his acquaintances have, from his
first appearance in the world, feared for the quickness of his
discernment, and admired for the multiplicity of his attainments,
but whose progress in life, and usefulness to mankind, has been
hindered by the superfluity of his knowledge and the celerity of
his mind.
Polyphilus was remarkable at the school for surpassing all his
companions, without any visible application, and at the University
was distinguished equally for his successful progress as well
through the thorny mazes of science as the flowery paths of politer
literature, without any strict confinement to hours of study, or
remarkable forbearance of the common amusements of young
men.
When Polyphilus was at the age in which men usually choose
their profession, and prepare to enter into a public character,
every academical eye was fixed upon him; all were curious to
enquire what this universal genius would fix upon for the employ-
ment of his life; and no doubt was made but that he would leave
all his contemporaries behind him, and mount to the highest
honours of that class in which he should enlist himself, without
those delays and pauses which must be endured by meaner
abilities.
Polyphilus, though by no means insolent or assuming, had been
sufficiently encouraged, by uninterrupted success, to place great
confidence in his own parts; and was not below his companions in
the indulgence of his hopes, and expectations of the astonishment
with which the world would be struck when first his lustre
should break out upon it: nor could he forbear-for whom does
not constant flattery intoxicate ?—to join sometimes in the mirth
of his friends at the sudden disappearance of those who, having
shone a while, and drawn the eyes of the public upon their feeble
radiance, were now doomed to fade away before him.
It is natural for a man to catch advantageous notions of the
condition which those, with whom he converses, are striving to
attain. Polyphilus, in a ramble to London, fell accidentally
among the physicians, and was so much pleased with the prospect
of turning philosophy to profit, and so highly delighted with a new
theory of fevers which darted into his imagination, and which,
after having considered it a few hours, he found himself able to
maintain against all the advocates for the ancient system, that he
resolved to apply himself to anatomy, botany, and chemistry, and
402
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
to leave no part unconquered either of the animal, mineral, or
vegetable kingdoms.
He therefore read authors, constructed systems, and tried
experiments; but, unhappily, as he was going to see a new plant
in flower at Chelsea, he met, in crossing Westminster, to take
water, the chancellor's coach; he had the curiosity to follow him
into the hall, where a remarkable cause happened to be tried, and
found himself able to produce so many arguments which the
lawyers had omitted on both sides, that he determined to quit
physic for a profession in which he found it would be so easy to
excel, and which promised higher honours and larger profits,
without melancholy attendance upon misery, mean submission to
peevishness, and continual interruption of rest and pleasure.
He immediately took chambers in the Temple, bought a
commonplace book, and confined himself for some months to the
perusal of the statutes, year-books, pleadings, and reports; he was
a constant hearer of the courts, and began to put cases with
reasonable accuracy. But he soon discovered, by considering the
fortune of lawyers, that preferment was not to, be got by acuteness,
learning, and eloquence. He was perplexed by the absurdities of
attorneys, and misrepresentations made by his clients of their own
causes, by the useless anxiety of one and the incessant importu-
nities of another; he began to repent of having devoted himself to
a study which was so narrow in its comprehension that it could
never carry his name to any other country, and thought it un-
worthy of a man of parts to sell his life only for money. The
barrenness of his fellow-students forced him generally into other
company at his hours of entertainment, and among the varieties of
conversation through which his curiosity was daily wandering, he,
by chance, mingled at a tavern with some intelligent officers of
the army. A man of letters was easily dazzled with the gaiety
of their appearance, and softened into kindness by the politeness
of their address; he therefore cultivated this new acquaintance,
and when he saw how readily they found in every place admission
and regard, and how familiarly they mingled with every rank and
order of men, he began to feel his heart beat for military honours,
and wondered how the prejudices of the University should make
him so long insensible of that ambition which has fired so many
hearts in every age, and negligent of that calling which is, above
all others, universally and invariably illustrious, and which gives,
even to the exterior appearance of its professors, a dignity and
freedom unknown to the rest of mankind.
These favourable impressions were made still deeper by his
conversation with ladies, whose regard for soldiers he could not
1709-1784.]
403
JOHNSON.
observe without wishing himself one of that happy fraternity to
which the female world seemed to have devoted their charms and
their kindness. The love of knowledge, which was still his pre-
dominant inclination, was gratified by the recital of adventures,
and accounts of foreign countries; and therefore he concluded
that there was no way of life in which all his views could so
completely concentre as in that of a soldier. In the art of war he
thought it not difficult to excel, having observed his new friends
not very much versed in the principles of tactics or fortification ;
he therefore studied all the military writers, both ancient and
modern, and in a short time could tell how to have gained every
remarkable battle that has been lost from the beginning of the
world. He often showed at table how Alexander should have
been checked in his conquests, what was the fatal error at
Pharsalia, how Charles of Sweden might have escaped his ruin at
Pultowa, and Marlborough might have been made to repent his
temerity at Blenheim. He entrenched armies upon paper so that
no superiority of numbers could force them, and modelled in clay
many impregnable fortresses, on which all the present arts of
attack would be exhausted without effect.
Polyphilus in a short time obtained a commission, but before he
could rub off the solemnity of a scholar, and gain the true air of
military vivacity, a war was declared, and forces sent to the
Continent. Here Polyphilus unhappily found that study alone
would not make a soldier; for, being much accustomed to thirk,
he let the sense of danger sink into his mind, and felt, at the
approach of any action, that terror which a sentence of death
would have brought upon him. He saw that, instead of
conquering their fears, the endeavour of his gay friends was only
to escape them; but his philosophy chained his mind to its object,
and rather loaded him with shackles than furnished him with
arms. He, however, suppressed his misery in silence, and passed
through the campaign with honour, but found himself utterly
unable to support another.
He then had recourse again to his books, and continued to range
from one study to another. As I usually visit him once a month,
and am admitted to him without previous notice, I have found
him, within this last half-year, deciphering the Chinese language,
making a farce, collecting a vocabulary of the obsolete terms of
the English law, writing an enquiry concerning the ancient
Jorinthian brass, and forming a new scheme of the variations of
the needle.
Thus is this powerful genius, which might have extended the
sphere of any science, cr benefited the world in any profession
404
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
dissipated in a boundless variety, without profit to others or him-
self. He makes sudden irruptions into the regions of knowledge,
and sees all obstacles give way before him; but he never stays
long enough to complete his conquest, to establish laws, or bring
away the spoils.
This is perhaps as favorable a specimen of his humorous
writing as either the 'Rambler' or the 'Idler' furnishes. And
it is the more to be admired because experience must admit
the fidelity to nature with which the character of the hero
is portrayed, and therefore the force and value of the lesson
to be drawn from it. Highly as it is to be desired that all
students should aim at school and university success, yet it
cannot be denied that it has often been a snare to him who
has attained it; and the most usual reason why it has proved
such is very probably that which Johnson has here ex-
plained: the over-confidence which it has engendered in his
own powers, and the degree in which it has consequently
blinded him to the necessity of perseverance in one care-
fully selected path. In style the essay is more free than
usual from his prevailing fault, of which indeed he was not
unconscious, the use of long, pedantic words; though it
cannot be acquitted of exhibiting some needlessly long and
fatiguing sentences. The fondness for seven-leagued
words,' is, as might be expected, more visible in the next
paper, as it is one of a serious character.
(No. 106).
An assurance of unfading laurels and immortal reputation is
the settled reciprocation of civility between amicable writers. To
raise monuments more durable than brass, and more conspicuous
than pyramids, has been long the common boast of literature; but
among the innumerable architects that erect columns to them-
selves, far the greater part, either for want of durable materials,
or of art to dispose them, see their edifices perish as they are
towering to completion; and those few that for a while attract the
eye of mankind are generally weak in the foundation, and soon
sink by the saps of time.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of
human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall
'De Rochecliffe's translation of sesquipedalia verba.-Woodstock.
1709-1784.]
405
JOHNSON.
crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious
meditation and accurate enquiry, now scarcely known but by the
catalogue, and preserved only to increase the pomp of learning,
without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain
endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of
futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how
many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has
exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism
has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the
immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power.
Non unquam dedit
Documenta fors majora, quam fragili loco
Starent superbi—
Insulting chance ne'or called with louder voice
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.
Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus
treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten because
they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours
which they once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour
or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagems of intrigue,
or the civility of adulation.
Nothing is more common than to find men whose works are now
totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries,
as the oracles of their age and the legislators of science.
Curiosity is naturally excited, their volumes after long enquiry are
found, but seldom reward the labour of the search. Every period
of time has produced these bubbles of artificial fame, which are
kept up a while by the breath of fashion, and then break at
once and are annihilated. The learned often bewail the loss of
ancient writers whose characters have survived their works; but
perhaps if we could now retrieve them, we should find them only
the Granvilles, Montagues, Stepneys, and Sheffields of their time,
and wonder by what infatuation or caprice they could be raised
to notice.
It cannot, however, be denied that many have sunk into
oblivion whom it were unjust to number with this despicable
class. Various kinds of literary fame seem destined to various
measures of duration. Some spread into exuberance with a very
speedy growth, but soon wither and decay; some rise more slowly,
but last long. Parnassus has its flowers of transient fragrance, as
well as its oaks of towering height, and its laurels of eternal
verdure.
Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by
its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present
406
[CH. XXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
incidents, or characters which strongly interest the passions and
engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers
when we discuss a question which everyone is desirous to
understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has divided
the nation into parties; or when we display the faults or virtues
of him whose public conduct has made almost every man his
enemy or his friend. To the quick circulation of such productions
all the motives of interest and vanity concur; the disputant
enlarges his knowledge, the zealot animates his passion, and every
man is desirous to inform himself concerning affairs so vehemently
agitated and variously represented.
1775-1834.]
407
CHARLES LAMB.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHARLES LAMB.
A.D. 1775-1834.
VERY different from the profound terseness of Bacon, from
the didactic solemnity of Johnson, and even from the
humour of Addison and Goldsmith, were the mind and style
of the playful writer of whom it is now the turn to have a
few words said of him: differing also from them in that
it is as an essayist alone that he is known to us. His career
Was an uneventful one, and far from being of a kind which
promised or offered much facility for obtaining literary
distinction. He was the son of a lawyer's clerk, and was
himself a clerk in the India House, an avocation in which
there was as little to awaken a vein of either poetry or
jocularity as could well be imagined. Moreover there was
a tendency to hereditary insanity in his family, which at
one period of his life attacked himself, and which in the
case of his sister led to a terrible catastrophe, as in a
sudden paroxysm of frenzy she murdered her mother; and
the consequences of this calamity, while it gave him an
opportunity for displaying his extreme tenderness of heart
and devotedness of family affection, appear still more
incompatible with that peace of mind which one would
suppose necessary to lively writing. The essay, however,
was not the kind of composition which he first selected.
Being born in 1775, he was as nearly as possible of the
same age as Coleridge. He formed an acquaintance with
him as a school-fellow at Christ's Hospital, and in con-
junction with him published a volume of poems in 1797.
They fell almost stillborn from the press. He then wrote
a tragedy, which no manager would accept, and a farce
which he probably wished had been equally unfortunate,
since, when it was accepted and acted, it was hissed off the
~
408
[CH. XXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
stage. And more than twenty years elapsed before he
found out the line in which he was really calculated to shine,
when he began writing essays for the 'London Magazine'
with the signature of Elia. It was seen at once that the
writer of poor verses and bad farce had a talent which
would cause his memory to survive when many of those
whom flattery was calling poets, and who were filling
their pockets by the profits of their plays, had long been
forgotten. His humour was thoroughly original; his com-
mand of language, though peculiar, was perfect; an air of
genuine good feeling pervaded every essay as unmistakably
as his wit. Even while an unsuccessful author, he had not
been unappreciated by a small circle of friends, whose
esteem for his talents was in itself a proof of their quality;
by Coleridge, Wordsworth, by Southey, Barry Cornwall,
and the author of 'Ion,' ¹ who proclaimed his regard for his
memory in a most affectionate and interesting biography;
and now all the world was loud in its expressions of
admiration. But he was not long permitted to enjoy his
popularity. His health had at all times been delicate, and in
1834 a trifling accident brought on an attack of erysipelas,
of which he died after a few days' illness.
1
His essays are of various kinds; sometimes critical, such
as that on ‘Sir Philip Sidney's Sonnets,' or on ‘Modern Art;'
sometimes historical, as when he relates how the Chinese,
before the Europeans in so many important inventions,
were behind them in attaining the enviable knowledge of
the delicious flavour of roast sucking-pig, till Bobo had the
ill or good fortune to burn down his father's house, pigsties
and all. Some are philosophical and metaphysical, as
when he wanders among the tombs in the Abbey, or seeks
to discover why he in vain tries to like a Scotchman, and,
though he venerates Quaker principles, could not live with
a Quaker. But the great majority of them are expositions.
of quaint fancies engendered in his mind by everyday
occurrences or old customs; by Valentine's Day, by All
Fools' Day, by distant correspondents, by chimney-sweepers.
One entire series is directed to a pretended refutation
of what he called popular fallacies. And we subjoin twe
1 Serjeant, afterwards Judge Talfourd.
177
1775-1834.]
409
CHARLES LAMB.
of these as characteristic of the rich profusion with which
he could conjure up idea after idea in support of his
argument and in excuse for his inclinations.
(No. 14.-That we should Rise with the Lark.)
in
At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his night
gear, and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are not
naturalist enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman
-that has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to
such preposterous exercises-we take ten, of half after ten (eleven,
of course, during this Christmas solstice) to be the very earliest
hour at which he can begin to think of abandoning his pillow.
To think of it, we say, for to do it in earnest requires another half
hour's good consideration. Not but there are pretty sun-risings,
as we are told, and such like gawds, abroad in the world,
summer-time especially, some hours before what we have assigned;
which a gentleman may see, as they say, only for getting up.
But having been tempted once or twice, in earlier life, to assist at
those ceremonies, we confess our curiosity abated. We are no
longer ambitious of being the sun's courtiers, to attend at his
morning's levees. We hold the good hours of the dawn too sacred
to waste them upon such observances, which have in them besides
something Pagan and Persic. To say truth, we never anticipated
our usual hour, or got up with the sun (as 'tis called), to go a
journey or upon a foolish whole day's pleasuring, but we suffered
for it all the long hours after in listlessness and headaches; nature
herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption in
aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the measures of
that celestial and sleepless traveller. We deny not that there is
something sprightly and vigorous, at the outset especially, in these
break-of-day excursions. It is flattering to get the start of a lazy
world; to conquer death by proxy in his image. But the seeds
of sleep and mortality are in us, and we pay usually, in strange
qualms before night falls, the penalty of the unnatural inversion.
Therefore, while the busy part of mankind are fast huddling on
their clothes, are already up and about their occupations, content
to have swallowed their sleep by wholesale, we choose to linger
a-bed and digest our dreams. It is the very time to recombine
the wandering images, which night in a confused mass presented;
to snatch them from forgetfulness, to shape and mould them.
Some people have no good of their dreams. Like fast feeders, they
gulp them too grossly to taste them curiously. We love to chew
the cud of a foregone vision, to collect the scattered rays of a
410
[CH. XXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
brighter phantasm, or act over again, with firmer nerves, the sadder
nocturnal tragedies, to drag into daylight a struggling and half
vanishing nightmare, to handle and examine the terrors, or the
airy solaces.
We have too much respect for these spiritual
communications to let them go so lightly. We are not so stupid,
or so careless as that Imperial forgetter of his dreams, that we
should need a seer to remind us of the form of them. They seem
to us to have as much significance as our waking concerns, or
rather to import us more nearly, as more nearly we approach by
years to the shadowy world, whither we are hastening. We have
shaken hands with the world's business; we have done with it, we
have discharged ourself of it. Why should we get up? we have
neither suit to solicit, nor affairs to manage. The drama has shut
upon us from the fourth act. We have nothing here to expect,
but in a short time a sick bed, and a dismissal. We delight to
anticipate death by such shadows as night afford. We are already
half-acquainted with ghosts. We were never much in the world.
Disappointment early struck a dark veil between us and its dazzling
illusions. Our spirits showed grey before our hairs. The mighty
changes of the world already appear but the vain stuff out of which
dramas are composed. We have asked no more of life than what
the mimic images in playhouses present us with. Even those
types have waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck.
We are superannuated. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction,
we contract politic alliances with shadows. It is good to have
friends at court. The extracted media of dreams seem no ill
introduction to that spiritual presence upon which, in no long
time, we expect to be thrown. We are trying to know a little
of the usages of that colony; to learn the language and the faces
we shall meet with there, that we may be the less awkward at
our first coming among them. Wo willingly call a phantom our
fellow, as knowing we shall soon be of their dark companionship.
Therefore we cherish dreams. We try to spell in them the
alphabet of the invisible world; and think we know already how
it shall be with us. Those uncouth shapes which, while we clung
to flesh and blood, affrighted us, have become familiar. We feel
attenuated into their meagre essences, and have given the hand of
half-way approach to incorporeal being. We once thought life to
be something; but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its
time. Therefore we choose to dally with visions. The sun has
no purposes of ours to light us to. Why should we get up?
1775-1834.]
411
CHARLES LAMB.
(No. 15. That we should Lie down with the Lamb.)
We could never quite understand the philosophy of this ar-
rangement, or the wisdom of our ancestors in sending us for
instruction to these woolly bedfellows. A sheep, when it is dark,
has nothing to do but to shut his silly eyes, and sleep if he can,
Man found out long sixes-(hail, candlelight! without disparage-
ment to sun or moon, the kindliest luminary of the three-if we
may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the
moon!)—we love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by
candlelight. They are everybody's sun and moon. This is our
peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what savage unsocial
nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and
unillumined fastnesses! They must have lain about and grumbled
at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed
when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neigh-
bour's cheek to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for
the seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try
Hesiod or Ossian) derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd
nights. Jokes came in with candles. We wonder how they saw
to pick up a pin, if they had any. How did they sup? what a
mélange of chance carving they must have made of it? here one
had got a leg of a goat when he wanted a horse's shoulder-there
another had dipped his scooped palm in a kid-skin of wild honey
when he meditated right mare's milk. There is neither good eating
nor drinking in fresco. Who, even in these civilised times, has
never experienced this, when at some economic table he has
commenced dining after dusk, and waited for the flavour till the
lights came? The senses absolutely give and take reciprocally.
Can you tell pork from veal in the dark? or distinguish Sherris
from pure Malaga? Take away the candle from the smoking man;
by the glimmering of the left ashes, he knows that he is still
smoking, but he knows it only by an inference, till the restored
light, coming in aid of the olfactories, reveals to both senses the
full aroma. Then how he redoubles his puffs; how he burnishes!
There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We
have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in
sultry arbours, but it was labour thrown away. Those gay motes
in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many
coquettes, that will have you all to their self and are jealous of
your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writer digests his
meditations. By the same light we must approach to their
perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour. It is a mockery,
19
412
[CH. XXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
No true poem
all that is reported of the influential Phoebus.
ever owed its birth to the sun's light. They are abstracted works-
Things that were born when none but the still night,
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes.
Marry, daylight-daylight might furnish the images, the crude
material, but for the fine shapings, the true turning and filing (as
mine author has it) they must be content to hold their inspiration
of the candle. The mild internal light that reveals them, like
fires on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Night and
silence call out the starry fancies. Milton's Morning Hymn in
Paradise, we would hold a good wager, was peuned at midnight;
and Taylor's rich description of a sunrise smells decidedly of the
taper. Even ourself, in these our humbler lucubrations, tune our
best measured cadences (Prose has her cadences) not unfrequently
to the charm of the drowsier watchman, 'blessing the doors,' or
the wild sweep of winds at midnight. Even now a loftier specu-
lation than we have yet attempted courts our endeavours. We
would indite something about the solar system. Betty, bring the
candles.
MACAULAY.
A.D. 1800-1859.
We have already spoken of Lord Macaulay as a historian;
but it was as an essayist that he first became known;
choosing, as the vehicle for his compositions, the ' Edinburgh
Review,' then at the height of its reputation. His essays
are chiefly historical or biographical, and as such are by
no means unworthy of the reputation which he subsequently
acquired by his History, of many passages in which the
germ may indeed be found in these earlier productions. So
closely does their style resemble that of the History that a
single specimen of them will be sufficient; and the follow-
ing extract from his second essay will serve to show how
shrewd and correct, at a comparatively early age, was his
appreciation of the characteristics of the different nations
of Europe, and how natural to kim was that lucidity and
animation which are the chief excellences of his more
matured style.
1800-1859.]
413
MACAULAY.
(Macaulay's Essays.-Machiavelli).
In the Italian States, as in many natural bodies, untimely
decrepitude was the penalty of precocious maturity. Their early
greatness and their early decline are principally to be attributed
to the same cause, the preponderance which the towns acquired in
the political system.
In a community of hunters or of shepherds, every man easily and
necessarily becomes a soldier. His ordinary avocations are per-
fectly compatible with all the duties of military service. However
remote may be the expedition on which he is bound, he finds it
easy to transport with him the stock from which he derives his sub-
sistence. The whole people is an army, the whole year a march.
Such was the state of society which facilitated the gigantic con-
quests of Attila and Tamerlane.
But a people which subsists by the cultivation of the earth is in
a very different situation. The husbandman is bound to the soil
on which he labours. A long campaign would be ruinous to him.
Still his pursuits are such as give to his frame both the active and
the passive strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, at least
in the infancy of agricultural science, demand his uninterrupted
attention. At particular times of the year he is almost wholly
unemployed, and can, without injury to himself, afford the time
necessary for a short expedition. Thus the legions of Rome were
supplied during its earlier wars. The season during which the
fields did not require the presence of the cultivators sufficed for a
short inroad and a battle. These operations, too frequently in-
terrupted to produce decisive results, yet served to keep up among
the people a degree of discipline and courage which rendered
them, not only secure, but formidable. The archers and billmen
of the Middle Ages, who, with provisions for forty days at their
backs, left the fields for the camp, were troops of the same de-
scription.
But when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish a great
change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the
loom render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable.
The business of traders and artisans requires their constant presence
and attention. In such a community there is little superfluous
time, but there is generally much superfluous money. Some
members of the society are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest
from a task inconsistent with their habits and engagements.
The history of Greece is in this, as in many other respects, the
best commentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred years
before the Christian era, the citizens of the republics round the
414
[CH. XXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Egean Sea formed perhaps the finest militia that ever existed. As
wealth and refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual
alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which commerce
and the arts were cultivated, and the first in which the ancient
discipline decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of Platæa,
mercenary troops were everywhere plying for battles and sieges.
In the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely possible to persuade
or compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign service. The laws of
Lycurgus prohibited trade and manufactures. The Spartans,
therefore, continued to form a national force long after their
neighbours had begun to hire soldiers. But their military spirit
declined with their singular institutions. In the second century
after Christ, Greece contained only one nation of warriors, the
savage islanders of Etolia, who were some generations behind
their countrymen in civilisation and intelligence.
All the causes which produced these effects among the Greeks
acted still more strongly on the modern Italians. Instead of a
power like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst them
an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pacific. Where there are
numerous slaves, every freeman is induced, by the strongest motives,
to familiarise himself with the use of arins. The commonwealths
of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm with thousands of
these household enemies. Lastly, the mode in which military
operations were conducted during the prosperous times of Italy
was peculiarly unfavourable to the formation of an efficient militia.
Men covered with iron from head to foot, armed with ponderous
lances, and mounted on horses of the largest breed, were considered
as composing the strength of an army. The infantry was regarded
as comparatively worthless, and was neglected till it became really
80. These tactics maintained their ground for centuries in most
parts of Europe. That foot soldiers could withstand the charge of
heavy cavalry was thought utterly impossible, till, towards the
close of the fifteenth century, the rude mountaineers of Switzerland
dissolved the spell, and astounded the most experienced generals
by receiving the dreaded shock on an impenetrable forest of pikes.
CH. XXIII.]
415
LYRIC POETRY.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LYRIC POETRY.
I HAVE been led, in speaking of our poets, to separate lyric
poetry from other species, partly for the sake of convenience,
because, in the case of those authors who have given us
specimens of lyric as well as of what, for want of any better
name, I have called general poetry, their lyrics are wholly
different in style from their other works (the pompous
feebleness of Pope's 'Ode on St. Cecilia's Day' contrasted
with the exquisite playfulness of his 'Rape of the Lock;
Campbell's vigorous and spirit-stirring Mariners of Eng-
land' compared with his sweet but soft 'Pleasures of Hope,'
are a sufficient illustration of my meaning); and partly
because lyric poetry is so far more universal in our lan-
guage than any other kind, that, while some minstrels of
first-rate excellence have employed themselves in composi-
tions of no other class, there is not, I believe, one single
poet of any reputation who has not at times sought, as it
were, a relaxation from his severer labours in the lighter
tones of the lyre, in more than one instance to the great
enhancement of his reputation. In this respect our bards
differ from their ancient models; not, indeed, that lyric
poetry has not been popular always and everywhere; on
the contrary, there has been no nation of whose literary
history we have any knowledge that has not cultivated it.
David's Psalms were probably not the earliest lyrics held
in honour among the Eastern nations. Homer, the first in
time, as well as in merit, of all the profane poets whose
works have come down to us, records the fact that even
before his day there were lyric poems, lays, ballads, or
whatever other name we may choose to give them, in existence,
416
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and that they were held in such esteem that his chosen hero,
Achilles, found the best medicine for his wrath, the sweetest
comfort for his sorrow, in singing over to himself the time-
honoured melodies. But in the classical ages no poet
trenched on the province of another: Homer and Theocritus,
Virgil and Lucretius, wrote no lyrics; Sappho and Alcæus,
Anacreon and Horace, never gave up their lyrics for any
other style (I but follow Horace himself in declining to
call his Satires poetry at all); and the short Epithalamium
of Thetis by Catullus is, I believe, the only exception to
this general rule.
It is not to be wondered at that lyric poetry has been so
universally cultivated by our poets; for there is no kind
of subject, except the didactic, which is unsuited to it.
Properly speaking, it is synonymous with ode, which is
but the Greek word for song written in English characters;
and, therefore, in all strictness, it may be taken to embrace
every kind of verse that is or may be sung. And, as we
speak of war songs, triumphal songs, sacred songs (to
which we have appropriated the name of hymns), as well
as of love songs, drinking songs, and hunting songs, we
show our feeling that neither the perils of battle, nor the
deeds of heroism, nor the praises of God, are in any respect
more unsuited to the lyre than more tender or more festive
themes. Among the ancient poets, indeed, the loftier
subjects were the more popular. The illustrious Greek
lyrist, whose works have come down to us in the greatest
completeness, Pindar, chose no others; all his odes are a
sublime combination of the praises of conquerors with the
worship due to the gods of his country; and the great
Roman minstrel, Horace, who in one of his odes repre-
sents the deities and spirits whose home is in the shades
below as thronging round Alceus and Sappho while they
play, declares that all assigned the palm to him who cele-
brated deeds of arms, and struggles endured by the cham-
pions of freedom, over the poetess, whose genius, however
unrivalled in its line, was devoted to none but softer
themes, to the praises of beauty and of love.
When I said that didactic themes alone were unsuited to
lyric poetry, I ought, perhaps, not to overlook the fact that
CH. XXIII.]
417
LYRIC POETRY.
Ovid represents Sappho as pronouncing mournful subjects
equally ill-adapted to it. She excuses herself to Phaon for
writing in what the Romans called elegiac verse, because
My love is to be mourn'd: a mournful tone
The Muse of Elegy has made her own;
The genial lyre can animate or cheer;
It ne'er was tun'd responsive to a tear.¹
But, in putting these words into the mouth of the Lesbian
poetess, Ovid was already contradicted by the practice of
Horace, who had poured forth a very pathetic lamentation
over a friend in lyric verse. And what is more remarkable
is, that the Greeks did not consider the elegiac metre unfit
to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. For there
are no poems in the Greek language which a more trust-
worthy tradition records as having been actually so sung
than those of Tyrtæus, and they are all written in the
elegiac, or hexameter and pentameter metre; while in
our own language mournful subjects, elegies, monodies,
dirges, or, if there be any other name by which they are
entitled, are almost invariably written in lyric metre.
I have mentioned the ancient lays or ballads, the exis-
tence of which we learn from Homer, though no specimens
of such works have come down to us; but it is a kind of
literature in which every part of these islands has at all
times been particularly rich; and there are no writings in
our language more strictly entitled to be described as lyrics,
since they were not only adapted for singing, but were
actually sung, and have been originally preserved from
oblivion by the minstrel, who, traversing the land with his
harp, made them his title to the liberality of the rich, the
affection of the poor, and the hospitality of all. Printing,
to which in other respects the world is so incalculably
indebted, owes romance some compensation for having
gradually extinguished that strange wandering race who
roamed about, spreading over more than one land the
Flendus amor meus est; elegeïa flebile carmen.
Non facit ad lacrymas barbitos ulla meas.
OVID, Her. xv. 7.
*
418
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
traditions of their own country, in which mythology indeed
mingled with reality, but which were throughout so far
real that they represented, with scarcely any exaggeration,
the belief and spirit of their age, and were as effectual
as if they had been strictly true in keeping up the best
parts of that spirit, the sense of the obligations of honour
and chivalrous courtesy.
We will first, therefore, examine one or two of these
ancient ballads, and afterwards specimens from most of
the poets of whom mention has already been made: from
Ben Jonson, from Milton, from Dryden, from Pope, from
Byron, as well as from others who have either written
nothing but lyric poetry, or whose other works are so
completely cast into the shade by their odes that it seems
most fitting and most fair to speak of them under this class
alone; such as Collins, Gray, Burns, Campbell, Moore.
But the very fact of coupling these writers with the com-
posers of the ancient ballads suggests the necessity of one
preliminary caution, which we should bear in mind while
examining the ballads. We must beware of measuring
them by the same standard as compositions of a later age;
we must not look in them for highly-wrought imagery,
for elaborate sentiments. The refinements of art belong
not to those early times. The ballads have strength,
they have pathos; but the force and the tenderness are
alike eminently the transcript of nature, not of art; and in
the same way we must not expect the harmonious metre
and carefully modulated rhythm of modern days. There
are stages of style and composition as well as of language.
And we may almost say that the requirements of metre
were held by the minstrels of old to be fully satisfied if
the final rhyme of each stanza was tolerably correct to
the ear.
We will first take 'Chevy Chase,' as being of all the
works of its class the most celebrated, and as being also
one whose genuine antiquity seems most completely ascer-
tained, though it will be here presented in a comparatively
modern dress, in a version, that is to say, which Bishop.
Percy ascribes to the early part of the seventeenth century,
the original being hardly intelligible in all its parts
CH. XXIII.]
419
LYRIC POETRY.
except to antiquarians. Indeed it was the degree in which
even then the obsoleteness of its language obscured its
merits, 'the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age' in which
it was composed, and which was lamented by the accom-
plished Sidney, which probably caused some not unskilful
artist to modernise it. Bishop Percy, who, in his collec-
tion of ancient English poetry edited it with great care,
believes it to have been written in the reign of Henry VI.,
a date which in his view explains the minstrel's mention
of James as King of Scotland at the time when the event
which is the subject of it happened, since the first monarch
of that name came to the throne in the second year of
Henry VI. The author speaks of himself as a younger
contemporary of 'old men that know the ground' on which
the events had occurred which he celebrates. "They call
it the battle of Otterbourne.' And according to his account
the battle of Hambledon was fought to avenge the slaughter
of the English knights on that day. Though, if the min-
strel had been a good chronologer, he would not have
represented the fourth 'Harry our king' as taking on him-
self a vow to exact such revenge, since the battle of Otter-
bourne, as we learn from Froissart, who has thought it of
sufficient importance to deserve a special record, was
fought in 1388, twelve years before the crafty Bolingbroke
supplanted his cousin. But these are matters of very
trivial consequence. A man who wrote in the middle of
the reign of Henry VI., fifty or sixty years after the battle,
might of course easily have conversed with those who
remembered it as one of the striking incidents of their
youth. And from such he would learn the causes and
chief features of the conflict. Bishop Percy, quoting the
memoirs of Carey, Earl of Monmouth, tells us that 'it was
an ancient custom with the borderers of the two kingdoms,
when they were at peace, to send to the Lord Wardens of
the opposite Marches for leave to hunt within their dis-
tricts. If leave was granted them, towards the end of
summer they would come and hunt for several days to-
gether with their greyhounds, for deer;' but if they took
this liberty unpermitted, then the Lord Warden of the
border so invaded would not fail to interrupt their sport
420
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and chastise their boldness. In the present instance the
hunting took place 'unpermitted,' apparently as a delibe-
rate defiance to a battle. It has been inferred that the
author was an Englishman, because he softens the result
(which, according to Froissart, was in favour of the Scotch),
to a drawn battle; while he attributes the chief honour to
the English, as having been the less numerous, 1,500 to
2,000, and ascribes also a more magnanimous sentiment to
the English than to the Scottish monarch. King James is
almost in despair at the loss of the Earl Douglas:
He has not any captain more
Of such account as he;
while King Henry, though equally grieved for Percy of
Northumberland,
trusts he has within his realm
Five hundred good as he.
:
Indeed in one stanza he evidently speaks of our English
archers' as his own countrymen.
The ballad, as is very commonly the case with those
early compositions, begins and ends with a moral or senti-
ment.
(Chevy-Chace).
God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safetyes all;
A woefull hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall;
To drive the deer with hound and horne,
Erle Percy took his way;
The child may rue that is unborne,
The hunting of that day.
The stout Erle of Northumberland,
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods,
Three summers days to take.
The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chace,
To kill and beare away,
These tydings to Erle Douglas came,
In Scotland where he lay:
CH. XXIII.]
421
LYRIC POETRY.
Who sent Erle Percy present word,
He wold prevent his sport.
The English Erle, not fearing that,
Did to the woods resort.
With fifteen hundred bow-men bold,
All chosen men of might,
Who knew full well in time of neede
To ayme their shafts aright.
The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran,
To chase the fallow deere :
On munday they began to hunt,
Ere day-light did appeare;
And long before high noone they had
An hundred fat buckes slaine;
Then having dined, the drovyers went
To rouze the deere againe.
The hounds ran swiftly through the woods,
The nimble deere to take,
That with their cryes the hills and dales
An eccho shrill did make.
Lord Percy to the quarry went,
To view the slaughter'd deere:
Quoth he, Erle Douglas promised
This day to meet me heere:
But if I thought he wold not come,
Noe longer wold I stay.
With that a brave young gentleman
Thus to the Erle did say:
Loe yonder doth Erle Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scottish speres
All marching in our sight;
All men of pleasant Tivydale,
Fast by the river Tweede :
O cease your sports, Erle Percy said,
And take your bowes with speede:
422
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And now with me, my countrymen,
Your courage forth advance;
For there was never champion yett,
In Scotland or in France,
That ever did on horseback come,
But if my hap it were,
I durst encounter man for man,
With him to break a spere.¹
This is a true representation of the spirit of the Middle
Ages, which was exemplified in their tournaments, and
which looked on even deadly combat as not necessarily any
proof of animosity, but often as merely a trial of knightly
prowess and skill in the use of arms which it was dishonour-
able to avoid.
Erle Douglas, on his milk-white steede,
Most like a baron bold,
Rode formost of his company,
Whose armour shone like gold.
Show me, sayd he, whose men you bee,
That hunt soe boldl heere,
That, without my consent, doe chase
And kill my fallow-deere.
The first man that did answer make,
Was noble Percy hee;
Who sayd, Wee list not to declare,
Nor shew whose men wee bee:
Yet wee will spend our deerest blood,
Thy chiefest harts to slay;
Then Douglas swore a solemn oathe,
And thus in rage did say,
Ere thus I will out-braved bee,
One of us two shall dye :
I know thee well, an Erle thou art;
Lord Percy, soe am I.
But trust me, Percy, pittye it were,
And great offence to kill
Any of these our guiltlesse men,
For they have done no ill.
CH. XXIII.]
423
LYRIC POETRY
Let thou and I the battell trye
And set our men aside
Accurst be he, Erle Percy sayd,
By whome this is denyed.
Then stept a gallant squire forth,
Witherington was his name,
Who said, I wold not have it told
To Henry our king for shame,
That e'er my captaine fought on foots,
And I stood looking on.
You bee two Erles, sayd Witherington,
And I a squier alone :
I doe the best that doe I may,
While I have power to stand:
While I have power to wield my sword,
I'll fight with heart and hand.
We can hardly doubt that the author of this ballad was a
classical scholar, when we see how close is the resemblance
to the sentiment here put in Witherington's mouth of that
with which Juturna, in the 'Eneid,' animates the Rutulians
Non pudet, o Rutuli, pro cunctis talibus unam
Objectare animam ? numerone an viribus æqui
Non sumus?
For shame, Rutulians, can you bear the sight
Of one exposed for all in single fight?
Can we, before the face of heaven, confess
Our courage colder, or our numbers less.¹
Our English archers bent their bowes,
Their hearts were good and trew;
At the first flight of arrowes sent,
Full four-score Scots they slew.
Yet bides Erle Douglas on the bent,"
As chieftain stout and good.
As valiant captaine all unmoved,
The shock he firmly stood.
' DRYDEN, Æneid, xii. 346. 2 That is, steadfast in determination.
424
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His host he parted had in three,
As leader ware and try'd,
And soon his spearmen on their foes
Bare down on every side.
Throughout the English archery
They dealt full many a wound;
But still our valiant Englishmen
All firmly kept their ground.
And throwing strait their bows away,
They grasp'd their swords so bright:
And now sharp blows, a heavy shower,
On shields and helmets light.
They closed full fast on everye side,
Noe slackness there was found;
And many a gallant gentleman
Lay gasping on the ground.
At last these two stout Erles did meet,
Like captaines of great might:
Like lyons wood, they layd on lode,
And made a cruell fight.
They fought until they both did sweat,
With swords of tempered steele,
Until the blood, like drops of rain,
They trickling downe did feele.
Yield thee, Lord Percy, Douglas said,
In faith I will thee bringe,
Where thou shalt high advanced bee
By James our Scottish king:
Thy ransome I will freely give,
And this report of thee,
Thou art the most couragious knight
That ever I did see.
Noe, Douglas, quoth Erle Percy then,
Thy proffer I doe scorn;
I will not yeelde to any Scot
That ever yett was born.
CH. XXIII.]
425
LYRIC POETRY.
With that there came an arrow keene,
Out of an English bow,
Which struck Erle Douglas to the heart,
A deep and deadlye blow:
Who never spake more words than these,
Fight on, my merry men all
For why, my life is at an end;
Lord Percy sees my fall.
Again the similarity between the sentiments ascribed to
the British and the classical chiefs is very remarkable.
Thus Turnus sees an aggravation of the pain of his defeat
in the fact that it is witnessed by so many enemies.
Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas
Ausonii vidêre.
The Latin chiefs have seen me beg my life.¹
And the next stanza resembles still more closely the con-
duct of Æneas towards Lausus, whom he himself had just
slain.
At verò ut vultum vidit morientis et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris,
Ingemuit miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit.
But when, with blood and paleness overspread,
The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead,
He grieved, he wept.
Then stretched his hand to hold him up.'2
Then leaving liffe, Erle Percy tooke
The dead man by the hand;
And said, Erle Douglas, for thy life
Wold I had lost my land.
A knight amongst the Scots there was,
Which saw Erle Douglas dye,
Who streight in wrath did vow revenge
Upon the Lord Percye:
Sir Hugh Montgomerye was he call'd,
Who, with a spere, most bright,
Well mounted on a gallant steed,
Ran fiercely through the fight;
¹ DRYDEN, Æn. xii. 1357.
2 DRYDEN, Æn. x. 1164.
426
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And past the English archers all
Without all dread or feare;
And through Erle Percyes body then,
He thrust his hatefull spere;
With such a vehement force and might
He did his body gore,
The staff ran through the other side
A large cloth-yard and more.
So thus did both these nobles dye,
Whose courage none could staine.
An English archer then perceiv'd
The noble Erle was slaine;
He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree;
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Up to the head drew hee:
Against Sir Hugh Montgomerye,
So right the shaft he sett,
The grey goose-winge that was thereon
In his heart's bloode was wett.
This fight did last till breake of day,
Till setting of the sun;
For when they rang the evening-bell
The battel scarce was done.
Of fifteen hundred Englishmen,
Went home but fifty-three;
The rest were slaine in Chevy-Chace,
Under the greene woode tree.
Next day did many widowes come,
Their husbands to bewayle;
They washt their wounds in brinish teares,
But all wold not prevayle.
Their bodyes, bathed in purple gore,
They bare with them away;
They kist them dead a thousand times
Ere they were cladd in clay.
CH. XXIII.]
427
LYRIC POETRY.
The news was brought to Eddenborrow,
Where Scotland's king did raigne,
That brave Erle Douglas suddenlye
Was with an arrow slaine :
O heavy newes, King James did say,
Scotland may witnesse bee,
I have not any captaine more
Of such account as hee.
Like tydings to King Henry came,
Within as short a space,
That Percy of Northumberland
Was slaine in Chevy-Chace :
Now God be with him, said our king,
Sith it will noe better bee;
1 trust I have, within my realme,
Five hundred good as hee:
Yett shall not Scotts nor Scotland say,
But I will vengeance take;
I'll be revenged on them all,
For brave Erle Percyes sake.
This vow full well the king perform'd
After, at Humbledowne;
In one day fifty knights were slaine
With lords of great renowne:
And of the rest, of small account,
Did many thousands dye;
Thus endeth the hunting of Chevy-Chace,
Made by the Erle Percy.
God save our king, and bless this land,
With plentye, joy, and peace;
And grant henceforth, that foul debate
"Twixt noblemen may cease.
The second ballad is especially remarkable as being
nearly if not quite the only one of those ancient composi-
tions which takes the form of a dialogue. Though its age
18 not precisely ascertained, it is a poem of undoubted
antiquity, its date being never fixed later than the year
3
428
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1500, and by many critics being put back a century
further. It turns upon a plot which has been more than
once illustrated in real life by somewhat similar incidents ;
among which not the least romarkable is the story of a
former Marquis of Exeter, which has afforded a poet of our
own day, Mr. Tennyson, a subject for a well-known ballad.
It is of such length that it is impossible to quote the
whole of it, but the stanzas which I shall select will give
you a fair idea of the pathos and truth to nature of the
whole.
(The Not-Brown Mayde).
Be it ryght, or wrong, these men among on women do complayne;
Affyrminge this, how that it is a labour spent in vayne,
To love them well; for never a dele they love a man agayne:
For let a man do what he can, theyr favour to attayne,
Yet, yf a newe do them persue, theyr first true lover than
Laboureth for nought, for from her thought he is a banyshed man.
I say nat nay, but that all day it is both writ and sayd
That woman's faith is, as who sayth, all utterly decayd;
But nevertheless, ryght good witnesse in this case might be layd,
That they love true, and continue: recorde the Not-Brown Mayde.
Which, when her love came, her to prove, to her to make his mone,
Wolde not depart; for in her heart she loved but hym alone.
Then betwaine us late us dyscus what was all the manere
Betwayne them two: we wyll also tell all the payne and fere,
That she was in. Nowe I begyn, so that ye me answere;
Wherefore, all ye that present be, I pray you give an ere.
I am the knyght, I come by nyght as secret as I can ;
Saying, Alas! thus standeth the case, I am a banyshed man.
The poet does not give pastoral names to his characters,
like Theocritus, Virgil, and Horace. In his unpretending
simplicity they are described simply as He and She.
She.
And I your wyll for to fulfyll in this wyll not refuse ;
Trustynge to shew, in wordes few, that men have an yll use
(To theyr own shame) women to blame, and causeless them accuse
Therefore to you I answere nowe, all women to excuse,—
Myne owne hart dere, with you what chere? I pray you tell anone,
For, in my mynde, of all mankynde I love but you alone.
CH. XXIII.
429
LYRIC POETRY.
He.
It standeth so; a dede is do whereof grete harme shall growe:
My destiny is for to dy a shamefull deth I trowe,
Or elles to fle: the one must be, none other way I knowe,
But to withdrawe as an outlawe, and take me to my bowe.
Wherefore, adue, my owne heart true! none other rede I can
For I must to the grene wode go, alone a banyshed man.
She.
O Lord, what is thys worldys blysse, that changeth as the mone!
My somers day, in lusty may, is derked before the none.
I here you say Farewell! Nay, nay, we depart nat so sone.
Why say ye so? wheder wyll ye go? Alas! what have ye done?
All my wellfare to sorrowe and care shoulde change yf ye were
gone;
For, in my mynde, of all mankynde I love but you alone.
He endeavours to alarm her with the thoughts of the
hardships which her resolution to accompany him will
entail on her. Not only will she have to endure toil,
hunger, and the inclemency of the weather, but ill-fame, as
When these
clinging to him out of mere wantonness.
considerations do not daunt her, he puts her to a still harder
trial, declaring that he has met one whom he loves better.
Yet even this does not shake her fidelity to him. And
now he has proof sufficient, and joyfully discloses that all
the disasters and difficulties of which he has spoken have
been but imaginary, to test her constancy; and that he is
more powerful, and has more resources to secure her happi-
ness, than even she had imagined.
He.
Myne owne dere love, I se the prove that ye be kynde and true;
Of mayde and wyfe, in all my lyfe, the best that ever I knewe.
Be merry and glad, be no more sad, the case is changed newe;
For it were ruthe, that, for your truthe, ye should have cause to
rewe.
Be not dismayed; whatsoever I sayd to you when I began ;
I wyll not to the grene wode go, I am no banyshed man.
She.
These tydings be more gladd to me than to be made a quene,
Yf I were sure they sholde endure but it is often sene,
*
430
[CH. XXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Whan men wyll breke promyse, they speke the wordes on the
splene.
Ye shape some wyle me to begyle, and stele from me I wene:
Than were the case worse than it was, and I more wo-begone;
For, in my mynde, of all mankynde I love but you alone.
He.
Ye shall not nede further to drede; I wyll not dysparage
You (God defend!), syth ye descend of so grete a lynage.
Nowe undyrstande; to Westmarlande, which is myne heritage,
I wyll you brynge; and with a rynge, by way of maryage
I wyll you take, and lady make, as shortely as I can:
Thus have you won an erlys son, and not a banyshed man.
Author.
Here may ye se, that women be, in love meek, kind, and stable.
Late never man reprove them than, or call them variable;
But, rather, pray God, that we may to them be comfortable;
Which sometyme proveth such as he loveth, yf they be charytable.
For sith men wolde that women sholde be meke to them each one,
Moche more ought they to God obey, and serve but hym alone.
CH. XXIV.] LYRIC POETRY.-JONSON.
431
CHAPTER XXIV.
LYRIC POETRY (continued.)
JONSON was mentioned in the last chapter among the
lyric poets, in allusion to his exquisite little ode to the
moon, or Diana; that goddess, in the ancient mythology,
having three characters: the moon, or Luna, in heaven,
Diana on earth, and Hecate in the shades below.
Queen and huntress chaste and fair,
Now the Sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light.
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose,
Cynthia's' shining orb was made
Heav'n to cheer when day did close:
Bless us then with wish'd-for light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal, shining quiver;
Give, oh give the flying hart
Time to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
And the following little love song is worthy of Anacreon
himself:
1 Cynthus was a hill in Delos, sacred to Diana and her brother
Apollo.
432
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup
And I'll not ask for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that thus
It might not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent it back to me,
Since when it grows and smells, I swear
Not of itself, but thee.
Fierce wars and faithful loves had been joined by Spencer
as the natural subjects of song. And we have a few very
animated lyrics from a gallant follower of Charles I. whose
fortunes were ruined by his loyalty. His story is a sad
one: he had been thrown into prison by the Parliament for
presenting a petition from the county of Kent recom-
mending an accommodation with the king. Afterwards,
being released or escaping, he joined the French army then
warring in the Low Countries, where he was wounded so
severely that a report of his death reached England; and,
as it continued long uncontradicted, the lady of his love,
Miss Sacheverell, married another suitor. The following
ode is addressed to her, under the name of Althea, while he
was a prisoner of the Parliament. The last stanza deserves
admiration for its magnanimity, as well as for its poetry.
(To Althea).
When Love, with unconfined wings,
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings,
To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
Cu. XXIV.] LYRIC POETRY.-LOVELACE-WALLER. 433
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames;
Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames:
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.
When, linnet-like, confinèd I
With shriller note shall sing
The mercy, sweetness, majesty,
And glories of my king:
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Th' enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
A contemporary of Lovelace, still more distinguished as
a lyric poet, Edmund Waller, had also a closer connection
with the troubles of the time, being prominent alternately
as a partisan of the king and of the Parliament, and, I fear
it must be added, sullying his great capacity by treachery
to both; at one time, as a member of Parliament, railing
against the Government, at another plotting to betray the
City to the king, and then, when the plot was discovered,
betraying all his confederates, of whom the chiefs were
hanged on his evidence. Being himself a cousin of Hamp-
den and of Cromwell, his life was spared, though he was fined
and imprisoned, and only released on condition of quitting
the country. After an exile of some years, Cromwell per-
mitted him to return to England, when he established
himself at Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, a county in
which he had a considerable estate. And there, in 1687, he
died. He rarely ventured on any compositions of length;
434
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
when he did he contrived to show the ineradicable baseness
of his nature, writing, like Dryden's eulogies, first on Crom-
well, and, after the Restoration, on Charles II., though he
excused himself with greater wit than Dryden; for on
Charles, who cared little about any man's character pro-
vided he had talents to amuse him, and who had at once
taken Waller into favour, remarking to him that he thought
the panegyric on Cromwell more poetical than that on
himself, he replied that it was natural that it should be so,
since poets generally succeeded better in fiction than in
truth. He was not more constant as a lover than as a
politician; Lady Dorothea Sidney was his Sacharissa, Lady
Sophia Murray his Amoret, but neither of these became his
wife. The first Mrs. Waller was a great city heiress: the
second a Miss Bresse, of whom nothing is known beyond the
fact that she became the mother of thirteen children.
following ode is a very pretty exposition of the truth that,
more than beauty and more than wit, does love itself beget
love. Who Flavia was has not been discovered.
(To Flavia).
Tis' not your beauty can engage
My wary heart ;
The Sun, in all his pride and rage,
Has not that art,
And yet he shines as bright as you,
If brightness could our souls subdue.
The
There cannot well be a more delicate flattery than com-
paring, not the lady to the sun, but the sun to the brilliancy
of the lady.
Tis not the pretty things you say,
Nor those you write,
Which can make Thyrsis' heart your prey;
For that delight,
The graces of a well-taught mind,
In some of our own sex we find.
No, Flavia, 'tis your love I fear ;
Love's surest darts,
Those which so seldom fail him, are
Headed with hearts:
Their very shadows make us yield;
Dissemble well, and win the field.
CH. XXIV.] LYRIC POETRY.-WALLER-MILTON.
435
But this, which contains an admonition to all the sex, is
more celebrated, and deservedly so; though a warning
against coyness might seem to have been somewhat
superfluous in the reign of Charles II.
(To a Rose).
Go, lovely Rose,
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that's young,
And strives to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired.
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not think so to be admired.
Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair.
Milton's genius seems to have been suited to every kind
of poetry except the purely dramatic, and many of his
smaller poems belong to the class of lyrics: the exquisite
monody on Lycidas, 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso.' His Ode
on the Nativity of our Saviour, is one of those which by
some critics has been pronounced the finest ode in the
language. It is too long to quote at length, but a few
stanzas will suffice to show that the praise which has been
bestowed upon it has not been misplaced.
It was the winter wild,
When the Heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathise.
20
436
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;
She, crown'd with olives green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
No war, or battle sound,
Was heard the world around:
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was nigh.
The angels' song heard by the shepherds is thus described:
Such music as, 'tis said,
Before was never made,
But when of old the sons of morning sung,¹
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung;
And cast the dark foundations deep
And to the weltering waves their oozy channels keep.
Ring out, ye crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,
And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow ;
And with your tuneful harmony
Маке up full concert to th' angelic symphony.
But Milton's power on sublime subjects is better seen in
'Paradise Lost.' We may form a better idea both of his
versatility and of his sweetness from such a playful song
as this on May morning:
¹ Borrowed from that sublime passage in Job xxxviii. 7: Who laid
the cornerstone thereof (of the earth); when the morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.'
CH. XXIV. LYRIC POETRY.-MILTON-DRYDEN.
437
Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her pure lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with an early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.
St. Cecilia was the goddess of music; and in the seven-
teenth and early part of the eighteenth century it seems to
have been the fashion to celebrate the day dedicated to her
by an ode to be set to music. But, as a series of odes on one
subject could hardly fail to lack variety, Dryden, when called
upon for a contribution of the kind, imitated Pindar, who
avoided the monotony which the subjects of all his odes (being
only victories at the different games) seemed calculated to
produce, by connecting the victory with some incident in
the old national traditions, which, in however remote a
degree, might justify the allusion. And thus Dryden, pre-
suming that music formed a part of the entertainment of
the banquet with which Alexander celebrated his conquest
of Persia, makes the real subject of his poem the ode which
he conceives Timotheus to have addressed to the conqueror.
(Alexander's Feast.)
'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won,
By Philip's warlike son ;
Aloft, in awful state,
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne :
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound.
(So should desert in arms be crown'd ;)
The lovely Thais by his side,
Sate like a blooming Eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair?
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave descrves the fair.
*
438
[CH. XXIV,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Timotheus, plac'd on high
Amid the tuneful quire,
With flying fingers touch'd the lyre;
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above
(Such is the power of mighty love);
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
When he to fair Olympia press'd
And while he sought her snowy breast:
Then round her slender waist he curled,
And stamp'd an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,
A present deity, they shout around:
A present deity the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravish'd ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
Olympia was the mother of Alexander; but his vanity,
for we cannot dignify such a feeling with the name of
ambition, incited him to claim Jupiter as his father, that
thus, like Hercules and other famous heroes, he might after
death be accounted a demigod. And it is to gratify the
same passion that in the next stanza Timotheus introduces
Bacchus, so as to hint a comparison between the king and
the god one of whose exploits had been the conquest of
India.
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:
The jolly god in triumph comes,
Sound the trumpets! beat the drums!
Flush'd with a purple grace
He shews his honest face,
Now give the hautboys breath! he comes! he comes !
Bacchus ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain ;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:
CH. XXIV.]
439
LYRIC POETRY.-DRYDEN.
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he Heaven and earth defied,
Chang'd his hand, and check'd his pride.
He chose a mournful muse
Soft pity to infuse :
He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed :
On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter'd soul,
The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.
This stanza is very beautiful: Dryden has accumulated
with great skill the circumstances which fed the heart with
the acutest misery. It is far worse to have fallen from a
high estate than never to have enjoyed prosperity. Dante
has told us
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria;
or, as Byron has translated it,
The greatest of all woes
Is to remind us of our happy days
In misery;
while the desertion of friends is the very climax of Macbeth's
despair. The love which in the next stanza the poet re-
presents as akin to pity is not of a very high character; but
440
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
it is suitable to the situation of the king with Thais at his
side.
The mighty master smil'd to see
That love was in the next degree;
"Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble,
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, oh think, it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
The many rend the skies with loud applause
So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain
Gaz'd on the fair
Who caus'd his care,
And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again:
At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,
The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.
Now strike the golden lyre again;
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain :
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound
Has rais'd up his head,
As awak'd from the dead,
And amaz'd, he stares around.
Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,
See the furies arise:
See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain,
Inglorious on the plain :
CH. XXIV.]
441
LYRIC POETRY.-DRYDEN.
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew,
Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud with a furious joy ;
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.
The images set before the king in the preceding lines
are in strict conformity with Greek ideas of the long-
standing enmity between Greece and barbarian Asia; and
as such admirably calculated to rouse Alexander's anger,
and excite him to deeds of destruction. Herodotus repre-
sents the Persian war not as an isolated attack on the
Greeks, but as one of a series of mutual injuries and
retaliations. According to his theory it was an attempt of
Darius to avenge the abduction of Helen and the fall of
Troy, which was the consequence of that treachery. But that
was not the beginning of the national animosities; their
origin was to be traced through the similar outrages com-
mitted on Medea, on Europa, and Io: and so now the
conqueror of a later Darius was led to remember that he
would but be requiting the destruction of Athens, and the
ravages of the former Darius and Xerxes, if he, in his turn,
gave Persepolis to the flames. When the poet points out
that the Greeks in battle slain remained unburied, he is in-
troducing with great propriety what was looked on as a
peculiar aggravation of the miseries of death; as those who
had not received the rites of sepulture were not allowed to
be conveyed across the Styx, but were detained on the con-
fines of Tartarus, more lurid and cheerless than Hell itself,
so the Sibyl tells Æneas:
Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est:
Portitor ille, Charon: hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti.
Nec ripas datur horrendas, nec rauca fluenta
Transportare priùs, quàm sedibus ossa quiêrunt.¹
1 Æn. vi. 325.
442
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The ghosts rejected are the unhappy crew
Deprived of sepulchres and funeral due:
The boatman Charon; those, the buried host,
He ferries over to the farther coast:
Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves
With such whose bones are not composed in graves. ¹
Thus, long ago,
Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute;
Timotheus, to his breathing flute
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown:
He rais'd a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down.
1
Pope followed Dryden's example, taking for his theme a
subject of the classical mythology. We will pass over the
two first stanzas, which contain merely a general description
of the power of music, in which a not very successful
attempt is made to imitate by the cadence of the verse the
sweet 'warbling' of the lute, the loudness of the trumpet,
and the 'deep majestic' peal of the 'solemn organ.' In
the third stanza the poet grows more particular, taking
Orpheus, the great poet of Horace, for his hero; partly as
the minstrel of the Argonauts; but dwelling more copiously
on his descent to Hell to recover Eurydice, which furnishes
Virgil with the most beautiful of all the episodes with
which he varies the 'Georgics.'
But when our country's cause provokes to arms,
How martial music ev'ry bosom warms;
So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,
1 DRYDEN, Georg. vi. 445.
CH. XXIV.]
443
LYRIC POETRY.-POPE.
High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain,
While Argo saw her kindred trees
Descend from Pelion to the main,
Transported demigods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,
Inflam'd with glory's charms;
Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd,
And half unsheath'd the shining blade,
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms to arms! to arms!
But when, through all th' infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegeton surrounds,
Love, strong as death, the poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear'd,
O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortur'd ghosts!
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see the tortur'd ghosts respire,
See, shady forms advance !
Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance;
The Furies rest upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round their heads.
The trisyllabic verse is a sad jingle; but the end of this
stanza is a manifest imitation, one might almost say &
translation, of Virgil.
At cantu commota Erebi de sedibus imis
Umbræ ibant tenues, simulacraque luce carentum.
Quin ipsa stupuere domus, atque intima leti
Tartara, cœruleosque implexæ crinibus angues
Eumenides, tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora;
Atque Ixionii vento rota constitit orbis. ¹
Georg. iv. 481.*
444
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ཀ
He dared amidst the trembling ghosts to sing,
And stood before th' inexorable king,
Th' infernal troops like passing shadows glide,
And, listening, crowd the sweet musician's side.
The Furies hearken and their snakes uncurl,
Ixion seems no more his pain to feel,
But leans attentive on his standing wheel.¹
But the example of Virgil might have warned Pope not to
attempt to give the song itself which won Eurydice's release.
Orpheus was a demigod, or at least of semi-divine parent-
age: the son of the Muse Calliope; and the Roman poet's
unerring taste showed him that no mortal could worthily
represent or give an adequate idea of the strains which such
a being would utter, still less perhaps those which would
prevail on a deity so generally inexorable as Pluto. Nor
can it be said that the song which Pope represents Orpheus
to have sung seems especially calculated to have had such
power. The considerations which he suggests are not very
affecting; and the alternative which he presents to the King
of the shades below, either to release the wife, or take the
husband also, would not greatly perplex him, since death
would surely be the husband's fate at no distant time.
By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow,
O'er the Elysian flow'rs;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,
Or aramanthine bow'rs;
By the heroes' armed shades,
Glitt'ring through the gloomy glades;
By the youths that died for love,
Wand'ring in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Eurydice to life :
Oh take the husband, or restore the wife.
He sung, and hell consented
To hear the poet's prayer:
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair;
Thus song could prevail
O'er death, and o'er hell,
¹ DRYDEN, Georg. iv. 695.
CH. XXIV.]
445
LYRIC POETRY.-POPE.
A conquest how hard, and how glorious !
Though Fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her,
Yet Music and Love were victorious.
But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies;
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.
This again is imitated from Virgil, but more successfully :
Quo fletu Manes, quâ numina voce moveret ?
is beautifully expanded into the last two lines.
Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Ilebrus wanders,
Rolling in Mæanders,
All alone,
Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan;
And calls her ghost,
For ever, ever, ever lost!
Now with furies surrounded,
Despairing, confounded,
Ile trembles, he glows,
Amidst Rhodope's snows:
See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies;
Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanal's cries-
Ah! see, he dies!
Yet even in death Eurydice he sung,
Eurydice still trembled on his tongue;
Eurydice the woods,
Eurydice the floods,
Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung.
These last five lines, however, must be admitted to be equal
in fidelity, and superior in spirit, to Dryden's version.
Then when his head from his fair shoulders torn,
Washed by the waters was in Hebrus borne,
Even then his trembling tongue invoked his bride,
With his last voice "Eurydice!" he cried,
"Eurydice!" the rocks and river-banks replied.¹
1 DRYDEN, Georg. 763.
446
[CH. XXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And Fate's severest rage disarm;
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th' immortal powers incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes, our souls aspire
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And angels lean from heav'n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv'n:
His numbers rais'd a shade from hell,
Hers lift the soul to heaven.
1716-1771.1
447
GRAY.
CHAPTER XXV.
GRAY.
A.D. 1716-1771.
THOMAS GRAY is one of those to whom allusion has been made
as having confined himself entirely to lyric poetry. His life
was too uneventful to afford any great materials for a
biographical sketch. He was the son of a London attorney
in good practice; and having been educated at Eton and
at Peterhouse, Cambridge, contracted an intimacy with
Horace Walpole, the youngest son of the celebrated
minister, Sir Robert Walpole, with whom, in 1738, at the
age of twenty-two, he agreed to travel on the Continent, a
plan to which the incompatibility of their tempers soon put
an end. They parted at Florence, and Gray returned to
Cambridge, where he passed the greater part of his life;
varying the scene by occasional visits to Stoke, in Bucking-
hamshire, a place which, partly on account of its nearness
to Eton, he regarded with peculiar fondness, and which
has given occasion to his 'Ode on Eton College,' and to the
'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard,' which is usually if
not invariably considered his masterpiece. Though he wrote
none but lyric poetry, he wrote very little of that. His taste
was so fastidious that he spent more time in polishing a
single stanza than others have often taken to compose a
poem. And though the fruit of his labour is seen in a rare
perfection of finish, yet it is hard to forbear the wish that
an inferior degree of scrupulousness had left him leisure to
be more fertile. For though, as is well-known, Johnson has
disparaged nearly all his poems except the Elegy; and his
grandest odes, that on 'The Progress of Poesy' and 'The
Bard' with especial vehemence; critics in general have, I
think, expressed a far more judicious opinion when they have
pronounced those odes and especially 'The Bard,' deficient
448
[CH. XXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in no quality calculated to give a work immortality;
neither in loftiness of ideas, nor in richness of imagery,
nor in harmony of arrangement, nor in variety of appro-
priate language.
He had always laboured under extreme delicacy of
health; and his constitution seems to have been entirely
worn out when, in the summer of 1771, he died of the gout.
A subsequent owner of Stoke Park has erected a monu-
ment to his honour in the churchyard, the same that has
been already mentioned as the scene of his Elegy, engrav-
ing on it the epitaph with which the Elegy closes, as most
appropriate to the poet himself.
(The Bard.)
The subject of this ode is the old tradition, now long
exploded, that Edward I., having subdued Wales, put the
bards to death, from fear lest their spirit-stirring songs
might revive the warlike spirit of the natives and excite
them to rebellion. One bard is represented as having
escaped to the summit of the rock which overhangs the
Conway, and as, from that inaccessible eminence, de-
nouncing vengeance on the British king, a vengeance to be
fulfilled in the calamities which befell his posterity. The
prophecy is in some degree imitated from the shield of
Æneas, as described in the eighth book of the Æneid.
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king,
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state !¹
Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance!
To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiv'ring lance.
'Mocking the air with colours idly spread.'
SHAKESPEARE, King John, v. 1.
1716-1771.]
449
GRAY.
On a rock whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air;) '
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre:-
'Hark! how each giant oak and desert cave
Sigh to the torrent's awful voice beneath;
O'er thee, O king! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser numbers breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To highborn Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay
'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,
That hush'd the stormy main: 2
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
3
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,
Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale :
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail;
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear¹ as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries.
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a griefly band,
I see them sit, they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land.
Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.'
MILTON, Paradise Lost, i. 58t
2 Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song.'
Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1.
3 Cadwallo, Urien, and Modred are the names of ancient bards of
Wales, supposed here to be contemporaries of him who invoked them.
• Imitated from Shakespeare-
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.'-Julius Cæsar, ii. i.
150
[CH. XXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.
Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race.
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright,
The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!¹
A
She wolf2 of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
3
From thee be born, who ³ o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heav'n. What terrors round him wait!
Amazement in his van, with flight combin'd,
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind.
'Mighty victor, mighty lord,
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye, afford
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior 4 fled?
Thy son is gone; he rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born?.
Gone to salute the rising morn.
Fair 5 laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm ;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his ev'ning prey.
'Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare,
Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair
6
Fell thirst and famine scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.7
1 Edward II.
2 Isabella, wife of Edward 11.
• Edward III. who so nearly subjugated France, the country of
Isabella.
• The Black Prince, who died before his father.
* Allusion is here made to the festive disposition of Richard II.
• According to one account, Richard II. was starved to death.
-and Death
Grinned horribly a ghastly smile.'-Paradise Lost, ii. 845.
716-1771.]
451
GRAY.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
Long years of havoc urge their destin'd course,
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way.
Ye tow'rs of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,
And spare the meek ¹ usurper's holy head,
Above, below, the rose of snow,²
1
Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread!
The bristl'd boar,3 in infant gore,
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom,
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.
'Edward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun)
Half of thy heart we consecrate.
(The web is wove, the work is done.)
Stay, oh, stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unbless'd, unpity'd here to mourn;
In yon bright track that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height,
Descending slow, their glitt'ring skirts unroll,
Visions of glory! spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.
4
All hail! ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue hail !
'Girt with many a baron bold,
Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.
In the midst a form divine!
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line;
¹ Henry VI., an usurper because Henry IV., his grandfather, had no
hereditary right to the throne.
2 The rose of York.
3 The boar was the cognizance of Richard III., wallowing in the
infant gore of his murdered nephews.
Henry VII., as being descended from Owen Glendower, is here
spoken of as a king of Welsh blood, whose advancement shall com-
pensate Wales for her present overthrow.
Queen Elizabeth.
452
[CH. XXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air?
What strains of vocal transport round her play?
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and, soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-coloured wings.
The verse adorn again
Fierce War, and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest,
In buskin'd measures move,
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice, as of the cherub-choir,
Gales from blooming Eden bear,
And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
That, lost in long futurity, expire.
‘Fond, impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,
Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day ?
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
Enough for me: with joy I see
The different doom our fates assign.
Be thine despair and sceptr'd care;
To triumph, and to die, are mine.'
He spoke, and headlong, from the mountain's height,
Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.
The churchyard which suggested the following elegy is,
as has been already mentioned, that of Stoke, in Bucking-
hamshire. Even Johnson, who praises no other of Gray's
works, says of this that 'it abounds with images which
find a mirror in every mind, and to which every bosom
returns an echo.'
(Elegy written in a Country Churchyard.)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness, and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
1710-1771.]
453
GRAY.
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke !
Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the faut,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death ?
454
[CH. XXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre.
But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of their soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy to mankind;
The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride,
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life,
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh,
1716-1771.]
455
GRAY.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind ?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonoured dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn.
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies would he rove;
Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
'One morn I miss'd him on th' accustom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his favourite tree
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he :
'The next with dirges due in sad array,
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
'Grav'd on the stone, beneath yon aged thorn.'
456
[CH. XXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(The Epitaph.)
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
COLLINS.
A.D. 1720-1756.
Ir has been mentioned before that different odes have been
pronounced by different critics the finest in the language.
Johnson gives the palm to that of Collins on the passions,
extolling the picture of Hope as 'beautiful almost beyond
imitation.' 'In what an exalted light,' he continues, 'does
the picture of that delightful being place this great master
of poetical imagery and harmony! what varied sweetness.
of numbers! what delicacy of judgment and expression!
How characteristically does Hope prolong her train, repeat
her soothing closes, call upon her associate, Echo, for the
same purposes, and display every pleasing grace peculiar to
her.' ... 'The descriptions of joy, jealousy, and revenge
are excellent, though not equally so. Those of melancholy
and cheerfulness are superior to everything of the kind.'
The life of the poet himself, whose masterpiece elicited
this praise, was brief and miserable. He was the son of a
hatter at Chichester, who gave him the best possible edu-
cation, first at Winchester, and afterwards at Magdalen
College, Oxford. But this effort had exhausted his father's
means; and having gone to London, in the hope of main-
taining himself by his talents, he for some time suffered
severe privations: he was no sooner relieved from want by
720-1756.]
457
COLLINS.
the death of an uncle, who left him 20007., than, as Johnson
says, he was assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease
and insanity. He was only thirty-six when he died in a
lunatic asylum in his native city. He, like Gray, has confined
himself to lyric poetry; with the exception of four brief
Oriental eclogues, which are not worthy of his other efforts.
Of his odes many are pretty and imaginative; nearly all
are written with purity and vigour; but that on the passions,
of which Johnson's eulogy has been quoted above, is uni-
versally considered his masterpiece.
(Ode to the Passions.)
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd.
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound,
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for madness rul'd the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
Ev'n at the sound himself had made.
Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings own'd his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings
With woeful measures wan Despair,
Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair
458
¡CH. XXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hall'
Still would her touch the strain prolong,
And from the rocks, the wood, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope, enchanted, smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair;
And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,
Revenge, impatient, rose;
He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,
And with a withering look,
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe;
And ever and anon he beat
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity at his side
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,
While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd,
Sad proof of thy distressful state;
Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd,
And now it courted Love; now, raving, called on IIate.
With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd,
Pale Melancholy sat retir'd,
And from her wild sequester'd seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And, dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,
Round an holy calmn diffusing,
Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
But, oh, how alter'd was its sprightlier tone!
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known;
1720-1756.]
459
COLLINS.
The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,
Peeping from forth their alleys green;
Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear,
And Sport leapt up, and seiz'd his beechen spear.
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial,
He, with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addrest,
But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,
Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round,
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,
And he amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.
O Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid,
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ?
As in that lov'd Athenian bower,
You learn'd in all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording sister's page-
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age,
Ev'n all at once together found
Cæcilia's mingled world of sound—
Oh, bid our vain endeavours cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece,
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!
21
460
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1
BURNS.
A.D. 1759-1796.
THE lyric poets of whom we have as yet spoken have
been exclusively English; but, towards the end of the last
century, Scotland, whose sons had recently been distinguish-
ing themselves so greatly in the field of history, and who had
even made some contributions, far from destitute of merit,
to the general poetry and to the drama of the kingdom,
sent forth into the lyrical arena also one whose genius
qualified him to contend with the very sweetest of the
southern bards, and who, by adapting his poems almost
invariably to the popular Scotch airs, established his claim
to the title of the national poet of his country so firmly
that even the loftier genius of Scott has failed to deprive
him of it.
Robert Burns, son of William Burns, a working gardener,
was born, in January 1759, in the suburbs of Ayr. An
autobiographical sketch of his early years, which he has left
us, affirms that, even while a child at school, he was distin-
guished for a retentive memory. It records, too, that among
the books which took the strongest hold on his imagination
were two which filled him with a desire to become a soldier,
a life of Hannibal and a life of Wallace. Perhaps the im-
pression made by the latter may have helped to inspire the
noble lyric 'Scots, wha hae.' But these did not compose the
whole of his library. Even while still a boy he continued
gradually to pick up a fair collection of books, consist-
ing chiefly of poetry and songs, the works of Shakespeare,
¹ Beattie and Thompson may be especially mentioned, whose works,
though not of the highest class, were very popular in their day.
-759-1706.]
461
BURNS.
Pope, and Allan Ramsay being among them.' His father,
who saw a quickness in him sufficient to qualify him for
something better than manual labour, encouraged his taste
for reading; and when he was nineteen procured him in-
struction in trigonometry and mensuration, hoping that he
might learn enough to become a surveyor. Unhappily his
own inclinations were of a less practical character. He
was always falling in love, and it may be inferred that his
wooing was often rough, as he was commonly disappointed.
Still more fatal to his advancement was a fondness for
drink, which involved him in frequent quarrels.
He took a dislike to mathematics and the life of a sur-
veyor, but thought he might succeed as a flax-dresser,
and went to Irvine for that purpose; but in a drunken
carousal he set fire to the house, and burnt it and all the
flax, and very nearly himself and his brother also. His
next step was to take a farm, but he had neither capital
nor perseverance to withstand the losses of two successive
bad seasons.
Moreover he had learnt that he had a talent
for poetry, and had begun to write, and to spend more time
on his pen than on his plough. But his first essays did
not give him much credit with his neighbours. The
presbytery thought his language too free on subjects on
which they were not inclined to listen to jesting, and it
was proposed to take formal notice of some of his expres-
sions. The threatened displeasure of the Kirk, and some
fresh entanglements of love, led him to think of emigrating;
and he had procured an appointment to keep the accounts
of an estate in Jamacia, when one of the measures which he
took as a preparation for his departuro led to the abandon-
ment of the idea, and changed the whole course of his life.
To provide the necessary funds for his voyage, he was
recommended by a gentleman, who had formed a favorable
opinion of some of them, to publish a small volume of poems:
they came out in 1786, and their success was so decided
that he laid aside all thoughts of leaving the country, and
took up his residence in Edinburgh. For everything but
A poet of considerable celebrity in Scotland, who died about the
time that Burns was born.
462
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
:
his poetical fame it was an unfortunate change of purpose.
He was received with open arms by persons of far higher
rank in society and of far larger means than his: their
praises turned his head, and he acquired a taste for gay
living to which he was too well inclined before, and, its
inevitable consequence, a distaste for work. He was
elected a member of the Caledonian Hunt Club, and became
a popular dancer and singer at what have been truly called
the orgies of that society. His convivial talents, joined to
his reputation for genius of a higher kind, speedily opened
to him the doors of people of the highest rank: he became
a welcome guest at their houses, and travelled about the
country, visiting and banqueting, but wholly neglecting
all means of earning a livelihood. In a letter written in
1787 he calls himself, 'just as usual, a rhyming, verse-
making, raking, purposeless, idle fellow.' In fact his great
acquaintances were helping rapidly to ruin him. The next
year he took a step which sometimes tends to make a man
steady he married; but his marriage produced but little
alteration in him. He took a farm in Nithsdale; but, as
before, neglected it, and lost in it in consequence the little
money he had made by his poems. After little more than
two years he sold off his stock, and obtained a place at the
Excise-office at Dumfries. But this appointment, like every
other measure designed for his benefit, only helped to plunge
him deeper in the mire. His duties led him among dealers
in liquor, and thus presented him with fresh temptations for
indulging his worst failing; though, on more than one occa-
sion, he distinguished himself by both address and courage
in his dealings with smugglers. The breaking out of the
French Revolution infected him, as we have seen that it
infected other poets, with a fierce political enthusiasm. He
became an ardent revolutionist. Having captured a smug-
gling vessel, he purchased her carronades and sent them as a
present to the Convention; and the language in which he
continually denounced the proceedings of his own Govern-
ment was so unguarded as to give offence to his superiors,
who threatened to deprive him of his post. One of his
apologies, intended to do away with the effect of one out-
break of the kind, is lamentably characteristic. He wrote,
1759-1796.]
463
BURNS.
'Dear sir, I know I was drunk last night, but I am sober
this morning.' But he did not alter his conduct. The
Commissioners of Excise, under whose orders he was,
treated him with all possible indulgence; though they were
forced to summon him before them, they accepted his
promises of amendment, and contented themselves with
reprimanding him. But even the danger of dismissal, which
would have involved absolute starvation, could not render
him prudent. His political violence gradually alienated
all those who to the will united the power to befriend him.
His increasing habits of drunkenness ruined his health;
and his end, which was near, was sadly characteristic. At
the beginning of 1796, as he was returning home in a help-
less state of intoxication, he fell asleep in the snow, and the
chill brought on an illness of which in the summer of the
same year he died.
From time to time he had published fresh poems, and
fresh editions, with additions, of his original volume.
Subsequent generations have pardoned his infirmities for
the sake of the genius displayed in them, and in the present
day few poets are spoken of with more unvarying admira-
tion. It is not difficult to discover to what this popularity
is owing. He is above all things the poet of feeling. The
quality, as he says in one of his letters, which he prized above
every other, as the 'very essence of a song or ballad,' was
simplicity; and so everything in his work is genuine :
nothing is put on or affected, and, being natural, the senti-
ments expressed in his songs come home to the heart of
every reader. It is remarkable that, though habituated from
his childhood to rural scenes, he has very rarely turned aside
to describe the beauties of nature. As a countryman of his
who was also a poet, Hogg, has truly said, 'External nature
never seems to have kindled or elevated his imagination;
she had no charms for him, unless when she recalled to his
mind the vision of some old love or departed happiness.'
He was sensible of the deficiency: he represents the Muse
herself as telling him,
Thou canst not learn, nor can I show,
To paint with Thompson's landscape glow;
464
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and wisely confined his efforts to do what he could do far
better than Thompson: to paint all the varied workings of
the mind under the influence of love in all its phases, in
the moments of hope, anticipation, enjoyment, anxiety, and
regret. Some of his poems exhibit a keen humour and
lively wit, such as 'Tam O'Shanter.' One, to which he gave
the name of 'The Vision,' is conceived and written with a
force and sustained dignity of which his lesser poems give
no indication. He represents a heavenly seeming fairi
greeting him 'with an elder sister's air,' and announcing
herself as 'his native Muse,' bidding him
C
No longer mourn thy fate is hard,
Thus poorly low;
I come to give thee such reward
As we bestow.
And she proceeds to tell him what qualities she has seen in
him to render him deserving of her protection, and by what
studies he is to earn her favour.
(The Vision.)
Know, the great genius of this land
Has many a light, aërial band,
Who, all beneath his high command,
Harmoniously,
As arts or arms they understand,
Their labours ply.
They Scotia's race among them share:
Some fire the soldier on to dare;
Some rouse the patriot up to bare
Corruption's heart:
Some teach the bard, a darling care,
The tuneful art.
And when the bard, or hoary sage,
Charm or instruct the future age,
They bind the wild poetic rage
In energy,
Or point the inconclusive page
Full on the eye.
1759-1796.1
465
BURNS.
When yellow waves the heavy grain,
The threat'ning storm some strongly rein;
Some teach to meliorate the plain
With tillage-skill,
And some instruct the shepherd-train,
Blithe o'er the hill.
Some hint the lover's harmless wile;
Some grace the maiden's artless smile;
Some soothe the lab'rer's weary toil
For humble gains,
And make his cottage scenes beguile
His cares and pains.
Some, bounded to a district space,
Explore at large man's infant race,
To mark the embryotic trace
Of rustic bard;
And careful note each op'ning grace,
A guide and guard.
Of these am I,-Coila my name,
And this district as mine I claim,
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame,
Held ruling pow'r;
I mark'd thy embryo tuneful flame,
Thy natal hour.
With future hope, I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely caroll'd, chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes,
Fir'd at the simple, artless lays
Of other times.
I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the north his fleecy store
Drove thro' the sky,
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar
Struck thy young eye.
Or, when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherish'd every floweret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In every grove,
I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.
466
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
When ripen'd fields, and azure skies
Called forth the reaper's rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk,
To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.
When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,
Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adorèd name,
I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.
I saw thy pulse's maddening play,
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way,
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray,
By Passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray
Was light from heaven.
I taught thy manners-painting strains,
The loves, the ways of simple swains,
Till now, o'er all my wide domains
Thy fame extends;
And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.
Thou canst not learn, nor can I show,
To paint with Thompson's landscape glow;
Or wake the bosom-melting throe,
With Shenstone's art;
Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow,
Warm on the heart.
Yet all beneath th' unrivall'd rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Tho' large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade.
Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And, trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,
Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard.
1759-1796.]
467
BURNS.
To give my counsels all in one,
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ;
Preserve the dignity of man,
With soul erect;
And trust the Universal Plan
Will all protect.
'And wear thou this,' she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head;
The polish'd leaves and berries red
Did rustling play;
And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.
His admiration of revolution did not deaden his national
sentiments of tenderness for the beauteous departed Queen
of Scots; and one of the few poems in which he does not
speak in his own person is dedicated to an attempt to por-
tray the feelings of the hapless Mary.
(Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots.)
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daises white
Out o'er the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight,
That fast in durance lies.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle in his noontide bower,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis mild, wi' many a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest;
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae:
The meanest hind in fair Scotland,
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.
<
468
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en :
And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands
And never-ending care.
But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,
Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword,
That through thy soul shall gae;
The weeping blood in woman's breast,
Was never known to thee,
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe,
Frae woman's pitying e'e.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me!
Oh! soon to me may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death,
Let winter round me rave,
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave.
The following ode supplies one of the few instances of his
taking inanimate nature for his subject. The comparison
of the uprooted flower to the artless but deceived maiden,
and again to the imprudent and ruined bard (both drawn
too truly from his own experience), is both conceived and
expressed in the true spirit of poetry.
1759-1796.]
469
BURNS.
(To a Mountain Daisy.)
Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' spreckled breast,
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield
But thou beneath the random bield
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble field,
Unseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise ;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies.
Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soil'd is laid,
Low i' the dust.
470
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd,
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er.
Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv❜n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n
To mis'ry's brink,
Till wrenched of every stay but heaven,
He ruin'd, sink.
Ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine,-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom.
But, as has been said before, his love effusions were those
most natural to him. And the most powerfully drawn
among them are those in which he paints the pain of sepa-
ration from the beloved object. The end of the second
stanza of the first of the three following songs is perhaps
not surpassed for genuine pathos by any verse in the
language.
(Ae fond kiss.)
Ae foud kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweall, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him ?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met-or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
1759-1796.]
471
BURNS.
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest !
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring signs and groans I'll wage thee.
The following ode is an exemplification of Hogg's remark,
that, whenever the beauties of scenery had any attraction
for him, it was only because they recalled to his recollection
the image of some departed happiness; though the fidelity
to the memory of his last love which he promises at the end
of this ode, and through the whole of that which follows it,
soon yielded to some fresh attraction.
(Highland Mary.)
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The Castle of Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay, green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom;
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasp'd her to my bosom !
The golden hours, on angels' wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi' mony a vow and lock'd embrace,
Our parting was fu' tender;
And pledging oft to meet again,
We tore ourselves asunder;
But, oh! fell Death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early,
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary.
*
472
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft have kiss'd sue fondly;
And closed for aye the sparkling glance,
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust,
The heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
(To Mary in Heaven.)
Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher'st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast f
That sacred hour can I forget,
Can I forget the hallowed grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love!
Eternity will not efface
Those records dear of transports past,
Thy image at our last embrace ;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day.
Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest ?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ?
1759-1796.]
473
BURNS.
It has been mentioned how great was the fascination
which a memoir of the great champion of his country,
´Wallace wight,' exerted over his youthful mind. The
hearing of an old air, known as 'Hey tuttie taitie,' reported
to be that to which the Scottish army marched on to take
up its ground on the eventful 25th of June, suggested the
idea of composing words to it. And Alcæus himself never
roused his countrymen to warlike enterprise in a more in-
spiriting strain.
(Bruce to his Men at Bannockburn.)
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie !
Now's the day, and now's the hour:
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power-
Chains and slavery !
Wha will be a traitor knave ?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee.
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Let him follow me!
By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Let us do or die!
In the next ode he lays aside the character of the lover for
that of the lovelorn maiden, anxious for the safety of her
sailor lad on the sea; painting with great force and tender-
ness the danger to which those who go down to the sea in
474
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ships, especially when increased by war, are exposed, and
the fearful solicitude of those who sit at home waiting for
news.
(On the Seas and Far Away.)
How can my poor heart be glad,
When absent from my sailor lad ?
How can I the thought forego,
He's on the seas to meet the foe ?
Let me wander, let me rove,
Still my heart is with my love;
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are with him that's far away.
On the seas and far away,
On stormy seas and far away;
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are aye with him that's far away.
When in summer's noon I faint,
As weary flocks around me pant,
Haply in this scorching sun.
My sailor's thund'ring at his gun,
Bullets, spare my only joy!
Bullets, spare my darling boy!
Fate, do with me what you may,
Spare but him that's far away!
On the seas, etc.
At the starless midnight hour,
When winter rules with boundless power;
As the storms the forest tear,
And thunders rend the howling air,
Listening to the doubling roar,
Surging on the rocky shore,
All I can-I weep and pray,
For his weal that's far away.
On the seas, etc.
Peace, thy olive wand extend,
And bid wild war his ravage end,
Man with brother man to meet,
And as a brother kindly greet:
Then may Heaven, with prosperous gales
Fill my sailor's welcome sails,
To my arms their charge convey,
My dear lad that's far away.
On the seas, etc.
1759-1796.]
475
BURNS.
But it would not be fair to Burns's memory to give no
extracts from one of his longer poems, which gives expres-
sion to higher feelings than those of love, or even of
patriotism. There is an artless beauty and solemnity in
the picture of the humble devotions of the farmer and his
household which shows that the poet himself felt the in-
fluence of such scenes, and inclines us the more to look
with pity and leniency on the excesses which ruined the
man, and which these stanzas show that he himself, in his
better moments, must have both lamented and condemned.
(The Cotter's Saturday Night, stanza xi.)
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;
The soupe their only hawkie does afford,
That yout the hallan snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell,
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid;
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell
How 'twas a townmoud auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide
The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim :
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name :
Or noble Elgin beets the heav'nward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
The priestlike father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
476
[CH. XXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the sacred volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He who bore in Heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head :
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's
command.
Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Pow'r incens'd the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole,
But haply in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.
Then homeward all take off their several way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
'The parent pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.
1779-1852.]
477
MOORE.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MOORE.
A.D. 1779-1852.
BURNS had hardly passed away before Ireland put in her
claim also to lyrical honours. But no writers of the same
class could well be more different than Burns and Moore :
indeed, except that both were men of low birth, and that
both devoted themselves to poetry of the same kind, it
would be hard to find a point of resemblance between them.
Thomas Moore, the son of a small grocer in Dublin, and a
Roman Catholic, was born in 1780; and when, in 1793,
the Irish Parliament passed a law to enable those who did
not belong to the Church of England to be admitted as
undergraduates to the University, his father availed himself
of the privilege, and entered his boy as a student at Trinity
College, where he picked up a fair acquaintance with the
classical languages, which a certain readiness of quotation
and hardihood of assumption caused to pass for far greater
learning than it really was among those who knew still
less. He early plunged into authorship, and having, pro-
bably through Grattan's influence with Fox, procured the
patronage of the Prince of Wales, he, before he was twenty,
published a translation of the Odes attributed to Anacreon.
He had already crossed over to London with the view of
reading for the bar; but he had not sufficient application
for that most laborious of all professions. And as his poetry,
joined with a talent and taste for music, led to his being
taken notice of in fashionable circles, he, like Burns, elated
at being thus raised out of his original sphere, fancied that
his genius would open to him the door to fortune. It did
for a moment seem to have done so; but the way in which
the goddess favoured him led in the end to disaster. He
*
478
[CH. XXVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
obtained an appointment at Bermuda: but he entrusted
the performance of his duties to a deputy, who proved a
rogue, and embezzled money which Moore eventually had
to make good. He was necessarily forced to resign his
office and to return to England, where a singular incident
afforded ample subject for mirth to the wags of the day,
and a year or two later to the satiric muse of his sub-
sequent friend Byron. In 1802, assuming the name of
Thomas Little, in allusion to his own diminutive stature,
he had published a second volume of poems, some of which
were generally looked on as breathing a tone of licentious-
ness more in keeping with the manners of the past than of
the present century; and when, in 1806, he sent out a third
volume, entitled 'Odes and Epistles,' for the most part re-
lating to and founded on his experience of life on the other
side of the Atlantic, Mr. Jeffrey made it the subject of a
severe article in the 'Edinburgh Review,' of which he was
editor, in which he not only attacked the new publication,
but Little's poems also, inferring that the subjects, and the
extreme warmth of colouring with which they were treated,
were derived from the experience of the author himself: an
imputation at which Moore took such offence that he chal-
lenged his critic to fight a ducl. They met, when it was
found that, though both the combatants were amply pro-
vided with powder to make a noise, both had equally
forgotten the bullets. It was natural that such a blunder
should cause amusement enough at the time, and it had
nearly led the poet into another duel with a more formid-
able antagonist; for when, a year or two afterwards, Byron,
in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' made his
onslaught, it may almost be said, on every one alive who
had ever wielded a pen, it was hardly possible for him, in
chastising the chief offender Jeffrey, to pass over so tempting
a circumstance; and the reader's recollection of the trying
moment
6
'When Little's leadless pistol met his eye'
was re-awakened, with all the additional piquancy which
could be given it by the embodiment of the incident in the
wittiest satire of recent times. Jeffrey took no notice of the
gibe; but Moore, thinking himself, certainly without reason,
1779-1852.]
479
MOORE.
more particularly aimed at, penned another challenge
which he entrusted to a friend, who, however found no
opportunity of delivering it till the intended foe had gone
abroad, and before Byron returned to this country Moore's
wrath had in some degree evaporated. The result was
that, after one or two notes of mutual explanation, the two
poets became fast friends; and Moore, who survived, even-
tually became the biographer of the very man whose life
he had designed to attempt in a less friendly manner.
6
C
It was soon after the commencement of his acquaintance
with Byron that he commenced the work to which he
thiefly owes his fame. A musical publisher, who was
himself a native of the Green Island, conceived the idea of
forming a collection of the best original Irish melodies,
with words containing, as frequently as possible, allusions
to the manners and history of the country.' 1 Moore gladly
undertook the task of adopting words to these airs, and in
1813 and 1814 the Irish Melodies' were published. Their
success was instantaneous. Varied as was the character of
the airs, some being martial and spirited, others soft and
tender, some being lively and mirthful, others plaintive
and touching, there was hardly one which the poet failed
to match with verse admirably corresponding to the
emotion excited by the music. As far as ear and taste
went he himself was no unskilful musician: indeed it was
perhaps chiefly as a singer of his own songs that his
society had been for some years courted in the most
fashionable circles of London; and his work now showed
him to have a singular command of rhythm in every con-
ceivable metre. He afterwards published a similar though
smaller set of national airs of other countries, that is to say,
words adapted to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hungarian,
Swiss, Scotch, and even Indian melodies; and this volume
is distinguished for the same extraordinary facility of ver-
sification that had made the 'Irish Melodies' remarkable,
and for great ingenuity and fertility of fancy. But Moore's
lyrics are devoid of the simplicity and feeling of Burns:
there is a constant straining after effect, and very often a
Moore's prefaco to the first and second numbers of the Irish
Melodies.'
480
[CH. XXVII·
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
par
of scholarship and learning fatal to their effect.
His subjects are chiefly, like those of Anacreon, the praises
of love and wine; but occasionally there is an attempt at a
loftier strain, and in one or two instances far from an
unsuccessful one.
:
Of their merit as poems, and of the durability of the
fame which these works procured him, there might be two
opinions of their popularity at the moment there could be
but one; and that was proved in the most satisfactory
manner to himself, when the great London publishing house
of Longman and Co. agreed to give him 3,000l. for a poem
which he undertook to write, but of which the very subject
was as yet undecided. It was t e largest sum that at that
time had ever been given for a poem; though Byron after-
wards made it a pretext for demanding a similar sum for a
single canto of Childe Harold. In 1817 it came out, under the
title of 'Lalla Rookh,' an Oriental romance, glittering with
rich fancy and the poet's other more technical excellences,
but destitute of the vigour of Byron, still more of the
feeling of Scott, and whenever it attempted either, espe-
cially the latter, failing most conspicuously. It was, in
truth, an error to lay the scene in a country of which the
writer knew nothing but what he could gather from books,
and that want of knowledge was of itself sufficient to
deprive the poem of any appearance of naturalness. But
at first readers were not disposed to be critical; the poem
had in many parts a brilliancy which concealed its defects,
and it rapidly went through many editions.
It was nearly the author's last attempt at serious poetry.
After many years the investigation into his Bermuda
accounts resulted in proving him liable to make good to
the Governinent the heavy loss which had been sustained
through the defalcations of his deputy; and, in dread of
being arrested for this and other debts, he quitted the
country and withdrew to the Continent, making Paris his
principal residence, and employing the period of his
enforced residence abroad in the composition of burlesque.
poems: 'Rhymes on the Road,' 'The Fudge Family in
Paris,' and 'Fables for the Holy Alliance,' satires of great
liveliness and wit. Indeed, writings such as these were the
•
1779-1852.]
481
MOORE.
kind of composition for which he was best qualified by
nature; for his merriment was unaffected, and his wit
genuine. And the degree in which they took the public
fancy was shown by the editor of the Times' engaging
him at a salary of 5001 a year to write political squibs for
that newspaper.
6
But, as years went on, he apparently began to feel that
his poetical vein was exhausted. He had written one
poem since 'Lalla Rookh,' 'The Loves of the Angels,' but
it was not greatly admired; and, as he could not afford to
be idle, he began to turn his attention to cultivating his
talent for prose writing. He had at different times pub-
lished one or two trifling prose works, which had shown
that his wit and liveliness did not depend on his skill as a
versifier. But he now undertook works of a more serious
cast. His first was his best, a 'Life of Sheridan,' which
afforded him an opportunity of discussing the chief political
questions of the day, and, in so doing, of setting forth the
views of the party to which he had attached himself,
the Whigs, which he certainly did with great clearness.
It was followed by a 'Life of Byron,' for which his long
intimacy with the great poet gave him peculiar facilities;
and the judgment with which, as far as possible, he allowed
Byron to tell his own story, by the insertion of a great
portion of his correspondence, made it one of the most.
interesting books of the kind in the language. His prose
style, though not particularly vigorous, is not inelegant; the
chief fault of the two memoirs, especially of the last, being
that the biographer thinks too much of himself: there is
too much of the advice and suggestions which he himself
gave, of his friends' appreciation of his talents and adoption
of his counsels. His other prose works were a novel called
'The Epicurean,' a 'Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald' (the
young nobleman who, having married a daughter of the
infamous Duke of Orleans, had become so infected with the
principles of the French revolutionists that he laid aside
his title, headed a rebellion in Ireland, and was fortunate
enough, by dying of his wounds, to escape the ignominy of
a public execution), and a 'History of Ireland,' which was
an undertaking rather beyond his powers.
482
[CH. XXVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The
The history of his latter years is a melancholy one.
accession of the Whigs to office placed him in compara-
tively easy circumstances, as Lord Melbourne conferred a
large pension upon him; but his faculties began to decay:
he lost his memory, and gradually fell into a state of com-
plete imbecility, from which he was only released by death,
in 1852.
As a poet, if in genius inferior to some of his great
contemporaries, in the perfect mastery of the mechanical
portions of his art, in melodious versification and the com-
mand of every kind of metre and rhythm, he is unsurpassed
if not unrivalled: as also in the taste with which in his
great work, the 'Irish Melodies,' he so faithfully represented
the feeling of the music by his stanzas that the air seemed,
as it always should seem, to have been composed to suit
the words; and it was hard to suppose that in reality the
air had been the mistress and had suggested the poetry.
But before we proceed to examine them, we may devote a
few minutes to a more ambitious ode, which he called a
'Melologue upon National Music,' and which, as having
been composed with the express purpose of doing deserved
honour to the power of music, may in some degree be com-
pared with the Odes on St. Cecilia's Day of the great
masters Dryden and Pope.
(Melologue upon National Music.)
There breathes a language known and felt
Far as the pure air spreads its living zone;
Wherever rage can rouse, or pity melt,
That language of the soul is felt and known.
From those meridian plains
Where oft of old, on some high tow'r,
The soft Peruvian pour'd his midnight strains,
And call'd his distant love with such sweet pow'r,
That, when she heard the lonely lay,
Not worlds could keep her from his arms away;
To the bleak climes of polar night,
Where blithe, beneath a sunless sky,
The Lapland lover bids his reindeer fly,
And sings along the length'ning waste of snow,
Gaily as if the blessed light
Of vernal Phoebus burn'd upon his brow;
.779-1852.]
483
MOORE.
O Music! thy celestial claim
Is still resistless, still the same;
And faithful as the mighty sea
To the pale star that o'er its realms presides,
The spell-bound tides
Of human passion rise and fall for thee?
List! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
While from Ilissus' silv'ry springs,
She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn ;
And by her side, in Music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
Dreams of bright days that never can return,
When Athens nursed her olive bough,
With hands by tyrant pow'r unchain'd ;
And braided for the Muse's brow
A wreath by tyrant touch unstain'd.
When heroes trod each classic field,
Where coward feet now faintly falter;
When ev'ry arm was freedom's shield,
And ev'ry heart was freedom's altar!
Hark! 'tis the sound that charms
The war-steed's wak'ning ears!
Oh! many a mother folds her arms,
[Greek Air.
[Flourish of Trumpets.
Round her boy-soldier when that call she hears ;
And, though her fond heart sink with fears,
Is proud to feel his young pulse bound
With valour's fever at the sound.
See, from his native hills afar
The rude Helvetian flies to war:
Careless for what, for whom he fights,
For slave or despot, wrongs or rights,
A conqueror oft-a hero never-
Yet lavish of his life-blood still,
As if 'twere like his mountain rill,
And gushed for ever!
Yes, Music, here, even here,
Amid this thoughtless, vague career,
Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous pow'r—
There's a wild air which oft, among the rocks
Of his own lovèd land, at ev'ning hour,
Is heard, when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks,
22
484
[CH. XXVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Whose every note has power to thrill his mind
With tenderest thoughts; to bring around his knees
The rosy children whom he left behind,
And fill each little angel eye
With speaking tears, that ask him why
He wander'd from his hut for scenes like these?
Vain, vain is then the trumpet's brazen roar,
Sweet notes of home, of love, are all he hears,
And the stern eyes, that look'd for blood before,
Now melting, mournful, lose themselves in tears.
[Swiss Air: Ranz des Vaches.'
But, wake the trumpet's blast again,
And rouse the ranks of warrior men !
Oh, War! when Truth thy arm employs;
And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm,
'Tis then thy vengeance takes a hallow'd form,
And like Heaven's lightning sacredly destroys.
Nor, Music, through thy breathing sphere,
Lives there a sound more grateful to the ear
Of Him who made all harmony,
Than the blessed sound of fetters breaking,
And the first hymn that man, awaking
From slavery's slumber, breathes to liberty.
Hark! from Spain, indignant Spain,
Bursts the bold, enthusiast strain,
Like morning's music on the air;
And seems, in every note, to swear
By Saragossa's ruined streets,
By brave Gerona's dreadful story,
[Spanish Chorus.
That, while one Spaniard's life-blood beats,
That blood shall stain the conqueror's glory.
But ah! if vain the patriot's zeal,
[Spanish Air: 'Ya Desperto.'
If neither valour's force, nor wisdom's light
Can break or melt that blood-cemented seal,
Which shuts so close the book of Europe's right-
What song shall then in sadness tell
Of broken pride, of prospects shaded,
Of buried hopes, remember'd well,
Of ardour quench'd, and honour faded!
1779-1852.]
485
MOORE.
What Muse shall mourn the breathless brave,
In sweetest dirge at Memory's shrine?
What harp shall sigh o'er Freedom's grave ?
O Erin, thine!
The following was reckoned by Moore's biographer, Lord
John Russell, the most successful of his light songs. It is
certainly eminently lively and tuneful, but as surely open
to the charge of a pedantic parade of learning in the allusion
to Ammon's Fount, which, he himself considered, required
a note to explain it.
(Fly not yet.)
Fly not yet, 'tis just the hour,
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
And maids who love the moon.
'Twas but to bless these hours of shade
That beauty and the moon were made,
'Tis then their soft attractions glowing,
Set the tides and goblets flowing.
Oh, stay! oh, stay!
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that, oh! 'tis pain
To break its links so soon.
Fly not yet, the fount that play'd
1
In times of old, through Ammon's ¹ shade,
Though icy cold by day it ran,
Yet still, like souls of mirth, began,
To burn when night was near.
And thus should woman's heart and looks,
At noon be cold as winter brooks,
Nor kindle, till the night returning
Brings their genial hour for burning.
Oh, stay! oh, stay!
When did morning ever break,
And find such beaming eyes awake
As those that sparkle here.
The next is a still more general favourite, from the skill
with which the sentiments of friendship and affection are
connected with the feeling for the beauties of nature.
¹ Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon.
>
486
[CH. XXVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(The Meeting of the Waters.)
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh, the last rays of feeling and life must depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill :
Oh, no! it was something more exquisite still.
'Twas that friends, the belov'd of my bosom, were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.
Sweet vale of Avoca; how calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.
The next is one of the prettiest of his love-songs, because
it derives its beauty not so much from imagery or grace of
expression as from the depth and truth of the feeling to
which it gives utterance.
(Believe me, if all those endearing young charms.,
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy gifts fading away,
Thou would'st still be ador'd, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart,
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose,
1779-1852.]
487
MOORE.
The next is a song of great pathetic tenderness, and as
such is an example of his clever versatility; for his natural
disposition was far from being inclined to melancholy or to
lamentation.
(She is far from the land.)
She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her, sighing:
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying.
She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains,
Every note which he lov'd awaking;
Ah little they think who delight in her strains,
How the heart of the minstrel is breaking.
He had liv'd for his love, for his country he died,
They were all that to life had entwined him;
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,
Nor long will his love stay behind him.
Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow,
They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the West,
From her own lov'd island of sorrow.
The following ode is given more as a specimen of his
perfect mastery over metre; that in which it is written
being one which in less skilful hands would degenerate
into what is commonly called singsong, but which as he
uses it is tuneful and buoyant.
(Come o'er the Sea.)
Come o'er the sea
Maiden, with me,
Thine through sunshine, storm, and snows;
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same where'er it goes.
Let fate frown on, so we love and part not;
'Tis life where thou art, 'tis death where thou'rt not.
Then come o'er the sea,
Maiden, with me,
Come wherever the wild wind blows;
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same, wherever it goes.
*
488
[CH. XXVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Was not the sea
Made for the free,
Land for courts and chains alone ?
Here we are slaves,
But, on the waves,
Love and Liberty's all our own.
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us—
Then come o'er the sea,
Maiden, with me,
Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows;
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same wherever it goes.
It is very rare for Moore to attempt a lofty strain : he was
not made for war; and even the zeal which in his youth
and early manhood he pretended for rebellion and rebels.
was far from genuine. The patrons of whose praises he
was most proud were nobles and courtiers; and he gladly
accepted first an appointment and then a pension from the
Government. But the following very brief ode is admirable
as incentive to gallant deeds. We need not enquire who the
slaves are; but no one can doubt that a slave who can burst
his own bonds is a recreant if he waits for some braver
hand to give him the liberty which he can secure for
himself. And there can be no greater incentive to warlike
deeds than the sight of the foeman in front of the soldier,
and the feeling that he has comrades by his side on whose
courage and fidelity he can rely. There is energy and
vigour in its very brevity.
(Where is the Slave.)
Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Condemned to chains unholy,
Who could he burst
His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decay'd it,
When thus its wing
At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it ?
Farewell, Erin! farewell, all
Who live to weep our fall!
1779-1852.1
489
MOORE.
Less dear the laurel growing
Alive, untouch'd, and blowing,
Than that whose braid
Is pluck'd to shade
The brows with victory glowing.
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
The friends we've tried
Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us.
Farewell, Erin! farewell, all
Who live to weep our fall!
We have not given any high praise to 'Lalla Rookh' as a
poem; but the song with which it concludes is perhaps not
surpassed by any of his efforts, for truth and tenderness.
(Fly to the Desert.)
Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But oh! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love, or thrones without?
Our rocks are rough, but smiling there,
The acacia waves her yellow air,
Lonely and sweet, nor lov'd the less,
For flow'ring in a wilderness.
Our sands are bare, but down their slope
The silv'ry-footed antelope
As gracefully and gaily springs
As o'er the marble court of kings.
Then come-thy Arab maid will be
The lov'd and lone acacia-tree,
The antelope whose feet shall bless
With their light sound thy loneliness.
Oh there are looks and tones that dart
An instant's sunshine through the heart,-
As if the soul that minute caught
Some treasure it through life had sought.
As if the very lips and eyes,
Predestin'd to have all our sighs,
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled and spoke before us then!
ご
​490
[CH. XXVII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
So came thy ev'ry glance and tone
When first on me they breath'd and shone,
New, as if brought from other spheres,
Yet welcome as if lov'd for years.
Then fly with me—if thou hast known
No other flame, nor falsely thrown
A gem away that thou hadst sworn
Should ever in thy heart be worn.
Come, if the love thou hast for me
Is pure and fresh, as mine for thee—
Fresh as the fountain underground,
When first 'tis by the lapwing found.
But if for me thou dost forsake
Some other maid, and rudely break
Her worshipp'd image from its base,
To give to me the ruin'd place;
Then, fare thee well: I'd rather make
My bower upon some icy lake
When thawing suns begin to shine,
Than trust to love so false as thine!
In 1816 he published a set of sacred songs, of which one
specimen is here subjoined; partly, though it is not without
spirit, that it may be compared with an ode of Byron's on
a kindred subject, the miraculous destruction of the host of
Sennacherib.
(Sound the Loud Timbrel. Miriam's Song.)
['And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in
her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with
dances.'-EXODUS XV. 20.]
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,
Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free.
Sing, for the pride of the tyrant is broken;
His chariots and horsemen, all splendid and brave,
How vain was their boast, for the Lord hath but spoken,
And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.
Sound the loud timbrel, &c.
1779-1852.]
491
MOORE.
Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord,
His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword;
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story
Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride ?
For the Lord hath look'd out from his pillar of glory,
And all her brave thousands are dash'd in the tide.
Sound the loud timbrel, &c.
492
[CH. XXVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CAMPBELL.
A.D. 1777-1844.
AMONG Moore's contemporaries and friends was a Scotch
bard, whose fame chiefly depends on his odes, though they
bear but a very small proportion to his more elaborate
poems. To throw these last into the shade, as they have
certainly done, is in itself a proof of the pre-eminent merit
of the odes; for one of his longer poems, the 'Pleasures of
Hope,' is distinguished by lively fancy and great melody of
versification; nor, except Goldsmith, is there one of what
may be called the school of Pope who reflects greater honour
on their master. Thomas Campbell was born in Glasgow in
1777, and when he was twenty-six he removed to London,
hoping (as he had already become popular by the celebrity of
the 'Pleasures of Hope,' which was published in 1799, and
was unanimously allowed to be the best poem that ever had
been written by so young a man) to be able to support himself
by his pen. He was not disappointed; but, though by
different kinds of literary work he acquired a fair com-
petence, no service which his Muse could do him could
equal one which she had already rendered him. Like
Wordsworth and his friends, he had become infected with
the admiration for revolution which the inexperience of
youth identified with liberty; and, while travelling in Ger-
many, in 1800, his incautious language led to his being
arrested as a Jacobin and a spy. In those days suspicion
was often taken for proof, and the young poet was in great
danger, when luckily the officers of justice, in searching his
luggage, found in his trunk the noble ode on 'Ye Mariners
of England.' The true British feeling which breathes through
every line of it caused his acquittal. Though he lived nearly
1777-1844.]
493
CAMPBELL.
half a century after this occurrence, he was not a voluminous
poet. He wrote a few more odes, of great spirit and beauty,
and a couple of longer poems, 'Gertrude of Wyoming' and
"Theodoric,' of unequal merit; but his most profitable under-
takings were not spontaneous effusions of his Muse, but
compilations suggested to him by booksellers, editions of
former poets, magazine articles, and ephemeral writings of
that kind. He died in 1844.
The following is the ode which did him such important
service with the German magistrates. The honours which
were paid in the same year to Nelson on his passing through
Germany,' on his way from Naples to England, show how
warmly the Germans, though an inland people, were inclined
to appreciate the vast importance of the blows struck by
our fleet in the cause of the liberty of Europe; and how
easy therefore it must have been to convince them that one
who shared their feelings on that subject so enthusiastically
could not cherish dangerous views, nor be disposed to further
the aims of French ambition.
Ye Mariners of England!
Who guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again,
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave,
For the deep it was their field of fame,
And ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.
1
Southey's Nelson, ii. 88.
494
[CH. XXVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Britannia needs no bulwark,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak,
She quells the floods below,
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy tempests blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn ;
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceas'd to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more
And the storm has ceas'd to blow.
A description of the battle of Hohenlinden, so fatal to the
Austrians, and so glorious to Moreau and the French, did
not of course afford the poet such opportunity for displaying
his feelings of patriotism as the praise of what is pre-
eminently the national force of Britain, her navy. But, as
a spirit-stirring, martial ode, this has rarely, if ever, been
surpassed.
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast array'd,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neigh'd,
To join the dreadful revelry.
1777-1844.]
495
CAMPBELL.
Then shook the hills, with thunder riven;
Then rush'd the steed, to battle driven;
And, louder than the bolts of Heaven,
Far flash'd the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stainèd snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
1
'Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few shall part, where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
But a more imaginative and more sublime ode than either
of the preceding is that in which the author conceives him-
self to be looking on the last of human beings, on one who
has outlived all his fellows, and is awaiting the Day of
Judgment in awful solitude.
(The Last Man).
All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
His immortality:
I saw a vision in my sleep,
That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of Time;
I saw the last of human mould,
That shall Creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime!
The sun was level, the battle being fought almost at midwinter,
Dec. 3, 1800.
496
[CH. XXVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The Sun's eye had a sickly glare,
The earth with age was wan;
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man!
Some had expir'd in fight; the brands
Still rusted in their bony hands:
In plague and famine some!
Earth's cities had no sound nor tread,
And ships went drifting with the dead,
To shores where all was dumb!
Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high,
That shook the sere leaves from the wood
As if a storm pass'd by.
Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun;
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,
'Tis Mercy bids thee go;
For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,
That shall no longer flow.
What though beneath thee man put forth
His pomp, his pride, his skill;
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth
The vassals of his will!
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim, discrownèd king of day;
For all those trophied arts
And triumphs that beneath thee sprang
Heal'd not a passion nor a pang
Entail'd on human hearts.
Go, let Oblivion's curtain fall
Upon the stage of men;
Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again;
Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh upon the rack
Of pain anew to writhe;
Stretch'd in diseases' shapes abhorr'd,
Or mown in battle by the sword,
As grass beneath the scythe.
1777--18447
497
CAMPBELL.
Ev'n I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire.
My lips that speak thy dirge of death,
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath
To see thou shalt not boast;
The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,
The majesty of darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost.
This spirit shall return to Him
Who gave its heavenly spark,
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim
When thou thyself art dark.
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,
By Him recall'd to breath
Who captive led captivity,
Who robb'd the grave of victory,
And took the sting from death !
Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up,
On Nature's awful waste,
To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste;
Go, tell the Night, that hides thy face,
Thou saws't the last of Adam's race
On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The dark'ning Universe defy
To quench his immortality,
Or shake his trust in God!
6
And that the pious feelings so powerfully expressed in
the concluding stanzas of The Last Man' were habitual to
Campbell is shown by his 'Ode to the Rainbow.'
Triumphal arch that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
Still seem, as to my chilhood's sight,
A midway station given.
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven.
C
498
[CH. XXVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Can all that optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?
When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws.
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.
When o'er the green undeluged earth,
Heav'n's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!
And when its yellow lustre smil'd
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth, delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye,
Unraptur'd, greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the prophet's theme!
The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark her welcome sings,
Where, glittering in the freshen'd fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.
How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town;
Or mirror'd in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down.
As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.
1771--1832.]
499
SCOTT.
For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age,
That first spoke peace to man.
Scott and Byron too have left us a few lyrics of high
merit. Those of Scott which are subjoined are of very dis-
similar character, one being a spirited lamentation over and
denunciation of the atrocious massacre of Glencoe, the
other, exquisite in its playfulness, the song put into the
mouth of the 'wily lady' Heron, at the court of King James.
(The Massacre of Glencoe.)
‘O tell me, Harper, wherefore flow
Thy wayward notes of wail and woe
Far down the desert of Glencoe,
Where none may list their melody?
Say, harp'st thou to the mists that fly,
Or to the dun deer glancing by,
Or to the eagle that from high
Screams chorus to thy minstrelsy.'
'No, not to these, for they have rest,-
The mist-wreath has the mountain-crest,
The stag his lair, the erne her nest,
Abode of lone security.
But those for whom I pour the lay,
Not wild-wood deep, nor mountain grey,
Not this deep dell that shrouds from day,
Could screen from treach'rous cruelty.
'Their flag was furl'd, and mute their drum,
The very household dogs were dumb,
Unwont to bay at guests that come
In guise of hospitality.
His blithest notes the piper plied,
Her gayest snood the maiden tied,
The dame her distaff flung aside,
To tend her kindly housewifery.
'The hand that mingled in the meal,
At midnight drew the felon steel,
And gave the host's kind breast to feel,
Meed for his hospitality!
2
500
[CH. XXVIII
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The friendly hearth which warm'd that hand,
At midnight arm'd it with the brand,
That bade destruction's flames expand
Their red and fearful blazonry.
Then woman's shriek was heard in vain,
Nor infancy's unpitied plain,
More than the warrior's groan, could gain
Respite from ruthless butchery !
The winter wind that whistled shrill,
The snows that night that choked the hill,
Though wild and pitiless, had still
Far more than southron clemency.
'Long have my harp's best notes been gone,
Few are its strings, and faint their tone,
They can but sound in desert lone
Their grey-haired master's misery;
Were each grey hair a minstrel string,
Each chord should imprecations fling,
Fill startled Scotland loud should ring,
"Revenge for blood and treachery!"
(Lochinvar.)
Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Though all the wide border his steed was the best;
Anu save his good broad sword he weapon had none,
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone,
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none,
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented, the gallant came late :
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all :
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),
'O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ? '
1771-1832.]
501
SCOTT.
I long woced your daughter, my suit you denied ;
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine;
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.'
The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,
Ile quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,-
'Now tread we a measure,' said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, so lovely her face;
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,
And the bride-maidens whispered, "Twere better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.'
"
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall-door where the charger stood near,
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
'She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;
They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth young Lochinvar.
There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ?
The first of the following odes of Byron is given partly,
as has already been mentioned, to enable the reader to con-
trast his powers with those of Moore, even in Moore's
peculiar field of lyric poetry. It is contained in his 'Hebrew
Melodies.' It is not only spirited in the highest degree,
but exhibits also very brilliantly that same power of vivid
painting of details which we have seen in his description
of the battle of Talavera in 'Childe Harold.'
502
[CH. XXVIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(The Destruction of Sennacherib.)
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breath'd in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail,
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
The ode which follows is not only admirable for its
exquisite tenderness, but claims especial notice for the
purity of devotional feeling which it breathes, but which is,
unhappily, not very common in its author's writings.
(Stanzas for Music.)
Bright be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be;
And our sorrow may cease to repine
When we know that thy God is with thee.
1788-1824.]
503
BYRON.
Light be the turf of thy tomb!
May its verdure like emeralds be!
There should not be the shadow of gloom
In aught that reminds us of thee.
Young flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest :
But nor cypress nor yew let us see,
For why should we mourn for the blest?
The next, one of the noblest lyrics in the language, is
doubly valuable, not only for its poetical vigour, but as
embodying the poet's genuine feelings; of which he gave a
convincing proof when, scarcely four years after it was
written, he died in the land whose ancient glories he was
now recalling, and which he was seeking by his own
example to excite to emulation of the heroic patriotism of
their ancestors.
(The Isles of Greece.)
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.'
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea,
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might still be free
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis,
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;-all were his!
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set where were they?
O
504
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
[CH. XXVIIL
4
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine ?
'Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here ?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o'er days more blest ?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead !
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla !
What, silent still ? and silent all?
Ah! no;-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And answer, "Let one living head,
But one arise, we come, we come !'
"Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain-in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call—
How answers each bold Bacchanal !
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one ?
You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave ?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine !
We will not think of themes like theso!
It made Anacreon's song divine:
He served-but served Polycrates-
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
1788-1824.]
505
BYRON.
The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom's best and bravest friend;
That tyrant was Miltiades !
Oh that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
;
Such as the Doric mothers bore
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells:
In native swords and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade-
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But, gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
*
506
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXIX.
BURKE.
A.D. 1728–1797.
WE are now to speak of our orators, under which term I
propose to include not only those who in Parliament have
addressed themselves to the solution of problems of
statesmanship, to the advocacy or disparagement of poli-
tical measures or designs, but also those who from the
pulpit have expounded truths less doubtful and of still
greater importance to each individual hearer than the
profoundest schemes of the ablest minister. In the former
class I shall not go further back than Burke ; though he is
far from having been the earliest speaker in our annals
'The applause of listening senates to command.'
On the contrary eloquence was a gift for which our statesmen
had long been famous, and of which indeed, in the history of
modern times, they had had the monopoly, since without
freedom it can have no existence. It was born of and with
our parliamentary institutions; and of its triumphs our
parliamentary traditions were full in every age.
But just
at the era which I have adopted as that which saw the
commencement of our modern literature, the arbitrary in-
terference of the Sovereign with the freedom of debate
induced both the Houses of Parliament to prohibit the
publication of speeches delivered within their walls. And
though the fierce excitement of Charles's reign led to the
rule being for a time disregarded, with the connivance and
often with the assistance of the speakers themselves, both
sides desiring, through their speeches, to appeal as it were
to the nation at large against their adversaries, when the
struggle was over its observance was again enforced, and
1728-1797.J
507
BURKE.
1
of the momentous discussions on matters of the deepest and
most permanent interest which took place during the next
century, we for the most part know nothing beyond the
result. We know that the Exclusion Bill was defeated by
a single speech of Halifax; the Peerage Bill by one from
Walpole while, far above all rivals of his own, or perhaps
of any preceding age, towers the fame of Bolingbroke,
brighter perhaps from the singular nature of the conditions
under which he was permitted to return to his country,'
which of themselves seemed to furnish irresistible proof of
the reality and power of that eloquence to which the
minister who had formerly experienced it, courageous as
he was, feared again to expose himself. But beyond the
fame of those great efforts of oratory nothing has come
down to us; even of the speeches of the elder Pitt we have
but scanty records, few and meagre fragments. And, of
all the utterances of wisdom and patriotism with which the
old walls of St. Stephens have resounded since the Long
Parliament, Burke's are the earliest which have reached us
with such a fulness and accuracy of report that we can
feel sure that we have not only the general line of argu-
ment, but the very words and phrases of the speaker.
Many of his speeches he himself corrected for the press:
his example in this respect has been followed by many
others on different occasions; and, even where it has not,
the extreme skill and accuracy of the Parliamentary re-
porters, a class which, from the moment when the standing
orders began to be relaxed, became of the highest impor-
tance, has left little to be desired.
Edmund Burke was born in Dublin, probably on the
12th of January 1728, though the date is not absolutely
ascertained. His father was a solicitor in good practice,
who, designing him for the higher branch of his own pro-
fession, as soon as he had taken his degree at Trinity
College, removed him to London, and entered him as a
student in the Middle Temple, with a view to his practising
Walpole consented to annul that part of the act passed against him
which prohibited his return to England and confiscated his estates; but
could not be prevailed on to abrogate the clause which deprived him of
his scat in the House of Lords.
23
508
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
C
in England, where the emoluments of a successful advocate
were far higher than in his native country. Burke, how-
ever, like others whom the will of their parents rather than
their own choice has destined for that laborious profession,
was doomed his father's soul to cross' and, though he
did not exactly 'pen a stanza when he should engross,'
he soon abandoned the drier study of the law for the more
flowery paths of general literature. His first efforts in this
line were most remarkable. In an elaborate essay on the
miseries arising to mankind from the principles of civil
society and religion, he parodied the style of Bolingbroke,
then lately dead, with such skill and success that Mallet
was forced to publish a formal declaration that the work
had not been written by Bolingbroke himself; and that,
till it was avowed to be a parody, many believed it to be a
deliberate adoption of the infidelity which in fact it
ridiculed in the most effectual manner by pushing the
infidel doctrines asserted by the pretended author to their
legitimate and inevitable conclusion. Shortly afterwards,
in a 'Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of
the Sublime and Beautiful,' he set forth, with the most
exquisite charms of style and language, a set of theories
which, though generally exploded now, were universally
admitted on their first assertion; so that Hume commended
the treatise for its elegance, and Johnson pronounced it a
model of philosophical criticism. Another work which it
seems probable that he was the first to suggest, is continued
to the present day, the 'Annual Register;' at all events he
was for very many years its editor, and the author of its
most important chapters, containing the History of Europe
for the year. But, in spite of the praises bestowed on his
writings by the most competent judges, he began to find
that he had not acted prudently in abandoning the profession
of the law for the still more uncertain career of a literary
man; he had recently increased his expenses by marrying a
Miss Nugent, a lady of great attractions and virtues, but of
no fortune, the daughter of a physician at Bath; and, as com-
positions of the class to which he devoted himself were not
of a sufficiently popular kind to be very profitable, he
began to turn his thoughts in another direction, and, towards
1728-1797.]
509
BURKE.
the end of George II.'s reign, endeavoured to obtain the
appointment of British Consul at Madrid; but, fortunately
for his fame and for his country, he failed. His wish
and his disappointment form a pendant to the very similar
case of his great countryman the Duke of Wellington,
who, in spite of the distinction he had achieved in the
Dutch campaign of the Duke of York, was so disheartened
by his military experience and prospects that he was anxious.
to exchange his commission for a situation in the Revenue
Office.
The disappointment, however, was apparently compen-
sated almost as soon as it was experienced, by a somewhat
curious connection which he formed with Mr. Gerard
Hamilton, commonly known in his own day as Single-
speech Hamilton, from a very brilliant speech which he
made in the debate on the address at the opening of the
session of 1755. Hamilton, though possessed of many of
the qualifications of an orator, was aware that he was but
scantily endowed with historical or political knowledge.
Burke's reputation as a writer on such subjects was
already high, and Hamilton, having procured an introduc-
tion to him, induced him to accept a post which seems to
have been something between that of his tutor and his
secretary; and, when a short time afterwards he became
Chief Secretary for Ireland, he procured Burke a pension.
of 300l. a year. The pension, which was on the Irish
Treasury, was of course for life; but Hamilton, who was
of an ungenerous temper, presumed so much on the obliga-
tion which he conceived he had laid Burke under by
obtaining it for him, that after a few years Burke broke off
all connection with him, and even, with a spirit which
cannot be fully appreciated unless we recollect the nar-
rowness of his private means, resigned the pension to him
and was once more thrown wholly on his own literary
resources.
;
But brighter days were at hand. He had hardly broken
with Hamilton when the death of his elder brother placed
him in possession of an estate about equal in value to the
pension which he had sacrificed; and when, in the summer
of the same year, 1765, Lord Rockingham became Prime
510
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Minister, that nobleman offered him an appointment as his
private secretary, and, on his acceptance of it, procured him
a seat in Parliament, as member for Wendover in Buck-
inghamshire, in which character he at once became the
chief support of the new Cabinet in the Lower House, as
neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Dowdeswell,
nor the Secretary of State, General Conway, had the
slightest pretensions to eloquence; and there has rarely
been an occasion on which eloquence was more needed
than it was by the new Administration. The tasks which,
by accepting office, it undertook were of great importance
and of great difficulty. They had to restore tranquillity
and sobermindedness to the people, and respectability to
the King's government, all of which had been seriously
imperilled and disturbed by the culpable mismanagement of
the late minister, George Grenville, and the illegality of the
proceedings by which he had endeavoured to crush Wilkes.
They had to pacify the well-grounded discontent of the
North American colonies, caused by Grenville's impolitic
attempts to tax them, and to revive their loyal attachment
to the mother country, which, whatever measures they
might propose for these ends, were sure to be opposed by
Mr. Pitt, then at the very height of his reputation and
influence both in the House of Commons and in the country;
but who, though he professed to agree with Lord
Rockingham in every principle of government, bore him
bitter ill-will for having taken office when he himself had
refused it, and who vented his malice and ill-temper on
measures which, had he himself been minister, he would
undoubtedly have proposed, cavilling at the details and
proclaiming his distrust of the Cabinet, though it was
not long since he had assured the King that Lord Rock-
ingham was one of the best men of business in England.
The whole weight of the contest with him fell upon Burke,
who, in this first session, did not fear to measure himself
with Pitt and Grenville, with all their reputation, and all
their parliamentary and official experience, and who came
victorious and triumphant from the conflict. The ministry
however did not last long: the King, who had reluctantly
given his consent to the repeal of the American Stamp
1728-1797.]
511
BURKE.
Act, was never very cordial or fair to the statesmen who
insisted on it; and before they had been a year in office
Mr. Pitt, who had been for some time intriguing to over-
throw them, by the aid of the Chancellor, Lord Northington,
who wanted an easier place, succeeded in his object, and
once more composed an Administration of which he was
the real though not the nominal chief, taking for him-
self the Privy Seal, with the Earldom of Chatham. He
would gladly have availed himself of Burke's assistance;
and Lord Rockingham, too generous to allow his indigna-
tion at Pitt's treacherous conduct to himself to interfere
with the interests of his humble friend, wished to persuade
him to take office in the new ministry; but Burke resented
for him what the marquis was too magnanimous to resent
for himself, refused Pitt's offers, and when, after a few
months, Lord Chatham fell into a state of health that
eventually compelled his resignation; and when his col-
leagues, emancipated from his control, presently returned
to the worst of Grenville's measures, and reimposed taxes
on the colonies, Burke led the opposition to them, speaking
against them in the House of Commons, drawing up the
protests which his party in the House of Lords from time
to time entered against the ministerial policy, and en-
lightening the public out of doors by a series of pamphlets
which resemble no other writings of the same class either
in their character or their fate. They not only served
their purpose at the time, but they are so deeply founded
on the soundest political wisdom, they base their argument
so largely on principles of universal application, that they
are eagerly read even at the present day: so great indeed
is their fame even now, a century after their first publica-
tion, that a French writer, very conversant with our poli-
tical history, M. de Remusat, declares that, though 'Burke's
reputation has risen greatly in England of late years, it is
merely a literary reputation.' M. de Remusat is indeed
mistaken on this point, being misled probably by the cir-
cumstances of Burke never having held office as a Cabinet
minister: but that anyone able to appreciate the power of
his speeches on the affairs of America should place his
written eloquence on an equal level with them may at least
512
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
be taken as a strong evidence of the extraordinary excel-
lence and effectiveness of these pamphlets.
Shortly after Lord North became the head of the Govern-
ment, Burke had bound himself formally to support the
claims of the Americans to the relief which they asked by
accepting the post of Agent to the State of New York,
which was admitted to be not incompatible with his position
as a member of the Imperial Parliament. Similar appoint-
ments have been held by members within the memory of
the present generation; but, in spite of the precedent thus
set by Burke, the propriety of accepting such seems very
questionable. It is quite true that his advocacy of the in-
terests of the colonists was not the consequence of his being
their salaried agent; that, on the contrary, it was the energy
with which, on constitutional principles and those of political
wisdom, he had put himself forward as their champion,
which had induced the colonists to confide so important a
cause to his continued advocacy. But such an appointment,
if it does not destroy a member's independence, must in-
evitably cast suspicion on it, and in that way must diminish
the effect of the very efforts which his employers are anxious
to see him exert. At a later period Burke himself, arguing
on the soundest principles of our parliamentary constitu-
tion, denounced the doctrine that a member was, or ought
to be, the delegate of his constituents; but it is plain that
one who becomes a paid agent of a colony puts himself
in a still more objectionable position: he becomes the
delegate of a body who are not his constituents; and, how-
ever unconsciously, he must be in some degree fettered and
constrained by so unnatural a connection.
But either the injudiciousness of his taking such a step
was not seen, or it was pardoned in consideration of the
extreme brilliancy of the efforts by which he carried out its
objects and justified it. And it was so far from diminishing
his influence either in or out of the House that Bristol, at
that time the second city in the kingdom, invited him to
become its representative, and he gladly accepted the in-
vitation, which was not only a well-deserved recognition of
his abilities and services, but was also calculated to give
additional weight to his arguments. The favour of his new
1728-1797.]
513
BURKE.
constituents he subsequently lost, under circumstances still
more honorable to himself than those under which he now
received this token of it. He refused at their dictation to
withdraw his support from the measures by which Wil-
berforce was seeking to mitigate the miseries of the
Africans, who were kidnapped by slave-dealers in their own
country, and sold to the West Indian planters; and, as the
Bristol merchants were largely interested in the West Indian
trade, they disregarded every consideration of justice or
humanity when put in competition with their own profits,
insisted on their representative being equally barbarous and
selfish, and discarded him because he maintained that their
election of him as their representative was never intended
to fetter him in the free exercise of his independent judg-
ment; that a member of the British Parliament was bound
to consult the welfare of the whole empire, not the fancied
prosperity of a single constituency; and that those interests,
properly understood, were inseparable from the still higher
duties which all owed to humanity and religion.
It was, however, to no purpose that he exerted himself,
first to prevent, and subsequently to terminate our quarrel
with the colonies, and to preserve their allegiance to Britain.
The King, whose consciousness of honesty and rectitude of
intention was too often combined with, and was indeed in
some sort the parent of an unyielding obstinacy which he
mistook for firmness, was unalterably resolved to persevere
in upholding the omnipotence of the Imperial Parliament
by the taxation of America; and Lord North, sadly mis-
taking his duty as the King's minister, lent his aid to carry
out a policy of which, if he did not in his heart from the
first disapprove, he at all events soon recognised the im-
practicability. The result was that in the end we lost our
American colonies; and Burke's great exertions, which
were profitless to his country, which disregarded his advice,
were productive of nothing but the small triumph to him-
self of becoming a subordinate member of the ministry
which, on Lord North's resignation, Lord Rockingham once
more formed to terminate the war with America, as his
first administration had for the time averted it. It has
always been regarded as strange, and not altogether credit-
514
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
able to Lord Rockingham that he could find no higher post
than that of Paymaster to the Forces for a statesman who
for fifteen years had been universally acknowledged as the
great ornament and strength of his party. But in the dis-
tribution of offices, a minister is often forced to allow other
considerations besides merit to guide his choice; and the
place allotted to Burke afforded him an opportunity of dis-
playing his disinterestedness and superiority to sordid gain
in a way that could not have been derived from other posts
of greater official importance. In a time of war enormous
balances were constantly in the hands of the Paymaster, the
interest on which had always been considered his legitimate
perquisite. But Burke, the moment that he entered on his
new duties, transferred the whole sum, amounting to nearly
a million of money, to the public account in the Bank of
England, thus voluntarily surrendering profits which had
been enjoyed without blame by nearly all his predecessors,
and which probably exceeded tenfold the salary to which he
was entitled. The ministry was not allowed to complete
the main object of its formation, the peace with America;
since, before the negotiations on that subject could be con-
cluded, Lord Rockingham died. But it laid the foundation
for such a treaty, by a frank acknowledgment of the in-
dependence of the United States; and it carried a measure
to which Burke had devoted his principal attention for
some years, the Bill for Economical Reform; which, though
its framer was forced to confine it within narrower limits
than he had at first proposed to himself, effected an im-
portant annual saving to the country; and is especially
worthy of remark as a proof of the great variety of Burke's
abilities, showing, as it did, that the mind which could em-
brace and lay down the largest and most comprehensive
maxims of general wisdom and policy was equally capable
of grappling with and unravelling the minutest details.
On Lord Rockingham's death, Burke retired from office.
Though the man of by far the most powerful intellect and
most extensive acquirements in the whole party, he had
some years before resigned the lead of it to Charles Fox,
the secona son of the first Lord Holland, who had also,
though younger, displayed great abilities as a speaker,
1728-1797.]
515
BURKE.
had acquired a weight in the House inferior to none
but that of Burke himself, and who must be admitted
to have been in more respects than one (by his greater
knowledge of the world, by his more accommodating
disposition, and by his indescribable charms of manner
and temper) better calculated to act as head of a party
in Parliament. The King selected Lord Shelburne as
Lord Rockingham's successor, and Fox, who had some
reason for distrusting that nobleman, though no pretence
for dictating, as he endeavoured to dictate, to his
sovereign in whom he should confide, at once refused to
serve under Lord Shelburne, and prevailed on Burke to
follow his example, though the principles of Lord
Shelburne's ministry differed in no respect from those
avowed by Lord Rockingham. It was a grave error. It
was a graver fault still when Burke followed the same
leader in his unprincipled coalition with Lord North, and
at the beginning of the next year, 1783, resumed his former
office, again becoming, though even now not admitted into
the Cabinet, one of the most important members of the
Government, since the India Bill, on which it staked its
existence, was chiefly of his framing. As is well known,
the bill proved fatal to its authors; but, though the ob-
jections which were urged against it were undoubtedly
well-founded, it must be admitted that in many respects, in
the comprehensiveness of its details, and the largeness of
the general principles on which it was founded, it was well
worthy of his reputation; while the points objected to, the
vast patronage which it conferred on the Minister, and the
hopes which the exertion of that patronage held out of ren-
dering his hold on office firm and lasting, however calculated
to recommend it to Fox himself, were exactly those which
a mind like that of Burke was likely to have passed over
with indifference.
Out of the India Bill, and the investigations which Burke,
in his preparation of it, was led to make into every part of
our Indian administration, grew one of the transactions
with which the fame of Burke in his later years is most in-
separably connected, the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
His conduct with respect to that great man is a striking
516
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
instance of the weakest point in his character, the com-
parative inability to see two sides of a question. Nor in
assailing the great Governor-General as he did was he
altogether consistent. Some years before, when the enemies
whom Clive had raised up by the vigour of his reforms, had
invoked the vengeance of Parliament on the head of that
illustrious founder of our Indian Empire, Burke had taken
a statesmanlike view of the whole question: without dis-
guising the impropriety of some of Clive's actions he had
weighed against them his far greater services, and had voted
in his favour in the division which stamped his career with
the approbation of his country. The services of Hastings
were not inferior to Clive's; but one or two of his acts,
which could not be denied to have been unjust and op-
pressive, his treatment of the Begums, and the assistance
he had given to the enemies of the Rohillas, had made a
deep impression on Burke's imagination; he was irritated
too at the taunting language used towards himself by a
Major Scott, a very injudicious champion of the Governor-
General; and, under the influence of these feelings, he not
only induced the House of Commons to impeach Hastings,
but he pursued him, the mightiest genius to whom any
European sovereign has ever committed the government
of distant dominions, with a bitterness which had all the
appearance of personal rancour, carrying his hostility so far
that, even when it was notorious that Hastings was almost
beggared by the expense of the trial, he exerted himself to
the utmost to prevent his costs being defrayed by the
Treasury, arguing, with a strange defiance of common
sense (to say nothing of propriety of feeling), that the
nation, by paying them, would be rewarding Hastings for
what, in spite of his acquittal, he persisted in denouncing
as undeniable crimes. That his efforts on the subject were
distinguished by every kind of ability requisite to the very
perfection of oratory, by a thorough knowledge of the sub-
ject, by lucid arrangement of details, by warmth and vigour
of imagination, force and variety of expression, may be
willingly admitted; but such an almost unequalled display
of great gifts can only make us the more regret the field in
which in this instance they were exercised.
1728--1797.]
517
BURKE.
The strange and fearful events which in his later years
stained the annals and changed all the subsequent fortunes
of France, brought Burke more prominently than ever
before the world as an author, and also led to the disruption
of the party of which he had long been the greatest
ornament; though he maintained and indeed proved that he
himself had in no respect changed the principles which he
had avowed on his first entrance into public life, but that
they who broke with him had abandoned them.
The French Revolution was indeed well calculated to
unhinge all but the strongest minds, and to bewilder all but
the most sagacious intellects. Burke for awhile stood
almost alone in discerning its true character, and in 1790
he endeavoured to open the eyes of his countrymen to the
evils which he foresaw, in an elaborate treatise, which he
called 'Reflections on the French Revolution.' No work of
the kind in our language has ever had so prodigious or so
deserved a success. It is indeed rich in all the peculiar
characteristics of his oratory, and, being so, was greeted
with acclamation by the greater part of the educated classes
in every country of Europe; though the prophetic sagacity
which animated its pages could not be fully appreciated till
years had passed by, and till it was seen how completely his
forebodings had been realised. The only unfriendly critics.
were Fox and a small party of his admirers. Fox, on the first
outbreak of the Revolution, had pronounced the most ex-
travagant eulogies on it and its promoters, and now looked
on the 'Reflections' as almost a personal reproof of his un-
reasoning panegyrics. A second pamphlet, under the title
of‘A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly,' added
fuel to his displeasure; and while he persevered in taking
every opportunity to extol the Revolution, his partisans
raised a continual uproar to prevent Burke from replying
to his arguments. Burke's temper, never very patient, was
at last irritated by the manifest unfairness of such treat-
ment into publicly breaking off all connection with them,
declaring that his firm adherence to the principles of the
British constitution 'left him no alternative.' A year or
two afterwards he justified his breach with them in a
pamphlet as masterly as either of the others, 'An Appeal
518
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
from the New to the Old Whigs,' one which has even a
greater permanent value, from the commentary which it
contains on many important passages in our own history.
And in 1794 a clear proof of the extent to which his doc-
trines were accepted by the 'Old Whigs' was afforded by
their junction with the Minister, which was especially in-
tended as a demonstration of their disapproval of the con-
duct of Fox's section of the party, the Duke of Portland
himself, who had been selected by Fox as the head of the
Coalition Ministry, now becoming Secretary of State under
Mr. Pitt.
Burke's own exertions Pitt estimated so highly that, in
the summer of 1794, he proposed to raise him to the
Peerage; but after the offer had been thankfully accepted,
Burke's son, his only child, for whose sake, as he himself
was growing old, he would chiefly have valued it, died of
an unusually rapid consumption; and the father, who had
watched over his education with unceasing and judicious
care, and had formed the highest opinion of his talents, and
the fondest anticipations of his future eminence, retired
broken-hearted to a small estate at Beaconsfield, which he
had purchased a few years before, and declined now to
accept an honour which had lost all value in his eyes, and
which would have entailed a continuance of his exertions
in Parliament, to which he had already ceased to feel equal.
A month before his son's death he had retired from the
House of Commons, in which he had latterly sat as member
for Malton, and Richard Burke, who then seemed in the
enjoyment of perfect health, had been returned in his stead.
A pension he consented to accept; no pension had been
better earned by a long period of most useful public service,
and it was almost needed; for he was still a poor man, and
had at all times been most liberal in aiding merit of
any kind, and latterly in seeking to relieve the French
emigrants, for whom his sympathies were keenly awakened.
He bad aided them too more usefully than with money.
He had established a school for their education in his own
neighbourhood, obtaining for it the sanction of the Govern-
ment, and devoting to it not only comparatively large sums
of money, but a great portion of his time.
1728-1797.]
519
BURKE.
Even in his retirement he did not wholly lay aside his
interest in politics; he looked with as great horror as ever
on the French Revolutionists, and when the Minister first
evinced a willingness to negotiate with them for the cessa-
tion of hostilities, he showed his discontent by a series of
letters whose object is sufficiently demonstrated by their
title, 'Thoughts on a Regicide Peace.' But he scarcely ever
left Beaconsfield; and there, on the 8th of July 1797, he
died.
Parliament was sitting when the intelligence of his death
reached London. To Fox's honour it must be recorded
that the melancholy news at once banished from his heart
all the bitterness that their rupture had formerly excited,
and which the jealous animosity of some of his friends had
kept alive, and reawakened in his heart the memory of
their ancient friendship. He at once proposed that his de-
parted friend should have a public funeral, to be celebrated
with all possible honour, in Westminster Abbey. It would
have been a fitting resting-place for one who had so long
been one of the most brilliant ornaments of the great
council in the adjacent palace; but Burke in his will had
desired to be buried in his own parish church by the side
of his son, and those to whom the arrangements were left
considered such a grave the best suited to the simple dignity
of his life and character.
In some respects Burke is the greatest of all orators: in
amplitude and variety of knowledge; in extraordinary depth
and largeness of view; in the penetrating sagacity with
which he unveils the principles of human actions and the
motives of individuals; and in the force with which, as a
practical statesman, he applies his general principles to the
question before him, it would be difficult to find his equal,
impossible to name one superior to him. In the stating of
a case, in narrative, his clearness is almost equally admi-
rable. As an opponent of the arguments of others he was
deficient in no weapon which makes an attack formidable.
He was a perfect master of irony and sarcasm, withering
in invective, lofty in his expression of disdain, and able
to clothe his arguments at all times in a gorgeousness of
language and style, and to illustrate them by a richness of
620
[CH. XXIX
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
imagery, by a felicity of illustration, comparison, and quo-
tation, which must ever continue to command the admira-
tion of all who study them. But, if we are to judge of his
eloquence by its effect upon its hearers, and, as speeches are
meant to influence the feelings and judgments of men at
the moment of their delivery, that is undoubtedly the truest
test, we must admit him to have been inferior to Pitt and
Grattan, if not also to Fox and Canning. He was often too
philosophical for a mixed audience: he appealed too much
to general principles which were beyond the appreciation
of the majority. He dilated on them with a refinement too
subtle for ordinary comprehension: Goldsmith's friendly
mirthful description of him in 'Retaliation' is, like most of
the portraits in that amusing poem, touched with shrewd
discrimination :
Too wise for his hearers, he went on refining,
And thought of convincing when they thought of dining.
And thus it happened that in Parliament he had notori-
ously less weight than he deserved, or than was possessed
by far inferior men. But his defects were those of taste
and judgment, not of genius, and should not in the least
diminish the earnestness with which the study of his
speeches should be recommended as containing the richest
specimens of almost every kind of excellence which prosc
composition is capable of exhibiting.
The speech from which the following passage is an ex-
tract is, as a whole, full of almost all those qualities which
I have enumerated as most characteristic of his oratory.
His description of Lord Chatham's Cabinet has been
quoted over and over again, as a combination of truth and
sarcasm which convulsed the whole House with laughter.
His deduction from our past history of the principles which
should guide the Government in the existing emergency,
and which should at all times guide all Ministers who desire
a permanent fame rather than a present popularity, is an
example of statesmanlike wisdom enforced with equal
power and felicity. The date of that speech, 1774, shows
that it was delivered immediately after the receipt of the
intelligence of the first tumults in America which broke
out on the arrival of the tea-ships.
1728-1797.]
521
BURKE.
(Speech on American Taxation.)
Let us, sir, embrace some system or other before we end this
session. Do you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive
revenue from thence? If you do, speak out: name, fix, ascertain
this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for
its collection; and then fight when you have something to fight
for. If you murder, rob; if you kill, take possession; and do not
appear in the character of madmen as well as assassins-violent,
vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may
better counsels guide you!
Again, and again, revert to your old principles-seek peace and
ensue it—leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax
herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor
attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these
metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave
the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born
of our unhappy contest, will die along with it. They and we, and
their and our ancestors, have been happy under that system. Let
the memory of all actions in contradiction to that good old mode,
on both sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind
America by laws of trade; you have always done it. Let this be
your reason for binding their trade. Do not burthen them by
taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this
be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states
and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they
may be discussed with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely,
fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very source of government,
by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you
govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme
sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that
sovereignty itself in question. When you drive him hard, the
boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and
their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They
will cast your sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be argued
into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth
all their ability; let the best of them get up, and tell me what
one character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand
of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their property
and industry by all the restraints you can imagine on commerce,
and at the same time are made pack-horses of every tax you choose
to impose, without the least share in granting them. When they
bear the burthens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to
bear the burthens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in
America will feel that this is slavery-that it is legal slavery will
be no compensation, either to his feelings or his understanding.
522
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His eloquence produced no impression on the Govern-
ment. The discontent of the Americans increased; and
everyone of the slightest sagacity foresaw that civil war
was imminent, unless it were avoided by timely concession.
And under this conviction, at the beginning of the next
year, Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, brought in what
he termed a Conciliatory Bill, which however was rejected;
and a month afterwards, in March 1775, Burke proposed a
series of resolutions, on which, if carried, he designed to
found an enactment of the same character. His resolutions
also were rejected by an immense majority; but no majority
could invalidate the soundness of his arguments.
(On Conciliation with America.)
As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea
by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your
bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they
seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit by which
that enterprising employment has been exercised ought rather, in
my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And
pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other
parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New
England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we
follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold
them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's
Bay and Davis' Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath
the Arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite
region of polar cold, that they are at the Antipodes, and engaged
under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which
seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national
ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their
victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more dis-
couraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles.
We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the
harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and
pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but
what is vexed by their fisheries; no climate that is not witness to
their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity
of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enter-
prise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the
extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people
who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened
into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things;
1728-1797.]
523
BURKE.
·
when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to
any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy
form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government,
but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature
has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I
reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have
been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption
in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within
me. My rigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of
liberty.
He has been arguing the case hitherto with reference
to the advantages which Britain had derived from the colo-
nies: advantages not altogether an inadequate return for
those which she had conferred on them. He proceeds to
show what motives are likely to have the greatest influence
on the Americans themselves.
I do not know that the colonies have, in any general way, or in
any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of immunity in
relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of the temper or disposi-
tions of any man, or any set of men, when they are composed and
at rest, from their conduct or their expressions in a state of dis-
turbance and irritation. It is besides a very great mistake to
imagine that mankind follow up practically any speculative prin-
ciple, either of government or of freedom, as far as it will go in
argument and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very short of
the principles upon which we support any given part of our con-
stitution, or even the whole of it together. I could easily, if I
had not already tired you, give you very striking and convincing
instances of it. This is nothing but what is natural and proper.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every
virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and
barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit
some rights that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to
be happy citizens than subtle disputants. As we must give away
some natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages, so we must sacrifice
some civil liberties for the advantages to be derived from the com-
munion and fellowship of a great empire. But in all fair dealings
the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid.
None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though
a great house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a
part of the artificial importance of a great empire too dear, to pay
for it all essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity of human
524
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
nature. None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall
under a government purely arbitrary. But although there are
some amongst us who think our constitution wants many im-
provements to make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none
who are of that opinion would think it right to aim at such im-
provement by disturbing his country, and risking everything that
is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise we consider what we
are to lose, as well as what we are to gain; and the more and
better stake of liberty every people possess, the less they will
hazard in a vain attempt to make it more. These are the cords of
man. Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interests;
and not on metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great master
of reasoning, cautions us, and with great weight and propriety,
against this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral argu-
ments as the most fallacious of all sophistry.
But the most valuable and impressive part of the speech
is that in which, from a consideration of the general prin-
ciples of the British constitution, and the innate unchange-
able spirit of the British race, he lays down the recipro-
cal duties of the governing mother-country to the governed
colony.
For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or
empire, my trust is in her interest in the British constitution. My
hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from
common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and
equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are
as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea
of their civil rights associated with your government, they will
cling and grapple to you; and no force under heaven will be of
power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once
understood that your government may be one thing, and their
privileges another; that these two things may exist without any
mutual relation; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened;
and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you
have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country
as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our
common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England
worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The
more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more
ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience.
Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in
every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from
Prussia. But until you become lost to all feeling of your true
1728-1797.]
525
BURKE.
interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from
none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you
have the monopoly. This is the true act of navigation which
binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and through them
secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this parti-
cipation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally
made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not
entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your
bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your
clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce.
Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and
your suspending clauses are the things that hold together the
great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not
make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they
are, it is the spirit of the English constitution, which, infused
through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates,
vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest
member.
Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in
England. Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act
which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Com-
mittee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the
Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No!
surely, no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to
their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in
such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your
navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which
your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but
rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical
to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians
who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that
nothing exists but what is gross and material; and who, therefore,
far from being qualified to be directors of the great movements of
empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men
truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master prin-
ciples, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned,
have no substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in
all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom;
and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are
conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as
becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to anticipate all our
public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church,
'Sursum corda!' We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness
of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By
526
[CH. XXIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have
turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made
the most extensive and the only honourable conquests; not by
destroying, but by promoting, the wealth, the number, the happi-
ness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we
have got an American empire. English privileges have made it
all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.
Surely
Si Pergama dextrâ
Defendi possent, etiam hâc defensa fuissent.¹
If the highest efforts of wisdom and genius combined
could have saved a country from disaster, speeches like
these might have been expected to lead those who heard
them to insist on arresting the Ministers in their fatal
policy. But no arguments could move Lord North or the
phalanx which blindly followed his dictation. The colonies
were lost, and Burke had no satisfaction but the conscious-
ness of having in vain striven to avert the calamity.
It has been mentioned that Mr. Burke was first invited
to become the representative of Bristol, and that after
some years he was discarded for refusing to surrender his
own judgment to that of his constituents. And this, his
speech to the electors after his first return, seems almost as if
it were dictated by an anticipation of the subsequent rupture.
Laying down, as it does, the true constitutional principle
of the relation between a constituency and its representa-
tive, it is especially worthy of attention at the present day,
when there is such a disposition in many quarters to
take that view of it which would convert a representative
into a delegate, and against which Burke here so strongly
protests.
(On being Elected for Bristol.)
Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of
a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest cor-
respondence, and the most unreserved communication with his
constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him,
their opinion high respect, their business unremitted attention. It
is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions,
1 'If by a mortal hand my father's throne
Could be defended, 'twas by mine alone.'
Æn. ii. 387. DRYDEN'S translation.
1728-1797.]
527
BURKE.
to theirs; and, above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their in-
terests to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judg-
ment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you,
to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive
from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution.
They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is
deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his in-
dustry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving
you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to
yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were
a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought
to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of
reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of
reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion ;
in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and
where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred
miles distant from those who hear the arguments.
To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of consti-
tuents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative
ought always to rejcice to hear; and which he ought always most
seriously to consider. But, authoritative instructions, mandates
issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to
obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest
conviction of his judgment and conscience, these are things
utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from
a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenour of our
constitution.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and
hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent
and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament
is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of
the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought
to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason
of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have
chosen him he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of
parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or
should form a hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of
the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be
as far as any other from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg
pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been un-
willingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness
of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted
servant, I shall be to the end of my life. A flatterer you do not
wish for.
528
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXX.
WILLIAM PITT.
A.D. 1759-1806.
We have seen that Burke added to his oratorical renown
the fame of a great writer: he of whom I propose to speak
in the present chapter was not only pre-eminent as a
speaker, but had other qualities of a character at once
more brilliant and more solid, and likewise of greater
practical advantage to his country and to mankind, in such
high perfection that the fame of his eloquence, high as it
deservedly stands, is yet in some degree cast into the shade by
the still grander qualities which he displayed as a Minister:
by his genius for organisation, administration, and diplo-
macy; by his skill as a political economist; by his fertility
of resource, his firmness amid difficulties and reverses, his
large-minded liberality of view, and his clear perception
of and resolute adherence, in public policy as well as in
private life, to the maxims of humanity and religion as the
leading principles of his statesmanship. His life is so
identified with the history of his country that I shall not
think it necessary to dwell on it with as much minuteness
here as otherwise the dignity of his character and the im-
portance of his career would seem to demand.
William Pitt, the second statesman who bore that name,
was the second son of the first, who, by his eloquence and
a certain force of character, which, in spite of great draw-
backs, conducted most of his undertakings to success,
raised himself from the rank of a 'cornet of horse' to the
grand position of the chief Minister of the Crown, and to an
earldom. He was born on the 28th of May, 1759, at Hayes
in Kent, but he was a child of health so delicate that for
some years his parents were far from sanguine about the pro-
1759-1806.]
529
WILLIAM PITT.
spect of rearing him; and that they could not venture to send
him to Eton, where his father had been educated; but kept
him at home with a private tutor. According to the accounts
which have come down to us, and which in his case are
probably more to be believed than stories of precocity
usually are, he was from very early boyhood remarkable
for an extraordinary quickness and clearness of apprehen-
sion. But the first proof which he exhibited of his talents
was one which, except in a single point, gave no indication
of the field which he was hereafter to select for their exer-
cise. By the time he was thirteen he had written a five-
act tragedy in blank verse; which he, with his brothers
and sisters, acted, to enliven some family festivities. It was
a singular composition for a youth who, as a man, was cer-
tainly far enough from showing any poetical leanings; but
in one point, as I have intimated, it was characteristic of
his future career. As Lord Macaulay, who was allowed to
read it, describes it, 'there was no love: the whole plot
was political,' it even foreshadowed a very remarkable
passage of his administration, since the interest, such as
it is, turns on a contest about a regency; in which on one
side was a faithful servant of the Crown, on the other an
ambitious and unprincipled conspirator.' It is certainly a
curious instance of unintentional prophecy to have been
penned when Fox's voice had scarcely been heard within
the walls of Parliament, and the author was hardly out of
the nursery.
It was not in those days altogether unusual for boys to
go to the University at a very early age; and Pitt was
only fourteen when he was sent to Cambridge as an under-
graduate of Pembroke College, where he continued to reside
even after he had taken his degree; chiefly with the object
of attending the University lectures on civil law, since
his father destined him for the bar; and, as the death
of Lord Chatham, which took place in May 1778, made no
difference in his plans, in the autumn of that year, though
not yet twenty years of age, he entered himself at Lincoln's
Inn, varying his legal studies with a frequent attendance
in either House of Parliament on the occasion of any im-
portant debate, in which, in one instance at least (but the
530
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
act recorded is too much in keeping with his subsequent
career for us to doubt that the practice was habitual with
him), he amused his companion, Fox (who, being several
years older, looked on him as little more than a clever boy)
by remarking, as the discussion proceeded, how each speech
might be answered, and how the different speakers laid
themselves open to refutation or retort.
He was called to the bar in June 1780, when he was
only a few weeks more than twenty-one, and went the
Western Circuit at the summer assizes; but the winter of
the same year opened to him another path, his instant
success in which speedily diverted his attention from the
dry study of the law. When in September the Parliament
was dissolved, he, relying probably on his father's repu-
tation, ventured to offer himself as a candidate to represent
the University, and, being defeated there, was elected,
through the influence of Sir James Lowther, for Appleby,
the county town of Westmoreland, and on the 23rd of
Januarý 1781, a day remarkable as that on which twenty-
five years afterwards he died, he took his seat in the House
of Commons. He at once attached himself to what may
be called Lord Shelburne's section of the Opposition (the
date shows that it was the last year of Lord North's minis-
try and of the American war), and in little more than
a month made his maiden speech in support of Burke's
Bill for Economical Reform, which, as it was entirely
unpremeditated, being in fact a reply to the preceding
speech, was recognised on all sides as one of almost unex-
ampled promise, being eulogised as warmly by Lord North,
to whose views it was opposed, as by Burke himself and
Fox, who agreed with its sentiments; though if, as his
biographer, Lord Stanhope, assures us, some of its admirers
declared that the great Lord Chatham was now happily
restored to his country,' a more infelicitous or inappropriate
compliment could not well be imagined, since no two
orators ever differed more widely in their habits of thought
and style of expression than Lord Chatham and his son.
He became a frequent speaker, his subsequent efforts.
keeping up and increasing the impression which his first
had made; so that, on Lord North's resignation in the
1759-1806.]
531
WILLIAM PITT.
spring of 1782, the new Minister, Lord Rockingham, though
scarcely acquainted with him personally, offered him the
vice-treasurership of Ireland, a post of great emolument,
and one which had been formerly held by his father. But,
with what in so very young a man one can hardly avoid
calling presumption, he had already made a public declara-
tion in the House that he would never accept a subordinate
office; and, in accordance with this avowal, he at once
refused Lord Rockingham's offer. Perhaps his refusal was
favorable to his subsequent rise. For the King had parted
with Lord North so unwillingly that he was not inclined
to look with much favour on those who succeeded him. The
wags called the new Ministry 'the Regency, as governing
instead of the King.'1 And when, on the death of Lord
Rockingham three months afterwards, Pitt was appointed
to an office of the first importance, it was under circum-
stances which gave his acceptance in some degree the
appearance of coming to the support of the King against
an unreasonable attempt to dictate to him the mode of
exercising his unquestionable prerogative.
The session of Parliament, however, did not pass without
a very striking proof being given of the high estimation in
which his oratorical powers were already held, by his being
selected as their mouthpiece by a society which had been
formed for the purpose of promoting a reform of Parlia-
ment, and of which one of the Cabinet, the Duke of Rich-
mond, was a member. It was a subject on which Pitt
himself held a strong opinion; which when he was himself
at the head of affairs he more than once brought forward;
and which he never abandoned till the revolutionary spirit,
engendered by the fatal example of France, had infected so
many minds in this country that he judged that all measures
involving change in either the principles or the working of
our own constitution must be laid aside till the agitation
had subsided and the feelings of men had sobered down.
As yet, however, public opinion was not ripe for such a
measure; and, though the motion which he made was only
for a select committee to enquire into the state of the
Walpole. Letter dated April 22, 1782.
24
532
[CH. XXX,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
representation, he was defeated, as he was in all his sub-
sequent efforts made with the same object.
On the death of Lord Rockingham, Lord Shelburne, who
had been Secretary of State in his Cabinet, became First Lord
of the Treasury; and Fox, Lord John Cavendish, who had
been Chancellor of the Exchequer, with one or two others,
Burke and Sheridan being among them, most unreasonably
resigned their offices: most unreasonably and most impro-
perly, because they could not pretend that Lord Shelburne's
general policy or immediate objects differed in any point
whatever from those of Lord Rockingham's; but Fox and
Lord John took upon themselves, unasked, to recommend the
Duke of Portland to the King as Prime Minister; and as
the King, who had already appointed Lord Shelburne, and
who knew him to be incomparably the abler man, naturally
refused to submit to such arrogant and unprecedented dic-
tation, they and their followers at once threw up their
offices. Lord John's was offered to and accepted by Pitt,
who had scarcely time to display his great financial
abilities, but abundant opportunities for the exhibition of
his powers of argument and oratory; for it was on him that
the chief labour of defending the policy of the Government
in the House of Commons principally fell. That it should
have been necessary to defend it arose from one of the most
discreditable transactions in our parliamentary history.
Lord Rockingham, whose colleague Fox had been, had
taken office expressly to terminate the war with America.
Lord Shelburne had concluded the treaty on the very same
terms to which Lord Rockingham and Fox, as Secretary of
State, had been prepared to agree. But Fox was now
exasperated at the disappointment of his plans of the pre-
ceding year; and though, for several years, he had de-
nounced every part of Lord North's conduct towards
America with the greatest vehemence and bitterness, he
now combined with that statesman to drive Lord Shelburne
from office, and to force themselves on the King as the
chief members of the only Administration possible. In a
succession of motions they denounced every part of the
recent treaty, outvoted the Minister, by a small majority,
in two divisions, and Lord Shelburne at once resigned, as
1759 - 1806.]
533
WILLIAM PITT.
he was bound to do. But George III., at once shocked at
the profligacy of the coalition by which his Minister had
been defeated, and indignant at the resolution to force him-
self to a choice of which, on solid grounds, he disapproved,
endeavoured to baulk the anticipations of profit from their
victory with which Fox and North had flattered them-
selves, and, with the full concurrence of Lord Shelburne
himself, offered his office to the young Chancellor of the
Exchequer. It was wholly without precedent that so
momentous a charge should be tendered to a young man of
three-and-twenty. It was at least equally marvellous that
one so young should be able so to subordinate his ambition
to his sober-minded judgment as to refuse so great an
honour. But he did refuse it, in spite of the strongest
temptations to an opposite decision. On one side was the
King, pressing the post on him with undisguised eager-
ness, and his own sincere feeling of loyalty to his royal
master, whom, if he should decline, he was delivering over
bound hand and foot, as it were, to the chiefs of an angry
and insolent faction; there were on the same side the
ardent persuasions of his late chief, Lord Shelburne him-
self, and of his ablest and most influential followers; there
was also, there must have been, the secret promptings of
his ever-honorable ambition, and of honorable ambition
to serve his country no man ever felt more.
But against
all these inducements, strong as they were, he balanced, as
coolly and impartially as if he himself had had no personal con-
cern or interest in the matter, the amount of opposition which
he should have to encounter, the probability of his being able
to overcome it, the consequences of his defeat to himself
and his party, and still more to the King; and, in spite of
the most urgent remonstrances of his friends, he finally
resolved to decline the tempting offer. That his refusal
would compel the King to place the arrangements for the
new Administration in the hands of the chiefs of the
Coalition, he of course foresaw. But, though he regretted
such a result, the more prolonged was his deliberation the
more clear was his preception that, for the time, it could
not be averted; and, though ncarly a month elapsed before
the King could be brought to accept and act upon his
534
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
decision, making many attempts to change it in the interval,
he adhered to it with a steadfastness due to and consistent
with the care with which he had formed it; and at last, in
the first week of April, Lord North and Fox became the new
Secretaries of State, the Duke of Portland, whom Fox had
desired to force on the King in the preceding July, becoming
the nominal Prime Minister. They would gladly have per
suaded Pitt to retain his post of Chancellor of the Exche-
quer; but he disapproved entirely of every principle of the
Coalition: he saw so plainly the shipwreck Fox was making
of his own character by thus ignoring, and as it were
revoking, all his former denunciations of Lord North's
political principles and conduct, for the sake of office (for
Lord North was clearly not so much to be blamed for ac-
cepting such a recantation on the part of his old enemy),
that he wisely declined involving himself in so discreditable
a connection, and persisted in his resignation of office.
The remainder of the session was comparatively unevent-
ful, though not devoid of indications that the new allies and
colleagues, Fox and North, would not long continue to act
in harmony. But the next session, which opened in the
second week of November, decided the fate of the Ministry
with unexpected rapidity. They had employed the recess
in forming a new constitution for our Indian Empire,
which, in some of its clauses, seemed calculated rather to
secure the permanence of the Administration, from the vast
amount of patronage which it would place at the disposal
of the existing ministers, than to consult the honour of the
King or the advantage of the nation. George III. viewed
it in this light, and his warmest admirers cannot honestly
justify the means he took to defeat the scheme. Twenty
years before he had been accused of countenancing the party
who gave themselves the title of the King's friends, in op-
posing his ministers, whom, while they remained such, he was
in honour bound to support; and on this occasion he noto-
riously authorised a relation of Pitt's, Earl Temple, to
organise an underhand opposition in the House of Lords to
his ministers' India Bill. Such an act was a clear violation
of the relations which are supposed to exist, and which
ought to exist, between the king and his cabinet; and even
1759-1806.]
535
WILLIAM PITT.
success cannot excuse such a manœuvre. If it could it
would be fully excused, for it succeeded beyond his warmest
expectation. The bill was thrown out in the House of
Lords: the King, without waiting for the resignation of the
ministers, at once dismissed them, and renewed his offer of
the Treasury to Pitt, who now without hesitation accepted it,
and held it without interruption for nearly eighteen years.
From this time forth his personal history is identified with
the history of the nation. It would be gratifying to dwell
on the triumphant display of genius and moral courage
with which for the next three months he maintained the
contest against the most formidable and most unscrupulous
band of antagonists that ever assailed a minister; and,
after he was fully established in authority, on his sagacious
and liberal policy, far in advance of his age, alike in the
emancipation of commerce from restrictions, and in the re-
pudiation of national animosities, which his rival Fox seemed
rather inclined to cherish and revive when he opposed the
commercial treaty with France, on the ground that that
country was the natural foe of Great Britain, and by
entering into such a treaty with us only wished to tie our
hands, and prevent us from engaging in any alliance with
other Powers.' 1 But we have no time for even the most
cursory examination of his long and beneficent administra-
tion. Still in this place I may properly make one excep-
tion in favour of his Irish policy, and remind you of the
efforts which in 1785 he made to set the trade of Ireland as
free as that of England: efforts in which he was greatly
impeded by the opposition of Fox, who was wont to avow,
I had almost said to boast, of his ignorance of political
economy; and in which he was eventually baffled by the
wrongheadedness of the Irish House of Commons, and the
influence of Fox's Irish partisans, who refused to co-operate
with him to the extent on which he had a right to cal-
culate. His object was, as he explained to the English
Parliament, to adopt that system of trade with Ireland
which would tend to enrich one part of the empire with-
out impoverishing the other, while it would give strength
6
Life of Pitt, i. 324.
536
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
to both.' And one would have supposed that such a design
would have been even more acceptable to Irish than to
English politicians, since undoubtedly Ireland stood in
greater need than England of an expansion and augmen-
tation of her resources; but the opposition of Grattan,
who never showed himself to so little advantage, compelled
him eventually to withdraw the bill by which he had hoped
to effect his reforms: though they cannot deprive him of
the praise which even Lord Macaulay is forced to admit to
belong to him of being the first English Minister who
formed great designs for the benefit of Ireland.' ¹
Indeed, it was to his success in carrying the Union with
Ireland, the greatest measure of domestic administration
ever accomplished by any statesman, and to his desire to
complete it by placing all classes in both parts of the now
United Kingdom on a footing of perfect equality, that ho
owed his temporary deprivation of office in 1801: an
interruption of his official power which, taken in connec-
tion with the cause that led to it, is more creditable to his
wisdom and integrity than the uninterrupted possession of
it possibly could have been. It was not long before he was
recalled to his post, by the unanimous feeling of the nation
that he alone was capable of filling it; and in it he died, at
the beginning of 1806, his constitution, which, as I men-
tioned before, had never been strong, being wholly worn
out by the incessant fatigues of public life.
As I have said, I will not enter here into a discussion of
his ministerial career further than to take notice of the
criticism which Lord Macaulay passes on his talents as ar
administrator of war, when compared with those displayed
by his father. It is true that the ally with whom Lord
Chatham co-operated in the Seven Years' War did eventually
triumph over the formidable confederacy which had com-
bined to crush him; that our descents on the coast of
France in the same war were almost uniformly successful;
and that we conquered Canada.
the British army at Hastenbech
greatly to Frederick's success.
siasm which was created by
But it cannot be said that
or at Minden contributed
Even amid the very enthu-
his achievements, it was
Life of Pitt, ii. 276.
1759--1806.]
537
WILLIAM PITT.
questioned whether the petty warfare which kept the French
in a state of alarm along the whole extent of their northern
coasts was worthy of a great nation, or whether the damage
which we inflicted was at all adequate to the vast expen-
diture which such enterprises involved, so that the elder Fox
called it making windows with guineas; while the victory
of Quebec and the acquisition of Canada were certainly
owing more to the over-confidence of the French com-
mander than to the skill of our own general, or the judgment
of the Minister at home who employed him. On the other
hand, it is a strange misrepresentation of facts to describe
the warlike operations of England during Pitt's period of
rule as uniformly and deservedly unsuccessful. It is
true that the first campaigns against France in the Nether-
lands failed, partly indeed in consequence of the inexperience.
of the Duke of York (but the appointment of the commander
did not rest with the department of the Prime Minister),
and still more from the gross incompetency of Prince
Coburg, the general of our ally. The difference between
him and Frederick the Great is more than sufficient to
account for the difference between the success of the side
which we espoused in the Seven Years' War, and that
which our efforts met with at the end of the century.
Again, though it is equally true that the confederacy on
which Pitt relied so confidently in 1805, was dissipated at
Austerlitz, still the diplomatic skill which united Prussia
and Austria against France was all his own; and he was
in no degree responsible for the blunders of the Austrian
Ministry and the Aulic Council, or the vacillation and
treachery of Prussia, which ruined the alliance that he had
formed with such care, and to which Napoleon's marvellous
triumphs in that brief campaign are chiefly to be attributed.
It may be added that on the sea, where alone England was
unencumbered with allies, her triumphs were even more
brilliant and decisive than those which Napoleon achieved
on land.
As an orator, he, like Burke, is placed by all in the very
first rank; but, while no two speakers could be more different
in their style, the differences, as far as their influence on
their hearers (the truest test of eloquence) was concerned,
was decidedly in favour of Pitt. He had not indeed so
538
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
much oratorical genius, but he had far more judgment, and
a far keener and more correct appreciation of the temper of
the House. He had not the gorgeous fancy of Burke; he
did not, perhaps he could not, indulge in such picturesque
richness of imagery, simile, and metaphor: but he excelled
him and all men in the closeness with which he kept him-
self and his audience to the contemplation of the subject.
before them; in the irresistible force of his logic; in the
keenness of his sarcastic irony, and (a still more important
point) in the lucid arrangement of details, even of the most
complicated questions. If he did not indulge the same
philosophical spirit in the laying down of large general
principles, in which Burke excels all other speakers ancient
or modern, that difference was no doubt caused in a great
degree by the difference in their position. Nearly all
Burke's greatest speeches were delivered by him as a mem-
ber of the Opposition, criticising the measures of others;
and, as those who wish to prove a negative must do, natu-
rally therefore going over wider ground than the proposers
or advocates of such measures; searching all the world, as
it were, for arguments on which to found his objections.
Pitt spoke almost always as the first Minister of the Crown,
whose business in advocating his measures was to keep his
hearers as closely as possible to the subject in hand, to
prevent their attention from being diverted from it; and
therefore he naturally dwelt, as a rule, more on the details of
the one question before him than on general maxims of
wisdom or policy or right, any mention of which might
easily be used by a skilful antagonist to weaken his case by
distracting the attention or intelligence of those by whose
votes it was to be decided. Burke often spoke with
vehemence, as a leader of Opposition was often called upon
to speak; sometimes even with passion, as a leader of
Opposition might, at times, be excused for speaking. Pitt, as
first Minister of the Crown, would have had no excuse for
yielding, I will not say he had never any temptation to yield,
to transient impulses. He spoke necessarily with authority,
as the ruler of the country. He spoke with uniform self-
possession and dignity, which showed his consciousness of
the duty to respect both his audience and himself which
1759-1806.]
539
WILLIAM PITT.
that lofty position imposed upon him. We estimate him at
some disadvantage since, by some accident, the speech which,
both in his own opinion and in that of his antagonists, was
the finest, the most spirit-stirring which he ever delivered,
that on the renewal of the war in 1803, the speech of
which Fox, in his reply, said 'the great orators of antiquity
would have admired, probably would have envied it,' has
been lost. But enough remains to prove how amply deserved
were the very highest eulogies that have been passed upon his
eloquence; while the very difference between his efforts
and those of Burke, coupled with the admiration which then
was and still is bestowed upon both, may serve to show that
the British Parliament, in this respect as in others a true
representative of the British nation, is insensible to no kind
of talent, so long as it believes it to be inspired by patriotism
and integrity.
The following passage closes one of his finest speeches,
that on the Slave Trade. The argument drawn from the
former condition of our own ancestors is not more irresis-
tible than the language in which it is clothed is felicitous,
rising into something of poetical richness as the speaker
ventures to predict the blessings which he anticipates
for the Africans when the abolition of the detestable Slave
Trade shall have enabled Europeans to attempt their civilisa-
tion, and shall have given the natives confidence in the
benevolence and purity of their motives.
I will not much longer fatigue the attention of the House; but
this point has impressed itself so deeply on my mind, that I must
trouble the committee with a few additional observations. Are
we justified, I ask, on any one ground of theory, or by any one
instance to be found in the history of the world, from its very
beginning to this day, in forming the supposition which I am now
combating? Are we justified in supposing that the particular
practice which we encourage in Africa, of men's selling each other
for slaves, is any symptom of a barbarism that is incurable? Are
we justified in supposing that even the practice of offering up
human sacrifices proves a total incapacity for civilisation? I
believe it will be found, and perhaps much more generally than
is supposed, that both the trade in slaves, and the still more
savage custom of offering human sacrifices, obtained in former
periods throughout many of those nations which now, by the
540
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
blessing of Providence, and by a long progression of improvement,
are advanced the farthest in civilisation. I believe, sir, that, if
we will reflect an instant, we shall find that this observation comes
directly home to our own selves; and that, on the same ground
on which we are now disposed to proscribe Africa for ever from
ali possibility of improvement, we ourselves might, in like manner,
have been proscribed and for ever shut out from all the blessings
which we now enjoy.
There was a time, sir, which it may be fit sometimes to re-
vive in the remembrance of our countrymen, when even human
sacrifices are said to have been offered in this island. But I would
peculiarly observe on this day, for it is a case precisely in point,
that the very practice of the slave trade once prevailed among us.
Slaves, as we may read in Henry's 'History of Great Britain,' were
formerly an established article of our exports. 'Great numbers,'
he says, 'were exported, like cattle, from the British coast, and
were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman market.' It does
not distinctly appear by what means they were procured; but
there was unquestionably no small resemblance, in this particular
point, between the case of our ancestors and that of the present
wretched natives of Africa,-for the historian tells you that
'adultery, witchcraft, and debt were probably some of the chief
sources of supplying the Roman market with British slaves-that
prisoners taken in war were added to the number-and that there
might be among them some unfortunate gamesters, who, after
having lost all their goods, at length staked themselves, their
wives, and children.' Every one of these sources of slavery has
been stated, and almost precisely in the same terms, to be at this
hour a source of slavery in Africa. And these circumstances, sir,
with a solitary instance or two of human sacrifices, furnish the
alleged proofs that Africa labours under a natural incapacity for
civilisation; that it is enthusiasm and fanaticism to think that
she can ever enjoy the knowledge and the morals of Europe; that
Providence never intended her to rise above a state of barbarism ;
that Providence has irrevocably doomed her to be only a nursery
for slaves for us free and civilised Europeans. Allow of this prin-
ciple, as applied to Africa, and I should be glad to know why it
might not also have been applied to ancient and uncivilised
Britain. Why might not some Roman senator, reasoning on the
principles of some honorable gentlemen, and pointing to British
barbarians, have predicted with equal boldness, 'There is a people
that will never rise to civilisation; there is a people destined
never to be free-a people without the understanding necessary
for the attainment of useful arts-depressed by the hand of naturo
1759-1806.]
541
WILLIAM PITT.
below the level of the human species; and created to form a
supply of slaves for the rest of the world.' Might not this have
been said, according to the principles which we now hear stated,
in all respects as fairly and as truly of Britain herself, at that
period of her history, as it can now be said by us of the inhabi-
tants of Africa?
·
We, sir; have long since emerged from barbarism-we have
almost forgotten that we were once barbarians-we are now
raised to a situation which exhibits a striking contrast to every
circumstance by which a Roman might have characterised us, and
by which we now characterise Africa. There is indeed one thing
wanting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from
the imputation of acting even to this hour as barbarians, for we
continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves; we continue it
even yet in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions to
civilisation. We were once as obscure among the nations of the
earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as
degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy Africans are at
present. But, in the lapse of a long series of years, by a pro-
gression slow, and, for a time, almost imperceptible, we have
become rich in a variety of acquirements, favoured above measure
in the gifts of Providence, unrivalled in commerce, pre-eminent
in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and
established in all the blessings of civil liberty; we are under the
guidance of a mild and beneficent religion; and we are protected
by impartial laws, and the purest administration of justice: we
are living under a system of government which our own happy
experience leads us to pronounce the best and wisest which has
ever yet been framed, a system which has become the admiration
of the world. From all these blessings we must for ever have
been shut out, had there been any truth in those principles which
some gentlemen have not hesitated to lay down as applicable to
the case of Africa. Had those principles been true, we ourselves
had languished to this hour in that miserable state of ignorance,
brutality, and degradation in which history proves our ancestors
to have been immersed. Had other nations adopted these prin-
ciples in their conduct towards us; had other nations applied to
Great Britain the reasoning which some of the senators of this
very island now apply to Africa, ages might have passed without
our emerging from barbarism; and we, who are enjoying the
blessings of British civilisation, of British laws, and British liberty,
might, at this hour, have been little superior, either in morals, in
knowledge, or refinement, to the rude inhabitants of the Coast of
Guinea.
54.2
[CH. XXX
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
If, then, we feel that this perpetual confinement in the fetters
of brutal ignorance would have been the greatest calamity which
could have befallen us; if we view with gratitude and exultation
the contrast between the peculiar blessings we enjoy and the
wretchedness of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; if we shudder
to think of the misery which would still have overwhelmed us
had Great Britain continued to the present times to be the mart
for slaves to the more civilised nations of the world, through some
cruel policy of theirs, God forbid that we should any longer sub-
ject Africa to the same dreadful scourge, and preclude the light of
knowledge, which has reached every other quarter of the globe,
from having access to her coasts!
I trust we shall no longer continue this commerce, to the de-
struction of every improvement on that wide continent; and shall
not consider ourselves as conferring too great a boon in restoring
its inhabitants to the rank of human beings. I trust we shall not
think ourselves too liberal, if, by abolishing the slave trade, we give
them the same common chance of civilisation with other parts of
the world, and that we shall now allow to Africa the opportunity
-the hope-the prospect of attaining to the same blessings which
we ourselves, through the favourable dispensations of Divine Pro-
vidence, have been permitted, at a much more early period, to
enjoy. If we listen to the voice of reason and duty, and pursue
this night the line of conduct which they prescribe, some of us
may live to see a reverse of that picture, from which we now turn
our eyes with shame and regret. We may live to behold the
natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, in
the pursuits of a just and legitimate commerce. We may behold
the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land,
which, at some happy period in still later times, may blaze with
full lustre; and, joining their influence to that of pure religion,
may illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that
immense continent. Then may we hope that even Africa, though
last of all the quarters of the globe, shall enjoy at length, in the
evening of her days, those blessings which have descended so
plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world. Then
also will Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity,
receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness
it can be called), of no longer hindering that continent from ex-
tricating herself out of the darkness which, in other more fortunate
regions, has been so much more speedily dispelled.
Nosque ubi primus equis orions afflavit anhelis;
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.
1759-1806.]
543
WILLIAM PITT.
Then, sir, may be applied to Africa those words, originally used
indeed with a different view:
His demum exactis,
*
* *
Devenere locos lætos, et amoena vireta
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas :
Largior hic campos æther, et lumini vestit
Purpureo.
It is in this view, sir; it is as an atonement for our long and
cruel injustice towards Africa, that the measure proposed by my
honourable friend most forcibly recommends itself to my mind.
The great and happy change to be expected in the state of her
inhabitants is, of all the various and important benefits of the
abolition, in my estimation, incomparably the most extensive and
important.
The second extract is from his speech on the Union :
Sir, the next and not the least prevalent objection, is one which
is contained in words which are an appeal to a natural and laud-
able, but what I must call an erroneous and mistaken sense of
national pride. It is an appeal to the generous and noble passions
of a nation easily inflamed under any supposed attack upon its
honour, I mean the attempt to represent the question of an union
by compact between the parliaments of the two kingdoms as a
question involving the independence of Ireland. It has been said,
that no compensation could be made to any country for the sur-
render of its national independence. Sir, on this, as well as on
every part of the question, I am desirous gentlemen should come
closely to the point, that they should sift it to the bottom, and ascer-
tain upon what grounds and principles their opinion really rests. Do
they mean to maintain that, in any humiliating, in any degrading
sense of the word which can be acted upon practically as a rule,
and which can lead to any useful conclusion, that at any time
when the governments of any two separate countries unite in
forming one more extensive empire, the individuals who com-
posed either of the former narrow societies are afterwards less
members of an independent country, or to any valuable and useful
purpose less possessed of political freedom, of civil happiness, than
they were before? It must be obvious to every gentleman who
will look at the subject, in tracing the histories of all the coun-
tries the most proud of their present existing independence, of all
the nations in Europe there is not one that could exist in the
state in which it now stands if that principle had been acted upon
by our forefathers; and Europe must have remained to this hour
in a state of ignorance and barbarism, from the perpetual warfare
544
[CH. XXX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of independent and petty States. In the instance of our own
country, it would be a superfluous waste of time to enumerate the
steps by which all its parts were formed into one kingdom; but
will any man in general assert that, in all the different unions
which have formed the principal States of Europe, their inhabi-
tants have become less free, that they have had less of which to
be proud, less scope for their own exertions, than they had in
their former situation. If this doctrine is to be generally main-
tained, what becomes of the situation at this hour of any one
county of England, or of any one county of Ireland, now united
under the independent parliament of that kingdom? If it be
pushed to its full extent, it is obviously incompatible with all
civil society. As the former principle of the sovereignty of the
people strikes at the foundation of all governments, so this is
equally hostile to all political confederacy, and mankind must be
driven back to what is called the state of nature.
But while I combat this general and abstract principle, which
would operate as an objection to every union between separate
States, on the ground of the sacrifice of independence, do I mean
to contend that there is in no case just ground for such a senti-
ment? Far from it; it may become, on many occasions, the first
duty of a free and generous people. If there exists a country
which contains within itself the means of military protection, the
naval force necessary for its defence, which furnishes objects of
industry sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants, and pecu-
niary resources adequate to maintaining with dignity the rank
which it has attained among the nations of the world; if, abɔre
all, it enjoys the blessings of internal content and tranquillity, and
possesses a distinct constitution of its own, the defects of which,
if any, it is within itself capable of correcting; and if that con-
stitution be equal, if not superior, to that of any other in the
world, or (which is nearly the same thing) if those who live
under it believe it to be so, and fondly cherish that opinion, I can
indeed well understand that such a country must be jealous of
any measure, which, even by its own consent, under the authority
of its own lawful Government, is to associate it as a part of a
larger and more extensive empire.
But, sir, if, on the other hand, it should happen that there be a
country which, against the greatest of all dangers that threatens
its peace and security, has not adequate means of protecting itself
without the aid of another nation; if that other be a neighbouring
and kindred nation, speaking the same language, whose laws,
whose customs, and habits are the same in principle, but carried
to a greater degree of perfection, with a more extensive commerce,
1759-1806.]
545
WILLIAM PITT.
and more abundant means of acquiring and diffusing national
wealth, the stability of whose government, the excellence of whose
constitution, is more than ever the admiration and envy of Europe,
and of which the very country of which we are speaking can only
boast an inadequate and imperfect resemblance; under such cir-
cumstances, I would ask, what conduct would be prescribed by
every rational principle of dignity, of honour, or of interest? I
would ask, whether this is not a faithful description of the cir-
cumstances which ought to dispose Ireland to an union? whether
Great Britain is not precisely the nation with which, on these
principles, a country, situated as Ireland is, would desire to unite ?
Does an union, under such circumstances, by free consent, and on
just and equal terms, deserve to be branded as a proposal for
subjecting Ireland to a foreign yoke? Is it not rather the free
and voluntary association of two great countries, which join, for
their common benefit, in one empire, where each will retain its
proportional weight and importance, under the security of equal
laws, reciprocal affection, and inseparable interests, and which
want nothing but that indissoluble connection to render both
invincible?
Non ego nec Teucris Italos parere jubebo,
Nec nova regna peto; paribus se legibus ambæ
Invictæ gentes æterna in fœdera mittant.
546
[CH. XXXI
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXXI.
GRATTAN.
A.D. 1746-1820.
It has been doubted who is the greatest orator that has
ever adorned the English Parliament. It has never, I
believe, been questioned for a moment that of those who,
during the short time that it was a really independent and
influential body, sat in the Irish Parliament, no one has
approached the great man of whom I propose to speak in
the present chapter.
Henry Grattan, the son of an eminent lawyer who was
Recorder of Dublin for many years, and who, at one time,
represented that city in the Irish House of Commons, was
born in July 1746; and after completing his education at
Trinity College, he, like Burke, was transferred to London,
and entered as a student of the Middle Temple, with a view
to practising at the English Bar. As of Pitt a few years
later, so it is recorded of him, however, that he from the first
devoted almost as much of his attention to the debates in
Parliament as to the pleadings in Westminster Hall, the
chief object of his admiration being the same as Pitt's, Lord
Chatham, who had just exchanged his seat as a member of
the House of Commons for the Privy Seal and a peerage,
and, however much he may have impaired his popularity
in the eyes of the mob, lost none of his influence over the
mind of his Irish admirer by his promotion, which no spirit
but that of the grossest faction could deny to have been
well deserved. However, Grattan presently left London for
a time: a family affliction, which affected him deeply, the
loss of a favourite sister, made society for a while distaste-
ful to him, and he quitted the metropolis for a cottage in
Windsor Forest, where among the scenery which Pope had
1746-1820.]
547
GRATTAN.
celebrated in such mellifluous strains he began to endeavour
to imitate him, and for some months gave himself up to
poetical composition, though one would have fancied that
no two men of genius differed more widely in the character
of their minds than the careful, correct poet, and the im-
pulsive enthusiastic young lawyer; and it is the conjecture
of one of his biographers, that it was the difference between
the tone of mind of him whom he had taken for his model
and his own that made him abandon the cultivation of his
poetical talents after a few months' trial. But other causes
of greater potency soon led him to choose a more practical
career. When he was two-and-twenty a great step was
made towards the independence of the Irish Legislature by
.the passing of a bill to limit the duration of each parliament;
for neither the Triennial nor the Septennial Act of Great
Britain had been extended to Ireland. But in 1768 an
Octennial Bill was passed for that country, and, in his
periodical visits to Dublin, Grattan made acquaintance with
Flood, a member of great abilities and eloquence, to whose
great exertions and influence the enactment of the new law
was principally attributed. His well-deserved popularity
pointed out to Grattan that fame in the great council of his
native land was more within the reach of his abilities, and
more in harmony with their character, than the laurel wreath
of the poet; and at the dissolution in 1775, when he was
twenty-nine, he was returned by Lord Charlemont's in-
fluence for the borough of that name, and took his seat in
the Irish House of Commons. He was not then long before
he showed himself worthy to be Flood's coadjutor; nay,
even still better calculated, by his oratorical ability, to com-
mand the assent of an impulsive, enthusiastic audience like
the bulk of his parliamentary brethren. Flood, too, after a
time, weakened his own influence by accepting a ministerial
office when Lord Harcourt came to Dublin as Lord Lieu-
tenant; affirming, with almost self-evident truth, that he
could serve his country better as a member of the Govern-
ment than of the Opposition; but there was so much jealousy
of England prevailing in Ireland at the time (it must be con-
fessed that it was not altogether unjustifiable or groundless)
that many accused him of having deserted the cause of
548
[CH. XXXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
<
Treland; and gradually Grattan became the leader of what
was emphatically called the Irish party. It was he who,
in 1779, moved the amendment to the address which resulted
in the passing a resolution in favour of free trade. It was
he who, the next year, made his still more memorable motion
that the King with the Lords and Commons of Ireland
were the only power competent to make laws for Ireland :
a resolution which struck directly at the maintenance of
the old act of Henry VII., known as Poyning's Law, or the
Statute of Drogheda, and confirmed by a subsequent act
of George I., by which all bills except money bills, before
they could be introduced into the Irish Parliament, were to
be transmitted for examination to the Privy Council of
England, which was invested with absolute power to alter
or even altogether to suppress them. At first he did not
altogether succeed; but he obtained an instalment of great
practical advantage to his country: Lord North at once
introduced bills to improve the commercial relations of
Ireland with other countries, especially with England her-
self. And when, two years afterwards, Lord Rockingham
became Prime Minister, his Cabinet granted the repeal of
the obnoxious Poyning's Act, and the Irish Parliament for
the first time became a really free deliberative and legislative
Council. The repeal has been spoken of by Irish writers as
the Revolution of 1782, and it deserves the name; for, in
fact, it did make a total revolution in all that pertains to
the dignity of the country. Till that time Ireland could
hardly be said to be free, to have any share at all in the
most essential privilege of freedom, the making of its own
laws. And it was so generally acknowledged that it was
to Grattan that the attainment of this inestimable advan-
tage was owing, that the very first use which the Irish
Parliament made of its liberty was to grant him a sum of
50,000l., which they indeed had desired to make 100,000l.,
and only reduced to half that sum in deference to his own
earnest wish and request.
If Flood's installation in office had diminished his popu-
larity with a certain class, it was almost inevitable that
Grattan's acceptance of such a reward would raise him up
enemies and detractors; though it might not have heen
•
1746-1820.]
549
GRATTAN.
expected that Flood himself would have been of the number
of those whom it led to distrust him. It, however, not only
did so, but led to a most bitter and unseemly altercation
between the two in the House of Commons; Flood re-
proaching Grattan as 'a mendicant patriot, subsisting on
the public revenue,' and Grattan retaliating in so violent a
denunciation of his antagonist's policy through life, and
present integrity, and even of his personal appearance,
that it was found necessary to arrest Flood and bind him
over, to prevent these two men of the first ability in the
land, and of the purest patriotism, from fighting in support
of their mutual invectives. But Grattan soon recovered the
greater part of his authority, though he did not always
use it wisely. In the question of the Regency, in 1788, he
was able to determine the Irish Parliament to adopt the view
urged in the English House of Commons by Fox, that the
Prince of Wales had as inalienable a right to the Regency,
unfettered by conditions, as he would have had to the
throne if his father had been dead. And, in defiance of a
constant stream of precedents which ran, with a singular
uniformity, the other way, he carried an address to the
Prince, to request him, as of right, to take upon himself
the Regency of Ireland: an address which was on the very
point of being presented, when, fortunately, the King's
recovery saved the kingdom from the inconvenient trial
of having a Regent in one island holding his authority on
grounds entirely different from those on which it was con-
ferred on him in the other island.
Grattan was, however, no servile follower of Fox. An
English statesman whose fame for conscientious integrity
and honest zeal for all that was excellent and honorable
has never been surpassed, Wilberforce, who knew him well
after he became a member of the English Parliament,
declared that he had never known any man whose
patriotism and love for his country seemed more completely
to extinguish all consideration of private interests in his
heart, and to induce him to look invariably and exclusively
to the public good;' and, under the influence of this feeling,
he sided with his illustrious countryman Burke in his de-
nunciations of the French Revolution, and, like him, sup-
550
[CH. XXXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
:
ported Pitt in many of the measures by which the great
minister sought to check both the foreign enemy and the
growth of revolutionary feeling in these kingdoms. But
he broke with him again, or rather with his Irish col-
leagues, disapproving and resisting to the utmost of his
power the generality of the measures by which they sought
first to quell, and afterwards to chastise, the rebellion of
1798. And two years afterwards he exerted all his genius
and energy in opposition to the Union; though the vote
of 1789 and the recent rebellion had certainly shown the
indispensableness of such a measure; and though the
example of the Scotch Union had surely demonstrated that,
as might have been expected, though both kingdoms gained
by drawing more closely the bonds which connected them,
the greatest benefit must be reaped by the poorer country.
In the first united Parliament he had no seat; but in that
which was elected in 1805, and for the next fifteen years,
he took a prominent part in the debates, generally on the
side of the Whigs, though, on the return of Napoleon from
Elba in 1815, he once more gave proof of the justice of
Wilberforce's eulogy, by a warm support of Lord Liver-
pool's Government on the question of the instant renewal
of the war, before the ever-restless warrior, thus strangely
reinstated on the French throne, should have time again to
become formidable. He died at the beginning of 1820, full
of honours. It was a Scotchman, not undistinguished as
a scholar and a statesman,¹ who, in the united Parliament,
being selected to move for a new writ for Dublin, pronounced
the first eulogy on his career and character; but his
praises were echoed by the leaders of all parties, in a way
which proved him to have won the esteem of all parties and
of each nation.
The first two passages which follow are extracted from
the speeches which may be said to have made his fame: in
the first he advocates the repeal of Poyning's Act; in the
last he congratulates the Parliament and the country on
that repeal. They are perhaps distinguished more by
energy of declamation than by closeness of argument; but,
1 Sir J. Mackintosh.
1746-1820.]
551
GRATTAN.
in fact, what was needed on that occasion was rather fire
and spirit to move the feelings than reasoning to convince
the understanding. For but little argumentation was
requisite to prove that a Parliament which had no power
to originate a single measure was but a phantom, not a
reality; and that a people who had only such a Parliament
to look up to was, for all practical purposes, in bondage.
(Declaration of Irish Rights.)
But though you do not hazard disturbance by agreeing to this
resolution, you do most exceedingly hazard tranquillity by reject-
ing it. Do not imagine that the question will be over when this
motion shall be negatived. No; it will recur in a vast variety of
shapes and diversity of places. Your constituents have instructed
you in great numbers, with a powerful uniformity of sentiment,
and in a style not the less awful because full of respect. They
will find resources in their own virtue, if they have found none in
yours. Public pride and conscious liberty, wounded by repulse,
will find ways and means of vindication. You are in that situation
in which every man, every hour of the day, may shake the pillars
of the State; every court may swarm with the question of right;
every quay and wharf with prohibited goods: what shall the
judges, what the commissioners, do upon this occasion? Shall
they comply with the laws of Ireland, and against the claims of
England, and stand firm where you have capitulated? Shall they,
on the other hand, not comply, and shall they persist to act against
the law? Will you punish them if they do so? Will you proceed
against them for not showing a spirit superior to your own? On
the other hand, will you not punish them? Will you leave liberty
to be trampled on by those men? Will you bring them aud
yourselves, all constituted orders, executive power, judicial power,
and parliamentary authority, into a state of odium, impotence, and
contempt: transferring the task of defending public right into the
hands of the populace, and leaving it to the judges to break the
laws, and to the people to assert them? Such would be the con-
sequence of false moderation, of irritating timidity, of inflammatory
palliatives, of the weak and corrupt hope of compromising with
the court, before you have emancipated the country.
I have answered the only semblance of a solid reason against
the motion; I will remove some lesser pretences, some minor im-
pediments; for instance, first, that we have a resolution of the
same kind already on our journals, it will be said; but how often
was the great charter confirmed? not more frequently than your
552
[CH. XXXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
rights have been violated. Is one solitary resolution, declaratory
of your right, sufficient for a country whose history, from the
beginning to the end, has been a course of violation? The fact is,
every new breach is a reason for a new repair; every new infringe-
ment should be a new declaration, lest charters should be over-
whelmed with precedents to their prejudice, a nation's right
obliterated, and the people themselves lose the memory of their
own freedom.
I shall hear of ingratitude: I name the argument to despise it,
and the men who make use of it: I know the men who use it are
not grateful, they are insatiate; they are public extortioners, who
would stop the tide of public prosperity, and turn it to the channel
of their own emolument. I know of no species of gratitude which
should prevent my country from being free, no gratitude which
should oblige Ireland to be the slave of England. In cases of
robbery and usurpation, nothing is an object of gratitude except
the thing stolen, the charter spoliated. A nation's liberty cannot,
like her treasures, be meted and parcelled out in gratitude; no
man can be grateful or liberal of his conscience, nor woman of her
honour, nor nation of her liberty: there are certain unimpartable,
inherent, invaluable properties, not to be alienated from the per-
son, whether body politic or body natural. With the same
contempt do I treat that charge which says that Ireland is
insatiable; saying, that Ireland asks nothing but that which Great
Britain has robbed her of, her rights and privileges. To say that
Ireland will not be satisfied with liberty, because she is not satisfied
with slavery, is folly. I laugh at that man who supposes that
Ireland will not be content with a free trade and a free constitu-
tion, and would any man advise her to be content with less.
I do not refer to doubtful history, but to living record; to com-
mon charters; to the interpretation England has put upon these
charters—an interpretation not made by words only, but crowned
by arms; to the revolution she had formed upon them, to the
king she has deposed, and to the king she has established; and,
above all, to the oath of allegiance solemnly plighted to the IIouse
of Stuart, and afterwards set aside in the instance of a grave and
moral people absolved by virtue of these very charters.
And as anything less than liberty is inadequate to Ireland, so is
it dangerous to Great Britain. We are too near the British
nation, we are too conversant with her history, we are too much
fired by her example, to be anything less than her equal; anything
less, we should be her bitterest enemies—an enemy to that power
which smote us with her mace, and to that constitution from
whose blessings we were excluded: to be ground as we have been
1746-1820.]
553
GRATTAN.
by the British nation, bound by her Parliament, plundered by her
crown, threatened by her enemies, insulted with her protection,
while we returned thanks for her condescension, is a system of
meanness and misery which has expired in our determination, as I
hope it has in her magnanimity.
There is no policy left for Great Britain but to cherish the
remains of her empire, and do justice to a country who is deter-
mined to do justice to herself, certain that she gives nothing equal
to what she received from us when we gave her Ireland.
I am now to address a free people: ages have passed away, and
this is the first moment in which you could be distinguished by
that appellation.
I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often that I have
nothing to add, and have only to admire by what Heaven-directed
steps you have proceeded until the whole faculty of the nation is
braced up to the act of her own deliverance.
I found Ireland on her knees, I watched over her with a paternal
solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and
from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift! spirit of Molyneux, your
genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation! in that new
character I hail her! and, bowing to her august presence, I say,
'Esto perpetua ! '
She is no longer a wretched colony, returning thanks to her
governor for his rapine, and to her king for his oppression; nor is
she now a squabbling, fretfu sectary, perplexing her little wits,
and firing her furious statutes with bigotry, sophistry, disabilities,
and death, to transmit to posterity insignificance and war.
Look to the rest of Europe, and contemplate yourself, and be
satisfied. Holland lives in the memory of past achievements;
Sweden has lost liberty; England has sullied her great name by
an attempt to enslave her colonies. You are the only people—
you, of the nations in Europe, are now the only people who excite
admiration, and in your present conduct you not only exceed the
present generation, but you equal the past. I am not afraid to
turn back and look antiquity in the face. The Revolution, that
great event, whether you call it ancient or modern I know not,
was tarnished with bigotry: the great deliverer (for such I must
ever call the Prince of Nassau) was blemished with oppression;
he assented to, he was forced to assent to, acts which deprived the
Catholics of religious, and all the Irish of civil and commercial
rights, though the Irish were the only subjects in these
islands who had fought in his defence. But you have sought
554
[CH. XXXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
liberty on her own principle: see the Presbyterians of Bangor
petition for the freedom of the Catholics of Munster. You, with
difficulties innumerable, with dangers not a few, have done what
your ancestors wished, but could not accomplish, and what your
posterity may preserve, but will never equal; you have moulded
the jarring elements of your country into a nation, and have
rivalled those great and ancient commonwealths whom you were
taught to admire, and among whom you are now to be recorded.
In this proceeding you had not the advantages which were common
to other great countries: no monuments, no trophies, none of those
outward and visible signs of greatness, such as inspire mankind,
and connect the ambition of the age which is coming on with the
example of that going off, and forms the descent and concatenation
of glory; no, you have not had any great act recorded among all
your misfortunes, nor have you one public tomb to assemble the
crowd, and speak to the living the language of integrity and
freedom.
Your historians did not supply the want of monuments; on the
contrary, these narrators of your misfortunes, who should have
felt for your wrongs, and have punished your oppressors with
oppressions, natural scourges, the moral indignation of history,
compromised with public villany and trembled; they excited
your violence, they suppressed your provocation, and wrote in the
chain which entrammelled their country. I am come to break
that chain, and I congratulate my country, who, without any of
the advantages I speak of, going forth as it were with nothing but
a stone and a sling, and what oppression could not take away—
the favour of Heaven, accomplished her own redemption, and left
you nothing to add, and everything to admire.
You want no trophy now; the records of Parliament are the
evidence of your glory. I beg to observe that the deliverance of
Ireland has proceeded from her own right hand: I rejoice at it,
for had the great requisition of your freedom proceeded from the
bounty of England, that great work would have been defective
both in renown and security. It was necessary that the soul of
the country should have been exalted by the act of her own
redemption, and that England should withdraw her claim by
operation of treaty, and not of mere grace and condescension: a
gratuitous act of Parliament, however express, would have been
revocable; but the repeal of her claim under operation of treaty
is not: in that case, the legislature is put in covenant, and bound
by the law of nations-the only law that can legally bind Par-
liament. Never did this country stand so high. England and
Ireland treat ex quo. Ireland transmits to the King her claim of
1746-1820.]
555
GRATTAN.
right, and requires of the Parliament of England the repeal of her
claim of power, which repeal the English Parliament is to make
under the force of a treaty which depends on the law of nations-
a law which cannot be repealed by the Parliament of England.
I rejoice that the people are a party to this treaty, because they
are bound to preserve it. There is not a man of forty shillings
freehold that is not associated in this our claim of right, and bound
to die in its defence; cities, counties, associations, Protestants and
Catholics, it seems as if the people had joined in one great national
sacrament; a flame has descended from Heaven on the intellect of
Ireland, plays round her head, and encompasses her understanding
with a consecrated glory.
The following extract is from the speech to which allusion
has already been made, as that in which he showed his in-
dependence by supporting the Tory Government on the
occasion of the renewal of the war against Napoleon. His
very admiration of Fox impelled him to show how those
who professed to be his followers were misapplying his ex-
ample, and, in their zeal to thwart the Government, were
blinding themselves to the vast differences between the state
of France in 1792 and her condition and views at the time
`at which he was speaking.
(Downfall of Buonaparte.)
The proposition that we should not interfere with the govern-
ment of other nations is true, but true with qualifications: if the
government of any other country contains an insurrectionary prin-
ciple, as France did when she offered to aid the insurrections of
her neighbours, your interference is warranted; if the govern-
ment of another country contains the principle of universal empire,
as France did, and promulgated, your interference is justifiable.
Gentlemen may call this internal government, but I call this
conspiracy; if the Government of another country maintains a
predatory army such as Buonaparte's, with a view to hostility and
conquest, your interference is just. He may call this internal
government, but I call this a preparation for war. No doubt he
will accompany this with offers of peace, but such offers of peace
are nothing more than one of the arts of war, attended, most
assuredly, by charging on you the odium of a long and protracted
contest, and with much commonplace, and many good saws and
sayings of the miseries of bloodshed, and the savings and good
husbandry of peace, and the comforts of a quiet life; but if you
25
556
[CH. XXXI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
listen to this, you will be much deceived; not only deceived, but
you will be beaten. Again, if the Government of another country
covers more ground in Europe, and destroys the balance of power,
so as to threaten the independence of other nations, this is a cause
of your interference. Such was the principle upon which we acted
in the best times; such was the principle of the Grand Alliance,
such the Triple Alliance, and such the Quadruple; and by such
principles has Europe not only been regulated but protected. If a
foreign Government does any of those acts I have mentioned, we
have a cause of war; but if a foreign Power does all of them,
forms a conspiracy for universal empire, keeps up an army for
that purpose, employs that army to overturn the balance of power,
and attempts the conquest of Europe-attempts do I say? in a
great degree achieves it (for what else was Buonaparte's dominion
before the battle of Leipsic), and then receives an overthrow, owes
its deliverance to treaties which give that Power its life, and these
countries their security (for what did you get from France but
security ?)—if this power, I say, avails itself of the conditions which
give you security, and resumes the same situation which renders
this Power capable of repeating the same atrocity, has England, or
has she not, a right to war?
The authority of Mr. Fox has been alluded to; a great authority,
and a great man: his name excites tenderness and wonder. To do
justice to that immortal person, you must not limit your view to
this country; his genius was not confined to England, it acted
three hundred miles off in breaking the chains of Ireland; it was
seen three thousand miles off in communicating freedom to the
Americans; it was visible, I know not how far off, in ameliorating
the condition of the Indian; it was discernible on the coast of
Africa in accomplishing the abolition of the slave trade. You
are to measure the magnitude of his mind by parallels of latitude.
His heart was as soft as that of a woman; his intellect was
adamant; his weaknesses were virtues; they protected him against
the hard habit of a politician, and assisted nature to make him
amiable and interesting. The question discussed by Mr. Fox in
1792 was, whether you would treat with a revolutionary Govern-
ment? The present is, whether you will confirm a military and
a hostile one? You will observe that, when Mr. Fox was willing
to treat, the French, it was understood, were ready to evacuate the
Low Countries. If you confirm the present Government, you must
expect to lose them. Mr. Fox objected to the idea of driving
France upon her resources, lest you should make her a military
Government. The question now is, whether you will make that
military Government perpetual? I therefore do not think the
1746-1820.]
557
GRATTAN.
theory of Mr. Fox can be quoted against us; and the practice of
Mr. Fox tends to establish our proposition, for he treated with
Buonaparte and failed. Mr. Fox was tenacious of England, and
would never yield an iota of her superiority; but the failure of
the attempt to treat was to be found, not in Mr. Fox, but in
Buonaparte.
On the French subject, speaking of authority, we cannot forget
Mr. Burke: Mr. Burke, the prodigy of nature and acquisition.
He read everything, he saw everything, he foresaw everything.
His knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretelling; and,
when he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that
great political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished
between the access of fever and the force of health; and what
other men conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he knew
to be no more than the paroxysm of her madness, and then, pro-
phet-like, he pronounced the destinies of France, and, in his
prophetic fury, admonished nations.
13
558
[CH. XXXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXXII.
BISHOP TAYLOR.
A.D. 1613-1667.
We have seen how prolific of literary merit was the gene-
ration which saw the restoration of the Monarchy. Nor
was its fertility confined to works of pure intellect. It pro-
duced not only historians and poets of whom any age might
have been proud, but a still purer and loftier glory beams
upon it from the circumstance that it was also the period
which was adorned by many of our greatest theological
writers, our most profound controversialists, our most elo-
quent preachers. It was now that Stillingfleet enlightened
the world by his incomparable treatise on Natural and
Revealed Religion;' that Pearson expounded the Creed; that
Barrow, almost equally celebrated as a mathematician and
a divine, could command the attention of so careless a
listener as Charles himself, while, for hours at a time, he
illustrated his sacred themes with every variety of learning;
and that Jeremy Taylor (usage has rendered the two names
inseparable) presided over his Irish diocese with a wisdom,
and instructed his flock with a learning and piety, a copious
eloquence and irrepressible energy, which has rendered his
name perhaps the most widely celebrated of all the divines
of any persuasion that these islands, pre-eminently rich in
examples of pulpit oratory as they have always been, have
ever produced.
He was born in the middle of the reign of James I., of a
family which had somewhat fallen from the consideration
which it had enjoyed a century earlier. For his great-
grand-father had been Cranmer's chaplain, and had been
one of Mary's earliest victims; while his father was but
a humble barber-surgeon at Cambridge. He himself was
educated in that town, first at the Grammar School, and
1613-1667.]
559
BISHOP TAYLOR.
:
then at Caius College. As soon as he had taken his degree
he entered into Holy Orders; and having gone to London
to assist a sick friend who was lecturer in the great
Cathedral of St. Paul's, his exceeding eloquence attracted
the notice of Laud, who had lately become Primate of the
kingdom, and who procured him a fellowship at All Souls'
College, Oxford, of which he was visitor. After a time he
quitted that University also, having been presented to the
Rectory of Uppingham in Rutland. He married, but lost
his wife after three years of marriage, during which she
brought him three sons, all of whom died young. And,
wishing probably to dispel his grief by a change of scen
and of occupation, being at the same time deeply impressed
with the degree in which the interests of the Church and
of truo religion were at stake in the contest between the
King and the Parliament, he repaired to Oxford, where
Charles was now holding his Court, espousing his cause so
warmly that he was on one occasion present at a battle near
Cardigan, in which he was taken prisoner. He was soon
released, however; the sequestration of his living being
thought a sufficient punishment for his delinquency; and
in Wales he remained for several years, at first teaching in
a school which he established at Newton Hall, and, when
he was driven from that, being sheltered by some powerful
friends in the Principality during the greater part of
Cromwell's protectorate. It is from a house in Caer-
marthenshire, Golden Grove, then the seat of Lord Carberry,
that one of his best known works takes its name. And
there too he wrote his eloquent treatise on 'The Liberty of
Prophesying,' which was, in fact, a treatise on toleration,
the more honorable to his wisdom and moderation that he
himself was suffering from the fanatical intolerance of those
in authority, and that the instances are very rare in which
persecution teaches mercy. It was there too that his great
work The Life of Christ, or the Great Exemplar' was
composed; in which sublimity of devotional feeling, dignity
of reflection, and pathetic tenderness are poured forth with
a richness of illustration, a profusion of almost poetic em-
bellishment, and a copious mastery of language, of which
no modern prose writing had yet furnished an example.
(
560
[CH. XXXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
During his sojourn in Wales he married a second wife,
Joanna Bridges, who was believed to be a natural daughter
of Charles; and who was certainly mistress of a fair estate
in the neighbourhood of Golden Grove, though the riches
which he thus acquired only made him the fairer mark for
the enmity of those in power, who, by fresh fines and se-
questrations stripped him of the greater part of his wealth.
Nor were these persecutions confined to mulcting him of his
money. On his venturing to visit London in 1654 he was
thrown into prison, because some passages in his works
were thought to disparage the Independents; and after he
was released from that confinement, he was again imprisoned
at Chepstow, where he was treated with such rigour that
he was not allowed either to write or to receive letters.
Shortly before Cromwell's death he retired to Ireland,
where Lord Conway, the ancestor of the present Marquis of
Hertford, procured him a lectureship at Lisburn; but even
in that remote district the malice of his enemies pursued
him; informations were laid against him as one disaffected
to the Government; he was brought before the magistrates
at Carrickfergus; and he was only finally relieved from
danger by the Restoration. Then amends were made to him
for his sufferings: he was made Bishop of Down, and Vice-
Chancellor of the University of Dublin. But honours did
not change his disposition. He was so far from bearing
malice against those who had persecuted him, that some of
his earliest efforts as a bishop were directed to the con-
ciliation of the Puritans, and to bringing about a union
between them and the Episcopalians. In this object he was
not permitted to succeed, but even those whom he could not
reconcile to his Church (and the atrocities of Phelim
O'Neill being generally attributed to his adherence to the
Pope, had created a greater horror of Church Establish-
ments in Ireland than in any part of England) he conciliated
to himself; and when the see of Dromore was annexed to
Down, as a testimony of the King's approval of his 'wisdom,
virtue, and integrity,' even the Puritans admitted that this
additional honour could not have been bestowed on anyone
who better deserved it. He was not, however, destined long
to enjoy it; a fever which he caught in 1667, in the dis-
1613-1667.]
561
BISHOP TAYLOR.
charge of his duties, carried him off after a few days' illness,
and at Lisburn, then the cathedral town, he died in the 55th
year of his age.
He published many works besides those which have been
mentioned; but it is as a preacher that we have to speak of
him here, and no verdict has been more unanimous than
that which places him as such in the very highest rank.
He seems to have been endowed with every quality of elo-
quence which can make the preacher at once attractive and
persuasive. If he wants anything it is emphatic terseness,
which is probably incompatible with such a luxuriance of
imagination, such fertility of illustration, and such rich
copiousness of language as adorn both his writings and his
sermons. The only fault that has ever been found with the
latter, indeed, has been that they are too profuse in their
ornamentation for the severity of the pulpit. But their
gorgeous colouring was not designed (as is sometimes the
case) to cover indifference; on the contrary, it flowed from
something even stronger than sincerity, from an enthu-
siastic conviction of the truth of the doctrines which he was
inculcating, and of the vital importance of these to his
hearers, which taught him that no ornament could be
superfluous which could attract one careless ear, or fix one
wandering heart; and from a profound universal benevo-
lence, which, believing the truths he inculcated with im
moveable confidence, would have all men like himself.
The following passages from his fifth sermon, that on
'The Return of Prayer,' and from Sermon 50, on 'The
Miracles of the Divine Mercy,' are good examples of the rich-
ness of his style, as well as of the profound skill and know-
ledge of the human heart with which all the arguments and
inducements are marshalled which are most calculated to
win men over not only to confess but to feel their efficacy.
(The Return of Prayer.)
Many times good men pray, and their prayer is not a sin, but
yet it returns empty; because, although the man be, yet tlie
prayer is not, in proper disposition; and here I am to account to
you concerning the collateral and accidental hindrances of the
prayer of a good man.
The first thing that hinders the prayer of a good man from
562
[CH. XXXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
obtaining its effects is a violent anger, and a violent storm in the
spirit of him who prays. For anger sets the house on fire, and all
the spirits are busy upon trouble, and intend propulsion, defence,
displeasure, or revenge; it is a short madness, and an eternal
enemy to discourse, and sober counsels, and fair conversation; it
intends its own object with all the earnestness of perception, or
activity of design, and a quicker motion of a too warm and dis-
tempered blood; it is a fever in the heart, and a calenture in the
head, and a fire in the face, and a sword in the hand, and a fury
all over; and therefore can never suffer a man to be in a disposition
to pray. For prayer is an action and a state of intercourse and
desire exactly contrary to this character of anger. Prayer is an
action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of gentleness and
dove-like simplicity; an imitation of the holy Jesus, whose spirit
is meek up to the greatness of the biggest example, and a con-
formity to God; whose anger is always just and marches slowly,
and is without transportation, and often hindered, and never hasty,
and is full of mercy: prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness
of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection; the seat of medi-
tation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest; prayer
is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the
daughter of charity and the sister of meekness; and he that prays
to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed
spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets
up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier
garrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind
from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention which
presents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen a
lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as
he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds ;
but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighing of an
eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, de-
scending more at every breath of the tempest than it could
recover by the libration and frequent weighing of its wings, till
the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till
the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did
rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel
as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here
below so is the prayer of a good man; when his affairs have
required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and
his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design
of charity, his duty met with infirmities of a man, and anger was
its instrument, and the instrument became stronger than the prime
agent, and raised a tempest, and overruled the man, and then his
1613-1667.]
563
BISHOP TAYLOR.
prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words
went up towards a cloud, and his thoughts pulled them back again,
and made them without intention; and the good man sighs for his
infirmity, but must be content to lose the prayer, and he must
recover it when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed,
made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of
God; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy
Dove, and dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee,
loaden with a blessing and the dew of heaven.
(The Miracles of the Divine Mercy.)
God hath sent no greater evil into the world than that 'in the
sweat of our brows we shall eat our bread,' and in the difficulty
and agony, in the sorrows and contentions of our souls, we shall
⚫ work out our salvation.' But see how in the first of these God
hath outdone His own anger, and defeated the purposes of His
wrath by the inundation of His mercy; for this labour and sweat
of our brows is so far from being a curse, that without it our very
bread would not be so great a blessing. Is it not labour that
makes the garlic and the pulse, the sycamore and the cresses, the
cheese of the goats and the butter of the sheep, to be savoury and
pleasant as the flesh of the roebuck or the milk of the kine, the
marrow of oxen, or the thighs of birds? If it were not for labour
men neither could eat so much, nor relish so pleasantly, nor sleep
so soundly, nor be so healthful, nor so useful, so strong nor so
patient, so noble nor so untempted. And as God hath made us
beholden to labour for the purchase of many good things, so the
thing itself owes to labour many degrees of its worth and value.
And therefore I need not reckon that, besides these advantages, the
mercies of God have found out proper and natural remedies for
labour; nights to cure the sweat of the day, sleep to ease our
watchfulness, rest to alleviate our burdens, and days of religion to
procure our rest; and things are so ordered that labour is become
a duty and an act of many virtues, and is not so apt to turn into
a sin as is its contrary; and is therefore necessary, not only because
we need it for making provisions for our life, but even to ease the
labour of our rest; there being no greater tediousness of spirit in
the world than want of employment and an inactive life; and the
lazy man is not only unprofitable, but also accursed, and he groans
under the load of his time; which yet passes over the active man
light as a dream, or the feathers of a bird; while the disemployed
is a disease, and like a long sleepless night to himself, and a load
unto his country. And, therefore, although in this particular God
hath been so merciful in this infliction that from the sharpness of
+
[CH. XXXII.
564
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the curse a very great part of mankind are freed, and there are
myriads of people good and bad who do not eat their bread in
the sweat of their brows,' yet this is but an overrunning and an
excess of the divine mercy; God did more for us than we did
absolutely need: for IIe hath so disposed of the circumstances of
this curse that man's affections are so reconciled to it that they
desire it and are delighted in it, and so the anger of God is ended
in loving kindness, and the drop of water is lost in the full chalice
of the wine, and the curse is gone out into a multiplied blessing.
But then for the other part of the severe law and laborious
imposition, that we must work out our spiritual interest with the
labours of our spirit, seems to most men to be so intolerable that
rather than pass under it they quit their hopes of heaven and pass
into the portion of devils. And what can there be to alleviate this
sorrow, that a man shall be perpetually solicited with an impure
tempter, and shall carry a flame within him, and all the world is
on fire round about him, and everything brings fuel to the flame,
and full tables are a snare, and empty tables are collateral servants
to a lust, and help to blow the fire and kindle the heap of prepared
temptations; and yet a man must not at all taste of the forbidden
fiuit, and he must not desire what he cannot choose but desire,
and he must not enjoy whatsoever he does viclently covet, ard
must never satisfy his appetite in the most violent importunities,
but must therefore deny himself because to do so is extremely
troublesome? This seems to be an art of torture, and a device to
punish man with the spirit of agony and a restless vexation. But
this also hath in it a great ingredient of mercy, or rather is nothing
else but a heap of mercy in its entire constitution. For if it were
not for this we had nothing of our own to present to God, nothing
proportionable to the great rewards of heaven, but either all men,
or no man, must go thither; for nothing can distinguish man
from man in order to beatitude but choice and election; and
nothing can ennoble the choice but love, and nothing can exercise
love but difficulty, and nothing can make that difficulty but the
contradiction of our appetite and the crossing of our natural
affections. And therefore when any of you are tempted violently,
or grow weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of
temptation, you may be cured if you will please but to remember
and rejoice that now you have something of your own to give to
God, something that He will be pleased to accept, something that
He hath given thee, that thou mayest give it Him; for our money
and our time, our days of feasting, and our days of sorrow, our
discourse and our acts of praise, our prayers and our songs, our
vows and our offerings, our worshippings and prostrations, and
1613-1667.]
565
BISHOP TAYLOR.
whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of our religion, are
only accepted according as they bear along with them portions of
our will, and choice of love, and appendent difficulty.
Lætius est quoties magno tibi constat honestum.
So that whoever can complain that he serves God with pains
and mortifications, he is troubled because there is a distinction of
things such as we call virtue and vice, reward and punishment;
and if he will not suffer God to distinguish the first, he will cer-
tainly confound the latter; and his portion shall be blackness
without variety, and punishment shall be his reward.
DR. CHALMERS.
A.D. 1780-1847.
Our first example of a great preacher has been taken from
the Episcopal Church of England and Ireland. Our second
may fitly be supplied by the Presbyterian Church of
Scotland; though Dr. Thomas Chalmers lived too near our
own time, and was too intimately connected with a contest
in that Church which is not yet altogether terminated, to
allow us to say more of his life than that he was born in
1780 at Anstruther, in Fifeshire, where his father was a
shipowner; that, having selected the ministry for his pro-
fession, he established such a reputation for eloquence that
he was appointed minister of one of the principal churches
in Glasgow; that, as his fame increased, he obtained the
Chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews,
and subsequently that of Divinity in the University of
Edinburgh; but that he relinquished his professorship in
1843, when the Church of Scotland was agitated by the
disputes about patronage, which ended in the secession of a
large body, of which he was one of the most zealous and
influential members, who formed what has since been called
the Free Church. He died suddenly, of disease of the heart,
in 1847.
In the imaginative, and somewhat poetical character of
his eloquence, he bore some resemblance to the great Bishop
of Down, but he was far inferior in correctness of style and
richness of diction. His illustrations are often thoroughly
original, his energy irrepressible; and he displays much of
566
[CH. XXXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
that ardent sincerity, engendering an eagerness to enforce
the truth and importance of his belief and opinions on his
hearers that lends so powerful a charm to the sermons of
Jeremy Taylor.
The first of the following extracts is from Sermon 9 of
those preached in the Tron Church, Glasgow; the second
from the sixteenth of the same series.
(The Principle of Love to God.)
The term love admits of an equally real and equally intelligent
application to our fellow-men. Tney, too, are the frequent and
familiar objects of this affection, and they often are so, because
they possess certain accomplishments of person and of character,
by which it is excited. I love the man whose every glance
speaks an effusive cordiality towards those who are around him.
I love the man whose heart and whose hand are ever open to the
representations of distress. I love the man who possesses such a
softness of nature that the imploring look of a brother in want, or
of a brother in pain, disarms him of all his selfishness, and draws
him out to some large and willing surrender of generosity. I love
the man who carries on his aspect, not merely the expression of
worth, but of worth maintained in the exercise of all its graces,
under every variety of temptation and discouragement-who, in
the midst of calumny, can act the warm and enlightened philan-
thropist-who, when beset with many provocations, can weather
them all in calm and settled endurance-who can be kind even
to the unthankful and the evil-and who, if he possesses the
awful virtues of truth and justice, only heightens our attachment
the more, that he possesses goodness and tenderness and benignity
along with them.
Now, we would have you to advert to one capital distinction
between the former and the latter class of objects. The inanimate
reflect no love upon us back again. They do not single out any
one of their admirers, and, by an act of preference, either minister
to his selfish appetite for esteem, or minister to his selfish appe-
tite for enjoyment, by affording to him a larger share than to
others of their presence, and of all the delights which their pre-
sence inspires. They remain motionless in their places, without
will and without sensibility; and the homage they receive is
from the disinterested affection, which men bear to their love-
liness. They are loved, and that purely because they are lovely.
There is no mixture of selfishness in the affection that is offered
to them. They do not put on a sweeter smile to one man than
1780-1847.]
567
DR. CHALMERS.
to another; but all the features of that beauty in which they are
arrayed stand inflexibly the same to every beholder; and he,
without any conscious mingling whatever of self-love, in the
emotion with which he gazes at the charms of some external
scenery, is actuated by a love towards it which rests and which
terminates on the objects that he is employed in contemplating.
But this is not always the case when our fellow-men are the
objects of this affection. I should love cordiality, and benevolence,
and compassion for their own sakes; but let your own experience tell
how far more sweetly and more intensely the love is felt when this
cordiality is turned, in one stream of kindliness, towards myself—
when the eye of friendship has singled out me, and looks at me
with a peculiar graciousness-when the man of tenderness has
pointed his way to the abode of my suffering family, and there
shed in secrecy over them his liberalities and his tears—when he
has forgiven me the debt that I was unable to discharge-and
when, oppressed as I am by the consciousness of having injured
or reviled him, he has nobly forgotten or overlooked the whole
provocation, and persists in a regard that knows no abatement,
and in a well-doing that is never weary.
(The Union of Truth and Mercy in the Gospel.)
It is due to our want of moral sensibility that sin looks so light
and so trivial in our estimation. We have no adequate feeling of
its malignity, of its exceeding sinfulness. And, liable as we are
to think of God, that He is altogether like unto ourselves, do we
think that He may cancel our guilt as easily from the book of His
condemnation, by an act of forgiveness, as we cancel it from our
own meinory by an act of forgetfulness. But God takes His own
way, and most steadfastly asserts, throughout the whole process
of our recovery, the prerogatives of His own truth and Ilis own
righteousness. He so loved the world as to send His Son to it,
not to condemn, but to save. But He will not save us in such a
way as to confirm our light estimation of sin, or to let down the
worth and dignity of IIis own character.
The method of our salvation is not left to the random caprices
of human thought and human fancy. It is a method devised for
us by unsearchable wisdom, and made known to us by fixed and
unalterable truth, and prescribed to us by a supreme authority,
which has debarred every other method; and, though we may
behold no one feature, either of greatness or of beauty to admire
in it, yet dɔ angels admire it; and to accomplish it did the Son of
God move from the residence of His glory; and all heaven appears
to have laboured with the magnitude and the mystery of the great
568
[CH. XXXII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
undertaking; and along the whole tract of revelation, from the
first age of the world, do we behold the notices of the coming
Atonement; and while man sits at his ease, and can see nothing
to move him either to gratitude or to wonder in the evolution of
that mighty scheme by which mercy and truth have been made
to meet together, and righteousness and peace to kiss each other,
it is striking to mark the place and the prominency which are
given to it in the counsels of the Eternal. And it might serve to
put us right, and to rebuke the levities which are so currently
afloat in this dead and darkened world, did we only look at the
stress that is laid on this great work, throughout the whole of its
preparation and its performance, and how to bring it to its accom-
plishment the Father had to send the Son into the world, and
to throw a veil over His glory, and to put the cup of our chas-
tisement into Ilis hand, and to bid the sword of righteous
vengeance awake against his fellow, and, that he might clear a
way of access to a guilty world, had to do it through the blood
of an everlasting covenant, and to lay the full burden of our
atonement on the head of the innocent sufferer, and to endure
the spectacle of His bitterness, and His agonies, and His tears, till
He cried out that it was finished, and so bowed Himself and gave
up the ghost.
Man is blind to the necessity, but God sees it. The prayer of
Christ in His agony was, that the cup, if possible, might be
removed from Him. But it was not possible. He could have
called twelve legions of angels, and they would eagerly have
flown to rescue their beloved Lord from the hands of His perse-
cutors. But He knew that the Scripture must be fulfilled, and
they looked on in silent forbearance. It behoved Him to undergo
all this. And there was a need, and a propriety, why He should
suffer all these things, ere He entered into His glory.
1661-1731.]
569
DEFOE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
DEFOE.
A.D. 1661-1731.
THE last kind of literature which remains to be examined
is the novel: one which cannot but be approached joyfully
by everyone who feels a proper pride in the triumphs of
British genius; since, though one or two works of foreign
writers are of an excellence which has never been surpassed,
yet the number and variety of works of first-rate excellence
in this department of composition which our own country-
men have produced places this nation certainly above all
competition.
It is not an unfrequent topic with the pretenders to
strict wisdom and undeviating usefulness to declaim against
novel-reading as a pernicious waste of time; but such a
censure might with almost equal reason be pronounced
upon the study of poetry: it is one which confounds the
good with the bad, and makes no distinction between those
works which convey instruction to the mind, or purify and
ennoble the feelings, and those which pander to the ill-
directed curiosity which restlessly craves to learn the
secrets of vice, and interests itself in the fortunes of the
unworthy.
The novel which alone deserves the attention either of
posterity or of the age in which it is composed, as a work
of art, has a resemblance partly to a poem and partly to a
drama. It is a narrative heroic or domestic, as the case
may be, either created wholly by the imagination, or based
on a foundation of truth, and only coloured and embellished
by the invention of the author. As such it exhibits many
of the qualities which are indispensable in a poem : liveliness
of fancy, power of discrimination, felicity of description.
Again, it brings before the reader a variety of personages,
570
[CH. XXXIII
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in the portrayal of which fidelity to nature, consistency of
character, vivacity, wit, humour, and sometimes pathos are
displayed; and so far it presents many of the features of the
drama. If, as no one questions, the feelings can be refined
and the intellect sharpened by the study of an imaginative
poem or a well-constructed play, it is not easy to conceive
why we should deny that the same service may be done by
a novel ingeniously planned and skilfully wrought out; why
we should refuse to Flora's self-condemning sorrow the
sympathy which we bestow on the bereavement of Con-
stance; or be more ashamed of laughing at Richies Moni-
plies than at Malvolio.
To bid us to think otherwise is to bid us to set ourselves
against the general feeling of mankind, for in truth the
novel is a universal favourite; and it is remarkable, as a
commentary on the parallel which has been drawn above
between the novel and the play, that the Romans, who had
nothing worthy of the name of drama, are also, alone of
lettered nations, destitute of the novel. The Greeks have
bequeathed us one admirable specimen, the 'Cyropædia' of
Xenophon, which is as pure a specimen of the historic
novel as 'Waverley' or 'Kenilworth ;' it is what in modern
days would be called a novel with a moral: a novel that is
designed to hold up a particular character or kind of
character to admiration; the author's object being, in his
picture of Cyrus, to set before the world a model of a virtuous
and patriotic king. It would occupy too much of our space
to speak of the foreign novelists of modern Europe; though
it is to the genius of one of their band, even more than to
that of her poets or dramatists, that Spain owes her chief
literary fame in other countries; though the severest critics
assign to Boccaccio's novels the same merit which is allowed
to Pascal's 'Provincial Letters,' of having fixed the language
of his country by the purity of his style; and though 'Gil
Blas,' 'Atala,' and 'Corinne,' to say nothing of the countless
tales that have proceeded from the pens of some of their
more recent writers, amply testify that, if the faculties cal-
culated to enable them to shine in the loftier kinds of
poetry have been denied to the French, they are abundantly
en lowed with that ingenuity of invention which enables
1661-1731.]
571
DEFOE.
·
them to take a high rank among the writers of prose fiction.
It was to novels also that Goethe owed his first celebrity;
and, in fact, no modern nation that has any literature at all
has omitted to cultivate that species of composition which,
under its different names, tale, novel, or romance, has equal
attractions for readers of every variety of age, sex, rank, or
disposition.
The father of the English novel is Defoe, in whose literary
history this circumstance is especially remarkable, that his
novels were not the effusions of his sportive youth, but
that, having spent his earlier manhood in studies of a
severer cast, in which indeed he displayed considerable
abilities, though his labours in that way, being directed to
subjects of but temporary interest, have long been forgotter,
he reserved the lighter compositions, which have made his
name immortal, till his old age.
Daniel Defoe, to give him at once the name by which
alone he is known (though his real name was Foe, and the
more dignified prefix was added from some whim after he
reached the age of manhood), was born in London in 1661,
being the son of a wealthy Nonconformist butcher, who,
designing him for the ministry, gave him an education
beyond what might have been expected from his rank in
life; so that he boasted in his later days that as a boy he
had learnt Greck, Latin, French, and Italian; adding, how-
ever, that his master's chief labour had been bestowed in
making him and his schoolfellows 'masters of English.'
The truth of this latter portion of his assertion he abundantly
verified at a later period. It was a stirring time when he
reached the age of manhood; he had abandoned the plan of
becoming a preacher, entering into business as a hosier, but
his heart was more interested in politics than in commerce.
The persecution to which his sect was exposed in the time
of Charles II. naturally made him an opponent of the
Government, and he began to write pamphlets in favour of
religious liberty. When James came to the throne he even
took up arms as one of Monmouth's soldiers, and thought
himself fortunate in escaping the penalties of the Bloody
Assize. He fled the country, travelled on the Continent,
apparently with a view of establishing commercial relations
572
[CH. XXXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
with the Spanish and Portuguese merchants; and, on his
return to England after an absence of a couple of years, he
assumed the name by which he will be for ever known, of
Defoe.' But again politics drove commerce out of his head.
As a school-boy he had been notorious for his love of
fighting, and the recollection of his past danger as a
follower of Monmouth could not prevent him from again
girding on his sword when William landed in Torbay.
It was hardly strange that with such inclinations his
mercantile affairs did not prosper: he became a bankrupt,
and was forced to flee from London, to avoid the perpetual
imprisonment which in those days was the lot of the debtor.
But his creditors were convinced of his rectitude of
purpose,
and agreed to a composition of their claims; and their con-
fidence was justified when, many years afterwards, he paid
in full every claim to which he had been liable. As soon
as his arrangement of his debts had set him free, he resumed
the study of politics with greater zeal than ever, without
however neglecting the care of his private affairs, for at the
same time he established some brickworks at Tilbury, near
the mouth of the Thames, which proved very profitable.
But his energy was inexhaustible: while looking after his
business he found time to write pamphlet after pamphlet,
in one instance opposing the King's views, when ke argued
against a war with France for reasons which are very
honorable to him and prove him to have been in many
respects in advance of his age; since the ground which he
took up was that 'natural antipathies are no just ground
of a war against nations, neither popular opinions; nor is
every invasion of a right a good reason for war, until
redress has first been peaceably demanded.' But generally
he advocated William's policy, and when a low poet of
the name of Tutchin 2 wrote a scurrilous poem called the
His most recent biographer, Mr. Lee, says that he originally as-
sumed the name to distinguish himself from his father, but he still oc-
casionally called himself Foe, even in his publications. In his 'Pacifi-
cator,' published as late as 1700, he says—
'Let Congreve write the comic: Foe lampoon.'
2 Pope, in his malice, couples with him Defoe :-
'Earless on high stood unabash'd Defoe,
And Tutchin, flagrant from the scourge, below.'-DUNCIAD, ii. 147.
1661-1731.]
573
DEFOE.
Foreigners,' in disparagement of the King's Dutch
favourites, Defoe turned poet to reply to him, and his 'True-
born Englishman' was so grateful to the Royal taste that
he was sent for to Kensington Palace, and 'rewarded,' as
he himself affirms, beyond his capacity of deserving.'
It is said that William even consulted him about the
Partition Treaties, and in the project, already contemplated,
of the Scotch Union. But William died, and the views
which had found favour with him were no longer acceptable
at Court. The Ministers of the new Sovereign introduced
a Bill against 'Occasional Conformity,' to disqualify Dis-
senters from civil employments; and Defoe, who had held
one office for a short time in the late reign, and perhaps
had been in hopes of obtaining some other, wrote an
anonymous pamphlet against it, The Shortest Way with
Dissenters,' in which he ironically proposed to extinguish
Dissent by hanging all who professed it. It had a curious.
fate: at first it was believed to have expressed the real
opinions of the writer, who was greatly lauded for his zeal
in defence of the Church; but when its real design was
discovered, and it had become also known that he was the
writer, he was prosecuted as the author of a libellous
publication, heavily fined, pilloried, and sentenced to be
imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure. That part of the
punishment which was intended to be the most ignominious
was turned to his honour by his own wit and the sympathy
of the citizens: on the very day in which he was placed in
the pillory he published 'a Hymn' to that engine with his
name, in which he denounced his prosecutors as equally
incapable of wit and of understanding the principles of the
constitution :
the men that placed him here
Are scandals to the times,
Are at a loss to find his guilt,
And can't commit his crimes;
and the mob, partly perhaps out of jest, endorsed his
views; they formed a guard round the pillory to protect him
from insult, and, instead of the missiles of which the occu-
pant was commonly the aim, garlands were hung around,
and flowers showered upon him, wine was brought, his
574
[CH. XXXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
health was drunk under the platform, and his admirers
even provided refreshments for himself at the foot of it
after he was taken down. Such a triumph naturally en-
couraged him to fresh efforts; and while in Newgate he
wrote with greater diligence than ever; he even set up a
periodical publication, which he called the Review,' the
parent of the ‘Tatler' and 'Spectator,' which he continued to
publish three days a week for nine years, writing every
number himself, and displaying in many of them great wit
and shrewdness, and often, as in the reasons against the
war with France, advocating principles which, though now
generally admitted, were then entirely novel, and startling
to the very wisest statesmen. It is in the 'Review' that the
doctrine of free trade was first broached, though it had to
wait for a statesman whose father was yet unborn to in-
augurate it in action. At last, when Harley became Secre-
tary of State, Defoe was released from prison. He was
again presented at Court. In spite of the bill against
Occasional Conformity, he was even placed in office; and
was employed first in arranging many of the details of the
Scotch Union, which was now at last carried out, and
afterwards in writing a History of it. Yet once more, on
the fall of the Ministry, he was thrown into prison, on the
utterly false charge of having by some new pamphlets (the
irony of which was again misunderstood) designed to
further the restoration of the Stuarts. He had hardly been
released when he was assailed by a severer calamity than
the enmity of inen in power. In 1715 a severe illness of
an apoplectic character threatened his life. But after a time
the vigour of his constitution prevailed; and as soon as he
recovered he resumed his pen with greater energy than
ever.
His attachment to the principles of the Revolution
was so fully recognised by the Ministry of the new dynasty
that Lord Sunderland and his colleagues showed their con-
fidence in him by a very singular employment.
A man of
the name of Mist had set on foot a weekly journal in the
interest of the Pretender, which, though the Ministers
pelieved it to be very injurious to the Government, they
did not dare to prosecute. Defoe was no stranger to their
fears; and, professing that the 'Papists, Jacobites, and
1661-1731.]
575
DEFOE.
'
C
enraged High Tories' by whom it was written, were a
generation whom his very soul abhorred,' he proposed to
the Secretary of State to 'introduce himself in the disguise
of a translator of the foreign news' to a connection with
the offending newspaper, with the view of acquiring a
power of interfering with its management, and, without
either Mist or any of those concerned with him having the
least suspicion or guess of his connection with the Ministry,
keeping all offensive articles out of the paper,' and thus, in
his own words, 'disabling and enervating it, so as to do no
mischief.' His offer was accepted, and for more than a
year he continued the strange and rather questionable oc-
cupation of furnishing articles to a paper with the express
design of defeating the object of its proprietors. He as-
sured the Secretary with whom he corresponded that the
dissimulation which it imposed on him was painful to him :
that not only was he forced to associate with this abhorred
generation,' but that he was obliged to listen to their
'traitorous expressions and smile at it all as if he approved
of it; ' he was obliged to take in and read many ‘scandalous
and villanous papers,' and often even, for the sake of
avoiding suspicion, to allow the insertion of some articles
'which were not a little shocking,' but he remembered
Naaman, and, like him, 'bowed himself in the House of
Rimmon.' Such a transaction, however, could not long be
kept secret. Mist's chief supporters began to be discon-
tented and indignant at the emasculation of their public
instructor. In spite of Defoc, Mist was compelled to insert
articles of such violence that the Ministers at last searched
the office of the paper and arrested him; and at the end of
1719 Defoe broke off the connection, to engage in which
at all we must think, in spite of Mr Lee's defence of his
conduct, not very consistent with his usual integrity of
character, and only to be excused by the sincerity of his
conviction that the Government and Protestant liberties of
Britain were at stake in the contest.
But politics never engrossed the whole of his attention.
In former years, when most occupied in writing for his
party, he found time for the composition of a number of
moral and religious treatises, which became for a while.
576
[CH. XXXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
almost as popular as any of his political pamphlets; and at
the very same time when he was engaged in taking the
poison out of Mist's Jacobitism he found leisure for the
work which has given him immortality. There are few
things stranger in the history of literature than that the book
which, above all others in our language, is the delight of
every boy in the kingdom, should have been written by a
man verging on sixty years of age, suffering under a severe
disease, and one whose energies till that time had been
wholly devoted to subjects of gravity and importance. It
is possible, however, that passages in his earlier life had
been, even without his being aware of it, a preparation for
the work. While settled at Tilbury he had become master
of a yacht, and had amused himself by sailing on the
Thames, where he had made acquaintance with the seamen,
who in those days, when the love of adventure was ham-
pered with few scruples, varied their voyages in merchant-
men with the more profitable enterprises of the buccaneer,
which they loved to recount to marvelling landsmen on
their return home. Defoe had caught a sufficient portion
of their spirit to admire their hardihood; and a little before
his illness the public attention had been greatly attracted
by the strange adventures of a Scotch seaman named
Selcraig or Selkirk, who, in one of the celebrated Dampier's
voyages had quarrelled with his captain, and, quitting the
expedition, had lived by himself for several years on the
desolate island of Juan Fernandez off the coast of Chili.
Steele had written a brief account of his sojourn there in
one of his periodicals; and now Defoe immortalised him by
making it the foundation of a tale to which he gave the
name of 'The Life and strange Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe, who lived twenty-eight years all alone on an unin-
habited island,' &c. &c. No book had ever been so popular
at its first appearance: four editions were sold off in as
many months: none have ever had so enduring a popu-
larity; there is probably no year in which it is not still
reprinted. At the present day it may be to some extent
neglected by grown-up readers, because the unequalled
fascination which it exercises over the young has led to its
being regarded as a 'boy's book;' but in former days it
1661-1731.]
577
DEFOE.
C
has won the admiration of the most judicious and the most
rigorous critics. It has been praised with equal warmth
by the matter-of-fact Johnson, as one of the few books that
the reader ever wished longer, and by the greatest of all
novelists, Scott, who has analysed the causes to which its
hold on public favour may be ascribed, and who shows that
its chief excellence consists 'not in the beauty of the style,'
for that, though often forcible, is rather rendered so
by the interest of a particular situation than by the art
of the writer;' nor in the artful 'conducting of the story,
for Defoe seems to have written too rapidly to pay the least
attention to this;' but to the unequalled dexterity with.
which our author has given an appearance of reality to the
incidents which he relates.' He compares the book in this
respect to 'Gulliver's Travels;' but, as he assigns the
superiority to Swift, it will be more seasonable to quote
his observations on this point when we come to speak of
the Dean's tale.
6
It was natural that the success of Crusoe' should stimu-
late the author to fresh exertions in the same field. We may
pass over his continuation of the work, which appeared in
the autumn of the same year, but which only furnishes one
more example of the maxim which has come to be accepted
almost as a truism, that continuations are always failures;
but the greatest novelist could not afford to have the
'Memoirs of a Cavalier' and the 'Life of Captain Carleton '
passed over in silence. Scott himself might seem to have
taken the idea of the adventures of Dalgetty from the career
of the cavalier, who is represented as having at first, as
a younger son, sought to push his fortune as a soldier in
the German war, and having returned to England, on the
breaking out of the Rebellion, to fight for the king. And,
as a sort of commentary on the opinion which he has ex-
pressed as to the air of reality which is spread over ‘Robinson
Crusoe,' remarks that 'the contrast between the soldiers of
the celebrated Tilly and those of Gustavus Adolphus
almost seems too minutely drawn to have been executed
from anything short of oracular testimony. But Defoe's
genius has shown, in this and other instances, how com-
pletely he could assume the character he describes.' Captain
578
[CH. XXXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Carleton is represented to have lived a generation later;
to have served under the Duke of York against the Dutch,
and in Anne's reign, under the Earl of Peterborough, against
the French. Of both works Defoe, in his prefaces, professed
to be not the author but the editor, putting them forth as
original memoirs; those of the cavalier having been found.
by accident, after lying hid for thirty years, in the closet
of a descendant of an eminent minister,' while Captain
Carleton is honoured with an express description as 'great-
nephew to Lord Dudley Carleton, who died Secretary of
State to King Charles I.,' and both works have had the
singular fortune of having been accepted under the disguise
which their author formed for them, being often quoted
as genuine works. Fifty years afterwards Johnson spoke
of Carleton's memoirs as the best account in the language
of the eccentric captor of Barcelona; and the delusion is
not wholly exploded to this day. He wrote many other
works of the same class, but, in comparison with these
masterpieces, they are hardly worth mentioning. They
made him not only universally admired, but rich; and he
was in the enjoyment of a well-earned prosperity when, in
1731, he died, having just completed his seventieth year.
The appearance of reality with which Defoe invests his
narrative cannot perhaps be better exemplified than in the
following extract, in which Robinson Crusoe is represented
as making his suit of clothes out of skins, and his umbrella.
That which follows, from the 'Memoirs of a Cavalier' is
the passage to which Scott alludes, for its contrast between
the soldiers of the two great German armies.
¹ Defoe's recent editor denies Carleton's memoirs to be his writing,
but he seems to have no ground for his denial beyond his own opinion
as a critic that it is not in Defoe's style; and on such a point, Mr.
Lee's verdict cannot be allowed to counterbalance the decision of Scott
and other eminent judges, still less to outweigh the positive evidence in
favour of Defoe's authorship. The 'Memoirs of a Cavalier,' too, Mr. Lee
does not believe to be wholly Defoe's, regarding his part in it to be
that of an editor of a journal really kept by the writer whose composi-
tion it professes to be, but enlarged and published by the hand of an
experienced author.
1661-1731.]
579
DEFOE.
(Robinson Crusoe.)
I have mentioned that I saved the skins of all the creatures
that I killed, I mean four-footed ones, and I had them hung up
stretched out with sticks in the sun, by which means some of
them were so dry and hard that they were fit for little, but others,
it seems, were very useful. The first thing I made of these was
a great cap for my head, with the hair on the outside, to shoot off
the rain; and this I performed so well that, after, I made me a
suit of clothes wholly of those skins-that is to say, a waistcoat,
and breeches open at the knees, and both loose, for they were
rather wanting to keep me cool than to keep me warm. I must
not omit to acknowledge that they were wretchedly made; for if
I was a bad carpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were
such as I made a very good shift with, and when I was abroad, if
it happened to rain, the hair of the waistcoat and cap being outer-
most, I was kept very dry.
After this, I spent a great deal of time and pains to make an
umbrella. I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great
mind to make one. I had seen them made in the Brazils, where
they are very useful in the great heats which are there, and I felt
the heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the
equinox; besides, as I was obliged to be much abroad, it was a
most useful thing to me, as well for the rains as the heats. I took
a world of pains at it, and was a great while before I could make
anything likely to hold; nay, after I thought I had hit the way,
I spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind. But at last
I made one that answered indifferently well; the main difficulty I
found was to make it let down; I could make it spread, but if it
did not let down too, and draw in, it would not be portable for me
any way but just over my head, which would not do. However,
at last, as I said, I made one to answer. I covered it with skins,
the hair upwards, so that it cast off the rain like a penthouse,
and kept off the sun so effectually that I could walk out in the
hottest of the weather with greater advantage than I could before
in the coolest, and when I had no need of it I could close it, and
carry it under my arm.
The following description of the soldiers engaged on
different sides in the Terrible Thirty Years' War, is charac-
terised by Scott as almost seeming too minutely drawn to
have been executed from anything short of ocular testimony.'
6
'I that had seen Tilly's army, and his old weather-beaten
soldiers, whose discipline and exercises were so exact, and their
26
580
[CH. XXXIII.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
courage so often tried, could not look on the Saxon army without
some concern for them, when I considered whom they had to deal
with. Tilly's men were rugged surly fellows, their faces had an
air of hardy courage, mangled with wounds and scars, their
armour showed the bruises of musket bullets and the rust of the
winter storms. I observed of them their clothes were always
dirty, but their arms were clean and bright; they were used to
camp in the open fields, and sleep in the frosts and rain; their
horses were strong and hardy like themselves, and well taught
their exercises; the soldiers knew their business so exactly that
general orders were enough; every private man was fit to com-
mand; and their wheelings, marchings, counter-marchings, and
exercise were done with such order and readiness that the dis-
tinct words of command were hardly of any use among them;
they were flushed with victory, and hardly knew what it was
to fly.
'When I saw the Swedish troops, their exact discipline, their
order, the modesty and familiarity of their officers, and the regular
living of the soldiers, their camp seemed a well-ordered city; the
meanest countrywoman, with her market-ware, was as safe from
violence as in the streets of Vienna. There were no regiments of
whores and rogues, as followed the Imperialists; nor any women
in the camp, but such as being known to the provosts to be the
wives of the soldiers, who were necessary for washing linen,
taking care of the soldiers' clothes, and dressing their victuals.
'The soldiers were well clad, not gay, furnished with excellent
arms, and exceeding careful of them; and though they did not
seem so terrible as I thought Tilly's men did when I first saw
them, yet the figure they made, together with what we had heard
of them, made them seem to me invincible; the discipline and
order of their marchings, camping, and exercise was excellent and
singular, and which was to be seen in no armies but the King's,
his own skill, judgment, and vigilance having added much to the
general conduct of armies then in use.'
1667-1745.]
581
SWIFT.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SWIFT
A.D. 1667-1745.
THOUGH, in some of the classes which have been already
examined, we have had occasion to include specimens of
several Irish writers, the earliest of them all in point of
time, he who is entitled to the credit of having led the
way
and first won for his fellow-countrymen the apprecia-
tion of the literary world abroad, was Jonathan Swift, whom
Johnson had included in his list of poets, and whom the
great novelist and critic who affirms 'Gulliver's Travels' to
be (with the Tale of a Tub ') the most considerable of his
prose works, certainly claimed as a member of the brother-
hood of novelists. And as such we take him here, next to
Defoc, whom the same great authority regards as having
to some extent been his model.
C
1
It is true that a recent critic has denied his right to be
considered an Irishman, urging truly that both his parents
belonged to English families; but he was born in Ireland,
was educated in Ireland, held Church preferment in Ireland,
and died in Ireland; so that the Irish, who claim him for
their countryman, as Grattan did in one of his finest
speeches, had certainly a fair foundation for their boast;
and to question it in anyone but such an avowed contemner
of empty pageantry as Mr. Thackeray, would look some-
thing like the pedantry of a herald or genealogist.
Swift's father, who seems to have been the first of his
family to cross the Irish Channel, had settled in Dublin as
a barrister; and in Dublin, on the 30th of November, 1667,
his only son Jonathan was born. After completing his
1 Scott's Lives of Defoe and of Swift.
582
[CH. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
education at Trinity College, where however he does not
appear to have distinguished himself, about the time of the
Revolution he crossed over to England, to visit his mother,
who had long been a widow, and who had returned to her
native country. She was a connection of Sir W. Temple,
the illustrious negotiator of the Triple Alliance, and she
introduced her son to her kinsman, who had acuteness
enough at once to discern his talent, and established him
in his house as his private secretary. When further ac-
quaintance had increased his opinion of his capacity,
Temple presented him to the King, hoping that he would
provide for him more effectually than was in his own power.
William, however, who had no taste for literature, but
little talent for anything but foreign politics, and no regard
for any class of men but soldiers, could find no better way
of evincing his sense of the value of the great diplomatist's
recommendation, than that of offering his secretary the
command of a troop of horse. When Swift, though ready
enough for conflict of most kinds, declined this military
offer, his Majesty gave him one lesson in domestic
economy, teaching him to cut asparagus in the Dutch
fashion, and to eat it stalk and all; but never offered him
any other preferment; so he remained with Temple, and
when, at the end of several years, he applied to his kinsman
to recompense him for a service of which he had become
weary, by procuring him some appointment of a more per-
manent character, Temple's patronage was but little more
discerning than the King's. Swift knew no more of law
than he did of war; but Temple obtained for him the post
of Deputy Master of the Rolls, and for a year or two he
was employed in deciding causes which, it is to be hoped,
were of no great importance. He soon grew tired of being
a judge, conscious perhaps of his thorough unfitness for
such an office; but, unluckily, when he resigned it, he made
for himself a choice fully as injudicious as had been made
for him by either king or minister.
He decided on taking Holy Orders, for which, beyond a
charitable disposition, he had no qualification whatever, and
several positive disqualifications: a capricious and violent
temper, an utter disregard of public opinion, and a turn of
1667-1745.]
583
SWIFT.
mind not only satirical but irreverent, and one also which
took wanton pleasure in the grossest images and openly
mocked at decency of language. It must be admitted
indeed that, as a parish clergyman, he discharged his duties
with assiduity, and that no trace of his defects can be found
in his sermons, which, besides the excellences, which could
hardly help flowing from his pen, of cogent argument
enforced in perspicuous and appropriate diction, are sound
in doctrine and breathe a spirit of sincerity and humanity.
But his heart was in the world of literature and politics
rather than in his profession. His living, the country
parish of Laracor in the county of Meath, seemed banish-
ment to a man fretful in temper and conscious of great
abilities; and in the last year of William's reign an oppor-
tunity presented itself to him of making his talents not
only known but useful to those who were likely to be able
to reward them, in the outcry raised against Somers, Halifax,
and their colleagues, as the ostensible authors of the Parti-
tion Treaties.
It does not appear very clearly what took him to London;
but to London he happened to go just at this juncture,
when there was the best opening that for many years had
been afforded to a man of his talents. He at once plunged
carnestly and vigorously into politics, though, with a
caution not very habitual to him, he took for the ostensible
subject of the first pamphlet in which he defended those
whose conduct he approved, not any recent transactions,
but the contests and dissensions of Athens and Rome,
where the noblest citizens, and those who had deserved
best of their respective republics, fell successively victims
to popular jealousy, until at last liberty, degenerating into
licence, was extinguished by tyranny. So admirably argued
and expressed was the essay that it was commonly attri-
buted to the Lord Chancellor himself. Somers, of course,
knew better, and sought the acquaintance of the real
author, who soon became known to the world in general;
and from this time forth his merit as a well-informed
and powerful writer was acknowledged, and he became a
man of influence in the literary world. He now made
yearly visits to England, cultivating and being cultivated
584
[CH. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
6
by the most eminent wits and scholars of the day: by
Addison, by Steele, by Arbuthnot; and resolved to make
his pen the sword with which he would open that oyster
the world, and carve out of it a better provision than he as
yet enjoyed. But his next publication unluckily injured
him more, by the irreverence with which it treated sacręd
subjects, than it could serve him by the acuteness of its
humour and the brilliancy of its wit. The Tale of a Tub,'
which he published in 1704, written (according to the
joint suffrage of judges so different in character, yet all so
competent, as Pope, Voltaire, and Scott) with all the
humour of Rabelais, but without his extravagance, was
designed solely to expose the corruptions of the Church of
Rome, and by the exposure to exalt the Church of England;
but it attacked many of the Papal doctrines with such
unsparing ridicule that even the tenets and practices of the
Church which he intended to uphold were bespattered
by it; and the impression which the work left on the minds
of the generality of readers seems to have been that the
writer could have in reality but little belief in or reverence
for any religion at all. So strong indeed was this impres-
sion that, some years later, the Archbishop of York urged it
on Queen Anne as a reason to induce her to overrule the
Minister when he proposed to make him a bishop; and the
'Tale of a Tub,' which he always looked on as the work of
which he had the greatest reason to be proud, was through
life the most effectual bar to his promotion.
It may have been with a view of effacing the suspicion
of his indifference on such subjects, that, a year or two
afterwards, he published an essay on the advancement of
religion, written, like all his works, in a nervous and
spirited style, though not very practical in its recommen-
dations; following it up with an essay on 'The Incon-
veniences which might possibly arise from the Abolition of
Christianity,' in which the whole gang of free-thinkers,
'whose genius by continual practice hath been wholly turned
upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would
therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves on
any other subject,' are treated with inimitable ridicule. But
he could not overcome the impression which he had ori
1667-1745.]
585
SWIFT.
ginally given, that he was not fit to be a bishop: though
those who thought so were not quite consistent when, in
1713, they appointed him to the principal deanery in
Ireland that of St. Patrick's in Dublin.
:
Those, however, to whom he owed this promotion were
not his original friends. On some provocation which is not
very clearly ascertained (probably because he thought
himself neglected by them), in the year 1710, he quarrelled
with the Whigs, and united himself to Harley and Boling-
broke, who had just become ministers, and who could
better appreciate the aid which their administration would
derive from one who could wield so powerful a pen. He
became the chief writer in the 'Examiner,' and with more
than one pamphlet of great ability, vigorously supported
their conduct of the negotiations which resulted in the
peace of Utrecht. They in return treated him with great
cordiality, and he so far believed in their sincerity as to
allow, when they offered him the deanery, that they were
probably doing the best for him that they were permitted.
to do. But this conviction did not render the post more
acceptable to him. To Dublin he retired with undisguised
reluctance, considering it at best but an honorable exile,
and he was not of a temper to make light of his grievances
to himself or to anyone else. At the same time he had
another perplexity, of a kind which has proved intolerable
to men of more equal tempers than his. Except that his
eyes were of a singularly bright blue, he was far from good-
looking, yet he seems to have had the art of inspiring love,
even when he probably had no intention of so doing; and
though he was now not far short of fifty, two ladies were
constantly occupying his time with professions of the most
ardent attachment, which one intermingled with complaints
arising from a jealousy sufficiently well founded, except in
so far as she was not the one who had the first claim on
his attentions. They are known in his works by the
poetical names of Stella and Vanessa. Stella was a Miss
(or in the language of that day Mrs.) Johnson, who had
lived almost from her infancy in Sir W. Temple's house,
and was believed by many to be his daughter. Vanessa
was a Miss Vanhomrigh, the orphan daughter of a wealthy
586
[CH. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
merchant, with whose widow Swift had become acquainted
from living close to her when in London. Vanessa was
pretty, lively in her manners, and fond of intellectual
amusements; and Swift, to whom she soon learnt to look up
as a master of learning and wit, took a pleasure in directing
her studies: she fell in love with her tutor, and, soon after
his installation in his deanery, removed with her sister to a
small property which their father had left them in Kildare;
probably not knowing as yet of Stella's existence, certainly
never suspecting that the Dean had already established that
lady in Dublin itself, at no great distance from his deanery.
Soon, however, she learnt the fact: Stella too became in-
formed that she had a rival, and both of them beset him
with continual solicitations and expressions of their appre-
hensions; it would be incorrect to say reproaches, for both
appear to have been too deeply in love with him to conceive
anger against him, even when most strongly suspecting
that his preference was given to her rival. At last, in 1716,
he married Stella, to whom he had probably long since
engaged himself as strongly as mutual vows could bind
them; insisting at the same time that their marriage
should be kept a profound secret; while, perhaps to blind
the world more effectually, he still continued his visits to
Vanessa, whose home at Celbridge was only a few miles
from the city; not that he in the least encouraged her
passion for him: for, on the contrary, he promoted the suit
of others for her hand, whom, however, she uniformly re-
jected. The end of both was melancholy. Vanessa at
last obtained such a certainty of his intercourse with Stella
that she took the somewhat bold step of writing to her, to
enquire what claim she had on the Dean; and Swift, on
receiving the letter from his wife, broke off all acquaintance
with the writer, treating her with such sternness that,
after a few weeks, she died of a broken heart. Stella's fate
was not much happier. She was conscious that she was
generally believed to be his mistress, and the vexation to
which she was exposed gradually broke down her health.
In 1727 Swift, who, after an absence of nearly fifteen years,
had lately gone on a visit to England, heard that she was
dying. He was deeply afflicted: he hastened back to
1667-1745.]
587
SWIFT.
Dublin, and offered to acknowledge his marriage; the
remedy, as she too truly said, 'came too late.' She died at
the beginning of 1728, all the comfort which she had
derived from her marriage being a set of poetical congratu-
lations on her successive birth-days, which to us, who know
how her life was wrecked, read as cruel mockeries, though
there is no doubt that, after his own eccentric fashion, her
husband was really attached to her.
Meanwhile, in the interval between her marriage and her
death, he had been acquiring a reputation among his own
countrymen which no one had ever equalled. The service
which his pen had done to his party in England bad hardly
been heard of across the Channel; but in 1723 a patent
which gave an English ironmaster named Wood authority
to issue a copper coinage for the use of the Irish, excited
the whole people to a degree of resentment which no real
injury had ever kindled among them. The money was
urgently required; the coins were of good metal and well
executed; but King James's brass money was still remem-
bered in every part of the kingdom, and even that worth-
less coin had not been equally unpopular. The Irish
Parliament voted addresses to represent to the King that
the patent would ruin the revenue and trade of the country;
the Lord Chancellor, though a member of the Government,
concurred in the opinion, or at least in the assertion; and,
while the discontent was at its height, Swift issued a series
of letters, professedly written by a Dublin draper who
feared to subscribe them with more than the initials of his
name, M. B., in which he brought to bear every resource of
wit, humour, and invective that the most fertile genius
could supply to discredit the measure.
Wood himself was
the principal mark for attack; but King, minister, and
above all, the King's mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, who,
as was learnt in the course of the discussion, had received
a bribe from Wood to procure the sealing of the patent,
came in for their share of the reproaches which were
levelled at everyone concerned. So violent and universal
was the clamour that Walpole, who was on principle averse
to forcing measures on the people against their will, revoked
the patent; and as, in spite of the concealment of the
588
[CH. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
author's name, 'The Drapier's Letters,' to which the revoca-
tion was unanimously ascribed, were universally known to
have been written by Swift, the whole nation agreed in
looking on him as its benefactor, and to the end of his
days regarded him with gratitude and respect.
In inscribing the 'Dunciad' to Swift, Pope sums up his
titles with 'Gulliver,' and attributes to him an imitation,
not of Defoe, whom the poet disparages, but of ' Cervantes'
serious air.'¹ It is rarely easy to fix on the degree in which
one writer borrows from another, especially when the ap-
propriation does not go beyond the plan of a work. Swift
was undoubtedly a man of extensive reading; and Scott
has traced the original idea of a fictitious journey through
imaginary countries,' through English, French, and Spanish
writers,2 up to Lucian. But, as a French contemporary
said of him, Swift had in a high degree 'L'esprit créateur; '
and the invention of the details of the voyages was certainly
all his own. 'Gulliver's Travels, to Lilliput, or the land
of pigmies; to Brobdingnag, or the country of giants; to
Laputa, or the island of philosophers; and to the kingdom
of the Houyhnhnms, or horses,' were published in 1726,
anonymously (as 'The Drapier's Letters' had been); but his
friends had already seen portions of them, and the secret,
which he probably did not wish to be kept, was in fact
never a secret at all. They produced as universal and as
immediate a sensation as 'Robinson Crusoc.' 'They were
read from the highest to the lowest, and from the Cabinet
Council to the nursery.' And the great writer whose
words I am quoting explains the causes of their popularity
when he describes them as offering 'personal and political
satire to the readers in high life; low and coarse incident
to the vulgar, marvels to the romantic, wit to the young
and lively, lessons of morality and policy to the grave, and
maxims of deep and bitter misanthropy to neglected age
and disappointed ambition.' That the first voyage, that to
Lilliput, has reference to the Court and politics of England
at the time is well known. But the attraction of political
¹ Dunciad, i. 20.
2 He mentions especially The Man in the the Moon,' by Goodwin,
Bishop of Llandaff, and Rabelais''Voyage of Pantagruel.'
8 Scott's Life of Swift, p. 289.
1067-1745.]
589
SWIFT.
satire passes away with its objects; and readers of a subse-
quent age admire the work for the strange appearance of
reality with which the whole narrative is invested, whether
the traveller is among pigmies or giants; visiting a people
so scientific that the tailor measures him for a coat by com-
puting his altitude with a quadrant; or fallen to be the
servant of a race of horses, whose master does him incre-
dible honour by raising his hoof to his mouth that he may
kiss it without prostrating himself.
The comparison which Scott makes between Swift and
Defoe has already been alluded to. The genius of Defoe,'
he says, 'has never been questioned; but his sphere of
information was narrow, and hence his capacity of ficti-
tious invention was limited to one or two characters.
In this respect he is limited, like the sorcerer in the Indian
tale, whose powers of transformation were confined to as-
suming the likeness of two or three animals only. But
Swift seems, like the Persian dervise, to have possessed the
faculty of transfusing his own soul into the body of anyone
whom he selected: of seeing with his eyes, employing every
organ of his sense, and even becoming master of the powers
of his judgment.' 1 Every one he mentions 'maintains
his own character, moves in his own sphere, and is struck
with those circumstances which his situation in life or
habits of thinking have rendered most interesting to him as
an individual.'
› 2 And, in another place, he points out the
great accuracy with which, in speaking of the people and
inanimate objects seen in Lilliput and Brobdingnag, the
proportions are preserved; and the curious mode in which
the traveller's mind seems to conform to the dimensions
around him, and to think of what is great and small, not
according to the Esglish standard, but according to that of
Lilliput or Brobdingnag. Thus Gulliver talks with solem-
nity of the stately trees in his Majesty's park at Lilliput,
the tops of some of which he could hardly reach; and cele-
brates with becoming admiration the prodigious leap of
one of the imperial huntsmen, over his foot, shoe and all.
In like manner he undervalues the tower of the great
temple at Brobdingnag, which, though 3,000 feet high, is,
1 Life, p. 439.
2 Appendix V.
590
[CH. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
he thinks, hardly equal in proportion to Salisbury steeple.'
But these and all other laudatory criticisms are in fact re-
ducible to the one grand principle that there is no good
writing of any kind without consistency of character,
without the whole being, to borrow an expression from the
painter's art, in keeping. And the faculty possessed by
Defoe, and in a higher degree by Swift, of identifying him-
self with the feeling of the persons whom they portray is
only the act of preserving that consistency in the highest
perfection.
The last of the voyages, that to the Houyhnhnms, is by
all critics excepted from the panegyric which they pass
on the other three. The representation of mankind as
subject to brute beasts is repugnant to every proper
feeling, and it moreover involves too gross a violation of
probability. For, as Scott points out, there are degrees of
probability proper to even the wildest fiction.' But, even
while he condemns this part of the work, he finds excuse
for the misanthrophy which dictated it in the state of 'his
personal health, broken and worn down by the recurring
attacks of a frightful disorder; his social comfort, destroyed
by the death of one beloved object, and the daily decay and
peril of another; his life decayed into autumn, and its
remainder, after so many flattering and ambitious prospects,
condemned to a country which he hated, and banished from
that in which he had formed his hopes and left his friend-
ships.' He finds a moral, too, in the picture of the
Yahoos, the men whom Swift represents as servants to the
horses. 'It was never designed as a representation of man-
kind in the state to which religion and even the lights of
nature encourage men to aspire, but of that to which our
species is degraded by the wilful subservience of mental
qualities to animal instincts: of man such as he may be
found in the degraded ranks of every society when bruta-
lized by ignorance and gross vice.'
It is remarkable that the majority of Swift's writings
after the death of Stella, whom he survived nearly eighteen
years, were poetical, but his end was melancholy in the
extreme. As early as 1717 it is recorded of him that, per-
ceiving the upper branches of a fine elm to be withered, he
1667-1745.]
591
SWIFT.
he
remarked, 'I shall be like that tree; I shall die at top.'
And the feeling increased so much, engendering at the
same time a sympathy for all such sufferers, that, shortly
after his wife's death, he began to form plans for building
and endowing a lunatic asylum, which he eventually
carried out. From the commencement of middle age
had been subject to fits of giddiness; his hearing too
began to be impaired; and by the year 1736 the increasing
frequency of these attacks, and his deafness, which was now
confirmed, rendered him incapable of mixing in society.
After a time it became obvious that he was unfit any longer
to manage his own affairs: his property was put under the
management of trustees; and in a state of imbecility,
varied by paroxysms of furious frenzy, he lingered till
October 1745, when he died in Dublin. He was followed to
the grave by all ranks of his countrymen, whose gratitude
for the services which they believed him to have rendered
them was as vivid as if he had died on the very day on
which the grand jury threw out the bill against the
printer of The Drapier's Letters.'
Johnson has pointed a moral from his fate, expiring ‘a
driveller and a show,' but the very lines imply an unwilling
compliment to his genius; unwilling, because the great
moralist certainly regarded his character with but little
favour. Yet he speaks of his dotage as the folly of the
wise.' Wisdom, in the higher sense of the word, may not
perhaps be exactly the intellectual quality which we should
be most inclined to attribute to him; but his wit, his
humour, his fertility of invention, his purity of style,
(though not embellished by any great command of lan-
guage), have deservedly placed him in the very front rank
of English authors.
The following extract from the first voyage, that to
Lilliput, shows the art with which Swift blends satire
with his narrative; as well as the skill with which he
unfailingly preserves the proportions suitable to a race
not six inches high. Flimnap was meant for Sir Robert
Walpole, who, a few years before, had been dismissed from
office through the intrigues of Sunderland. The cushion.
which broke his fall was the influence of the Duchess of
592
[CH. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Kendal; the jumping for the silken threads alludes to the
eagerness for the ribbons of the Bath and the Garter,
shown by even the highest nobles; yet all this covert satire
is so skilfully managed as to lend piquancy and reality to
the story looked on simply as a novel.
(Gulliver's Travels.)
The emperor had a mind one day to entertain me with several
of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have
known, both for dexterity and magnificence. I was diverted with
none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed upon a
slender white thread, extended about two feet, and twelve inches
from the ground. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the
reader's patience to enlarge a little.
This diversion is only practised by those persons who are
candidates for great employments and high favour at court.
They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always
of noble birth or liberal education. When a great office is vacant,
either by death or disgrace (which often happens), five or six of
those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty
and the court with a dance on the rope; and whoever jumps the
highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the
chief ministers themselves are commanded to show their skill,
and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty.
Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the straight
rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole
empire. I have seen him do the summerset several times to-
gether, upon a trencher fixed on a rope, which is no thicker than
a common pack-thread in England. My friend Reldresal, prin-
cipal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not
partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers
are much upon a par.
These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof
great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three
candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when
the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity;
for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they
strain so far that there is hardly one of them who has not received
a fall, and some of them two or three. I was assured that, a year
or two before my arrival, Flimnap would infallibly have broke his
neck, if one of the king's cushions, that accidentally lay on the
ground, had not weakened the force of his fall.
There is likewise another diversion, which is only shown before
the emperor and empress, and first minister, upon particular oc-
casions. The emperor lays on the table three fine silken threads of
1667-1745.]
593
SWIFT.
six inches long; one is blue, the other red, and the third green.
These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the
emperor has a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favour.
The ceremony is performed in his majesty's great chamber of state,
where the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity, very dif-
ferent from the former, and such as I have not observed the least
resemblance of in any other country of the new or old world. The
emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the
horizon, while the candidates, advancing one by one, sometimes
leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it, backward and for-
ward, several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed.
Sometimes the emperor holds one end of the stick, and the first
minister the other; sometimes the minister has it entirely to
himself. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds
out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the
blue-coloured silk; the red is given to the next, and the green to
the third, which they all wear girt twice round about the middle;
and you see few great persons about this court who are not
adorned with one of these girdles.
It is the custom, that every Wednesday (which as I have before
observed, is their Sabbath), the king and queen, with the royal
issue of both sexes, dine together in the apartment of his majesty,
to whom I was now become a great favourite; and at these times,
my little chair and table were placed at his left hand, before one
of the salt-cellars. This prince took a pleasure in conversing with
me, inquiring into the manners, religion, laws, government, and
learning of Europe; wherein I gave him the best account I was
able. His apprehension was so clear, and his judgment so exact,
that he made very wise reflections and observations upon all I
said. But, I confess that, after I had been a little too copious in
talking of my own beloved country, of our trade, and wars by sea
and land, of our schisms in religion, and parties in the state, tho
prejudices of his education prevailed so far that he could not
forbear taking me up in his right hand, and, stroking me gently
with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, 'Whether
I was a Whig or Tory ?' Then turning to his first minister, who
waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the main-
mast of the Royal Sovereign,' he observed, 'how contemptible
a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such
diminutive insects as I; and yet,' says he, 'I dare engage, these
creatures have their titles and distinctions of honour; they con-
trive little nests and burrows, that they call houses and cities;
they make a figure in dress and equipage; they love, they fight,
594
[CII. XXXIV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
they dispute, they cheat, they betray!' And thus he continued
on, while my colour came and went several times, with indigna-
tion, to hear our noble country, the mistress of arts and arms, the
scourge of France, the seat of virtue, piety, honour, and truth, the
pride and envy of the world, so contemptuously treated.
But as I was not in a condition to resent injuries, so, upon
mature thought, I began to doubt whether I was injured or no.
For, after having been accustomed several months to the sight and
converse of this people, and observed every object upon which I
cast my eyes to be of proportionable magnitude, the horror I had
at first conceived, from their bulk and aspect, was so far worn off
that, if I had then beheld a company of English lords and ladies
in their finery and birthday clothes, acting their several parts in
the most courtly manner of strutting, and bowing, and prating, to
say the truth, I should have been strongly tempted to laugh as
much at them as the king and his grandees did at me. Neither,
indeed, could I forbear smiling at myself, when the queen used to
place me upon her hand towards a looking-glass, by which both
our persons appeared before me in full view together, and there
could be nothing more ridiculous than the comparison; so that I
really began to imagine myself dwindled many degrees below my
usual size.
When all was ready, and the day came for my departure, I
took leave of my master and lady, and the whole family; my eyes
flowing with tears, and my heart quite sunk with grief. But his
honour, out of curiosity, and, perhaps (if I may speak it without
vanity), partly out of kindness, was determined to see me in my
canoe, and got several of his neighbouring friends to accompany
him. I was forced to wait above an bour for the tide; and then,
observing the wind very fortunately bearing towards the island to
which I intended to steer my course, I took a second leave of my
master; but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof,
he did me the honour to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not
ignorant how much I have been censured for mentioning this last
particular. Detractors are pleased to think it improbable that so
illustrious a person should descend to give so great a mark of dis-
tinction to a creature so inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten
how apt some travellers are to boast of extraordinary favours they
have received. But if these creatures were better acquainted with
the noble and courteous disposition of the Houyhnhnms, they
would soon change their opinion.
1707-1754.]
595
FIELDING.
CHAPTER XXXV.
NOVELISTS-(continued).
As between Jonson and Goldsmith there was a school of
dramatists whose talent no one could deny, but whose works
at the same time no one could cite, much less recommend
for perusal; so the middle of the last century produced
writers of novels of the very first class as men of ability and
also of artistic skill, whose works are almost equally pro-
scribed by modern taste, which in their case cannot be pro-
nounced needlessly delicate and fastidious. Not, indeed,
that Fielding, Smollett, or even Sterne is to be branded like
Wycherley and his dramatic followers, as designing to re-
commend vice, or even as indifferent to the attractions of
virtue; but that the indelicacy and coarseness of the age
in which they lived, instead of being kept out of sight or
even softened, are too faithfully reproduced in their writings:
that they, and more especially the two last, write as if they
had a taste for coarseness rather than for refinement. They
were contented with, they certainly had no wish to improve,
the manners of the times. Yet the most rigid censors have
allowed that, as an artist, Fielding has no superior; that,
for the skilful construction of a plot, for the address with
which every incident bears upon and advances the catas-
trophe, and at the same time illustrates the characters of
the persons concerned, his novels are models; and that no
inferior praise is duc to the truth, spirit, and consistency
with which the characters are drawn. Nor are his charac-
ters all of the coarser kind. On the contrary, one is said
to have been drawn to the life from a learned and most
respectable friend. And with such skill is he delineated in
every part that, once more to quote the critical panegyric
596
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of the greatest of all subsequent novelists, Parson Adams's
'learning, his simplicity, his evangelical purity of heart and
benevolence of disposition are so admirably mingled with.
pedantry, absence of mind, and with the habit of athletic
and gymnastic exercises then acquired at the Universities by
students of all descriptions, that he may safely be termed
one of the richest productions of the school of fiction.' And
no one will deny the delicacy and tenderness which he has
infused into some of his portraits of women. Sophia
Western is in every point a lady (a character which must
be very difficult to draw, if we consider how very rarely
those who attempt the task have succeeded), and Amelia,
who is reported to have been drawn from his own wife, is
endowed with such purity and gentleness that the beauty of
the picture has been judged to have atoned to Mrs. Fielding
in some degree for the trials of her patience and love to
which he himself subjected her in no less a degree than
Booth tried the temper of Amelia.
Between Fielding and Smollett Scott has instituted a
most careful and judicious comparison, assigning to the
former a higher and purer taste, greater elegance of com-
position and expression, more address in the conduct of his
story, and finally a power of describing amiable and virtuous
characters, and of placing before us heroes, and especially
heroines, of a much higher and more pleasing stamp than
Smollett was able to conceive; but allowing, on the other
hand, to Smollett more 'brilliancy of genius, more inex-
haustible richness of invention.' It is impossible to avoid
coinciding in this opinion. But the more we admit its cor-
rectness, the more evident does the superior influence of taste
even to fertility of invention and liveliness of wit appear
as a source of enduring popularity; for there can be no
question that, in the general estimation, Fielding bears the
palm from his rival. Peregrine Pickle and Roderick
Random may not be more dissolute than Tom Jones; but
the latter has the manners, and almost always displays the
feelings of a gentleman, while Smollett's heroes are often
vulgar, if not brutal in their coarseness. Fielding himself
was probably far less correct in his way of life than Smollett,
but his superior judgment prevented his offending the taste
1713-1768.]
597
STERNE.
of others; and Smollett, who lacked this safeguard, enjoys,
for want of it, a far lower reputation than his unquestioned
genius would entitle him to.
C
1
The third of this triumvirate, in richness of invention and
variety, falls far beneath the others. One is ashamed to add
that, though a clergyman, he also sins against decorum far
more deeply, because far more wantonly and needlessly than
they. He had a vile delight in indelicate images and indecent
language, and indulged his fancy when they were so far from
being required or excused by the course of his story that
they rather mar its effect. They have not even the excuse
of coinciding with the habits of the time, for a well-known
anecdote proves that he was reproached by a friend for his
uncalled-for indecencies. On the other hand, in the ex-
quisite skill and humour with which he has portrayed two
or three characters, and in the pathos which he has thrown
into one of his episodes, he is inferior to neither, nor to any
other author of fiction. His latest critic has denied his
naturalness (if it be lawful to coin such a word), has called
his sensibility artistic,' the creation, that is, of a play
actor, not of a man of genuine feeling; and, because he sees
in his most striking passages not so much an inclination to
laugh himself as a determination to make the reader laugh,
denies him the praise of humour altogether; and, even while
admitting his power to excite our mirth or elicit our tears
at his will, pronounces him 'a great jester, not a great
humourist.' To speak thus is to do great injustice not only
to the painter of those unrivalled portraits, Uncle Toby,
the Corporal, and Yorick, but to the host of readers with
whom for more than a century they have been household
words, and who have believed (and the belief is not likely to
be extinguishod by a solitary sneer) that they proceeded
from a genius which in its peculiar and limited line has had
no superior. It is a sufficient condemnation of Sterne that,
even of his warmest admirers, none hesitate to visit his
wanton outrages upon propriety with a reprobation which
they can find grounds for forbearing with reference to the
1 Thackeray in his Humourists,' p. 303.
598
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE,
•
freespoken plainness of Fielding, or the coarser vulgarities
which too often disfigure the pages of Smollett.
The 'Vicar of Wakefield' has already been alluded to in
the sketch which has been given of Smollett. Coming out, as
it did, almost immediately after 'Tristram Shandy,' its per-
fect purity (united with great humour, as shown in the
characters of the Vicar and Moses) may be looked on almost
as a designed protest against the impurities of Sterne.
But Goldsmith gave no further specimen of his abilities as
a novelist. And it was reserved for the present century to
produce a writer who could unite all the good qualities of
his predecessors, wit, humour, and invention, with a learning
to which they made no claim, and a poetic fire which had not
been bestowed on them, and show that the freest exercise
of all these attributes of genius was compatible with a high-
bred purity of feeling to which coarseness and impropriety
were alike abhorrent. Of the varied charms of Scott's
novels we have already spoken. The first of the following
extracts is a fair specimen of his power of describing in prose
the beauties of natural scenery; his painting of which, as
we have already seen, lends so great a charm to his poetry.
(Rob Roy, vol. ii. ch. xi.)
The Forth, however, as far as the imperfect light permitted me
to judge, seemed to merit the admiration of those who claimed an
interest in its stream. A beautiful eminence of the most regular
round shape, and clothed with copsewood of hazels, mountain ash,
and dwarf-oak, intermixed with a few magnificent old trees, which,
rising above the underwood, exposed their forked and bared
branches to the silver moonshine, seemed to protect the sources
from which the river sprung. If I could trust the tale of my
companion, which, while professing to disbelieve every word of it,
he told under his breath, and with an air of something like intimi-
dation, this hill, so regularly formed, so richly verdant, and
garlanded with such a beautiful variety of ancient trees and thriv-
ing copsewood, was held by the neighbourhood to contain, within
its unseen caverns, the palaces of the fairies; a race of airy beings
who formed an intermediate class between men and demons, and
who, if not positively malignant to humanity, were yet to be
avoided and feared, on account of their capricious, vindictive, and
irritable disposition.
"They ca' them,' said Mr. Jarvie, in a whisper, 'Daoine Schie,
1771-1832.]
599
SCOTT.
whilk signifies, as I understand, men of peace; meaning thereby
to make their gude-will. And we may e'en as well ca' them that
too, Mr. Osbaldistone, for there's nae gude in speaking ill o' the
laird within his ain bounds.' But he added, presently after, on
seeing one or two lights which twinkled before us, 'It's deceits o'
Satan, after a', and I fearna to say it; for we are near the mange
now, and yonder are the lights in the Clachan of Aberfoil.'
(Rob Roy, vol. ii. ch. xiii.)
Our route, though leading towards the lake, had hitherto been
so much shaded by wood, that we only from time to time obtained
a glimpse of that beautiful sheet of water. But the road now
suddenly emerged from the forest ground, and, winding close by
the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its spacious
mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, reflected
in still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains, huge grey
rocks, and shaggy banks by which it is encircled. The hills now
sunk on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous,
as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track
which we occupied, and which was overhung with rocks, from
which we might have been destroyed merely by rolling down
stones, without much possibility of offering resistance. Add to
this, that, as the road winded round every promontory and bay
which indented the lake, there was rarely a possibility of seeing a
hundred yards before us.
Nor is he less powerful and real in his description of
female beauty; it almost looks like a challenge to poets in
one of their peculiar fields; and, if ever poets have felt
-how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray,
it must be far harder for those writers to do it whose vehicle
is the sobercr language of prose. Yet, in spite of this
drawback, it will be admitted that the portrait of the fair
Saxon noble as here presented has rarely been surpassed;
and there is not only delicacy but variety in the way in
which her consciousness of birth, rank, and acknowledged
superiority has impressed a loftier character on her gentle
lineaments.
(Ivanhoe, vol. i. ch. iv.)
Formed in the best proportions of her sex, Rowena was tall in
stature, yet not so much so as to attract observation on account of
600
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
superior height. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the
noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which
sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her clear blue eye, which
Bate enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown sufficiently
marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to
kindle as well as melt, to command as well as to beseech. If
mildness were the more natural expression of such a combination
of features, it was plain that, in the present instance, the exercise
of habitual superiority, and the reception of general homage, had
given to the Saxon lady a loftier character, which mingled with
and qualified that bestowed by nature. Her profuse hair, of a
colour betwixt brown and flaxen, was arranged in a fanciful and
graceful manner in numerous ringlets, to form which art had
probably aided nature. These locks were braided with gems, and
being worn at full length, intimated the noble birth and free-
born condition of the maiden. A golden chain, to which was
attached a small reliquary of the same metal, hung round her
neck. She wore bracelets on her arms, which were bare: her
dress was an under-gown and kirtle of pale sea-green silk, over
which hung a long loose robe, which reached to the ground,
having very wide sleeves, which came down, however, very little
below the elbow, This robe was crimson, and manufactured out
of the very finest wool. A veil of silk, interwoven with gold, was
attached to the upper part of it, which could be at the wearer's
pleasure either drawn over the face and bosom, after the Spanish
fashion, or disposed as a sort of drapery round the shoulders.
In poetry Scott's strength had been judged to lie most in
the spirit-stirring scenes of battle; and, if unrivalled by any
modern poet in such descriptions, in prose he has still more
surpassed all rivals.
(Ivanhoo, vol. i. ch. ix.)
The pause in the tournament was still uninterrupted, excepting
by the voices of the heralds exclaiming, 'Love of ladies, splin-
tering of lances! stand forth, gallant knights; fair eyes look upon
your deeds!'
The music also of the challengers breathed from time to time
wild bursts, expressive of triumph or defiance, while the clowns
grudged a holiday which seemed to pass away in inactivity; and
old knights and nobles lamented in whispers the decay of martial
spirit, spoke of the triumphs of their younger days, but agreed
that the land did not now supply dames of such transcendent
beauty as had animated the jousts of former times. Prince John
began to talk to his attendants about making ready the banquet,
1771-1832.]
601
SCOTT.
and the necessity of adjudging the prize to Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
who had, with a single spear, overthrown two knights and foiled
a third.
At length, as the Saracenic music of the challengers concluded
one of those long and high flourishes with which they had broken
the silence of the lists, it was answered by a solitary trumpet,
which breathed a note of defiance from the northern extremity.
All eyes were turned to see the new champion which these sounds
announced, and no sooner were the barriers opened than he paced
into the lists. As far as could be judged of a man sheathed in
armour, the new adventurer did not greatly exceed the middle
size, and seemed to be rather slender than strongly made. His
suit of armour was formed of steel richly inlaid with gold, and
the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by the
roots, with the Spanish word 'Desdichado,' signifying Disinherited.
He was mounted on a gallant black horse, and as he passed through
the lists, he gracefully saluted the Prince and the ladies by
lowering his lance. The dexterity with which he managed his
steed, and something of youthful grace which he displayed in his
manner, won him the favour of the multitude, which some of the
lower classes expressed by calling out 'Touch Ralph de Vipont's
shield-touch the Hospitaller's shield; he has the least sure seat,
he is your cheapest bargain.'
The champion, moving onward amid these well-meant hints,
ascended the platform by the sloping alley which led to it from
the lists, and, to the astonishment of all present, riding straight up
to the central pavilion, struck with the sharp end of his spear the
shield of Brian de Bois-Guilbert until it rang again. All stood
astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted
Knight whom he had thus defied to mortal combat, and who,
little expecting so rude a challenge, was standing carelessly at the
door of the pavilion.
'Have you confessed yourself, brother,' said the Templar, ‘and
have you heard mass this morning, that you peril your life so
frankly P'
'I am fitter to meet death than thou art,' answered the Disia-
herited Knight; for by this name the stranger had recorded
himself in the books of the tourney.
Then take your place in the lists,' said Bois-Guilbert, and
look your last upon the sun; for this night thou shalt sleep in
paradise.'
•
Gramercy for thy courtesy,' replied the Disinherited Knight,
‘and to requite it I advise thee to take a fresh horse and a new
lance, for by my honour you will need both.'
602
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Having expressed himself thus confidently he reined his horse
backward down the slope which he had ascended, and compelled
him in the same manner to move backward through the lists till
he reached the northern extremity, where he remained stationary,
in expectation of his antagonist. This feat of horsemanship again
attracted the applause of the multitude.
However incensed at his adversary for the precautions which he
recommended, Brian de Bois-Guilbert did not neglect his advice;
for his honour was too nearly concerned to permit his neglecting
any means which might ensure victory over his presumptuous
opponent. He changed his horse for a proved and fresh one of
great strength and spirit. He chose a new and a tough spear, lest
the wood of the former might have been strained in the previous
encounters he had sustained. Lastly, he laid aside his shield,
which had received some little damage, and received another from
his squires. His first had only borne the general device of his
rider, representing two knights riding upon one horse, an emblem
expressive of the original humility and poverty of the Templars,
qualities which they had since exchanged for the arrogance and
wealth that finally occasioned their suppression. Bois-Guilbert's
new shield bore a raven in full flight, holding in its claws a skull,
and bearing the motto, Gare le Corbeau.
When the two champions stood opposed to each other at the
two extremities of the lists, the public expectation was strained to
the highest pitch. Few augured the possibility that the encounter
could terminate well for the Disinherited Knight, yet his courage
and gallantry secured the general good wishes of the spectators.
The trumpets had no sooner given the signal than the cham-
pions vanished from their posts with the speed of lightning, and
closed in the centre of the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt.
The lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and it seemed
at the moment that both knights had fallen, for the shock had
made each horse recoil backwards upon its haunches. The address
of the riders recovered their steeds by use of the bridle and spur;
and having glared on each other for an instant with eyes that
seemed to flash fire through the bars of their visors, each made a
demivolte, and, retiring to the extremity of the lists, received a
fresh lance from the attendants.
A loud shout from the spectators, waving of scarfs and hand-
kerchiefs, and general acclamations, attested the interest taken by
the spectators in this encounter, the most equal, as well as the
best performed, which had graced the day. But no sooner had
the knights resumed their station than the clamour of applause
was hushed into a silence, so deep and so dead that it seemed the
multitude were afraid even to breathe.
1771-1832.]
603
SCOTT.
A few minutes' pause having been allowed, that the combatants
and their horses might recover breath, Prince John with his
truncheon signed to the trumpets to sound the onset. The cham-
pions a second time sprung from their stations, and closed in the
centre of the lists, with the same speed, the same dexterity, the
same violence, but not the same equal fortune as before.
In this second encounter, the Templar aimed at the centre of
his antagonist's shield, and struck it so fair and forcibly that his
spear went to shivers, and the Disinherited Knight reeled in his
saddle. On the other hand, that champion had, in the beginning
of his career, directed the point of his lance towards Bois-Guilbert's
shield, but, changing his aim almost in the moment of en-
counter, he addressed it to the helmet, a mark more difficult to
hit, but which, if attained, rendered the shock more irresistible.
Fair and true he hit the Norman on the visor, where his lance's
point kept hold of the bars. Yet, even at this disadvantage, the
Templar sustained his high reputation; and had not the girths of
his saddle burst, he might not have been unhorsed. As it chanced,
however, saddle, horse and man rolled on the ground under a
cloud of dust.
To extricate himself from the stirrups and fallen steed was to
the Templar scarce the work of a moment, and, stung with mad-
ness, both at his disgrace and at the acclamations with which it
was hailed by the spectators, he drew his sword and waved it in
defiance of his conqueror. The Disinherited Knight sprung from
his steed, and also unsheathed his sword. The marshals of the
field, however, spurred their horses between them, and reminded
them that the laws of the tournament did not, on the present
occasion, permit this species of encounter.
Genuine humour being rather a leaven pervading the
whole mass, than, like wit, a sweetmeat giving flavour to
a separate morsel, cannot possibly be done justice to by
brief quotations. But that in this quality of genius Scott
was little inferior even to those of his predecessors in whom
it was the predominating excellence is sufficiently attested
by his lifelike pictures of the Old Baron of Bradwardine, of
the Antiquary, of Dalgetty, of Caleb Balderstone, and (to
give the place of honour to the Sovereign) of King James.
One quality of his intellect remains to be spoken of. The
power of awakening the tenderer emotions, of exciting
sympathy for affliction, has always been reckoned among
the most unquestionable proofs of the highest order of
27
604
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
genius. In that exertion of it, as in the portrayal of beauty,
the poet again has a manifest advantage. Yet it would be
hard to find in the most plaintive verse truer and more
moving pathos than is presented in the following pictures
of female distress: when Flora is anticipating her brother's
death on the scaffold, and torturing herself with the re-
flection that she herself had done much to urge him on
in the career which had led him to such an end; and when
the humbler fisherman and his wife bewail their son, who
has been taken from them by one of those disasters to
which their adventurous way of life on our storm-beaten
coasts renders them peculiarly liable.
(Waverley, vol. ii. ch. xxxix.)
When Edward reached Miss Mac-Ivor's present place of abode,
he was instantly admitted. In a large and gloomy tapestried
apartment, Flora was seated by a latticed window, sewing what
seemed to be a piece of white flannel. At a little distance sat an
elderly woman, apparently a foreigner, and of a religious order.
She was reading in a book of Catholic devotion; but when
Waverley entered, laid it on the table, and left the room. Flora
rose to receive him, and stretched out her hand, but neither
ventured to attempt speech. IIer fine complexion was totally
gone, her person considerably emaciated, and her face and hands
as white as the purest statuary marble, forming a strong contrast
with her sable dress and jet black hair. Yet amid these marks
of distress, there was nothing negligent or ill-arranged about her
attire, even her hair, though totally without ornament, was dis-
posed with her usual attention to neatness. The first words she
uttered were, 'Have you seen him ? '
'Alas, no!' answered Waverley, 'I have been refused admit-
tance.'
'It accords with the rest,' she said, 'but we must submit.
Shall you obtain leave, do you suppose ?
'For-for to-morrow,' said Waverley; but muttering the last
word so faintly that it was almost unintelligible.
(
'Ay, then or never,' said Flora, ' until,' she added, looking up-
ward, the time when, I trust, we shall all meet. But I hope
you will see him while earth yet bears him. He always loved
you at his heart, though—but it is vain to talk of the past.'
'Vain indeed!' echoed Waverley.
'Or even of the future, my good friend,' said Flora, so far as
earthly events are concerned; for how often have I pictured tɔ
1771-1832.]
605
SCOTT.
myself the strong possibility of this horrid issue, and tasked
myself to consider how I could support my part; and yet how
far has all my anticipation fallen short of the unimaginable bit-
terness of this hour?'
'Dear Flora, if your strength of mind—————-”
'Ay, there it is,' she answered, somewhat wildly; 'there is, Mr.
Waverley, there is a busy devil at my heart, that whispers-but
it were madness to listen to it that the strength of mind on
which Flora prided herself has murdered her brother.'
'Good God! how can you give utterance to a thought so
shocking.'
'Ay, is it not so? but yet it haunts me like a phantom; I know
it is unsubstantial and vain; but it will be present, will intrude
its horrors on my mind, will whisper that my brother, as volatile
as ardent, would have divided his energies amid a hundred objects.
It was I who taught him to concentrate them, and to gage all on
this dreadful and desperate cast. Oh that I could recollect that
I had but once said to him, 'IIe that striketh with the sword
shall die by the sword,' that I had but once said, Remain at home,
reserve yourself, your vassals, your life, for enterprises within the
reach of man. But O, Mr. Waverley, I spurred his fiery temper,
and half of his ruin at least lies with his sister.'
The horrid idea which she had intimated, Edward endeavoured
to combat by every incoherent argument that occurred to him.
He recalled to her the principles on which both thought it their
duty to act, and in which they had been educated.
Do not think I have forgotten them,' she said, looking up with
eager quickness; 'I do not regret his attempt because it was
wrong! Oh no! on that point I am armed; but because it was
impossible it could end otherwise than thus.'
'Yet it did not always seem so desperate and hazardous as it
was; and it would have been chosen by the bold spirit of Fergus,
whether you had approved it or no; your counsels only served to
give unity and consistence to his conduct, to dignify, but not to
precipitate, his resolution.' Flora had soon ceased to listen to
Edward, and was again intent upon her needlework.
'Do you remember,' she said, looking up with a ghastly smile,
'you once found me making Fergus's bride-favours, and now I am
sewing his bridal garment. Our friends here,' she continued, with
suppressed emotion, 'are to give hallowed earth in their chapel to
the bloody relics of the last Vich Ian Vohr. But they will not
all rest together; no-his head!-I shall not have the last
miserable consolation of kissing the cold lips of my dear, dear,
Fergus!'
606
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The unfortunate Flora here, after one or two hysterical sobs,
fainted in her chair.
There is perhaps even a deeper pathos in the grief of the
old fisherman and his wife for their son, lost by one of
those accidents to which fishermen are so exposed that, as
one of the old ballads describes it,
Wives and mothers, most despairing,
Call them (fish) lives of men.
There is no self-reproach in their lamentation, as in that
of the unhappy Flora. But the grief is hardly the less
poignant; while, so unerringly true is the novelist's judg
ment, that it is in no respect overdrawn.
(The Antiquary, vol. ii. ch. x.)
The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead
which the young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little
distance stood the father, whose rugged weather-beaten coun-
tenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, had faced many a stormy
night and night-like day. He was apparently revolving his loss
in his mind with that strong feeling of painful grief peculiar to
harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into hatred
against the world, and all that remain in it, after the beloved
object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate
efforts to save his son, and had only been withheld by main force
from renewing them at a moment when, without the possibility
of assisting the sufferer, he must himself have perished. All this
apparently was boiling in his recollection. Ilis glance was directed
sidelong towards the coflin, as to an object on which he could not
steadfastly look, and yet from which he could not withdraw his
eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which were occa-
sionally put to him were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His
family had not yet dared to address to him a word, either of sym-
pathy or consolation. Ilis masculine wife, virago as she was, and
absolute mistress of the family as she justly boasted herself, on all
ordinary occasions, was, by this great loss, terrified into silence
and submission, and compelled to hide from her husband's ob-
servation the bursts of her female sorrow. As he had rejected,
food ever since the disaster had happened, not daring herself to
approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate artifice,
employed the youngest and favourite child to present her husband
with some nourishment. Ilis first action was to push it from him
with an angry violence that frightened the child; his next to
1771-1832.]
607
SCOTT.
snatch up the boy and devour him with kisses. Ye'll be a bra'
fallow, an ye be spared, Patie-but ye'll never-never can be, what
he was to me! He has sailed the coble wi' me since he was ten
years auld, and there wasna the like o' him drew a net betwixt
this and Buchan-ness. They say folks maun submit. I will try.'
Mr. Blattergowl had no sooner entered the hut, and received
the mute and melancholy salutations of the company whom it
contained, than he edged himself towards the unfortunate father,
and seemed to endeavour to slide in a few words of condolence or
of consolation. But the old man was incapable as yet of receiving
either; he nodded, however, gruffly, and shook the clergyman's
hand in acknowledgement of his good intentions, but was either
unable or unwilling to make any verbal reply.
The minister next passed to the mother, moving along the floor
as slowly, silently, and gradually as if he had been afraid that the
ground would, like unsafe ice, break beneath his feet, or that the
first echo of a footstep was to dissolve some magic spell, and
plunge the hut with all its inmates into a subterranean abyss.
The tenour of what he said to the poor woman could only be
judged by her answers, as, half stifled by sobs ill-repressed, and
by the covering which she still kept over her countenance, she
faintly answered at each pause in his speech, 'Yes, sir, yes! Ye're
very gude, ye're very gude! Nae doubt, nae doubt! It's our duty
to submit! But, oh dear, my poor Steenie, the pride o' my very
heart, that was sae handsome and comely, and a help to his family,
and a comfort to us a', and a pleasure to a' that lookit on him.
O my bairn, my bairn, my bairn! what for is thou lying there,
and eh! what for am I left to greet for ye!'
MISS EDGEWORTH.
A.D. 1766-1849.
Scorr himself has recorded that it was 'the extended and
well-merited fame of Miss Edgeworth, whose Irish characters
had gone so far to make the English familiar with the cha-
racter of their gay and kind-hearted neighbours of Ireland,' ¹
that especially excited him to attempt something similar
'for his own country.' And, though it may be that he
somewhat exaggerates the influence which her example
had on him (for Waverley had been begun before the
#
General Preface to the Waverley Novels, p. xiii.
608
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
appearance of any of her best works), yet anyone who
contributed in ever so light a degree to the production of
his immortal works has a standing claim on the gratitude
of all readers. Miss Edgeworth, however, is not reduced to
rely for our good-will on the genius of another: her own
powers were of a very high class. Her admirer, who in
process of time became a personal friend, speaks of her
'rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact.'
And these are qualities which, as has been already said,
stand high among those which give enduring popularity to
a writer of prose fiction.
<
The life of a lady can seldom supply copious materials
for a biographer. She was the daughter of a gentleman of
good family residing at Edgeworthtown in the county of
Longford, but was born near Oxford in the year 1765 or
1766; her father, who was then an undergraduate in the
University, having, in 1764, succeeded in persuading a young
lady of the neighbourhood, a Miss Elers, to elope with him
to Gretna Green. He himself was a man of some literary
and scientific talent, and the first work which she published,
an Essay on Irish Bulls,' was partly his composition. She
was nearly forty when she first appeared as a novelist; but
when she had once entered that career she pursued it with
great diligence for thirty years, one of her novels, 'Pa-
tronage' extending to four stout volumes, but the greater
portion of them not reaching half that length. She preferred
publishing shorter stories in sets, such as 'Popular Tales,'
Tales of Fashionable Life,' in two series; and some of
these are deservedly reckoned her masterpieces. In all she
displays great fertility of invention, lively dramatic power,
and entire originality, all these qualities being under the
government of strong common sense and uniformly correct
feeling and high principle. She died in 1849.
Her scenes are not always laid in Ireland; but her
powers are certainly shown to the greatest advantage when
employed in the delineation of Irish character. When she
published her second series of "Tales of Fashionable Life,'
in 1812, the evils of absenteeism were as rife as ever.
they are powerfully and truthfully depicted in 'The Ab-
sentee.' Lord Clonbrony is the absentee, who lives in a fine
And
1766-1849.]
609
EDGEWORTH.
house in London, trusting the management of his Irish
estate to a Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, known among the
tenantry as old Nick, who, aided by his brother Dennis,
conducts it in such a manner that the only question which
can be raised is whether the landlord or the tenant suffers
most from their dishonesty and cruelty. Lord Clonbrony
has a son, Lord Colambre, just on the point of coming of
age; a young man of high principles and humanity, who is
spending a long vacation in travelling incognito through
the Clonbrony estates. He arrives in the town of Clon-
brony on the day before the rent-day: when the first
thing he sees is the agent's agent selling to the tenants, at
an exorbitant price, the gold in which alone the rent will
be received on the morrow.
(The Absentee, ch. xi.)
Lord Colambre followed the crowd into a public-house, where
a new scene presented itself to his view.
The man to whom St. Denis gave the bag of gold was now
selling this very gold to the tenants, who were to pay their rent
next day at the Castle.
The agent would take nothing but gold. The same guiñeas
were bought and sold several times over, to the great profit of the
agent, and loss of the poor tenants; for, as the rents were paid,
the guineas were resold to another set, and the remittances made
through bankers to the landlord, who, as the poor man that
explained the transaction to Lord Colambre expressed it,‘gained
nothing by the business bad or good, but the ill-will of the
tenantry.'
The higgling for the price of the gold; the time lost in dis-
puting about the goodness of the notes among some poor tenants
who could not read or write, and who were at the mercy of the
man with the bag in his hand; the vexation, the useless harassing
of all, who were obliged to submit ultimately-Lord Colambre
saw; and all this time he endured the smell of tobacco and
whisky, and the sound of various brogues, the din of men wran-
gling, brawling, threatening, whining, drawling, cajolling, cursing,
and every variety of wretchedness.
In the kitchen a great dinner was dressing for Mr. Garraghty's
friends, who were to make merry with him when the business of
the day was over,
'Where's the keys of the cellar, till I get out the claret for
610
[CH. XXXV.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
6
after dinner,' says one; and the wine, for the cook; sure there's
venison,' cries another. Venison! that's the way my lord's deer
goes,' says a third, laughing. Ay, sure! and very proper, when
he's not here to eat 'em.''Keep your nose out of the kitchen,
young man, if you plase,' said the agent's cook, shutting the door
in Lord Colambre's face. "There's the way to the office, if you've
money to pay-up the back stairs.'
'No; up the grand staircase they must, Mr. Garraghty ordered,'
said the footman, 'because the office is damp for him, and it's not
there he'll see anybody to-day, but in my lady's dressing-room."
In the presence-chamber,' replied another; 'where should the
viceroy be, but in the presence-chamber?'
There was a full levee, and fine smell of great coats. 'Oh! would
you put your hats on the silk cushions?' said the widow to some
men in the doorway, who were throwing off their greasy hats on
a damask sofa.
'Why not? where else?'
'If the lady was in it you wouldn't,' said she, sighing.
'No, to be sure, I wouldn't; great news! would I make no
differ in the presence of Old Nick and my lady ?' said he, in Irish.
'Have I no sense or manners, good woman, think ye?' added he,
as he shook the ink out of the pen on the Wilton carpet, when he
had finished signing his name to a paper on his knee.
You may wait long before you get to the speech of the great
man,' said another, who was working his way through numbers.
They continued pushing forward, till they came within sight of
Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, seated in state; and a worse countenance,
or a more perfect picture of an insolent petty tyrant in office, Lord
Colambre had never beheld.
'Oh, Mr. Dennis, I'm glad to see you as kind as your promise,
meeting me here,' said the widow O'Neil, walking up to him.
'I'm sure you'll speak a good word for me-here's the lases-who
will I offer this to ?' said she, holding the glove-money and
sealing-money, 'for I'm strange and ashamed.'
'Oh, don't be ashamed, there's no strangeness in bringing money
or taking it,' said Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, holding out his hand;
'Is this the proper compliment?'
'I hope so, sir; your honour knows best.'
Very well,' slipping it into his private purse. Now, what's
your business?'
'The lases to sign-the rent's all paid up.'
Leases! Why, woman, is the possession given up ?'
'It was, plase your honour; and Mr. Dennis has the key of our
little place in his pocket.'
1766-1819.]
611
EDGEWORTII.
'Then I hope he'll keep it there. Your little place-it's no
longer yours. I've promised it to the surveyor. You don't think
I'm such a fool as to renew to you at this rent.'
Mr. Dennis named the rent-but anything your honour plases
—anything at all that we can pay.'
'Oh, it's out of the question-put it out of your head. No rent
you can offer would do, for I have promised it to the surveyor.'
Sir, Mr. Dennis knows my lord gave us his promise in writing
of a renewal, on the back of the ould lase.'
'Produce it.'
'IIere's the lase, but the promise is rubbed out.
'Nonsense! coming to me with a promise that's rubbed out.
Who'll listen to that in a court of justice, do you think?'
'I don't know, plase your honour; but this I'm sure of, my lord
and Miss Nugent, though but a child at the time, God bless her,
who was by when my lord wrote it with his pencil, will remem-
ber it.'
'Miss Nugent! what can she know of business? What has sho
to do with the management of my Lord Clonbrony's estate, pray?
( Management! no, sir.'
'Do you wish to get Miss Nugent turned out of the house ?'
'Oh, God forbid! how could that be?'
Very easily; if you set about to make her meddle and witness
in what my lord does not choose.'
'Well, then, I'll never mention Miss Nugent's name again in it
at all, if it was ever so with me. But be plased, sir, to write over
to my lord, and ask him; I'm sure he'll remember it.'
'Write to my lord about such a trifle-trouble him about such
nonsense.'
'I'd be sorry to trouble him. Then take it on my word, and
believe me, sir; for I would not tell a lie, nor cheat rich or poor,
if in my power, for the whole estate nor the whole world; for
there's an eye above.'
'Cant! nonsense! Take those leases off the table; I never will
sign them. Walk off, ye canting hag! it's an imposition-I will
never sign them.'
612
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MARRYAT.
A.D. 1786-1848.
It would have been unnatural if, in an age so devoted to
novels as the last half century, when almost every condition
of life has found its separate delineators, and the shelves
of the circulating libraries groan under rustic novels,
fashionable novels, military and even legal novels, the
Queen of the Seas had not produced writers to celebrate
her deeds on her own element, and to portray the peculiar
character of the British sailor. And thus, before the
excitement caused by the great deeds of Nelson and his
brethren in arms had died away, a number of naval novels
was added to the list, the most eminent artist in that line
being a naval officer who had himself served against the
French in the great revolutionary war.
Captain Frederick Marryat, who was born in 1786, had
learnt his profession under one of the most brilliant and
renowned of the naval heroes of the great war, being one
of Lord Cochrane's midshipmen in the 'Impérieuse.' And,
as commander of the twenty-gun sloop 'Larne,' and of a
squadron of smaller vessels in the first Burmese war, he
showed how much he had caught of the spirit of that great
commander when he took the squadron up the Rangoon
river; silenced the stockades which the guns of the land
force could not reach, and mainly contributed to the success
which crowned the expedition. For his services in that
war he was deservedly promoted, and rewarded with a
good-service pension and the riband of a C.B. And on
1786-1848.]
613
MARRYAT.
his return to England he applied himself to the grateful
task of giving his countrymen an idea of the true nature
of the service of which he was so bright an ornament.
Smollett had introduced a former generation to naval
scenes and characters, but had given a notion of the service
calculated only to disgust and repel. It is to be hoped
that he exaggerated its miseries; but, at all events, the
spirit of Rodney and Nelson had purified the service since
his day, and a ship in the reign of George IV. was a very
different thing from one in the days of his great grand-
father; and Marryat presents us its best side, though too
keen-sighted to be ignorant that there were still evils
which might be amended, too honest to conceal them, and
sensible that the best way to lead to their extinction was
to expose them. His humour may not be quite equal to
that of the author of 'Roderick Random,' but is surpassed
by that of few of his contemporaries, and he is wholly free
from the grossness which offends us in the pages of the
elder novelist. He died in 1848, having enriched our
literature with several tales, of which at least two, 'Peter
Simple' and 'Midshipman Easy,' are of the highest excel-
lence in their line.
The following extract from 'Peter Simple' is an embodi-
ment of an exploit really performed, in the winter of 1812,
by Captain Hayes, who, in a terrible storm which caught
the ‘Magnificent' at the entrance of the Basque Roads,' saved
her by a manœuvre such as is here, with some slight variation,
attributed to the captain of the 'Diomede.' And it has never
been more desirable to dwell upon such examples of what
may be done and what has been done by courage and
scamanship in old times than at the present day, when
there is too great reason to believe that the reliance on
steam is leading our young officers to relax their attention
to the strict principles of naval science and the rules of
their noble profession. The storm too, in its effects on
a ship exposed to its violence, is described with great
power.
See the author's History of the British Navy,' ch. xxxv.
614
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
(Peter Simple.)
It really was a very awful sight. When the ship was in the
trough of the sea, you could distinguish nothing but a waste of
tumultuous water; but when she was borne up on the summit of
the enormous waves, you then looked down, as it were, upon a
low, sandy coast, close to you, and covered with foam and
breakers. 'She behaves nobly,' observed the captain, stepping aft
to the binnacle, and looking at the compass; if the wind does
not baffle us, we shall weather.' The captain had scarcely time
to make the observation, when the sails shivered and flapped like
thunder. 'Up with the helm; what are you about, quarter-
master?'
'The wind has headed us, sir,' replied the quartermaster, coolly.
The captain and master remained at the binnacle, watching the
compass; and when the sails were again full, she had broken off
two points, and the point of land was only a little on the lee-bow.
'We must wear her round, Mr. Falcon. Hands, wear ship—
ready, oh, ready.'
(
She has come up again,' cried the master, who was at the
binnacle.
'Hold fast there a minute. How's her head, now ?'
'N.N.E., as she was before she broke off, sir.'
'Pipe belay,' said the captain. Falcon,' continued he, 'if she
breaks off again we may have no room to wear; indeed there is
so little room now that I must run the risk. Which cable was
ranged last night-the best bower?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Jump down, then, and see it double-bitted and stoppered at
thirty fathoms. See it well done; our lives may depend upon it.
The ship continued to hold her course good, and we were within
half a mile of the point, and fully expected to weather it, when
again the wet and heavy sails flapped in the wind, and the ship
broke off two points as before. The officers and seamen were
aghast, for the ship's head was right on to the breakers.
'Luff now, all you can, quartermaster,' cried the captain. Send
the men aft directly. My lads, there is no time for words-I am
going to club-haul the ship, for there is no room to wear. The
only chance you have of safety is to be cool, to watch my eye, and
to execute my orders with precision. Away to your stations for
tacking ship. Hands by the best bower anchor. Mr. Wilson,
attend below, with the carpenter and his mates, ready to cut away
the cable at the moment that I give the order. Silence there, fore
and aft. Quartermaster, keep her full again for stays. Mind you
1786-1818.]
615
MARRYAT.
་
case the helm down when I tell you.' About a minute passed
before the captain gave any further orders. The ship had closed-to
within a quarter of a mile of the beach, and the waves curled and
topped around us, bearing us down upon the shore, which pre-
sented one continued surface of foam, extending to within half a
cable's length of our position, at which distance the enormous waves
culminated and fell with the report of thunder. The captain waved
his hand in silence to the quartermaster at the wheel, and the
helm was put down. The ship turned slowly to the wind, pitch-
ing and chopping as the sails were spilling. When she had lost
her way, the captain gave the order, 'Let go the anchor. We
will haul all at once, Mr. Falcon,' said the captain. Not a word
was spoken, the men went to the fore-brace, which had not been
manned; most of them knew, although I did not, that if the
ship's head did not go round the other way, we should be on
shore and among the breakers in half a minute. I thought at
the time that the captain had said that he would haul all the yards
at once; there appeared to be doubt or dissent on the countenance
of Mr. Falcon; and I was afterwards told that he had not agreed with
the captain, but he was too good an officer, and knew that there was
no time for discussion, to make any remark; and the event proved that
the captain was right. At last the ship was head to wind, and the
captain gave the signal. The yards flew round with such a creak-
ing noise, that I thought the masts had gone over the side, and
the next moment the wind had caught the sails, and the ship,
which for a moment or two had been on an even keel, carcened
over to her gunnel with its force. The captain, who stood upon
the weather hammock rails, holding by the main rigging, ordered
the helm a-midships, looked full at the sails, and then at the
cable, which grew broad upon the weather bow, and held the
ship from nearing the shore. At last he cried, 'Cut away the
cable.' A few strokes of the axes were heard, and then the cable
flew out of the hawse-hole in a blaze of fire, from the violence of
the friction, and disappeared under a huge wave, which struck us
on the chess-tree, and deluged us with water fore and aft. But
we were now on the other tack, and the ship regained her way,
and we had evidently increased our distance from the land.
'My lads,' said the captain to the ship's company, 'you have
behaved well, and I thank you; but I must tell you honestly, that
we have more difficulties to get through. We have to weather a
point of the bay on this tack. Mr. Falcon, splice the main-brace,
and call the watch. IIow's her head, quartermaster?'
6
S.W. by S. Southerly, sir.'
Very well; let her go through the water.'
616
CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
But though the immediate danger is past, there is still
a rocky headland before them which it is very doubtful
whether in such a gale they will be able to weather. It is
a danger from which nothing but the most perfect seaman-
ship, the quickest presence of mind, and the most unfal-
tering nerve can save them. But few have been those of
our sailors, whether in the great war, or in after times, to
whom these qualities have been wanting, and they now
save both crew and ship.
Before twelve o'clock, the rocky point which we so much
dreaded was in sight, broad on the lee bow; and if the low, sandy
coast appeared terrible, how much more did this, even at a
distance, the black masses of rock covered with foam, which each
minute dashed up in the air higher than our lower mastheads.
The captain eyed it for some minutes in silence, as if in calcula-
tion.
6
'Mr. Falcon,' said he at last, we must put the mainsail on her.'
'She never can bear it, sir.'
'She must bear it,' was the reply.
'Send the men aft to the
mainsheet. See that careful men attend the buntlines.'
The mainsail was set, and the effect of it upon the ship was
tremendous. She careened over so that her lee channels were
under the water, and when pressed by a sea, the lee side of the
quarterdeck and gangway were afloat. She now reminded me
of a goaded and fiery horse, mad with the stimulus applied; not
rising as before, but forcing herself through whole seas, and
dividing the waves, which poured in one continual torrent from
the forecastle down upon the decks below. Four men were
secured to the wheel-the sailors were obliged to cling, to prevent
being washed away-the ropes were thrown in confusion to lee-
ward, the shot rolled out of the lockers, and every eye was fixed
aloft, watching the masts, which were expected every moment to
go over the side. A heavy sea struck us on the broadside, and it
was some moments before the ship appeared to recover herself: she
reeled, trembled, and stopped her way, as if it had stupefied her.
The first lieutenant looked at the captain, as if to say, 'This will
not do.' 'It is our only chance,' answered the captain to the
appeal. That the ship went faster through the water, and held a
better wind, was certain; but just before we arrived at the point the
gale increased in force. If anything starts, we are lost, sir,' ob-
served the first lieutenant again.
I am perfectly aware of it,' replied the captain, in a calm tone.
1786-1848.]
617
MARRYAT.
'but as I said before, and you must now be aware, it is our only
chance. The consequence of any carelessness or neglect in the
fitting and securing of the rigging will be felt now; and this
danger, if we escape it, ought to remind us how much we have to
answer for if we neglect our duty. The lives of a whole ship's
company may be sacrificed by the neglect or incompetence of an
officer when in harbour. I will pay you the compliment, Falcon,
to say, that I feel convinced that the masts of this ship are as
secure as knowledge and attention can make them.'
The first lieutenant thanked the captain for his good opinion,
and hoped it would not be the last compliment which he paid
him.
'I hope not too: but a few minutes will decide the point.'
The ship was now within two cable's length of the rocky point;
some few of the men I observed to clasp their hands, but most of
them were silently taking off their jackets, and kicking off their
shoes, that they might not lose a chance of escape provided the
ship struck.
Twill be touch and go indeed, Falcon,' observed the captain
(for I had clung to the belaying-pins, close to them, for the last half-
hour that the mainsail had been set). Come aft, you and I must
take the helm. We shall want nerve, there, and only there, now.'
The captain and first lieutenant went aft, and took the fore
spokes of the wheel, and O'Brien, at a sign made from the captain,
laid hold of the spokes behind him. An old quartermaster kept
his station at the fourth. The roaring of the seas on the rocks
with the howling of the wind, was dreadful; but the sight was
more dreadful than the noise. For a few moments I shut my eyes,
but anxiety forced me to open them again. As near as I
could judge, we were not twenty yards from the rocks at the time
that the ship passed abreast of them. We were in the midst of
the foam, which boiled around us, and as the ship was driven
nearer to them, and careened with the wave, I thought that our
main-yard-arm would have touched the rock; and at this moment
a gust of wind came on, which laid the ship on her beam-ends
and checked her progress through the water, while the accumu-
lated noise was deafening. A few moments more the ship dragged
on, another wave dashed over her, and spent itself upon the rocks,
while the spray was dashed back from them, and returned upon
the decks. The main rock was within ten yards of her counter
when another gust of wind laid us on our beam-ends, the foresail
and mainsail split, and were blown clean out of the bolt-ropes-
the ship righted, trembling fore and aft. I looked astern-the
rocks were to windward on our quarter, and we were safe.
618
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
COOPER.
A.D. 1789-1851.
IN a former chapter we have seen how valuable have been
the contributions which the scholars of the United States
have made (as they are still making them) to our histori-
cal literature. More than one of these writers have also
won an enduring reputation as novelists, and one of their
number has struck out a peculiar line for himself as the
delineator of the habits of the natives of the North
American continent, whose character he has had the skill
to render as attractive to European as to American
readers.
James Fenimore Cooper, the son of an eminent barrister
who afterwards was promoted to the Bench, was born in
New Jersey in 1789. In indulgence to his own boyish
fancy and love of adventure, his father, when he was sixteen,
placed him in the American navy; but he did not continue
in that profession more than five years, as the death of his
father had left him a fair inheritance, on which, at the end
of 1810, he took up his residence. He married and lived
as a country gentleman for several years; till, in 1821,
becoming ambitions of a wider notoriety, and feeling a con-
sciousness of great talents, he came before the world as the
author of a novel called 'The Spy,' founded on an incident
supposed to have happened in the great revolution which
established the independence of his country. Few first works
have been equally successful, either in America or in Eng-
land. It introduced the reader to new scenery, and cha-
racters which no previous writer had ever endeavoured to
portray, and which yet were treated with a vigour and
decision of touch, with a clearness and consistency, which
bore the impress of truth, and rivetted the interest of the
reader. The warmth of the praise which was unanimously
bestowed on it naturally prompted a repetition of the
effort; and for nearly thirty years, till his death in 1851, he
poured forth tale after tale with a fertility equal to that of
Scott himself. Several took the same ground as 'The
Spy,' deriving their interest chiefly from the portraiture of
1789-1851.]
619
COOPER.
the characters of the native tribes. Some were naval
novels, full, like the others, of spirit and animation, but
less attractive, as illustrating a less novel subject. An
English critic can hardly know which are held in the
greatest esteem among his own countrymen; but among
English readers The Last of the Mohicans' is considered
his masterpiece, aud it is from that, therefore, that I shall
subjoin an extract.
6
In the war between the English and French in North
America, the native tribes took different sides, as our author
himself explains it.
(Last of the Mohicans, ch. xix.)
The confusion of nations, and even of tribes, to which Ilawk-eye
alluded, existed at that period in the fullest force. The great tie
of language, and, of course, of a common origin, was severed in
many places; and it was one of its consequences that the Dela-
ware and the Mingo (as the people of the Six Nations were
called) were found fighting in the same ranks, while the latter
sought the scalp of the IIuron, though believed to be the root of
his own stock. The Delawares were even divided among them-
selves. Though love for the soil which had belonged to his ancestors
kept the Sagamore of the Mohicans with a small band of followers
who were serving at Edward, under the banners of the English
king, by far the largest portion of his nation were known to be in
the field as allies of Montcalm. The reader probably knows, if
enough has not already been gleaned from this narrative, that the
Delaware, or Lenape, claimed to be the progenitors of that
numerous people, who once were masters of most of the eastern
and northern States of America, of whom the community of the
Mohicans was an ancient and highly honoured member.
And the plot of 'The Last of the Mohicans' turns on the
danger incurred by two English ladies, relations of some
of General Wolfe's officers. They are guided by a chief
of the Mohicans, an offshoot of the great family of the
Delaware Indians; and are beset by the Hurons, a tribe
acting in concert with the French under the Marquis of
Montcalm. The following extract shows the sincerity of
the writer's admiration for many features of the Indian
character; and without a sincere feeling there cannot be
powerful writing.
620
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Left now in a measure to themselves, the Mohicans, whose
time had been so much devoted to the interests of others, seized
the moment to devote some attention to themselves. Casting off,
at once, the grave and austere demeanour of an Indian chief,
Chingachgook commenced speaking to his son in the soft and
playful tones of affection. Uncas gladly met the familiar air of
his father; and before the hard breathing of the scout announced
that he slept, a complete change was effected in the manner of his
two associates.
It is impossible to describe the music of their language, while
thus engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to
render it intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its
melody. The compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth,
was wonderful—extending from the deepest bass to tones that were
even feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the
plastic and ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and
he never failed to smile in reply to the other's contagious but low
laughter. While under the influence of these gentle and natural
feelings, no trace of ferocity was to be seen in the softened features
of the Sagamore. His figured panoply of death looked more like
a disguise assumed in mockery, than a fierce annunciation of a
desire to carry destruction and desolation in his footsteps.
After an hour passed in the indulgence of their better feel-
ings, Chingachgook abruptly announced his desire to sleep, by
wrapping his head in his blanket, and stretching his form on
the naked earth. The merriment of Uncas instantly ceased; and
carefully raking the coals in such a manner that they should
impart their warmth to his father's feet, the youth sought his own
pillow among the ruins of the place.
Imbibing renewed confidence from the security of these ex-
perienced foresters, Heyward soon imitated their example; and
long before the night had turned, they who lay in the bosom of
the ruined work, seemed to slumber as heavily as the unconscious
multitude whose bones were already beginning to bleach on the
surrounding plain.
The ladies fall into the power of Magua, the most trea-
cherous of the Huron chiefs; and their father, aided by the
Mohican chief or Sagamore Chingachgook and his son
Uncas, and by a British hunter who has lived so long
among the natives as in a great degree to have acquired
their feelings and habits, pursues them, tracking them
through the pathless forests by signs which to any other
eye would have been absolutely invisible; but which the
1789-1851.]
621
COOPER.
ཐ
hunter, or scout, as he is called in the novel, Hawk-eye, pro-
nounces to be clear as a printed book. Our last extract
relates one incident in the chase.
Ilawk-eye and the Mohicans now applied themselves to their
task in good earnest. A circle of a few hundred feet in circum-
ference was drawn, and each of the party took a segment for his
portion. The examination, however, resulted in no discovery.
The impressions of footsteps were numerous, but they all appeared
like those of men who had wandered about the spot without any
design to quit it. Again the scout and his companions made the
circuit of the halting-place, each slowly following the other, until
they assembled in the centre once more, no wiser than when they
started.
'Such cunning is not without its deviltry,' exclaimed Hawk-
eye, when he met the disappointed looks of his assistants.
We must get down to it, Sagamore, beginning at the spring
and going over the ground by inches. The IIuron shall never
brag in his tribe that he has a foot which leaves no print.'
Setting the example himself, the scout engaged in the scrutiny
with renewed zeal. Not a leaf was left unturned. The sticks
were removed, and the stones lifted--for Indian cunning was known
frequently to adopt these objects as covers, labouring with the
utmost patience and industry to conceal each footstep as they pro-
ceeded. Still no discovery was made. At length Uncas, whose
activity had enabled him to achieve his portion of the task the
soonest, raked the earth across the turbid little rill which ran
from the spring, and diverted its course into another channel. So
soon as its narrow bed below the dam was dry, he stooped over it
with keen and curious eyes. A cry of exultation immediately
announced the success of the young warrior. The whole party
crowded to the spot, where Uncas pointed out the impression of
a moccasin in the moist alluvion.
'The lad will be an honour to his people,' said Hawk-eye, re-
garding the trail with as much admiration as a naturalist would
expend on the tusk of a mammoth or the rib of a mastodon; 'ay,
and a thorn in the sides of the IIurons. Yet that is not the foot-
step of an Indian! the weight is too much on the heel, and the
toes are squared, as though one of the French dancers had been
in, pigeon-winging his tribe! Run back, Uncas, and bring me
the size of the singer's foot. You will find a beautiful print of it
just opposite yon rock, ag'in the hill side.
While the youth was engaged in this commission, the scout
and Chingachgook were attentively considering the impressions.
622
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The measurements agreed, and the former unhesitatingly pro-
nounced that the footstep was that of David, who had, once more,
been made to exchange his shoes for moccasins.
'I can now read the whole of it as plainly as if I had seen the
arts of Le Subtil,' he added; 'the singer being a man whose gifts
lay chiefly in his throat and feet, was made to go first, and the
others have trod in his steps, imitating their formation.'
'But,' cried Duncan, 'I see no signs of-
'The gentle ones,' interrupted the scout; 'the varlet has found
a way to carry them, until he supposed he had thrown any
followers off the scent. My life upon it, we see their pretty little
feet again before many rods go by.'
The whole party now proceeded, following the course of the rill,
keeping anxious eyes on the regular impressions. The water soon
flowed into its bed again, but, watching the ground on either side,
the foresters pursued their way, content with knowing that the
trail lay beneath. More than half a mile was passed, before the
rill rippled close around the base of an extensive and dry rock.
IIere they paused to make sure that the IIurons had not quitted
the water.
It was fortunate they did so. For the quick and active Uncas
soon found the impression of a foot on a bunch of moss, where it
would seem an Indian had inadvertently trodden. Pursuing the
direction given by this discovery, he entered the neighbouring
thicket, and struck the trail, as fresh and obvious as it had been
before they reached the spring. Another shout announced the good
fortune of the youth to his companions, and at once terminated
the search.
DICKENS.
A.D. 1812-1870.
MISS EDGEWORTHI might be looked on, in one sense, as a
connecting link between our early novelists and those of the
present day. She could read and write before Smollett had
passed away; and when she died, two writers, who have
only been very recently taken from us, were in possession
of the public favour to an extent which no one but Scott
has equalled, and may be said in some degree to have
divided it, though unquestionably the greater share of it fell
for the time to the lot of him who was the carlier in the field,
though posterity will probably reverse the decision.
1812-1870.]
623
DICKENS.
Charles Dickens, born at Portsmouth in 1812, and the son
of a Parliamentary reporter for one of the London papers,
began his career as a member of the staff of the 'Morning
Chronicle;' an employment which gave him opportunities of
studying the mode of life and habits of the poorer classes
which make up the great mass of the population of the
metropolis; and the natural bent of his mind inclining him
to note the peculiarities and eccentricities of those whom he
met, rather than the nicer shades of ordinary character, he
began, about 1834, when he was only twenty-two, to publish
sketches of them in the 'Monthly Magazine,' which, when the
series was complete, were republished in a collected form,
as 'Sketches by Boz,' a nom de plume, which he adopted, as he
tells us in one of his papers, from the lisping abbreviation
of Moses by an infant brother. They were probably not
very profitable in themselves, but they led him to fortune.
A shrewd London publisher having formed a deservedly high
opinion of the talents of a Mr. Seymour, an artist of the
school of Cruikshank, conceived the idea of procuring from
him a series of engravings which should represent the
perils by flood and field of a cockney sportsman; and when
Seymour had accepted his offer, he sought the co-operation
of the author of 'Sketches by Boz,' to furnish the description
or anecdote which should illustrate the pictures. On this
hint Boz spoke, or rather wrote. By a most felicitous ex-
pansion of the original idea he imagined not an isolated
sportsman, but a club of Cockneys, of different ages and
inclinations, whose combined adventures would afford of
course a greater variety of scenes for both artist and author;
and in the spring of 1836 the first number was published of
'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.' The mode
of publication (for monthly numbers were decided on), how-
ever injurious to a regular novel (for many of which the
form has since been adopted), as compelling the author to
scek to produce some startling incident or sensation in every
fresh chapter, was not ill-suited to so miscellaneous and un-
connected a publication as this, by its very title, professed
to be. The success of the book from the very first was
prodigious, and it was greatly increased when, after three
or four numbers, Mr. Pickwick's footman, Sam Weller, was
624
[CH, XXXVI,
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
added to the dramatis persona. It was felt that a new
humourist had appeared, and a humourist of a new class;
new, not so much because he drew his portraits from a rank
which previous writers had thought beneath their notice,
as because the chief element in the humour was not any sly
combination of peculiar qualities or unexpected situations,
but the spirit of reckless, unceasing fun :
'Laughter holding both his sides.'
And those who liked to laugh better than anything else,
a great majority of the world, hastened to enrol themselves
as his admirers. Long before the last number appcared it
would have been thought to argue a strange dulness to be
ignorant of anything that had happened to Pickwick and
Sam. A single book had made Mr. Dickens as famous as
'Childe Harold' had made Byron; and he had nothing to do
but to take advantage of his popularity. He was not
wanting to his fortune; 'Pickwick' was followed by 'Nicholas
Nickleby,' that by 'Oliver Twist; ' and for above twenty years
a constant succession of tales flowed from his pen, more
artistically worked up than 'Pickwick,' with a more regular
plot, but all bearing a strong family likeness to it and to
one another. They were varied by works of a graver sort.
He visited America, and wrote an account of his travels and
of the people, which was read on the other side of the
Atlantic with less pleasure than on this: he went to Italy,
and presently published pictures from Italy, in which the
delighted Londoners read that Rome was very like London.
For a short time he undertook to edit a newspaper, the
Daily News;' but his talents were not suited to serious
subjects his tales were more congenial to his taste, and
far more profitable, and he speedily returned to them, his
popularity rather increasing than diminishing; and being
further augmented when he adopted the plan of reading
some of the most striking scenes from his different works
in public. At last, however, his health gave way, he ceased
to write anything more elaborate than Christmas tales, and
in the summer of 1870 he died.
:
The eulogies which had been lavished on him when alive
1812-1870.]
625
DICKENS.
were not withheld from his memory, and he was loudly
lamented in what it is the fashion to call the organs of
public opinion, not only as one of the greatest of humourists,
but as one who had constantly exerted his great powers for
the most philanthropical and beneficent purposes. To the
praise of having written with invariable purity, of never
having attempted to attract readers by the most distant.
suggestions of impropriety, he is fully entitled. It is
probably rather overstraining his merits when he is further
represented as having deliberately designed to bring about
a reform of abuses by his writings: to make parish beadles
humble and nurses abstemious by the moral drawn from
Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Gamp. And even in respect to the
quality of his abilities, as developed in his works, the
novelty of his style led to his being greatly overpraised. A
humourist to be of a high class should have other qualities
besides humour. He should have a faculty for appreciating.
and bringing before us what is noble and beautiful, as well
as what is comical. But not only does the strength of Mr.
Dickens lie in the observation of eccentricity and folly, and
the art of caricaturing even those qualities, but it lies nowhere
else. He even makes those characters ridiculous of which he
did not design to give us such an idea. He had something of
the affection for Mr. Pickwick which Sterne had for Uncle
Toby. But how differently does he treat his hero. Uncle
Toby is uniformly an object of respect. He has indeed a
hobby-horse, and he rides it tolerably hard; but it is a steed
which does not misbecome a veteran whose infirmities, con-
tracted in his country's services, have disabled him from
active war, and it is bestridden and managed with science
and judgment; to all around him he is a perfect gentleman,
merry with his brother, sympathetic with Yorick, familiar
with the Corporal, as one who has shared his perils, but
without ever lowering himself by unseemly condescension.
He is one of whom it requires no great stretch of credulity
to believe that he may have existed, and whom, if he did
not, everyone would wish to have existed. Mr. Dickens
seems to have designed to represent a somewhat similar
character. He means to give us the idea of Mr. Pickwick,
as a man of philanthropy and active benevolence, liberal in
626
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his charity, energetic in his endeavours to expose fraud,
with a thorough contempt for humbug and false pretence
(even when he detects it among the members of his Club),
a British courage to withstand injustice, and a lighthearted
courtesy which makes him the delight of the ladies. He
has really given us a portrait of an old simpleton whom, if
we laugh at him, we are only treating as all around him,
friends, acquaintances, and even his servant, treat him also.
That his simplicity, whether he enters in his note-book
Mr. Jingle's anecdote of his dog, allows himself to be
flattened behind the garden-door of a young ladies' academy,
or accepts the confidences of the editor of the 'Eatanswill
Gazette,' is uniformly diverting, is undeniable; but the
feeling which he excites is certainly the reverse of that
respect in which, we are assured on the very last page, he
is held by the whole neighbourhood. And in all Mr.
Dickens's other works the effect which he produces is the
same his cleverness is great, but it is expended on the
production of fools and impostors; his insight into human
nature is keen, but very limited in its range. He never
once attempted to delineate either man or woman the con-
templation of whose character can refine or elevate the
feelings of the reader: he does indeed on more than one
occasion endeavour to be pathetic, but his talents were not
formed to draw tears:
Si vis me flere dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi.
His sense of fun is visible through his mask of dolefulness,
and the effect he produces on the reader is certainly not
that which he appears to desire. It must be added that
there is no ill-nature or cynicism in his ridicule : even while
caricaturing folly he is more disposed to put a good than a
bad interpretation on the character of the fool. This
uniform good-nature secures him our good-will. His in-
variable decorum and propriety (in which it could be
wished that his example was more generally followed)
entitle him to our esteem, his unfailing liveliness and fun
must always awaken our mirth; but, while the fertility of
invention with which he presents his characters bids us
1812-1870.]
627
DICKENS.
rank him very high as an artist in his own line of art, the
line is not a high one, and his confinement of his labours
to it forbid us to class him with those who, while equally
able to ridicule folly, have shown themselves more capable
of appreciating and portraying grave integrity, dignity of
demeanour, and nobility of character.
A scene from the thirteenth chapter of the 'Pickwick
Papers,' relating to the election of a member for the borough
of Eatanswill, will give a sufficient idea of the activity of
the author's style, while at the same time it is worth pre-
serving as a record, hardly caricatured, of the practices
which in the good old times when George the Third was
king' periodically turned merry England into a bear-
garden.
(The Pickwick Papers.)
The noise and bustle which ushered in the morning were suf-
ficient to dispel from the mind of the most romantic visionary in
existence any associations but those which were immediately
connected with the rapidly-approaching election. The beating of
drums, the blowing of horns and trumpets, the shouting of men,
and tramping of horses, echoed and re-echoed through the streets
from the earliest dawn of day; and an occasional fight between
the light skirmishers of either party at once enlivened the pre-
parations and agreeably diversified their character.
Well, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, as his valet appeared at his
bedroom door, just as he was concluding his toilet; 'all alive
to-day I suppose ? '
(
'Reg'lar game, sir,' replied Mr. Weller; our people's a col-
lecting down at the Town Arms, and they're a hollering themselves
hoarse already.'
'Ah!' said Mr. Pickwick, 'do they seem devoted to their party,
Sam ?'
'Never see such devotion in my life, sir.'
6 Energetic, eh!' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Uncommon,' replied Sam; 'I never see men eat and drink so
much afore; I wonder they a'nt afeer'd o' bustin.'
That's the mistaken kindness of the gentry here,' said Mr.
Pickwick.
'Werry likely,' replied Sam, briefly.
'Fine, fresh, hearty fellows they seem,' said Mr. Pickwick,
glancing from the window.
28
628
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
'Werry fresh,' replied Sam; 'me, and the two waiters at the
Peacock, has been a pumpin' over the independent woters as supped
there last night.'
'Pumping over independent voters!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
'Yes,' said his attendant, every man slept vere he fell down;
we dragged 'em out, one by one, this mornin' and put 'em under
the pump, and they're in reg'lar fine order, now. Shillin' a head
the committee paid for that 'ere job.'
'Can such things be!' exclaimed the astonished Mr. Pickwick.
'Lord bless your heart, sir,' said Sam, 'why where was you
half-baptised? that's nothin', that a'n't.'
'Nothing?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Nothin' at all, sir,' replied his attendant. The night afore
the last day o' the last election here, the opposite party bribed the
barmaid at the Town Arms to hocus the brandy and water of
fourteen unpolled electors as was a stoppin' in the house.'
'What do you mean by "hocussing " brandy and water?'in-
quired Mr. Pickwick.
'Puttin' laud'num in it,' replied Sam. 'Blessed if she didn't
send 'em all to sleep till twelve hours arter the election was over.
They took one man up to the booth in a truck, fast asleep, by way
of experiment, but it was no go-they wouldn't poll him; so they
brought him back and put him to bed again.'
'Strange practices, these,' said Mr. Pickwick, half-speaking to
himself and half-addressing Sam.
'Not half so strange as a miraculous circumstance as happened
to my own father, at an election time, in this wery place, sir,'
replied Sam.
What was that?' inquired Mr. Pickwick,
'Why, he drove a coach down here once,' said Sam; ''Lection
time came on, and he was engaged by vun party to bring down
woters from London. Night afore he was a goin' to drive up,
committee on t'other side sends for him quietly, and away he goes
vith the messenger, who shows him in;-large room, lots of
gen'l'm'n, heaps of papers, pens and ink, and all that 'ere.
“Ah!
Mr. Weller," says the gen'l'm'n in the chair, "glad to see you,
sir, how are you? "Werry well, thank'ee, sir," says my father,
"I hope you're pretty middlin'," says he. "Pretty well, thank'ee,
sir," says the gen'l'm'n; "sit down, Mr. Weller-pray sit down,
sir." So my father sits down, and he and the gen'l'm'n looks
wery hard at each other.
"You don't remember me?" says the
gen'l'm'n. "Can't say I do," says my father. Oh, I know
you," says the gen'l'm'n; "know'd you ven you was a boy," says
he. "Well, I don't remember you," says my father.
"That's
wery odd," says the gen'l'm'n. Wery," says my father. "You
66
1812-1870.]
629
DICKENS.
must have a bad mem'ry, Mr. Weller," says the gen'l'm'n. "Well,
it is a wery bad 'un," says my father. "I thought so," says the
gen'l'm'n. So then they pours him out a glass of wine, and
gammons him about his driving, and gets him into a reg'lar good
humour, and at last shoves a twenty-pound note in his hand.
"It's a wery bad road between this and London," says the gen'l'm'n.
"Here and there it is a wery heavy road," says my father. "'Spe-
cially near the canal, I think," says the gen'l'm'n. "Nasty bit,
that 'ere," says my father. "Well, Mr. Weller," says the gen❜l'm'n,
"you're a wery good whip, and can do what you like with your
horses, we know. We're all wery fond o' you, Mr. Weller, so in
case you should have an accident when you're a bringin' these
here woters down, and should tip 'em over into the canal vithout
hurtin' 'em, this is for yourself," says he. "Gen'l'm'n, you're
wery kind," says my father, "and I'll drink your health in another
glass of wine," says he; vich he did, and then buttons up the
money, and bows himself out. You vould'nt believe, sir,' con-
tinued Sam, with a look of inexpressible impudence at his master,
'that on the wery day as he came down with them woters, his
coach was upset on that 'ere wery spot, and ev'ry man on 'em was
turned into the canal.'
And got out again ?' inquired Mr. Pickwick, hastily.
'Why,' replied Sam, very slowly, 'I rather think one old
gentleman was missin'; I know his hat was found, but I a'n't
quite certain whether his head was in it or not. But what I look
at is the hex-traordinary and wonderful coincidence, that, arter
what that gen'l'm'n said, my father's coach should be upset in
that wery place, and on that wery day.'
The stable-yard exhibited unequivocal symptoms of the glory
and strength of the Eatanswill Blues. There was a regular
army of blue flags, some with one handle, some with two, exhi-
biting appropriate devices in golden characters four feet high,
and stout in proportion. There was a grand band of trumpets,
bassoons, and drums, marshalled four abreast, and earning their
money if ever men did, especially the drum-beaters, who were
very muscular. There were bodies of constables with blue staves,
twenty committee men with blue scarfs, and a mob of voters with
blue cockades. There were electors on horseback, and electors
afoot. There was an open carriage and four for the honourable
Samuel Slumkey; and there were four carriages and pair for his
friends and supporters; and the flags were rustling, and the band
was playing, and the constables were swearing, and the twenty
committee men were squabbling, and the mob were shouting, and
the horses were backing, and the post boys perspiring; and every-
>
630
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
body and everything then and there assembled was for the special
use, behoof, honour, and renown of the honourable Samuel
Slumkey of Slumkey Hall, one of the candidates for the repre-
sentation of the borough of Eatanswill, in the Commons' House of
Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Loud and long were the cheers, and mighty was the rustling of
one of the blue flags with 'Liberty of the Press' inscribed thereon,
when the sandy head of Mr. Pott was discerned in one of the
windows by the mob beneath; and tremendous was the enthusiasm
when the honourable Samuel Slumkey himself, in top boots and
a blue neckerchief, advanced and seized the hand of the said Pott,
and melo-dramatically testified by gestures to the crowd his in-
effaceable obligations to the 'Eatanswill Gazette.'
'Is everything ready?' said the honourable Samuel Slumkey
to Mr. Perker.
'Everything, my dear sir,' was the little man's reply.
'Nothing has been omitted, I hope ?' said the honourable
Samuel Slumkey.
'Nothing has been left undone, my dear sir, nothing whatever.
There are twenty washed men at the street door for you to shake
hands with; and six children in arms that you're to pat on the
head, and inquire the age of; be particular about the children, my
dear sir, it has always a great effect, that sort of thing.'
'I'll take care,' said the honourable Samuel Slumkey.
'And perhaps, my dear sir,' said the cautious little man,
'perhaps if you could-I don't mean to say it's indispensable-but
if you could manage to kiss one of 'em, it would produce a very
great impression on the crowd.'
'Wouldn't it have as good an effect if the proposer or seconder
did that ?' said the honourable Samuel Slumkey.
'Why, I'm afraid it wouldn't,' replied the agent; 'if it were
done by yourself, my dear sir, I think it would make you very
popular.'
'Very well,' said the honourable Samuel Slumkey, with a
resigned air, ‘then it must be done; that's all.'
THACKERAY.
A.D. 1811-1863.
MR THACKERAY, one year older than his friend Dickens,
was several years later in coming before the world as an
author. His original inclination indeed was rather for art
1811-1863.]
631
THACKERAY.
than for literature; and, though his circumstances were
such as relieved him from the necessity of trusting to his
own exertions for a livelihood, he was early known by
his friends to cherish the ambition of earning fame as a
painter.
He was born in 1811, at Calcutta, where his father held an
office in the Civil Service: at five or six years old was sent
over to England, and, the ship touching at St. Helena on
his way home, saw the great Napoleon walking restlessly
about his garden, and was assured by the negro servant
who had charge of him that the great Emperor 'ate three
sheep every day, and all the children he could lay hands
upon.' He was sent to school at the Charterhouse, and
became a member of the University of Cambridge as a
pensioner of Emmanuel College. Here, however, he did not
reniain long: the death of his father had left him free to
direct his own movements, and he crossed over to Weimar,
where his eagerness for study attracted the notice of Goethe.
Before he returned to his own country he had travelled
over the greater part of the Continent, and had learnt
from the contemplation of the masterpieces of Italian art,
to feel less confidence than formerly in his qualifications for
shining as an artist. Perhaps too he had acquired a per-
ception of his ability to distinguish himself in a higher line;
for, soon after his return to England, he began to try his
strength as a writer, at first in articles for magazines,
then in one or two brief tales of humorous satire, from
occasional touches in which, as well as from their easy
vigour, friendly critics predicted future eminence for him.
But probably his warmest friends had never anticipated
the completeness of the triumphs which were in store for
him when, in 1847, he published the first numbers of
'Vanity Fair, a novel without a hero.' The tale may be
said to have been in some degre deceptive, for the novel
certainly had a heroine, Miss Rebecca, or, as she is pro-
fanely but more commonly called, Becky Sharp. No one,
however, stopped to criticise the title; it was ackowledged
at once to be a great work, not indeed of the very highest
class, such as ‘Ivanhoe' or 'Woodstock,' but rather of
the school of Fielding, and worthy of the master, being
632
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
indeed much such a work as he himself, if polished into
decorum by the more refined civilization, of the nineteenth
century, would have written. A second work, 'Pendennis,'
kept up the impression produced by the first, though there
was now a hero, Pendennis himself, and though his weak-
ness and vanity were hardly as piquant materials as the
heartless unscrupulousness of Becky. As if sated with his
reputation as a novelist, Thackeray next tried his hand as a
critic and lecturer, giving a series of lectures on the English
humourists, at Willis's Rooms, as, some years afterwards,
he delivered a shorter series on the four Georges. But
neither literary nor historical criticism was entirely suited
to his genius. And the next year he produced a novel of
a perfectly different class, and one showing an entirely
different kind of talent, that of transporting himself back
to the beginning of the last century, and writing in the
spirit which might have animated a contemporary of
Addison (for 'Esmond' professes to be an autobiography of
one of Anne's officers), and the disguise is maintained
throughout with infinite skill. Two years afterwards he
produced The Newcomes, memoirs of a most respectable
family,' which is generally accounted his masterpiece; and
which, if less sparkling than 'Vanity Fair,' and less severely
testing the artistic skill of the author than ‘Esmond,' yet
deserves its fame by presenting us, in Colonel Newcome
and Ethel, with the most beautiful pictures both of man
and woman that he ever drew. His later works are for
the most part continuations of those of which we have
spoken: The Virginians' of 'Esmond,' 'Philip on his Way
through the World' of 'The Newcomes.' They all bear the
same impress of genius, of that marvellous insight into ordi-
nary life and ordinary characters, which makes them, as a
writer in the 'Quarterly Review' has remarked, ‘the most
minute and faithful transcript of actual life which is any-
where to be found.' Dickens had sought to produce his
effects by caricaturing the eccentricities of what has been
called the lower middle class: Thackeray undertook the
far more difficult task of making an impression by
painting faithfully the comparative uniformity of life in the
upper middle class, with glimpses of the higher or most
C
1811-1863.]
633
THACKERAY.
aristocratic of all; and he has succeeded through his
sympathy with all alike, and his fine moral sense, which
keeps him as fully alive to all that is good and respectable,
as well as to all that is base and contemptible, in cach. He
looked not on any class as wholly or even for the most part,
bad; and hardly on any individual. He had too correct a
knowledge of human character to paint man or woman
thoroughly depraved without one redeeming quality. He
knew the rarity of such complete wickedness: there is but
one such picture in Shakespeare, but one in Scott. And
therefore his greatest rogues have some quality which the
reader can look upon at least with indulgence. Even in
those who may be called the villains of 'Vanity Fair,' Becky
and Rawdon Crawley, his instinctive tact prevented him
from representing them as totally bad. Becky herself was,
after her lights (it was but a queer light that could be got
from her education, fetching gin from a neighbouring
public-house for her father and his freeliving comrades, and
making them laugh with her mimicry), honestly zealous
for her husband's interest; it was more to enable him to
live as a highborn gentleman upon nothing that she duped
Lord Steyne and cheated Ruggles, than for her own sake;
for she would, as she said, have enjoyed herself as much in
a spangled frock outside a booth at a fair: and Rawdon,
at his very worst, has, as Thackeray points out, the ever-
redeeming qualities of a certain manly love for a woman
and a child; while, if such characters did not admit of being
drawn with equal piquancy, he certainly dwells with more
earnestness on the Major and Amelia, and shows that his
heart was far more set on making attractive the manly
honesty and constancy of the one, the unselfish devotion
and purity of the other, than on holding up the great lord
to contempt, or the blackleg colonel to reprobation.
In his later novels the pictures of downright evil became
gradually fewer, those of what is amiable and admirable
proportionably more common. In Pendennis the weak-
ness of the too facile boy is touched off with a hand
masterly in its truth; but the author evidently takes far
Iago and Varney.
634
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
greater pleasure in displaying the manly vigour of Warring-
ton, bearing contentedly the lot he has made for himself,
but ever seeking to keep his friend in the straight path.
But if the truest test of excellence in a writer be his skill
in delineating pure and highminded women, then, besides
Ethel Newcome, who has been already mentioned, the high
character of Thackeray's genius is perhaps best displayed
in the exquisite picture of the widowed Lady Castlewood.
As in the case of the female face, so the delicate lineaments
of the mind and character of a virtuous and highminded
lady are more difficult to depict than the coarser features of
man; and not only has he who successfully overcomes the
difficulty always been accounted a master of his art, but it
is a mastery which is never attained by anyone who has
not himself a deep natural sense of delicacy.
Thackeray's career as an author was briefer than that of
Dickens. He was of a herculean appearance, which promised
a long life; but in that powerfully built frane lurked an
unseen but fatal disease, and on the 24th of December 1863
he died suddenly, of the bursting of a blood-vessel in the
brain.
To give an adequate idea of a novel, of a writer's skill in
portraying and maintaining character, or inventing a con-
nected narrative, by one or two extracts, is impossible; but
quotations, however brief, may convey a notion of an author's
style. And the three passages which are subjoined exhibit
very different qualities. The first expresses his disdain of
the pretentious virtue which is never out of fashion, but for
which Thackeray never loses an opportunity of showing his
contempt. The second gives a faithful but merciful portrait
of a facile vain undergraduate, lured on, as are too many in
real life, to his own temporary disgrace, by confidence in
talents which are showy rather than solid, and in some
degree even by his virtues: his amiability, his frankness, hist
absence of all design and parasite-like meanness. The third
is of a higher stamp: it describes the feelings of a thorough-
bred lady, as a mother lamenting the worldliness of her
prematurely wise daughter; as a widow breathing her
faithful attachment to a civil, worthless husband, who
had been killed in a duel. But the sentiments which, in
1811-1863.]
635
THACKERAY.
both characters he puts in my lady's mouth, could not have
been conceived by any author who was not himself deeply
imbued with feelings at once lofty and tender, who had not
himself as chivalrous an appreciation of what is virtuous
and noble as other passages of his writings prove him to
have had a keen perception of what is false and base.
(Vanity Fair.)
Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must
be. It could not have escaped the notice of such a cool and ex-
perienced old diplomatist, that Rawdon's family had nothing to
live upon, and that houses and carriages are not to be had for
nothing. He knew very well that he was the proprietor or
appropriator of the money which, according to all proper calcu-
lation, ought to have fallen to his younger brother, and he had,
we may be sure, some secret pangs of remorse within him, which
warned him that he ought to perform some act of justice, or, let
us say, compensation, towards these disappointed relations. A
just, decent man, not without brains, who said his prayers, and
knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardly through life, he
could not be otherwise than aware that something was due to his
brother at his hands, and that morally he was Rawdon's debtor.
But, as one reads in the columns of the 'Times 'newspaper, every
now and then, queer announcements from the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, acknowledging the receipt of 50%. from A. B. or 101.
from W. J., as conscience money, on account of taxes due by the
said A. B. or W. J., which payment the penitents beg the Right
IIonourable gentleman to acknowledge through the medium of
the public press; 30 is the Chancellor no doubt, and the reader
likewise, always perfectly sure that the above-named A. B. and
W. J. are only paying a very small instalment of what they really
owe, and that the man who sends up a twenty-pound note has
very likely hundreds of thousands more for which he ought to
account. Such, at least, are my feelings when I see A. B. or
W. J.'s insufficient acts of repentance. And I have no doubt
that Pitt Crawley's contrition, or kindness if you will, towards
his younger brother, by whom he had so much profited, was only
a very small dividend upon the capital sum in which he was
indebted to Rawdon. Not everybody is willing to pay even so
much. To part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost all men
endowed with a sense of order. There is scarcely any man alive
who does not think himself meritorious for giving his neighbour
five pounds. Thriftless gives not from a beneficent pleasure in
636
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
*
giving, but from a lazy delight in spending. He would not deny
himself one enjoyment: not his opera-stall, not his horse, not his
dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarus the five pounds.
Thrifty, who is good, wise, and just, and owes no man a penny,
turns from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or denies
a poor relation; and I doubt which is the most selfish of the two.
Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.
So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something
for his brother, and then thought that he would think about it
some other time.
(Pendennis.)
Thus young Pen, the only son of an estated country gentleman,
with a good allowance, and a gentlemanlike bearing and person,
looked to be a lad of much more consequence than he was really;
and was held by the Oxbridge authorities, tradesmen, and under-
graduates, as quite a young buck and member of the aristocracy.
Ilis manner was frank, brave, and perhaps a little impertinent, as
becomes a high-spirited youth. Ile was perfectly generous, and
free-handed with his money, which seemed pretty plentiful. IIe
loved joviality, and had a good voice for a song. Boat-racing had
not risen in Pen's time to the fureur which, as we are given to
understand, it has since attained in the University; and riding and
tandem-driving were the fashions of the ingenuous youth. Pen
rode well to hounds, appeared in pink, as became a young buck,
and not particularly extravagant in equestrian or any other amuse-
ment, yet managed to run up a fine bill at Nile's, the livery-
stable keeper, and in a number of other quarters. In fact, this
lucky young gentleman had almost every taste to a considerable
degree. He was very fond of books of all sorts: Doctor Portman
had taught him to like rare editions, and his own taste led him to
like beautiful bindings. It was marvellous what tall copies, and
gilding, and marbling, and blind-tooling, the booksellers and
binders put upon Pen's bookshelves. He had a very fair taste in
matters of art, and a keen relish for prints of a high school-none
of your French opera-dancers, or tawdry racing prints, such as had
delighted the simple eyes of Mr. Spicer, his predecessor, but your
Stranges, and Rembrandt-etchings, and Wilkies before the letters,
with which his apartments were furnished presently in the most
perfect good taste, as was allowed in the University, where this
young fellow got no small reputation. We have mentioned that
he exhibited a certain partiality for rings, jewellery, and fine rai-
ment of all sorts; and it must be owned that Mr. Pen, during his
time at the University, was rather a dressy man, and loved to
1811-1863.]
637
THACKERAY.
array himself in splendour. He and his polite friends would dress
themselves out with as much care in order to go and dine at each
other's rooms, as other folks would who were going to enslave a
mistress. They said he used to wear rings over his kid gloves,
which he always denies; but what follies will not youth perpetrate
with its own admirable gravity and simplicity? That he took
perfumed baths is a truth; and he used to say that he took them
after meeting certain men of a very low set in hall.
In Pen's second year, when Miss Fotheringay made her chief hit
in London, and scores of prints were published of her, Pen had
one of these hung in his bedroom, and confided to the men of his
set how awfully, how wildly, how madly, how passionately, he
had loved that woman. He showed them in confidence the
verses that he had written to her, and his brow would darken,
his eyes roll, his chest heave with emotion, as he recalled that
fatal period of his life, and described the woes and agonies which
he had suffered. The verses were copied out, handed about,
sneered at, admired, passed from coterie to coterie. There are
few things which elevate a lad in the estimation of his brother
boys more than to have a character for a great and romantic
passion. Perhaps there is something noble in it at all times among
very young men; it is considered heroic. Pen was pronounced
a tremendous fellow; they said he had almost committed suicide,
that he had fought a duel with a baronet about her. Fresh men
pointed him out to each other. As at the promenade time at two
o'clock he swaggered out of college, surrounded by his cronies, he
was famous to behold. He was elaborately attired. He would
ogle the ladies who came to lionise the University, and passed
before him on the arms of happy gownsmen, and give his opinion
upon their personal charms, or their toilettes, with the gravity of
a critic whose experience entitled him to speak with authority.
Men used to say that they had been walking with Pendennis, and
were as pleased to be seen in his company as some of us would be
if we walked with a duke down Pall Mall. Ile and the Proctor
capped each other as they met, as if they were rival powers, and
the men hardly knew which was the greater.
(Esmond.)
'You are such a treasure,' Esmond's mistress was pleased to
say, 'that the woman who has your love shouldn't change it away
against a kingdom I think. I am a country-bred woman, and
cannot say but the ambitions of the town scem mean to me. I
never was awe-stricken by my Lady Duchess's rank and finery, or
afraid,' she added, with a sly laugh, of anything but her temper.
638
[CH. XXXVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
I hear of court ladies who pine because Her Majesty looks cold on
them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that they might
wear a garter on the other. This worldliness, which I can't com-
prehend, was born with Beatrix, who, on the first day of her
waiting, was a perfect courtier. We are like sisters, and she the
eldest sister, somehow. She tells me I have a mean spirit. I
laugh, and say she adores a coach-and-six. I cannot reason her out
of her ambition; 'tis natural to her as to me to love quiet, and be
indifferent about rank and riches. What are they, Harry? and
for how long do they last? our home is not here.' She smiled as
she spoke, and looked like an angel that was only on earth on a
visit. Our home is where the just are, and where our sin and
sorrows enter not. My father used to rebuke me, and say that I
was too hopeful about heaven. But I cannot help my nature, and
grow obstinate as I grow to be an old woman; and as I love my
children, so sure our Father loves us with a thousand and a thou-
sand times greater love. It must be that we shall meet yonder
and be happy; yes, you, and my children, and my dear lord. Do
you know, Iarry, since his death, it has always seemed to me as
if his love came back to me, and that we are parted no more.
Perhaps he is here now, Ilarry-I think he is. Forgiven I am
sure he is even Mr. Atterbury absolved him, and he died forgiving.
Oh, what a noble heart he had! How generous he was! I was
but fifteen and a child when he married me. How good he was to
stoop to me! He was always good to the poor and humble.' She
stopped; then presently, with a peculiar expression, as if her eyes
were looking into heaven, and saw my lord there, she smiled, and
gave a little laugh. 'I laugh to see you, sir,' she says; 'when
you come, it seems as if you never were away.' One may put her
words down, and remember them, but how describe her sweet
tones, sweeter than music!
APPENDIX.
CHAUCER.
A.D. 1328-1400.
We have said that, for general students, our modern litera-
ture may be looked on as commencing in the reign of
Elizabeth, since it is in the writers of that period that we
first find the English language assume pretty nearly the
form which it still retains; but it was mentioned at the
same time that one author of a much earlier age had a
great reputation, and was even still styled by some critics
the father of English poetry; so that it does not seem
desirable wholly to pass him over, even though the change
which the language has gone through since his time forbids
us to allot him a place among those whose compositions
should be studied as models by the present generation.
Apart from his literary merits Geoffrey Chaucer was a
person of some importance in his day, as being connected
with the Royal family, and standing high in the confidence
of the King's Government. He was born in 1328; was
educated, as is generally believed, at Cambridge; and on
arriving at man's estate, like most men of gentle birth at
that time, he joined the army with which Edward III. was
making such progress in the subjugation of France. In a
skirmish a little before the battle of Poictiers he fell into
the enemy's hands as a prisoner, but he soon obtained his
release, probably at the peace of Bretigny; and on his
return home, having attracted the notice of the Duke of
Lancaster, more commonly known as John of Gaunt, he
married a sister of Catharine Swinford, first the mistress,
and afterwards the second wife of that turbulent prince.
640
[APPENDIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Edward himself seems to have regarded him with equal
favour, and in 1372 sent him on a diplomatic mission to
Genoa; in the discharge of which, an allusion in one of
his poems to the celebrated Petrarch is generally understood
as implying that he made the acquaintance of that poet,
then passing an honoured old age at Padua. Four years
later he was employed in France on a more important
embassy, which had for its object the negotiation of a
marriage for the heir to the throne, the king's grandson,
afterwards Richard II., with a French princess. In the
first parliament of the new reign he became member for
Kent, being now a prosperous man in the receipt of a
considerable pension from the Crown, and one or two posts
of emolument; but when, a few years afterwards, John of
Gaunt fell into disgrace with the Court, he became to some
extent involved in his ill fortune, was deprived of his
offices, and fled to Holland. In 1389 he was, however,
allowed to return to England; but recent occurrences and
the approach of old age had given him a distaste for public
life; and for the rest of his days he devoted himself to poetical
composition, of his talents for which he had already given
some proofs in a few short poems, which were mostly trans-
lations from foreign originals.
As Boccaccio had imagined a party, fleeing from Florence
at the time of the great plague, enlivening their enforced
retirement by a relation of pleasant stories: Chaucer, in
imitation of this plan, conceived the idea of a number of
pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas à-Becket, at Canterbury,
forming themselves into one party for mutual protection, and
beguiling the way with a succession of narratives. It has
been supposed that he did not live to complete his design,
since several of the pilgrims have no stories assigned
to them, nor is the breaking up of the party described. In
the latter years of Richard's reign it has been inferred that he
was in indigent circumstances, from the fact of his making
frequent applications to the Exchequer for advances on
account of his pension, and of the payments on account of
it having been frequently received by others; and the
belief is confirmed by a letter of protection' which he ob-
tained in 1398, and which forbade anyone to arrest him
1328-1400.]
641
CHAUCER.
for two years. The accession of Henry IV. seemed to open
to him a prospect of brighter days; as the new king,
mindful of the favour with which his father had regarded
him, at once doubled his pension; but he was not spared
to enjoy the return of prosperity long, since in the next
year, 1400, he died.
The metre which Chaucer employs is the ten-syllable
couplet, which he seems to have introduced into the lan-
guage; admitting however, as was not unnatural, some varia-
tions, which more modern poets have discarded, so that (to
mention one) many of his verses consists of eleven syllables.
But the invention or introduction of a new metre does not
constitute his highest claim to the admiration which critics
in general have expressed for his genius. His latest editor
and warmest admirer claims for him such entire originality
in the portraits of the different pilgrims, that, as he affirms,
'none of these sketches has ever been traced to a foreign
source, and they are so thoroughly national that it is hardly
possible to suppose that any imagination but that of an
Englishman could have conceived them.' He also claims
for him a high degree of dramatic talent, and pronounces
the Canterbury Tales' 'probably the first instance of
unquestionable dramatic genius in either the Gothic or
the Romanic languages. . . . Chaucer may fairly be said
to be not only the earliest dramatic genius of modern
Europe, but to have been a dramatist before that which
is technically known as the drama existed.'
Yet he does not, after the fashion of a dramatist, allow
his characters to describe themselves by their language
and their actions, but himself gives elaborate descriptions
of each, in which indeed it is that his art is most dis-
played; so minutely does he trace the different characters ;
so profusely does he vary them, aiding our conception of
each by a number of minute circumstances.
Beyond their poetic merit the 'Canterbury Tales' are
especially valuable as a picture of English life in the four-
teenth century. They revcal to us the social life of our
ancestors, which no historian of the time thought worth
recording; a circumstance which makes it the more
unfortunate that the obsoleteness of their diction should
642
[APPENDIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
be so great an obstacle to the extension of a knowledge of
them.
It is remarkable that Chaucer had no immediate fol-
lowers, so that Warton compares his poetical existence in
such an age to a prematurely warm day in an English
spring, after which winter returns, and the birds and
blossoms which have been called forth by a transient
sunshine are nipped by frosts and storms.
Though his works are sealed up from the ordinary
reader by the antiquity of their phraseology, Dryden and
Pope were great admirers of them, and in order to render
some of the best of them intelligible to their contemporaries
they clothed them in a modern dress, 'translating them,' as
Dryden says, into modern English. And the specimen
which is here subjoined is one of those which Dryden has
modernised,¹ in order that the reader may be able to com-
pare his version with the original.
(The Knighte's Talo.)
This passeth yeer by yeer, and day by day,
Till it fell oones in a morne of May
That Emilie, that fairer was to seene
Than is the lilie on hire stalkes grene,
And fresscher than the May with floures newe---
For with the rose colour strof hire hewe,
I not which was the fairer of hem two-
Er it was day, as sche was wont to do,
Sche was arisen, and al redy dight;
For May wole have no sloggardye a nyght.
The sesoun priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh him out of his sleepe sterte,
And seith, Arys, and do thin observance.'
This maked Emelye hau remembrance,
To do honour to May, and for to ryse,
I-clothed was sche fressh for to devyse.
Hire yolwe heer was browdid in a tresse,
Belynde hire bak, a yerde long I gesse.
And in the gardyn at the sonne upriste
Sche walketh up and doun wher as hire liste.
¹ See ante, p. 221.
1328-1400.]
643
CHAUCER.
Sche gadereth floures, party whyte and reede,
To make a sotil gerland for hire heede,
And as an anngel hevenly sche song.
Why schuld I nought as well telle you alle
The portraiture that was upon the walle
Within the temple of mighty Mars the reede ?
Al peynted was the wal in lengthe and breede
Like to the estres of the grisly place,
That hight the grete tempul of Mars in Trace,
In that cold and frosty regioun,
Ther as Mars hath his soveryn mancioun.
First on the wal was peynted a foreste,
In which ther dwellede neyther man ne beste,
With knotty knarry bareyn trees olde
Of stubbes sharpe and hidous to byholde;
In which ther ran a swymbul in a swough,
As it were a storme schulde berst every bough;
And downward on an hil under a bent,
Ther stood the tempul of Mars armypotent,
Wrought all of burned steel, of which theatre
Was long and streyt, and gastly for to see.
And therout cam a rage of suche a prise,
That it maad al the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore schon,
For window on the walle was ther noon,
Thorugh the which men mighte no light discerno.
The dores were alle ademauntz eterne,
I-clenched overthward and endelong
With iren tough; and, for to make it strong,
Every piler the tempul to susteene
Was tonne greet, of iren bright and schene.
Ther saugh I furst the derk ymaginyng
Of felony, and al the compassyng;
The cruel ire, as reed as eny gleede;
The pikepurs, and eek the pale drede;
The smyler with the knyf under his cloke;
The schipne brennyng with the blake smoke
The tresoun of the murtheryng in the bed;
The open werres, with woundes al bi-bled;
Contek with bloody knyf, and sharp manace.
Al ful of chirkyng was that sory place.
644
[APPENDIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
SPENSER.
A.D. 1553-1599.
THE circumstances which prevent our reading Chaucer with
that facility which is indispensable to pleasure arise from
the time in which he lived. But a poet of far greater
genius, who lived within the time which has been adopted
in this volume as the age of modern English literature,
deliberately chose to place similar obstacles in the way of
studying his works by recurring to Chaucer's language,
though it had long become obsolete.
Edmund Spenser, who was born in 1553, the son of a
gentleman of good family but of small estate, resembled
Chaucer in another circumstance also, that he combined
attention to public affairs with his cultivation of the Muses.
He, too, was educated at Cambridge, and almost from the
moment of his leaving the University, began to publish
poems, which, as it was the fashion for the nobles of that
day to put themselves forward as patrons of learning, intro-
duced him to the acquaintance of those who were able to
advance his future. And in 1580 Lord Grey of Wilton,
being appointed Lord Deputy in Ireland, took him with him
as his secretary, and subsequently procured him a grant of
a portion of the estate forfeited for rebellion by the great
Earl of Desmond, with Kilcolman Castle for a residence.
Sir Walter Raleigh had obtained a still larger grant in the
same district and neighbourhood, leading to an intimacy
between the courtly adventurous knight and the poet. In
1590 Raleigh persuaded his friend to accompany him to
England, where he presented him to Elizabeth, who accepted
the dedication of the ‘Faerie Queene,' of which the first
three books were just finished. In the 'Shepherd's Calendar,'
which had been published in 1579, he had adopted the old
language. And he persevered in that course now; while,
as if his chief object had been obscurity, he wrapped up his
meaning in an elaborate and involved allegory. So con-
scious, indeed, was he himself that ordinary readers would
1553-1599.]
645
SPENSER.
find it difficult to penetrate his meaning that he prefixed to
his poems a letter to Raleigh, in which he endeavours to
explain what he himself calls 'a continued allegory, or dark
conceit.' It is even a double allegory; for, to quote his
own words, while 'in the Fairy Queen he means Glory
in his general intention, in his particular he conceives the
most excellent and glorious person of our Sovereign the
Queen, and her kingdom in Fairy Land,' and 'considering
she beareth two persons, the one of a most royal Queen or
Empress, the other of a most virtuous and beautiful lady,
this latter part in some places he does express in Belphœbe.'
Other crowned heads, and even parties, are understood
to be represented, sometimes in the guise of individuals,
sometimes of abstract ideas. Thus the Red Cross Knight
means the Church; the Distressed Knight represented
Henry IV. of France; and Elizabeth's spleen against the
beauteous rival whom she had put to death was gratified
by personifying the fair Queen of Scots as Envy. Com-
plicated and hard to follow as such an allegory was, it
suited the taste of the time, and was especially grateful to
Elizabeth, for whom no flattery was too gross: she rewarded
him with a pension, and he returned to Ireland to continue
the poem, varying his employment, however, with the com-
position of several minor works. Three more books of the
Fairie Queene' were published in 1596. But Ireland was
not in those days a residence propitious for a literary
student, one of whose first requirements is tranquillity. In
1598 fresh insurrections broke out, and as Spenser was
Sheriff of the County of Cork for that year, he was rendered
by his office a conspicuous mark for the enmity of the
insurgents. They attacked and burnt Kilcolman, and his
infant child (he had been married a year or two before)
perished in the flames. The destruction of his home and
the loss of his child were evils too terrible to be borne by
one of his sensitive temperament. He returned to England,
and at the beginning of the next year died of a broken
heart.
There is hardly any poet on the subject of whose merits
and defects critics have been more unanimous. Their
verdict was the same in the next generation that it is now.
646
[APPENDIX.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His defects are two: first, the ill-judged archaism of his
language, which Ben Jonson, while denouncing it as
'Chaucerisms which were better expunged and banished,'
declared at the same time that the poet himself did not
understand, but that, in affecting to imitate the ancients,
he had written what was, in fact, no language at all; and,
secondly, the unnatural and unskilful complication of his
allegory, which he unconsciously himself condemned when he
admitted it to require an elaborate explanation. His merits
are more numerous. He, too, like Chaucer, enriched our
poetical language with an entirely new metre, which
was a variation of what the Italians call ottava rima, the
fourth and fifth lines rhyming together with the second
and seventh, with the addition of a ninth line of twelve
syllables (such as Dryden called an Alexandrine) to rhyme
with the sixth and eighth; a metre which in the present cen-
tury one of the greatest of his successors has demonstrated
to be a most suitable vehicle for almost every kind of
thought, for flowery description, grave meditation, and im-
passioned declamation. But Spenser's skill as an inventor
and employer of a new metre was the least of his gifts.
The poet Campbell, with great felicity of comparison, has
pronounced him the Rubens of English poetry,' explaining
his simile by the assertion that nowhere shall we find
more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a
sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colours of
language.' He is 'a painter who makes us forget the defect
of his design by the beauty of his colouring.' And a still
greater poet than Campbell, Gray, was so impressed with
the richness of his imagination and the luxuriant beauty of
his descriptions, that, as is recorded, he made a practice of
reading over a portion of his works whenever he desired to
attune his own mind to composition.
A brief quotation will suffice to display the rich imagina-
tive texture of his poetry, and also the extent to which it
is obscured to modern readers by the perversity of taste
which persisted in expressing his thoughts in language
which no one had used for above a century. Una is the
daughter of a king whose kingdom is laid waste by a dragon.
She is meant, according to the poetical heading which the
1553--1599.]
647
SPENSER.
poet has prefixed to the third canto, to represent Truth; and
the canto opens with her celebrated adventure with the Lion,
which has given such abundant employment to painters
and sculptors.
(The Faerie Queene, canto iii. stanzas 1–9.)
Nought is there under heav'ns wide hollownesse
That moves more deare compassion of mind,
Then beautie brought t' unworthie wretchednesse
Through envies snares, or fortunes freakes unkind.
T' whether lately through her brightness blynd,
Or through alleageance, and fast fealty,
Which I do owe unto all womankynd,
Feele my hart perst with so great agony,
When such I see, that all for pitty I could dye.
And now it is empassioned so deepe,
For fairest Unaes sake, of whom I sing,
That my frayle eies these lines with teares do steepe,
To thinke how she through guyleful handeling
Though true as touch, though daughter of a king,
Though faire as ever living wight was fayre
Though nor in word nor deede ill meriting,
Is from her Knight divorced in despayre,
And her dew loves deryo'd to that vile Witches shayre.
Yet she, most faithfull Ladie, all this while
Forsaken, wofull, solitarie mayd,
Far from all peoples preace, as in exile,
In wildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd,
To seeke her Knight; who, subtilly betrayed
>
Through that late vision which th' Enchanter wrought,
Had her abandon'd: she, of nought affrayd,
Through woods and wastnes wide him daily sought;
Yet wished tydinges none of him unto her brought.
One day nigh wearie of the yrkesome way,
From her unhastie beast she did alight;
And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay
In secrete shadow, far from all men's sight;
From her fayre head her fillet she undight,
648
[APPENDIX
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
And layd her stole aside: Her angels face,
As the great eye of Heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did ever mortall eye behold such heavenly grace.
It fortuned, out of the thickest wood
A ramping lyon rushed suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood;
Soone as the royall Virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have attonce devourd her tender corse:
But to the pray when as he drew more ny,
His bloody rage asswaged with remorse,
And, with the sight amazed, forgat his furious forse,
Instead thereof he kist her wearie feet,
And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong;
As he her wronged innocence did weet.
O how can beautie maister the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!
Whose yielded pryde and proud submission,
Still dreading death, when she had marked long,
Her hart gan melt in great compassion ;
And drizzling teares did shed for pure affection.
'The lyon, lord of everie beast in field,'
Quoth she, 'his princely puissance doth abate,
And mightie proud to humble weake does yield.
Forgetfull of the hungry rage, which late
Him prickt, in pittie of my sad estate :—
But he, my lyon, and my noble lord,
How does he find in cruell hart to hate
Her, that him lov'd, and ever most adord,
As the god of my life? why hath he me abhord ?'
Redounding teares did choke th' end of her plaint,
Which softly echoed from the neighbour wood;
And, sad to see her sorrowfull constraint,
The kingly beast upon her gazing stood;
With pittie calm'd downe fell his angry mood.
At last, in close hart shutting up her payne,
Arose the Virgin borne of heavenly brood,
And to her snowy palfry got agayne,
To seeke her strayed Champion if she might attayne.
1553-1599.]
649
SPENSER.
The lyon would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along, as a strong gard,
Of her chast person, and a faythfull mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard;
Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward;
And, when she wakt, he wayted diligent,
With humble service to her will prepard:
From her fayre eyes he took commandement,
And ever by her lookes conceived her intent.


wils
820.9 Y8
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Yonge, Charles Duke, 1812-1891
Three centuries of English literature.
3 1951 001 992 071 R
WILSON
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