bhpHf „. ^*W+*******-*rr K. •OEM : Cautaittitig an Stotftotr TO THE IMPIETY 2ND BLASPHEMY OF LORD BYRON'S CAIN. PART I. Price Five Shillings. Use B •" 3 1 £ DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Treasure %oom % EXPORT BOOKSELLERS J 32. CAY STREET. 1 (■•■ -V^-BATh.ky. m CAIN A POEM, INTENDED TO BE PUBLISHED IN PARTS, CONTAINING AN ANTIDOTE TO THE IMPIETY AND BLASPHEMY OF LORD BYRON'S CAIN; With Notes, %c. PART I. BY HENRY WILKINSON, STONE-GATE, YORK. Entered at Stationers' Hall. LONDON : PUBLISHED BY BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY 1824. 1 CT Si r- r* ■*- J. Todd, Printer, Independent-Office, Leeds. A 22 %.Q fr-$f>v TO THE LOVERS OF TRUTH, AND THE Believers in the Christian Religion. 15982.7 Of a Work, which is incomplete, some account is necessary. — Au- thors, who indulge in egotism, however essential to explanation, should equally avoid the meanness of timidity, and the assumption of arro- gance. — Pride, however justified by genius, should be restrained by modesty, and amplification contracted into conciseness. The ensuing preface, or rather sketch, was written (when all pre- faces should be written) subsequently to the completion of the con- tents it precedes, and without that attention to order and arrangement which some Authors are so ambitious to display. — It was written, also, after it ought to have been written ; namely, after the other part of this number had been sent to the press. — At a very early age, the Author read, with great delight, Gesner's Death of Abel, and the First Edition of Pope, which were, with a small collection of books, in the house where he was born. He was particu larly delighted with Gesner's work, and immediately commenced writing poetry upon a circle ; also, an Ode to Space, and on several other subjects. — These productions are lost. — Soon afterwards he conceived the idea of writing an Epic Poem, commencing where Gesner's ended, namely, after Cain and his wife's departure for the wilderness. — Part of this poem was written on any piece of paper that first came to hand, and entered into a small book : also lost. — A fair copy wag made of the poetry that had been previously written in another book, mixed with additions composed as the copying proceeded, in which a design was sketched of the intended poem. Some poetry was entered in sum books ; and in 1793, additions were still made. — Previous to this time, the Author consulted his father, who had been the confidential servant of the celebrated Lord Lyttleton, about his poetry, who told him that all had been written that could be written, and that any additional work of poetry must necessarily be plagiarism. The Author was anxious to learn something more, and obtained a sight of some Reviews which totally sickened him. — In 1794, additional poetry having been composed, he formed the valorous resolution of proceeding with the work, and copied the invocation, &c. until he ar- rived at the description of death; when, instead of a copy, fresh addi- tions were made, which now appear, but he did not know how to con- nect these additions with what followed ; and the rest of the poem was in the same state. He left the first blank unfilled, and proceeded with . the copy from the line. His meteor eyes like suns through darkness shone, But ended without copying the whole of what had been written. A part of a fragment upon Creation, and some other Poetry, besides part of the copy of the intended Epic Poem, with the commencement of an Ode to Poetry, were entered in a large book, the property of the Author's great uncle-in-law, who was an attorney, in which was also copied many law precedents, when the Author had been admitted into the same pro- fession—and a part Abridgement of Blackstone's Commentaries. Since that time, the Author has abandoned the work, being con. 6 vinced he was not a Poet ; and, therefore, determined not to continue, or publish, that which he was apprehensive would subject him to ridicule. A short time previous to the late York Musical Festival, happening to be in company with two young Gentlemen who are artists, already eminent in their profession, he casually recited the, in vocation and other parts of the original work. — Their opinion was, that what he recited was poetical, and they advised him to complete the work. — On his in- forming them that the intended Epic Poem was intituled Cain, a con- versation ensued relative to Lord Byron's Cain. — Of Lord Byron, the Author had heard of course, but he had not read any of his works ex- cepting the Farewell and the Corsair. On inquiring relative to the plan, &c. of Byron's Cain, he received such information as the reader may easily conceive. — Curiosity was excited, and he attempted to gratify it by purchasing the book in York, but to the credit of the York booksellers not one of them could supply the solitary demand, and he was informed, that from being originally published in a respectable edition, it was sold at a cheap rate in Leeds. The Author employed a guard of one of the Leeds coaches to pro- cure the work; and although he had previously been informed of its cheapness, was rather astonished at its appearance, unbound, ungar- nished, unadorned, « Fal'n, Fal'n, Fal'n, Fal'n, Fal'n from its high estate — " And sold at the price of Eighteen-pence ! Indignation followed the perusal of this Cain, and an immediate determination to refute its sophistry and ignorance. The profession of the Law has, until lately, occupied the Author's time, and he had not read a Review for nearly 30 years, nor indeed any of those works which may be termed modern Poetry. — The great mental difficulty he had to encounter, was the opinion that he could not write poetry at all, (which opinion may be confirmed by the cri- tics) and it was necessary to fill up the chasms in the original work. — These chasms were filled with connecting lines with more facility than he expected. Of this original Poetry, that which is not now published will ap- pear in a subsequent part of this Work, with considerable additions, and will follow the conclusion of the poetical argument against Lord Byron's Cain, and the completion of the notes which may appear ne- cessary to detect its falsehoods, and expose its absurdities. The prospect of attempting to reason in rhyme, was by no means agreeable. Poetry shrinks back alarmed at the approach of disquisition. The slowly increasing light of morn, the disclosing landscape, the rising glow that faintlv tinges the clouds, the blushing spread that ripens in the beams of the rising sun, the mazy river, and the wide spread vale, terminated by the misty mountain, may be depictured in all the charms of language, and the fascinations of description. But to argue with facility iu rhyme is impossible. — To arrange each couplet into corresponding termination, to make that smooth which is in itself uncouth and rugged, to form a length of concatenated ratiocination, and subordinate metre, and to intersperse the language with the graces of poetry, is the hardest task an Author can accomplish. — These difficulties should disarm the severity of criticism when it visits such attempts with its inquisition. — The Author, however, proceeded, as well as he was able, with the argumentative poetry which appears in this book — and the notes were added, from the conviction, that the work, they in part criticise, is not worth a full poetical answer. Now, reader, the terrible ego commences, but it shall be hid as much as possible. — During the lime in which these lines were written, it struck me that poetry had been too long subjected to the arbitrary decisions of critics in their judgment of its productions, by what they call rules , that the alleged necessity of syllabical uniformity relaxed only by the permission of the Alexandrine, and triplet in poems, of the general length of ten syllables, is injurious to the sense, the spirit, and the beauty of poetic composition. An adherence to these assumed rules was almost commanded by a man whose memory I have always contemplated with reverence and admiration, whose literary excellencies are so numerous, that they are almost invariable ; the great master and teacher of the English lan- guage ; whose criticisms are generally vigorous, acute, and just, but whose mistaken maxims, or dogmatic decisions, I will neither adopt, admit, nor excuse. In Dr. Johnson's eulogy upon Swift, it is a part of his commenda- tion that the rhymes are exact. — Exactitude is intitled to as much praise as the ridiculous attempt to confine translation to a similar number of lines which constituted the work translated. He has assertedj that the i essence of verse is regularity, its orna- ment variety ;' that 6 the Alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds and surprises the reader with more lines than he expected.'— Another asser- tion follows, that the effect of the triplet is the same, and that triplets and Alexandrines, inserted by caprice, are interruptions of that con- stancy which science requires. These remarks betray the ignorance of misconception, the cant of criticism, and the folly of contradiction. Regularity, if it means any thing, is synonymous with uniformity ; and its essence, if like poetry it has an essence, must be precision and exactitude. — The motion of a wheel, which does not vary, is therefore regular ; and if it does like the wheel of a mill, urged by the varying stream, it must be, of course, irregular, and be the opposite of thai constancy which it seems science requires. — It must be evident, there- fore, that regularity and variety cannot be co-existent. — There is ano- ther mistake— Poetry, unless it contains the musical principles of sound, cannot be science. — The rules of science, properly speaking, are invariable. — Any attempt to decorate uniformity with the charms of variety, appears to be vain. I will suppose a man to be travelling over an immense and level plain : 8 Though the path may he variegated with shrubs, and diversified with flowers, the mixture of hud aud blossom, of blush and bloom, of tint and odour, in all the perfumed scents of fragrance, and the rich- ness of inexhaustible luxuriance, the consequence of protracted travel would be insipidity, satiety, or disgust ; but when the imagination is transported to the turbulence of foam, and rocked on the surges of com. motion, when the muse heaves with the storm, and rides upon the tem- pest, we hail with pleasure the hope of returning safety, and delight in anticipating our enjoyments in the harbour of security. Sometimes the measure of music, the music of poetry, should be equal and adorned, at others it should surprise by its abruptness, astonish by the lengthened intonations of its thunder, and like the non-elemental war of Chaos, roar in the mingling confusion and crash of discord, and swell like the wild tumult of conflicting ocean. Although the flowers and the shrubs might ornament the path, yet the continuance of the same objects would produce similarity instead of variety ; but, in the proper sense of the Doctor's definition, their union is impracticable. It would be unjust to omit what follows the sentence endingwith — " The essence of verse is regularity, its ornament, variety." The Doctor adds — " To write verse is to dispose syllables and sounds harmonically, by some known and settled rule, a rule, however lax enough to substitute similitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without disappointing it." These words sound well ; no- thing more. How a poet can dispose sounds harmonically, by a known and settled rule, it is difficult to imagine. Who made the rule? If it meant syllabic recurrence, that would not, in itself, produce harmony ; if not, what was the rule, and what did it teach ? But the rule must be lax enough to substitute similitude for identity. There is nothing simi- lar in nature. Identity is defined, by the Doctor, to be sameness, or, im- plying the same thing. If so, both identity and similarity are not the thing itself, in which case, the laxity, as it is called, necessitates the poet to abandon the description of the original image — a false description must be substituted for a real one— absurdity for propriety, and just representation excluded, where its admission would not only add beauty to language, but extend this limited harmony to the almost endless diversity of musical change. But change is to be admitted without breach of order. If this remark applied to the rule of recurrence, it involves an impossibility ; ehange is another opposite to regularity. Whatever he meant by change, it must be a subversion of the rule, as far as the change extends. What lie meant, by relieving the ear without disappointing it, is useless to inquire. Such is the pompous declamation of a great man, exhibiting the darkness and confusionof obscurity, instead of luminous perspicacity and clearness of definition. Actual variety diversifies description and delights the mind ; and yet, variety is to be fettered in the trammels of sameness, and genius confined in the chains of restriction. Who feels equal pleasure, in contemplating from the shrub-fufted cliff, the peaceful vale below, smiling in verdure, reposing in tranquillity, with its meandering stream, and smoke-curling cot, — as lie who has hunted the chamois from rock to rock, from height to height, and from precipice to precipice; — who has dashed through the torrent, and braved the mountain storm, and who descends to enjoy the sweets of security, and the calm of repose. Why are the notes to be of the same number, the metre of the same length, in describing the level of the plain, the fragrancy of the flowers and shrubs, the foam-tossed ocean, the rushing torrent, and the steepy precipice. Why should the delineation of steril nakedness, and tran- quil beauty, be limited to the exactitude of syllabic arrangement, and the tiresome monotony of recurrent measure. Sometimes, the language, the sound, the music of poetry, should contract into compression, dilate into expansion, or languish into evan- escence; sometimes be broken, rugged, short, and interrupted; soft, easy, and mellifluous ; and then burst forth into the lengthened swell of congregated harmony. Contrast is one of the effects of variety. In contemplating Siberian gloom, or Icelandic dullness, the dingy sea, the snow-clad mountain, and the native hut — where all is cold, cheer- less, desolate, and the picture seems freezing into solidity — we are pleased to observe more of the painter's masterly productions, (painting, the dear sister of poetry ;) some exhibiting the meridian fire of an Italian sky, burning in beauty, beaming in cerulean blue, and others glowing, melting, in the mellowed rays of tinted eve. Relief and pleasure are produced from contrast. The contrast of pictures, the contrast of sound, and the contrast of description. The cloud-like and stormy dash of the rushing cataract, obstructed , tumbling with headlong fury, spray-spreading in misty wreaths, or shot with slant precipitant in continuous fall; and the tinkling rill, the wood-topt hill, and the far-spread vale; the ample sweep, and vast ex- pand of the transatlantic river, fed by innumerous streams, and the limited meander of the murmuring brook ; the smooth expanse of the placid lake ; and the foam, the rage, the thunder, of Niagara's cataractal cauldron ; — are all, forsooth, to be depictured in the same number of syl- lables. Uniformity, whether in music or poetic metre, must be tedious, and the more the measure corresponds, the less can it be relieved. But arbitrary and ridiculous rides are to be imposed and obeyed, or the poet castigated with criticism's venomed lash ; rules, which Ariosto despised, and Shakspeare scorned. Yet, Ariosto and Shakspeare are read, while the works of tbosei who wrote from, rules, are buried in Stygian gloom and merited obscurity. Of many instances of this truth, the tragedy of the Great Critic is a powerful example.* The progress of poetry, and the improvements of science, are natu- rally progressive. Dryden introduced majesty and smoothness, and in a great mea- sure rescued poesy from barbarism ; but he nevertheless proved bow « This remark only applies to the Tragedy of the Learned Doctor. B 10 difficult it is to escape from settled habits, and previous absurdity. His qiiaint conceits, far fetched allusions, and ridiculous comparisons, excite disgust. Pope polished our poetical language into brilliance, softened it into grace, and mellowed it into harmony. His fault is that he surfeits his readers with sweetness. It is the nature of genius to conquer difficulties — and their works are not only proofs of this assertion, but shew how much could be done in that confinement of their talents to which they subjected themselves. In their regular poems, they did all that could be done consistent with the limitation. — Two men could not bring any art to perfection, but critics had not the wit to invent the modes which they adopted. Poets have beside forged their own fetters, and transformed themselves into critics. Pope, by a side attack, ridiculed the Alexandrine : " Then at the last and only couplet, fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine, ends the song, That like a wounded snake dragg'd its slow length along." As to the snake and the drag, none but fools could write such an Alexandrine, as would drag at all ; and Pope exhibited an instance that an Alexandrine can combine strength, melody, and propriety— for instance : " The long majestic march, and energy divine." It is frequently necessary to express an idea which only twelve syllables can describe. A triplet is equally necessary where the image is too great for two lines, and too little for four. And yet the learned Doctor says, " and though the variety which they produce may very justly be desired, yet to make our poetry exact, there ought to be some mode stated of admitting them :" so much for dogmatical decision. An ample field lies before me, but I have not time to explore it ; I will refute the Doctor upon his ridicule of sounds in the next part of this work, and suppress what might be here added, introducing a few concluding remarks and curtailing them as much as is possible. I read Burke upon the Sublime many years since, and I think he held the same doctrine as Johnson, relative to sounds ; if so, his opinions upon this point shall be included in the confutation. Doctor Johnson also says, " The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English Poet into the periods of a declaimer." Genius is thejrare combination of invention, taste, and judgment; invention to create, taste to select, and judgment to reject or approve. Words do not alter the qualities of things. When Virgil wrote his poetry, he exercised invention when his imagination conceived, or his fancy created ; taste in the immediate selection of the most beautiful or appropriate ideas ; and judgment when he rejected, blotted out, or retained, what he had previously written. But the genius of Virgil was slow and imitative, cautious and chaste. Shakspeare was the greatest fgenius that ever existed. He saw through nature and character at a glance — with him creation and appreciation were simultaneous; and all the originality, the n fidelity, and the inexhaustible variety of his images, would have been obscured, weakened, or lost, if he had attempted to write by rules. What a terrible impudent man he must have been. — He took the liberty of thinking for himself.— Genius blends thoughts that cannot be perceived by the common mind ; approximates ideas, obscured or hid by their remoteness; and perceives comparative resemblance from the hum- ble weed to the rolling sphere. — It cloathes its ideas with rapture's colouring, or passion's glow ; gives animation to grace, captivation to beauty, and splendour to sublimity. — Language is perfect when in picturesque delineation it is the unperceived reflector of what it de- scribes ; when the objects are seen, and the medium of their representa- tion is mentally invisible. When the creating power of invention gives only the outline, the sketching of description, the bold stroke or dash of nature or of character, the mind of its admirer wonders at the facility with which it colours, shadows, and fills the picture, and fancies it its own. I am called again by brevity to business or could go on. Of verse heroic we are gravely told, that (except as aforesaid) every line must consist of ten syllables, except as to such lines where couplets are made of eleven syllables by an additional syllable at the end, such as — " These Heroes' wits are kept in pond'rons vases, And beaus in snuff boxes, and tweezer cases." Of course, any other such that might end arses, farces, ct. But that this heroic work must not be introduced too frequently is also told. What a pity ? But to return to the Doctor. If there is any relief in English Poetry, from the dulness of prescribed syllabick arrangement, it is by the introduction of pauses, not only in blank verse, but also in rhyme. The only difference between blank verse aud rhyme, iu this re- spect, is that in the first it is easy to introduce them, in the last difficult. The pauses or rests constitute peculiar beauty in poetical description. Poesy has been imprisoned in certain bounds, and fettered in chains ; she has frequently attempted to escape to wander unrestrained, to sing in varied strains the charming diversity of nature, but the critical lash hath driven her back to confinement. Let me not be misunderstood. My assertion generally is, that wherever the thought requires it, no matter what may be the general number of lines, the poet is entitled to reduce or enlarge them so as best to express the idea he wishes to describe ; that rules are artificial and arbitrary, and that they are not strictly rules, but modes adopted or invented by different Poets, &c. producing some others invented by critics ; — that the limitation of poetry to a certain number of syllables destroys that beauty which would be exhibited, were the objects or sentiments described in a greater or smaller number of words and syllables, where the subject demands it ; — that exactitude causes the rejection of appropriate, and the adoption of improper terms, and thereby frequently injures the sense and terminations, by the necessity of introducing an ending to correspond with a previous termination, which would have been different if the first line could have been 12 enlarged;— and that poetic melody or harmony are not produced by the precise recurrence of syllables, hut by the musical arrange- ment of words and syllables, (without any regard to precision) which would constitute poetic music, from their being long or short, from their pronounciation and accent, independently of any exact or invariable regular arrangement, which, with the exception of the Alexandrine and triplet, is enjoined. The absurd confinement of poetry to uniformity has not only caused the greatest injury to poetic expression, but, like a prisoner in " dur- ance vile," who. to relieve the tedium of confinement, tries to vaiy his permitted walk, cultivate his little garden, and decorate it with flowers, has caused the introduction of^ those very beauties the Doctor ridicules. Poetry, as a series of sounds, is like music. — The rush and de- struction of the whirlwind, or the devastation and wild rage of the West Indian Hurricane, after being described in representative words and sounds, as similar to the description as language can convey, should be succeeded by soft, sweet, easy, and flowing sounds, imitating the return of peace and tranquillity ; and before the transition takes place, there is a calm, a pause, a rest in nature, requiring a pause in the poetic description. In music, after the congregated sounds produced by a full band, imitative of storms, tumult, &c. the whole stop or pause, and then the principal performer fills the ear with melodious strains, or, after a mighty rush or full mixture of sounds, there is a definite silence, a full pause or rest, and harmonious strains, faintly sweet, steal gently swelling, and sooth the mind by their softened measure. Another part of music is where it " languishes into evanescence." I cannot well omit the following lines, part of my original poem, written in addition to it, previous to the York Musical Meeting, which illustrate the previous remark. After a storm, a whirlwind, darkness, &c. Michael appears surrounded with glory to Sin and Death : — " His seraph face in awful anger glow'd, In lambent fire, the great Archangel stood — Erect in glore, severe, serenely bright. His beauty bloomed, but sickened on their sight, Melodious strains, with harmonies divine, Like music's echoes, swelled in dulcet chime; Then gently sinking to a dying close, Soft hush'd the solemn tones in calm repose." Poetry will never be perfect, until by suspending, extending, or con- tracting its notes or number of words, and syllables, varying, swelling, &c. it shall be permitted to imitate music, and be as much as is pos- sible the echo both of sense and sound. The ear is the great judge in both arts or sciences. Discord will soon disgust, taraeness or similarity tire, and sweetness surfeit. Pauses constitute relief and beauty; without them our poetry would be lifeless. I could insert numerous examples, but have not room. Let the poet put them where he likes, while his ear is satisfied. I may here introduce another proof of the necessity of pauses, when the subject is solemn : — 13 " Death frown'd ; unmov'd he frown'd. Sad nature sigh'd, Deep in ber inmost caves.— —The rushing tide, f 1 That roar'd its passage 'mong the mossy hills, Swell'd by the springs of Heav'n and mountain rills, Stood still. He spoke. Chill through the soul of night,