Class ^P^AMl Book JD_5_„ GopghtN". COPVRIGHT DEPOSrC NINETEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH PROSE CRITICAL ESSAYS EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES BY THOMAS H. DICKINSON, Ph.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EricLISH. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN AND FREDERICK W. ROE, A.M. •INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI -:• CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY .JIS LIBRARY of COfiGRESS Two CoDies Repe'v0rf, JAN 2 1909 CopyriKdt tntry CLASS a XXc. No. COPV t^ Copyright, 1908, by THOMAS H. DICKINSON AND FREDERICK W. ROE Entered at Stationers' Hall, London Nineteenth Century English Prose W- P. I 6- PREFACE In preparing the present work the editors have re- stricted themselves to a single type of Hterary expres- sion, — the critical essay. They have endeavored to trace, in a series of ten selected essays, the development of EngHsh criticism in the nineteenth century. In choosing the material they have been influenced by something more than mere style. An underlying co- herence in content, typical of the thought of the era in question, may be traced throughout. The book is designed to furnish a series of essays covering a definite period and exhibiting the individu- ality in each author's method of criticism. The subject- matter in these selections provides interesting material for intensive study and class-room discussion, and each essay is an example of excellent, though varying, English style. It has not been the intention of the editors to place the different authors represented on the same level, either as critics or as stylists. Nor do they claim to have, necessarily, selected the best essay of each writer; they have sought, rather, to choose that one which appears to them to be most typical of the author's critical principles, and, at the same time, representative of the critical tendency of his age. A volume compiled to serve the ends outlined above 3 4 PREFACE needs few accessories. The introductions, mainly bio- graphical, are brief; the notes treat only those matters upon which investigation by the student would be difficult or unprofitable. With the exception of certain omitted passages from the poetry of Arnold and Browning in the Bagehot essay, the selections are given in their entirety. Acknowledgments should be made to the Macmillan Company for permission to use the revised form of Walter Pater's essay on Leonardo da Vinci, and to the Travelers' Insurance Company for permission to print Walter Bagehot 's essay on Wordsworth ^ Tennyson, and Browning. T. H. D. F. W. R. Madison, Wisconsin. TABLE OF CONTENTS William Hazlitt The English Novelists y Thomas Carlyle BosweWs Life of Johnson 57 Thomas Babington Macaulay Moore's Life of Lord Byron 156 William Makepeace Thackeray Swift 207 John Henry Newman Literature 242 Walter Bagehot Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning . . . 274 Walter Horatio Pater Leonardo da Vinci 338 Leslie Stephen Sir Walter Scott 369 John Morley Macaulay 409 Matthew Arnold Emerson » . . . . . 449 Notes 4^3 5 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE WILLIAM HAZLITT [William Hazlitt, the son of a Unitarian clergyman, was born in Kent, April lo, 1778, and spent two years of his youth in America. At fifteen Hazlitt entered the Unitarian College at Hackney, but as theology was not to his purpose, he remained only two years. Travel, cogitation on the rights of man, and at- tempts at portrait painting occupied the next ten years of his life. Not until 1805, when he published his Essay on the Prijiciples of Htcma7i Action, did he discover that his true bent was toward lit- erature. From this time on he became increasingly known as a rapid-fire critic on drama, and literature, and manners. In The Round Table, Table Talk, and The Spirit of the Age is found the commentator on men and affairs. In The Characters of Shake- spear's Plays, and The English Comic Writers is revealed the sagacious literary critic. Perhaps largely on account of his own unregulated deportment, Hazlitt's life was not a happy one. He died in 1830.] The following essay entitled The English Novelists is the sixth in the series of lectures on The English Comic Writers delivered by Hazlitt in 18 18. In its present form it is practically an adaptation of an earlier article, en- titled Standard Novels and Romances and published in The Edinburgh Review, February, 181 5, as a review of Madame D'Arblay's TJie Wanderer. There is nothing particularly striking in the structure of the essay. It follows in regular historical order the development of the novel in its beginnings in Spain and in England. Yet the design of this essay is more coherent than that of many 7 8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE of Hazlitt's essays. Much of Hazlitt's journalistic work required a haste in critical judgment and in formulation of material that entirely precluded the larger excellences of architecture. In the preparation of this series, how- ever, the author was given time for his task, it was pleas- ing to him, and the result is an excellently balanced and clearly designed set of essays. When Hazlitt put into book form his series of lectures on The English Comic Writers, he was in his forty-second year. These essays may be considered the best expression of his mature years. They evidence a grown man's com- mand of his faculties and avoid that exaggeration of the characteristic that has perverted the later work of both Hazlitt and Thackeray. Hazlitt was thoroughly an individual genius. Though by no means an anarchist, he was, even in artistic matters, a vigorous controversial- ist. As such he was quite in harmony with his time, for his age was essentially a hard-hitting age. The regime of Gifford on The Quarterly Review had put the writers and the critics at swords' points. Keats was hounded to an early grave and Byron was moved to the stinging re- tort of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers by the very forces that kept alive the biting wit of Hazlitt. With Hazlitt it was not, as with Byron, a case of de- fending an outraged muse against the assaults of the critical enemy. Hazlitt wrote no pure literature he cared to defend. A critic himself, he set himself into opposition with the critics for sheer love of combat. As we read Hazlitt we are impressed with the immense vitality of the man. His thought and style were dynamic. He cared for a subject only so far as it had life in it. To him that which did not arouse enthusiasm had no ex- istence. He was passive in nothing; opinions to him were slogans; success he gauged in terms of effect. Hazlitt's own life is a clear index to his art. Character- istically he was vigorous and independent. First a WILLIAM HAZLITT 9 revolutionary, then a Bonapartist, he tried successively preaching, painting, poetry, and ended his life an un- questioned authority on all the arts. Hack writer, philosopher, and grammarian, his memory was so reten- tive and his common sense so unerring that he drew truth even from errors of fact, and on narrow but carefully selected reading gave the impression of encyclopedic learning. Hazlitt's style has all the merits and defects of the author's profuse vitality. It is unregulated, unpruned, rich in allusion, lacking in reticence, but capable of mar- velously delicate distinctions. No critic's sense of differ- entiae has been more keen and veracious. The major effect of the style is one of unusual power and remarkable suggestiveness. Though it is in the main concerned only with thoughts, now and then an emotion thrills through a sentence and reveals in the author a mastery of pathos and the dramatic. Little felicities of expression are strewn lavishly amid the richer fruits of his invention. "He finds his fortune mellowing in the wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble," he writes in one place, and again, "Mrs. Radcliffe touched the trembling chords of the imagination, making wild music there." With no less facility did Hazlitt weave quotations into the texture of his composition and make the borrowed form appear to be in its native element. Hazlitt's quick mind and nimble wit were at their best in a hurried summary of an author's work. Sometimes in a hasty catalogue of apt epithets he would lay open before the reader an author's entire work. Of all of these perhaps the best is contained in the lecture on Scott, in which, in a long series, there passes before the reader's eye the procession of Scott's imagination. Hazlitt is most truly himself in the collection of essays entitled The Round Table and Table Talk. There "a lesser Johnson," untrammelled by artistic tenets of design and lO NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE reserve, he lays down the law to loving auditors. He is only slightly more formal in The English Comic Writers. The subject itself provided its own outline but it is saved from baldness by the richness of Hazlitt's fund of literary knowledge and by his very deep and genuine interest in the problems of humanity. We like Hazlitt best when he stops in the midst of his study to philosophize on the nature of men and women. For then most truly we see standing forth the stormy and passion-beaten figure of the man himself, a prototype of Carlyle on the one hand, and of Thackeray on the other. THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS There is an exclamation in one of Gray's letters — "Be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon!" If I did not utter a similar aspiration at the conclusion of the last new novel which I read (I 5 would not give offence by being more particular as to the name) it was not from any want of affection for the class of writing to which it belongs; for without going so far as the celebrated French philosopher, who thought that more was to be learnt from good novels and romances lo than from the gravest treatises on history and morality, yet there are few works to which I am oftener tempted to turn for profit or delight, than to the standard pro- ductions in this species of composition. We find there a close imitation of men and manners; we see the very 15 web and texture of society as it really exists, and as we meet with it when we come into the world. If poetry has "something more divine in it," this savors more THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS II of humanity. We are brought acquainted with the mo- tives and characters of mankind, imbibe our notions of virtue and vice from practical examples, and are taught a knowledge of the world through the airy medium of romance. As a record of past manners and opinions, 5 too, such writings afford the best and fullest information. For example, I should be at a loss where to find in any authentic documents of the same period so satisfactory an account of the general state of society, and of moral, political, and rehgious feehng in the reign of George II 10 as we meet with in the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams. This work, in- deed, I take to be a perfect piece of statistics in its kind. In looking into any regular history of that period, into a learned and eloquent charge to a grand jury or the clergy 15 of a diocese, or into a tract on controversial divinity, we should hear only of the ascendency of the Protestant suc- cession, the horrors of Popery, the triumph of civil and rehgious liberty, the wisdom and moderation of the sover- eign, the happiness of the subject, and the flourishing 20 state of manufactures and commerce. But if we really wish to know what all these fine-sounding names come to, we cannot do better than turn to the works of those who, having no other object than to imitate nature, could only hope for success from the fidelity of their 25 pictures; and were bound (in self-defence) to reduce the boasts of vague theorists and the exaggerations of angry disputants to the mortifying standard of reality. Extremes are said to meet; and the works of imagina- tion, as they are called, sometimes come the nearest to 30 12 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE truth and nature. Fielding, in speaking on this subject, and vindicating the use and dignity of the style of writing in which he excelled against the loftier pretensions of professed historians, says, "that in their productions 5 nothing is true but the names and dates, whereas in his everything is true but the names and dates." If so, he has the advantage on his side. I will here confess, however, that I am a little prej- udiced on the point in question; and that the effect of 10 many fine speculations has been lost upon me, from an early familiarity with the most striking passages in the work to which I have just alluded. Thus nothing can be more captivating than the description somewhere given by Mr. Burke of the indissoluble connection be- 15 tween learning and nobility, and of the respect univer- sally paid by wealth to piety and morals. But the effect of this ideal representation has always been spoiled by my recollection of Parson Adams sitting over his cup of ale in Sir Thomas Booby's kitchen. Echard On the 20 Contempt of the Clergy is, in like manner, a very good book, and "worthy of all acceptation"; but somehow an unlucky impression of the reality of Parson Trulliber involuntarily checks the emotions of respect to which it might otherwise give rise; while, on the other hand, the 25 lecture which Lady Booby reads to Law}^er Scout on the immediate expulsion of Joseph and Fanny from the parish, casts no very favorable light on the flattering accounts of our practical jurisprudence which are to be found in Blackstone or De Lolme. The most moral 30 writers, after all, are those who do not pretend to in- THE ENGLISH NOVELIST 1 3 culcate any moral. The professed moralist almost un- avoidably degenerates into the partisan of a system; and the philosopher is too apt to warp the evidence to his own purpose. But the painter of manners gives the facts of human nature, and leaves us to draw the inference; if 5 we are not able to do this, or do it ill, at least it is our own fault. The first-rate writers in this class, of course, are few; but those few we may reckon among the greatest orna- ments and best benefactors of our kind. There is a cer- lo tain set of them who, as it were, take their rank by the side of reality, and are appealed to as evidence on all questions concerning human nature. The principal of these are Cervantes and Le Sage, who may be considered as having been naturalized among ourselves; and, of 15 native EngUsh growth. Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne.^ As this is a department of criticism which deserves more attention than has been usually bestowed upon it, I shall here venture to recur (not from choice but necessity) to what I have said upon it in a well-known 20 periodical publication; ^ and endeavor to contribute my mite towards settling the standard of excellence, both as to degree and kind, in these several writers. I shall begin with the history of the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, who presents something more 25 1 It is not to be forgotten that the author of Robinson Crusoe was also an Englishman. His other works, such as Life of Colo7iel fack, etc., are of the same cast, and leave an impression on the mind more Hke that of things than words. 2 The Edinburgh Review. 14 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Stately, more romantic, and at the same time more real to the imagination, than any other hero upon record. His lineaments, his accouterments, his pasteboard vizor, are famiUar to us; and Mambrino's helmet still glitters 5 in the sun! We not only feel the greatest love and ven- eration for the knight himself, but a certain respect for all those connected with him, the curate and Master Nicolas the barber, Sancho and Dapple, and even for Rosinante's leanness and his errors. — Perhaps there is lo no work which combines so much whimsical invention with such an air of truth. Its popularity is almost un- equalled; and yet its merits have not been sufficiently understood. The story is the least part of them; though the blunders of Sancho, and the unlucky adventures of 15 his master, are what naturally catch the attention of the majority of readers. The pathos and dignity of the sen- timents are often disguised under the ludicrousness of the subject, and provoke laughter when they might well draw tears. The character of Don Quixote himself is 20 one of the most perfect disinterestedness. He is an en- thusiast of the most amiable kind; of a nature equally open, gentle, and generous; a lover, of truth and justice; and one who had brooded over the fine dreams of chiv- alry and romance, till they had robbed him of himself, 25 and cheated his brain into a belief of their reality. There cannot be a greater mistake than to consider Don Quixote as a merely satirical work, or as a vulgar attempt to ex- plode "the long-forgotten order of chivalry." There could be no need to explode what no longer existed. Be- 30 sides, Cervantes himself was a man of the most sanguine THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 1 5 and enthusiastic temperament; and even through the crazed and battered figure of the knight, the spirit of chivalry shines out with undiminished luster; as if the author had half-designed to revive the examples of past ages, and once more "witch the world with noble horse- 5 manship." Oh! if ever the moldering flame of Spanish liberty is destined to break forth, wrapping the tyrant and the tyranny in one consuming blaze, that the spark of generous sentiment and romantic enterprise, from which it must be kindled, has not been quite extinguished, 10 will perhaps be owing to thee, Cervantes, and to thy Don Quixote! The character of Sancho is not more admirable in itself, than as a relief to that of the knight. The contrast is as picturesque and striking as that between the figures 15 of Rosinante and Dapple. Never was there so complete a partie qiiarr^e: — they answer to one another at all points. Nothing need surpass the truth of physiognomy in the description of the master and man, both as to body and mind; the one lean and tall, the other round 20 and short; the one heroical and courteous, the other selfish and servile; the one full of high-flown fancies, the other a bag of proverbs; the one always starting some romantic scheme, the other trying to keep to the safe side of custom and tradition. The gradual ascendancy, 25 however, obtained by Don Quixote over Sancho, is as finely managed as it is characteristic. Credulity and a love of the marvelous are as natural to ignorance as selfishness and cunning. Sancho by degrees becomes a kind of lay-brother of the order; acquires a taste for ad- 30 1 6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ventures in his own way, and is made all but an entire convert by the discovery of the hundred crowns in one of his most comfortless journeys. Towards the end, his regret at being forced to give up the pursuit of knight- 5 errantry, almost equals his master's; and he seizes the proposal of Don Quixote for them to turn shepherds with the greatest avidity — still applying it in his own fashion; for while the Don is ingeniously torturing the names of his humble acquaintance into classical terminations, and lo contriving scenes of gallantry and song, Sancho exclaims, "Oh, what delicate wooden spoons shall I carve! what crumbs and cream shall I devour!" — forgetting, in his milk and fruits, the pullets and geese at Camacho's wed- ding. 15 This intuitive perception of the hidden analogies of things, or, as it may be called, this instinct of the imagi- nation, is, perhaps, what stamps the character of genius on the productions of art more than any other circum- stance: for it works unconsciously, like nature, and re- 20 ceives its impressions from a kind of inspiration. There is as much of this indistinct keeping and involuntary unity of purpose in Cervantes as in any author whatever. Something of the same unsettled, rambling humor ex- tends itself to all the subordinate parts and characters 25 of the work. Thus we find the curate confidentially in- forming Don Quixote, that if he could get the ear of the government, he has something of considerable impor- tance to propose for the good of the State; and our ad- venturer afterwards (in the course of his peregrinations) 30 meets with a young gentleman who is a candidate for THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 1 7 poetical honors, with a mad lover, a forsaken damsel, a Mahometan lady converted to the Christian faith, etc. — all delineated with the same truth, wildness, and deli- cacy of fancy. The whole work breathes that air of romance, that aspiration after imaginary good, that indescribable longing after something more than we possess, that in all places and in all conditions of life, still prompts the eternal sigh, For which we wish to live, or dare to die 1 " The leading characters in Don Quixote are strictly in- 10 dividuals; that is, they do not so much belong to, as form a class by themselves. In other words, the actions and manners of the chief dramatis personae do not arise out of the actions and manners of those around them, or the situation of life in which they are placed, but out of the 15 peculiar dispositions of the persons themselves, operated upon by certain impulses of caprice and accident. Yet these impulses are so true to nature, and their operation so exactly described, that we net only recognize the fidel- ity of the representation, but recognize it with all the 20 advantages of novelty superadded. They are in the best sense originals, namely, in the sense in which Nature has her originals. They are unlike anything we have seen before— may be said to be purely ideal; and yet identify themselves more readily with our imagination, and are 25 retained more strongly in memory, than perhaps any others: they are never lost in the crowd. One test of the truth of this ideal painting is the number of allusions which Don Quixote has furnished to the whole of civi- Prose — 2 1 8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE lized Europe; that is to say, of appropriate cases and striking illustrations of the universal principles of our nature. The detached incidents and occasional descrip- tions of human life are more familiar and obvious; so 5 that we have nearly the same insight here given us into the characters of innkeepers, barmaids, ostlers, and puppet showmen, that we have in Fielding. There is a much greater mixture, however, of the pathetic and sentimental with the quaint and humorous, than there lo ever is in Fielding. I might instance the story of the countryman whom Don Quixote and Sancho met in their doubtful search after Dulcinea, driving his mules to plough at break of day, and " singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles " ! The episodes, which are frequently 15 introduced, are excellent, but have, upon the whole, been overrated. They derive their interest from their connection with the main story. We are so pleased with that, that we are disposed to receive pleasure from every- thing else. Compared, for instance, with the serious 20 tales in Boccaccio, they are sHght and somewhat super- ficial. That of Marcella, the fair shepherdess, is, I think, the best. I shall only add, that Don Quixote was, at the time it was published, an entirely original work in its kind, and that the author claims the highest honor 25 which can belong to one, that of being the inventor of a new style of writing. I have never read his Galatea, nor his Loves of Per sites and Sigismunda, though I have often meant to do it, and I hope to do so yet. Perhaps there is a reason lurking at the bottom of this dilatoriness: I 30 am quite sure the reading of these works could not make THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 1 9 me think higher of the author of Don Quixote, and it might, for a moment or two, make me think less. There is another Spanish novel, Guzman cfAljarache, nearly of the same age as Don Quixote, and of great genius, though it can hardly be ranked as a novel or a 5 work of imagination. It is a series of strange, uncon- nected adventures, rather dryly told, but accompanied by the most severe and sarcastic commentary. The satire, the wit, the eloquence, and reasoning, are of the most potent kind: but they are didactic rather than dramatic. lo They would suit a homily or a pasquinade as well or better than a romance. Still there are in this extraor- dinary book occasional sketches of character and hu- morous descriptions, to which it would be difficult to produce anything superior. This work, which is hardly 15 known in this country except by name, has the credit, without any reason, of being the original of Gil Bias. There is one incident the same, that of the unsavory ragout, which is served up for supper at the inn. In all other respects these two works are the very reverse of 20 each other, both in their excellences and defects. — Lazarillo de Tormes has been more read than the Spanish Rogue, and is a work more readable, on this acount among others, that it is contained in a duodecimo in- stead of a folio volume. This, however, is long enough, 25 considering that it treats of only one subject, that of eating, or rather the possibility of living without eating. Famine is here framed into an art, and feasting is ban- ished far hence. The hero's time and thoughts are taken up in a thousand shifts to procure a dinner; and that 30 20 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE failing, in tampering with his stomach till supper time, when being forced to go supperless to bed, he comforts himself with the hopes of a breakfast, the next morning of which being again disappointed, he reserves his ap- 5 petite for a luncheon, and then has to stave it off again by some meager excuse or other till dinner; and so on, by a perpetual adjournment of this necessary process, through the four-and-twenty hours round. The quantity of food proper to keep body and soul together is reduced 10 to a minimum; and the most uninviting morsels with which Lazarillo meets once a week as a godsend, are pam- pered into the most sumptuous fare by a long course of inanition. The scene of this novel could be laid nowhere so properly as in Spain, that land of priestcraft and 15 poverty, where hunger seems to be the ruHng passion, and starving the order of the day. Gil Bias has, next to Don Quixote, been more generally read and admired than any other novel; and in one sense deservedly so: for it is at the head of its class, though 20 that class is very different from, and I should say in- ferior to the other. There is little individual character in Gil Bias. The author is a describer of manners, and not of character. He does not take the elements of hu- man nature, and w^ork them up into new combinations 25 (which is the excellence of Don Quixote)', nor trace the peculiar and shifting shades of folly and knavery as they are to be found in real Hfe (like Fielding): but he takes off, as it were, the general, habitual impression which circumstances make on certain conditions of life, and 30 molds all his characters accordingly. All the persons THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 21 whom he introduces carry about with them the badge of their profession, and you see Httle more of them than their costume. He describes men as belonging to dis- tinct classes in society; not as they are in themselves, or with the individual differences which are always to be 5 discovered in nature. His hero, in particular, has no character but that of the successive circumstances in which he is placed. His priests are only described as priests: his valets, his players, his women, his courtiers and his sharpers, are all aUke. Nothing can well ex- 10 ceed the monotony of the work in this respect: — at the same time that nothing can exceed the truth and pre- cision with which the general manners of these different characters are preserved, nor the felicity of the particular traits by which their common foibles are brought out. 15 Thus the Archbishop of Granada will remain an ever- lasting memento of the weakness of human vanity; and the account of Gil Bias's legacy, of the uncertainty of human expectations. This novel is also deficient in the fable as well as in the characters. It is not a regularly 20 constructed story; but a series of amusing adventures told with equal gaiety and good sense, and in the most graceful style imaginable. It has been usual to class our own great novelists as imitators of one or other of these two writers. Fielding, 25 no doubt, is more like Don Quixote than Gil Bias; Smol- lett is more like Gil Bias than Don Quixote; but there is not much resemblance in either case. Sterne's Tristram Shandy is a more direct instance of imitation. Richard- son can scarcely be called an imitator of any one; or if 30 22 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE he is, it is of the sentimental refinement of Marivanx, or of the verbose gallantry of the writers of the seventeenth century. There is very little to warrant the common idea that 5 Fielding was an imitator of Cervantes, except his own declaration of such an intention in the title-page of Joseph Andrews, the romantic turn of the character of Parson Adams (the only romantic character in his works), and the proverbial humor of Partridge, which is kept up lo only for a few pages. Fielding's novels are, in general, thoroughly his own; and they are thoroughly English. What they are most remarkable for, is neither sentiment, nor imagination, nor wit, nor even humor, though there is an immense deal of this last quality; but profound 15 knowledge of human nature, at least of English nature, and masterly pictures of the characters of men as he saw them existing. This quality distinguishes all his works, and is shown almost equally in all of them. As a painter of real life, he was equal to Hogarth; as a mere observer 20 of human nature, he was little inferior to Shakespeare, though without any of the genius and poetical qualities of his mind. His humor is less rich and laughable than Smollett's; his wit as often misses as hits; he has none of the fine pathos of Richardson or Sterne; but he has 25 brought together a greater variety of characters in com- mon life, marked with more distinct peculiarities, and without an atom of caricature, than any other novel v^riter whatever. The extreme subtlety of observation on the springs of human conduct in ordinary characters, 30 is only equaled by the ingenuity of contrivance in bring- THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 23 ing those springs into play, in such a manner as to lay- open their smallest irregularity. The detection is always complete, and made with the certainty and skill of a philosophical experiment, and the obviousness and fa- miharity of a casual observation. The truth of the imi- 5 tation is indeed so great, that it has been argued that Fielding must have had his materials ready-made to his hands, and was merely a transcriber of local manners and individual habits. For this conjecture, however, there seems to be no foundation. His representations, 10 it is true, are local and individual; but they are not the less profound and conclusive. The feeling of the gen- eral principles of human nature operating in particular circumstances, is always intense, and uppermost in his mind; and he makes use of incident and situation only 15 to bring out character. It is scarcely necessary to give any illustrations. Tom Jones is full of them. There is the account, for example, of the gratitude of the Elder BHfil to his brother, for assisting him to obtain the fortune of Miss Bridget 20 Al worthy by marriage; and of the gratitude of the poor in his neighborhood to Alworthy himself, who had done so much good in the country that he had made every one in it his enemy. There is the account of the Latin dialogues between Partridge and his maid, of the as- 25 sault made on him during one of these by Mrs. Partridge, and the severe bruises he patiently received on that oc- casion, after which the parish of Little Baddington rung with the story^ that the schoolmaster had killed his wife. There is the exquisite keeping in the character of Blifil, 30 24 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE and the want of it in that of Jones. There is the grada- tion in the lovers of Molly Seagrim, the philosopher Square succeeding to Tom Jones, who again finds that he himself had succeeded to the accompHshed Will 5 Barnes who had the first possession of her person, and had still possession of her heart, Jones being only the instrument of her vanity, as Square was of her interest. Then there is the discreet honesty of Black George, the learning of Thwackum and Square, and the profundity 10 of Squire Western, who considered it as a physical im- possibility that his daughter should fall in love with Tom Jones. We have also that gentleman's disputes with his sister, and the inimitable appeal of that lady to her niece: "I was never so handsome as you, Sophy; yet I 15 had something of you formerly. I was called the cruel Parthenissa. Kingdoms and states, as Tully Cicero says, undergo alteration, and so must the human form!" The adventure of the same lady with the highwayman, who robbed her of her jewels while he complimented her 20 beauty, ought not to be passed over; nor that of Sophia and her muff, nor the reserved coquetry of her cousin Fitzpatrick, nor the description of Lady Bellaston, nor the modest overtures of the pretty widow Hunt, nor the indiscreet babblings of Mrs. Honour. The moral of 25 this book has been objected to without much reason; but a more serious objection has been made to the want of refinement and elegance in two principal characters. We never feel this objection, indeed, while we are read- ing the book; but at other times we have something like 30 a lurking suspicion that Jones was but an awkward THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 25 fellow, and Sophia a pretty simpleton. I do not know how to account for this effect, unless it is that Fielding's constantly assuring us of the beauty of his hero, and the good sense of his heroine, at last produces a distrust of both. The story of Tom Jones is allowed to be unrivaled; 5 and it is this circumstance, together with the vast variety of characters, that has given the History of a Foundling so decided a preference over Fielding's other novels. The characters themselves, both in Amelia and Joseph Andrews, are quite equal to any of those in To7n Jones. 10 The account of Miss Matthews and Ensign Hibbert in the former of these, — the way in which that lady recon- ciles herself to the death of her father, — the inflexible Colonel Bath, the insipid Mrs. James, the complaisant Colonel Trent, the demure, sly, intriguing, equivocal 15 Mrs. Bennet, the lord who is her seducer, and who at- tempts afterwards to seduce Amelia by the same me- chanical process of a concert ticket, a book, and the disguise of a greatcoat, — his little, fat, short-nosed, red- faced, good-humored accomplice, the keeper of the lodg- 20 ing house, who, having no pretensions to gallantry herself, has a disinterested dehght in forwarding the intrigues and pleasures of others (to say nothing of honest At- kinson, the story of the miniature picture of Amelia, and the hashed mutton, which are in a different style), are 5 masterpieces of description. The whole scene at the lodging house, the masquerade, etc., in Amelia, are equal in interest to the parallel scenes in Tom Jones, and even more refined in the knowledge of character. For in- stance, Mrs. Bennet is superior to Mrs. Fitzpatrick in 3° 26 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE her own way. The uncertainty in which the event of her interview with her former seducer is left, is admi- rable. Fielding was a master of what may be called the double entendre of character, and surprises you no less 5 by what he leaves in the dark (hardly known to the per- sons themselves) than by the unexpected discoveries he makes of the real traits and circumstances in a character with which, till then, you find you were unacquainted. There is nothing at all heroic, however, in the usual 10 style of his delineations. He does not draw lofty char- acters or strong passions; all his persons are of the ordi- nary stature as to intellect, and possess little elevation of fancy, or energy of purpose. Perhaps, after all. Parson Adams is his finest character. It is equally true to nature 15 and more ideal than any of the others. Its unsuspecting simphcity makes it not only more amiable, but doubly amusing, by gratifying the sense of superior sagacity in the reader. Our laughing at him does not once lessen our respect for him. His declaring that he would will- 20 ingly walk ten miles to fetch his sermon on vanity, merely to convince Wilson of his thorough contempt of this vice, and his consoling himself for the loss of his yEschylus by suddenly recollecting that he could not read it if he had it, because it is dark, are among the finest 25 touches of naivete. The night adventures at Lady Booby's with Beau Didapper and the amiable Slipslop are the most ludicrous; and that with the huntsman, who draws off the hounds from the poor parson because they would be spoiled by following vermin, the most 30 profound. Fielding did not often repeat himself, but THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 27 Dr. Harrison, in Amelia, may be considered as a varia- tion of the character of Adams; so also is Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield; and the latter part of that work, which sets out so delightfully, an almost entire plagia- rism from Wilson's account of himself, and Adams's 5 domestic history. Smollett's first novel, Roderick Random, which is also his best, appeared about the same time as Fielding's Tom Jones, and yet it has a much more modern air with it; but this may be accounted for from the circumstance 10 that Smollett was quite a young man at the time, whereas Fielding's manner must have been forrhed long before. The style of Roderick Random is more easy and flowing than that of Tom Jones; the incidents follow one another more rapidly (though, it must be confessed, they never 15 come in such a throng, or are brought out with the same dramatic effect); the humor is broader, and as effectual; and there is very nearly, if not quite, an equal interest excited by the story. What, then, is it that gives the superiority to Fielding? It is the superior insight into 20 the springs of human character, and the constant de- velopment of that character through every change of circumstance. Smollett's humor often arises from the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of their ex- ternal appearance; as, from Roderick Random's carroty 25 locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles, or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that follow from it. There is a tone of vul- garity about all his productions. The incidents fre- quently resemble detached anecdotes taken from a 30 28 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE newspaper or magazine; and, like those in Gil Bias, might happen to a hundred other characters. He ex- hibits the ridiculous accidents and reverses to which human Ufe is Hable, not "the stuff" of which it is com- 5 posed. He seldom probes to the quick, or penetrates beyond the surface; and, therefore, he leaves no stings in the minds of his readers, and in this respect is far less interesting than Fielding. His novels always enliven, and never tire us; we take them up with pleasure, and 10 lay them down without any strong feeling of regret. We look on and laugh, as spectators of a highly amusing scene, without closing in with the combatants, or being made parties in the event. We read Roderick Random as an entertaining story, for the particular accidents and 15 modes of Hfe which it describes have ceased to exist; but we regard Tom Jones as a real history, because the author never stops short of those essential principles which He at the bottom of all our actions, and in which we feel an immediate interest — intus et hi cute. Smollett 20 excels most as the lively caricaturist : Fielding as the exact painter and profound metaphysician. I am far from maintaining that this account applies uniformly to the productions of these two writers; but I think that, as . far as they essentially differ, what I have stated is the 25 general distinction between them. Roderick Random is the purest of Smollett's novels: I mean in point of style and description. Most of the incidents and characters are supposed to have been taken from the events of his own life; and are, therefore, truer to nature. There is 30 a rude conception of generosity in some of his characters, THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 29 of which Fielding seems to have been incapable, his amiable persons being merely good-natured. It is owing to this that Strap is superior to Partridge; as there is a heartiness and warmth of feeling in some of the scenes between Lieutenant Bowling and his nephew, which is 5 beyond Fielding's power of impassioned writing. The whole of the scene on shipboard is a most admirable and striking picture, and, I imagine, very little if at all exaggerated, though the interest it excites is of a very unpleasant kind because the irritation and resistance to 10 petty oppression can be of no avail. The picture of the little profligate French friar, who was Roderick's travel- ing companion, and of whom he always kept to the wind- ward is one of Smollett's most masterly sketches. — Peregrine Pickle is no great favorite of mine, and 15 Launcelot Greaves was not worthy of the genius of the author. Humphry Clinker and Count Fathom are both equally admirable in their way. Perhaps the former is the most pleasant gossiping novel that was ever written; that 20 which gives the most pleasure with the least effort to the reader. It is quite as amusing as going the journey could have been; and we have just as good an idea of what happened on the road as if we had been of the party. Humphry CHnker himself is exquisite; and his sweet- 25 heart, Winifred Jenkins, not much behind him. Mat- thew Bramble, though not altogether original, is ex- cellently supported, and seems to have been the prototype of Sir Anthony Absolute in the Rivals. But Lismahago is the flower of the flock. His tenaciousness in argument 30 30 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE is not so delightful as the relaxation of his logical se- verity, when he finds his fortune mellowing in the wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This is the best pre- served, and most severe of all Smollett's characters. 5 The resemblance to Don Quixote is only just enough to make it interesting to the critical reader, without giving offense to anybody else. The indecency and filth in this novel, are what must be allowed to all Smollett's writ- ings. — The subject and characters in Count Fathom are, 10 in general, exceedingly disgusting: the story is also spun out to a degree of tediousness in the serious and senti- mental parts; but there is more power of writing oc- casionally shown in it than in any of his works. I need only refer to the fine and bitter irony of the Count's 15 address to the country of his ancestors on his landing in England; to the robber scene in the forest, which has never been surpassed; to the Parisian swindler who per- sonates a raw English country squire (Western is tame in the comparison); and to the story of the seduction in 20 the west of England. It would be difficult to point out, in any author, passages written with more force and mastery than these. It is not a very difficult undertaking to class Fielding or Smollett; — the one as an observer of the characters 25 of human life, the other as a describer of its various eccentricities. But it is by no means so easy to dispose of Richardson, who was neither an observer of the one nor a describer of the other, but who seemed to spin his materials entirely out of his own brain, as if there had 30 been nothing existing in the world beyond the little THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 3 1 room in which he sat writing. There is an artificial reahty about his works which is nowhere else to be met with. They have the romantic air of a pure fiction, with the Hteral minuteness of a common diary. The author had the strongest matter-of-fact imagination that ever 5 existed, and wrote the oddest mixture of poetry and prose. He does not appear to have taken advantage of anything in actual nature from one end of his works to the other; and yet, throughout all his works, voluminous as they are (and this, to be sure, is one reason why they 10 are so), he sets about describing every object and trans- action, as if the whole had been given in on evidence by an eyewitness. This kind of high finishing from imagination is an anomaly in the history of human genius; and certainly nothing so fine was ever produced by the 15 same accumulation of minute parts. There is not the least distraction, the least forgetfulness of the end — every circumstance is made to tell. I cannot agree that this exactness of detail produces heaviness; on the con- trary, it gives an appearance of truth, and a positive 20 interest to the story; and we listen with the same attention as we should to the particulars of a confidential com- munication. I at one time used to think some parts of Sir Charles Grandison rather trifling and tedious, es- pecially the long description of Miss Harriet Byron's 25 wedding clothes, till I was told of two young ladies who had severally copied out the whole of that very descrip- tion for their own private gratification. After that I could not blame the author. The effect of reading this work is like an increase of 30 32 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE kindred. You find yourself all of a sudden introduced into the midst of a large family, with aunts and cousins to the third and fourth generation, and grandmothers both by the father's and mother's side; and a very odd 5 set of people they are, but people whose real existence and personal identity you can no more dispute than your own senses, for you see and hear all that they do or say. What is still more extraordinary, all this extreme elaborateness in working out the story seems to have cost 10 the author nothing; for, it is said, that the published works are mere abridgments. I have heard (though this I suspect must be a pleasant exaggeration) that Sir Charles Grandison was originally written in eight- and-twenty volumes. IS Pamela is the first of Richardson's productions, and the very child of his brain. Taking the general idea of the character of a modest and beautiful country girl, and of the ordinary situation in which she is placed, he makes out all the rest, even to the smallest circumstance, 20 by the mere force of a reasoning imagination. It would seem as if a step lost, would be as fatal here as in a mathematical demonstration. The development of the character is the most simple, and comes the nearest to nature that it can do, without being the same thing. 25 The interest of the story increases with the dawn of un- derstanding and reflection in the heroine: her sentiments gradually expand themselves, like opening flowers. She writes better every time and acquires a confidence in herself, just as a girl would do, in writing such letters 30 in such circumstances; and yet it is certain^ that no girl THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 33 would write such letters in such cirumstances. What I mean is this: — Richardson's nature is always the nature of sentiment and reflection, not of impulse or situation. He furnishes his characters, on every occasion, with the presence of mind of the author. He makes them act, 5 not as they would from the impulse of the moment, but as they might upon reflection, and upon a careful review of every motive and circumstance in their situation. They regularly sit down to write letters: and if the busi- ness of life consisted in letter writing, and was carried lo on by the post (like a Spanish game at chess), human nature would be what Richardson represents it. All actual objects and feelings are blunted and deadened by being presented through a medium which may be true to reason, but is false in nature. He confounds his 15 own point of view with that of the immediate actors in the scene; and hence presents you with a conventional and factitious nature, instead of that which is real. Dr. Johnson seems to have preferred this truth of reflection to the truth of nature, when he said that there was more 20 knowledge of the human heart in a page of Richardson, than in all Fielding. Fielding, however, saw more of the practical results, and understood the principles as well; but he had not the same power of speculating upon their possible results, and combining them in certain ideal 25 forms of passion and imagination, which was Richard- son's real excellence. It must be observed, however, that it is this mutual good understanding and comparing of notes between the author and the persons he describes, his infinite 30 Prose — 3 34 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE circumspection, his exact process of ratiocination and calculation, which gives such an appearance of cold- ness and formaUty to most of his characters, — which makes prudes of his women and coxcombs of his men. 5 Everything is too conscious in his works. Everything is distinctly brought home to the mind of the actors in the scene, which is a fault undoubtedly: but then, it must be confessed, everything is brought home in its full force to the mind of the reader also; and w^e feel the same lo interest in the story as if it were our own. Can anything be more beautiful or more affecting than Pamela's re- proaches to her "lumpish heart," when she is sent away from her master's at her own request; its lightness when she is sent for back; the joy which the conviction of the IS sincerity of his love diffuses in her heart, like the coming on of spring; the artifice of the stuff gown; the meeting with Lady Da vers after her marriage; and the trial scene with her husband ? Who ever remained insensible to the passion of Lady Clementina, except Sir Charles Grand- 20 ison himself, w^ho was the object of it ? Clarissa is, how- ever, his masterpiece, if we except Lovelace. If she is fine in herself, she is still finer in his account of her. With that foil, her purity is dazzling indeed: and she who could triumph by her virtue, and the force of her 25 love, over the regality of Lovelace's mind, his wit, his person, his accomplishments, and his spirit, conquers all hearts. I should suppose that never sympathy more deep or sincere was excited than by the heroine of Rich- ardson's romance, except by the calamities of real life. 30 The links in this wonderful chain of interest are not more THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 35 finely wrought, than their whole weight is overwhelming and irresistible. Who can forget the exquisite gradations of her long dying scene, or the closing of the coffin lid, when Miss Howe comes to take her last leave of her friend; or the heartbreaking reflection that Clarissa makes 5 on what was to have been her wedding day? Well does a certain writer exclaim — " Books are a real world, both pure and good, Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness may grow 1 " 10 Richardson's wit was unlike that of any other writer — his humor was so too. Both were the effect of intense activity of mind — labored, and yet completely effectual. I might refer to Lovelace's reception and description of Hickman, when he calls out Death in his ear, as the name 15 of the person with whom Clarissa had fallen in love; and to the scene at the glove shop. What can be more mag- nificent than his enumeration of his companions — " Bel- ton, so pert and so pimply — Tourville, so fair and so foppish!" etc. In casuistry this author is quite at home; 20 and, with a boldness greater even than his puritanical severity, has exhausted every topic on virtue and vice. There is another peculiarity in Richardson, not perhaps so uncommon, which is, his systematically preferring his most insipid characters to his finest, though both were 25 equally his .own invention, and he must be supposed to have understood something of their qualities. Thus he preferred the little, selfish, affected, insignificant Miss Byron, to the divine Clementina; and again, Sir Charles Grandison to the nobler Lovelace. I have 3° 36 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE nothing to say in favor of Lovelace's morality; but Sir Charles is the prince of coxcombs, — whose eye was never once taken from his own person and his own virtues; and there is nothing which excites so little sym- 5 pathy as this excessive egotism. It remains to speak of Sterne; and I shall do it in few words. There is more of mannerism and affectation in him, and a more immediate reference to preceding au- thors; but his excellences, where he is excellent, are of 10 the first order. His characters are intellectual and in- ventive, like Richardson's, but totally opposite in the execution. The one are made out by continuity, and patient repetition of touches; the others, by glancing transitions and graceful apposition. His style is equally 15 different from Richardson's: it is at times the most rapid, the most happy, the most idiomatic of any that is to be found. It is the pure essence of English conversational style. His works consist only of morceaux — of brilliant passages. I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to have 20 known better, should call him ''a dull fellow." His wit is poignant, though artificial; and his characters (though the groundwork of some of them had been laid before) have yet invaluable original differences; and the spirit of the execution, the master strokes constantly thrown 25 into them, are not to be surpassed. It is sufficient to name them: — Yorick, Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy, My Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, and the Widow Wadman. In these he has contrived to oppose, with equal felicity and originality, two characters, one of pure intellect, and the 30 other of pure good nature, in My Father and My Uncle THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 37 Toby. There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sarcastic humor, and of extreme tenderness of feel- ing; the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the recording angel; but at other times pure, and without blemish. The 5 story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Father's restlessness, both of body and mind, is inimitable. It is the model from which all those despicable performances against modern philosophy ought to have been copied, if their authors had known 10 anything of the subject they were writing about. My Uncle Toby is one of the finest compliments ever paid to human nature. He is the most unoffending of God's creatures; or, as the French express it, tin tel petit hon homme! Of his bowling green, his sieges, and his amours, 1 5 who would say or think anything amiss! It is remarkable that our four best novel writers be- long nearly to the same age. We also owe to the same period (the reign of George II) the inimitable Hogarth, and some of our best writers of the middle style of comedy. 20 If I were called upon to account for this coincidence, I should waive the consideration of mere general causes, and ascribe it at once to the establishment of the Protes- tant ascendancy, and the succession of the House of Hanover. These great events appear to have given a 25 more popular turn to our literature and genius, as well as to our government. It was found high time that the people should be represented in books as well as in Parliament. They wisl.jd to see some account of them- selves in what they read; and not to be confined always 30 38 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE to the vices, the miseries, and frivolities of the great. Our domestic tragedy, and our earliest periodical works, appeared a little before the same period. In despotic countries, human nature is not of sufficient importance 5 to be studied or described. The canaille are objects rather of disgust than curiosity; and there are no middle classes. The works of Racine and Moliere are either imitations of the verbiage of the court, before which they were represented, or fanciful caricatures of the 10 manners of the lowest of the people. But in the period of our history in question, a security of person and property, and a freedom of opinion had been established, which made every man feel of some consequence to himself, and appear an object of some curiosity to his 15 neighbors: our manners became more domesticated; there was a general spirit of sturdiness and independence, which made the English character more truly English than perhaps at any other period — that is, more tenacious of its own opinions and purposes. The whole surface 20 of society appeared cut out into square enclosures and sharp angles, which extended to the dresses of the time, their gravel walks and clipped hedges. Each individual had a certain ground plot of his own to cultivate his par- ticular humors in, and let them shoot out at pleasure; 25 and a most plentiful crop they have produced accord- ingly. The reign of George II was, in a word, the age of hobby-horses: but, since that period, things have taken a different turn. His present Majesty (God save the mark!) during 30 almost the whole of his reign, has been constantly THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 39 mounted on a great war-horse; and has fai'rl}^ driven all competitors out of the field. Instead of minding our own affairs, or laughing at each other, the eyes of all his faithful subjects have been fixed on the career of the sovereign, and all hearts anxious for the safety of his 5 person and government. Our pens and our swords have been aUke drawn in their defense; and the returns of killed and wounded, the manufacture cf newspapers and parliamentary speeches, have exceeded all former ex- ample. If we have had a little of the blessings of peace, 10 we have had enough of the glories and calamities of war. His Majesty has indeed contrived to keep alive the greatest public interest ever known, by his determined manner of riding his hobby for half a century together, with the aristocracy, the democracy, the clergy, the 15 landed and moneyed interest, and the rabble, in full cry after him; — and at the end of his career, most happily and unexpectedly succeeded, c midst empires lost and won, kingdoms overturned and created, and the destruc- tion of an incredible number of lives, in restoring the di- 20 vine right oj kings, and thus preventing any future abuse of the example which seated his family on the throne! It is not to be wondered at, if amidst the tumults of events crowded into this period, our literature has par- taken of the disorder of the time; if our prose has run 25 mad, and our poetry grown childish. Among those per- sons who "have kept the even tenor of their way," the author of Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, must be al- lowed to hold a distinguished place. ^ Mrd. Radcliffe's 1 The Fool of Quality, David Simple, and Sydney Biddulph, 30 40 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE "enchantments drear," and moldering castles, derived part of their interest, no doubt, from the supposed totter- ing state of all old structures at the time; and Mrs. Inch- bald's Nature and Art would scarcely have had the same 5 popularity, but that it fell in (as to its two main charac- ters) with the prevailing prejudice of the moment, that judges and bishops were not invariably pure abstractions of justice and piety. Miss Edgeworth's Tales, again (with the exception of Castle Rack-rent, which is a gen- lo uine, unsophisticated, national portrait), are a kind of pedantic, pragmatical common sense, tinctured with the pertness and pretensions of the paradoxes to which they are so self-complacently opposed. Madame D'Arblay is, on the contrary, quite of the old school, a mere common 15 observer of manners, and also a very woman. It is this last circumstance which forms the peculiarity of her writings, and distinguishes them from those master- pieces which I have before mentioned. She is a quick, lively, and accurate observer of persons and things; but 20 she always looks at them with a consciousness of her sex, and in that point of view in which it is the particular business and interest of women to observe them. There is little in her works of passion or character, or even m.an- ners, in the most extended sense of the word, as implying 25 the sum total of our habits and pursuits; her jorte is in describing the absurdities and affectations of external behavior, or the manners of people in company. Her written about the middle of the last century, belong to the ancient regime of novel writing. Of the Vicar of Wakefield I have at- 30 tempted a character elsewhere. THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 4 1 characters, which are ingenious caricatures, are, no doubt, distinctly marked, and well kept up; but they are slightly shaded, and exceedingly uniform. Her heroes and heroines, almost all of them, depend on the stock of a single phrase or sentiment, and have certain mottoes 5 or devices by which they may always be known. They form such characters as people might be supposed to assume for a night at a masquerade. She presents not the whole-length figure, nor even the face, but some prominent feature. In one of her novels, for example, a 10 lady appears regularly every ten pages, to get a lesson in music for nothing. She never appears for any other purpose; this is all you know of her; and in this the whole wit and humor of the character consists. Meadows is the same, who has always the cue of being tired, without 15 any other idea. It has been said of Shakespeare, that you may always assign his speeches to the proper char- acters; and you may infalhbly do the same thing with Madame D'Arblay's, for they always say the same thing. The Braughtons are the best. Mr. Smith is an 20 exquisite city portrait. Evelina is also her best novel, because it is the shortest; that is, it has all the liveliness in the sketches of character, and smartness of comic dialogue and repartee, without the tediousness of the story, and endless affectation of sentiment which dis- 25 figures the others. Women, in general, have a quicker perception of any oddity or singularity of character than men, and are more alive to every absurdity which arises from a violation of the rules of society, or a deviation from established 30 42 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE custom. This partly arises from the restraints on their own behavior, which turn their attention constantly on the subject, and partly from other causes. The sur- face of their minds, Hke that of their bodies, seems of a 5 finer texture than ours; more soft, and susceptible of immediate impulses. They have less muscular strength, less power of continued voluntary attention, of reason, passion, and imagination; but they are more easily im- pressed with whatever appeals to their senses or habitual lo prejudices. The intuitive perception of their minds is less disturbed by any abstruse reasonings on causes or consequences. They learn the idiom of character and manners, as they acquire that of language, by rote, without troubling themselves about the principles. Their 15 observation is not the less accurate on that account, as far as it goes, for it has been well said that "there is nothing so true as habit." There is little other power in Madame D'Arblay's novels than that of -immediate observation; her char- 20 acters, whether of refinement or vulgarity, are equally superficial and confined. The whole is a question of form, whether that form is adhered to or infringed upon. It is this circumstance which takes away dignity and in- terest from her story and sentiments, and makes the one 25 so teasing and tedious, and the other so insipid. The difficulties in which she involves her heroines are too much "Female Difficulties"; they are difficulties created out of nothing. The author appears to have no other idea of refinement than.it is the reverse of vulgarity; but 30 the reverse of \'ulgarity is fastidiousness and affectation. THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 43 There is a true and a false delicacy. Because a vulgar country Miss would answer "yes" to a proposal of marriage in the first page, Madame D'Arblay makes it a proof of an excess of refinement, and an indispensable point of etiquette in her young ladies to postpone the 5 answer to the end of five volumes, without the smallest reason for their doing so, and with every reason to the contrary. The reader is led every moment to expect a denouement, and is as often disappointed on some trifling pretext. The whole artifice of her fable consists in com- 10 ing to no conclusion. Her ladies "sta^d so upon the order of their going," that they do not go at all. They will not abate an ace of their punctilio in any circum- stances or on any emergency. They would consider it as quite indecorous to run downstairs though the house 15 were in flames, or to move an inch off the pavement though a scaffolding was falling. She has formed to herself an abstract idea of perfection in common be- havior, which is quite as romantic and impracticable as any other idea of the sort; and the consequence has nat- 20 urally been that she makes her heroines commit the greatest improprieties and absurdities in order to avoid the smallest. In opposition to a maxim in philosophy, they constantly act from the weakest motive, or rather from pure contradiction. The whole tissue of the fable 25 is, in general, more wild and chimerical than anything in Don Quixote, without the poetical truth or elevation. Madame D'Arblay has woven a web of difficulties for her heroines, something like the green silken threads in which the shepherdesses entangled the steed of Cer- 30 44 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE vantes' hero, who swore, in his fine enthusiastic way, that he would sooner cut his passage to another world than disturb the least of those beautiful meshes. To mention the most painful instance — the Wanderer, in 5 her last novel, raises obstacles lighter than " the gossamer that idles in the wanton summer air," into insurmount- able barriers; and trifles with those that arise out of com- mon sense, reason, and necessity. Her conduct is not to be accounted for directly out of the circumstances in lo which she is placed, but out of some factitious and mis- placed refinement on them. It is a perpetual game at cross-purposes. There being a plain and strong motive why she should pursue any course of action, is a suffi- cient reason for her to avoid it, and the perversity of her 15 conduct is in proportion to its levity — as the lightness of the feather baffies the force of the impulse that is given to it, and the slightest breath of air turns it back on the hand from which it is thrown. We can hardly consider this as the perfection of the female character! 20 I must say I like Mrs. Radchffe's romances better, and think of them oftener; and even when I do not, part of the impression with which I survey the full-orbed moon shining in the blue expanse of heaven, or hear the wind sighing through autumnal leaves, or walk under the 25 echoing archways of a Gothic ruin, is owing to a repeated perusal of the Romance of the Forest, and the Mysteries of Udolpho. Her descriptions of scenery, indeed, are vague and wordy to the last degree; they are neither like Salvator nor Claude, nor nature nor art; and she dwells 30 on the effects of moonlight till we are sometimes weary THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 45 of them; her characters are insipid, the shadows of a shade, continued on, under different names, through all her novels; her story comes to nothing. But in har- rowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, and making the flesh creep, and the nerves thrill with fond hopes and 5 fears, she is unrivaled among her fair countrywomen. Her great power lies in describing the indefinable, and embodying a phantom. She makes her readers twice children; and from the dim and shadowy veil which she draws over the objects of her fancy, forces us to believe 10 all that is strange, and next to impossible, of their myste- rious agency; whether it is the sound of the lover's lute borne o'er the distant waters along the winding shores of Provence, recalling with its magic breath, some long- lost friendship or some hopeless love; or the full choir of 15 the cloistered monks, chanting their midnight orgies; or the lonely voice of an unhappy sister in her pensive cell, like angels' whispered music; or the deep sigh that steals from a dungeon on the startled ear; or the dim apparition of ghastly features; or the face of an assassin 20 hid beneath a monk's cowl; or the robber gliding through the twilight gloom of the forest. All the fascination that links the world of passion to the world unknown is hers, and she plays with it at her pleasure; she has all the poetry of romance, all that is obcure, visionary, and ob- 25 jectless in the imagination. It seems that the simple notes of Clara's lute, which so delighted her youthful heart, still echo among the rocks and mountains of the Va- lois; the mellow tones of the minstrel's songs still mingle with the noise of the dasrhing oar and the rippling of the 30 46 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE silver waves of the Mediterranean; the voice of Agnes is heard from the haunted tower, and Schedoni's form still stalks through the frowning ruins of Palinzi. The great- est treat, however, which Mrs. Radcliffe's pen has provided 5 for the lovers of the marvelous and terrible is the Pro- vencal tale which Ludovico reads in the Castle of Udolpho as the lights are beginning to burn blue, and just before the faces appear from behind the tapestry that carry him off, and we hear no more of him. This tale is of a 10 knight, who being engaged in a dance at some high festival of old romance, was summoned out by another knight clad in complete steel; and being solemnly ad- jured to follow him into the mazes of the neighboring wood, his conductor brought him at length to a hollow 15 glade in the thickest part, where he pointed to the mur- dered corse of another knight, and hfting up his beaver showed him by the gleam of moonlight which fell on it, that it had the face of his specter guide! The dramatic power in the character of Schedoni, the Italian monk, 20 has been much admired and praised; but the effect does not depend upon the character, but the situations; not upon the figure, but upon the background. The Castle of Otranto (which is supposed to have led the way to this style of writing) is, to my notion, dry, meager, and with- 25 out effect. It is done upon false principles of taste. The great hand and arm which are thrust into the courtyard, and remain there all day long, are the pasteboard ma- chinery of a pantomime; they shock the senses, and have no purchase upon the imagination. They are a matter- 30 of-fact impossibility; a fixture, and no longer a phantom. THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 47 Quod sic mihi ostendis, incredidus odi. By realizing the chimeras of ignorance and fear, begot upon shadows and dim Ukenesses, we take away the very grounds of credu- Uty and superstition; and, as in other cases, by facing out the imposture betray the secret to the contempt 5 and laughter of the spectators. The Recess, and the Old English Baron, are also "dismal treatises," but with little in them "at which our fell of hair is life to rouse and stir as life were in it." They are dull and prosing, without the spirit of fiction or the air of tradition to 10 make them interesting. After Mrs. Radcliffe, Monk Lewis was the greatest master of the art of freezing the blood. The robber scene in the Monk is only inferior to that in Count Fathom, and perfectly new in the cir- cumstances and cast of the characters. Some of his 15 descriptions are chargeable with unpardonable gross- ness, but the pieces of poetry interspersed in this far- famed novel, such as the fight of Roncesvalles and the Exile, in particular, have a romantic and delightful har- mony, such as might be chanted by the moonlight pil- 20 grim, or might lull the dreaming mariner on summer seas. If Mrs. Radcliffe touched the trembling chords of the imagination, making wild music there, Mrs. Inchbald has no less power over the springs of the heart. She not only moves the affections but melts us into "all the 25 luxury of woe." Her Nature and Art is one of the most pathetic and interesting stories in the world. It is, in- deed, too much so; or the distress is too naked, and the situations hardly to be borne with patience. I think nothing, however, can exceed in delicacy and beauty the 30 48 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE account of the love letter which the poor girl, who is the subject of the story, receives from her lover, and which she is a fortnight in speUing out, sooner than show it to any one else; nor the dreadful catastrophe of the last fatal 5 scene, in which the same poor creature, as her former seducer, now become her judge, is about to pronounce sentence of death upon her, cries out in agony — " Oh, not from you!" The effect of this novel upon the feel- ings, is not only of the most distressing, but withering lo kind. It blights the sentiments, and haunts the memory. The Simple Story is not much better in this respect : the gloom, however, which hangs over it is of a more fixed and tender kind: we are not now lifted to ecstasy, only to be plunged in madness; and besides the sweetness and 15 dignity of some of the characters, there are redeeming traits, retrospective glances on the course of human life, which brighten the backward stream, and smile in hope or patience to the last. Such is the account of Sand- ford, her stern and inflexible adviser, sitting by the bed- 20 side of Miss Milner, and comforting her in her dying moments; thus softening the worst pang of human na- ture, and reconciling us to the best, but not most shin- ing virtues in human character. The conclusion of Nature and Art, on the contrary, is a scene of heartless 25 desolation, which must effectually deter any one from ever reading the book twice. Mrs. Inchbald is an in- stance to confute the assertion of Rousseau, that women fail whenever they attempt to describe the passion of love. I shall conclude this Lecture, by saying a few words 30 of the author of Caleb Williams, and the author of THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 49 Waverley. I shall speak of the last first. In knowledge, in variety, in facility, in truth of painting, in costume and scenery, in freshness of subject, and in untired interest, in glancing lights and the graces of a style passing at will "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," at once 5 romantic and familiar, having the utmost force of imi- tation and apparent freedom of invention; these novels have the highest claims to admiration. What lack they yet ? The author has all power given him from without — he has not, perhaps, an equal power from within. The 10 intensity of the feeling is not equal to the distinctness of the imagery. He sits like a magician in his cell, and con- jures up all shapes and sights to the view; and with a little variation we might apply to him what Spenser says of Fancy: — 15 " His chamber was dispainted all within With sundry colors, in the which were writ Infinite shapes of things dispersed thin; Some such as in the world were never yet ; Some daily seene and knowen by their names, 20 Such as in idle fantasies do flit ; Infernal hags, centaurs, fiends, hippodames, Apes, lions, eagles, owls, fools, lovers, children, dames." In the midst of all this phantasmagoria, the author him- self never appears to take part with his characters, to 25 prompt our affection to the good, or sharpen our an- tipathy to the bad. It is the perfection of art to conceal art; and this is here done so completely, that while it adds to our pleasure in the work, it seems to take away from the merit of the author. As he does not thrust 30 himself forward in the foreground, he loses the credit Prose — 4 50 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE of the performance. The copies are so true to nature, that they appear Hke tapestry figures taken off by the pattern; the obvious patchwork of tradition and history. His characters are transplanted at once from their na- 5 tive soil to the page which we are reading, without any traces of their having passed through the hot bed of the author's genius or vanity. He leaves them as he found them; but this is doing wonders. The Laird and the Bailie of Bradwardine, the idiot rhymer, David Gel- lo latley, Miss Rose Bradwardine, and Miss Flora Mac- Ivor, her brother the Highland Jacobite chieftain, Vich Ian Vohr, the Highland rover, Donald Bean Lean, and the worthy page Galium Beg, Bothwell and Balfour of Burley, Claverhouse and Macbriar, Elshie the Black 15 Dwarf, and the Red Reever of Westburn Flat, Hobbie and Grace Armstrong, Ellangowan and Dominie Samp- son, Dirk Hatteraick and Meg Merrilies, are at present "familiar in our mouths as household names," and whether they are actual persons or creations of the poet's 20 pen, is an impertinent inquiry. The picturesque and local scenery is as fresh as the lichen on the rock; the characters are a part of the scenery. If they are put in action, it is a moving picture: if they speak, we hear their dialect and the tones of their voice. If the humor is 25 made out by dialect, the character by the dress, the in- terest by the facts and documents in the author's posses- sion, we have no right to complain, if it is made out; but sometimes it hardly is, and then we have a right to say so. For instance, in the Tales of my Landlord, Canny 30 Elshie is not in himself so formidable or petrific a person THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 5 1 as the real Black Dwarf, called David Ritchie, nor are his acts or sayings so staggering to the imagination. Again, the first introduction of this extraordinary per- sonage, groping about among the hoary twilight ruins of the Witch of Micklestane Moor and her Grey Geese, 5 is as full of preternatural power and bewildering effect (according to the tradition of the country) as can be; while the last decisive scene, where the Dwarf, in his resumed character of Sir Edward Mauley, comes from the tomb in the Chapel, to prevent the forced marriage 10 of the daughter of his former betrothed mistress with the man she abhors, is altogether powerless and tame. No situation could be imagined more finely calculated to call forth an author's powers of imagination and passion; but nothing is done. The assembly is dis- 15 persed under circumstances of the strongest natural feeling, and the most appalling preternatural appear- ances, just as if the effect had been produced by a peace officer entering for the same purpose. These instances of a falling off are, however, rare; and if this author 20 should not be supposed by fastidious critics to have original genius in the highest degree, he has other quali- ties which supply its place so well, his materials are so rich and varied, and he uses them so lavishly, that the reader is no loser by the exchange. We are not in fear 25 that he should publish another novel; we are under no apprehension of his exhausting himself, for he has shown that he is inexhaustible. Whoever else is, it is pretty clear that the author of Caleb Williams and St, Leon is not the author of Waverley. 30 52 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Nothing can be more distinct or excellent in their several ways than these two writers. If the one owes almost everything to external observation and traditional char- acter, the other owes everything to internal conception 5 and contemplation of the possible workings of the human mind. There is little knowledge of the world, little variety, neither an eye for the picturesque, nor a talent for the humorous in Caleb Williams for instance, but you cannot doubt for a moment of the originahty of the 10 work and the force of the conception. The impression made upon the reader is the exact measure of the strength of the author's genius. For the effect, both in Caleb Williams and St. Leon, is entirely made out, neither by facts, nor dates, by black letter or magazine learning, 15 by transcript or record, but by intense and patient study of the human heart, and by an imagination projecting itself into certain situations, and capable of working up its imaginary feelings to the height of reality. The au- thor launches into the ideal world, and must sustain 20 himself and the reader there by the mere force of imagi- nation. The sense of power in the writer thus adds to the interest of the subject. — The character of Falkland is a sort of apotheosis of the love of fame. The gay, the gallant Falkland lives only in the good opinion of 25 good men; for this he adorns his soul with virtue and tarnishes it with crime; he Hves only for this, and dies as he loses it. He is a lover of virtue but a worshiper of fame. Stung to madness by a brutal insult, he avenges himself by a crime of the deepest dye, and the remorse 30 of his conscience and the stain upon his honor prey THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 53 upon his peace and reason ever after. It was into the mouth of such a character that a modern poet has well put the words, '• Action is momentary, The motion of a muscle, this way or that ; " 5 Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite." In the conflict of his feelings he is worn to a skeleton, wasted to a shadow. But he endures this living death to watch over his undying reputation, and to preserve his name unsullied and free from suspicion. But he is 10 at last disappointed in this his darling object, by the very means he takes to secure it, and by harassing and goad- ing Caleb Wilhams (whose insatiable, incessant curiosity had wormed itself into his confidence) to a state of des- peration, by employing every sort of persecution, and 15 by trying to hunt him from society Hke an infection, makes him turn upon him, and betray the inmost secret of his soul. The last moments of Falkland are indeed sublime: the spark of life and the hope of imperishable renown are extinguished in him together; and bending 20 his last look of forgiveness on his victim and destroyer, he dies a martyr to fame, but a confessor at the shrine of virtue! The reaction and play of these two characters into each other's hands (like Othello and lago) is inim- itably well managed, and on a par with anything in the 25 dramatic art; but Falkland is the hero of the story, Caleb Williams is only the instrument of it. This novel is utterly unlike anything else that ever was written, and is one of the most original as well as powerful produc- tions in the EngHsh language. St. Leon is not equal to 30 54 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE it in the plot and groundwork, though perhaps superior in the execution. In the one Mr. Godwin has hit upon the extreme point of the perfectly natural and perfectly new; in the other he enters into the preternatural world, 5 and comes nearer to the w^orld of commonplace. Still the character is of the same exalted intellectual kind. As the ruling passion of the one was the love of fame, so in the other the sole business of life is thought. Raised by the fatal discovery of fhe philosopher's stone above lo mortality, he is cut off from all participation with its pleasures. He is a limb torn from society. In possession of eternal youth and beauty, he can feel no love; sur- rounded, tantalized, tormented with riches, he can do no good. The races of men pass before him as in a IS speculum; but he is attached to them by no common tie of sympathy or suffering. He is thrown back into him- self and his own thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own breast, — without wife or child, or friend, or enemy in the world. His is the solitude of the soul, — 20 not of woods, or seas, or mountains, — but the desert of society, the waste and desolation of the heart. He is himself alone. His existence is purely contemplative, and is therefore intolerable to one who has felt the rap- ture of affection or the anguish of woe. The contrast 25 between the enthusiastic eagerness of human pursuits and their blank disappointment, was never, perhaps, more finely portrayed than in this novel. Marguerite, the wife of St. Leon, is an instance of pure and disin- terested affection in one of the noblest of her sex. It is 30 not improbable that the author found the model of this THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 55 character in nature. — Of Mandeville, I shall say only one word. It appears to me to be a falling off in the subject, not in the ability. The style and declamation are even more powerful than ever. But unless an author sur- passes himself, and surprises the public as much the 5 fourth or fifth time as he did the first, he is said to fall off, because there is not the same stimulus of novelty. A great deal is here made out of nothing, or out of a very disagreeable subject. I cannot agree that the story is out of nature. The feeling is very common indeed; 10 though carried to an unusual and improbable excess, or to one with which from the individuality and minuteness of the circumstances, we cannot readily sympathize. It is rare that a philosopher is a writer of romances. The union of the two characters in this author is a sort 15 of phenomenon in the history of letters; for I cannot but consider the author of Political Justice as a philosophical reasoner of no ordinary stamp or pretensions. That work, whatever its defects may be, is distinguished by the most acute and severe logic, and by the utmost bold- 20 ness of thinking, founded on a love and conviction cf truth. It is a system of ethics, and one that, though I think it erroneous myself, is built on following up into its fair consequences, a very common and acknowledged principle, that abstract reason and general utility are 25 the only test and standard of moral rectitude. If this principle is true, then the system is true: but I think that Mr. Godwin's book has done more than anything else to overturn the sufficiency of this principle by abstract- ing, in a strict metaphysical process, the influence of 30 56 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE reason or the understanding in moral questions and re- lations from that of habit, sense, association, local and personal attachment, natural affection, etc.; and by thus making it appear how necessary the latter are to our 5 limited, imperfect, and mixed being, how impossible the former as an exclusive guide of action, unless man were, or were capable of becoming, a purely intellectual being. Reason is no doubt one faculty of the human mind, and the chief gift of Providence to man; but it 10 must itself be subject to and modified by other instincts and principles, because it is not the only one. This work then, even supposing it to be false, is invaluable, as demonstrating an important truth by the rediictio ad ahsurdiim; or it is an experimentimi crucis in one of the 15 grand and trying questions of moral philosophy. — In delineating the character and feelings of the hermetic philosopher St. Leon, perhaps the author had not far to go from those of a speculative philosophical Recluse. He who deals in the secrets of magic, or in the secrets 20 of the human mind, is too often looked upon with jealous eyes by the world, which is no great conjurer; he who pours out his intellectual wealth into the lap of the pub- lic, is hated by those who cannot understand how he came by it; he who thinks beyond his age, cannot ex- 25 pect the feelings of his contemporaries to go along with him; he whose mind is of no age or country, is seldom properly recognized during his lifetime, and must wait, in order to have justice done him, for the late but last- ing award of posterity: — "Where his treasure is, there 30 his heart is also." THOMAS CARLYLE [Thomas Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1795. ^^^ ^^^^ forty years of his life were spent in his native land, where he reached maturity through great trials and spiritual struggles. After finishing his education at the University of Edinburgh, he began work as a teacher but soon gave it up to make his way in literature. For some years he was occupied with translations from the German which, though fail- ures financially, brought him to the attention of the magazine editors. In 1827, his first critical essa.y, /cafi Paid Richter^ ap- peared in the Edmbw-gh Review. There followed in various periodicals many other essays, among which were Burns (1828), Goethe (1828), and Voltaire (1829). In 1833 Sartor Resartushe- gan to appear in Eraser's Magazine. The year after, Carlyle moved to London, where he passed the remainder of his life in severe literary labor. The French Revohition (1837) fixed his reputation as a writer. His other works are: Chartism {\^y^)\ Heroes and Hero worship { 1841 ) ; Past and Present (1843) ! Crom- well (1845); Latter- Day Pamphlets (1850) ; Life of John Sterling (1851) ; History of Frederick the Great (1858-1865). Carlyle died in 1881.] The intellectual and moral affinity between Johnson and Carlyle was manifold and intimate. Like Johnson, Carlyle was a stoical moralist and a vehement hater of cant and sham. Johnson delighted in the study of human nature, and Carlyle found his greatest pleasure and profit in biography. Both had an intense curiosity in men of achievement and both believed that a great man could turn his talents to any account. One was as stubborn a champion of veracity, as brave in defense of truth, as the other; and the fundamental pohtical opin- 57 58 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ions of Johnson were those of Carlyle. In temperament also, in lifelong melancholy, in crabbed indifference to the fine arts, and in profound reverence of soul, both men were singularly alike. Carlyle discovers in John- son "a deep lyric tone;" others have felt that this is pre- cisely the quality most characteristic of Carlyle. Because of this close spiritual kinship Carlyle, after Boswell, is the most inspired interpreter of Johnson. His essay merits the praise of Fitzgerald, who thought that Johnson was judged "for good and all." It is the more worthy of praise since it so vigorously and so justly assails the infamous paradox launched by Macaulay that Boswell was the best biographer in the world because he was a great fool. Carlyle states Boswell's case with blunt directness. Here is a man who " has provided us a greater pleasure than any other individual," yet "no written or spoken eulogy of James Boswell anywhere exists." If Carlyle's eulogy overleaps itself and falls on the other side, it at least deserves the praise of being the first serious recognition of the unique greatness of John- son's biographer; and as such it is a notable achievement in hterary criticism. Carlyle's plan of treatment in the present essay is typical of his general critical method. The critic's prob- lem, he says, is to put himself in " Johnson's place; and so, in the full sense of the term, understand him, his say- ings and doings." The subject must be approached, not from without, as Macaulay had approached it, but from within. The lives of both Johnson and Boswell, therefore, are subjected to a careful analysis and the re- sults of this analysis are used to explain their work. All of the elements in Boswell's character, for example, are reducible to hero-worship. Gifted with reverence, he wrote the greatest book of the eighteenth century. Endowed with the virtues of "devout Discipleship," he evoked the dead past and made it live anew and forever. THOMAS CARLYLE 59 Examined in the same way Johnson is seen to be a hero and hence a priest. But "how, in what spirit; under what shape?" asks Carlyle. The form of the question suggests the subjectivity of his method. That is to say, he is not first of all interested in the visible Samuel John- son with all his grotesque eccentricities, but in the in- visible soul of the man with its power to fight and win spiritual battles. As Carlyle understood him, Johnson was not merely a coarse, hulking, bodily shape, but a brave, militant spirit; he was an Ariel even if incased in the rude form of a Caliban. When he reached man- hood he found himself in a chaotic world in which lit- erature, religion, politics, and all human affairs were drifting hither and thither. Into this turbulent vortex Johnson was compelled to plunge, to resist as best he could the advancing tide of atheism and Whiggism, up- holding the old, the orthodox, and the established. John- son had courage to do this because he had heard the "transcendental voice of duty, the essence of all Re- ligion." The introductory question, therefore, is an- swered by calling Johnson a priest: "the true spiritual Edifier and Soul's Father of all England was — Samuel Johnson." This interpretation of the life suggests the true ex- planation of the work. In that time of transition John- son was a preacher whose text was Toryism. He taught the lesson of standing still; he resisted innovation. Here again the critic brings into use his subjective inquiry; by "what movement," he asks, was it that "Johnson realized such a life-work for hirnself and others ? " John- son did his work, fulfilled his mission, Carlyle holds, because of certain moral and intellectual quahties, — valor, truthfulness, honesty, and affectionateness (both as courtesy and as prejudice). These virtues made him a true product of England, the " John Bull of Spiritual Europe." 6o NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE It is evident from this short summary that what in- terested Carlyle, first and last, were the men, Boswell and Johnson, — their moral characters, their doings, their manner of deportment. Little attention is paid to their Hterary characters. In the case of Johnson this omission is not serious, for the great Cham owes his immortality not to his Idlers, his Ramblers^ or even his Lives, but to his immensely fascinating personality which the inspired work of Boswell has preserved for all time. But the briUiant craftsmanship of Boswell is faintly recognized by Carlyle. The first biographer in English letters was neither the unqualified fool of Macaulay's portrait, nor the martyr-hero of Carlyle's; he was something of a fool, something of a hero-worshiper, but he was also a literary artist who knew perfectly well the richness of his material and who shaped it in accordance with the aims of a supremely self-conscious purpose. Carlyle's style, except in its later manifestations, is well exemplified in the present essay. It shows in the first place what was for Carlyle a matter of primary importance, — unity of design. Section and paragraph have their proper places in an order so articulate, so purposeful, as to illustrate what Pater calls "mind" in style. Carlyle took infinite trouble to give all his work a vital wholeness, to mold and shape it according to some central plan. He wrote only after all his ideas were thoroughly fused in his own mind so that their relation became not adventitious but inevitable. All his writings, from the earliest critical essay to the massive history of Frederick, in this respect are undeniably artistic. The present essay is typical in other respects also. The "rich, idiomatic diction, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint tricksy terms," mentioned in the Sartor as characteristic of that work, appear on every page and lift the piece above the level of pedestrian prose. It is a style in truth possessing the passion and the con- boswell's life or johnson 6i creteness of serious poetry, two characteristics which proclaim the essay rather a lyrical panegyric sung by a latter-day prophet than a sober interpretation delivered by an even-handed critic. boswell's life of JOHNSON iEsop's Fly, sitting on the axle of the chariot, has been much laughed at for exclaiming: What a dust I do raise! Yet which of us, in his w^ay, has not some- times been guilty of the like? Nay, so foolish are men, they often, standing at ease and as spectators on the 5 highway, will volunteer to exclaim of the Fly (not being tempted to it, as he was) exactly to the same purport: What a dust thou dost raise! Smallest of mortals, when mounted aloft by circumstances, come to seem great; smallest of phenomena connected with them are treated lo as important, and must be sedulously scanned, and commented upon with loud emphasis. That Mr. Croker should undertake to edit BosivelVs Life of Johnson was a praiseworthy but no miraculous procedure: neither could the accompUshment of such 15 undertaking be, in an epoch like ours, anywise regarded as an event in Universal History; the right or the wrong accomplishment thereof was, in very truth, one of the most insignificant of things. However, it sat in a great environment, on the axle of a high, fast-rolling, parHa- 20 mentary chariot; and all the world has exclaimed over it, and the author of it: What a dust thou dost raise! List to the Reviews, and " Organs of Public Opinion," 62 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE from the National Omnibus upwards: criticisms, vi- tuperative and laudatory, stream from their thousand throats of brass and of leather; here chanting lo-pceans; there grating harsh thunder or vehement shrew-mouse 5 squeaklets; till the general ear is filled, and nigh deafened. Boswell's Book had a noiseless birth, compared with this Edition of Boswell's Book. On the other hand, consider with what degree of tumult Paradise Lost and the Iliad were ushered in! 10 To swell such clamor, or prolong it beyond the time seems nowise our vocation here. At most, perhaps, we are bound to inform simple readers, with all possible brevity, what manner of performance and Edition this is; especially, whether, in our poor judgment, it is worth 15 laying out three pounds sterling upon, yea or not. The whole business belongs distinctly to the lower ranks of the trivial class. Let us admit, then, with great readiness, that as John- son once said, and the Editor repeats, " all works which 20 describe manners require notes in sixty or seventy years, or less;" that, accordingly, a new Edition of Boswell was desirable; and that Mr. Croker has given one. For this task he had various qualifications: his own voluntary resolution to do it; his high place in society, unlocking 25 all manner of archives to him; not less, perhaps, a cer- tain anecdotico-biographic turn of mind, natural or acquired; we mean a love for the minuter events of His- tory, and talent for investigating these. Let us admit, too, that he has been very dihgent; seems to have made 30 inquiries perseveringly, far and near; as well as drawn BOS well's life of JOHNSON 63 freely from his own ample stores; and so tells us, to ap- pearance quite accurately, much that he has not found lying on the highways, but has had to seek and dig for. Numerous persons, chiefly of quality, rise to view in these Notes; when and also where they came into this 5 world, received office or promotion, died and were buried (only what they did, except digest, remaining often too mysterious), — is faithfully enough set down. Whereby all that their various and doubtless widely scattered Tombstones could have taught us, is here presented, at 10 once in a bound Book. Thus is an indubitable conquest, though a small one, gained over our great enemy, the all- destroyer Time, and as such shall have welcome. Nay, let us say that the spirit of Diligence, exhibited in this department, seems to attend the Editor honestly 15 throughout; he keeps everywhere a watchful outlook on his Text; reconciling the distant with the present, or at least indicating and regretting their irreconcilability; elucidating, smoothing down; in all ways exercising, ac- cording to ability, a strict editorial superintendence. 20 Any little Latin or even Greek phrase is rendered into English, in general with perfect accuracy; citations are verified, or else corrected. On all hands, moreover, there is a certain spirit of Decency maintained and in- sisted on: if not good morals, yet good manners are 25 rigidly inculcated; if not Religion, and a devout Chris- tian heart, yet Orthodoxy, and a cleanly Shovel-hatted look, — which, as compared with flat Nothing, is some- thing very considerable. Grant, too, as no contemptible triumph of this latter spirit, that though the Editor is 30 64 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE known as a decided Politician and Party-man, he has carefully subdued all temptations to transgress in that way: except by quite involuntary indications, and rather as it were the pervading temper of the whole, you could 5 not discover on which side of the Political Warfare he is enUsted and fights. This, as we said, is a great triumph of the Decency-principle: for this, and for these other graces and performances, let the Editor have all praise. Herewith, however, must the praise unfortunately 10 terminate. Diligence, Fidelity, Decency, are good and indispensable: yet, without Faculty, without Light, they will not do the work. Along with that Tombstone- information, perhaps even without much of it, we could have liked to gain some answer, in one way or other, 15 to this wide question: What and how was English Life in Johnson's time; wherein has ours grown to differ therefrom? In other words: What things have we to forget, what to fancy and remember, before we, from such distance, can put ourselves in Johnson's place; 20 and so, in the full sense of the term, understand him, his sayings and his doings? This was indeed specially the problem which a Commentator and Editor had to solve: a complete solution of it should have lain in him, his whole mind should have been filled and prepared with 25 perfect insight into it; then, whether in the way of ex- press Dissertation, of incidental Exposition and Indica- tion, opportunities enough would have occurred of bring- ing out the same : what was dark in the figure of the Past had thereby been enlightened; Boswell had, not in show 30 and word only, but in very fact been made new again, BOS well's life of JOHNSON 65 readable to us who are divided from him, even as he was to those close at hand. Of all which very little has been attempted here; accomplished, we should say, next to nothing, or altogether nothing. Excuse, no doubt, is in readiness for such omission; 5 and, indeed, for innumerable other failings; — as where, for example, the Editor will punctually explain what is already sun-clear; and then anon, not without frank- ness, declare frequently enough that "the Editor does not understand " " the Editor cannot guess," — while, for 10 most part, the Reader cannot help both guessing and seeing. Thus, if Johnson say, in one sentence, that ''English names should not be used in Latin verses;" and then, in the next sentence, speak blamingly of "Carteret being used as a dactyl," will the generahty 15 of mortals detect any puzzle there ? Or again, where poor Boswell writes, "I always remember a remark made to me by a Turkish lady, educated in France: 'Ma joi, monsieur, noire bonheur depend de la jacon que noire sang circule;^ " — though the Turkish lady here speaks Eng- 20 lish-French, where is the call for a Note like this: "Mr. Boswell no doubt fancied these words had some meaning, or he would hardly have quoted them; but what that meaning is the Editor cannot guess"? The Editor is clearly no witch at a riddle. — For these and all kindred 25 deficiencies the excuse, as we said, is at hand; but the fact of their existence is not the less certain and regret- table. Indeed, it, from a very early stage of the business, be- comes afflictively apparent, how much the Editor, so 30 Prose — 5 66 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE well furnished with all external appliances and means, is from within unfurnished with means for forming to himself any just notion of Johnson or of Johnson's Life; and therefore of speaking on that subject with much hope 5 of edifying. Too lightly is it from the first taken for granted that Hunger, the great basis of our life, is also its apex and ultimate perfection; that as "Neediness and Greediness and Vainglory" are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, not even a Johnson, acts or can 10 think of acting on any other principle. Whatsoever, therefore, cannot be referred to the two former categories (Need and Greed), is without scruple ranged under the latter. It is here properly that our Editor becomes bur- densome, and, to the weaker sort, even a nuisance. 15 "What good is it," will such cry, "when we had still some faint shadow of belief that man was better than a selfish Digesting-machine, what good is it to poke in, at every turn, and explain how this and that, which we thought noble in old Samuel, was vulgar, base; that for 20 him, too, there was no reality but in the Stomach; and except Pudding, and the finer species of pudding which is named Praise, Hfe had no pabulum ? Why, for instance, when we know that Johnson loved his good Wife, and says expressly that their marriage was *a love-match on 25 both sides,' — should two closed lips open to tell us only this: 'Is it not possible that the obvious advantage of having a woman of experience to superintend an estab- lishment of this kind (the Edial school) may have con- tributed to a match so disproportionate in point of age ? — 30 Ed.*? Or again when, in the Text, the honest cynic BOS well's life of JOHNSON 67 speaks freely of his former poverty, and it is known that he once lived on fourpence half- penny a day, — need a Commentator advance, and comment thus: 'When we find Dr. Johnson tell unpleasant truths to, or of, other men, let us recollect that he does not appear to have 5 spared himself, on occasions in which he might be for- given for doing so?' Why, in short," continues the ex- asperated Reader, "should Notes of this species stand affronting me, when there might have been no Note at all?" — Gentle Reader, we answer. Be not wroth. What 10 other could an honest Commentator do, than give thee the best he had? Such was the picture and theorem he had fashioned for himself of the world and of man's doings therein: take it, and draw wise inferences from it. If there did exist a Leader of Public Opinion, and 15 Champion of Orthodoxy in the Church of Jesus of Nazareth, who reckoned that m.an's glory consisted in not being poor; and that a Sage, and Prophet of his time, must needs blush because the world had paid him at that easy rate of fourpence half-penny per diem, — was not 20 the fact of such existence worth knowing, worth con- sidering ? Of a much milder hue, yet to us practically of an all- defacing, and for the present enterprise quite ruinous character, — is another grand fundamental failing; the 25 last we shall feel ourselves obliged to take the pain of specifying here. It is, that our Editor has fatally, and almost surprisingly, mistaken the limits of an Editor's function; and so, instead of working on the margin with his Pen, to elucidate as best might be, strikes boldly 3° 68 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE into the body of the page with his Scissors, and there cHps at discretion! Four Books Mr. C. had by him, wherefrom to gather light for the fifth, which was Bos- well's. What does he do but now, in the placidest 5 manner, — slit the whole five into slips, and sew these together into a sextum quid, exactly at his own conven- ience, giving Boswell the credit of the whole! By what art-magic, our readers ask, has he united them? By the simplest of all: by Brackets. Never before was the 10 full virtue of the Bracket made manifest. You begin a sentence under Boswell's guidance, thinking to be car- ried happily through it by the same: but no; in the mid- dle, perhaps after your semicolon, and some consequent "for," — starts up one of these Bracket-ligatures, and 15 stitches you in from half a page to twenty or thirty pages of a Hawkins, Tyers, Murphy, Piozzi; so that often one must make the old sad reflection, "where we are, we know; whither we are going, no man knoweth!" It is truly said also, "There is much between the cup and the 20 lip;" but here the case is still sadder: for not till after consideration can you ascertain, now when the cup is at the lip, what liquor is it you are imbibing; whether Boswell's French wine which you began with, or some of Piozzi 's ginger-beer, or Hawkins's entire, or perhaps 25 some other great Brewer's penny-swipes or even alegar, which has been surreptitiously substituted instead thereof. A situation almost original; not to be tried a second time! But, in fine, what ideas Mr. Croker en- tertains of a literary whole and the thing called Book, 30 and how the very Printer's Devils did not rise in mutiny BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 69 against such a conglomeration as this, and refuse to print it, — may remain a problem. But now happily our say is said. All faults, the Moral- ists tell us, are properly shortcomings; crimes themselves are nothing other than a not doing enough; a fighting, 5 but with defective vigor. How much more a mere insufficiency, and this after good efforts, in handicraft practice! Mr. Croker says: "The worst that can happen is that all the present Editor has contributed may, if the reader so pleases, be rejected as surplusage.^' It is 10 our pleasant duty to take with hearty welcome what he has given; and render thanks even for what he meant to give. Next, and finally, it is our painful duty to de- clare, aloud if that be necessary, that his gift, as weighed against the hard money which the Booksellers demand 15 for giving it you, is (in our judgment) very greatly the lighter. No portion, accordingly, of our small floating capital has been embarked in the business, or shall ever be; indeed, were we in the market for such a thing, there is simply no Edition of Boswell to which this last would 20 seem preferable. And now enough, and more than enough ! We have next a word to say of James Boswell. Bos- well has already been much commented upon; but rather in the way of censure and vituperation, than of true 25 recognition. He was a man that brought himself much before the world; confessed that he eagerly coveted fame, or if that were not possible, notoriety; of which latter as he gained far more than seemed his due, the public were incited, not only by their natural love of scandal, 30 70 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE but by a special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of him could be said. Out of the fifteen millions that then Hved, and had bed and board, in the British Islands, this man has provided us a greater pleasure than any 5 other individual, at whose cost we now enjoy ourselves; perhaps has done us a greater service than can be specially attributed to more than two or three: yet, ungrateful that we are, no written or spoken eulogy of James Bos- well anywhere exists; his recompense in soHd pudding 10 (so far as copyright went) was not excessive; and as for the empty praise, it has altogether been denied him. Men are unwiser than children; they do not know the hand that feeds them. Boswell was a person whose mean or bad qualities 15 lay open to the general eye; visible, palpable to the dullest. His good quahties, again, belonged not to the Time he lived in; were far from common then; indeed, in such a degree, were almost unexampled; not recog- nizable therefore by every one; nay, apt even (so strange 20 had they grown) to be confounded with the very vices they lay contiguous to and had sprung out of. That he was a wine-bibber and gross liver; gluttonously fond of whatever would yield him a little solacement, were it only of a stomachic character, is undeniable enough. 25 That he was vain, heedless, a babbler; had m^uch of the sycophant, alternating with the braggadocio, curiously spiced too with an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb; that he gloried much when the Tailor, by a court-suit, had made a new man of him; that he appeared at the 30 Shakespeare Jubilee with a riband, imprinted "Corsica boswell's life or johnson 71 BoswELL," round his hat; and in short, if you will, lived no day of his life without doing and saying more than one pretentious ineptitude: all this unhappily is evident as the sun at noon. The very look of Boswell seems to have signified so much. In that cocked nose, 5 cocked partly in triumph over his weaker fellow-crea- tures, partly to snuff up the smell of coming pleasure, and scent it from afar; in those bag-cheeks, hanging like half- filled wine-skins, still able to contain more; in that coarsely protruded shelf-mouth, that fat dewlapped chin, 10 in all this, who sees not sensuality, pretension, boisterous imbecility enough; much that could not have been orna- mental in the temper of a great man's overfed great man (what the Scotch name flunky), though it had been more natural there? The under part of Boswell's face is of 15 a low, almost brutish character. Unfortunately, on the other hand, what great and genuine good lay in him was nowise so self-evident. That Boswell was a hunter after spiritual Notabilities, that he loved such, and longed, and even crept and 20 crawled to be near them; that he first (in old Touch- wood Auchinleck's phraseology) "took on with PaoH;" and then being off with "the Corsican landlouper," took on with a schoolmaster, "ane that keeped a schule, and ca'd it an academy:" that he did all this, and could not 25 help doing it, we account a very singular merit. The man, once for all, had an "open sense," an open loving heart, which so few have: where Excellence existed, he was compelled to acknowledge it; was drawn towards it, and (let the old sulphur-brand of a Laird say what 30 72 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE he liked) could not hut walk with it, — if not as superior, if not as equal, then as inferior and lackey, better so than not at all. If we reflect now that this love of Excellence had not only such an evil nature 5 to triumph over; but also what an education and social position withstood it and weighed it down, its innate strength, victorious over all these things, may astonish us. Consider what an inward impulse there must have been, how many mountains of impediment hurled aside, lo before the Scottish Laird could, as humble servant, em- brace the knees (the bosom was not permitted him) of the EngHsh Dominie! "Your Scottish Laird," says an English naturalist of these days, "may be defined as the hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet known." 15 Boswell too was a Tory; of quite peculiarly feudal, genealogical, pragmatical temper; had been nurtured in an atmosphere of Heraldry, at the feet of a very GamaHel in that kind; within bare walls, adorned, only with pedigrees, amid serving-men in threadbare livery; 20 all things teaching him, from birth upwards, to remember that a Laird was a Laird. Perhaps there was a special vanity in his very blood: old Auchinleck had, if not the gay, tail-spreading, peacock vanity of his son, no little of the slow-stalking, contentious, hissing vanity of the gan- 25 der; a still more fatal species. Scottish Advocates will yet tell you how the ancient man, having chanced to be the first sheriff appointed (after the abolition of " hereditary jurisdictions") by royal authority, was wont, in dull pom- pous tone, to preface many a deliverance from the bench 30 with these words: "I, the first King's Sheriff in Scotland." boswell's life or johnson 73 And now behold the worthy Bozzy, so prepossessed and held back by nature and by art, fly nevertheless like iron to its magnet, whither his better genius called! You may surround the iron and the magnet with what enclosures and encumbrances you please, — with wood, 5 with rubbish, with brass: it matters not, the two feel each other, they struggle restlessly towards each other, they will be together. The iron may be a Scottish squire- let, full of gulosity and "gigmanity;" ^ the magnet an English plebeian, and moving rag-and-dust mountain, 10 coarse, proud, irascible, imperious: nevertheless, behold how they embrace, and inseparably cleave to one another! It is one of the strangest phenomena of the past century, that at a time when the old reverent feeling of disciple- ship (such as brought men from far countries, with rich 15 gifts, and prostrate soul, to the feet of the Prophets) had passed utterly away from m.en's practical experience, and was no longer surmised to exist (as it does), perennial, indestructible, in man's inmost heart, — James Boswell should have been the individual, of all others, predes- 20 tined to recall it, in such singular guise, to the wonder- ing, and for a long while, laughing and unrecognizing world. It has been commonly said, The man's vulgar vanity was all that attached him to Johnson; he delighted to be 25 seen near him, to be thought connected with him. Now J " Q. What do you mean by ' respectable ' ? — A. He always kept a gig." ( ThtcrtelVs Trial.) — " Thus," it has been said, " does society naturally divide itself into four classes : Noblemen, Gentlemen, Gigmen, and Men." 30 74 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE let it be at once granted that no consideration spring- ing out of vulgar vanity could well be absent from the mind of James Boswell, in this his intercourse with Johnson, or in any considerable transaction of his life. 5 At the same time, ask yourself: Whether such vanity, and nothing else, actuated him therein; whether this was the true essence and moving principle of the phe- nomenon, or not rather its outward vesture, and the acci- dental environment (and defacement) in which it came lo to light? The man was, by nature and habit, vain; a sycophant-coxcomb, be it granted: but had there been nothing more than vanity in him, was Samuel Johnson the man of men to whom he must attach himself? At the date when Johnson was a poor rusty-coated 15 "scholar," dwelHng in Temple-lane, and indeed through- out their whole intercourse afterwards, were there not chancellors and prime ministers enough; graceful gentle- men, the glass of fashion; honor-giving noblemen; din- ner-giving rich men; renowned fire-eaters, sw^ordsmen, 20 gownsmen; Quacks and Realities of all hues, — any one of whom bulked much larger in the world's eye than Johnson ever did? To any one of whom, by half that submissiveness and assiduity, our Bozzy might have recommended himself; and sat there, the envy of sur- 25 rounding Hck-spittles; pocketing now solid emolument, swallowing now well-cooked viands and wines of rich vintage; in each case, also, shone on by some glittering reflex of Renown or Notoriety, so as to be the observed of innumerable observers. To no one of whom, how- 30 ever, though otherwise a most diligent solicitor and pur- BOS WELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 75 veyor, did he so attach himself: such vulgar courtier- ships were his paid drudgery, or leisure-amusement; the worship of Johnson was his grand, ideal, voluntary business. Does not the frothy-hearted yet enthusiastic man, doffing his Advocate's-wig, regularly take post, 5 and hurry up to London, for the sake of his Sage chiefly; as to a Feast of Tabernacles, the Sabbath of his whole year ? The plate-Hcker and wine-bibber dives into Bolt Court, to sip muddy coiTee with a cynical old man and a sour-tempered Wind old woman (feeling the cups, 10 whether they are full, with her finger); and patiently endures contradictions without end; too happy so he may but be allowed to listen and live. Nay, it does not appear that vulgar vanity could ever have been much flattered by Boswell's relation to Johnson. Mr. Croker 15 says, Johnson was, to the last, little regarded by the great world; from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honor, as from its fountain, descends. Bozzy, even among Johnson's friends and special admirers, seems rather to have been laughed at than envied: his officious, whisk- 20 ing, consequential ways, the daily reproofs and rebuffs he underwent, could gain from the world no golden, but only leaden, opinions. His devout Discipleship seemed nothing more than a mean Spanielship, in the general eye. His mighty "constellation," or sun, round whom 25 he, as satellite, observantly gyrated, was, for the mass of men, but a huge ill-snuffed tallow-light, and he a weak night-moth, circling foolishly, dangerously about it, not knowing what he wanted. If he enjoyed Highland dinners and toasts, as henchman to a new sort of chief- 30 76 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE tain, Henry Erskine, in the domestic " Outer-House," could hand him a shilhng "for the sight of his Bear." Doubtless the man was laughed at, and often heard him- self laughed at for his Johnsonism. To be envied is the 5 grand and sole aim of vulgar vanity; to be filled with good things is that of sensuality: for Johnson perhaps no man living envied poor Bozzy; and of good things (except himself paid for them) there was no vestige in that acquaintanceship. Had nothing other or better 10 than vanity and sensuality been there, Johnson and Boswell had never come together, or had soon and finally separated again. In fact, the so copious terrestrial Dross that welters chaotically, as the outer sphere of this man's character, 15 does but render for us more remarkable, more touching, the celestial spark of goodness, of light, and Reverence for Wisdom which dwelt in the interior, and could struggle through such encumbrances, and in some de- gree illuminate and beautify them. There is much 20 lying yet undeveloped in the love of Boswell for John- son. A cheering proof, in a time which else utterly wanted and still wants such, that living Wisdom is quite infinitely precious to man, is the symbol of the Godlike to him, which even weak eyes may discern; that Loyalty, 25 Discipleship, all that was ever meant by Hero-worship, lives perennially in the human bosom, and waits, even in these dead days, only for occasions to unfold it, and inspire all men with it, and again make the world alive! James Boswell we can regard as a practical witness (or 30 real martyr) to this high everlasting truth. A wonderful BOS well's life of JOHNSON 77 martyr, if you will; and in time which made such martyr- dom doubly wonderful: yet the time and its martyr per- haps suited each other. For a decrepit, death-sick Era, when Cant had first decisively opened her poison- breathing lips to proclaim that God-worship and Mam- 5 mon-worship were one and the same, that Life was a Lie, and the Earth Beelzebub's, which the Supreme Quack should inherit; and so all things were fallen into the yellow leaf, and fast hastening to noisome corruption: for such an Era, perhaps no better Prophet than a parti- 10 colored Zany-Prophet, concealing (from himself and others) his prophetic significance in such unexpected vestures, — was deserved, or would have been in place, A precious medicine lay hidden in floods of coarsest, most composite treacle; the world swallowed the treacle, 15 for it suited the world's palate; and now, after half a century, may the medicine also begin to show itself! James Boswell belonged, in his corruptible part, to the lowest classes of mankind; a foolish, inflated creature, swimming in an element of self-conceit: but in his cor- 20 ruptible there dwelt an incorruptible, all the more im- pressive and indubitable for the strange lodging it had taken. Consider, too, with what force, diligence, and vivacity he has rendered back all this which, in Johnson's neigh- 25 borhood, his ''open sense" had so eagerly and freely taken in. That loose-flowing, careless-looking Work of his is as a picture painted by one of Nature's own Ar- tists; the best possible resemblance of a Reality; like the very image thereof in a clear mirror. Which indeed 30 yS NINETEENTH CENTURY PEOSE it was: let but the mirror be clear, this is the great point; the picture must and will be genuine. How the babbhng Bozzy, inspired only by love, and the recognition and vision which love can lend, epitomizes nightly the words 5 of Wisdom, the deeds and aspects of Wisdom, and so, by little and little, unconsciously works together for us a whole Johnsoniad; a more free, perfect, sunlit, and spirit-speaking likeness than for many centuries had been drawn by man of man! Scarcely since the days lo of Homer has the feat been equaled; indeed, in many senses, this also is a kind of heroic poem. The fit Odyssey of our unheroic age was to be written, not sung; of a Thinker, not of a Fighter; and (for want of a Homer) by the first open soul that might offer, — looked such even 15 through the organs of a Boswell. We do the man's intellectual endowment great wrong, if we measure it by its mere logical outcome; though here, too, there is not wanting a light ingenuity, a figurativeness and fanciful sport, with glimpses of insight far deeper than 20 the common. But Boswell's grand intellectual talent was (as such ever is) an unconscious one, of far higher reach and significance than Logic; and showed itself in the whole, not in parts. Here again we have that old saying verified, "The heart sees farther than the head." 25 Thus does poor Bozzy stand out to us as an ill-assorted, glaring mixture of the highest and the lowest. What, indeed, is man's life generally but a kind of beast- godhood; the god in us triumphing more and more over the beast; striving more and more to subdue it under 30 his feet? Did not the Ancients, in their wise, peren- BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 79 nially-significant way, figure Nature itself, their sacred All, or Pan, as a portentous commingling of these two discords; as musical, humane, oracular in its upper part, yet ending below in the cloven hairy feet of a goat? The union of melodious, celestial Free-will and Reason 5 with foul Irrationality and Lust; in which, nevertheless, dwelt a mysterious unspeakable Fear and half-mad panic Awe; as for mortals there well might! And is not man a microcosm, or epitomized mirror of that same Universe; or rather, is not that Universe even Himself, 10 the reflex of his own fearful and wonderful being, ''the waste fantasy of his own dream ? " No wonder that man, that each man, and James Boswell like the others, should resemble it! The pecuHarity in his case was the unusual defect of amalgamation and subordination: the 15 highest lay side by side with the lowest; not morally combined with it and spiritually transfiguring it, but tumbling in half-mechanical juxtaposition with it, and from time to time, as the mad alternation chanced, ir- radiating it, or ecHpsed by it. 20 The world, as we said, has been but unjust to him; discerning only the outer terrestrial and often sordid mass; without eye, as it generally is, for his inner divine secret; and thus figuring him no wise as a god Pan, but simply of the bestial species, like the cattle on a thousand 25 hills. Nay, sometimes a strange enough hypothesis has been started of him; as if it were in virtue even of these same bad qualities that he did his good work; as if it were the very fact of his being among the worst men in this world that had enabled him to write one of the best 30 8o NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE books therein! Falser hypothesis, we may venture to say, never rose in human soul. Bad is by its nature negative, and can do nothing; whatsoever enables us to do anything is by its very nature good. Alas, that there 5 should be teachers in Israel, or even learners, to whom this world-ancient fact is still problematical, or even deniable! Boswell wrote a good Book because he had a heart and an eye to discern Wisdom, and an utterance to render it forth; because of his free insight, his Hvely lo talent, above all, of his Love and childlike Open-minded- ness. His sneaking sycophancies, his greediness and forwardness, whatever w^as bestial and earthly in him, are so many blemishes in his Book, which still disturb us in its clearness; wholly hindrances, not helps. To- 15 wards Johnson, however, his feeling was not Sycophancy, which is the lowest, but Reverence, which is the highest of human feelings. None but a reverent man (which so unspeakably few are) could have found his way from Boswell's environment to Johnson's: if such worship for 20 real God-made superiors showed itself also as worship for apparent Tailor-made superiors, even as hollow in- terested mouth-worship for such, — the case, in this composite human nature of ours, was not miraculous, the more was the pity! But for ourselves, let every one 25 of us cling to this last article of Faith, and know it as the beginning of all knowledge worth the name: That neither James Boswell's good Book, nor any other good thing, in any time or in any place, was, is, or can be per- formed by any man in virtue of his badness, but always 30 and solely in spite thereof. BOS well's life of JOHNSON 8 1 As for the Book itself, questionless the universal favor entertained for it is well merited. In worth as a Book we have rated it beyond any other product of the eight- eenth century: all Johnson's own Writings, laborious and in their kind genuine above most, stand on a quite 5 inferior level to it; already, indeed, they are becoming obsolete for this generation; and for some future genera- tion may be valuable chiefly as Prolegomena and ex- pository Scholia to this Johnsoniad of Boswell. Which of us but remembers, as one of the sunny spots in his 10 existence, the day when he opened these airy volumes, fascinating him by a true natural-magic! It was as if the curtains of the past wTre drawn aside, and we looked mysteriously into a kindred country, where dwelt our Fathers; inexpressibly dear to us, but which had seemed 15 forever hidden from our eyes. For the dead Night had engulfed it; all was gone, vanished as if it had not been. Nevertheless, wondrously given back to us, there once more it lay; all bright, lucid, blooming; a little island of Creation amid the circumambient Void. There it 20 still lies; Hke a thing stationary, imperishable, over which changeful Time were now accumulating itself in vain, and could not, any longer, harm it or hide it. If we examine by what charm it is that men are still held to this Lije of Johnson, now when so much else has 25 been forgotten, the main part of the answer will perhaps be found in that speculation "on the import of Reality,''^ communicated to the world, last Month, in this Maga- zine. The Johnsoniad of Boswell turns on objects that in very deed existed; it is all true. So far other in melo- 30 Prose — 6 82 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE diousness of tone, it vies with the Odyssey^ or surpasses it, in this one point: to us these read pages, as those chanted hexameters were to the first Greek hearers, are, in the fullest, deepest sense, wholly credible. All the wit 5 and wisdom lying embalmed in Boswell's Book, plen- teous as these are, could not have saved it. Far more scientific instruction (mere excitement and enlighten- ment of the thinking power) can be found in twenty other works of that time, which make but a quite sec- 10 ondary impression on us. The other works of that time, however, fall under one of two classes: either they are professedly Didactic; and, in that way, mere Abstrac- tions, Philosophic Diagrams, incapable of interesting us much otherwise than as Euclid'' s Elements may do; or 15 else, with all their vivacity and pictorial richness of color, they are Fictions and not Realities. Deep, truly, as Herr Sauerteig urges, is the force of this consideration: the thing here stated is a fact; these figures, that local habi- tation, are not shadow but substance. In virtue of such 20 advantages, see how a very Boswell may become Poet- ical! Critics insist much on the poet that he should com- municate an ''Infinitude" to his dehneation; that by intensity of conception, by that gift of "transcendental 25 Thought," which is fitly named genius and inspiration, he should inform the Finite with a certain Infinitude of significance; or, as they sometimes say, ennoble the Ac- tual into Idealness. They are right in their precept; they mean rightly. But in cases like this of the Johnsoniad 30 (such is the dark grandeur of that "Time-element," BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 8^ wherein man's soul here below lives imprisoned), the Poet's task is, as it were, done to his hand: Time itself, which is the outer veil of eternity, invests, of its own ac- cord, with an authentic, felt "infinitude" whatsoever it has once embraced in its mysterious folds. Consider 5 all that lies in that one word Fast! What a pathetic, sacred, in every sense poetic, meaning is implied in it; a meaning growing ever the clearer, the farther we re- cede in Time, — the fnore of that same Past we have to look through! — On whicR ground indeed must Sauerteig 10 have built, and not without plausibility, in that strange thesis of his: "that History, after all, is the true Poetry; that Reality, if rightly interpreted, is grander than Fic- tion; nay that even in the right interpretation of Reality and History does genuine Poetry consist." 15 Thus for Boswell's Life of Johnson has Time done, is Time still doing, what no ornament of Art or Arti- fice could have done for it. Rough Samuel and sleek wheedling James were, and are not. Their Life and whole personal Environment has melted into air. The 20 Mitre Tavern still stands in Fleet Street; but where now is its scot-and-lot paying, beef-and-ale loving, cocked- hatted pot-bellied Landlord; its rosy-faced, assiduous Landlady, with all her shining brass-pans, waxed tables, well-filled larder-shelves; her cooks, and bootjacks, and 25 errand-boys, and watery-mouthed hangers-on? Gone! Gone! The becking waiter, that with wreathed smiles, wont to spread for Samuel and Bozzy their supper of the gods, has long since pocketed his last sixpence; and vanished, sixpences and all, Uke a ghost at cock-crowing. 30 84 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE The Bottles they drank out of are all broken, the Chairs they sat on all rotted and burnt; the very Knives and Forks they ate with have rusted to the heart, and become brown oxide of iron, and mingled with the indiscriminate 5 clay. All, all, has vanished; in very deed and truth, like that baseless fabric of Prospero's air-vision. Of the Mitre Tavern nothing but the bare walls remain there: of London, of England, of the World, nothing but the bare walls remain; and these also decaying (were 10 they of adamant), only slower.* The mysterious River of Existence rushes on: a new Billow thereof has arrived, and lashes wildly as ever round the old embankments; but the former Billow, with its loud, mad eddyings, where is it? — Where! — Now this Book of Boswell's, 15 this is precisely a Revocation of the Edict of Destiny; so that Time shall not utterly, not so soon by several centuries, have dominion over us. A little row of Naph- tha-lamps, with its Hne of Naphtha-light, burns clear and holy through the dead Night of the Past: they who 20 were gone are still here; though hidden they are re- vealed, though dead they yet speak. There it shines, that little miraculously lamp-lit Pathway; shedding its feebler and feebler twilight into the boundless dark Oblivion, for all that our Johnson touched has become 25 illuminated for us: on which miraculous little pathway we can still travel, and see wonders. It is not speaking with exaggeration, but with strict measured sobriety, to say that this Book of Boswell's will give us more real insight into the History of England 30 during those days than twenty other Books, falsely en- BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 85 titled '' Histories," which take to themselves that special aim. What good is it to me though innumerable Smol- letts and Belshams keep dinning in my ears that a man named George the Third was born and bred up, and a man named George the Second died; that Walpole, and 5 the Pelhams, and Chatham, and Rockingham, and Shel- burne, and North, with their Coalition or their Separation Ministries, all ousted one another; and vehemently scrambled for "the thing they called the Rudder of Gov- ernment, but which was in reality the Spigot of Taxa- 10 tion"? That debates were held, and infinite jarring and jargoning took place; and road-bills and enclosure- bills, and game-bills and India-bills, and Laws which no man can number, which happily few men needed to trouble their heads with beyond the passing moment, 15 were enacted, and printed by the King's Stationer? That he who sat in Chancery and rayed-out speculation from the Woolsack, was now a man that squinted, now a man that did not squint? To the hungry and thirsty mind all this avails next to nothing. These men and 20 these things, we indeed know, did swim, by strength or by specific levity as apples or as horse-dung, on the top of the current; but is it by painfully noting the courses, eddyings, and bobbings hither and thither of such drift- articles that you will unfold to me the nature of the cur- 25 rent itself; of that mighty-rolling, loud-roaring Life- current, bottomless as the foundations of the Universe, mysterious as its Author ? The thing I want to see is not Redbook Lists, and Court Calendars, and Parliamentary Registers, but the Life of Man in England: what men 30 86 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE did, thought, suffered, enjoyed; the form, especially the spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its outward environ- ment, its inward principle; how and what it was; whence it proceeded, whither it was tending. 5 Mournful, in truth, is it to behold what the business called "History," in these so enUghtened and illuminated times, still continues to be. Can you gather from it, read till your eyes go out, any dimmest shadow of an answer to that great question: How men lived and had lo their being; were it but economically, as what wages they got, and what they bought with these? Unhappily you cannot. History will throw no light on any such matter. At the point where living memory fails, -it is all darkness; Mr. Senior and Mr. Sadler must still de- 15 bate this simplest of all elements in the condition of the Past : Whether men were better off, in their mere larders and pantries, or were worse off than now! History, as it stands all bound up in gilt volumes, is but a shade more instructive than the wooden volumes of a Backgammon" 20 board. How my Prime Minister was appointed is of less moment to me than How my House Servant was hired. In these days, ten ordinary Histories of King and Courtiers were well exchanged against the tenth part of one good History of Booksellers. 25 For example, I would fain know the History of Scot- land: who can tell it me ? " Robertson," say innumerable voices; "Robertson against the world." I open Robert- son; and find there, through long ages too confused for narrative, and fit only to be presented in the way of 30 epitome and distilled essence, a cunning answer and BOS well's life of JOHNSON 87 hypothesis, not to this question: By whom, and by what means, when and how, was this fair broad Scotland, with its Arts and Manufactures, Temples, Schools, Institutions, Poetry, Spirit, National Character, created, and made arable, verdant, pecuHar, great, here as I 5 can see some fair section of it lying, kind and strong (like some Bacchus-tamed Lion), from the Castle-hill of Edinburgh? — but to this other question: How did the king keep himself ahve in those old days; and restrain so many Butcher Barons and ravenous Henchmen from 10 utterly extirpating one another, so that killing went on in some sort of moderation? In the one little Letter of iEneas Sylvius, from old Scotland, there is more *of His- tory than in all this. — At length, however, we come to a luminous age, interesting enough: to the age of the 15 Reformation. All Scotland is awakened to a second higher Hfe; the Spirit of the Highest stirs in every bosom, agitates every bosom; Scotland is convulsed, fermenting, struggling to body itself forth anew. To the herdsman, among his cattle in remote woods; to the craftsman, in 20 his rude, heath-thatched workshop, among his rude guild-brethren; to the great and to the Httle, a n^w light has arisen: in town and hamlet groups are gathered, with eloquent looks, and governed or ungovernable tongues; the great and the little go forth together to do battle 25 for the Lord against the mighty. We ask, with breath- less eagerness: How was it; how went it on? Let us understand it, let us see it, and know it! — In reply, is handed us a really graceful and most dainty little Scan- dalous Chronicle (as for some Journal of Fashion) of 30 «8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE two persons: Mary Stuart, a Beauty, but over light- headed; and Henry Darnley, a Booby, who had fine legs. How these first courted, billed, and cooed, accord- ing to nature; then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged, 5 and blew one another up with gunpowder: this, and not the History of Scotland, is what we good-naturedly read. Nay, by other hands, something like a horse-load of other Books have been written to prove that it was the Beauty who blew up the Booby, and that it was not she. 10 Who or what it was, the thing once for all being so ef- fectually done, concerns us little. To know Scotland, at that great epoch, were a valuable increase to knowledge: to know poor Darnley, and see him with burning candle, from center to skin, were no increase of knowledge at 15 all. — Thus is History written. Hence, indeed, comes it that History, which should be "the essence of innumerable Biographies," will tell, us, question it as we like, less than one genuine Biog- raphy may do, pleasantly and of its own accord! The 20 time is approaching when History will be attempted on quite other principles; when the Court, the Senate, and the Battle-field, receding more and more into the back- ground, the Temple, the Workshop, and Social Hearth, will advance more and more into the foreground; and 25 History will not content itself with shaping some ansW^r to that question: How were men taxed and kept quiet then? but will seek to answer this other infinitely wider and higher question: How and what were men then? Not our Government only, or the ''house wherein our 30 life was led," but the Life itself we led there, will be BOS well's life or johnson 89 inquired into. Of which latter it may be found that Government, in any modern sense of the word, is after all but a secondary condition: in the mere sense of Tax- ation and Keeping quiet, a small, almost a pitiful one. — Meanwhile let us welcome such Boswells, each in his 5 degree, as bring us any genuine contribution, were it never so inadequate, so inconsiderable. An exception was early taken against this Life of Johnson, and all similar enterprises, which we here recommend; and has been transmitted from critic to 10 critic, and repeated in their several dialects, uninter- ruptedly, ever since: That such jottings-down of care- less conversation are an infringement of social privacy; a crime against our highest Freedom, the Freedom of man's intercourse with man. To this accusation, which 15 we have read and heard oftener than enough, might it not be well for once to offer the flattest contradiction, and plea of Not at all guilty? Not that conversa- tion is noted down, but that conversation should not deserve noting down, is the evil. Doubtless if conversa- 20 tion be falsely recorded, then is it simply a Lie and worthy of being swept with all dispatch to the Father of Lies. But if, on the other hand, conversation can be authentically recorded and any one is ready for the task, let him by all means proceed with it; let conversation be 25 kept in remembrance to the latest date possible. Nay, should the consciousness that a man may be among us ''taking notes" tend, in any measure, to restrict those floods of idle insincere speech, with which the thought of mankind is well-nigh drowned, — were it other than the 30 90 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE most indubitable benefit ? He who speaks honestly cares not, needs not care, though his words be preserved to remotest time: for him who speaks dishonestly, the fit- test of all punishments seems to be this same, which the 5 nature of the case provides. The dishonest speaker, not he only who purposely utters falsehoods, but he who does not purposely, and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth alone; who babbles he knows not what, and has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it run racket, lo ejecting chatter and futility, — is among the most indis- putable malefactors omitted, or inserted, in the Criminal Calendar. To him that will well consider it, idle speak- ing is precisely the beginning of all HoUowness, Halfness, Infidelity (want of Faithfulness); the genial atmosphere 15 in which rank weeds of every kind attain the mastery over noble fruits in man's life, and utterly choke them out: one of the most crying maladies of these days, and to be testified against, and in all ways to the uttermost with- stood. Wise, of a wisdom far beyond our shallow depth, 20 was that old precept : Watch thy tongue; out of it are the issues of Life! "Man is properly an incarnated word:'' the word that he speaks is the man himself. Were eyes put into our head, that we might see; or only that we might fancy, and plausibly pretend, we had seen? Was 25 the tongue suspended there, that it might tell truly what we had seen, and make man the soul's-brother of man; or only that it might utter vain sounds, jargon, soul- confusing, and so divide man, as by enchanted walls of Darkness, from union with man? Thou who wearest 30 that cunning, Heaven-made organ, a Tongue, think well BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 9 1 of this. Speak not, I passionately entreat thee, till thy thought hath silently matured itself, till thou have other than mad and mad-making noises to emit: hold thy tongue (thou hast it a-holding) till some meaning lie be- hind, to set it wagging. Consider the significance of 5 Silence; it is boundless, never by meditating to be ex- hausted; unspeakably profitable to thee! Cease that chaotic hubbub, wherein thy own soul runs to waste, to confused suicidal dislocation and stupor: out of Silence comes thy strength. " Speech is silvern. Silence is golden; 10 Speech is human, Silence is divine." Fool! thinkest thou that because no Boswell is there with ass-skin and black- lead to note thy jargon, it therefore dies and is harmless? Nothing dies, nothing can die. No idlest word thou speakest but is a seed cast into Time, and grows through 15 all Eternity! The Recording Angel, consider it well, is no fable, but the truest of truths : the paper tablets thou canst burn; of the "iron leaf" there is no burning. — Truly, if we can permit God Almighty to note down our conversation, thinking it good enough for Him, — any 20 poor Boswell need not scruple to work his will of it. Leaving now this our English Odyssey, with its Singer and Schohast, let us come to the Ulysses; that great Samuel Johnson himself, the far-experienced, "much- enduring man," whose labors and pilgrimage are here 25 sung. A full-length image of his Existence has been pre- served for us: and he, perhaps of all living Englishmen, was the one who best deserved that honor. For if it is true and now almost proverbial, that "the Life of the 92 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE lowest mortal, if faithfully recorded, would be interest- ing to the highest;" how much more when the mortal in question was already distinguished in fortune and natural quality, so that his thinkings and doings were not sig- 5 nificant of himself only, but of large masses of mankind! "There is not a man whom I meet on the streets," says one, "but I could like, were it otherwise convenient, to know his Biography:" nevertheless, could an enhght- ened curiosity be so far gratified, it must be owned the 10 Biography of most ought to be, in an extreme degree, summary. In this world there is so wonderfully little self-subsistence among men; next to no originality (though never absolutely none) : one Life is too servilely the copy of another; and so in whole thousands of them 15 you find Httle that is properly new; nothing but the old song sung by a new voice, with better or worse execu- tion, here and there an ornamental quaver, and false notes enough: but the fundamental tune is ever the same; and for the words^ these, aU that they meant stands 20 written generally on the Churchyard-stone: Natus sum; esiirieham, qucBreham; nunc repletus requiesco. Mankind sail their Life-voyage in huge fleets, following some single whale-fishing or herring-fishing Commodore: the log- book of each differs not, in essential purport, from that 25 of any other; nay the most have no legible log-book (reflection, observation not being among their talents); keep no reckoning, only keep in sight of the flagship,— and fish. Read the Commodore's Papers (know his Life); and even your lover of that street Biography will 30 have learned the most of what he sought after. BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 93 Or, the servile imitancy, and yet also a nobler rela- tionship and mysterious union to one another which lies in such imitancy, of Mankind might be illustrated under the different figure (itself nowise original) of a Flock of Sheep. • Sheep go in flocks for three reasons: 5 First, because they are of a gregarious temper, and love to be together: Secondly, because of their cowardice; they are afraid to be left alone: Thirdly, because the common run of them are dull of sight, to a proverb, and can have no choice in roads; sheep can in fact see nothing; 10 in a celestial Luminary, and a scoured pewter Tankard, would discern only that both dazzled them, and were of unspeakable glory. How like their fellow-creatures of the human species! Men, too, as was from the first maintained here, are gregarious; then surely faint- 15 hearted enough, trembling to be left by themselves; above all, dull-sighted, down to the verge of utter blind- ness. Thus are we seen ever running in torrents, and mobs, if we run at all; and after what foolish scoured Tankards, mistaking them for suns! Foolish Turnip- 20 lanterns likewise, to all appearance supernatural, keep whole nations quaking, their hair on end. Neither know we, except by blind habit, where the good pastures lie: solely when the sweet grass is between our teeth, we know it, and chew it; also when grass is bitter and scant, 25 we know it, — and bleat and butt: these last two facts we know of a truth and in very deed. — Thus do Men and Sheep play their parts on this Nether Earth; wander- ing restlessly in large masses, they know not whither; for most part each following his neighbor, and his own nose. 30 94 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Nevertheless, not always; look better, you shall find certain that do, in some small degree, know whither. Sheep have their Bell-wether; some ram of the folds, en- dued with more valor, with clearer vision than other 5 sheep; he leads them through the wolds, by height and hollow, to the woods and water-courses, for covert or for pleasant provender; courageously marching, and if need be, leaping, and with hoof and horn doing battle, in the van: him they courageously, and with assured heart, fol- io low. Touching it is, as every herdsman will inform you, with what chivalrous devotedness these woolly Hosts ad- here to their Wether; and rush after him, through good report and through bad report, were it into safe shelters and green thymy nooks, or into asphaltic lakes and the 15 jaws of devouring lions. Ever also must we recall that fact which we owe Jean Paul's quick eye: "If you hold a stick before the Wether, so that he, by necessity, leaps in passing you, and then withdraw your stick, the Flock vidll nevertheless all leap as he did; and the thousandth 20 sheep shall be found impetuously vaulting over air, as the first did over an otherwise impassable barrier." Reader, wouldst thou understand Society, ponder well those ovine proceedings; thou wilt find them all curiously significant. 25 Now if sheep always, how much more must men al- ways, have their Chief, their Guide! Man too is by nature quite thoroughly gregarious: nay, ever he struggles to be something more, to be social; not even when So- ciety has become impossible does that deep-seated 30 tendency and effort forsake him. Man, as if by miracu- BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 95 lous magic, imparts his Thoughts, his Mood of mind to man; an unspeakable communion binds all past, present, and future men into one indissoluble whole, almost into one living Individual. Of which high, mysterious Truth, this disposition to imitate, to lead and be led, this im- 5 possibiHty not to imitate, is the most constant, and one of the simplest manifestations. To "imitate!" which of us all can measure the significance that lies in that one word? By virtue of which the infant Man, born at Woolsthorpe, grows up not to be a hairy Savage, and 10 chewer of Acorns, but an Isaac Newton and Discoverer of Solar Systems ! — Thus, both in a celestial and terrestrial sense, are we a Flock, such as there is no other: nay, looking away from the base and ludicrous to the sublime and sacred side of the matter (since in every matter there 15 are two sides), have not we also a Shepherd, "if we will but hear his voice"? Of those stupid multitudes there is no one but has an immortal Soul within him; a reflex and living image of God's whole Universe: strangely, from its dim environment, the light of the Highest looks 20 through him; — for which reason, indeed, it is that we claim a brotherhood with him, and so love to know his History, and come into clearer and clearer union with all that he feels, and says, and does. However, the chief thing to be noted was this: Amid 25 those dull millions, who, as a dull flock, roll hither and thither, whithersoever they are led; and seem all sight- less and slavish, accomplishing, attempting little save what the animal instinct in its somewhat higher kind might teach, To keep themselves and their young ones 30 gG NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE alive, — are scattered here and there superior natures, whose eye is not destitute of free vision, nor their heart of free volition. These latter, therefore, examine and determine, not what others do, but what it is right to S do; towards which and which only, will they, with such force as is given them, resolutely endeavor: for if the Machine, living or inanimate, is merely fed, or desires to be fed, and so works; the Person can wzV/, and so do. These are properly our Men, our Great Men; the guides lo of the dull host, — which follows them as by an irrevo- cable decree. They are the chosen of the world: they had this rare faculty not only of "supposing" and "in- clining to think," but of knowing and believing; the na- ture of their being was, that they lived not by Hearsay 15 but by clear Vision; while others hovered and swam along, in the grand Vanity-fair of the World, blinded by the mere "Shows of things," these saw into the Things themselves, and could walk as men having an eternal loadstar, and with their feet on sure paths. Thus 20 was there a Reality in their existence; something of a perennial character; in virtue of which indeed it is that the memory of them is perennial. Whoso belongs only to his own age, and reverences only its gilt Popinjays or soot-smeared Mumbojumbos, must needs die with it: 25 though he have been crowned seven times in the Capitol, or seventy and seven times, and Rumor have blown his praises to all the four winds, deafening every ear there- with, — it avails not; there was nothing universal, noth- ing eternal in him; he must fade away, even as the 30 Popinjay-gildings and Scarecrow-apparel, which he boswell's life or johnson 97. could not see through. The great man does, in good truth, belong to his own age; nay more so than any other man; being properly the synopsis and epitome of such age with its interests and influences: but belongs likewise to all ages, otherwise he is not great. What 5 was transitory in him passes away; and an immortal part remains, the significance of which is in strict speech inexhaustible, — as that of every real object is. Aloft, conspicuous, on his enduring basis, he stands there, serene, unaltering; silently addresses to every new gen- 10 eration a new lesson and monition. Well is his Life worth writing, worth interpreting; and ever, in the new dialect of new times, of re-writing and re-interpreting. Of such chosen men was Samuel Johnson: not rank- ing among the highest, or even the high, yet distinctly 15 admitted into that sacred band; whose existence was no idle Dream, but a Reality which he transacted awake; nowise a Clothes-horse and Patent Digester, but a genuine Man. By nature he was gifted for the noblest of earthly tasks, that of Priesthood, and Guidance of 20 mankind; by destiny, moreover, he was appointed to this task, and did actually, according to strength, fulfill the same: so that always the question, How; in what spirit; under what shape? remains for us to be asked and answered concerning him. For as the highest 25 Gospel was a Biography, so is the Life of every good man still an indubitable Gospel, and preaches to the eye and heart and whole man, so that Devils even must believe and tremble, these gladdest tidings: "Man is heaven-born; not the thrall of Circumstances, of Ne- 30 Prose — 7 98 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE cessity, but the victorious subduer thereof: behold how he can become the 'Announcer of himself and of his Freedom;' and is ever what the Thinker has named him, 'the Messias of Nature!' " — Yes, Reader, all this that 5 thou hast so often heard about "force of circumstances," "the creature of the time," "balancing of motives," and who knows what melancholy stuff to the like purport, wherein thou, as in a nightmare Dream, sittest para- lyzed, and hast no force left, — was in very truth, if 10 Johnson and waking men are to be credited, little other than a hag-ridden vision of death-sleep; some half-isict, more fatal at times than a whole falsehood. Shake it off; awake; up and be doing, even as it is given thee! The Contradiction which yawns wide enough in every 15 Life, which it is the meaning and task of Life to recon- cile, was in Johnson's wider than in most. Seldom, for any man, has the contrast between the ethereal heaven- ward side of things, and the dark sordid earthward, been more glaring: whether we look at Nature's work with him 20 or Fortune's, from first to last, heterogeneity, as of sun- beams and miry clay, is on all hands manifest. Whereby indeed, only this was declared, That much Life had been given him; many things to triumph over, a great work to do. Happily also he did it; better than the most. 25 Nature had given him a high, keen-visioned, almost poetic soul; yet withal imprisoned it in an inert, un- sightly body: he that could never rest had not limbs that would move with him, but only roll and waddle: the inward eye, all-penetrating, all-embracing, must 30 look through bodily windows that were dim, half- BOS well's life of JOHNSON 99 blinded; he so loved men, and " never once saw the human face divine!" Not less did he prize the love of men; he was eminently social; the approbation of his fellows was dear to him, "valuable," as he owned, "if from the meanest of human beings:" yet the first impression he 5 produced on every man was to be one of aversion, almost of disgust. By Nature it was further ordered that the imperious Johnson should be born poor: the ruler-soul, strong in its native royalty, generous, uncontrollable, like the Hon of the woods, was to be housed, then, in such 10 a dwelHng- place : of Disfigurement, Disease, and, lastly, of a Poverty which itself made him the servant of serv- ants. Thus was the born King likewise a born Slave: the divine spirit of Music must awake imprisoned amid dull-croaking universal Discords; the Ariel finds himself 15 incased in the coarse hulls of a Caliban. So is it more or less, we know (and thou, O Reader, knowest and feelest even now), with all men: yet with the fewest men in any such degree as with Johnson. Fortune, moreover, which had so managed his first 20 appearance in the world, lets not her hand lie idle, or turn the other way, but works unweariedly in the same spirit, while he is journeying through the world. What such a mind, stamped of Nature's noblest metal, though in so ungainly a die, was specially and best of all fitted 25 for, might still be a question. To none of the world's few Incorporated Guilds could he have adjusted himself without difficulty, without distortion; in none been a Guild-Brother well at ease. Perhaps, if we look to the strictly practical nature of his faculty, to the strength, 30 lOO NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE decision, method that manifests itself in him, we may say that his caUing was rather towards Active than Specu- lative Ufe; that as Statesman (in the higher, now obsolete sense), Lawgiver, Ruler; in short, as Doer of the Work, 5 he had shone even more than as Speaker of the Word. His honesty of heart, his courageous temper, the value he set on things outward and material, might have made him a King among Kings. Had the golden age of those new French Prophets, when it shall be: A chaciin selon lo sa capacite; a chaqiie capacite selon ses oeuvres, but ar- rived! Indeed, even in our brazen and Birmingham- lacker age, he himself regretted that he had not become a Lawyer, and risen to be Chancellor, which he might well have done. However, it was otherwise appointed. 15 To no man does Fortune throw open all the kingdoms of this world, and say: It is thine; choose where thou wilt dwell ! To the most she opens hardly the smallest cranny or doghutch, and says, not without asperity: There, that is thine while thou canst keep it; nestle thyself there, and 20 bless Heaven! Alas, men must fit themselves into many things: some forty years ago, for instance, the noblest and ablest Man in all the British lands might be seen not swaying the royal scepter, or the pontiff's censer, on the pinnacle of the World, but gauging ale-tubs in the 25 Httle burgh of Dumfries! Johnson came a little nearer the mark than Burns: but with him too "Strength was mournfully denied its arena;" he too had to fight For- tune at strange odds, all his life long. Johnson's disposition for royalty (had the Fates so 30 ordered it) is well seen in early boyhood. "His fa- BOSWELL^S LIFE OF JOHNSON iOl vorites," says Boswell, "used to receive very liberal assistance from him; and such was the submission and deference with which he was treated, that three of the boys, of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes one, used to come in the morning as his humble attendants, and carry 5 him to school. One in the middle stooped, while he sat upon his back; and one on each side supported him; and thus was he borne triumphant." The purfly, sand- blind lubber and blubber, with his open mouth, and face of bruised honeycomb; yet already dominant, imperial, 10 irresistible! Not in the " King's-chair" (of human arms) as we see, do his three satellites carry him along: rather on the TyranVs-saddle, the back of his fellow-creature, must he ride prosperous! — The child is father of the man. He who had seen fifty years into coming Time, 15 would have felt that little spectacle of mischievous school- boys to be a great one. For us, who look back on it, and what followed it, now from afar, there arise ques- tions enough: How looked these urchins? What jackets and galligaskins had they; felt headgear, or of dogskin 20 leather? What was old Lichfield doing then; what thinking? — and so on, through the whole series of Cor- poral Trim's "auxiliary verbs." A picture of it all fashions itself together; — only unhappily we have no brush and no fingers. 25 Boyhood is now past; the ferula of Pedagogue waves harmless, in the distance: Samuel has struggled up to uncouth bulk and youthhood, wrestling with Disease and Poverty, all the way; which two continue still his companions. At College we see Httle of him; yet thus 30 I02 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE much, that things went not well. A rugged wild-man of the desert, awakened to the feeling of himself; proud as the proudest, poor as the poorest; stoically shut up, silently enduring the incurable: what a world of blackest 5 gloom, with sun-gleams and pale tearful moon-gleams, and flickerings of a celestial and an infernal splendor, was this that now opened for him! But the weather is wintry; and the toes of the man are looking through his shoes. His muddy features grow of a purple and sea- 10 green color; a flood of black indignation mantHng be- neath. A truculent, raw-boned figure! Meat he has probably little; hope he has less: his feet, as we said, have come into brotherhood with the cold mire. " Shall I be particular," inquires Sir John Hawkins, " and 15 relate a circumstance of his distress, that cannot be imputed to him as an effect of his own extravagance or irreg\ilarity, and con- sequently reflects no disgrace on his memory ? He had scarce any change of raiment, and, in a short time after Corbet left him, but one pair of shoes, and those so old that his feet were seen 20 through them : a gentleman of his college, the father of an emi- nent clergyman now living, directed a servitor one morning to place a new pair at the door of Johnson's chamber ; who seeing them upon his first going out, so far forgot himself and the spirit which must have actuated his unknown benefactor, that, with all 25 the indignation of an insulted man, he threw them away." How exceedingly surprising! — The Rev. Dr. Hall re- marks: "As far as we can judge from a cursory view of the weekly account in the buttery-books, Johnson ap- pears to have lived as well as other commoners and 30 scholars." Alas! such "cursory view of the buttery books," now from the safe distance of a century, in the BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 103 safe chair of a College Mastership, is one thing; the con- tinual view of the empty (or locked) buttery itself was quite a different thing. But hear our Knight, how he farther discourses. "Johnson," quoth Sir Joh;i, "could not at this early period of his life divest himself of an 5 idea that poverty was disgraceful; and was very severe in his censures of that economy in both our Universities, which exacted at meals the attendance of poor scholars, under the several denominations of Servitors in the one, and Sizers in the other: he thought that the scholar's, 10 like the Christian life, leveled all distinctions of rank and worldly preeminence; but in this he was mistaken: civil poHty," &c., &c. — Too true! It is man's lot to err. However, Destiny, in all ways, means to prove the mistaken Samuel, and see what stuff is in him. He must 15 leave these butteries of Oxford, Want like an armed man compelling him; retreat into his father's mean home; and there abandon himself for a season to inaction, dis- appointment, shame, and nervous melancholy nigh run mad: he is probably the wretchedest man in wide Eng- 20 land. In all ways, he too must " become perfect through suffering. ^^ — High thoughts have visited him; his College Exercises have been praised beyond the walls of College; Pope himself has seen that Translation, and approved of it: Samuel had whispered to himself: I too am "one 25 and somewhat." False thoughts; that leave only misery behind! The fever-fire of Ambition is too painfully extinguished (but not cured) in the frost-bath of Poverty. Johnson has knocked at the gate, as one having a right; but there was no opening: the world lies all encircled as 30 I04 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE with brass; nowhere can he find or force the smallest entrance. An ushership at Market Bosworth, and "a disagreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the school," yields him bread of affliction and 5 water of affliction; but so bitter, that unassisted human nature cannot swallow them. Young Samson will grind no more in the PhiKstine mill of Bosworth; quits hold of Sir Wolstan, and the "domestic chaplaincy, so far at least as to say grace at table," and also to be ''treated lo with what he represented as intolerable harshness;" and so, after "some months of such complicated misery," feeling doubtless that there are worse things in the world than quick death by Famine, "reHnquishes a situation, which all his life afterwards he recollected with the 15 strongest aversion, and even horror." Men like Johnson are properly called the Forlorn Hope of the world: judge whether his hope was forlorn or not, by this Letter to a dull oily Printer who called himself Sylvanus Urban: " Sir, — As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the 20 defect of your poetical article, you will not be displeased if (in order to the improvement of it) I communicate to you the senti- ments of a person who will undertake, on reasonable terms, some- times to fill a column. " His opinion is, that the public would," &c. &c. 25 "If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform me in two posts what the conditions are on which you shall expect it. Your late offer (for a Prize Poem) gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. If you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other designs to impart." 30 Reader, the generous person, to whom this Letter goes addressed, is "Mr. Edmund Cave, at St. John's Gate, BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 105 London;" the addresser of it is Samuel Johnson, in Birmingham, Warwickshire. Nevertheless, Life raUies in the man; reasserts its right to be lived, even to be enjoyed. "Better a small bush," say the Scotch, "than no shelter:" Johnson learns 5 to be contented with humble human things; and is there not already an actual reahzed human Existence, all stirring and living on every hand of him ? Go thou and do likewise! In Birmingham itself, with his own pur- chased goose-quill, he can earn "five pounds;" nay, 10 finally, the choicest terrestrial good: a Friend, who will be Wife to him! Johnson's marriage with the good Widow Porter has been treated with ridicule by many mortals, who apparently had no understanding thereof. That the purbhnd, seamy-faced Wild-man, stalking 15 lonely, woe-stricken, like some Irish Gallowglass with peeled club, whose speech no man knew, whose look all men both laughed at and shuddered at, should find any brave female heart to acknowledge, at first sight and hearing of him, "This is the most sensible man I ever 20 met with;" and then, with generous courage, to take him to itself, and say. Be thou mine; be thou warmed here, and thawed to life! — in all this, in the kind Widow's love and pity for him, in Johnson's love and gratitude, there is actually no matter for ridicule. Their wedded 25 Hfe, as is the common lot, was made up cf drizzle and dry weather; but innocence and worth dwelt in it; and when death had ended it, a certain sacredness: John- son's deathless affection for his Tetty was always ven- erable and noble. However, be all this as it might, 30 Io6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Johnson is now minded to wed; and will live by the trade of Pedagogy, for by this also may life be kept in. Let the world therefore take notice: ^^ At Edial near Lich- field, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are hoarded, and 5 taught the Latin and Greek languages, by Samuel John- son." Had this Edial enterprise prospered, how dif- ferent might the issue have been! Johnson had lived a life of unnoticed nobleness, or swoln into some amor- phous Dr. Parr, of no avail to us; Bozzy would have lo dwindled into official insignificance, or risen by some other elevation; old Auchinleck had never been afflicted with "ane that keeped a schule," or obliged to violate hospitality by a: " Cromwell do? God, sir, he gart kings ken that there was a lith in their neck!" But the Edial 15 enterprise did not prosper; Destiny had other work appointed for Samuel Johnson; and young gentlemen got board where they could elsewhere find it. This man was to become a Teacher of grown gentlemen, in the most surprising way; a Man of Letters, and Ruler 20 of the British Nation for some time, — not of their bodies merely, but of their minds, not over them, but in them. The career of Literature could not, in Johnson's day, any more than now, be said to lie along the shores of a 25 Pactolus: whatever else might be gathered there, gold- dust was nowise the chief produce. The world, from the times of Socrates, St. Paul, and far earlier, has always had its teachers; and always treated them in a peculiar way. A shrewd Townclerk (not of Ephesus), once, in BOSWELL^S LIFE OF JOHNSON 107 founding a Burgh-Seminary, when the question came, How the Schoolmasters should be maintained ? delivered this brief counsel: " D — n them, keep them poorl'^ Con- siderable wisdom may lie in this aphorism. At all events, we see, the world has acted on it long, and indeed im- s proved on it, — putting many a Schoolmaster of its great Burgh-Seminary to a death, which even cost it something. The world, it is true, had for some time been too busy to go out of its way, and put any Author to death; how- ever, the old sentence pronounced against them was 10 found to be pretty suffxient. The first Writers (being Monks) were sworn to a vow of Poverty; the modern Authors had no need to swear to it. This was the epoch when an Otway could still die of hunger; not to speak of your innumxcrable Scrogginses, whom "the Muse 15 found stretched beneath a rug," with "rusty grate un- conscious of a fire," stocking-nightcap, sanded floor, and all the other escutcheons of the craft, time out of mind the heirlooms of Authorship. Scroggins, however, seems to have been but an idler; not at all so diligent as 20 worthy Mr. Boyce, whom we might have seen sitting up in bed, with his wearing-apparel of Blanket about him, and a hole slit in the same, that his hand might be at liberty to work in its vocation. The worst was, that too frequently a blackguard recklessness of temper ensued, 25 incapable of turning to account what good the gods even here had provided: your Boyces acted on some stoico- epicurean principle of carpe diem, as men do in bom- barded towns, and seasons of raging pestilence; — and so had lost not only their life and presence of mind, but 30 Io8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE their status as persons of respectability. The trade of Author was at about one of its lowest ebbs when John- son embarked on it. Accordingly we find no mention of Illuminations in 5 the city of London when this same Ruler of the British nation arrived in it: no cannon-salvos are fired; no flourish of drums and trumpets greets his appearance on the scene. He enters quite quietly, with some copper halfpence in his pocket; creeps into lodgings in Exeter 10 Street, Strand; and has a Coronation Pontiff also, of not less peculiar equipment, whom, with aU submissive- ness, he must wait upon, in his Vatican of St. John's Gate. This is the dull oily Printer alluded to above. *' Cave's temper," says our Knight Hawkins, " was phlegmatic: 15 though he assumed, as the pubUsher of the Magazine, the name of Sylvanus Urban, he had few of those qualities that constitute urbanity. Judge of his want of them by this question, w'hich he once put to an author: ' Mr, , I hear you have justpubHshed a pamphlet, and am told there is a very good paragraph in it, upon 20 the subject of music : did you write that yourself ? ' His discern- ment was also slow ; and as he had already at his command some writers of prose and verse, w^ho, in the language of Booksellers, are called good hands, he was the backwarder in making advances, or courting an intimacy with Johnson. Upon the first approach 25 of a stranger, his practice was to continue sitting; a posture in which he was ever to be found, and for a few minutes to continue silent : if at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine, then in the press, into the hand of his visitor, and asking his opinion of it. . . . 30 "He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson's abilities, that meaning at one time to dazzle him with the splendor of some of those luminaries in Literature, who favored him with their corre- spondence, he told him that if he would, in the evening, be at a BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 109 certain alehouse in the neighborhood of Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or two of those illustrious contributors: Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great bushy wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. 5 Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified." — Haw- kins^ 46-50. In fact, if we look seriously into the condition of Au- thorship at that period, we shall find that Johnson had 10 undertaken one of the ruggedest of all possible enter- prises; that here as elsewhere Fortune had given him unspeakable Contradictions to reconcile. For a man of Johnson's stamp, the Problem was twofold: Firsts not only as the humble but indispensable condition of all 15 else, to keep himself, if so might be, alive; but secondly^ to keep himself alive by speaking forth the Truth that was in him, and speakng it truly , that is, in the clearest and fittest utterance the Heavens had enabled him to give it, let the Earth say to this what she liked. Of which 20 twofold Problem if it be hard to solve either member separately, how incalculably more so to solve it, when both are conjoined, and work with endless complication into one another! He that finds himself already kept alive can sometimes (unhappily not always) speak a 25 little truth; he that finds himself able and willing, to all lengths, to speak lies, may, by watching how the wind sits, scrape together a livelihood, sometimes of great splendor: he, again, who finds himself provided with neither endowment, has but a ticklish game to play, and 30 shall have praises if he win it. Let us look a little at both no NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE faces of the matter; and see what front they then offered our Adventurer, what front he offered them. At the time of Johnson's appearance on the field, Literature, in many senses, was in a transitional state; 5 chiefly in this sense, as respects the pecuniary subsistence of its cultivators. It was in the very act of passing from the protection of patrons into that of the Public; no longer to supply its necessities by laudatory Dedications to the Great, but by judicious Bargains with the Book- 10 sellers. This happy change has been much sung and celebrated; many a "lord of the lion heart and eagle eye" looking back with scorn enough on the bygone system of Dependency : so that now it were perhaps well to consider, for a moment, what good might also be in 15 it, what gratitude we owe it. That a good was in it, admits not of doubt. Whatsoever has existed has had its value: without some truth and worth lying in it, the thing could not have hung together, and been the organ and sustenance and method of action for men that 20 reasoned and were ahve. Translate a Falsehood which is wholly false into Practice, the result comes out zero; there is no fruit or issue to be derived from it. That in an age, when a Nobleman was still noble, still with his wealth the protector of worthy and humane things, and 25 still venerated as such, a poor Man of Genius, his brother in nobleness, should, with unfeigned reverence, address him and say: "I have found Wisdom here, and would fain proclaim it abroad; wilt thou, of thy abundance, afford me the means?" — in all this there was no base- 30 ness; it was wholly an honest proposal, which a free BOS well's life of JOHNSON III man might make, and a free man listen to. So might a Tasso, with a Gerusalemme in his hand or in his head, speak to a Duke of Ferrara ; so might a Shakespeare to his Southampton; and Continental Artists generally to their rich Protectors, — in some countries, down almost to these 5 days. It was only when the reverence became feigned, that baseness entered into the transaction on both sides; and, indeed, flourished there with rapid luxuriance, till that became disgraceful for a Dryden which a Shake- speare could once practice without offense. 10 Neither, it is very true, was the new way of Book- seller Maecenasship worthless; which opened itself at this juncture, for the most important of all transport- trades, now when the old way had become too miry and impossible. Remark, moreover, how this second sort 15 of Maecenasship, after carrying us through nearly a century of Literary Time, appears now to have well- nigh discharged its function also; and to be working pretty rapidly toward some third method, the exact con- ditions of which are yet nowise visible. Thus all things 20 have their end; and we should part with them all, not in anger, but in peace. The Bookseller System, during its peculiar century, the whole of the eighteenth, did carry us handsomely along; and many good Works it has left us, and many good Men it maintained: if it is now ex- 25 piring by Puffery, as the Patronage System did by Flattery (for Lying is ever the forerunner of Death, nay, is itself Death), let us not forget its benefits; how it nursed Literature through boyhood and school-years, as Patronage had wrapped it in soft swaddling-bands; — till 30 112 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE now we see it about to put on the toga vinlis, could it but find any such! There is tolerable traveling on the beaten road, run how it may; only on the new road not yet leveled and 5 paved, and on the old road all broken into ruts and quagmires, is the traveling bad or impracticable. The difficulty lies always in the transiiion from one method to another. In which state it was that Johnson now found Literature; and out of which, let us also say, he lo manfully carried it. What remarkable mortal first paid copyright in England we have not ascertained; perhaps, for almost a century before, some scarce visible or ponderable pittance of wages had occasionally been yielded by the Seller of books to the Writer of them: 15 the original Covenant, stipulating to produce Paradise Lost on the one hand, and Five Pounds Sterling on the other, still lies (we have been told) in black-on-white, for inspection and purchase by the curious, at a Book- shop in Chancery Lane. Thus had the matter gone on, 20 in a mixed confused way, for some threescore years; — as ever, in such things, the old system overlaps the new, by some generation or two, and only dies quite out when the new has got a complete organization and weather- worthy surface of its own. Among the first Authors, 25 the very first of any significance, who lived by the day's wages of his craft, and composedly faced the world on that basis, was Samuel Johnson. At the time of Johnson's appearance there were still two ways on which an Author might attempt proceed- 30 ing: there were the Maecenases proper in the West End BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON II3 of London; and the Maecenases virtual of St. John's Gate and Paternoster Row. To a considerate man it might seem uncertain which method were the preferable: neither had very high attractions; the Patron's aid was now well-nigh necessarily polluted by sycophancy, before 5 it could come to hand: the Bookseller's was deformed with greedy stupidity, not to say entire wooden-headed- ness and disgust (so that an Osborne even required to be knocked down by an Author of spirit), and could barely keep the thread of life together. The one was the wages 10 of suffering and poverty; the other, unless you gave strict heed to it, the wages of sin. In time, Johnson had opportunity of looking into both methods, and ascertain- ing what they were; but found, at first trial, that the former would in nowise do for him. Listen, once again, 15 to that far-famed Blast of Doom, proclaiming into the ear of Lord Chesterfield, and, through him, of the listen- ing world, that Patronage should be no more! " Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during which 20 time I have been pushing on my Work ^ through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance,^ one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. 1 The English Dictionary. 25 2 Were time and printer's space of no value, it were easy to wash away certain foolish soot-stains dropped here as " Notes ; " especially two : the one on this word and on Boswell's Note to it ; the other on the paragraph which follows. Let " Ed." look a second time ; he will find that Johnson's sacred regard for Truth 30 is the only thing to be " noted " in the former case ; also, in the Prose— 8 114 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE " The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. " Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached 5 ground, encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary and cannot impart it ; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to 10 confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. " Having carried on my Work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I 15 should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have long been awakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself with so much exaltation. "My Lord, your Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, Sam, Johnson." 20 And thus must the rebellious "Sam. Johnson" turn him to the Bookselling guild, and the wondrous chaos of "Author by trade;" and, though ushered into it only by that dull oily Printer, "with loose horseman's coat and such a great bushy wig as he constantly wore," 25 and only as subaltern to some commanding officer "Browne, sitting amid tobacco-smoke at the head of a long table in the alehouse at Clerkenwell," — gird him- self together for the warfare; having no alternative! Little less contradictory was that other branch of 30 the twofold Problem now set before Johnson: the speak- latter, that this of " Love's being a native of the rocks " actually has a " meaning." BOSWELL's life of JOHNSON II5 ing forth of Truth. Nay, taken by itself, it had in those days become so complex as to puzzle strongest heads, with nothing else imposed on them for solution; and even to turn high heads of that sort into mere hollow vizards, speaking neither truth nor falsehood, nor anything but 5 what the Prompter and Player {vtokpittjs) put into them. Alas! for poor Johnson, Contradiction abounded; in spirituals and in temporals, within and without. Born with the strongest unconquerable love of just Insight, he must begin to live and learn in a scene where 10 Prejudice flourishes with rank luxuriance. England was all confused enough, sightless and yet restless, take it where you would; but figure the best intellect in England nursed up to manhood in the idol-cavern of a poor Tradesman's house, in the cathedral city of Lichfield! 15 What is Truth? said jesting Pilate; What is Truth? might earnest Johnson much more emphatically say. Truth, no longer, like the Phoenix, in rainbow plumage, " poured, from her ghttering beak, such tones of sweetest melody as took captive every ear:" the Phoenix (waxing 20 old) had well-nigh ceased her singing, and empty weari- some Cuckoos, and doleful monotonous Owls, innu- merable Jays also, and twittering Sparrows on the housetops, pretended they were repeating her. It was wholly a divided age, that of Johnson; Unity 25 existed nowhere, in its Heaven, or in its Earth. Society, through every fiber, was rent asunder; all things, it was then becoming visible, but could not then be understood, were moving onwards, with an impulse received ages before, yet now first with a decisive rapidity, towards 30 Il6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE that great chaotic gulf, where, whether in the shape of French Revolutions, Reform Bills, or what shape soever bloody or bloodless, the descent and engulfment assume, we now see them weltering and boiling. Already Cant, 5 as once before hinted, had begun to play its wonderful part (for the hour was come): two ghastly apparitions, unreal simulacra both. Hypocrisy and Atheism are already, in silence, parting the world. Opinion and Ac- tion, which should live together as wedded pair, "one 10 flesh," more properly as Soul and Body, have commenced their open quarrel, and are suing for a separate main- tenance, — as if they could exist separately. To the earnest mind, in any position, firm footing and a Hfe of Truth was becoming daily more difhcult: in Johnson's IS position it was more difficult than in almost any other. If, as for a devout nature was inevitable and indis- pensable, he looked up to Religion, as to the pole-star of his voyage, already there was no fixed pole-star any longer visible; but two stars, a whole constellation of 20 stars, each proclaiming itself as the true. There was the red portentous comet-star of Infidelity; the dimmer-burn- ing and dimmer fixed-star uncertain now whether not an atmospheric meteor of Orthodoxy: which of these to choose? The keener intellects of Europe had, almost 25 without exception, ranged themselves under the former; for some half century, it had been the general effort of European speculation to proclaim that Destruction of falsehood was the only Truth; daily had Denial waxed stronger and stronger, Belief sunk more and more into 30 decay. From our Bolingbrokes and Tolands the skepti- BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON I17 cal fever had passed into France, into Scotland; and al- ready it smouldered, far and wide, secretly eating out the heart of England. Bayle had played his part; Voltaire, on a wider theater, was playing his, — Johnson's senior by some fifteen years: Hume and Johnson were children 5 almost of the same year. To this keener order of in- tellects did Johnson's indisputably belong; was he to join thfem; was he to oppose them? A compKcated ques- tion: for, alas! the Church itself is no longer, even to him, wholly of true adamant, but of adamant and baked 10 mud conjoined: the zealously Devout must find his Church tottering; and pause amazed to see, instead of inspired Priest, many a swine-feeding Trulliber minister- ing at her altar. It is not the least curious of the inco- herences which Johnson had to reconcile, that, though 15 by nature contemptuous and incredulous, he was, at that time of day, to find his safety and glory in defend- ing, with his whole might, the traditions of the elders. Not less perplexingly intricate, and on both sides hol- low or questionable, was the aspect of Politics. Whigs 20 struggling blindly forward, Tories holding blindly back; each with some forecast of a half truth; neither with any forecast of the whole! Admire here this other Contra- diction in the life of Johnson; that, though the most un- governable, and in practice the most independent of 25 men, he must be a Jacobite, and worshiper of the Di- vine Right. In politics also there are Irreconcilables enough for him. As indeed how could it be otherwise? For when religion is torn asunder, and the very heart of man's existence set against itself, then in all subordinate 30 Il8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE departments there must needs be hollowness, incoher- ence. The Enghsh Nation had rebelled against a Ty- rant; and, by the hands of rehgious tyrannicides, ex- acted stern vengeance of him: Democracy had rfsen 5 iron-sinewed, and, " like an infant Hercules, strangled ser- pents in its cradle." But as yet none knew the meaning or extent of the phenomenon: Europe was not ripe for it; not to be ripened for it but by the culture and various experience of another century and a half. And now, lo when the King-killers were all swept away, and a milder second picture was painted over the canvas of the -first, and betitled "Glorious Revolution," who doubted but the catastrophe was over, the whole busi- ness finished, and Democracy gone to its long sleep? 15 Yet was it Kke a business finished and not finished; a lingering uneasiness dwelt in all minds: the deep-lying, resistless Tendency, which had still to be obeyed, could no longer be recognized; thus was there half-ness, in- sincerity, uncertainty in men's ways; instead of heroic 20 Puritans and heroic Cavaliers, came now a dawdling set of argumentative Whigs, and a dawdling set of deaf- eared Tories; each half- foolish, each half- false. The Whigs were false and without basis; inasmuch as their whole object was Resistance, Criticism, Demolition, — 25 they knew not why, or towards what issue. In Whig- gism, ever since a Charles and his Jeffries had ceased to meddle with it, and to have any Russel or Sidney to meddle with, there could be no divineness of character; nor till, in these latter days, it took the figure of a thor- 30 ough-going, all-defying Radicalism, was there any solid BOS well's life of JOHNSON II9 footing for it to stand on. Of the like uncertain, half- hollow nature had Toryism become, in Johnson's time; preaching forth indeed an everlasting truth, the duty of Loyalty; yet now (ever since the final expulsion of the Stuarts) having no Person, but only an Office to be loyal 5 to; no living Soul to worship, but only a dead velvet- cushioned Chair. Its attitude, therefore, was stiff- necked refusal to move; as that of Whiggism was clam- orous command to move, — let rhyme and reason, on both hands, say to it what they might. The conse- 10 quence was: Immeasurable floods of contentious jargon, tending nowhither; false conviction; false resistance to conviction; decay (ultimately to become decease) of whatsoever was once understood by the w^ords Principle or Honesty of heart; the louder triumph of Half-ness 15 and Plausibility over Whole-ness and Truth; — at last, this all-overshadowing efflorescence of Quackery, which we now see, with all its deadening and kiUing fruits, in all its innumerable branches, down to the lowest. How, between these jarring extremes, wherein the rotten lay 20 so inextricably intermingled with the sound, and as yet no eye could see through the ulterior meaning of the matter, was a faithful and true man to adjust himself? That Johnson, in spite of all drawbacks, adopted the Conservative side; stationed himself as the unyielding 25 opponent of Innovation, resolute to hold fast the form of sound words, could not but increase, in no small measure, the difficulties he had to strive with. We mean the moral difficulties; for in economical respects, it might be pretty equally balanced; the Tory servants of the Pub- 30 I20 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE lie had perhaps about the same chance of promotion as the Whig: and all the promotion Johnson aimed at was the privilege to live. But, for what, though unavowed, was no less indispensable, for his peace of conscience, 5 and the clear ascertainment and feeling of his Duty as an inhabitant of God's world, the case was hereby ren- dered much more complex. To resist Innovation is easy enough on one condition: that you resist Inquiry. This is, and was, the common expedient of your common lo Conservatives; but it would not do for Johnson: he was a zealous recommender and practicer of Inquiry; once for all, could not and would not believe, much less speak and act, a Falsehood: the form of sound words, which he held fast, must have a meaning in it. Here lay the 15 difficulty: to behold a portentous mixture of True and False, and feel that he must dv/ell and fight there; yet to love and defend only the True. How worship, when you cannot and will not be an idolater; yet cannot help discerning that the Symbol of your Divinity has half be- 20 come idolatrous? This was the question, which John- son, the man both of clear eye and devout believing heart, must answer, — at peril of his life. The Whig or Skeptic, on the other hand, had a much simpler part to play. To him only the idolatrous side of things, nowise the 25 divine one, lay visible: not worships therefore, nay in the strict sense not heart-honesty, only at most lip- and hand-honesty, is required of him. Wliat spiritual force is his, he can conscientiously employ in the work of caviUing, of pulling down what is False. For the rest, 30 that there is or can be any Truth of a higher than sensual BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 121 nature, has not occurred to him. The utmost, there- fore, that he as man has to aim at, is Respectability, the suffrages of his fellow-men. Such suffrages he may weigh as well as count; or count only: according as he is a Burke, or a Wilkes. But beyond these there Hes 5 nothing divine for him; these attained, all is attained. Thus is his whole world distinct and rounded in; a clear goal is set before him; a firm path, rougher or smoother; at worst a firm region wherein to seek a path: let him gird up his loins, and travel on without misgivings! 10 For the honest Conservative, again, nothing is distinct, nothing rounded in: Respectability can nowise be his highest Godhead; not one aim, but two conflicting aims to be continually reconciled by him, has he to strive after. A difficult position, as we said; which accordingly 15 the most did, even in those days, but half defend, — by the surrender, namely, of their own too cumbersome honesty, or even understanding; after which the com- pletest defense was worth little. Into this difficult po- sition Johnson, nevertheless, threw him^self: found it in- 2c deed full of difficulties; yet held it out manfully as an honest-hearted, open-sighted man, while life was in him. Such was that same "twofold Problem" set before Samuel Johnson. Consider all these moral difficulties; and add to them the fearful aggravation, which lay in 25 that other circumstance, that he needed a continual ap- peal to the Public, must continually produce a certain impression and conviction on the Public; that if he did not, he ceased to have "provision for the day that was passing over him," he could not any longer live! How 30 122 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE a vulgar character once launched into this wild element; driven onwards by Fear and Famine; without other aim than to clutch what Provender (of Enjoyment in any kind) he could get, always if possible keeping quite. 5 clear of the Gallows and Pillory (that is to say, minding heedfully both "person" and "character"), — would have floated hither and thither in it; and contrived to eat some three repasts daily, and wear some three suits yearly, and then to depart and disappear, having consumed his lo last ration: all this might be worth knowing, but were in itself a trivial knowledge. How a noble man, resolute for the Truth, to whom Shams and Lies were once for all an abomination, — was to act in it: here lay the mystery. By what methods, by what gifts of eye and hand, does IS a heroic Samuel Johnson, now when cast forth into that waste Chaos of Authorship, maddest of things, a mingled Phlegethon and Fleet-ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens, and mud-specters, — shape himself a voyage; of the transient driftwood, and the enduring iron, 20 build him a seaworthy Lifeboat, and sail therein, un- drowned, unpolluted, through the roaring "mother of dead dogs," onwards to an eternal Landmark, and City that hath foundations? This high question is even the one answered in Boswell's Book; which Book we there- 25 fore, not so falsely, have named a Heroic Poem; for in it there lies the whole argument of such. Glory to our brave Samuel! He accomplished this wonderful Problem; and now through long generations we point to him, and say: Here also was a Man; let the world once more have 30 assurance of a Man! BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 1 23 Had there been in Johnson, now when afloat on that confusion worse confounded of grandeur and squalor, no Hght but an earthly outward one, he too must have made shipwreck. With his diseased body, and vehement voracious heart, how easy for him to become a carpe- 5 diem Philosopher, like the rest, and Hve and die as miserably as any Boyce of that Brotherhood! But happily there was a higher light for him; shining as a lamp to his path; which, in all paths, would teach him to act and walk not as a fool, but as wise, and in those 10 evil days also, "redeeming the time." Under dimmer or clearer manifestations, a Truth had been revealed to him: I also am a Man; even in this unutterable element of Authorship, I may live as beseems a Man! That Wrong is not only different from Right, but that it is in strict 15 scientific terms infinitely different; even as the gaining of the whole world set against the losing of one's own soul, or (as Johnson had it) a Heaven set against a Hell; that in all situations (out of the Pit of Tophet), wherein a living Man has stood or can stand, there is actually 20 a Prize of quite infinite value placed within his reach, namely, a Duty for him to do: this highest Gospel, which forms the basis and worth of all other Gospels whatso- ever, had been revealed to Samuel Johnson; and the man had beheved it, and laid it faithfully to heart. Such 25 knowledge of the transcendental, immeasurable charac- ter of Duty we call the basis of all Gospels, the essence of all ReHgion: he who with his whole soul knows not this as yet knows nothing, as yet is properly nothing. This, happily for him, Johnson was one of those that 30 124 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE knew; under a certain authentic Symbol it stood forever present to his eyes: a Symbol, indeed, waxing old as doth a garment; yet which had guided forward as their Banner and celestial Pillar of Fire, innumerable saints 5 and witnesses, the fathers of our modern world; and for him also had still a sacred significance. It does not ap- pear that at any time Johnson was what we call irre- ligious: but in his sorrow^s and isolation, when hope died away, and only a long vista of suffering and toil lay be- 10 fore him to the end, then first did Religion shine forth in its meek, everlasting clearness; even as the stars do in black night, which in the daytime and dusk were hidden by inferior lights. How a true man, in the midst of errors and uncertainties, shall work out for himself 15 a sure Life-truth; and adjusting the transient to the eternal, amid the fragments of ruined Temples build up, with toil and pain, a little Altar for himself, and worship there; how Samuel Johnson, in the era of Voltaire, can purify and fortify his soul, and hold real communion with 20 the Highest, "in the Church of St. Clement Danes:" this too stands all unfolded in his Biography, and is among the most touching and memorable things there; a thing to be looked at with pity, admiration, awe. Johnson's Religion was as the light of life to him; with- 25 out it his heart was all sick, dark, and had no guidance left. He is now enlisted, or impressed, into that unspeak- able shoeblack-seraph Army of Authors; but can feel hereby that he fights under a celestial flag, and will quit 30 him like a man. The first grand requisite, an assured BOS well's life or johnson 125 heart, he therefore has: what his outward equipments, and accouterments are, is the next question; an impor- tant, though inferior one. His intellectual stock, in- trinsically viewed, is perhaps inconsiderable: the fur- nishings of an English School and English University; 5 good knowledge of the Latin tongue, a more uncertain one of Greek: this is a rather slender stock of Education wherewith to front the world. But then it is to be re- membered that his world was England; that such was the culture England commonly supplied and expected. 10 Besides Johnson has been a voracious reader, though a desultory one, and oftenest in strange scholastic, too obsolete Libraries; he has also rubbed shoulders with the press of actual Life, for some thirty years now: views or hallucinations of innumerable things are weltering to and 15 fro in him. Above all, be his weapons what they may, he has an arm that can wield them. Nature has given him her choicest gift: an open eye and heart. He will look on the world, wheresoever he can catch a glimpse of it, with eager curiosity: to the last, we find this a strik- 20 ing characteristic of him; for all human interests he has a sense; the meanest handicraftsman could interest him, even in extreme age, by speaking of his craft: the ways of men are all interesting to him; any human thing that he did not know he wished to know. Reflection, more- 25 over, Meditation, was what he practiced incessantly with or without his will : for the mind of the man was earnest, deep as well as humane. Thus would the world, such fragments of it as he could survey, form itself, or con- tinually tend to form itself, into a coherent whole; on 30 126 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE any and on all phases of which his vote and voice must be well worth listening to. As a Speaker of the Word, he will speak real words; no idle jargon or hollow triviality will issue from him. His aim, too, is clear, attainable, 5 that of working for his wages: let him do this honestly, and all else will follow of its own accord. With such omens, into such a warfare, did Johnson go forth. A rugged, hungry Kerne, or Gallowglass, as we called him: yet indomitable; in whom lay the true lo spirit of a Soldier. With giant's force he toils, since such is his appointment, were it but at hewing of wood and drawing of water for old sedentary bushy- wigged Cave; distinguishes himself by mere quantity, if there is to be no other distinction. He can write all things; frosty IS Latin verses, if these are the saleable commodity; Book- prefaces, Political Philippics, Review Articles, Parlia- mentary Debates: all things he does rapidly; still more surprising, all things he does thoroughly and well. How he sits there, in his rough-hewn, amorphous bulk, in 20 that upper-room at St. John's Gate, and trundles off sheet after sheet of those Senate-of-Lilliput Debates, to the clamorous Printer's Devils waiting for them, with insatiable throat, downstairs; himself perhaps impransus all the while! Admire also the greatness of Literature; 25 how a grain of mustard-seed cast into its Nile-waters, shall settle in the teeming mold, and be found, one day, as a Tree, in whose branches all the fowls of heaven may lodge. Was it not so with these Lilliput Debates? In that small project and act began the stupendous Fourth 30 Estate; whose wide world-embracing influences what BOS well's life of JOHNSON 1 27 eye can take in; in whose boughs are there not already fowls of strange feather lodged? Such things, and far stranger, were done in that wondrous old Portal, even in latter times. And then figure Samuel dining " behind the screen," from a trencher covertly handed in to him, at a 5 preconcerted nod from the "great bushy wig;" Samuel too ragged to show face, yet "made a happy man of" by hearing his praise spoken. If to Johnson himself, then much more to us, may that St. John's Gate be a place we can " never pass without veneration." ^ 10 1 All Johnson's places of resort and abode are venerable, and now indeed to the many as well as to the few; for his name has become great ; and, as we must often with a kind of sad admira- tion recognize, there is, even to the rudest man, no greatness so venerable as intellectual, as spiritual greatness; nay, properly, 15 there is no other venerable at all. For example, what soul-sub- duing magic, for the very clown or craftsman of our England, lies in the word " Scholar " I " He is a Scholar : " he is a man 7Viser than we ; of a wisdom to us boundless^ infinite : who shall speak his worth 1 Such things, we say, fill us with a certain 20 pathetic admiration of defaced and obstructed yet glorious man ; archangel though in ruins, — or, rather, though in rubbish, of encumbrances and mud-incrustations, which also are not to be perpetual. Nevertheless, in this mad- whirling, all-forgetting London, the 25 haunts of the mighty that were can seldom without a strange diffi- culty be discovered. Will any man, for instance, tell us which bricks it was in Lincoln's Inn Buildings, that Ben Jonson's hand and trowel laid ? No man, it is to be feared, — and also grumbled at. With Samuel Johnson may it prove otherwise ! A Gentle- 30 man of the British Museum is said to have made drawings of all his residences : the blessing of Old Mortality be upon him I We ourselves, not without labor and risk, lately discovered Gough 128 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Poverty, Distress, and as yet Obscurity, are his com- panions; so poor is he that his Wife must leave him, and seek shelter among other relations; Johnson's household has accommodation for one inmate only. To all his 5 ever-varying, ever-recurring troubles, moreover, must be added this continual one of ill health, and its concomi- tant depressiveness: a galhng load, which would have crushed most common mortals into desperation, is his appointed ballast and life-burden; he "could not re- 10 member the day he had passed free from pain." Never- theless, Life, as we said before, is always Life: a healthy soul, imprison it as you will, in squalid garrets, shabby coat, bodily sickness, or whatever else, will assert its Square, between Fleet Street and Holborn (adjoining both to 15 Bolt Court and to Johnson's Court); and on the second day of search, the very House there, wherein the Ejiglish Dictionary was composed. It is the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched way from the North-west. The actual occupant, an elderly, well-washed, decent -looking man, 20 invited us to enter; and courteously undertook to be cicerone; though in his memory lay nothing but the foolishest jumble and hallucination. It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-balustraded house : " I have spent many a pound and penny on it since then," said the worthy landlord; "here, you see, this Bedroom was the 25 Doctor's study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt), "where he walked for exer- cise ; these three Garret Bedrooms " (where his three copyists sat and wrote) " were the place he kept his — Ptcpils in " ! Tempiis edax rericin ! Yet ferax also : for our friend now added, with a 30 \vistful look, which strove to seem merely historical : " I let it all in Lodgings, to respectable gentlemen ; by the quarter, or the month ; its all one to me." — " To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways. BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 1 29 heaven-granted indefeasible Freedom, its right to con- quer difficulties, to do work, even to feel gladness. John- son does not whine over his existence, but manfully makes the most and best of it. "He said, a man might live in a garret at eighteenpence a-week: few people 5 would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a coffeehouse, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread-and-milk for a 10 penny, and do without supper. On dean-shirt day he went abroad and paid visits." Think by whom and of whom this was uttered, and ask then, Whether there is more pathos in it than in a whole circulating-library of Giaours and Harolds^ or less pathos? On another oc- 15 casion, "when Dr. Johnson, one day, read his own Satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, with the various obstructions thrown in his way to fortune and to fame, he burst into a passion of tears: Mr. Thrale's family and Mr. Scott only w^re present, who, in a jocose 20 way, clapped him on the back, and said, * What's all this, my dear sir? Why, you and I and Herades, you know, were all troubled with melancholy.^ He was a very large man, and made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough." These were sweet 25 tears; the sweet victorious remembrance lay in them of toils indeed frightful, yet never flinched from, and now triumphed over. "One day it shall delight you to re- member labor done!" — Neither, though Johnson is ob- scure and poor, need the highest enjoyment of existence, 30 Prose — 9 130 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE that of heart freely communing with heart, be denied him. Savage and he wander homeless through the streets; without bed, yet not without friendly converse; such another conversation not, it is like, producible in 5 the proudest drawing-room of London. Nor, under the void Night, upon the hard pavement, are their own woes the only topic: nowise; they "will stand by their country," they there, the two "Backwoodsmen" of the Brick Desert! 10 Of all outward evils Obscurity is perhaps in itself the least. To Johnson, as to a healthy-minded man, the fantastic article, sold or given under the title of Fame, had little or no value but its intrinsic one. He prized it as the means of getting him employment and good 15 wages; scarcely as anything more. His light and guid- ance came from a loftier source; of which, in honest aversion to all hypocrisy or pretentious talk, he spoke not to men; nay perhaps, being of a healthy mind, had never spoken to himself. We reckon it a striking fact in John- 20 son's history, this carelessness of his to Fame. Most authors speak of their " Fame" as if it were a quite price- less matter; the grand ultimatum, and heavenly Con- stantine's-banner they had to follow, and conquer un- der. — ^Thy "Fame!" Unhappy mortal, where will it 25 and thou both be in some fifty years? Shakespeare himself has lasted but two hundred; Homer (partly by accident) three thousand: and does not already an Eternity encircle every Me and every Thee? Cease then, to sit feverishly hatching on that "Fame" of thine; 30 and flapping and shrieking with fierce hisses, like brood- BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 131 goose on her last egg, if man shall or dare approach it! Quarrel not with me, hate me not, my brother: make what thou canst of thy egg, and welcome: God knows, I will not steal it; I believe it to be addle. — Johnson, for his part, was no man to be killed by a review; con- 5 cerning which matter, it was said by a benevolent per- son: If any author can be reviewed to death, let it be, with all convenient dispatch, done. Johnson thank- fully receives any word spoken in his favor; is nowise disobliged by a lampoon, but will look at it, if pointed 10 out to him, and show how it might have been done better: the lampoon itself is indeed nothing, a soap- bubble that next moment will become a drop of sour suds; but in the meanwhile, if it do anything, it keeps him more in the world's eye, and the next bargain will be 15 all the richer: "Sir, if they should cease to talk of me, I must starve." Sound heart and understanding head: these fail no man, not even a Man of Letters! Obscurity, however, was, in Johnson's case, whether a light or heavy evil, likely to be no lasting one. He is 20 animated by the spirit of a true workman, resolute to do his work well; and he does his work well; all his work, that of writing, that of living. A man of this stamp is unhappily not so common in the literary or in any other department of the world, that he can continue always 25 unnoticed. By slow degrees, Johnson emerges; looming, at first, huge and dim in the eye of an observant few; at last disclosed, in his real proportions, to the eye of the whole world, and encircled with a "light-nimbus" of glory, so that whoso is not blind must and shall behold 30 132 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE him. By slow degrees, we said; for this also is notable; slow but sure: as his fame waxes not by exaggerated clamor of what he seems to be, but by better and better insight of what he is, so it will last and stand wearing, 5 being genuine. Thus indeed is it always, or nearly always, with true fame. The heavenly Luminary rises amid vapors; star-gazers enough must scan it with criti- cal telescopes; it makes no blazing, the world can either look at it, or forbear looking at it; not till after a time and 10 times does its celestial eternal nature become indubitable. Pleasant, on the other hand, is the blazing of a Tar- barrel; the crowd dance merrily round it, with loud huzzaing, universal three-times-three, and, like Homer's peasants, "bless the useful light:" but unhappily it so 15 soon ends in darkness, foul choking smoke; and is kicked into the gutters, a nameless imbroglio of charred staves, pitch-cinders, and vomissement dii diahle ! But indeed, from of old, Johnson has enjoyed all, or nearly all, that Fame can yield any man: the respect, the 20 obedience of those that are about him and inferior to him; of those whose opinion alone can have any forcible impression on him. A little circle gathers round the Wise man; which gradually enlarges as the report thereof spreads, and more can come to see, and believe; for 25 Wisdom is precious, and of irresistible attraction to all. "An inspired-idiot," Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him; though, as Hawkins says, "he loved not Johnson, but rather envied him for his parts; and once entreated a friend to desist from praising him, 'for in doing so,' 30 said he, 'you harrow up my very soulJ' " Yet, on the BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 1 33 whole, there is no evil in the "gooseberry-fool;" but rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker, sort than Johnson's; and all the more genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it, — though unhappily never cease attempting to become so: the author of the 5 genuine Vicar of Wakefield, nill he, will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine Manhood; and Dr. Minor keep gyrating round Dr. Major, alternately at- tracted and repelled. Then there is the chivalrous Top- ham Beauclerk, with his sharp wit, and gallant courtly 10 ways: there is Bennet Langton, an orthodox gentleman, and worthy; though Johnson once laughed, louder almost than mortal, at his last will and testament; and "could not stop his merriment, but continued it all the way till he got without the Temple-gate; then burst into such 15 a fit of laughter that he appeared to be almost in a con- vulsion; and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud that, in the silence of the night, his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet- 20 ditch!" Dastly comes his solid-thinking, solid-feeding Thrale, the well-beloved man; with Thralia, a bright papilionaceous creature, whom the elephant loved to play with, and wave to and fro upon his trunk. Not to speak of a reverent Bozzy, for w^hat need is there farther? 25 — Or of the spiritual Luminaries, with tongue or pen, who made that age remarkable; or of Highland Lairds drinking, in fierce usquebaugh, "Your health, Toctor Shonson!" — still less of many such as that poor "Mr. F. Lewis," older in date, of whose birth, death, and whole 30 134 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE terrestrial res gestcB^ this only, and strange enough this actually, survives: "Sir, he lived in London and hung loose upon society!" Stat Parvi nominis umbra. — In his fifty-third year he is beneficed, by the royal 5 bounty, with a Pension of three hundred pounds. Loud clamor is always more or less insane: but probably the insanest of all loud clamors in the eighteenth century was this that was raised about Johnson's Pension. Men seem to be led by the noses; but, in reaUty, it is by the ears, — lo as some ancient slaves were, who had their ears bored; or as some modern quadrupeds may be, whose ears are long. Very falsely was it said, "Names do not change Things;" Names do change Things; nay, for most part they are the only substance which mankind can discern 15 in Things. The whole sum that Johnson, during the remaining twenty years of his life, drew from the public funds of England, would have supported some Supreme Priest for about half as many weeks; it amounts very nearly to the revenue of our poorest Church- Overseer 20 for one twelvemonth. Of secular Administrators of Provinces, and Horse-subduers, and Game-destroyers, we shall not so much as speak: but who were the Pri- mates of England, and the Primates of all England, during Johnson's days? No man has remembered. 25 Again, is the Primate of all England something, or is he nothing? If something, then what but the man who, in the supreme degree, teaches and spiritually edifies, and leads towards Heaven by guiding wisely through the Earth, the living souls that inhabit England ? We touch 30 here upon deep matters; which but remotely concern us, BOS well's life or johnson 135 and might lead us into still deeper: clear, in the mean- while, it is that the true Spiritual Edifier and Soul's- Father of all England was, and till very lately continued to be, the man named Samuel Johnson, — whom this scot-and-lot-paying world cackled reproachfully to see 5 remunerated like a Supervisor of Excise! If Destiny had beaten hard on poor Samuel, and did never cease to visit him too roughly, yet the last section of his Life might be pronounced victorious, and on the whole happy. He was not idle; but now no longer 10 goaded on by want; the light which had shone irradiating the dark haunts of Poverty now illuminates the circles of Wealth, of a certain culture and elegant intelligence; he who had once been admitted to speak with Edmund Cave and Tobacco Browne, now admits a Reynolds 15 and a Burke to speak with him. Loving friends are there; Listeners, even Answerers: the fruit of his long labors Hes round him in fair legible Writings, of Philos- ophy, Eloquence, Morality, Philology; some excellent, all worthy and genuine Works; for which, too, a deep, 20 earnest murmur of thanks reaches him from all ends oi his Fatherland. Nay, there are works of Goodness, of undying Mercy, which even he has possessed the power to do: "What I gave I have; what I spent I had!" Early friends had long sunk into the grave; yet in his soul 25 they ever lived, fresh and clear, with soft pious breath- ings towards them, not without a still hope of one day meeting them again in purer union. Such was Johnson's Life: the victorious Battle of a free, true Man. Finally he died the death of the free and true : a dark cloud of 3° 136 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE death, solemn and not untinged with haloes of immor- tal Hope, "took him away," and our eyes could no longer behold him; but can still behold the trace and impress of his courageous honest spirit, deep-legible in 5 the World's Business, wheresoever he walked and was. To estimate the quantity of Work that Johnson per- formed, how much poorer the World were had it wanted him, can, as in all such cases, never be accurately done; cannot, till after some longer space, be approximately 10 done. All work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew, and so, in endless pahngenesia, lives and works. To Johnson's Writings, good and solid, and still profitable as they are, we have already rated his Life and Conversation as superior. By the one and 15 by the other, who shall compute what effects have been produced, and are still, and into deep Time, producing? So much, however, we can already see : It is now some three quarters of a century that Johnson has been the Prophet of the English; the man by whose light the 20 English people, in public and in private, more than by any other man's, have guided their existence. Higher light than that immediately practical one; higher virtue than an honest Prudence, he could not then communi- cate; nor perhaps could they have received: such light, 25 such virtue, however, he did communicate. How to thread this labyrinthic Time, the fallen and falling Ruin of Times; to silence vain Scruples, hold firm to the last the fragments of old Behef, and with earnest eye still discern some glimpses of a true path, and go forward BOSWELL^S LIFE OF JOHNSON 1 37 thereon, "in a world where there is much to be done, and little to be known:" this is what Samuel Johnson, by act and word, taught his nation; what his nation re- ceived and learned of him, more than of any other. We can view him as the preserver and transmitter of whatso- 5 ever was genuine in the spirit of Toryism; which genuine spirit, it is now becoming manifest, must again embody itself in all new forms of Society, be what they may, that are to exist, and have continuance — elsewhere than on Paper. The last in many things, Johnson was the last 10 genuine Tory; the last of EngHshmen who, with strong voice and whoUy-beheving heart, preached the Doc- trine of Standing-still; who, without selfishness or slavish- ness, reverenced the existing Powers, and could assert the privileges of rank, though himself poor, neglected, 15 and plebeian; who had heart-devoutness with heart- hatred of cant, was orthodox-reHgious with his eyes open; and in all things and everywhere spoke out in plain English, from a soul wherein Jesuitism could find no harbor, and with the front and tone not of a diploma- 20 tist but of a man. The last of the Tories was Johnson: not Burke, as is often said; Burke was essentially a Whig, and only on reaching the verge of the chasm towards which Whig- gism from the first was inevitably leading, recoiled; and, 25 like a man vehement rather than earnest, a resplendent far-sighted Rhetorician rather than a deep, sure Thinker, recoiled with no measure, convulsively, and damaging what he drove back with him. In a world which exists by the balance of Antagonisms 30 138 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the respective merit of the Conservator and the Innova- tor must ever remain debatable. Great, in the mean- while, and undoubted for both sides, is the merit of him who, in a day of Change, walks wisely, honestly. John- 5 son's aim was in itself an impossible one: this of stem- ming the eternal Flood of Time; of clutching all things and anchoring them down, and saying. Move not! — how could it, or should it, ever have success? The strongest man can but retard the current partially and 10 for a short hour. Yet even in such shortest retardation, may not an inestimable value He? If England has es- caped the blood-bath of a French Revolution; and may yet, in virtue of this delay and of the experience it has given, work out her deliverance calmly into a new Era, IS let Samuel Johnson, beyond all contemporary or suc- ceeding men, have the praise for it. We said above that he was appointed to be Ruler of the British nation for a season: whoso will look beyond the surface, into the heart of the world's movements, may find that all Pitt 20 Aaministrations, and Continental Subsidies, and Water- loo victories rested on the possibility of making England, yet a little while, Toryish, Loyal to the Old; and this again on the anterior reality, that the Wise had found such Loyalty still practicable, and recommendable. 25 England had its Hume, as France had its Voltaires and Diderots; but the Johnson was pecuHar to us. If we ask now, by what endowment it mainly was that Johnson realized such a Life for himself and others; what quality of character the main phenomena of his BOSWELL's life of JOHNSON 139 Life may be most naturally deduced from, and his other qualities most naturally subordinated to in our concep- tion of him, perhaps the answer were: The quality of Courage, of Valor; that Johnson was a Brave Man. The Courage that can go forth, once and away, to Chalk- 5 Farm, and have itself shot, and snuffed out, with de- cency, is nowise wholly what we mean here. Such Courage we indeed esteem an exceeding small matter; capable of coexisting with a life full of falsehood, feeble- ness, poltroonery, and despicability. Nay oftener it is 10 Cowardice rather that produces the result: for consider, Is the Chalk-Farm Pistoleer inspired with any reason- able BeHef and Determination; or is he hounded on by haggard indefinable Fear, — how he will be cut at public places, and "plucked geese of the neighborhood" will 15 wag their tongues at him a plucked goose? If he go then, and be shot without shrieking or audible uproar, it is well for him: nevertheless there is nothing amazing in it. Courage to manage all this has not perhaps been denied to any man, or to any woman. Thus, do not re- 20 cruiting sergeants drum through the streets of manu- facturing towns, and collect ragged losels enough; every one of whom, if once dressed in red, and trained a little, will receive fire cheerfully for the small sum of one shilling per diem, and have the soul blown out of him at last, 25 with perfect propriety. The Courage that dares only die is on the whole no sublime affair; necessary indeed, yet universal; pitiful when it begins to parade itself. On this Globe of ours there are some thirty-six persons that manifest it, seldom with the smallest failure, dur- 30 I40 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ing every second of time. Nay, look at Newgate: do not the offscourings of Creation, when condemned to the gallows, as if they were not men but vermin, walk thither with decency, and even to the scowls and hootings of 5 the whole Universe, give their stern good-night in si- lence? What is to be undergone only once, we may undergo; what must be, comes almost of its own accord. Considered as Duellist, what a poor figure does the fiercest Irish Whiskerando make compared with any lo English Game-cock, such as you may buy for fifteen- pence! The Courage we desire and prize is not the Courage to die decently, but to live manfully. This, when by God's grace it has been given, Hes deep in the soul; 15 like genial heat, fosters all other virtues and gifts; with- out it they could not live. In spite of our innumerable Waterloos and Peterloos, and such campaigning as there has been, this Courage we allude to and call the only true one, is perhaps rarer in these last ages than it has 20 been in any other since the Saxon Invasion under Hen- gist. Altogether extinct it can never be among men; otherwise the species Man were no longer for this world: here and there, in all times, under various guises, men are sent hither not only to demonstrate but exhibit it, 25 and testify, as from heart to heart, that it is still possible, still practicable. Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as Man of Letters, was one of such; and, in good truth, "the bravest of the brave." What mortal could have more to war 30 with? Yet, as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not; BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 141 he fought, and even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. Whoso will understand what it is to have a man's heart may find that, since the time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore. Observe, too, that he never called 5 himself brave, never felt himself to be so; the more completely was so. No Giant Despair, no Golgotha- Death-dance or Sorcerer's-Sabbath of " Literary Life in London," appals this pilgrim; he works resolutely for deliverance; in still defiance steps stoutly along. The 10 thing that is given him to do, he can make himself do; what is to be endured, he can endure in silence. How the great soul of old Samuel, consuming daily his own bitter unalleviable allotment of misery and toil, shows beside the poor flimsy little soul of young Boswell; 15 one day flaunting in the ring of vanity, tarrying by the wine-cup and crying. Aha, the wine is red; the next day deploring his down-pressed, night-shaded, quite poor estate, and thinking it unkind that the whole movement of the Universe should go on, while his 20 digestive-apparatus had stopped! We reckon John- son's "talent of silence" to be among his great and too rare gifts. Where there is nothing farther to be done, there shall nothing farther be said: like his own poor blind Welshwoman, he accomplished somewhat, and 25 also "endured fifty years of wretchedness with unshaken fortitude." How grim was Life to him; a sick Prison- house and Doubting-castle! "His great business," he would profess, "was to escape from himself." Yet towards all this he has taken his position and resolution; 30 142 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE can dismiss it all "with frigid indifference, having little to hope or to fear." Friends are stupid, and pusillan- imous, and parsimonious; "wearied of his stay, yet offended at his departure:" it is the manner of the world. 5 "By popular delusion," remarks he with a gigantic calmness, "illiterate writers will rise into renown:" it is portion of the History of English literature; a perennial thing, this same popular delusion; and will — alter the character of the Language. 10 Closely connected with this quality of Valor, partly as springing from it, partly as protected by it, are the more recognizable qualities of Truthfulness in word and thought, and Honesty in action. There is a reci- procity of influence here : for as the realizing of Truthful- 15 ness and Honesty is the Life-light and great aim of Valor, so without Valor they cannot, in anywise, be realized. Now, in spite of all practical shortcomings, no one that sees into the significance of Johnson will say that his prime object was not Truth. In conversation, 20 doubtless, you may observe him, on occasion, fighting as if for victory; — and must pardon these ebulliences of a careless hour, which were not without temptation and provocation. Remark likewise two things: that such prize-arguings were ever on merely superficial debatable 25 questions; and then that they were argued generally by the fair laws of battle and logic-fence, by one cunning in that same. If their purpose was excusable, their effect was harmless, perhaps beneficial: that of taming noisy mediocrity, and showing it another side of a debatable 30 matter; to see both sides of which was, for the first time, BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 1 43 to see the Truth of it. In his Writings themselves, are errors enough, crabbed prepossessions enough; yet these also of a quite extraneous and accidental nature, no- where a willful shutting of the eyes to the Truth. Nay, is there not everywhere a heartfelt discernment, singular, 5 almost admirable, if we consider through what confused conflicting lights and hallucinations it had to be attained, of the highest everlasting Truth, and beginning of all Truths: this namely, that man is ever, and even in the age of Wilkes and Whitfield, a Revelation of God to 10 man; and lives, moves, and has his being in Truth only; is either true, or, in strict speech, is not at all ? Quite spotless, on the other hand, is Johnson's love of Truth, if we look at it as expressed in practice, as what we have named Honesty of action. "Clear your 15 mind of Cant;" clear it, throw Cant utterly away: such was his emphatic, repeated precept; and did not he him- self faithfully conform to it ? The Life of this man has been, as it were, turned inside out, and examined with microscopes by friend and foe; yet was there no Lie 20 found in him. His Doings and Writings are not shows but performances; you may weigh them in the balance, and they will stand weight. Not a line, not a sentence is dishonestly done, is other than it pretends to be. Alas! and he wrote not out of inward inspiration, but to earn 25 his wages: and with that grand perennial tide of "popular delusion" flowing by; in whose waters he nevertheless refused to fish, to whose rich oyster-beds the dive was too muddy for him. Observe, again, with what innate hatred of Cant, he takes for himself, and offers to others, 30 144 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the lowest possible view of his business, which he fol- lowed with such nobleness. Motive for writing he had none, as he often said, but money; and yet he wrote so. Into the region of Poetic Art he indeed never rose; there 5 was no ideal without him avowing itself in his work: the nobler was that unavowxd ideal which lay within him, and commanded saying, Work out thy Artisanship in the spirit of an Artist ! They who talk loudest about the dignity of Art, and fancy that they too are Artistic 10 guild-brethren, and of the Celestials, — let them consider well what manner of man this was, who felt himself to be only a hired day-laborer. A laborer that was worthy of his hire; that has labored not as an eye-servant, but as one found faithful! Neither was Johnson in those IS days perhaps wholly a unique. Time was when, for money, you might have ware: and needed not, in all de- partments, in that of the Epic Poem, in that of the Blacking-bottle, to rest content with the mere persuasion that you had ware. It was a happier time. But as yet 20 the seventh Apocalyptic Bladder (of Puffery) had not been rent open, — to whirl and grind, as in a West-Indian Tornado, all earthly trades and things into wreck, and dust, and consummation, — and regeneration. Be it quickly, since it must be! — 25 That mercy can dwell only with Valor, is an old sen- timent or proposition; which in Johnson again receives confirmation. Few men on record have had a more merciful, tenderly affectionate nature than old Samuel. He was called the Bear; and did indeed too often look,. 30 and roar, hke one; being forced to it in his own defense: BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 1 45 yet within that shaggy exterior of his there beat a heart warm as a mother's, soft as a Httle child's. Nay generally, his very roaring was but the anger of affection: the rage of a Bear, if you will; but of a Bear bereaved of her whelps. Touch his Religion, glance at the Church of 5 England, or the Divine Right; and he was upon you! These things were his Symbols of all that was good and precious for men; his very Ark of the Covenant: whoso laid hand on them tore asunder his heart of hearts. Not out of hatred to the opponent, but of love to the thing 10 opposed, did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contradictory: this is an important distinction; never to be forgotten in our censure of his conversational outrages. But ob- serve also with what humanity, what openness of love, he can attach himself to all things: to a blind old woman, 15 to a Doctor Levett, to a cat "Hodge." "His thoughts in the latter part of his life were frequently employed on his deceased friends; he often muttered these or such- like sentences: 'Poor man! and then he died.' " How he patiently converts his poor home into a Lazaretto; 20 endures, for long years, the contradiction of the miserable and unreasonable; with him unconnected, save that they had no other to yield them refuge! Generous old man! Worldly possession he has little; yet of this he gives freely; from his own hard-earned shilling, the halfpence 25 for the poor, that "waited his coming out," are not with- held: the poor "waited the coming out" of one not quite so poor! A Sterne can write sentimentalities on Dead Asses: Johnson has a rough voice; but he finds the wretched Daughter of Vice fallen down in the streets, 30 Prose — 10 146 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE carries her home on his own shoulders, and like a good Samaritan gives help to the help-needing, worthy or unworthy. Ought not Charity, even in that sense, to cover a multitude of Sins? No Penny-a-week Com- 5 mittee-Lady, no manager of Soup-kitchens, dancer at Charity-balls, was this rugged, stern-visaged man; but where, in all England, could there have been found another soul so full of Pity, a hand so heavenlike boun- teous as his? The widow's mite, we know, was greater 30 than all the other gifts. Perhaps it is this divine feehng of affection, through- out manifested, that principally attracts us towards Johnson. A true brother of men is he; and filial lover of the Earth; who, with little bright spots of Attach- 15 ment, "where lives and works some loved one," has beautified "this rough solitary earth into a peopled gar- den." Lichfield, with its mostly dull and limited in- habitants, is to the last one of the sunny islets for him: Salve magna parens! Or read those Letters on his 20 Mother's death: what a genuine solemn grief and pity lies recorded there; a looking back into the Past, un- speakably mournful, unspeakably tender. And yet calm, sublime; for he must now act, not look: his venerated Mother has been taken from him; but he must now write 25 a Rasselas to defray her funeral. Again, in this httle incident, recorded in his Book of Devotion, are not the tones of sacred Sorrow and Greatness deeper than in many a blank verse Tragedy; as, indeed, "the fifth act of a Tragedy" (though unrhymed) does "lie in every 30 death-bed, were it a peasant's, and of straw:" BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 147 "Sunday, October 18, 1767. Yesterday, at about ten in the morning, I took my leave forever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers, who came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but Httle parted from us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old. 5 " I desired all to withdraw ; then told her that we were to part forever; that as Christians, we should part with prayer; and that I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer beside her. She expressed great desire to hear me ; and held up her poor hands as she lay in bed, with great fervor, while I prayed kneeUng by 10 her. . . . '* I then kissed her. She told me that to part was the greatest pain she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet again in a better place. I expressed, with swelled eyes and great emo- tion of tenderness, the same hopes. We kissed and parted; I 15 humbly hope, to meet again, and to part no more." Tears trickling down the granite rock: a soft well of Pity springs within! Still more tragical is this other scene: "Johnson mentioned that he could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. * Once, 20 indeed,' said he, *I was disobedient: I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it is painful. A few years ago I desired to atone for this fault.' " — But by what method ? — What method was now possible ? 25 Hear it; the words are again given as his own, though here evidently by a less capable reporter: " Madam, I beg your pardon for the abruptness of my departure in the morning, but I was compelled to it by conscience. Fifty years ago, madam, on this day, I committed a breach of filial 30 piety. My father had been in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and opening a stall there for the sale of his Books. Con- fined by indisposition, he desired me, that day, to go and attend 148 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the stall in his place. My pride prevented me ; I gave my father a refusal. — And now to-day I have been to Uttoxeter ; I went into the market at the time of business, uncovered my head, and stood with it bare, for an hour, on the spot where my father's stall used 5 to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." Who does not figure to himself this spectacle, amid the "rainy weather, and the sneers," or wonder, "of the bystanders"? The memory of old Michael Johnson, 10 rising from the far distance; sad-beckoning in the " moon- light of memory:" how he had toiled faithfully hither and thither; patiently among the lowest of the low; been buffeted and beaten down, yet ever risen again, ever tried it anew — And oh! when the wearied old man, as 15 Bookseller, or Hawker, or Tinker, or whatsoever it was that Fate had reduced him to, begged help of thee for one day, — how savage, diabolic, was that mean Vanity, which answered, No! He sleeps now; after life's fitful fever, he sleeps: but thou, O Merciless, how now wilt 20 thou still the sting of that remembrance? — The picture of Samuel Johnson standing bareheaded in the market there, is one of the grandest and saddest we can paint. Repentance! Repentance! he proclaims, as with passion- ate sobs: but only to the ear of Heaven, if Heaven will 25 give him audience: the earthly ear and heart, that should have heard it, are now closed, unresponsive forever. That this so keen-loving, soft-trembling Affectionate- ness, the inmost essence of his being, must have looked forth, in one form or another, through Johnson's whole 30 character, practical and intellectual, modifying both, is BOS well's life of JOHNSON 1 49 not to be doubted. Yet through what singular distor- tions and superstitions, moping melanchoHes, blind habits, whims about "entering with the right foot," and "touching every post as he walked along:" and all the other mad chaotic lumber of a brain that, with sun- 5 clear intellect, hovered forever on the verge of insanity, — must that same inmost essence have looked forth; un- recognizable to all but the most observant! Accordingly it was not recognized; Johnson passed not for a fine nature, but for a dull, almost brutal one. Might not, 10 for example, the first-fruit of such a Lovingness, coupled with his quick Insight, have been expected to be a pe- culiarly courteous demeanor as man among men? In Johnson's "Politeness," which he often, to the wonder of some, asserted to be great, there was indeed some- 15 what that needed explanation. Nevertheless, if he in- sisted always on handing lady-visitors to their carriage; though with the certainty of collecting a mob of gazers in Fleet Street, — as might well be, the beau having on, by way of court dress, "his rusty brown morning suit, a 20 pair of old shoes for slippers, a little shriveled wig stick- ing on the top of his head, and the sleeves of his shirt and the knees of his breeches hanging loose:" — in all this we can see the spirit of true Politeness, only shining through a strange medium. Thus again, in his apart- 25 ments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs. "A gentleman who frequently visited him whilst writ- ing his Idlers, constantly found him at his desk, sitting on one with three legs; and on rising from it, he remarked that Johnson never forgot its defects; but would either 30 150 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE hold it in his hand, or place it with great composure against some support; taking no notice of its imperfec- tion to his visitor," — who meanwhile, we suppose, sat upon foHos, or in the sartorial fashion. "It was remark- 5 able in Johnson," continues Miss Reynolds {'' Renny dear'^), "that no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence. Whether this was the effect of philo- sophic pride, or of some partial notion of his respecting 10 high-breeding, is doubtful." That it was, for one thing, the effect of genuine Politeness, is nowise doubtful. Not of the Pharisaical Brummellean Politeness, which would suffer crucifixion rather than ask twice for soup: but the noble universal PoUteness of a man that knows the dig- 15 nity of men, and feels his own; such as may be seen in the patriarchal bearing of an Indian Sachem; such as Johnson himself exhibited, when a sudden chance brought him into dialogue with his king. To us, with our view of the man, it nowise appears "strange" that 20 he should have boasted himself cunning in the laws of politeness; nor "stranger still," habitually attentive to practice them. More legibly is this influence of the Loving heart to be traced in his intellectual character. What, indeed, 2$ is the beginning of intellect, the first inducement to the exercise thereof, but attraction towards somewhat, affec- tion for it? Thus, too, who ever saw, or will see, any true talent, not to speak of genius, the foundation of which is not goodness, love? From Johnson's strength 30 of Affection we deduce many of his intellectual peculiari- BOSWELL^S LIFE OF JOHNSON 151 ties; especially that threatening array of perversions, known under the name of ''Johnson's Prejudices." Looking well into the root from which these sprung, we have long ceased to view them with hostihty, can pardon and reverently pity them. Consider with what force 5 early-imbibed opinions must have clung to a soul of this Affection. Those evil-famed Prejudices of his, that Jacobitism, Church-of-Englandism, hatred of the Scotch, belief in Witches, and such like, what were they but the ordinary beliefs of well-doing, well-meaning provincial 10 Englishmen in that day? First gathered by his Father's hearth; round the kind "country fires," of native Stafford- shire; they grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength: they were hallowed by fondest sacred recollections; to part. with them was parting with his 15 heart's blood. If the man. who has no strength of Af- fection, strength of Belief, have no strength of Preju- dice, let him thank Heaven for it; but to himself take small thanks. Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble Johnson 20 could not work himself loose from these adhesions; that he could only purify them, and wear them with some nobleness. Yet let us understand how they grew out from the very center of his being: nay, moreover, how they came to cohere in him with what formed the busi- 25 ness and worth of his Life, the sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavor. For it is on the same ground that he became throughout an Edifier and Repairer, not, as the others of his make were, a Puller-down; that in an age of uni- versal Skepticism, England was still to produce its Be- 30 152 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE liever. Mark, too, his candor even here; while a Dr. Adams, with placid surprise, asks, "Have we not evi- dence enough of the soul's immortality?" Johnson answers, "I wish for more." 5 But the truth is, in Prejudice, as in all things, John- son was the product of England; one of those good yeo- men whose Hmbs were made in England: alas, the last of such Invincibles, their day being now done ! His cul- ture is wholly EngHsh; that not of a Thinker but of a 10 "Scholar:" his interests are wholly EngHsh; he sees and knows nothing but England; he is the John Bull of Spiritual Europe: let him Hve, love him, as he was and could not but be ! Pitiable it is, no doubt, that a Samuel Johnson must confute Hume's irrehgious Philosophy by 15 some "story from a Clergyman of the Bishoprick of Durham;" should see nothing in the great Frederick but "Voltaire's lackey;" in Voltaire himself but a man acerrimi ingenii, paucarum literarum; in Rousseau but one worthy to be hanged; and in the universal, long- 20 prepared, inevitable Tendency of European Thought but a green-sick milkmaid's crotchet of, for variety's sake, "milking the Bull." Our good, dear John! Ob- serve, too, what it is that he sees in the city of Paris: no feeblest glimpse of those D'Alemberts and Diderots, or 25 of the strange questionable work they did; solely some Benedictine Priests, to talk kitchen-latin with them about Editiones Principes . ' ' MonsJi eer Nongtong pa w! ' ' — Our dear, foolish John: yet is there a lion's heart within him! Pitiable all these things were, we say; yet nowise 30 inexcusable; nay, as basis or as foil to much else that was BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 1 53 in Johnson, almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed, to honor England, and English Institutions and Way of Life, that they could still equip such a man; could fur- nish him in heart and head to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love them, and unyieldingly fight for them? What 5 truth and living vigor must such Institutions once have had, when, in the middle of the Eighteenth century, there was still enough left in them for this! It is worthy of note that, in our Httle British isle, the two grand Antagonisms of Europe should have stood 10 embodied, under their very highest concentration, in two men produced simultaneously among ourselves. Samuel Johnson and David Hume, as was observed, were chil- dren nearly of the same year: through life they were spec- tators of the same Life-movement; often inhabitants of 15 the same city. Greater contrast, in all things, between two great men, could not be. Hume, well-born, com- petently provided for, whole in body and mind, of his own determination forces a way into Literature : Johnson, poor, moonstruck, diseased, forlorn, is forced into it 20 "with the bayonet of necessity at his back." And what a part did they severally play there ! As Johnson became the father of all succeeding Tories; so was Hume the father of all succeeding Whigs, for his own Jacobitism was but an accident, as worthy to be named prejudice as 25 any of Johnson's. Again, if Johnson's culture was ex- clusively EngHsh; Hume's in Scotland, became Euro- pean; — for which reason, too, we find his influence spread deeply over all quarters of Europe, traceable deeply in all speculation, French, German, as well as domestic; 30 154 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE while Johnson's name, out of England, is hardly any- where to be met with. In spiritual stature they are almost equal; both great, among the greatest; yet how unHke in likeness! Hume has the widest, methodiz- 5 ing, comprehensive eye; Johnson the keenest for per- spicacity and minute detail : so had, perhaps chiefly, their education ordered it. Neither of the two rose into Poetry; yet both to some approximation thereof: Hume to something of an epic clearness and method, as in his 10 delineation of the Commonwealth Wars; Johnson to many a deep lyric tone of plaintiveness and impetuous graceful power, scattered over his fugitive compositions. Both, rather to the general surprise, had a certain rugged humor shining through their earnestness: the indication, IS indeed, that they were earnest men, and had subdued their wild world into a kind of temporary home and safe dwelling. Both were, by principle and habit, Stoics: yet Johnson with the greater merit, for he alone had very much to triumph over; farther, he alone ennobled his 2o Stoicism into Devotion. To Johnson Life was as a Prison, to be endured with heroic faith; to Hume it was little more than a foolish Bartholomew-Fair Show-booth, with the foolish crowdings and elbowings of which it was not worth while to quarrel; the whole would break 25 up, and be at liberty, so soon. Both realized the highest task of manhood, that of living like men; each died not unfitly, in his way: Hume as one, with factitious, half- false gayety, taking leave of what was itself wholly but a Lie: Johnson as one, with awe-struck, yet resolute and 30 piously expectant heart, taking leave of a Reality, to BOSWELL's life of JOHNSON 1 55 enter a Reality still higher. Johnson had the harder problem of it, from first to last: whether, with some hesi- tation, we can admit that he was intrinsically the better- gifted, — may remain undecided. These two men now rest; the one in Westminster 5 Abbey here; the other in the Calton Hill Churchyard of Edinburgh. Through Life they did not meet: as con- trasts, "Uke in unlike," love each other; so might they two have loved, and communed kindly, — had not the terrestrial dross and darkness that was in them with- 10 stood! One day, their spirits, what Truth was in each, will be found working, living in harmony and free union, even here below. They were the two half-men of their time: whoso should combine the intrepid Candor and decisive scientific Clearness of Hume, with the Reverence, 15 the Love, and devout Humility of Johnson, were the whole man of a new time. Till such whole man arrive for us, and the distracted time admit of such, might the Heavens but bless poor England with half-men worthy to tie the shoe-latchets of these, resembling these even zo from afar! Be both attentively regarded, let the true Effort of both prosper; — and for the present, both take our affectionate farewell! THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY [Thomas Babington Macaulay was born in 1800 at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire. He was a child of remarkable precocity both in literature and in English composition. In 1 818 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he twice won first honors in the EngUsh prize-poem contest. In 1822 he was graduated and two years later was chosen a fellow of Trinity, when he began to devote himself to literature. For a short time he contributed articles to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. His famous essay on Milton appeared in 1825, in the Edinburgh Review, the great Whig periodical to which Macaulay was a prominent contributor for the next twenty years. In 1830 he entered Parliament and ardently shared in the reform movement. From 1834 to 1838 he was in India as a member of the Supreme Council. On his re- turn to England he again entered Parliament and for a time was active in public affairs. He was raised to the peerage in 1857. His Lays of Ancient Rome appeared in 1842, and the next year three volumes of Essays. The work to which Macaulay's later years were devoted was the History of England from the Accession of fames II. Two volumes were pubUshed in 1848, and two more in 1855. Volume five of the series was published posthumously. Macaulay died in 1859.] Macaulay never regarded himself as a critic of litera- ture in the special sense. He had not the mind of a critic, the judicial temper, the detachment, the serious, philosophical view of life. Nor had he a method of criticism, as Carlyle, Arnold, and Pater had. His am- bition as a writer and his greatest labor were given to his History, upon which he confidently invited the judg- ment of posterity. His essays, on the contrary, he wrote 156 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 1 57 with no thought of a generation beyond his own. "They are not expected to be highly finished," he said of them. "Their natural life is only six weeks." His attitude was always that of a reviewer; but Macaulay was not an ordi- nary reviewer because he was not a commonplace man. He possessed great gifts supported by a temperament that insured popularity. Together with an amazing range of reading, a magical memory, and great industry, he had a sterling, robust character, manly common sense, and limitless confidence in his own opinions and powers. These characteristics found expression in a style of in- comparable effectiveness, if style be regarded as a me- dium of immediate appeal. Essays, therefore, which were thought of as fugitive, have survived to the present time with scarcely diminished vitality. The essay on Byron is typical of Macaulay's method of dealing with a literary subject. The obvious, super- ficial aspects of Byron and his poetry are presented, — aspects which indeed are not the less true because they are apparent. It is the authentic Byronic portrait as it was imagined by the British public of Macaulay's day. There is no effort to see below the surface, to interrogate causes, to reach final estimates according to the ideals of serious criticism. Macaulay's manner is dogmatic. It is the manner of the school of Jeffrey, who magisterially decided things literary in terms of his own taste and temperament. When Macaulay discusses an author or his work, he generally begins with an a priori dictum to which his facts must apply. This is the method in the Milton, the earliest of his literary essays; and it is the method also in the Leigh Hunt, and the Madame D^ArUay which are among the last. Byron's Hfe is presented on the basis that it "was a strange union of opposite extremes"; while his poetry is examined from the proposition that "he never wrote without some reference, direct or in- 158 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE direct, to himself." Such a method has obvious merits. It is direct, positive, unequivocal; it leaves the reader with clear, easily remembered impressions; in matters of judgment and taste it decides upon a basis of reason and common sense. But it has also obvious defects. It deals in half-truths and leads to assertions that require quali- fication; it treats in an analytic, sweeping fashion sub- jects that demand careful sifting and judicious handling. Macaulay's attention to broad effects and neglect of nice distinctions are nowhere more marked than in his style. For this reason its special qualities do not appear in the diction, which is indifferent to elusive connotations. One seldom finds in his essays the eclectic word as in Pater, or the luminous phrase as in Carlyle. It is in sentence structure, manner of grouping and accumulat- ing details, and in swift, bold movement that Macaulay's distinction as a stylist is to be found. The frequency of the balanced and parallel forms in phrase, sentence, or paragraph, indicates the shape in which he saw his material. Mention of a name or a quality suggested to Macaulay scores of comparisons and contrasts. "Let me give a few instances," he says: "Every school boy knows," — and thereupon he floods his page with instance upon instance. This manner when carried to excess suffers from hardness, monotony,^ and over-emphasis. Nevertheless Macaulay's style, even in his essays where it is most exposed to censure, is rarely ineffective, because it always contains the vitalizing virtues of clearness, force, and sincerity. Though his thought is never deep, it is never turbid; and in all his life he never wBote a languid or an insincere sentence. This is why his style has won for him a popularity as a serious writer unsurpassed in his own or in later generations. LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 59 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON We have read this book with the greatest pleasure. Considered merely as a composition, it deserves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose which our age has produced. It contains, indeed, no single passage equal to two or three which we could select from 5 the Life of Sheridan. But, as a whole, it is immeasurably superior to that work. The style is agreeable, clear, and manly, and when it rises into eloquence, rises without effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior to the manner. It would be difficult to name a book which ex- 10 hibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has evi- dently been written, not for the purpose of showing, what, however, it often shows, how well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who can no 15 longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts him- self between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject absolutely required. A great part, indeed the greater part, of these volumes 20 consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement. We will not say that we have not occasionally remarked in these two large quartos an anecdote which should have 25 been omitted, a letter which should have been suppressed, a name which should have been concealed by asterisks, l6o NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE or asterisks which do not answer the purpose of conceal- ing the name. But it is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task has been executed with great judg- ment and great humanity. When we consider the Hfe 5 which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to ex- hibit so much of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the living. 10 The extracts from the journals and correspondence of Lord Byron are in the highest degree valuable, not merely on account of the information which they contain re- specting the distinguished man by whom they were written, but on account also of their rare merit as com- 15 positions. The Letters, at least those which were sent from Italy, are among the best in our language. They are less affected than those of Pope and Walpole; they have more matter in them than those of Cowper. Know- ing that many of them were not written merely for the 20 person to whom they were directed, but were general epistles, meant to be read by a large circle, we expected to find them clever and spirited, but deficient in ease. We looked with vigilance for instances of stiffness in the language and awkardness in the transitions. We have 25 been agreeably disappointed; and we must confess that, if the epistolary style of Lord Byron was artificial, it was a rare and admirable instance of that highest art which cannot be distinguished from nature. Of the deep and painful interest w^hich this book ex- 30 cites no abstract can give a just notion. So sad and dark LIFE or LORD BYRON l6l a story is scarcely to be found in any work of fiction; and we are little disposed to envy the moralist who can read it without being softened. The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans il- lustrated the character of her son the Regent rnight, with 5 little change, be applied to Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidden to his cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse 10 what her sisters had done for their favorite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in 15 every one of those eminent advantages which he pos- sessed over others was mingled something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient in- deed and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies which had attained a scan- 20 dalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows. The young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and feeling heart: but his 25 temper was wayward and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked. Dis- tinguished at once by the strength and by the weakness of his intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, 30 Prose — II 1 62 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE and a handsome cripple, he required, if ever man re- quired, the firmest and the most judicious training. But, capriciously as nature had dealt with him, the parent to whom the office of forming his character was intrusted 5 was more capricious still. She passed from paroxysms of rage to paroxysms of tenderness. At one time she stifled him with her caresses: at another time she in- sulted his deformity. He came into the world; and the world treated him as his mother had treated him, some- lo times with fondness, sometimes with cruelty, never with justice. It indulged him without discrimination, and punished him without discrimination. He was truly a spoiled child, not merely the spoiled child of his parent, but the spoiled child of nature, the spoiled child of for- 15 tune, the spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of society. His first poems were received with a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely de- serve. The poem which he published on his return from his travels was, on the other hand, extolled far above 20 its merit. At twenty-four he found himself on the highest pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers be- neath his feet. There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence. 25 Everything that could stimulate, and everything that could gratify the strongest propensities of our nature, the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole nation, the applause of applauded men, the love of lovely women, all this world and the glory of it 30 were at once offered to a youth to whom nature had LIFE or LORD BYRON 1 63 given violent passions, and to whom education had never taught to control them. He lived as many men live who have no similar excuse to plead for their faults. But his countrymen and his countrywomen would love him and admire him. They were resolved to see in his excesses 5 only the flash and outbreak of that same fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He attacked religion; yet in rehgious circles his name was mentioned with fond- ness, and in many rehgious publications his works were censured with singular tenderness. He lampooned the 10 Prince Regent; yet he could not alienate the Tories. Everything, it seemed, was to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius. Then came the reaction. Society, capricious in its indignation as it had been capricious in its fondness, flew 1 5 into a rage with its forward and petted darling. He had been worshiped with an irrational idolatry. He was persecuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about those unhappy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his Hfe. Yet nothing is, nothing ever 20 was, positively known to the pubhc, but this, that he quarreled with his lady, and that she refused to live with him. There have been hints in abundance, and shrugs and shakings of the head, and "Well, well, we know," and "We could an if we would," and "If we 25 list to speak," and "There be that might an they Hst." But we are not aware that there is before the world sub- stantiated by credible, or even by tangible evidence, a single fact indicating that Lord Byron was more to blame than any other man who is on bad terms with his wife. 30 164 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE The professional men whom Lady Byron consulted were undoubtedly of opinion that she ought not to live with her husband. But it is to be remembered that they formed that opinion without hearing both sides. We 5 do not say, we do not mean to insinuate, that Lady Byron was in any respect to blame. We think that those who condemn her on the evidence which is now before the public are as rash as those who condemn her husband. We will not pronounce any judgment, we 10 cannot, even in our own minds, form any judgment, on a transaction which is so imperfectly known to us. It would have been well if, at the time of the separation, all those who knew as little about the matter then as we know about it now had shown the forbearance which, 15 under such circumstances, is but common justice. We know no spectacle so ridicuous as the British pub- lic in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a 20 day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic 25 ties. Accordingly some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offenses have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is 30 cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 65 is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals established in 5 England with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger is satiated. Our victim is ruined and broken-hearted. And our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years more. It is clear that those vices which destroy domestic hap- piness ought to be as much as possible repressed. It is 10 equally clear that they cannot be repressed by penal legis- lation. It is therefore right and desirable that public opinion should be directed against them. But it should be directed against them uniformly, steadily, and tem- perately, not by sudden fits and starts. There should 15 be one weight and one measure. Decimation is always an objectionable mode of punishment. It is the resource of judges too indolent and hasty to investigate facts and to discriminate nicely between shades of guilt. It is an irrational practice, even when adopted by military 20 tribunals. When adopted by the tribunal of public opinion, it is infinitely more irrational. It is good that a certain portion of disgrace should constantly attend " on certain bad actions. But it is not good that the offenders should merely have to stand the risks of a 25 lottery of infamy, that ninety-nine out of every hundred should escape, and that the hundredth, perhaps the most innocent of the hundred, should pay for all. We re- member to have seen a mob assembled in Lincoln's Inn to hoot a gentleman against whom the most oppres- 30 1 66 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sive proceeding known to the English law was then in progress. He was hooted because he had been an un- faithful husband, as if some of the most popular men of the age, Lord Nelson for example, had not been un- 5 faithful husbands. We remember a still stronger case. Will posterity believe that, in an age in which men whose gallantries were universally known, and had been legally proved, filled some of the highest offices in the state and in the army, presided at the meetings of religious 10 and benevolent institutions, were the delight of every society, and the favorites of the multitude, a crowd of moralists went to the theater, in order to pelt a poor actor for disturbing the conjugal felicity of an alderman? What there was in the circumstances either of the of- 15 fender or of the sufferer to vindicate the zeal of the audience, we could never conceive. It has never been supposed that the situation of an actor is peculiarly favorable to the rigid virtues, or that an alderman enjoys any special immunity from injuries such as that which 20 on this occasion roused the anger of the public. But such is the justice of mankind. In these cases the punishments was excessive; but the offense was known and proved. The case of Lord By- ron was harder. True Jedwood justice was dealt out to 25 him. First came the execution, then the investigation, and last of all, or rather not at all, the accusation. The public, without knowing anything whatever about the transactions in his family, flew into a violent passion with him, and proceeded to invent stories which might 30 justify its anger. Ten or twenty different accounts of the LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 67 separation, inconsistent with each other, with them- selves, and with common sense, circulated at the same time. What evidence there might be for any one of these, the virtuous people who repeated them neither knew nor cared. For in fact these stories were not the causes, but 5 the effects of the public indignation. They resembled those loathsome slanders which Lewis Goldsmith, and other abject libelers of the same class, were in the habit of publishing about Bonaparte; such as that he poisoned a girl with arsenic when he was at the military school, 10 that he hired a grenadier to shoot Dessaix at Marengo, that he filled St. Cloud with all the pollutions of Capreae. There was a time when anecdotes like these obtained some credence from persons who, hating the French emperor without knowing why, were eager to believe any- 15 thing which might justify their hatred. Lord Byron fared in the same way. His countrymen were in a bad humor with him. His writings and his character had lost the charm of novelty. He had been guilty of the offense which, of all offenses, is punished most severely; 20 he had been over- praised; he had excited too warm an interest; and the public, with its usual justice, chastised him for its own folly. The attachments of the multitude bear no small resemblance to those of the wanton en- chantress in the Arabian Tales, who, when the forty 25 days of her fondness were over, was not content with dismissing her lovers, but condemned them to expiate, in loathsome shapes and under cruel penances, the crime of having once pleased her too well. The obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as 30 1 68 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE might well have shaken a more constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lampoons. The theaters shook with execrations. He was excluded from circles where he had lately been the observed of all observers. 5 All those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures hastened to their repast; and they were right; they did after their kind. It is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies of such a spirit, and the degradation of such a name. 10 The unhappy man left his country for ever. The howl of contumely followed him across the sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps; it gradually waxed fainter; it died away; those who had raised it began to ask each other, what, after all, was the matter about which they had been so 15 clamorous, and wished to invite back the criminal whom they had just chased from them. His poetry became more popular than it had ever been; and his complaints were read with tears by thousands and tens of thousands who had never seen his face. 20 He had fixed his home on the shores of the Adriatic, in the most picturesque and interesting of cities, beneath the brightest of skies and by the brightest of seas. Cen- soriousness was not the vice of the neighbors whom he had chosen. They were a race corrupted by a bad 25 government and a bad religion, long renowned for skill in the arts of voluptuousness, and tolerant of all the caprices of sensuality. From the public opinion of the country of his adoption, he had nothing to dread. With the pubhc opinion of the country of his birth he was at 30 open war. He plunged into wild and desperate excesses. LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 69 ennobled by no generous or tender sentiment. From his Venetian harem he sent forth volume after volume, full of eloquence, of wit, of pathos, of ribaldry, and of bitter disdain. His health sank under the effects of his in- temperance. His hair turned gray. His food ceased 5 to nourish him. A hectic fever withered him up. It seemed that his body and mind were about to perish to- gether. From this wretched degradation he was in some measure rescued by a connection, culpable indeed, yet 10 such as, if it were judged by the standard of morahty established in the country where he lived, might be called virtuous. But an imagination polluted by vice, a temper embittered by misfortune, and a frame habituated to the fatal excitement of intoxication, prevented him from 15 fully enjoying the happiness which he might have de- rived from the purest and most tranquil of his many attachments. Midnight draughts of ardent spirits and Rhenish wines had begun to work the ruin of his fine intellect. His verse lost much of the energy and con- 20 densation which had distinguished it. But he would not resign, without a struggle, the empire which he had ex- ercised over the men of his generation. A new dream of ambition arose before him; to be the chief of a literary party; to be the great mover of an intellectual revolu- 25 tion; to guide the public mind of England from his Italian retreat, as Voltaire had guided the public mind of France from the villa of Ferney. With this hope, as it should seem, he established the Liberal. But, power- fully as he had affected the imaginations of his contem- 30 170 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE poraries, he mistook his own powers if he hoped to direct their opinions; and he still more grossly mistook his own disposition, if he thought that he could long act in con- cert with other men of letters. The plan failed, and 5 failed ignominiously. Angry with himself, angry with his coadjutors, he reHnquished it, and turned to another project, the last and noblest of his life. A nation, once the first among the nations, preeminent in knowledge, preeminent in military glory, the cradle 10 of philosophy, of eloquence, and of the fine arts, had been for ages bowed down under a cruel yoke. All the vices which oppression generates, the abject vices which it generates in those who submit to it, the ferocious vices which it generates in those who struggle against it, had 15 deformed the character of that miserable race. The valor which had won the great battle of human civiliza- tion, which had saved Europe, which had subjugated Asia, lingered only among pirates and robbers. The ingenuity, once so conspicuously displayed in every de- 20 partment of physical and moral science, had been de- praved into a timid and servile cunning. On a sudden this degraded people had risen on their oppressors. Discountenanced or betrayed by the surrounding poten- tates, they had found in themselves something of that 25 which might well supply the place of all foreign assist- ance, something of the energy of their fathers. As a man of letters. Lord Byron could not but be inter- ested in the event of this contest. His political opinions, though, like all his opinions, unsettled, leaned strongly 30 towards the side of liberty. He had assisted the Itahan LIFE OF LORD BYRON 171 insurgents with his purse, and if their struggle against the Austrian government had been prolonged, would prob- ably have assisted them with his sword. But to Greece he was attached by peculiar ties. He had when young resided in that country. Much of his most splendid and 5 popular poetry had been inspired by its scenery and by its history. Sick of inaction, degraded in his own eyes by his private vices and by his Hterary failures, pining for untried excitement and honorable distinction, he carried his exhausted body and his wounded spirit to 10 the Grecian camp. His conduct in his new situation showed so much vigor and good sense as to justify us in believing that, if his life had been prolonged, he might have distinguished himself as a soldier and a poHtician. But pleasure and 15 sorrow had done the work of seventy years upon his delicate frame. The hand of death was upon him; he knew it; and the only wish which he uttered was that he might die sword in hand. This was denied to him. Anxiety, exertion, exposure, 20 and those fatal stimulants which had become indispen- sable to him, soon stretched him on a sick bed, in a strange land, amidst strange faces, without one human being that he loved near him. There, at thirty-six, the most celebated EngHshman of the nineteenth century 25 closed his briUiant and miserable career. We cannot even now retrace those events without feel- ing something of what was felt by the nation, when it was first known that the grave had closed over so much sorrow and so much glory; something of what was felt 30 172 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE by those who saw the hearse, with its long train of coaches, turn slowly northward, leaving behind it that cemetery which had been consecrated by the dust of so many great poets, but of which the doors were closed 5 against all that remained of Byron. We well remember on that day, rigid moralists could not refrain from weep- ing for one so young, so illustrious, so unhappy, gifted with such rare gifts, and tried by such strong tempta- tions. It is unnecessary to make any reflections. The lo history carries its moral with it. Our age has indeed been fruitful of warnings to the eminent, and of conso- lations to the obscure. Two men have died within our recollection, who, at a time of life at which many people have hardly completed their education, had raised 15 themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One of them died at Longwood; the other at Missolonghi. It is always difficult to separate the literary character of a man who lives in our own time from his personal char- 20 acter. It is peculiarly difficult to make this separation in the case of Lord Byron. For it is scarcely too much to say, that Lord Byron never wrote without some ref- erence, direct or indirect, to himself. The interest ex- cited by the events of his life mingles itself in our minds, 25 and probably in the minds of almost all our readers, with the interest which properly belongs to his works. A generation must pass away before it will be possible to form a fair judgment of his books, considered merely as books. At present they are not merely books, but 30" relics. We will, however, venture, though with un- LIFE or LORD BYRON 1 73 feigned diffidence, to offer some desultory remarks on his poetry. His lot was cast in the time of a great literary revolu- tion. That poetical dynasty which had dethroned the successors of Shakespeare and Spenser was, in its turn, 5 dethroned by a race who represented themselves as heirs of the ancient line, so long dispossessed by usurpers. The real nature of this revolution has not, we think, been comprehended by the great majority of those who concurred in it. 10 Wherein especially does the poetry of our times differ from that of the last century? Ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would answer that the poetry of the last century was correct, but cold and mechanical, and that the poetry of our time, though wild and irregular, pre- 15 sented far more vivid images, and excited the passions far more strongly than that of Parnell, of Addison, or of Pope. In the same manner we constantly hear it said, that the poets of the age of Elizabeth had far more genius, but far less correctness than those of the age of 20 Anne. It seems to be taken for granted, that there is some incompatibility, some antithesis between correct- ness and creative power. We rather suspect that this notion arises merely from an abuse of words, and that it has been the parent of many of the fallacies which 25 perplex the science of criticism. What is meant by correctness in poetry? If by cor- rectness be meant the conforming to rules which have their foundation in truth and in the principles of human nature, then correctness is only another name for ex- 30 174 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE cellence. If by correctness be meant the conforming to rules purely arbitrary, correctness may be'another name for dullness and absurdity. A writer who describes visible objects falsely and vio- 5 lates the propriety of character, a writer who makes the mountains "nod their drowsy heads" at night, or a dying man take leave of the world with a rant like that of Maximin, may be said in the high and just sense of the phrase, to write incorrectly. He violates the first great 10 law of his art. His imitation is altogether unHke the thing imitated. The four poets who are most eminently free from incorrectness of this description are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. They are, therefore, in one sense, and that the best sense, the most correct of IS poets. When it is said that Virgil, though he had less genius than Homer, was a more correct writer, what sense is attached to the word correctness? Is it meant that the story of the jEneid is developed more skillfully than that 2o of the Odyssey ? that the Roman describes the face of the external world, or the emotions of the mind, more accurately than the Greek ? that the characters of Achates and Mnestheus are more nicely discriminated, and more consistently supported, than those of Achilles, of Nestor, 25 and of Ulysses? The fact incontestably is that, for every violation of the fundamental laws of poetry which can be found in Homer, it would be easy to find twenty in Virgil. Troilus and Cressida is perhaps of all the plays of 30 Shakespeare that which is commonly considered as the LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 75 most incorrect. Yet it seems to us infinitely more cor- rect, in the sound sense of the term, than what are called the most correct plays of the most correct dramatists. Compare it, for example, with the Iphigenie of Racine. We are sure that the Greeks of Shakespeare bear a far 5 greater resemblance than the Greeks of Racine to the real Greeks who besieged Troy; and for this reason, that the Greeks of Shakespeare are human beings, and the Greeks of Racine mere names, mere words printed in capitals at the head of paragraphs of declamation. Ra- 10 cine, it is true, would have shuddered at the thought of making a warrior at the siege of Troy quote Aristotle. But of what use is it to avoid a single anachronism, when the whole play is one anachronism, the sentiments and phrases of Versailles in the camp of Aulis? 15 In the sense in which we are now using the word correctness, we think that Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Words- worth, Mr. Coleridge, are far more correct poets than those who are commonly extolled as the models of cor- rectness. Pope, for example, and Addison. The single 20 description of a moonlight night in Pope's Iliad con- tains more inaccuracies than can be found in all the Excursion. There is not a single scene in Cato, in which all that conduces to poetical illusion, all the propriety of character, of language, of situation, is not more grossly 25 violated than in any part of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. No man can possibly think that the Romans of Addison resemble the real Romans so closely as the moss-troopers of Scott resemble the real moss-troopers. Wat Tinlinn and William of Deloraine are not, it is true, persons of 30 176 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE so much dignity as Cato. But the dignity of the persons represented has as Httle to do with the correctness of poetry as with the correctness of painting. We prefer a gypsy by Reynolds to his Majesty's head on a sign- 5 post, and a Borderer by Scott to a Senator by Addison. In what sense, then, is the word correctness used by those who say, with the author of the Pursuits oj Lit- erature, that Pope was the most correct of EngHsh Poets, and that next to Pope came the late Mr. Giff ord ? 10 What is the nature and value of that correctness, the praise of which is denied to Macbeth, to Lear, and to Othello, and given to Hoole's translations and to all the Seatonian prize poems? We can discover no eter- nal rule, no rule founded in reason and in the nature of 15 things, which Shakespeare does not observe much more strictly than Pope. But if by correctness be meant the conforming to a narrow legislation which, while lenient to the mala in se, multiphes, without the shadow of a reason, the mala prohibita, if by correctness be meant 20 a strict attention to certain ceremonious observances, which are no more essential to poetry than etiquette to good government, or than the washings of a Pharisee to devotion, then, assuredly. Pope may be a more cor- rect poet than Shakespeare; and, if the code were a 25 little altered, Colley Gibber might be a more correct poet than Pope. But it may well be doubted whether this kind of correctness be a merit, nay, whether it be not an absolute fault. It would be amusing to make a digest of the irrational 30 laws which bad critics have framed for the government LIFE or LORD BYRON 1 77 of poets. First in celebrity and in absurdity stand the dramatic unities of place and time. No human being has ever been able to find anything that could, even by courtesy, be called an argument for these unities, ex- cept that they have been deduced from the general prac- 5 tice of the Greeks. It requires no very profound ex- amination to discover that the Greek dramas, often admirable as compositions, are, as exhibitions of human character and human life, far inferior to the English plays of the age of Elizabeth. Every scholar knows 10 that the dramatic part of the Athenian tragedies was at first suborbinate to the lyrical part. It would, there- fore, have been little less than a miracle if the laws of the Athenian stage had been found to suit plays in which there was no chorus. All the greatest masterpieces of ^5 the dramatic art have been composed in the direct vio- lation of the unities, and could never have been com- posed if the unities had not been violated. It is clear, for example, that such a character as that of Hamlet could never have been developed within the limits to 20 which Alfieri confined himself. Yet such was the rev- erence of literary men during the last century for these unities that Johnson, who, much to his honor, took the opposite side, was, as he says, "frightened at his own temerity," and "afraid to stand against the authorities 25 which might be produced against him." There are other rules of the same kind without end. "Shakespeare," says Rymer, "ought not to have made Othello black; for the hero of a tragedy ought always to be white." "Milton," says another critic, "ought 30 Prose — 1 2 lyo NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE not to have taken Adam for his hero; for the hero of an epic poem ought always to be victorious." "Milton," says another, "ought not to have put so many similes into his first book; for the first book of an epic poem 5 ought always to be the most unadorned. There are no similes in the first book of the Iliad.^' "Milton," says another, " ought not to have placed in an epic poem such lines as these: — " ' While thus I called, and strayed I knew not whither.'" 10 And why not ? The critic is ready with a reason, a lady's reason. "Such lines," says he, "are not, it must be al- lowed, unpleasing to the ear; but the redundant syllable ought to be confined to the drama, and not admitted into epic poetry." As to the redundant syllable in heroic 15 rhyme on serious subjects, it has been, from the time of Pope downward, proscribed by the general consent of all the correct school. No magazine would have ad- mitted so incorrect a couplet as that of Drayton: "As when we lived untouch'd ^vith these disgraces 20 When as our kingdom was our dear embraces." Another law of heroic rhyme, which, fifty years ago, was considered as fundamental, was, that there should be a pause, a comma at least, at the end of every couplet. It was also provided that there should never be a full 25 stop except at the end of a line. Well do we remember to have heard a most correct judge of poetry revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness of that most sweet and graceful passage, LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 79 " Such grief was ours, — it seems but yesterday, — When in thy prime, wishing so much to stay, 'Twas thine, Maria, thine without a sigh At midnight in a sister's arms to die. Oh thou wert lovely; lovely was thy frame, 5 And pure thy spirit as from heaven it came ; And when recalled to join the blest above Thou diedst a victim to exceeding love, Nursing the young to health. In happier hours, When idle Fancy wove luxuriant flowers, lo Once in thy mirth thou badst me write on thee; And now I write what thou shalt never see." Sir Roger Newdigate is fairly entitled, we think, to be ranked among the great critics of this school. He made a law that none of the poems written for the prize which 15 he established at Oxford should exceed fifty lines. This law seems to us to have at least as much foundation in reason as any of those which we have mentioned; nay, much more, for the world, we believe, is pretty well agreed in thinking that the shorter a prize poem is, the 20 better. We do not see why we should not make a few more rules of the same kind; why we should not enact that the number of scenes in every act shall be three or some multiple of three, that the number of lines in every 25 scene shall be an exact square, that the dramatis per- sona; shall never be more or fewer than sixteen, and that, in heroic rhymes, every thirty-sixth line shall have twelve syllables. If we were to lay down these canons, and to call Pope, Goldsmith, and Addison incorrect 30 writers for not having complied with our whims, we l8o NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE should act precisely as those critics act who find incor- rectness in the magnificent imagery and the varied music of Coleridge and Shelley. The correctness which the last century prized so much 5 resembles the correctness of those pictures of the garden of Eden which we see in old Bibles. We have an exact square, inclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, each with a convenient bridge in the center, rectangular beds of flowers, a long canal, neatly lo bricked and railed in, the tree of knowledge, clipped hke one of the Hmes behind the Tuileries, standing in the center of the grand alley, the snake twined round it, the man on the right hand, the woman on the left, and the beasts drawn up in an exact circle round them. In 15 one sense the picture is correct enough. That is to say, the squares are correct; the circles are correct; the man and the woman are in a most correct line with the tree; and the snake forms a most correct spiral. But if there were a painter so gifted that he could 20 place on the canvas that glorious paradise, seen by the interior eye of him whose outward sight had failed with long watching and laboring for hberty and truth, if there were a painter who could set before us the mazes of the sapphire brook, the lake with its fringe of myrtles, 25 the flowery meadows, the grottoes overhung by vines, the forests shining with Hesperian fruit and with the plumage of gorgeous birds, the massy shade of that nuptial bower which showered down roses on the sleep- ing lovers, what should we think of a connoisseur who 30 should tell us that this painting, though finer than the LIFE OF LORD BYRON l8l absurd picture in the old Bible, was not so correct? Surely we should answer, It is both finer and more cor- rect; and it is finer because it is more correct. It is not made up of correctly drawn diagrams; but it is a correct painting, a worthy representation of that which it is 5 intended to represent. It is not in the fine arts alone that this false correctness is prized by narrow-minded men, by men who cannot distinguish means from ends, or what is accidental from what is essential. M. Jourdain admired correctness in 10 fencing. "You had no business to hit me then. You must never thrust in quart till you have thrust in tierce." M. Tomes liked correctness in medical practice. "I stand up for Artemius. That he killed his patient is plain enough. But still he acted quite according to rule. 15 A man dead is a man dead; and there is an end of the matter. But if rules are to be broken, there is no say- ing what consequences may follow." We have heard of an old German officer, who was a great admirer of correctness in military operations. He used to revile 20 Bonaparte for spoiling the science of war, which had been carried to such exquisite perfection by Marshal Daun. "In my youth we used to march and counter- march all the summer without gaining or losing a square league, and then we went into winter quarters. And 25 now comes an ignorant, hot-headed young man, who flies about from Bologne to Ulm, and from Ulm to the middle of Moravia, and fights battles in December. The whole system of his tactics is monstrously incorrect." The world is of opinion, in spite of critics like these, 30 152 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE that the end of fencing is to hit, that the end of medi- cine is to cure, that the end of war is to conquer, and that those means are the most correct which best ac- compKsh the ends. 5 And has poetry no end, no eternal and immutable prin- ciples ? Is poetry like heraldry, mere matter of arbitrary regulation ? The heralds tell us that certain scutcheons and bearings denote certain conditions, and that to put colors on colors, or metals on metals, is false blazonry. 10 If all this were reversed, if every coat of arms in Europe were new fashioned, if it were decreed that or should never be placed but on argent^ or argent but on or, that illegitimacy should be denoted by a lozenge, and widow- hood by a hend, the new science would be just as good 15 as the old science, because both the new and old would be good for nothing. The mummery of Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, as it has no other value than that which caprice has assigned to it, may well submit to any laws which caprice may impose upon it. But it is not so 20 with that great imitative art, to the power of which all ages, the rudest and the most enlightened, bear witness. Since its first great masterpieces were produced, every- thing that is changeable in this world has been changed. Civilization has been gained, lost, gained again. Reli- 25 gions, the languages, and forms of government, and usages of private life, and modes of thinking, all have under- gone a succession of revolutions. Everything has passed away but the great features of nature, and the heart of man, and the miracles of that art which it is the office 30 to reflect back the heart of man and the features of na- LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 83 ture. Those two strange old poems, the wonder of ninety generations, still retain all their freshness. They still command the veneration of minds enriched by the Uterature of many nations and ages. They are still, even in wretched translations, the delight of school- 5 boys. Having survived ten thousand capricious fashions, having seen successive codes of criticism become obso- lete, they still remain to us, immortal with the immor- tality of truth, the same when pursued in the study of an English scholar, as when they were first chanted at 10 the banquets of the Ionian princes. Poetry is, as was said more than two thousand years ago, imitation. It is an art analogous in many respects to the art of painting, sculpture, and acting. The imi- tations of the painter, the sculptor, and the actor, are 15 indeed, within certain limits, more perfect than those of the poet. The machinery which the poet employs consists merely of words, and words cannot, even when employed by such an artist as Homer or Dante, present to the mind images of visible objects quite so lively and 20 exact as those which we carry away from looking on the works of the brush and the chisel. But, on the other hand, the range of poetry is infinitely wider than that of any other imitative art, or than that of all the other imitative arts together. The sculptor can imitate only 25 form; the painter only form and color; the actor, until the poet supphes him with words, only form, color, and motion. Poetry holds the outer world in common with the other arts. The heart of man is the province of poetry, and of poetry alone. The painter, the sculptor, 30 184 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE and the actor can exhibit no more of human passion and character than that small portion which overflows into the gesture and the face, always an imperfect, often a deceitful sign of that which is within. The deeper and 5 more complex parts of human nature can be exhibited by means of words alone. Thus the objects of the imi- tation of poetry are the whole external and the whole internal universe, the face of nature, the vicissitudes of fortune, man as he is in himself, man as he appears in 10 society, all things which really exist, all things of which we can form an image in our minds by combining to- gether parts of things which really exist. The domain of this imperial art is commensurate with the imagi- native faculty. 15 An art essentially imitative ought not surely to be sub- jected to rules which tend to make its imitations less per- fect than they otherwise would be; and those who obey such rules ought to be called, not correct, but incorrect artists. The true way to judge of the rules by which 20 English poetry was governed during the last century is to look at the effects which they produced. It was in 1780 that Johnson completed his Lives oj the Poets. He tells us in that work that, since the time of Dryden, English poetry had shown no tendency to 25 relapse into its original savageness, that its language had been refined, its numbers tuned, and its sentiments im- proved. It may perhaps be doubted whether the na- tion had any great reason to exult in the refinements and improvements which gave it Douglas for Othello^ and 30 the Triumphs of Temper for the Fairy Queen. LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 85 It was during the thirty years which preceded the ap- pearance of Johnson's Lives that the diction and ver- sification of EngHsh poetry were, in the sense in which the word is commonly used, most correct. Those thirty years are, as respects poetry, the most deplorable part 5 of our literary history. They have indeed bequeathed to us scarcely any poetry which deserves to be remem- bered. Two or three hundred lines of Gray, twice as many of Goldsmith, a few stanzas of Beattie and Col- Hns, a few strophes of Mason, and a few clever prologues 10 and satires, were the masterpieces of this age of con- summate excellence. They may all be printed in one volume, and that volume would be by no means a vol- ume of extraordinary merit. It would contain no poetry of the very highest class, and little which could be placed 15 very high in the second class. The Paradise Regained or Comiis would outweigh it all. At last, when poetry had fallen into such utter decay that Mr. Hayley was thought a great poet, it began to appear that the excess of the evil was about to work the 20 cure. Men became tired of an insipid conformity to a standard which derived no authority from nature or reason. A shallow criticism had taught them to ascribe a superstitious value to the spurious correctness of poet- asters. A deeper criticism brought them back to the true 25 correctness of the first great masters. The eternal laws of poetry regained their power, and the temporary fashions which had superseded those laws went after the wig of Lovelace and the hoop of Clarissa. It was in a cold and barren season that the seeds of 30 1 86 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE that rich harvest which we have reaped were first sown. While poetry was every year becoming more feeble and more mechanical, while the monotonous versification which Pope had introduced, no longer redeemed by his 5 brilliant wit and his compactness of expression, palled on the ear of the public, the great works of the old mas- ters were every day attracting more and more of the ad- miration which they deserved. The plays of Shakespeare were better acted, better edited, and better known than 10 they had ever been. Our fine ancient ballads were again read with pleasure, and it became a fashion to imitate them. Many of the imitations were altogether con- temptible. But they showed that men had at least begun to admire the excellence which they could not 15 rival. A literary revolution was evidently at hand. There was a ferment in the minds of men, a vague crav- ing for something new, a disposition to hail with de- light anything which might at first sight w^ear the ap- pearance of originality. A reforming age is always 20 fertile to impostors. The same excited state of public feeling which produced the great separation from the see of Rome produced also the excesses of the Anabap- tists. The same stir in the public mind of Europe which overthrew the abuses of the old French government, 25 produced the Jacobins and Theophilanthropists. Mac- pherson and Delia Crusca were to the true reformers of English poetry what Knipperdoling was to Luther, or Clootz to Turgot. The success of Chatterton's forgeries and of the far more contemptible forgeries of Ireland 30 showed that people had begun to love the old poetry LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 87 well, though not wisely. The public were never more disposed to believe stories without evidence, and to ad- mire books without merit. Any thing which could break the dull monotony of the correct school was ac- ceptable. 5 The forerunner of the great restoration of our litera- ture was Cowper. His literary career began and ended at nearly the same time with that of Alfieri. A com- parison between Alfieri and Cowper may, at first sight, appear as strange as that which a loyal Presbyterian 10 minister is said to have made in 1745 between George the Second and Enoch. It may seem that the gentle, shy, melancholy Calvinist, whose spirit had been broken by fagging at school, who had not courage to earn a livelihood by reading the titles of bills in the House of 15 Lords, and whose favorite associates were a blind old lady and an evangelical divine, could have nothing in common with the haughty, ardent, and voluptuous nobleman, the horse-jockey, the libertine, who fought Lord Ligonier in Hyde Park, and robbed the Pretender 20 of his queen. But though the private lives of these re- markable men present scarcely any points of resemblance, their literary lives bear a close analogy to each other. They both found poetry in its lowest state of degrada- tion, feeble, artificial, and altogether nerveless. They 25 both possessed precisely the talents which fitted them for the task of raising it from that deep abasement. They cannot, in strictness, be called great poets. They had not in any very high degree the creative power, " The vision and the faculty divine ; " 30 1 88 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE but they had great vigor of thought, great warmth of feeUng, and what, in their circumstances, was above all things important, a manliness of taste which approached to roughness. They did not deal in mechanical versi- 5 fication and conventional phrases. They wrote con- cerning things the thought of which set their hearts on fire; and thus what they wrote, even when it wanted every other grace, had that inimitable grace which sincerity and strong passion impart to the rudest and most homely 10 compositions. Each of them sought for inspiration in a noble and affecting subject, fertile of images which had not yet been hackneyed. Liberty was the muse of Alfieri, Rehgion was the muse of Cowper. The same truth is found in their Hghter pieces. They were not 15 among those who deprecated the severity, or deplored the absence of an unreal mistress in melodious common- places. Instead of raving about imaginary Chloes and Sylvias, Cowper wrote of Mrs. Unwin's knitting needles. The only love-verses of Alfieri were addressed to one 20 whom he truly and passionately loved. "Tutte le rime amorose che seguono," says he, "tutte sono per essa, e ben sue, e di lei solamente; poiche mai d' altra donna per certo non cantero." These great men were not free from affectation. But 25 their affectation was directly opposed to the affectation which generally prevailed. Each of them expressed, in strong and bitter language, the contempt which he felt for the effeminate poetasters who were in fash- ion both in England and in Italy. Cowper complains 30 that LIFE or LORD BYRON 1 89 " Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, taste, and wit." He praised Pope; yet he regretted that Pope had " Made poetry a mere mechanic art. And every warbler had his tune by heart." 5 Alfieri speaks with similar scorn of the tragedies of his predecessors. " Mi cadevano dalle mani per la langui- dezza, triviality e prolissitk dei modi e del verso, senza parlare poi della snervatezza dei pensieri. Or perche mai questa nostra divina Hngua, si maschia anco, ed 10 energica, e feroce, in bocca di Dante, dovrk, ella farsi cosi sbiadata ed eunuca nel dialogo tragico?" To men thus sick of the languid manner of their con- temporaries ruggedness seemed a venial fault, or rather a positive merit. In their hatred of meretricious orna- 15 ment, and of what Cowper calls "creamy smoothness," they erred on the opposite side. Their style was too austere, their versification too harsh. It is not easy, however, to overrate the service which they rendered to literature. The intrinsic value of their poems is con- 20 siderable. But the example which they set of mutiny against an absurd system was invaluable. The part which they performed was rather that of Moses than that of Joshua. They opened the house of bondage; but they did not enter the promised land. 25 During the twenty years which followed the death of Cowper, the revolution in English poetry was fully con- summated. None of the writers of this period, not even Sir Walter Scott, contributed so much to the consumma- igo NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE tion as Lord Byron. Yet Lord Byron contributed to it unwillingly, and with constant self-reproach and shame. All his tastes and inclinations led him to take part with the school of poetry which was going out against the S school w^hich was coming in. Of Pope himself he spoke with extravagant admiration. He did not venture di- rectly to say that the Httle man of Twickenham was a greater poet than Shakespeare or Milton; but he hinted pretty clearly that he thought so. Of his contemporaries, 10 scarcely any had so much of his admiration as Mr. Gifford, who, considered as a poet, was merely Pope, without Pope's wit and fancy, and whose satires are decidedly inferior in vigor and poignancy to the very imperfect juvenile performance of Lord Byron himself. 15 He now and then praised Mr. Wordsworth and Mr. Coleridge, but ungraciously and without cordiality. When he attacked them, he brought his whole soul to the work. Of the most elaborate of Mr. Wordsworth's poems he could find nothing to say, but that it was 20 "clumsy, and frowsy, and his aversion." Peter Bell excited his spleen to such a degree that he evoked the shades of Pope and Dryden, and demanded of them whether it were possible that such trash could evade contempt ? In his heart he thought his own Pilgrimage 25 of Harold inferior to his Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry, a feeble echo of Pope and Johnson. This in- sipid performance he repeatedly designed to publish, and was withheld only by the solicitations of his friends. He has distinctly declared his approbation of the unities, 30 the most absurd laws by which genius was ever held LIFE OF LORD BYRON 191 in servitude. In one of his works, we think in his letter to Mr. Bowles, he compares the poetry of the eighteenth century to the Parthenon, and that of the nineteenth to a Turkish mosque, and boasts that, although he had assisted his contemporaries in building their grotesque 5 and barbarous edifice, h^ had never joined them in defacing the remains of a chaster and more graceful architecture. In another letter he compares the change which had recently passed on English poetry to the de- cay of Latin poetry after the Augustan age. In the time 10 of Pope, he tells his friend, it was all Horace with us. It is all Claudian now. For the great old masters of the art he had no very enthusiastic veneration. In his letter to Mr. Bowles he uses expressions which clearly indicate that he preferred 15 Pope's Iliad to the original. Mr. Moore confesses that his friend was no very fervent admirer of Shakespeare. Of all the poets of the first class. Lord Byron seems to have admired Dante and Milton most. Yet in the fourth canto of Childe Harold, he places Tasso, a writer 20 not merely inferior to them, but of quite a different order of mind, on at least a footing of equality with them. Mr. Hunt is, we suspect, quite correct in saying that Lord Byron could see little or no merit in Spenser. But Byron the critic and Byron the poet were two 25 very different men. The effects of the noble writer's theory may indeed often be traced in his practice. But his disposition led him to accommodate himself to the literary taste of the age in which he lived; and his talents would have enabled him to accommodate himself to the 30 192 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE taste of any age. Though he said much of his contempt for mankind, and though he boasted that amidst the inconstancy of fortune and of fame he was all-sufficient to himself, his literary career indicated nothing of that 5 lonely and unsocial pride which he affected. We cannot conceive him, like Milton or Wordsworth, defying the criticism of his contemporaries, retorting their scorn, and laboring on a poem in the full assurance that it would be unpopular, and in the full assurance that it 10 would be immortal. He has said, by the mouth of one of his heroes, in speaking of poHtical greatness, that "he must serve who fain would sway;" and this he as- signs as a reason for not entering into political life. He did not consider that the sway which he had exercised 15 in Hterature had been purchased by servitude, by the sacrifice of his own taste to the taste of the public. He was the creature of his age; and whenever he had lived he would have been the creature of his age. Un- der Charles the First Byron would have been more 20 quaint than Donne. Under Charles the Second, the rants of Byron's rhyming plays would have pitted it, boxed it, and galleried it, with those of any Bays or Bilboa. Under George the First the monotonous smooth- ness of Byron's versification and the terseness of his ex- 25 pression would have made Pope himself envious. As it was, he was the man of the last thirteen years of the eighteenth century, and of the first twenty-three years of the nineteenth century. He belonged half to the old, and half to the new school of poetry. His per- 30 sonal taste led him to the former; his thirst of praise LIFE OF LORD BYRON 1 93 to the latter; his talents were equally suited to both. His fame was a common ground on which the zealots of both sides, Gifford, for example, and Shelley, might meet. He was the representative, not of either literary party, but of both at once, and of their conflict, and of 5 the victory by which that conflict was terminated. His poetry fills and measures the whole of the vast interval through which our literature has moved since the time of Johnson. It touches the Essay on Man at the one extremity, and the Excursion at the other. lo There are several parallel instances in literary history. Voltaire, for example, was the connecting link between the France of Lewis the Fourteenth and the France of Lewis the Sixteenth, between Racine and Boileau on the one side, and Condorcet and Beaumarchais on the 15 other. He, like Lord Byron, put himself at the head of an intellectual revolution, dreading it all the time, murmuring at it, sneering at it, yet choosing rather to move before his age in any direction than to be left be- hind and forgotten. Dryden was the connecting link 20 between the literature of the age of James the First and the Hterature of the age of Anne. Oromasdes and Ari- manes fought for him. Arimanes carried him off. But his heart was to the last with Oromasdes. Lord Byron was, in the same manner, the mediator between two 25 generations, between two hostile poetical sects. Though always sneering at Mr. Wordsworth, he was yet, though perhaps unconsciously, the interpreter between Mr. Wordsworth and the m.ultitude. In the Lyrical Ballads and the Excursion Mr. Wordsworth appeared as the 30 Prose — 13 194 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE high priest of a worship, of which nature was the idol. No poems have ever indicated a more exquisite per- ception of the beauty of the outer world, or a more passionate love and reverence for that beauty. Yet 5 they were not popular; and it is not likely that they ever will be popular as the poetry of Sir Walter Scott is pop- ular. The feeling which pervaded them was too deep for general sympathy. Their style was often too mys- terious for general comprehension. They made a few 10 esoteric disciples, and many scoffers. Lord Byron founded what may be called an exoteric Lake school; and all the readers of verse in England, we might say in Europe, hastened to sit at his feet. What Mr. Words- worth had said Hke a recluse. Lord Byron said like a 15 man of the world, with less profound feeling, but with more perspicuity, energy, and conciseness. We would refer our readers to the last two cantos of Childe Harold and to Manfred, in proof of these observations. Lord Byron, like Mr. Wordsworth, had nothing dra- 20 matic in his genius. He was indeed the reverse of a great dramatist, the very antithesis to a great dramatist. All his characters, Harold looking on the sky, from which his country and the sun are disappearing together, the Giaour, standing apart in the gloom of the side aisle, 25 and casting a haggard scowl from under his long hood at the crucifix and the censer, Conrad leaning on his sword by the watch tower, Lara smiling on the dancers, Alp gazing steadily on the fatal cloud as it passes before the moon, Manfred wandering among the precipices of 30 Berne, Azzo on the judgment seat, Ugo at the bar, LIFE OF LORD BYRON 195 Lambro frowning on the siesta of his daughter and Juan, Cain presenting his unacceptable offering, are essentially the same. The varieties are varieties merely of age, situation, and outward show. If ever Lord Byron attempted to exhibit men of a different kind, he 5 always made them either insipid or unnatural. Selim is nothing. Bonnivart is nothing. Don Juan, in the first and best cantos, is a feeble copy of the page in the Marriage of Figaro. Johnson, the man whom Juan meets in the slave-market, is a most striking failure. 10 How differently would Sir Walter Scott have drawn a bluff, fearless EngUshman, in such a situation! The portrait would have seemed to walk out of the canvas. Sardanapalus is more coarsely drawn than any dra- matic personage that we can remember. His heroism 15 and his effeminacy, his contempt of death and his dread of a weighty helmet, his kingly resolution to be seen in the foremost ranks, and the anxiety with which he calls for a looking-glass, that he may be seen to advan- tage, are contrasted, it is true, with all the point of 20 Juvenal. Indeed, the hint of the character seems to have been taken from what Juvenal says of Otho: " Speculum civilis sarcina belli. Nimirum summi duels est occidere Galbam, Et curare cutem summi constantia civis, 25 Bedriaci in campo spolium affectare Palati, Et pressum in faciem digitis extendere panem." These are excellent Hues in a satire. But it is not the business of the dramatist to exhibit characters in this sharp antithetical way. It is not thus that Shakespeare 30 196 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE makes Prince Hal rise from the rake of Eastcheap into the hero of Shrewsbury, and sink again into the rake of Eastcheap. It is not thus that Shakespeare has ex- hibited the union of effeminacy and valor in Antony. 5 A dramatist cannot commit a greater error than that of following those pointed descriptions of character in which satirists and historians indulge so much. It is by rejecting what is natural that satirists and historians produce these striking characters. Their great object 10 generally is to ascribe to every man as many contra- dictory qualities as possible, and this is an object easily attained. By judicious selection and judicious exag- geration, the intellect and the disposition of any human being might be described as being made up of nothing 15 but startling contrasts. If the dramatist attempts to create a being answering to one of these descriptions, he fails, because he reverses an imperfect analytical process. He produces, not a man, but a personified epigram. Very eminent \vriters have fallen into this snare. Ben 20 Jonson has given us a Hermogenes, taken from the lively lines of Horace, but the inconsistency which is so amus- ing in the satire appears unnatural and disgusts us in the play. Sir Walter Scott has committed a far more glar- ing error of the same kind in the novel of Peveril. Ad- 25 miring, as every judicious reader must admire, the keen and vigorous lines in which Dryden satirized the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Walter attempted to make a Duke of Buckingham to suit them, a real Hving Zimri; and he made, not a man, but the most grotesque of all monsters. 30 A writer who should attempt to introduce into a play LIFE OF LORD BYRON 197 or a novel such a Wharton as the Wharton of Pope, or a Lord Hervey answering to Sporus, would fail in the same manner. But to return to Lord Byron; his women, Hke his men, are all of one breed. Haidee is a half-savage and girhsh 5 JuHa; Juha is a civihzed and matronly Haidee. Leila is a wedded Zuleika, Zuleika a virgin Leila. Gulnare and Medora appear to have been intentionally opposed to each other. Yet the difference is a difference of situation only. A sHght change of circumstances would, it should 10 seem, have sent Gulnare to the lute of Medora, and armed Medora with the dagger of Gulnare. It is hardly too much to say, that Lord Byron could exhibit only one man and only one woman, a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery 15 in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in re- venge, yet capable of deep and strong affection : a woman all softness and gentleness, loving to caress and to be caressed, but capable of being transformed by passion into a tigress, 20 Even these two characters, his only two characters, he could not exhibit dramatically. He exhibited them in the manner, not of Shakespeare, but of Clarendon. He analyzed them, he made them analyze themselves; but he did not make them show themselves. We are 25 told, for example, in many lines of great force and spirit, that the speech of Lara was bitterly sarcastic, that he talked little of his travels, that if he was much questioned about them, his answers became short, and his brow gloomy. But we have none of Lara's sarcastic 30 198 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE speeches or short answers. It is not thus that the great masters of human nature have portrayed human beings. Homer never tells us that Nestor loved to relate long stories about his youth. Shakespeare never tells us 5 that in the mind of lago everything that is beautiful and endearing was associated with some filthy and debasing idea. It is curious to observe the tendency which the dialogue of Lord Byron always has to lose its character of a dia- 10 logue and to become soliloquy. The scenes between Manfred and the Chamois-hunter, between Manfred and the Witch of the Alps, between Manfred and the Abbot, are instances of this tendency. Manfred, after a few unimportant speeches, has all the talk to himself. The 15 other interlocutors are nothing more than good listeners. They drop an occasional question or ejaculation which sets Manfred off again on the inexhaustible topic of his personal feelings. If we examine the fine passages in Lord Byron's dramas, the description of Rome, for 20 example, in Manfred, the description of a Venetian revel in Marino Faliero, the concluding invective which the old doge pronounces against Venice, we shall find that there is nothing dramatic in these speeches, that they derive none of their effect from the character or 25 situation of the speaker, and that they would have been as fine, or finer, if they had been published as fragments of blank verse by Lord Byron. There is scarcely a speech in Shakespeare of which the same could be said. No skillful reader of Shakespeare can endure to see 30 what are called the fine things taken out, under the LIFE or LORD BYRON 1 99 name of "Beauties" or of "Elegant Extracts," or to hear any single passage, "To be or not to be," for ex- ample, quoted as a sample of the great poet. "To be or not to be" has merit undoubtedly as a composition. It would have merit if put into the mouth of a chorus. 5 But its merit as a composition vanishes when compared with its merit as belonging to Hamlet. It is not too much to say that the great plays of Shakespeare would lose less by being deprived of all the passages which are commonly called the fine passages, than those passages 10 lose by being read separately from the play. This is perhaps the highest praise which can be given to a dramatist. On the other hand, it may be doubted whether there is, in all Lord Byron's plays, a single remarkable passage 15 which owes any portion of its interest or effect to its 'connection with the characters or the action. He has written only one scene, as far as we can recollect, which is dramatic even in manner, the scene between Lucifer and Cain. The conference is animated, and each of the 20 interlocutors has a fair share of it. But this scene, when examined, will be found to be a confirmation of our remarks. It is a dialogue only in form. It is a solil- oquy in essence. It is in reality a debate carried on within one single unquiet and skeptical mind. The 25 questions and the answers, the objections and the so- lutions, all belong to the same character. A writer who showed so little dramatic skill in works professedly dramatic was not likely to write narrative with dramatic effect. Nothing could indeed be more 30 200 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE rude and careless than the structure of his narrative poems. He seems to have thought, with the hero of the Rehearsal, that the plot was good for nothing but to bring in fine things. His two longest works, Childe 5 Harold and Don Juan, have no plan whatever. Either of them might have been extended to any length, or cut short at any point. The state in which the Giaour ap- pears illustrates the manner in which all Byron's poems were constructed. They are all, like the Giaour, col- lo lections of fragments; and, though there may be no empty spaces marked by asterisks, it is still easy to per- ceive, by the clumsiness of the joining, where the parts for the sake of which the whole was composed end and begin. 15 It was in description and meditation that Byron ex- celled. "Description," as he said in Don Juan, "was his forte." His manner is indeed pecuHar, and is al- most unequaled; rapid, sketchy, full of vigor; the se- lection happy; the strokes few and bold. In spite of 20 the reverence which we feel for the genius of Mr. Words- worth we cannot but think that the minuteness of his descriptions often diminishes their effect. He has ac- customed himself to gaze on nature with the eye of a lover, to dwell on every feature, and to mark every 25 change of aspect. Those beauties which strike the most negligent observer, and those which only a close atten- tion discovers, are equally familiar to him and are equally prominent in his poetry. The proverb of old Hesiod, that half is often more than the whole, is eminently 30 applicable to description. The policy of the Dutch LIFE OF LORD BYRON 20I who cut down most of the precious trees in the Spice Islands, in order to raise the value of what remained, was a policy which poets would do well to imitate. It was a pohcy which no poet understood better than Lord Byron. Whatever his faults might be, he was 5 never, while his mind retained its vigor, accused of prohxity. His descriptions, great as was their intrinsic merit, derived their principal interest from the feeling which always mingled with them. He was himself the be- 10 ginning, the middle, and the end, of all his own poetry, the hero of every tale, the chief object in every land- scape. Harold, Lara, Manfred, and a crowd of other characters, were universally considered merely as loose incognitos of Byron; and there is every reason to believe 15 that he meant them to be so considered. The wonders of the outer world, the Tagus, with the mighty fleets of England riding on its bosom, the towers of Cintra overhanging the shaggy forest of cork trees and wil- lows, the glaring marble of Pentelicus, the banks of the 20 Rhine, the glaciers of Clarens, the sweet Lake of Leman, the dell of Egeria with its summer birds and rustling lizards, the shapeless ruins of Rome overgrown with ivy and wallflowers, the stars, the sea, the mountains, all were mere accessaries, the background to one dark 25 and melancholy figure. Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, its perennial waters of bitterness. Never 30 202 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE was there such variety in monotony as that of Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master. Year after year, and month after month, 5 he continued to repeat that to be wretched is the destiny of all; that to be eminently wretched is the destiny of the eminent; that all the desires by which we are cursed lead alike to misery, if they are not gratified, to the misery of disappointment, if they are gratified, to the misery lo of satiety. His heroes are men who have arrived by different roads at the same goal of despair, who are sick of life, who are at war with society, who are sup- ported in their anguish only by an unconquerable pride resembling that of Prometheus on the rock or of Satan 15 in the burning marl, who can master their agonies by the force of their will, and who, to the last, defy the whole power of earth and heaven. He always described him- self as a man of the same kind with his favorite creations, as a man whose heart had been withered, whose capacity 20 for happiness was gone and could not be restored, but whose invincible spirit dared the worst that could be- fall him here or hereafter. How much of this morbid feeling sprang from an original disease of the mind, how much from real mis- 25 fortune, how much from the nervousness of dissipation, how much was fanciful, how much was merely affected, it is impossible for us, and would probably have been impossible for the most intimate friends of Lord Byron, to decide. Whether there ever existed, or can ever 30 exist, a person answering to the description which he LIFE OF LORD BYRON 203 . gave of himself may be doubted; but that he was not such a person is beyond all doubt. It is ridiculous to imagine that a man whose mind was really imbued with scorn of his fellow-creatures would have published three or four books every year in order to tell them so; 5 or that a man who could say with truth that he neither sought sympathy nor needed it would have admitted all Europe to hear his farewell to his wife, and his blessings on his child. In the second canto of Childe Harold, he tells us that he is insensible to fame and 10 obloquy: " 111 may such contest now the spirit move, Which heeds nor keen reproof nor partial praise." Yet we know on the best evidence that, a day or two before he published these lines, he was greatly, indeed 15 childishly, elated by the compliments paid to his maiden speech in the House of Lords. We are far, however, from thinking that his sadness was altogether feigned. He was naturally a man of great sensibility; he had been ill educated; his feelings 20 had been early exposed to sharp trials; he had been crossed in his boyish love; he had been mortified by the failure of his first literary efforts; he was straitened in pecuniary circumstances; he was unfortunate in his do- mestic relations; the public treated him with cruel in- 25 justice; his health and spirits suffered from his dissi- pated habits of life; he was on the whole, an unhappy man. He early discovered that, by parading his unhap- piness before the multitude, he produced an immense sensation. The world gave him every encouragement to 30 . 204 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE talk about his mental sufferings. The interest which his first confessions excited induced him to affect much that he did not feel; and the affectation probably re- acted on his feelings. How far the character in which 5 he exhibited himself was genuine, and how far theatrical, it would probably have puzzled himself to say. There can be no doubt that this remarkable man owed the vast influence which he exercised over his con- temporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as lo to the real power of his poetry. We never could very clearly understand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing; or how it is that men who affect in their compositions quahties and feelings which they have not, impose so much more 15 easily on their contemporaries than on posterity. The interest which the loves of Petrarch excited in his own time, and the pitying fondness with which half Europe looked upon Rousseau, are well known. To readers of our age, the love of Petrarch seems to have been love 20 of that kind which breaks no hearts, and the sufferings of Rousseau to have deserved laughter rather than pity, to have been partly counterfeited, and partly the con- sequences of his own perverseness and vanity. What our grandchildren may think of the character 25 of Lord Byron, as exhibited in his poetry, we will not pretend to guess. It is certain that the interest which he excited during his life is without a parallel in literary history. The feeling with which young readers of poetry regard him can be conceived only by those who 30 have experienced it. To people who are unacquainted LIFE OF LORD BYRON 205 with real calamity, " nothing is so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy." This faint image of sorrow has in all ages been considered by young gentlemen as an agree- able excitement. Old gentlemen and middle-aged gentle- men have so many real causes of sadness that they are 5 rarely inclined "to be as sad as night only for wanton- ness." Indeed they want the power almost as much as the inclination. We know very few persons engaged in active life who, even if they were to procure stools to be melancholy upon, and were to sit down with all 10 the premeditation of Master Stephen, would be able to enjoy much of what somebody calls the "ecstasy of woe." Among that large class of young persons whose read- ing is almost entirely confined to works of imagination, 15 the popularity of Lord Byron was unbounded. They bought pictures of him; they treasured up the smallest relics of him; they learned his poems by heart, and did their best to write like him, and to look like him. Many of them practiced at the glass in the hope of catching 20 the curl of the upper lip, and the scowl of the brow, which appear in some of his portraits. A few discarded their neckcloths in imitation of their great leader. For some years the Minerva press sent forth no novel with- out a mysterious, unhappy, Lara-like peer. The num- 25 ber of hopeful undergraduates and medical students who became things of dark imaginings, on whom the freshness of the heart ceased to fall Hke dew, whose passions had consumed themselves to dust, and to whom the relief of tears was denied, passes all calculation. 30 2o6. NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE This was not the worst. There was created in the minds of many of these enthusiasts a pernicious and absurd association between intellectual power and moral depravity. From the poetry of Lord Byron they 5 drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbor, and to love your neighbor's wife. This affectation has passed away; and a few more 10 years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron. To us he is still a man, young, noble, and unhappy. To our children he will be merely a writer; and their impartial judgment will appoint his place among 15 writers, without regard to his rank or to his private history. That his poetry will undergo a severe sifting, that much of what has been admired by his contem- poraries will be rejected as worthless, we have little doubt. But we have as little doubt, that, after the 20 closest scrutiny, there will still remain much that can only perish with the English language. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [William Makepeace Thackeray, acknowledged by general agreement to be one of the three or four greatest English novelists, was born in Calcutta in 1811. Educated at Cambridge and by travel on the continent, he received his first recognition in the col- umns of Fraser's Magazine. From 1832 until his death in 1863, Thackeray was indefatigable as a writer, and literally thousands of pages fell from his pen. For Punch, Thackeray wrote his Book of Snobs which is in some respects his most characteristic work. Thackeray's novels, among which Vanity Fair, Pende7inis, Henry Esmond, and Barry Lyndon are the best, are well known wherever the English language is spoken.] The essay before us was the first in the series entitled The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, and was dehvered by the author in England and America in the years 185 1 and 1852. The essays were published in 1853 and form Thackeray's most considerable contri- bution to formal criticism. Charming as they are, these lectures on the English Humorists and the succeeding lectures on the Four Georges can hardly be considered perfectly representative of Thackeray's style. In the first place they were de- livered with a frankly conciliatory intent. Though pug- nacious in his books, Thackeray was personally the gentlest and most lovable of men. He was constitu- tionally as incapable of carrying to the public platform the keen, cool, and biting satire of his written essays as he was unable to play the satirist at the dinner table. For these reasons the lectures are a little unlike Thack- eray's written style. But they are perhaps even more 207 2o8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE representative of the man than some of his other work. They show him in his private as well as in his public aspects. They show his keen insight turned to the pur- suits of loving sympathy, his militant honesty of convic- tion arming itself for a braver battle than that of satire and innuendo. They show, further, that however much Thackeray hated sin in the abstract, he loved men. He despised none of the characters of his novels — else why did he so enjoy depicting the rogue ? Much less could he offend the prejudices of any of his hearers as he stood on the platform before them. There can be little doubt that, judged from the view point of objective art, the essay on Swift would be im- proved were not the attitude of the author so candidly a personal one. As it is, the author is led to an exag- geration of the criteria of private judgment to the detri- ment of the larger critical purposes of the essay. As a matter of fact, Thackeray was not a literary critic in the narrow sense of the word. In spite of himself he con- tinually slips back from a consideration of an author's work to the man behind the book. This fact should be kept in mind by the reader who thinks to read in the following essay a judicious critique on the work of the great eighteenth-century Dean. In the Dean's work, Thackeray is only secondarily interested. He grants its immense force, he stands in awe of the genius dis- played, but speculations on the author continually ob- trude. He even misinterprets the book in looking for the man, as may be seen in the way he quite unfairly reprehends Swift's satire on the eating of children. Because he had his audience always in view and ob- served perhaps just a trifle too much the rigors of a popu- lar and conventional morality, the tone of Thackeray's essay is thoroughly monochromatic. The entire criti- cism is apparently delivered under the influence of a certain mood. There is throughout the essay the pa- WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 209 thetic sense of "dust and ashes, dead and done with," which Thackeray so well knew how to assume. With the eighteenth century he was thoroughly at home. His essay, therefore, gives the impression not of the didactic propounding of facts, but of discursive conversation on a loved topic by one who is steeped in it. This mono- chromatic tone is difficult to carry. It gives the reader too much the sense that the emotion has been built on preconceived ideas. It is for this reason that, while the present essay deals far more with Swift than with his work, it hardly gives a true picture of Swift. The sketch is too impressionistic. The pathetic isolated elements of the Dean's character are thrown into strong relief be- cause they adapt themselves best with Thackeray's mood. But the great Dean has other sides that could never be interpreted by the minor chords in which Thackeray chose to play. As a consideration of these would have violated the unity of his spiritual impres- sion, Thackeray has for them never a word. As truly as of any other author represented in this book, it may be said that Thackeray's style is an indi- vidual thing. For this reason it is hardly to be held up as a model for imitation by students. Many of the fundamental rules of the rhetorics, Thackeray violated continually; like Scott, he could afford to do so. As with Fielding, the reader was very close to Thackeray's elbow as he wrote. For this reason his composition is conver- sational, discursive, and prolix. It touches with equal ease the springs of laughter and of tears. Sometimes the author purposely permits himself to become hope- lessly involved, in order that in mid-sentence he may start anew with a cHmacteric "I say." Thackeray flashes from thought to thought as his fancy leads him. Sometimes his impressionism of treatment might seem thinly to veil superficiality of knowledge. "The Boyne was being fought and won, and lost," he writes in hasty Prose — 14 2IO NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE summary. Sometimes, like Hazlitt, he breaks out into a string of epithets, dubbing in allusion the manifold characteristics of the times, " the worthlessness of all man- kind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the general vanity, the foolish pretension, the mock greatness, the pompous dullness." The gifts for which Thackeray stood preeminent may easily be pushed into bathos and burlesque. To these discreditable ends many of Thackeray's imitators have come. Indeed, Thackeray did not himself remain on the right side of the line that divides the deep from shallow emotion. Sometimes he seems to be hypnotized by his own mood. Then his subject becomes a mere expedient for the spinning of the attenuated Thackerayan fancies. But though it is sometimes finespun, Thackeray's feeling is never insincere; his laughter always rings sure and true. The best thing in an essay of Thackeray's is the man himself. In the essay on Swift there is seen more of Thackeray than of Swift, and, all in all, the impression of the former is the truer one. It is easy enough to domi- nate a style with force; it is more difficult to dominate it with sweetness and smiles. Perhaps no one outside of Lamb has done this so well as Thackeray has done it. In Thackeray's style we see the complex though lu- minous intelligence, the untiring energy, the unerring keenness, and the philosophical poise of the man him- self. SWIFT In treating of the English humorists of the past age, it is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to speak to you; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain SWIFT 211 you with a merely humorous or facetious story. Harle- quin without his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and was himself, the story gges, the melan- choly patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harlequin — a man full of cares and perplexities like 5 the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all of you here must needs be grave when you think of your own past and present, you will not look to find, in the histories of those whose 10 lives and feelings I am going to try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than serious, and often very sad. If Humor only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest about humorous writers than about the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who 15 possesses in common with these the power of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind presence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. 20 The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness — your scorn for un- truth, pretension, imposture— your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the 25 ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. Accordingly, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him — sometimes love him. And, as his business is to mark other people's lives and 30 212 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE peculiarities, we moralize upon his life when he is gone — and yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to-day's sermon. Of English parents, and of a good English family 5 of clergymen, Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, seven months after the death of his father, who had come to practice there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree with difficulty, and was wild, and 10 witty, and poor. In 1688, by the recommendation of his mother. Swift was received into the family of Sir William Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in 1694, and the next year took or- ders in Dublin. But he threw up the small Irish pre- 15 ferment which he got and returned to Temple, in whose family he remained until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of advancement in England failing. Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester Johnson, Temple's natural 20 daughter, with whom he had contracted a tender friend- ship, while they were both dependents of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England, Swift now passed nine years at home. In 1709 he came to England and, with a brief visit 25 to Ireland, during which he took possession of his deanery of St. Patrick, he now passed five years in England, taking the most distinguished part in the political transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. After her death, his party disgraced, and his 30 hopes of ambition over, Swift returned to Dublin, where SWIFT 213 he remained twelve years. In this time he wrote the famous Drapier^s Letters and Gulliver^s Travels. He married Hester Johnson, Stella, and buried Esther Vanhomrigh, Vanessa, who had followed him to Ire- land from London, where she had contracted a violent 5 passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he quitted for the last time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in January, 1728, and Swift not until 1745, having passed the last five of the seventy- eight years of his life with an impaired intellect and 10 keepers to watch him. You know, of course, that Swift has had many biog- raphers; his Hfe has been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires but can't bring himself to love him; and by stout old Johnson, 15 who, forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street. Dr. Wilde of Dublin, who has written a most 20 interesting volume on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most malignant of his biographers:" it is not easy for an English critic to please Irishmen — perhaps to try and please them. And yet Johnson truly admires Swift: Johnson does not quarrel with Swift's 25 change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of religion: about the famous Stella and Vanessa controversy the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could not give the Dean that honest hand of his; the stout old man puts it into his breast, and moves off from him. 30 214 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Would we have liked to live with him? That is a question which in dealing with these people's works, and thinking of their lives and peculiarities, every reader of biographies must put to himself. Would you have 5 Hked to be a friend of the great Dean ? I should like to have been Shakespeare's shoeblack — just to have lived in his house, just to have worshiped him — to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet serene face. I should like, as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's stair- 10 case in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latchkey, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who would not give something to pass 15 a night at the club with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck? The charm of Addison's companionship and conversation has passed to us by fond tradition — but Swift? If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, with a great respect for all 20 persons present, I fear is only very likely), his equal in mere social station, he would have bullied, scorned, and insulted you; if, undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you, and not had the pluck to reply, and gone home, 25 and years after written a foul epigram about you — watched for you in a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blow and a dirty bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue ribbon, who flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would have been the most 30 deUghtful company in the world. He would have been SWIFT 215 SO manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, and original, that you might think he had no object in view but the in- dulgence of his humor, and that he was the most reck- less, simple creature in the world. How he would have torn your enemies to pieces for you ! and made fun of the 5 Opposition! His servility was so boisterous that it looked like independence; he would have done your errands, but with the air of patronizing you, and after fighting your battles, masked, in the street or the press, would have kept on his hat before your wife and daugh- 10 ters in the drawing-room, content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous services as a bravo. He says as much himself in one of his letters to Boling- broke: — "All my endeavors to distinguish myself were only for want of a great title and fortune, that I might 15 be used like a lord by those who have an opinion of my parts; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation of wit and great learning does the office of a blue ribbon or a coach and six." Could there be a greater candor ? It is an outlaw who 20 says, "These are my brains; with these I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These are my bullets; these I'll turn into gold;" and he hears the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes so- ciety stand and deliver. They are all on their knees 25 before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The 30 2l6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE great prize has not come yet. The coach with the miter and crosier in it, which he intends to have for his share, has been delayed on the way from St. James's; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come 5 and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides away into his own country. Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral or adorn a tale of ambition, as any hero's that 10 ever Kved and failed. But we must remember that the morality was lax — that other gentlemen besides himself took the road in his day — that public society was in a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and 15 won, and lost — the bells rung in William's victory, in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to ' shift for themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in 20 the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble, almost every- body gambled; as in the Railway mania — not many centuries ago — almost every one took his unlucky share: a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, 25 and make his spring at his opportunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent misanthropy, are ascribed by some panegyrists to a deHberate conviction of mankind's unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by castigating. His youth was bitter, as that of a great 30 genius bound down by ignoble ties, and powerless in a SWIFT 217 mean dependence; his age was bitter, like that of a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, or disappoint- 5 ment, or self-will. What public man — what statesman projecting a coup — what king determined on an inva- sion of his neighbor — what satirist meditating an on- slaught on society or an individual, can't give a pretext for his move? There was a French general the other 10 day who proposed to march into this country and put it to sack and pillage, in revenge for humanity outraged by our conduct at Copenhagen: there is always some excuse for men of the aggressive turn. They are of their nature warlike, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, do- 15 minion. As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as strong a wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not 20 without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained be- hind the bars. That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dublin, on the 30th November, 1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the honor and glory; 25 but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than a man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. Goldsmith was an Irishman, and always an Irishman: Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman: Swift's heart was English and in England, his habits 30 2l8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE English, his logic eminently English; his- statement is elaborately simple; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and economy, as he used his money: with which he could be generous 5 and splendid upon great occasions, but which he hus- banded when there was no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a grave simplicity and a perfect neatness. 10 Dreading ridicule too, as a man of his humor — above all an Englishman of his humor — certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which he really pos- sessed; one often fancies in reading him that he dares not be eloquent when he might; that he does not speak 15 above his voice, as it were, and the tone of society. His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with litera- ture even, which he could not have pursued very sedu- lously during that reckless career at DubHn, Swift got 20 under the roof of Sir William Temple. He was fond of telling in after life what quantities of books he devoured there, and how King William taught him to cut aspara- gus in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at 25 the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift passed a ten years' apprenticeship — wore a cas- sock that was only not a livery — bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's to supplicate my lady's good graces, or run on his honor's errands. It was here, as he was 30 writing at Temple's table, or following his patron's SWIFT 219 walk, that he saw and heard the men who had governed the great world — measured himself with them, looking up from his silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned them, and tried them, and marked them. Ah! what platitudes he must have heard! what 5 feeble jokes! what pompous commonplaces! what small men they must have seemed under those enormous peri- wigs, to the swarthy, uncouth, silent Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck Temple, that that Irishman was his master? I suppose that dismal con- 10 viction did not present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service — ate humble pie, and came back again; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swallowing scorn, and submitting with a 15 stealthy rage to his fortune. Temple'^ style is the perfection of practiced and easy good breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, he professes a very gentlemanly acquain- tance with it; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it 20 was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelop his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square- toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading : upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park; and lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. 30 2 20 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE He reveres the Sovereign (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow); he admires the Prince of Orange; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Christ- 5 endom, and that valuable member of society is himself Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat; between his study chair and his tulip beds, clipping his apricots and pruning his essays, — the states- man, the ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the 10 Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph of gardens. 15 Temple seems to have received and exacted a pro- digious deal of veneration from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household 20 was aghast at his indisposition: mild Dorothea his wife, the best companion of the best of men — •' Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate." As for Dorinda — his sister — 25 "Those who would grief describe, might come and trace Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. To see her wxep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial look. The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, 30 That furnished spirit and motion through the whole." SWIFT 221 Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the menials into a mourning livery, a fine image? One of the menials wrote it, who did not like that Temple livery nor those twenty pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books 5 and papers in hand, following at his honor's heels in the garden walk; or taking his honor's orders as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has the gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa ? When Sir William has the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second 10 table; the Irish secretary owned as much afterwards: and when he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes and scorn! What would the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards— and this one had got no great 15 credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were known — and what a contempt his Excellency's own gentleman must have had for Parson Teague from Dublin. (The valets and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift thought the more contemptible.) And 20 what must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the housekeeper's little . daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things — above 25 mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous Sir William in his square-toes and periwig, — when Mr. Swift comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson ? 30 222 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Perhaps for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's con- descension was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William would perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics apropos of his gardens and his Dutch statues 5 and plates -handeSj and talk about Epicurus and Diog- enes Laertius, Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and the gar- dens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. Apropos of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from 10 beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean; he is a Pythagorean philosopher; he is a wise man — that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so? One can imagine the downcast eyes Hfted up for a mo- ES ment, and the flash of scorn which they emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens; Pope says nobly (as everything Pope said and' thought of his friend was good and noble), "His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." And one per- 2o son in that household, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor Park, saw heaven nowhere else. But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins; and in a garden seat which he devised 25 for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which punished and tormented him through life. He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condolence, 30 from which we have quoted a few lines of mock melan- SWIFT 223 choly, he breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, and even hope. I don't know anything more melancholy than the 5 letter to Temple, in which, after having broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders. "The particulars re- quired of me are what relate to morals and learning; 10 and the reasons of quitting your honor's family — that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They are left entirely to your honor's mercy, though in the first I think I cannot reproach myself for anything further than for infirmities. This is all I dare at present 15 beg from your honor, under circumstances of life not worth your regard: what is left me to wish (next to the health and prosperity of your honor and family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leav- ing my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most 20 humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your honor's lady and sister." — Can prostration fall deeper? could a slave bow lower ? Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet describing the same man, says, "Dr. Swift came into the coffee- 25 house and had a bow from everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers. Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place for 30 224 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to under- take with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 200/. per annum as member of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., 5 going in to the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very late. A gentle- man said he was too fast. 'How can I help it,' says 10 the Doctor, 'if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English, for which he would have them all subscribe: 'For,' says 15 he, 'he shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him, — both went off just before prayers." There's a Httle malice in the Bishop's "just before 20 prayers." This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thou- 25 sand anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was constantly stretched out to reUeve an honest man — he was cautious about his money, but ready. — If you were in a strait would you like such a benefactor? I think I would rather have 30 had a potato and a friendly word from Goldsmith than SWIFT 225 have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner. He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman — no Irishman ever gave but 5 with a kind word and a kind heart. It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St. Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning regularly, but with such secrecy that the guests in his house were never in the least aware of the cere- lo mony. There was no need surely why a church dig- nitary should assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was afraid of heathen persecution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops who advised Queen Anne, when they counseled her not to appoint the au- 15 thor of the Tale 0} a Tub to a bishopric, gave perfectly good advice. The man who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that wild book, could not but be aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid down. The boon companion of Pope and Boling- 20 broke, who chose these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his confidence and affection, must have heard many an argument, and joined in many a con- versation over Pope's port, or St. John's burgundy, which would not bear to be repeated at other men's 25 boards. I know of few things more conclusive as to the sin- cerity of Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clergyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the Beggar's Opera — Gay, 30 Prose — 1 5 226 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the wildest of the wits about town — it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised to take orders — to invest in a cassock and bands — just as he advised him to husband his shilhngs and put his thousand pounds out at interest. 5 The Queen, and the bishops, and the world, were right in mistrusting the religion of that man. I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's re- ligious views, except in so far as they influence his lit- erary character, his life, his humor. The most notorious 10 sinners of all those fellow-mortals whom it is our busi- ness to discuss — Harry Fielding and Dick Steele, were especially loud, and I believe really fervent, in their ex- pressions of behef; they belabored freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists on all sorts of occasions, going 15 out of their way to bawl their own creed, and persecute their neighbor's, and if they sinned and stumbled, as they constantly did with debt, with drink, with all sorts of bad behavior, they got upon their knees and cried "Peccavi" with a most sonorous orthodoxy. Yes; poor 20 Harry Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trusty and undoubting Church of England men; they abhorred Popery, Atheism, and wooden shoes, and idolatries in general; and hiccupped Church and State with fervor. But Swift? His mind had had a different schoohng, 25 and possessed a very different logical pow^r. He was not bred up in a tipsy guardroom, and did not learn to reason in a Covent Garden tavern. He could conduct an argument from beginning to end. He could see for- ward with a fatal clearness. In his old age, looking at 30 the Tale oj a Tub, when he said, " Good God, what a SWIFT 227 genius I had when I wrote that book!" I think he was admiring not the genius, but the consequences to which the genius had brought him — a vast genius, a magnifi- cent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong, — to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon false- 5 hood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, and expose the black thoughts of men, — an awful, an evil spirit. Ah man! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends were Pope and St. John — what made 10 you to swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself to a life- long hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with such real wonder, humility, and reverence? For Swift was a reverent, was a pious spirit — for Swift could love and could pray. Through the storms and tempests 15 of his furious mind, the stars of religion and love break out in the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds and the maddened hurricane of his life. It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the consciousness of his own skepticism, and that he had 20 bent his pride so far down as to put his apostasy out to hire. The paper left behind him, called Thoughts on Religion, is merely a set of excuses for not professing disbelief. He says of his sermons that he preached pamphlets: they have scarce a Christian characteristic; 25 they might be preached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffeehouse almost. There is little or no cant — he is too great and too proud for that; and, in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is honest. But having put that cassock 30 228 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE on, it poisoned him: he was strangled in his bands. He goes through Hfe, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that the night will 5 come and the inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was! what a lonely rage and long agony — what a vulture that tore the heart of that giant ! It is awful to think of the great sufferings of this great man. Through life he always seems alone, somehow\ Goethe was so. 10 I can't fancy Shakespeare otherwise. The giants must live apart. The kings have no company. But this man suffered so; and deserved so to suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain. The "saeva indignatio" of which he spoke as lacerat- 15 ing his heart, and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone — as if the wretch who lay under that stone waiting God's judgment had a right to be angry — breaks out from him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. Against men in office, he having 20 been overthrown; against men in England, he having lost his chance of preferment there, the furious exile never fails to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous Drapier^s Letters patriotism! They are masterpieces of dreadful humor and invective: they are reasoned log- 25 ically enough too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so great, but there is his enemy — the assault is wonderful for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his hand, rushing on his 30 enemies and felling them: one admires not the cause SWIFT ' 229 so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case with madmen, certain sub- jects provoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. Mar- riage is one of these; in a hundred passages in his writings he rages against it; rages against children; an 5 object of constant satire, even more contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor curate with a large family. The idea of this luckless paternity never fails to bring down from him gibes and foul language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or Fielding, in his most 10 reckless moment of satire, have written anything like the Dean's famous "modest proposal" for eating chil- dren? Not one of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the nursery with the tread and 15 gayety of an ogre. "I have been assured," says he in the Modest Proposal, "by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourish- ing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, 20 or boiled; and I make no doubt it will equally serve in a ragoiit.^^ And taking up this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with perfect gravity and logic. He turns and twists this subject in a score of different ways: he hashes it; and he serves it up cold; and he garnishes it; 25 and relishes it always. He describes the Httle animal as "dropped from its dam," advising that the mother should let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render it plump and fat for a good table! "A child," says his Reverence, "will make two dishes at an enter- 30 230 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE tainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish," and so on; and, the subject being so delightful that he can't leave it, he proceeds to recommend, in place of 5 venison for squires' tables, "the bodies of young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen or under twelve." Amiable humorist! laughing castigator of morals! There was a process well known and practiced in the Dean's gay days: when a lout entered the coffeehouse, 10 the wags proceeded to what they called "roasting" him. This is roasting a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a native genius for it. As the Almanack des Gourmands says. On natt rotisseur. And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that 15 Swift exposed the unreasonableness of loving and hav- ing children. In Gulliver, the folly of love and mar- riage is urged by graver arguments and advice. In the famous Lilliputian kingdom. Swift speaks with approval of the practice of instantly removing children from their 20 parents and educating them by the State; and amongst his favorite horses, a pair of foals are stated to be the very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would per- mit themselves. In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, and illustrated the 25 theory by his own practice and example — God help him — which made him about the most wretched being in God's world. The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposi- tion, as exemplified in the cannibal proposal just men- 30 tioned, is our author's constant method through all his SWIFT 231 works of humor. Given a country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white staff near 5 as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign," the King of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as represented by such a con- temptible little creature as Gulliver. "The Emperor of LiUiput's features are strong and masculine" (what 10 a surprising humor there is in this description!) — "The Emperor's features," Gulliver says, "are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arched nose, his complexion oHve, his countenance erect, his body and Hmbs well proportioned, and his deportment majestic. 15 He is taller by the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into be- holders." What a surprising humor there is in these descrip- tions! How noble the satire is here! how just and honest! 20 How perfect the image! Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king of the pygmies is measured by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the spear that was like "-the mast of some tall admiral," but these images are purely likely to come 25 to the comic poet originally. The subject is before him. He is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of it. The figure suggests itself naturally to him, and comes out of his subject, as in that wonderful passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by the eagle into 30 232 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the sea, and Gulliver having been received into the ship's cabin, he calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin, and put it on the table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the box. It is the veracity of 5 the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come from such a country as Brobdingnag he would have blundered so. But the best stroke of humor, if there be a best in that abounding book, is that where Gulliver, in the un- 10 pronounceable country, describes his parting from his master the horse. "I took," he says, "a second leave of my master, but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the honor to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have been 15 censured for mentioning this last particular. Detrac- tors 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 travelers are to boast of ex- 20 traordinary favors they have received. But if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition of the Houyhnhnms they would soon change their opinion." The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial evi- 25 dence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has been censured, the na- ture of the favor conferred, and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete; it is truth topsy- turvy, entirely logical and absurd. 30 As for the humor and conduct of this famous fable, I SWIFT 233 suppose there is no person who reads but must admire; as for the moral, I think it horrible, shameful, unmanly, blasphemous; and giant and great as this Dean is, I say we should hoot him. Some of this audience mayn't have read the last part of Gulliver, and to such I would 5 recall the advice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say "Don't." When GuUiver first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees and assault him, and he describes him- self as "almost stifled with the filth which fell about 10 him." The reader of the fourth part of Gidlivefs Travels is Kke the hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language: a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing im- precations against mankind — tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of manliness and shame; filthy 15 in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene. And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the ten- dency of his creed — the fatal rocks towards which his logic desperately drifted. That last part of Gulliver is only a consequence of what has gone before; and the 20 worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the general vanity, the foolish pre- tension, the mock greatness, the pompous dullness, the mean aims, the base successes — all these were present to him; it was with the din of these curses of the world, 25 blasphemies against heaven, shrieking in his ears, that he began to write his dreadful allegory — of which the meaning is that man is utterly wicked, desperate, and imbecile, and his passions are so monstrous, and his boasted powers so mean, that he is and deserves to be 30 234 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the slave of brutes, and ignorance is better than his vaunted reason. What had this man done? what secret remorse was rankHng at his heart? what fever was boiHng in him, that he should see all the world blood- 5 shot? We view the world with our own eyes, each of us; and we make from within us the world we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of sunshine; a selfish man is skeptical about friendship, as a man with no ear doesn't care for music. A frightful self-consciousness it lo must have been, which looked on mankind so darkly through those keen eyes of Swift. A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who interrrupted Archbishop King and Swift in a conver- sation which left the prelate in tears, and from which 15 Swift rushed away with marks of strong terror and agi- tation in his countenance, upon which the Archbishop said to Delany, "You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must never ask a question." ■ 20 The most unhappy man on earth; — Miserrimus — what a character of him! And at this time all the great wits of England had been at his feet. All Ireland had shouted after him, and worshiped him as a liberator, a savior, the greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean 25 Drapier Bickerstaff GulHver — the most famous states- men, and the greatest poets of his day, had applauded him, and done him homage; and at this time, writing over to Bolingbroke from Ireland, he says, "It is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if 30 I could get into a better before I was called into the SWIFT 235 best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.^^ We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behavior to them; and now it behooves us not to forget that there are certain other persons in the creation who had rather 5 intimate relations with the great Dean. Two women whom he loved and injured are known by every reader of books so familiarly that if we had seen them, or if they had been relatives of our own, we scarcely could have known them better. Who hasn't in his mind an 10 image of Stella? Who does not love her? Fair and tender creature: pure and affectionate heart! Boots it to you, now that you have been at rest for a hundred and twenty years, not divided in death from the cold heart which caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful 15 pangs of love and grief — boots it to you now, that the whole world loves and deplores you ? Scarce any man, I believe, ever thought of that grave, that did not cast a flower of pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady, so lovely, so loving, so unhappy! you have 20 had countless champions; milHons of manly hearts mourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fond tradition of your beauty; we watch and follow your tragedy, your bright morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet martyr- 25 dom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the saints of English story. And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to contemplate, I will say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, in spite of mysterious separation and 30 236 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE union, of hope delayed and sickened heart — in the teeth of Vanessa, and that Httle episodical aberration which plunged Swift into such woeful pitfalls and quag- mires of amorous perplexity — in spite of the verdicts of 5 most women, I believe, who, as far as my experience and conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in the controversy — in spite of the tears which Swift caused Stella to shed, and the rocks and barriers which fate and temper interposed, and which prevented the pure 10 course of that true love from running smoothly — the brightest part of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark and tempestuous Hfe of Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It has been my business, professionally of course, to go through a deal of sentimental reading in 15 my time, and to acquaint myself with love-making, as it has been described in various languages, and at various ages of the world; and I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls "his little 20 language" in his journal to Stella. He writes to her night and morning often. He never sends away a letter to her but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear to let go her kind Httle hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him, and longing for him 25 far away in DubHn yonder. He takes her letters from under his pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond epithets and pretty caresses — as he would to the sweet and artless creature who loved him. "Stay," he writes one morning — it is the 14th of December, 30 17 10 — "Stay, I will answer some of your letter this SWIFT 237 morning in bed. Let me see. Come and appear, litde letter! Here I am, says he, and what say you to Stella this morning fresh and fasting? And can Stella read this writing without hurting her dear eyes?" he goes on, after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear 5 eyes shine clearly upon him then — the good angel of his life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate: but would she have changed it? I have heard a woman 10 say that she would have taken Swift's cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are in- 15 describably touching; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose Hfe he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness and unworthiness, and 20 adores her with cries of remorse and love: — " When on my sickly couch I lay, Impatient both of night and day, And groaning in unmanly strains, Called every power to ease my pains, 25 Then Stella ran to my relief, With cheerful face and inward grief, And though by heaven's severe decree She suffers hourly more than me, No cruel master could require -^o From slaves employed for daily hire, 238 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE What Stella, by her friendship warmed, With vigor and delight performed. Now, \\Tith a soft and silent tread, Unheard she moves about my bed : r My sinking spirits now supplies With cordials in her hands and eyes. Best pattern of true friends ! beware ; You pay too dearly for your care If, while your tenderness secures 10 My life, it must endanger yours: For such a fool was never found Who pulled a palace to the ground, Only to have the ruins made Materials for a house decayed." 15 One little triumph Stella had in her life — one dear little piece of injustice was performed in her favor, for which I confess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate and the Dean. That other person was sacrificed to her — that — that young woman, who lived five doors from 20 Dr. Swift's lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in such an outrageous man- ner — ^Vanessa was thrown over. Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to those he wrote to her. He kept Bolingbroke's, and 25 Pope's, and Harley's, and Peterborough's: but Stella, "very carefully," the Lives say, kept Swift's. 'Of course: that is the way of the world: and so we cannot tell what her style was, or of what sort were the little letters which the Doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear 30 from under his pillow of a morning. But in Letter IV. of that famous collection he describes his lodging in Bury Street, where he has the first floor, a dining room SWIFT 239 and bedchamber, at eight shilHngs a week; and in Let- ter VI. he says " he has visited a lady just come to town," whose name somehow is not mentioned; and in Letter VIII. he enters a query of Stella's — "What do you mean 'that boards near me, that I dine with now and then?' 5 What the deuce! You know whom I have dined with every day since I left you, better than I do." Of course she does. Of course Swift has not the slighest idea of what she means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the Doctor has been to dine "gravely" with a 10 Mrs. Vanhomrigh: then that he has been to "his neigh- bor:" then that he has been unwell, and means to dine for the whole week with his neighbor! Stella was quite right in her previsions. She saw from the very first hint, what was going to happen; and scented Vanessa 15 in the air. The rival is at the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are reading together, and drinking tea to- gether, and going to prayers together, and learning Latin together, and conjugating amo, amas, amavi together. The little language is over for poor Stella. By the rule 20 of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't amavi come after amo and amas? The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa you may peruse in Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses and letters to 25 him; she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him something godlike, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet. As they are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of Dr. Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlor. He likes to be admired and 30 240 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; he does not tell Stella about the business: until the impetuous Vanessa becomes too 5 fond of him, until the Doctor is quite frightened by the young woman's ardor, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry neither of them — that I believe was the truth; but if he had not married Stella, Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went 10 back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and bullied; the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her, and it killed her — she died of that passion. 15 And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully regarding her, "That doesn't sur- prise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman — a true woman! Would you have had one of them 20 forgive the other? In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, in- closed in a paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: ^^ Only a woman^s hair.'^ An 25 instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cynical indifference. See the various notions of critics! Do those words indicate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more pathetic? 30 Only a woman's hair: only love, only fidelity, only SWIFT 241 purity, innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless desertion: — only that lock of hair left; and mem- ory and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shudder- 5 ing over the grave of his victim. And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two 10 whom he took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not remain there long, and suffered for having been there. He shrank away from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, and away from him. He had not heart ^5 enough to see them die. He broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan; he slunk away from his fondest ad- mirer, Pope. His laugh jars on one's ears after seven- score years. He was always alone — alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's sweet smile came 20 and shone upon him. When that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An immense genius: an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling. We have other great names to mention — none I think, 25 however, so great or so gloomy. Prose — 16 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN [John Henry Newman was born in London, February 21, 1801. Having been graduated in 1820 from Trinity College, Oxford, he was elected Fellow of Oriel College in 1822. In 1828 Newman, already a recognized figure in the scholastic world, was presented to the vicarage of St. Mary's, Oxford, and soon began that series of sermons and Tracts for the Times, which were to point the way for the famous Oxford movement. At first a defender of the Church of England, Newman found himself gradually alienated from the Anglican authorities, and, in October, 1845, ^^ was ad- mitted to the Roman Catholic communion. He was later made a Cardinal in the Roman church. It was while serving as Rector at the Catholic University in Dublin, to which position he was ap- pointed in 1852, that the lectures on The Idea of a University .ixova. which the following essay is selected, were delivered. The greater part of Newman's published work is on doctrinal or theological themes. Of these w^orks perhaps TJie Development of Christian Doctrine, Apologia pro Vita Snd, the Grammar of Assent, and the two works of fiction Loss and Gain and Callista are best known. Newman died in 1890-] Newman applied himself to the duties of his position as Rector of the Catholic University, DubHn, with the same seriousness that he had taken to the treatment of the stirring religious problems of his earlier life. In a very real sense he consecrated himself to the task of- leading young minds into higher ways. And he de- termined to appeal to them on every side of their spiritual natures. This purposeful devotion to a single definite end is 242 J JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 243 very clear in the essay on Literature before us. For Newman's style and structure are as definite as is his purpose. Newman was one of the few seers who are able to subordinate imagination to reason. He never surrenders the appeal to the heart, but we are made to feel that he refuses to express all the emotion that he knows. The theme of Newman's essay on Literature is some- what apart from his main interests, yet in this essay, as fully as in any he ever wrote, is the man Newman mani- fested. He was a man of catholic tastes, his reading was carefully selected from a broad field of classic litera- ture and philosophy, and his memory was unusually re- tentive. In this essay are represented not only the wide scope of Newman's intellectual interests, but the masterly orderliness of his mental processes and the metaphysical inclinations of his mind. Newman was never afraid to permit the skeleton of his literary structure to show. He had remarkably developed the gift of vivifying any theme he treated, yet through the finished product the process of construction always was manifest. The essay on Literature evidences also the author's homiletical training. It advances through ten stately periods from the exordium, in which the interrogation is broached, to the homily in which the spiritual truths are applied to concrete facts. No essay of the century displays better balance among the parts than does this. Furthermore, the speaker never forgets that there are three parties to a public address, — the theme, the speaker, and the audience. Unlike Pater, who weaves his tapestry like Penelope, in sublime unconcern of all save the joys of concrete design, Newman scrupulously strives for understanding on the part of that indispensable third party, the audience. In a letter dated April, 1869, while he was at work on his Grammar of Assent^ Newman ac- knowledges, "I think I never have written for writing's 244 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sake; but my one and single desire and aim has been to do what is so difficult, viz. to express clearly and exactly my meaning." And so his essays and addresses show the most complicated design of ever recurring retrospec- tive reference. To read Newman is to understand him. Pater toils with tender solicitude over his style; Newman with gentle insistence over his reader. Newman was a natural stylist. Being what he was he perforce wrote as he did. But he was not an un- conscious artist. He applied to composition those deli- cately attenuated ideals that made his life a benediction and a martyrdom. He had, as he himself said, "an incommunicable simplicity" that came from dwelling in high places. There was in him something of the sweetness of Matthew Arnold without that writer's mel- lowness of temper. Avoiding exaggeration as vulgarity he also avoided the other extreme of intellectual naked- ness. Perhaps no writer has less of the sensuous appeal of color and atmosphere, yet he is saved from chill by the very power of his thinking. So flexible is his dic- tion, so rhythmic is the pulse and swell of his thought, that he often attains that most unusual of all perorations, the climax upon a course of abstract reasoning. No one can as well express Newman's attainments in style as he himself has done in treating the ideal characteristics of the great author. In Newman's style the ideal and its accomplishment seem to be joined. "He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; for- cibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; he can ana- lyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is con- sistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is lumi- nous. When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for the right idea, LITERATURE 245 and never a word too much. If he is brief, it is because few words suffice; when he is lavish of them, still each word has its mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the vig- orous march of his elocution." LITERATURE Wishing to address you, Gentlemen, at the com- mencement of a new Session, I tried to find a subject for discussion, which might be at once suitable to the occasion, yet neither too large for your time, nor too minute or abstruse for your attention. I think I see one 5 for my purpose in the very title of your Faculty. It is the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Now the question may arise as to what is meant by " Philosophy," and what is meant by "Letters." As to the other Fac- ulties, the subject-matter which they profess is intelli- 10 gible, as soon as named, and beyond all dispute. We know what Science is, what Medicine, what Law, and what Theology; but we have not so much ease in de- termining what is meant by Philosophy and Letters. Each department of that twofold province needs ex- 15 planation: it will be sufficient, on an occasion Hke this, to investigate one of them. Accordingly I shall select for remark the latter of the two, and attempt to de- termine what we are to understand by Letters or Lit- erature, in what Literature consists, and how it stands 20 relatively to Science. We speak, for instance, of ancient and modern literature, the literature of the day, sacred literature, light hterature; and our lectures in this place 246 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE are devoted to classical literature and English literature. Are Letters, then, synonymous with books? This can- not be, or they would include in their range Philosophy, Law, and, in short, the teaching of all the other Fac- 5 ulties. Far from confusing these various studies, we view the works of Plato or Cicero sometimes as philos- ophy, sometimes as literature; on the other hand, no one would ever be tempted to speak of Euclid as lit- erature, or of Matthiae's Greek Grammar. Is, then, 10 literature synonymous with composition? with books written with an attention to style? is literature fine writing? again, is it studied and artificial writing? There are excellent persons who seem to adopt this last account of Literature as their own idea of it. They 15 depreciate it, as if it were the result of a mere art or trick of words. Professedly indeed, they are aiming at the Greek and Roman classics, but their criticisms have quite as great force against all literature as against any. I think I shall be best able to bring out what I have to 20 say on the subject by examining the statements which they make in defense of their own view of it. They contend then, I. that fine writing, as exemplified in the Classics, is mainly a matter of conceits, fancies, and prettinesses, decked out in choice words; 2. that this is 25 the proof of it, that the classics will not bear translating; — (and this is why I have said that the real attack is upon literature altogether, not the classical only; for, to speak generally, all literature, modern as well as ancient, lies under this disadvantage. This, however, they will not 30 allow; for they maintain), 3. that Holy Scripture pre- LITERATURE 247 sents a remarkable contrast to secular writings on this very point, viz., in that Scripture does easily admit of translation, though it is the most sublime and beautiful of all writings. Now I will begin by stating these three positions in 5 the words of a writer, who is cited by the estimable CathoHcs in question as a witness, or rather as an ad- vocate, in their behalf, though he is far from being able in his own person to challenge the respect which is in- spired by themselves. 10 "There are two sorts of eloquence," says this writer, "the one indeed scarce deserves the name of it, which consists chiefly in labored and polished periods, an over-curious and artificial arrangement of figures, tin- selled over with a gaudy embellishment of words, which 15 glitter, but convey little or no light to the understanding. This kind of writing is for the most part much affected and admired by the people of weak judgment and vicioui taste; but it is a piece of affectation and formality the sacred writers are utter strangers to. It is a vain and 20 boyish eloquence; and, as it has always been esteemed below the great geniuses of all ages, so much more so with respect to those writers who were actuated by the spirit of Infinite Wisdom, and therefore wrote with that force and majesty with which never man writ. The 25 other sort of eloquence is quite the reverse to this, and which may be said to be the true characteristic of the Holy Scriptures; where the excellence does not arise 248 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE from a labored and far-fetched elocution, but from a surprising mixture of simplicity and majesty, which is a double character, so difficult to be united that it is seldom to be met with in compositions merely human. 5 We see nothing in Holy Writ of affectation and super- fluous ornament . . . Now, it is observable that the most excellent profane authors, whether Greek or Latin, lose most of their graces whenever we find them Hterally translated. Homer's famed representation of Jupiter — 10 his cried-up description of a tempest, his relation of Neptune's shaking the earth and opening it to its center, his description of Pallas's horses, with numbers of other long-since admired passages, flag, and almost vanish away, in the vulgar Latin translation. 15 "Let any one but take the pains to read the common Latin interpretations of Virgfl, Theocritus, or even of Pindar, and one may venture to aflir n he will be able to trace out but few remains of the graces which charmed him so much in the original. The natural conclusion 20 from hence is, that in the classical authors, the expres- sion, the sweetness of the numbers, occasioned by a musical placing of words, constitute a great part of their beauties; whereas, in the sacred writings, they consist more in the greatness of the things themselves than in 25 the words and expressions. The ideas and conceptions are so great and lofty in their own nature that they necessarily appear magnificent in the most artless dress. Look but into the Bible, and we see them shine through the most simple and literal translations. That glorious 30 description which Moses gives of the creation of the LITERATURE 249 heavens and the earth, which Longinus . . . was so greatly taken with, has not lost the least whit of its intrinsic worth, and though it has undergone so many translations, yet triumphs over all, and breaks forth with as much force and vehemence as in the original. ... 5 In the history of Joseph, where Joseph makes himself known, and weeps aloud upon the neck of his dear brother Benjamin, that all the house of Pharaoh heard him, at that instant none of his brethren are introduced as uttering aught, either to express their present joy or 10 palliate their former injuries to him. On all sides there immediately ensues a deep and solemn silence; a silence infinitely more eloquent and expressive than anything else that could have been substituted in its place. Had Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, or any of the celebrated 15 classical historians, been employed in writing this his- tory, when they came to this point they would doubt- less have exhausted all their fund of eloquence in fur- nishing Joseph's brethren with labored and studied harangues, which, however fine they might have been 20 in themselves, would nevertheless have been unnatural, and altogether improper on the occasion." ^ This is eloquently written, but it contains, I consider, a mixture of truth and falsehood, which it will be my business to discriminate from each other. Far be it from 25 me to deny the unapproachable grandeur and simplicity of Holy Scripture; but I shall maintain that the classics are, as human compositions, simple and majestic and natural too. I grant that Scripture is concerned with 1 Sterne, Sermon xlii. 250 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE things, but I will not grant that classical literature is simply concerned with words. I grant that human literature is often elaborate, but I will maintain that elaborate composition is not unknown to the writers of 5 Scripture. I grant that human Uterature cannot easily be translated out of the particular language to which it belongs; but it is not at all the rule that Scripture can easily be translated either; — and now I address myself to my task: — 10 Here, then, in the first place, I observe. Gentlemen, that Literature, from the derivation of the word, implies writing, not speaking; this, however, arises from the circumstance of the copiousness, variety, and public circulation of the matters of which it consists. What is 15 spoken cannot outrun the range of the speaker's voice, and perishes in the uttering. When words are in de- mand to express a long course of thought, when they have to be conveyed to the ends of the earth, or perpet- uated for the benefit of posterity, they must be written 20 down, that is, reduced to the shape of literature; still, properly speaking, the terms, by which we denote this characteristic gift of man, belong to its exhibition by means of the voice, not of handwriting. It addresses itself, in its primary idea, to the ear, not to the eye. We 25 call it the power of speech, we call it language, that is, the use of the tongue; and, even when we write, we still keep in mind what was its original instrument, for we use freely such terms in our books as "saying," "speak- LITEiL/^TURE 25 1 ing," "telling," "talking," "calling;" we use the terms "phraseology" and "diction;" as if we were still ad- dressing ourselves to the ear. Now I insist on this, because it shows that speech, and therefore literature, which is its permanent record, is 5 essentially a personal work. It is not some production or result, attained by the partnership of several persons, or by machinery, or by any natural process, but in its very idea it proceeds, and must prcceed, from some one given individual. Two persons cannot be the authors of 10 the sounds which strike our ear; and, as they cannot be speaking one and the same speech, neither can they be writing one and the same lecture or discourse," — which must certainly belong to some one person or other, and is the expression of that one person's ideas and feelings, 15 • — ideas and feelings personal to himself, though others may have parallel and similar ones,^ — proper to himself, in the same sense as his voice, his air, his countenance, his carriage, and his action, are personal. In other words. Literature expresses, not objective truth, as it is 20 called, but subjective; not things, but thoughts. Now this doctrine will become clearer by considering another use of words, which does relate to objective truth, or to things; which relates to matters, not per- sonal, not subjective to the individual, but which, even 25 were there no individual man in the whole world to know them or to talk about them, would exist still. Such objects become the matter of Science, and words indeed are used to express them, but such words are rather symbols than language, and however many we 30 252 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE use, and however we may perpetuate them by writing, we never could make any kind of Hterature out of them, or call them by that name. Such, for instance, would be Euclid's Elements; they relate to truths universal and 5 eternal; they are not mere thoughts, but things: they exist in themselves, not by virtue of our understanding them, not in dependence upon our will, but in what is called the nature of things, or at least on conditions ex- ternal to us. The words, then, in which they are set 10 forth are not language, speech, literature, but rather, as I have said, symbols. And, as a proof of it, you will recollect that it is possible, nay usual, to set forth the propositions of Euclid in algebraical notation, which, as all would admit, has nothing to do with literature. ^5 What is true of mathematics is true also of every study, so far forth as it is scientific; it makes use of words as the mere vehicle of things, and is thereby withdrawn from the province of literature. Thus metaphysics, ethics, law, political economy, chemistry, theology, cease 20 to be literature in the same degree as they are capable of a severe scientific treatment. And hence it is that Aristotle's works on the one hand, though at first sight Hterature, approach in character, at least a great num- ber of them, to mere science; for even though the things 25 which he treats of and exhibits may not always be real and true, yet he treats them as if they were, not as if they were the thoughts of his own mind; that is, he treats them scientifically. On the other hand, Law or Natural History has before now been treated by an author with 30 so much of coloring derived from his own mind as to LITERATURE 253 become a sort of literature; this is especially seen in the instance of Theology, when it takes the shape of Pulpit Eloquence. It is seen too in historical composition, which becomes a mere specimen of chronology, or a chronicle, when divested of the philosophy, the skill, or 5 the party and personal feelings of the particular writer. Science, then, has to do with things, literature with thoughts; science is universal, literature is personal; science uses words merely as symbols, but literature uses language in its full compass, as including phraseology, 10 idiom, style, composition, rhythm, eloquence, and what- ever other properties are included in it. Let us then put aside the scientific use of words, when we are to speak of language and literature. Literature is the personal use or exercise of language. That this is 15 so is further proved from the fact that one author uses it so differently from another. Language itself in its very origination would seem to be traceable to individuals. Their peculiarities have given it its character. We are often able in fact to trace particular phrases or idioms to 20 individuals; we know the history of their rise. Slang surely, as it is called, comes of, and breathes of the per- sonal. The connection between the force of words in particular languages and the habits and sentiments of the nations speaking them has often been pointed out. 25 And, while the many use language' as they find it, the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal to his own purposes, and molds it according to his own pecu- liarities. The throng and succession of ideas, thoughts, feelings, imaginations, aspirations, which pass within 30 254 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE him, the abstractions, the juxtapositions, the comparisons, the discriminations, the conceptions, which are so original in him, his views of external things, his judgments upon life, manners, and history, the exercises of his wit, of 5 his humor, of his depth, of his sagacity, all these in- numerable and incessant creations, the very pulsation and throbbing of his intellect, does he image forth, to all does he give utterance, in a corresponding language, which is as multiform as this inward mental action itself 10 and analogous to it, the faithful expression of his in- tense personality, attending on his own inward world of thought as its very shadow: so that we might as well say that one man's shadow is another's as that the style of a really gifted mind can belong to any but himself. 15 It follows him about as a shadow. His thought and feeling are personal, and so his language is personal. Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one: style is a think- ing out into language. This is what I have been laying 20 down, and this is literature; not things, not the verbal symbols of things; not on the other hand mere words; but thoughts expressed in language. Call to mind. Gentlemen, the meaning of the Greek word which ex- presses this special prerogative of man over the feeble 25 intelligence of the inferior animals. It is called Logos: what does Logos mean ? it stands both for rertson and for speech, and it is difficult to say which it means more properly. It means both at once: why? because really LITERATURE 255 they cannot be divided, — because they are in a true sense one. When we can separate Hght and illumina- tion, life and motion, the convex and the concave of a curve, then will it be possible for thought to tread speech under foot, and to hope to do without it — then will it 5 be conceivable that the vigorous and fertile intellect should renounce its own double, its instrument of ex- pression, and the channel of its speculations and emo- tions. Critics should consider this view of the subject before 10 they lay down such canons of taste as the writer whose pages I have quoted. Such men as he is consider fine writing to be an addition jrom without to the matter treated of, — a sort of ornament superinduced, or a lux- ury indulged in, by those who have time and inclination 15 for such vanities. They speak as if one man could do the thought, and another the style. We read in Persian travels of the way in which young gentlemen go to work in the East, when they would engage in correspondence with those who inspire them with hope or fear. They 20 cannot write one sentence themselves; so they betake themselves to the professional letter- writer. They con- fide to him the object they have in view. They have a point to gain from a superior, a favor to ask, an evil to deprecate; they have to approach a man in power, or to 25 make court to some beautiful lady. The professional man manufactures words for them, as they are wanted, as a stationer sells them paper, or a schoolmaster might cut their pens. Thought and word are, in their concep- tion, two things, and thus there is a division of labor. 30 256 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE The man of thought comes to the man of words; and the man of words, duly instructed in the thought, dips the pen of desire into the ink of devotedness, and pro- ceeds to spread it over the page of desolation. Then the 5 nightingale of affection is heard to warble to the rose of loveHness, while the breeze of anxiety plays around the brow of expectation. This is what the Easterns are said to consider fine writing; and it seems pretty much the idea of the school of critics to whom I have been re- 10 f erring. We have an instance in literary history of this very proceeding nearer home, in a great University, in the latter years of the last century. I have referred to it before now in a public lecture elsewhere; ^ but it is too 15 much in point here to be omitted. A learned Arabic scholar had to deliver a set of lectures before its doctors and professors on an historical subject in which his reading had lain. A linguist is conversant with science rather than with literature; but this gentleman felt that 20 his lectures must not be without a style. Being of the opinion of the Orientals, with whose writings he was familiar, he determined to buy a style. He took the step of engaging a person, at a price, to turn the matter which he had got together into ornamental English. 25 Observe, he did not wish for mere grammatical English, but for an elaborate, pretentious style. An artist was found in the person of a country curate, and the job was carried out. His lectures remain to this day, in their own place in the protracted series of annual Discourses 1 Position of Catholics in Englafid, pp. 1 01, 102. LITERATURE 257 to which they belong, distinguished amid a number of heavyish compositions by the rhetorical and ambitious diction for which he went into the market. This learned divine, indeed, and the author I have quoted, differ from each other in the estimate they respectively form of 5 literary composition; but they agree together in this, — in considering such composition a trick and a trade; they put it on a par with the gold plate and the flowers and the music of a banquet, which do not make the viands better, but the entertainment more pleasurable; as if 10 language were the hired servant, the mere mistress of the reason, and not the lawful wife in her own house. But can they really think that Homer, or Pindar, or Shakespeare, or Dryden, or Walter Scott, were ac- customed to aim at diction for its own sake, instead of 15 being inspired with their subject, and pouring forth beautiful words because they had beautiful thoughts? this is surely too great a paradox to be borne. Rather, it is the fire within the author's breast which overflows in the torrent of his burning, irresistible eloquence; it is 20 the poetry of his inner soul, which relieves itself in the Ode or the Elegy; and his mental attitude and bearing, the beauty of his moral countenance, the force and keenness of his logic, are imaged in the tenderness, or energy, or richness of his language. Nay, according to 25 the well-known Hne, "facit indignatio versus;'^ not the words alone, but even the rhythm, the meter, the verse, will be the contemporaneous offspring of the emotion or imagination which possesses him. " Poeta nascitur, non fit," says the proverb; and this is in numerous instances 30 Prose — 17 258 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE true of his poems, as well as of himself. They are born, not framed; they are a strain rather than a composition; and their perfection is the monument, not so much of his skill as of his power. And this is true of prose as well as 5 of verse in its degree: who will not recognize in the vision of Mirza a delicacy and beauty of style which is very difficult to describe, but which is felt to be in exact cor- respondence to the ideas of which it is the expression? 5 And, since the thoughts and reasonings of an author 10 have, as I have said, a personal character, no wonder that his style is not only the image of his subject, but of his mind. That pomp of language, that full and tuneful diction, that felicitousness in the choice and exquisite- ness in the collocation of words, which to prosaic writers 15 seem artificial, is nothing else but the mere habit and way of a lofty intellect. Aristotle, in his sketch of the magnanimous man, tells us that his voice is deep, his motions slow, and his stature commanding. In like manner, the elocution of a great intellect is great. His 20 language expresses, not only his great thoughts, but his great self. Certainly he might use fewer words than he uses; but he fertilizes his simplest ideas, and germinates into a multitude of details, and prolongs the march of his sentences, and sweeps round to the full diapason of 25 his harmony, as if icvdsl yaitov, rejoicing in his own vigor and richness of resource. I say, a narrow critic will call it verbiage, when really it is a sort of fullness of heart, parallel to that which makes the merry boy whistle as he LITERATURE 259 walks, or the strong man, like the smith in the novel, flourish his club when there is no one to fight with. Shakespeare furnishes us with frequent instances of this peculiarity, and all so beautiful, that it is difficult to select for quotation. For instance, in Macbeth: — 5 " Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And, with some sweet oblivious antidote. Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff, lo Which weighs upon the heart ? " Here a simple idea, by a process which belongs to the orator rather than to the poet, but still comes from the native vigor of genius, is expanded into a many-mem- bered period. 15 The following from Hamlet is of the same kind: — "'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 20 Nor the dejected haviour of the visage. Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, That can denote me truly." Now, if such declamation, for declamation it is, how- ever noble, be allowable in a poet, whose genius is so far 25 removed from pompousness or pretense, much more is it allowable in an orator, whose very province it is to put forth words to the best advantage he can. Cicero has nothing more redundant in any part of his writings 26o NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE than these passages from Shakespeare. No lover then at least of Shakespeare may fairly accuse Cicero of gorgeousness of phraseology or diffuseness of style. Nor will any sound critic be tempted to do so. As a certain 5 unaffected neatness and propriety and grace of diction may be required of any author who lays claim to be a classic, for the same reason that a certain attention to dress is expected of every gentleman, so to Cicero may be allowed the privilege of the "os magna sonaturum," 10 of which the ancient critic speaks. His copious, ma- jestic, musical flow of language, even if sometimes be- yond what the subject-matter demands, is never out of keeping with the occasion or with the speaker. It is the expression of lofty sentiments in lofty sentences, the 15 "mens magna in corpore magno." It is the develop- ment of the inner man. Cicero vividly realized the status of a Roman senator and statesman, and the " pride of place" of Rome, in all the grace and grandeur which attached to her; and he imbibed, and became, what be 20 admired. As the exploits of Scipio or Pompey are the expression of this greatness in deed, so the language of Cicero is the expression of it in word. And, as the acts of the Roman ruler or soldier represent to us, in a man- ner special to themselves, the characteristic magnanimity 25 of the lords of the earth, so do the speeches or treatises of her accompUshed orator bring it home to our imag- inations as no other \witing could do. Neither Livy, nor Tacitus, nor Terence, nor Seneca, nor Pliny, nor QuintiHan, is an adequate spokesman for the Imperial 30 City. They write Latin; Cicero writes Roman. LITERATURE 261 You will say that Cicero's language is undeniably studied, but that Shakespeare's is as undeniably natural and spontaneous; and that this is what is meant, when the Classics are accused of being mere artists of words. Here we are introduced to a further large question, 5 which gives me the opportunity of anticipating a misap- prehension of my meaning. I observe, then, that, not only is that lavish richness 0/ style, which I have noticed in Shakespeare, justifiable on the principles which I have been laying down, but, what is less easy to receive, 10 even elaborateness in composition is no mark of trick or artifice in an author. Undoubtedly the works of the Classics, particularly the Latin, are elaborate; they have cost a great deal of time, care, and trouble. They have had many rough copies; I grant it. I grant also that 15 there are writers of name, ancient and modern, who really are guilty of the absurdity of making sentences, as the very end of their hterary labor. Such was Isocrates; such were some of the sophists; they were set on words, to the neglect of thoughts or things; I cannot defend them. 20 If I must give an English instance of this fault, much as I love and revere the personal character and intellectual vigor of Dr. Johnson, I cannot deny that his style often outruns the sense and the occasion, and is wanting in that simplicity which is the attribute of genius. Still, 25 granting all this, I cannot grant, notwithstanding, that genius never need take pains, — that genius may not im- prove by practice, — that it never incurs failures, and 262 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE succeeds the second time, — that it never finishes off at leisure what it has thrown off in the outHne at a stroke. Take the instance of the painter or the sculptor; he 5 has a conception in his mind which he wishes to repre- sent in the medium of his art; — the Madonna and Child, or Innocence, or Fortitude, or some historical character or event. Do you mean to say he does not study his subject? does he not make sketches? does he not even 10 call them ''studies"? does he not call his workroom a studio? is he not ever designing, rejecting, adopting, cor- recting, perfecting ? Are not the first attempts of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle extant, in the case of some of their most celebrated compositions? Will any one say that 15 the Apollo Belvidere is not a conception patiently elaborated into its proper perfection? These depart- ments of taste are, according to the received notions of the world, the very province of genius, and yet we call them arts; they are the " Fine Arts." Why may not that 20 be true of literary composition which is true of paint- ing, sculpture, architecture, and music? Why may not language be wrought as well as the clay of the modeler ? why may not words be worked up as well as colors? why should not skill in diction be simply subservient 25 and instrumental to the great prototypal ideas which are the contemplation of a Plato or a Virgil? Our greatest poet tells us, " The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, 30 And, as imagination bodies forth LITERATURE 263 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." Now, is it wonderful that that pen of his should some- times be at fault for a while, — that it should pause, 5 write, erase, re-write, amend, complete, before he satis- fies himself that his language has done justice to the conceptions which his mind's eye contemplated? In this point of view, doubtless, many or most writers are elaborate; and those certainly not the least whose 10 style is furthest removed from ornament, being simple and natural, or vehement, or severely business-like and practical. Who so energetic and manly as Demos- thenes? Yet he is said to have transcribed Thucydides many times over in the formation of his style. Who so 15 gracefully natural as Herodotus? yet his very dialect is not his own, but chosen for the sake of the perfection of his narrative. Who exhibits such happy negligence as our own Addison? yet artistic fastidiousness was so notorious in his instance that the report has got abroad, 20 truly or not, that he was too late in his issue of an im- portant state paper, from his habit of revision and re- composition. Such great authors were working by a model which was before the eyes of their intellect, and they were laboring to say what they had to say, in such 25 a way as would most exactly and suitably express it. It is not wonderful that other authors, whose style is not simple, should be instances of a similar literary diligence. Virgil wished his Mneid to be burned, elab- orate as is its composition, because he felt it needed 30 264 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE more labor still, in order to make it perfect. The his- torian Gibbon in the last century is another instance in point. You must not suppose I am going to recommend his style for imitation, any more than his principles; 5 but I refer to him as the example of a writer feeling the task which lay before him, feeling that he had to bring out into words for the comprehension of his readers a great and complicated scene, and wishing that those words should be adequate to his undertaking. I think 10 he wrote the first chapter of his History three times over; it was not that he corrected or improved the first copy; but he put his first essay, and then his second, aside — he recast his matter, till he had hit the precise exhibition of it which he thought demanded by his subject. 15 Now in all these instances, I wish you to observe, that what I have admitted about Uterary workmanship differs from the doctrine which I am opposing in this, — that the mere dealer in words cares little or nothing for the subject which he is embellishing, but can paint and 20 gild anything whatever to order; whereas the artist, whom I am acknowledging, has his great or rich visions before him, and his only aim is to bring out what he thinks or what he feels in a way adequate to the thing spoken of, and appropriate to the speaker. 7 25 The illustration which I have been borrowing from the Fine Arts will enable me to go a step further. I have been showing the connection of the thought with the language in literary composition; and in doing so LITERATURE 265 I have exposed the unphilosophical notion, that the language was an extra which could be dispensed with, and provided to order according to the demand. But I have not yet brought out, what immediately follows from this, and which was the second point which I had to 5 show, viz., that to be capable of easy translation is no test of the excellence of a composition. If I must say what I think, I should lay down, with little hesitation, that the truth was almost the reverse of this doctrine. Nor are many words required to show it. Such a doc- 10 trine, as is contained in the passage of the author whom I quoted when I began, goes upon the assumption that one language is just like another language, — that every language has all the ideas, turns of thought, delicacies of expression, figures, associations, abstractions, points 15 of view, which every other language has. Now, as far as regards Science, it is true that all languages are pretty much alike for the purposes of Science; but even in this respect some are more suitable than others, which have to coin words, or to borrow them, in order to express 20 scientific ideas. But if languages are not all equally adapted even to furnish symbols for those universal and eternal truths in which Science consists, how can they reasonably be expected to be all equally rich, equally forcible, equally musical, equally exact, equally happy 25 in expressing the idiosyncratic peculiarities of thought of some original and fertile mind, who has availed him- self of one of them? A great author takes his native language, masters it, partly throws himself into it, partly molds and adapts it, and pours out his multitude of 30 266 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ideas through the variously ramified and deUcately minute channels of expression which he has found or framed: — does it follow that this his personal presence (as it may be called) can forthwith be transferred to 5 every other language under the sun? Then may we reasonably maintain that Beethoven's piano music is not really beautiful, because it cannot be played on the hurdy-gurdy. Were not this astonishing doctrine main- tained by persons far superior to the writer whom I lo have selected for animadversion, I should find it diflSi- cult to be patient under a gratuitous extravagance. It seems that a really great author must admit of transla- tion, and that we have a test of his excellence when he reads to advantage in a foreign language as well as in 15 his own. Then Shakespeare is a genius because he can be translated into German, and not a genius because he cannot be translated into French. Then the multi- plication table is the most gifted of all conceivable com- positions, because it loses nothing by translation, and 20 can hardly be said to belong to any one language what- ever. Whereas I should rather have conceived that, in proportion as ideas are novel and recondite, they would be difficult to put into words, and that the very fact of their having insinuated themselves into one language 25 would diminish the chance of that happy accident being repeated in another. In the language of savages you can hardly express any idea or act of the intellect at all: is the tongue of the Hottentot or Esquimaux to be made the measure of the genius of Plato, Pindar, Tacitus, 30 St. Jerome, Dante, or Cervantes? LITERATURE 267 Let us recur, I say, to the illustration of the Fine Arts. I suppose you can express ideas in painting which you cannot express in sculpture; and the more an artist is of a painter, the less he is likely to be of a sculptor. The more he commits his genius to the methods and con- 5 ditions of his own art, the less he will be able to throw himself into the circumstances of another. Is the genius of Fra Angelico, of Francia, or of Raffaelle disparaged by the fact that he was able to do that in colors which no man that ever lived, which no Angel, could achieve 10 in wood? Each of the Fine Arts has its own subject- matter; from the nature of the case you can do in one what you cannot do in another; you can do in painting what you cannot do in carving; you can do in oils what you cannot do in fresco; you can do in marble what 15 you cannot do in ivory; you can do in wax what you cannot do in bronze. Then, I repeat, applying this to the case of languages, why should not genius be .able to do in Greek what it cannot do in Latin? and why are its Greek and Latin works defective because they will 20 not turn into English? That genius, of which we are speaking, did not make English; it did not make all languages, present, past, and future;, it did not make the laws of any language: why is it to be judged of by that in which it had no part, over which it has no 25 control ? 8 And now we are naturally brought on to our third point, which is on the characteristics of Holy Scripture 268 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE as compared with profane literature. Hitherto we have been concerned with the doctrine of these writers, viz., that style is an extra, that it is a mere artifice, and that hence it cannot be translated; now we come to their 5 fact, viz., that Scripture has no such artificial style, and that Scripture can easily be translated. Surely their fact is as untenable as their doctrine. Scripture easy of translation! then why have there been so few good translators? why is it that there has 10 been such great difficulty in combining the two necessary quaHties, fidelity to the original and purity in the adopted vernacular ? why is it that the authorized versions of the Church are often so inferior to the original as compo- sitions, except that the Church is bound above all things 15 to see that the version is doctrinally correct, and in a difficult problem is obliged to put up with defects in what is of secondary importance, provided she secure what is of first ? If it were so easy to transfer the beauty of the original to the copy, she would not have been 20 content with her received version in various languages which could be named. And then in the next place. Scripture not elaborate! Scripture not ornamented in diction, and musical in cadence! Why, consider the Epistle to the Hebrews — 25 where is there in the classics any composition more care- fully, more artificially written? Consider the book of Job — is it not a sacred drama, as artistic, as perfect, as any Greek tragedy of Sophocles or Euripides? Con- sider the Psalter — are there no ornaments, no rhythm, no 30 studied cadences, no responsive members, in that di- LITERATURE 269 vinely beautiful book ? And is it not hard to understand? ' are not the Prophets hard to understand? is not St. Paul hard to understand? Who can say that these are pop- ular compositions? who can say that they are level at first reading with the understandings of the multitude? 5 That there are portions indeed of the inspired volume more simple both in style and in meaning, and that these are the more sacred and sublime passages, as, for instance, parts of the Gospels, I grant at once; but this does not militate against the doctrine I have been lay- 10 ing down. Recollect, Gentlemen, my distinction when I began. I have said Literature is one thing, and that Science is another; that Literature has to do with ideas, and Science with reahties; that Literature is of a personal character, that Science treats of what is universal and 15 eternal. In proportion, then, as Scripture excludes the personal coloring of its writers, and rises into the region of pure and mere inspiration, when it ceases in any sense to be the writing of man, of St. Paul or St. John, of Moses or Isaias, then it comes to belong to Science, 20 not Literature. Then it conveys the things of heaven, unseen verities, divine manifestations, and them alone — not the ideas, the feelings, the aspirations, of its human instruments, who, for all that they were inspired and infallible, did not cease to be men. St. Paul's epistles, 25 then, I consider to be literature in a real and true sense, as personal, as rich in reflection and emotion, as De- mosthenes or Euripides; and, without ceasing to be revelations of objective truth, they are expressions of the subjective notwithstanding. On the other hand, 30 270 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE • portions of the Gospels, of the book of Genesis, and other passages of the Sacred Volume, are of the nature of Science. Such is the beginning of St. John's Gospel, which we read at the end of Mass, Such is the Creed. 5 I mean, passages such as these are the mere enunciation of eternal things, without (so to say) the medium of any human mind transmitting them to us. The words used have the grandeur, the majesty, the calm, unimpassioned beauty of Science; they are in no sense Literature, they 10 are in no sense personal; and therefore they are easy to apprehend, and easy to translate. Did time admit I could show you parallel instances of what I am speaking of in the Classics, inferior to the inspired word in proportion as the subject-matter of the 15 classical authors is immensely inferior to the subjects treated of in Scripture — but parallel, inasmuch as the classical author or speaker ceases for the moment to have to do with Literature, as speaking of things ob- jectively, and rises to the serene sublimity of Science. 20 But I should be carried too far if I began. 9 I shall then merely sum up what I have said, and come to a conclusion. Reverting, then, to my original question, what is the meaning of Letters, as contained, Gentlemen, in the designation of your Faculty, I have 25 answered, that by Letters or Literature is meant the expression of thought in language, where by "thought" I mean the ideas, feelings, views, reasonings, and other operations of the human mind. And the Art of Letters LITERATURE 271 is the method by which a speaker or writer brings out in words, worthy of his subject, and sufficient for his audience or readers, the thoughts which impress him. Literature, then, is of a personal character; it consists in the enunciations and teachings of those who have a right 5 to speak as representatives of their kind, and in whose words their brethren find an interpretation of their own sentiments, a record of their own experience, and a suggestion for their own judgments. A great author. Gentlemen, is not one who merely has a copia verborum, 10 whether in prose or verse, and can, as it were, turn on at his will any number of splendid phrases and swelling sentences; but he is one who has something to say and knows how to say it. I do not claim for him, as such, any great depth of thought, or breadth of view, or philos- 15 ophy, or sagacity, or knowledge of human nature, or experience of human life, though these additional gifts he may have, and the more he has of them the greater he is; but I ascribe to him, as his characteristic gift, in a large sense the faculty of Expression. He is master of 20 the two-fold Logos, the thought and the word, distinct, but inseparable from each other. He may, if so be, elaborate his compositions, or he may pour out his im- provisations, but in either case he has but one aim, which he keeps steadily before him, and is conscientious 25 and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give forth what he has within him; and from his very earnestness it comes to pass that, whatever be the splendor of his diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity. Whatever 30 272 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its own sake. If he is a poet, " nil moHtur inepte.'' If he is an orator, then too he speaks, not only "distincte" and "splendide," but also ^'apte.'^ His page is the lucid 5 mirror of his mind and life — '* Quo fit, ut omnis Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella Vita senis." He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; for- 10 cibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous. 15 When his imagination wells up, it overflows in orna- ment; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for the right idea, and never a word too much. If he is brief, it is because few words suffice; when he is lavish of them, still each 20 word has its mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the vigorous march of his elocution. He expresses what all feel, but all cannot say; and his sayings pass into prov- erbs among his people, and his phrases become house- hold words and idioms of their daily speech, which is 25 tesselated with the rich fragments of his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles of Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern palaces. Such preeminently is Shakespeare among ourselves; such preeminently Virgil among the Latins; such in 30 their degree are all those writers who in every nation LITERATURE 273 go by the name of Classics. To particular nations they are necessarily attached from the circumstance of the variety of tongues, and the peculiarities of each; but so far they have a catholic and ecumenical character, that what they express is common to the whole race of man, 5 and they alone are able to express it. 10 If then the power of speech is a gift as great as any that can be named, — if the origin of language is by many philosophers even considered to be nothing short of divine, — if by means of words the secrets of the heart 10 are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, hidden grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, counsel imparted, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated, — if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, na- tional character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and 15 the future, the East and the West are brought into com- munication with each other, — if such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human family, — it will not answer to make light of Literature or to neglect its study; rather we may be sure that, in proportion as 20 we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like benefits to others, be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the more distinguished walks of life, — who are united to us by social ties, and are 25 within the sphere of our personal influence. Prose — 18 WALTER BAGEHOT [Walter Bagehot was born at Langport, Somersetshire, England, in 1826. He was educated at Bristol and later at University Col- lege, London, where he took his M. A. in 1848. He then began the study of law, and in 1852 was admitted to the bar. He did not practice, however, but, instead, he entered into business with his father who was a banker and shipowner at Langport. He soon became a writer for periodicals, and was associated with R. H. Hutton on the National Review, to which he contributed most of his critical essays. In i860, through the death of his father-in-law, Bagehot became editor of a weekly newspaper called The Eco7iomist. Among his writings are The English Constitu- tion (1867), Physics and Politics (1872), perhaps his greatest and certainly his best-known work, and Lombard Street, a book on the money market. Two years after Bagehot's death, which occurred in 1877, there was published a collection of his studies, biograph- ical, economic, and literary, edited by his friend R. H. Hutton.] It is not without significance that some of the most acute and stimulating essays in criticism written in England during the nineteenth century came from the pen of a man who w^as not only a critic of literature, but also an able banker, a skilled political economist, and a most keen interpreter of the English constitution. Walter Bagehot brought to the criticism of men and books a masculine nature, a sense of humor, a catholic taste, a freshness of view, and, in a word, that delight- ful sanity which is perhaps the distinguishing char- acteristic of a man of the world of the high type. He liked books that suggested the "talk of the manifold talker, glancing lightly from topic to topic, suggesting 274 WALTER BAGEHOT 275 deep things in a jest, unfolding unanswerable arguments in an absurd illustration." He did not care for Ma- caulay because Macaulay, he thought, was a book- made man, a "prey to print;" but he never tired of praising Walter Scott, whose novels revealed to him a hearty nature, a healthy mind. We may be sure that he was proud to count himself among Englishmen, of whom he said, "We excel in strong, noble imagination, in solid stuff." To this robust, practical EngHsh character, there was added a quick, penetrating intelligence, which makes us think of Bagehot as a man with both French and German blood in his veins. The irony in his humor, his aptness and fertility in illustration, together with his scorn of dullness, suggest the Gallic mind; while his zest in speculation and above all his innate sense of a spiritual world behind our material one, prompt us to beUeve that Bagehot, Uke many Germans, was born for metaphysical inquiry. He evidently delights to catch a glimpse of the inmost w^orkings of man's higher faculties and he seems ever in wait, as he reads his author, for the deeper, if shadowy, meanings, for the chance intimations of a presence that disturbs him with the joy of elevated thoughts. Wordsworth is, in fact, his favorite poet, whom he quotes as he takes leave of the gay, worldly muse of Beranger, or as he turns with re- lief from the hard Whiggism of Jeffrey, and whose works he does not hesitate to call "the Scriptures of the intellectual life." Bagehot's literary criticism shows both the excellen- cies and the defects of this practical, this speculative mind. We have in his essays the searching, independ- ent, stimulating opinions of an active intelligence. We have, as it were, the bracing air of outdoors blown into our library and across our page. We have the man who knows politics and business as few know them, analyzing 276 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE for us the prose of Gibbon, of Macaulay and of Jeffrey, and the poetry of Milton and Shakespeare, of Shelley and Tennyson. The impression of such a man must ever be quickening, provided always he displays, as Bagehot indeed does, a mind broad and cultivated, subtle and penetrating. But Bagehot had not his spec- ulative tendencies well in command. In his haste to discover the "type," in his desire to classify his ma- terial, he deals too largely in theory to suit the liberal reader. As soon as he studies a character or a book, he wishes to label it, apparently, to fence it about with arbitrary, and often cramping, limitations. To be sure, in so competent an essayist as Bagehot, this method leaves us generally with broad, common sense classifi- cations. It is of advantage, for example, to know that Shelley's was an "impulsive," and Milton's an "ascetic, character," that Dickens' genius was "irregular," that Hartley Coleridge was a " self-deKneative " poet, that novels are "ubiquitous" or "sentimental," and that biographers are either "exhaustive" or "selective," and so on. But this method is after all not the method of the greatest criticism, because it has no basis in con- sistent and profound principles. We do not feel that the judgments of Bagehot have their roots in a har- monious philosophy of life, as have those of Carlyle, or that they are founded upon a definite doctrine of criticism, as are those of Arnold and of Pater. Each essay is an independent entity, immensely stimulating to the thoughtful reader, and each is a brilliant specimen of "popular criticism," to use a phrase that Bagehot himself apphed to one of them. Yet they nowhere show that the critic appreciated literature in terms of a deliber- ately reasoned, comprehensive criterion. The essay on Pure, Ornate and Grotesque Art is ad- mirably representative of Bagehot's criticism both in method and in style. We here observe the large-minded WALTER BAGEHOt 277 man of affairs judging the poetry of the masters accord- ing to certain "simple principles of art." He puts literature to the test of life. He brings his subject into the light of an intellect most practical and most specu- lative, at once shrewd, quick-glancing, and acute. The serious student is startled into attention. He is aroused by a trenchant and systematic discussion of poetry, until at last he probably wishes to challenge the bold theories advanced by the critic. To awaken this spirit is possibly the highest service Hterary criticism can ren- der, the richest pleasure it can communicate. But Bagehot's method, upon a second and deeper examina- tion, is perhaps seen to suffer from the defects of its qualities. Although the classification of art into pure, ornate, and grotesque is most suggestive, and though it by no means implies that all of Wordsworth's poetry belongs to the first kind, all of Tennyson's to the second, or all of Browning's to the third, yet it is a classification at bottom arbitrary and without scientific exactness. The material in the essay would have to be subjected to the test of a higher standard of criticism, if it were to re- ceive an appreciation that would carry with it any degree of finality. Bagehot's ideal of composition is expressed in his remark that "the knack in style is to write like a human being." Like the style of Sydney Smith, which Bage- hot praised, "it goes straight to its object: it is not re- strained by the gentle hindrances, the delicate decorums of refining natures." We cannot think of Bagehot de- liberating upon the refinements of expression as did Newman and Pater, those masters in the art of higher rhetoric. He has, however, a luminous and telling man- ner of composition, often most felicitous, as when he says that "a man who has not read Homer is like a man who has not seen the ocean." He recognized a "certain clumsiness" in all the Germanic languages. 278 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE and his own style not infrequently reminds one of the clearness, the flexibility, of French prose. An in- stance of his wit is the cool comment that ''among the disciples of Carlyle it is considered that having been born a Puritan is the next best thing to having been in Germany;" and also his assertion that "it is easy for a doctrinaire to bear a post-mortem examination, — it is much the same whether he be aUve or dead." Though the present essay lacks this two-edged wit, and, in truth, is almost without the light of Bagehot's^ humor, it is in all other particulars typical of his style. In grasp, as well as in penetration of thought, in free play of phrase, it is surpassed by no other of his literary studies. In evenness and firmness of manner it is better than most. WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, AND BROWNING; OR, PURE, ORNATE, AND GROTESQUE ART IN ENGLISH POETRY We couple these two books ^ together, net because of their likeness, for they are as dissimilar as books can be; nor on account of the eminence of their authors, for in general two great authors are too much for one essay; 5 but because they are the best possible illustration of sornething we have to say upon poetical art — because they may give to it life and freshness. The accident of contemporaneous publication has here brought together two books very characteristic of modern art, and we want [o to show how they are characteristic. Neither English poetry nor English criticism have ever recovered the eruption which they both made at the beginning of this century into the fashionable world. 1 Tennyson's Enoch Ardai and Browning's Dramatis Personce. WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 279 The poems of Lord Byron were received with an avidity that resembles our present avidity for sensation novels, and were read by a class which at present reads little but such novels. Old men who remember those days may be heard to say: "We hear nothing of poetry now- 5 adays; it seems quite down." And "down " it certainly is, if for poetry it be a descent to be no longer the favorite excitement of the more frivolous part of the "upper" world. That stimulating poetry is now little read. A stray schoolboy may still be detected in a 10 wild admiration for the Giaour or the Corsair (and it is suitable to his age, and he should not be re- proached for it), but the real posterity — the quiet stu- dents of a past literature — never read them or think of them. A line or two Hnger on the memory; a few tell- 15 ing strokes of occasional and felicitous energy are quoted, but this is all. As wholes, these exaggerated stories were worthless; they taught nothing, and therefore they are forgotten. If nowadays a dismal poet were, like Byron, to lament the fact of his birth, and to hint he 20 was too good for the world, the Saturday Reviewers would say that "they doubted if he was too good; that a sulky poet was a questionable addition to a tolerable world; that he need not have been born, as far as they were concerned." Doubtless, there is much in Byron 25 besides his dismal exaggeration, but it was that exag- geration which made "the sensation" which gave him a wild moment of dangerous fame. As so often happens, the cause of his momentary fashion is the cause also of his lasting oblivion. Moore's former reputation was' 30 28o NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE less excessive, yet it has not been more permanent. The prettiness of a few songs preserves the memory of his name, but as a poet to read he is forgotten. There is nothing to read in him; no exquisite thought, no subKme 5 feehng, no consummate description of true character. Almost the sole result of the poetry of that time is the harm which it has done. It degraded for a time the whole character of the art. It said by practice, by a most efficient and successful practice, that it was the lo aim, the duty of poets, to catch the attention of the pass- ing, the fashionable, the busy world. If a poem "fell dead," it was nothing; it was composed to please the " London" of the year, and if that London did not like it, why, it had failed. It fixed upon the minds of a whole 15 generation, it engraved in popular memory and tradi- tion, a vague conviction that poetry is but one of the many amusements for the enjoying classes, for the lighter hours of all classes. The mere notion, the bare idea, that poetry is a deep thing, a teaching thing, the most 20 surely and wisely elevating of human things, is even now to the coarse public mind nearly unknown. As was the fate of poetry, so inevitably was that of criticism. The science that expounds which poetry is good and which is bad, is dependent for its popular rep- 25 utation on the popular estimate of poetry itself. The critics of that day had a day, which is more than can be said for some since: they professed to tell the fashion- able world in what books it would find new pleasure, and therefore they were read by the fashionable world. 30 Byron counted the critic and poet equal. The Ediu: WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 281 hurgh Review penetrated among the young, and into places of female resort where it does not go now. As people ask, "Have you read Henry Dunbar? and what do you think of it?" so they then asked, "Have you read the Giaour and what do you think of it?" Lord 5 Jeffrey, a shrewd judge of the world, employed himself in teUing it what to think; not so much what it ought to think, as what at bottom it did think, and so by dexter- ous sympathy with current society he gained contem- porary fame and power. Such fame no critic must 10 hope for now. His articles will not penetrate where the poems themselves do not penetrate. When poetry was noisy, criticism was loud; now poetry is a still small voice, and criticism must be smaller and stiller. As the function of such criticism was limited, so was its 15 subject. For the great and (as time now proves) the permanent part of the poetry of his time — for Shelley and for Wordsworth — Lord Jeffrey had but one word. He said, "It won't do." And it will not do to amuse a drawing-room. 20 The doctrine that poetry is a light amusement for idle hours, a metrical species of sensational novel, did not indeed become popular without gainsayers. Thirty years ago, Mr. Carlyle most rudely contradicted it. But perhaps this is about all that he has done. He 25 has denied, but he has not disproved. He has contra- dicted the floating paganism, but he has not founded the deep religion. All about and around us a jaith in poetry struggles to be extricated, but it is not extri- cated. Some day, at the touch of the true word, the 30 282 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE whole confusion will by magic cease; the broken and shapeless notions will cohere and crystalHze into a bright and true theory. But this cannot be yet. But though no complete theory of the poetic art as 5 yet be possible for us, though perhaps only our children's children will be able to speak on this subject with the assured confidence which belongs to accepted truth, yet something of some certainty may be stated on the easier elements, and something that will throw light on 10 these two new books. But it will be necessary to as- sign reasons, and the assigning of reasons is a dry task. Years ago, when criticism only tried to show how poetry could be made a good amusement, it was not impossible that criticism itself should be amusing. But now it 15 must at least be serious, for we beheve that poetry is a serious and a deep thing. There should be a word in the language of literary art to express what the word "picturesque" expresses for the fine arts. Picturesque means fit to be put into a 20 picture; we want a word liter atesque, "fit to be put into a book." An artist goes through a hundred different country scenes, rich with beauties, charms and merits, but he does not paint any of them. He leaves them alone; he idles on till he finds the hundred-and-first — a scene 25 which many observers would not think much of, but which he knows by virtue of his art will look well on canvas, and this he paints and preserves. Susceptible observers, though not artists, feel this quality too; they say of a scene, "How picturesque!" meaning by this 30 a quality distinct from that of beauty, or sublimity. WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 283 or grandeur — meaning to speak not only of the scene as it is in itself, but also of its fitness for imitation by art; meaning not only that it is good, but that its goodness is such as ought to be transferred to paper; meaning not simply that it fascinates, but also that its fascination is 5 such as ought to be copied by man. A fine and insen- sible instinct has put language to this subtle use; it expresses an idea without which fine art criticism could not go on, and it is very natural that the language of pictorial art should be better supplied with words than 10 that of Hterary criticism, for the eye was used before the mind, and language embodies primitive sensuous ideas, long ere it expresses, or need express, abstract and lit- erary ones. The reason why a landscape is "picturesque" is often 15 said to be, that such landscape represents an "idea." But this explanation, though, in the minds of some who use it, it is near akin to the truth, fails to explain that truth to those who did not know it before; the word "idea" is so often used in these subjects when people do not 20 know anything else to say; it represents so often a kind of intellectual insolvency, when philosophers are at their wits' end, that shrewd people will never readily on any occasion give it credit for meaning anything. A wise explainer must, therefore, look out for other words 25 to convey what he has to say. Landscapes, like every- thing else in nature, divide themselves as we look at them into a sort of rude classification. We go down a river, for example, and we see a hundred landscapes on both sides of it, resembling one another in much, yet 30 284 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE differing in something; with trees here, and a farm- house there, and shadows on one side, and a deep pool far on, a collection of circumstances most familiar in themselves, but making a perpetual novelty by the 5 magic of their various combinations. We travel so for miles and hours, and then we come to a scene which also has these various circumstances and adjuncts, but which combines them best, which makes the best whole of them, which shows them in their best propor- 10 tion at a single glance before the eye. Then we say: "This is the place to paint the river; this is the pictur- esque point!" Or, if not artists or critics of art, we feel without analysis or examination that somehow this bend or sweep of the river shall in future be the river to us: 15 that it is the image of it which we will retain in our minds' eye, by which we will remember it, which we will call up when we want to describe or think of it. Some fine countries, some beautiful rivers, have not this pictur- esque quality: they give us elements of beauty, but they 20 do not combine them together; we go on for a time de- lighted, but after a time somehow we get wearied; we feel that we are taking in nothing and learning nothing; we get no collected image before our mind; we see the accidents and circumstances of that sort of scenery, 25 but the summary scene we do not see; we find disjecta membra, but no form; various and many and faulty approximations are displayed in succession; but the absolute perfection in that country's or river's scenery — its type — is withheld. We go away from such places in 30 part delighted, but in part baffled; we have been puzzled WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 285 by pretty things; we have beheld a hundred different inconsistent specimens of the same sort of beauty; but the rememberable idea, the full development, the char- acteristic individuality of it, we have not seen. We find the same sort of quality in all parts of painting. 5 W'C see a portrait of a person we know, and we say, "It is Hke — yes, like, of course, but it is not the man;'^ we feel it could not be any one else, but still, somehow it fails to bring home to us the individual as we know him to be. He is not there. An accumulation of fea- 10 tures like his are painted, but his essence is not painted; an approximation more or less excellent is given, but the characteristic expression, the typical form, of the man is withheld. Literature — the painting of words — has the same 15 quaHty, but wants the analogous word. The word ^^ literatesque " would mean, if we possessed it, that per- fect combination in subject-matter of Hterature, which suits the art of literature. We often meet people, and say of them, sometimes meaning well and sometimes 20 ill: "How well so-and-so would do in a book!" Such people are by no means the best people; but they are the most effective people — the most rememberable people. Frequently, when we first know them, we like them because they explain to us so much of 25 our experience; we have known many people "like that," in one way or another, but we did not seem to understand them; they were nothing to us, for their traits were indistinct; we forgot them, for they hitched on to nothing, and we could not classify them. But 30 286 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE when we see the type of the genus, at once we seem to comprehend its character; the inferior specimens are ex- plained by the perfect embodiment; the approxima- tions are definable when we know the ideal to which 5 they draw near. There are an infinite number of classes of human beings, but in each of these classes there is a distinctive type which, if we could expand it in words, would define the class. We cannot expand it in formal terms any more than a landscape, or a species 10 of landscape; but we have an art, an art of words, which can draw it. Travelers and others often bring home, in addition to their long journals — which, though so Uving to them, are so dead, so inanimate, so unde- scriptive to all else — a pen-and-ink sketch, rudely done 15 very likely, but which, perhaps, even the more for the blots and strokes, gives a distinct notion, an emphatic image, to all who see it. We say at once, now we know the sort of thing. The sketch has hit the mind. True literature does the same. It describes sorts, varieties, 20 and permutations, by delineating the type of each sort, the ideal of each variety, the central, the marking trait of each permutation. On this account, the greatest artists of the world have ever shown an enthusiasm for reality. To care for notions 25 and abstractions; to philosophize; to reason out conclu- sions; to care for schfemes of thought, are signs in the artistic mind of secondary excellence. A Schiller, a Euripides, a Ben Johnson, cares for ideas — for the par- ings of the intellect, and the distillation of the mind; 30 a Shakespeare, a Homer, a Goethe, finds his mental WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 287 occupation, the true home of his natural thoughts, in the real world — "which is the world of all of us" — where the face of Nature, the moving masses of men and women, are ever changing, ever multiplying, ever mixing one with the other. The reason is plain — the business 5 of the poet, of the artist, is with types; and those types are mirrored in reahty. As a painter must not only have a hand to execute, but an eye to distinguish^ — as he must go here and there through the real world to catch the picturesque man, the picturesque scene, which is to live 10 on his canvas — so the poet must find in that reahty, the literatesqiie man, the literatesqite scene, which nature intends for him, and which will live in his page. Even in reality he will not find this type complete, or the characteristics perfect; but there he will find, at least, 15 something, some hint, some intimation, some suggestion; whereas, in the stagnant home of his own thoughts he will find nothing pure, nothing as it is, nothing which does not bear his own mark, which is not somehow altered by a mixture with himself. 20 The first conversation of Goethe and Schiller illus- trates this conception of the poet's art. Goethe was at that time prejudiced against Schiller, we must re- member, partly from what he considered the outrages of the Robbers, partly because of the philosophy of 25 Kant. Schiller's Essay on Grace and Dignity, he tells us — ** Was yet less of a kind to reconcile me. The philosophy of Kant, which exalts the dignity of mind so highly, while appearing to restrict it, Schiller had joyfully embraced: it unfolded the ex- 30 288 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE traordinary qualities which Nature had implanted in him; and in the Uvely feeling of freedom and self-direction, he showed himself unthankful to the Great Mother, who surely had not acted like a step-dame towards him. Instead of viewing her as self -subsisting, 5 as producing with a living force, and according to appointed laws, alike the highest and the lowest of her works, he took her up un- der the aspect of some empirical native qualities of the human mind. Certain harsh passages I could even directly apply to my- self : they exhibited my confession of faith in a false light ; and I ID felt that if written without particular attention to me, they were still worse ; for, in that case, the vast chasm which lay between us gaped but so much the more distinctly." After a casual meeting at a Society for Natural His- tory, they walked home, and Goethe proceeds: — 15 "We reached his house; the talk induced me to go in. I then expounded to him, with as much vivacity as possible, the Meta- morphosis of Plants^ drawing out on paper, with many characteris- tic strokes, a symbolic plant for him, as I proceeded. He heard and saw all this, wnth much interest and distinct comprehension ; 20 but when I had done, he shook his head and said: 'This is no experiment, this is an idea.' I stopped with some degree of irri- tation ; for the point which separated us was most luminously marked by this expression. The opinions in Dignity and Grace again occurred to me ; the old grudge was just awakening ; but I 25 smothered it, and merely said : ' I was happy to find that I had got ideas without knowing it, nay, that I saw them before my eyes.' " Schiller had much more prudence and dexterity of manage- ment than I ; he was also thinking of his periodical the Horen, 30 about this time, and of course rather wished to attract than repel me. Accordingly, he answered me like an accomplished Kantite ; and as my stiff-necked Realism gave occasion to many contradic- tions, much battling took place between us, and at last a truce, in which neither party would consent to yield the victory, but each WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 289 held himself invincible. Positions like the following grieved me to the very soul : How can there ever be an experiment, that shall correspond with an idea ? The specific quality of an idea is, that no experiment can reach it or agree with it. Yet if he held as an idea, the same thing which I looked upon as an experiment, there must 5 certainly, I thought, be some community between us — some ground whereon both of us might meet 1 " With Goethe's natural history, or with Kant's philos- ophy, we have here no concern; but we can combine the expressions of the two great poets into a nearly complete 10 description of poetry. The "symbolic plant" is the type of which we speak, the ideal at which inferior specimens aim, the class characteristic which they all share, but which none shows forth fully. Goethe was right in searching for this in reaUty and nature; Schiller 15 was right in saying that it was an "idea," a transcend- ing notion to which approximations could be found in experience, but only approximations — which could not be found there itself. Goethe, as a poet, rightly felt the primary necessity of outward suggestion and experience; 20 Schiller, as a philosopher, rightly felt its imperfection. But in these delicate matters, it is easy to misappre- hend. There is, undoubtedly, a sort of poetry which is produced as it were out of the author's mind. The de- scription of the poet's own moods and feelings is a com- 25 mon sort of poetry — perhaps the commonest sort. But the peculiarity of such cases is, that the poet does not de- scribe himself as himself: autobiography is not his object; he takes himself as a specimen of human nature; he de- scribes, not himself, but a distillation of himself: he 30 Prose — 19 290 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE takes such of his moods as are most characteristic, as most typify certain moods of certain men, or certain moods of all men; he chooses preponderant feehngs of special sorts of men, or occasional feelings of men of all 5 sorts; but with whatever other difference and diversity, the essence is that such self-describing poets describe what is in them, but not peculiar to them, — what is generic, not what is special and individual. Gray's Elegy describes a mood which Gray felt more than other 30 men, but which most others, perhaps all others, feel too. It is more popular, perhaps, than any English poem, because that sort of feeling is the most diffused of high feelings, and because Gray added to a singular nicety of fancy a habitual proneness to a contemplative — a dis- 15 cerning but unbiassed — meditation on death and on life. Other poets cannot hope for such success: a subject so popular, so grave, so wise, and yet so suitable to the writer's nature, is hardly to be found. But the same ideal, the same unautobiographical character is to be 20 found in the wTitings of meaner men. Take sonnets of Hartley Coleridge, for example: — TO A FRIEND " When we were idlers with the loitering rills, The need of human love we little noted : 25 Our love was Nature ; and the peace that floated On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, To sweet accord subdued our wayward vnWs : One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted, That, wisely doating, ask'd not why it doated, WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 29 1 And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills. But now I find, how dear thou wert to me ; That man is more than half of Nature's treasure, Of that fair Beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweet music which no ear can measure ; 5 And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure, The hills sleep on in their eternity." II TO THE SAME ' In the great city we are met again, Where many souls there are that breathe and die, lo Scarce knowing more of Nature's potency, Than what they learned from heat, or cold, or rain, The sad vicissitude of weary pain ; — For busy man is lord of ear and eye, And what hath Nature, but the vast void sky, 15 And the thronged river toiling to the main ? Oh ! say not so, for she shall have her part In every smile, in every tear that falls, And she shall hide her in the secret heart. Where love persuades, and sterner duty calls : 20 But worse it were than death, or sorrow's smart, To Uve without a friend within these walls." Ill TO THE SAME ' We parted on the mountains, as two streams From one clear spring pursue their several ways ; 25 And thy fleet course hath been through many a maze In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams Brightened the tresses that old Poets praise; Where Petrarch's patient love and artful lays, 30 292 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE And Ariosto's song of many themes, Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook, As close pent up within my native dell, Have crept along from nook to shady nook, 5 Where flow'rets blow, and whispering Naiads dwell. Yet now we meet, that parted were so wide, O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side." The contrast of instructive and enviable locomotion with refining but instructive meditation is not special and 10 peculiar to these two, but general and universal. It was set down by Hartley Coleridge because he was the most meditative and refining of men. What sort of literatesque types are fit to be described in the sort of Kterature called poetry, is a matter on which 15 much might be written. Mr. Arnold, some years since, put forth a theory that the art of poetry could only deline- ate great actions. But though, rightly interpreted and understood — using the word action so as to include high and sound activity in contemplation — this definition may 20 suit the highest poetry, it certainly cannot be stretched to include many inferior sorts and even many good sorts. Nobody in their senses would - describe Gray's Elegy as the delineation of a "great action"; some kinds of mental contemplation may be energetic enough to de- 25 serve this name, but Gray would have been frightened at the very word. He loved scholarlike calm and quiet in- action; his very greatness depended on his not acting, on his " wise passiveness," on his indulging the grave idle- ness which so well appreciates so much of human Hfe. 30 [Bagehot here quotes from Arnold's £mJ>edoc/es.] WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 293 We are disposed to believe that no very sharp defini- tion can be given — at least in the present state of the critical art — of the boundary line between poetry and other sorts of imaginative delineation. Between the undoubted dominions of the two kinds there is a de- 5 ba table land; everybody is agreed that the CEdipus at Coloniis is poetry: every one is agreed that the won- derful appearance of Mrs. Veal is not poetry. But the exact line which separates grave novels in verse, like Aylmer's Field or Enoch Arden, from grave novels not 10 in verse, like Silas Marner or Adam Bede, we own we cannot draw with any confidence. Nor, perhaps, is it very important; whether a narrative is thrown into verse or not certainly depends in part on the taste of the age, and in part on its mechanical helps. Verse 15 is the only mechanical help to the memory in rude times, and there is little writing till a cheap something is found to write upon, and a cheap something to write with. Poetry — verse, at least — is the literature of all work in early ages; it is only later ages which write in 20 what they think a natural and simple prose. There are other casual influences in the matter too; but they are not material now. We need only say here that poetry, because it has a more marked rhythm than prose, must be more intense in meaning and more concise in 25 style than prose. People expect a "marked rhythm" to imply something worth marking; if it fails to do so they are disappointed. They are displeased at the visible waste of a powerful instrument; they call it "doggerel," and rightly call it, for the metrical expres- 30 294 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sion of full thought and eager feeling — the burst of meter — incident to high imagination, should not be wasted on petty matters which prose does as well — which it does better — which it suits by its very limp- 5 ness and weakness, whose small changes it follows more easily, and to whose lowest details it can fully and with- out effort degrade itself. Verse, too, should be more concise, for long-continued rhythm tends to jade the mind, just as brief rhythm tends to attract the atten- lo tion. Poetry should be memorable and emphatic, in- tense, and soon over. The great divisions of poetry, and of all other literary art, arise from the different modes in which these types — these characteristic men, these characteristic feelings — 15 may be variously described. There are three principal modes which we shall attempt to describe — the pure, which is sometimes, but not very wisely, called the clas- sical; the ornate, which is also unwisely called romantic; and the grotesque, which might be called the mediaeval. 20 We will describe the nature of these a little. Criticism, we know, must be brief — not, Uke poetry, because its charm is too intense to be sustained — but, on the con- trary, because its interest is too weak to be prolonged; but elementary criticism, if an evil, is a necessary evil; 25 a little while spent among the simple principles of art is the first condition, the absolute prerequisite, for surely apprehending and wisely judging the complete embodiments and miscellaneous forms of actual literature. The definition of pure literature is, that it describes 30 the type in its simplicity — we mean, with the exact WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 295 amount of accessory circumstance which is necessary to bring it before the mind in finished perfection, and no more than that amount. The type needs some acces- sories from its nature — a picturesque landscape does not consist wholly of picturesque features. There is a 5 setting of surroundings — as the Americans would say, of fixings — without which the reality is not itself. By a traditional mode of speech, as soon as we see a picture in which a complete effect is produced by detail so rare and so harmonized as to escape us, we say. How ''clas- 10 sical"! The whole which is to be seen appears at once and through the detail, but the detail itself is not seen: we do not think of that which gives us the idea; we are absorbed in the idea itself. Just so in literature, the pure art is that which works with the fewest strokes; 15 the fewest, that is, for its purpose, for its aim is to call up and bring home to men an idea, a form, a character, and if that idea be twisted, that form be involved, that character perplexed, many strokes of literary art will be needful. Pure art does not mutilate its object; it rep- 20 resents it as fully as is possible with the slightest effort which is possible: it shrinks from no needful circum- stances, as little as it inserts any which are needless. The precise peculiarity is not merely that no incidental circumstance is inserted which does not tell on the 25 main design— no art is fit to be called art which per- mits a stroke to be put in without an object — but that only the minimum of such circumstance is inserted at all. The form is sometimes said to be bare, the acces- sories are sometimes said to be invisible, because the 30 296 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE appendages are so choice that the shape only is per- ceived. The English literature undoubtedly contains much impure literature — impure in its style, if not in its mean- 5 ing — but it also contains one great, one nearly perfect, model of the pure style in the literary expression of typical sentiment; and one not perfect, but gigantic and close approximation to perfection in the pure delin- eation of objective character. Wordsworth, perhaps, 10 comes as near to choice purity of style in sentiment as is possible; Milton, with exceptions and conditions to be explained, approaches perfection by the strenuous purity with which he depicts character. A wit once said, that " pretty women had more fea- 15 tures than beautiful women," and though the expres- sion may be criticised, the meaning is correct. Pretty women seem to have a great number of attractive points, each of which attracts your attention, and each one of which you remember afterwards; yet these points have 20 not grown together, their features have not linked themselves into a single inseparable whole. But a beau- tiful woman is a whole as she is; you no more take her to pieces than a Greek statue; she is not an aggregate of divisible charms, she is a charm in herself. Such 25 ever is the dividing test of pure art; if you catch your- self admiring its details, it is defective; you ought to think of it as a single whole which you must remem- ber, which you must admire, which somehow subdues you while you admire it, which is a "possession" to 30 you "forever." WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 297 Of course, no individual poem embodies this ideal perfectly; of course, every human word and phrase has its imperfections, and if we choose an instance to illus- trate that ideal, the instance has scarcely a fair chance. By contrasting it with the ideal, we suggest its im- 5 perfections; by protruding it as an example, we turn on its defectiveness the microscope of criticism. Yet these two sonnets of W^ordsworth may be fitly read in this place, not because they are quite without faults, or be- cause they are the very best examples of their kind of ro style, but because they are luminous examples; the com- pactness of the sonnet and the gravity of the sentiment, hedging in the thoughts, restraining the fancy, and helping to maintain a singleness of expression. THE TROSSACHS 15 There's not a nook within this solemn pass, But were an apt confessional for one Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, That life is but a tale of morning grass Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase 20 That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, If from a golden perch of aspen spray 2 s (October's workmanship to rival May) The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest I " 290 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE COMPOSED UPON WESTMINISTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, l802 " Earth has not anything to show more fair : Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty : z This city now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky ; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 10 Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill ; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep I The river glideth at his own sweet will : Dear God ! The very houses seem asleep ; 15 And all that mighty heart is lying still 1 " Instances of barer style than this may easily be found, instances of colder style — few better instances of purer style. Not a single expression (the invocation in the concluding couplet of the second sonnet perhaps ex- 20 cepted) can be spared, yet not a single expression rivets the attention. If, indeed, we take out the phrase — •* The city now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning," and the description of the brilliant yellow of autumn — 25 " October's workmanship to rival May," they have independent value, but they are not noticed in the sonnet when we read it through; they fall into place there, and being in their place, are not seen. The WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 299 great subjects of the two sonnets, the religious aspect of beautiful but grave Nature — the religious aspect of a city about to awaken and be alive, are the only ideas left in our mind. To Wordsworth has been vouch- safed the last grace of the self-denying artist; you think 5 neither of him nor his style, but you cannot help think- ing of — you rmist recall — the exact phrase, the very sen- timent he wished. Milton's purity is more eager. In the most exciting parts of Wordsworth — and these sonnets are not very 10 exciting — you always feel, you never forget, that what you have before you is the excitement of a recluse. There is nothing of the stir of hfe; nothing of the brawl of the world. But Milton, though always a scholar by trade, though solitary in old age, was through life 15 intent on great affairs, lived close to great scenes, watched a revolution, and if not an actor in it, was at least secretary to the actors. He was familiar — by daily experience and habitual sympathy — with the earnest debate of arduous questions, on which the life and 20 death of the speakers certainly depended, on which the weal or woe of the country perhaps depended. He knew how profoundly the individual character of the speakers — their inner and real nature — modifies their opinion on such questions; he knew how surely that na- 25 ture will appear in the expression of them. This great experience, fashioned by a fine imagination, gives to the debate of the Satanic Council in Pandemonium its real- ity and its life. It is a debate in the Long Parliament, and though the theme of Paradise Lost obliged Milton 30 300 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE to side with the monarchical element in the universe, his old habits are often too much for him; and his real sympathy — the impetus and energy of his nature — side with the rebellious element. For the purposes of 5 art this is much better. Of a court, a poet can make but little; of a heaven, he can make very little; but of a courtly heaven, such as Milton conceived, he can make nothing at all. The idea of a court and the idea of a heaven are so radically different, that a distinct com- 10 bination of them is always grotesque and often ludicrous. Paradise Lost, as a whole, is radically tainted by a vi- cious principle. It professes to justify the ways of God to man, to account for sin and death, and it tells you that the whole originated in a political event; in a court 15 squabble as to a particular act of patronage and the due or undue promotion of an eldest son. Satan may have been wrong, but on Milton's theory he had an arguable case at least. There was something arbitrary in the promotion; there were little symptoms of a job; in Par- 20 adise Lost it is always clear that the devils are the weaker, but it is never clear that the angels are the better. Milton's sympathy and his imagination slip back to the Puritan rebels whom he loved, and desert the courtly angels whom he could not love, although he praised 25 them. There is no wonder that Milton's hell is better than his heaven, for he hated officials and he loved rebels, — he employs his genius below, and accumu- lates his pedantry above. On the great debate in Pan- demonium all his genius is concentrated. The question 30 is very practical; it is, "What are we devils to do, now WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 301 we have lost heaven?" Satan, who presides over and manipulates the assembly; Moloch, " The fiercest spirit That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair," who wants to fight again; Belial, " the man of the world," 5 who does not want to fight any more; Mammon, who is for commencing an industrial career; Beelzebub, the official statesman, " Deep on his front engraven. Deliberation sat and Public care," 10 who, at Satan's instance, proposes the invasion of earth, — are as distinct as so many statues. Even Behal, " the man of the world," the sort of man with whom Milton had least sympathy, is perfectly painted. An inferior artist would have made the actor who "counseled ig- 15 noble ease and peaceful sloth," a degraded and ugly creature; but Milton knew better. He knew that low notions require a better garb than high notions. Human nature is not a high thing, but at least it has a high idea of itself; it will not accept mean maxims, unless they 20 are gilded and made beautiful. A prophet in goatskin may cry, "Repent, repent," but it takes "purple and fine linen" to be able to say, "Continue in your sins." The world vanquishes vnth its speciousness and its show, and the orator who is to persuade men to 25 worldliness m_ust have a share in them. Milton well knew this; after the warlike speech of the fierce Mo- 302 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE loch, he introduces a brighter and a more graceful spirit. " He ended frowning, and his look denounced Desp'rate revenge, and battle dangerous 5 To less than Gods. On th' other side up rose Belial, in act more graceful and humane : A fairer person lost not Heaven ; he seem'd For dignity composed and high exploit : But all was false and hollov^, though his tongue TO Drop 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 Tim'rous and slothful : yet he pleased the ear, 15 And with persuasive accent thus began : " He does not begin like a man with a strong case, but like a man with a weak case; he knows that the pride of human nature is irritated by mean advice, and though he may probably persuade men to take it, he must care- 20 fully apologise for giving it. Here, as elsewhere, though the formal address is to devils, the real address is to men: to the human nature which we know, not to the fictitious diabolic nature we do not know. " I should be much for open war, O Peers, 25 As not behind in hate, if what was urged Main reason to persuade immediate war. Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast Ominous conjecture on the whole success: When he who most excels in fact of arms, 30 In what he counsels, and in what excels Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair, WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 303 And utter dissolution, as the scope Of all his aim, after some dire revenge. First, what revenge ? The tow'rs of Heav'n are fill'd With armed watch, that render all access Impregnable ; oft on the bcrd'ring deep 5 Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing Scout far and wide into the realm of night, Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise With blackest insurrection, to confound 10 Heav'n's purest light, yet our Great Enemy, All incorruptible, would on His throne Sit unpolluted, and th' ethereal mold Incapable of stain would soon expel Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire 1 5 Victorious, Thus repulsed, our final hope Is flat despair. We must exasperate Th' Almighty Victor to spend all His rage, And that must end us : that must be our cure, To be no more ? Sad cure ; for who would lose, 2c Though full of pain, this intellectual being. Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night. Devoid of sense and motion ? And who knows, ~ 25 Let this be good, whether our angry Foe Can give it, or will ever ? How He can Is doubtful ; that He never will is sure. Will He, so wise, let loose at once His ire BeHke through impotence, or unaware, 30 To give His enemies their wish, and end Them in His anger, whom His anger saves To punish endless ? Wherefore cease we then ? Say they who counsel war, we are decreed. Reserved, and destined, to eternal woe ; 35 Whatever doing, what can we suffer more, 304 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE What can we siiffer worse ? Is this then worst, Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms ? " And so on. Mr. Pitt knew this speech by heart, and Lord Macau- 5 lay has called it incomparable; and these judges of the oratorical art have well decided. A mean foreign policy cannot be better defended. Its sensibleness is effectually explained, and its tameness as much as possible dis- guised. 10 But we have not here to do with the excellence of Behal's policy, but with the excellence of his speech; and with that speech in a pecuUar manner. This speech, taken with the few lines of description with which Mil- ton introduces it, embodies, in as short a space as pos- 15 sible, with as much perfection as possible, the delineation of the type of character common at all times, dangerous in many times; sure to come to the surface in moments of difhculty, and never more dangerous than then. As Milton describes it, it is one among several typical char- 20 acters which will ever have their place in great councils, which will ever be heard at important decisions, which are part of the characteristic and inalienable whole of this statesmanHke world. The debate in Pandemonium is a debate among these typical characters at the great- 25 est conceivable crisis, and with adjuncts of solemnity which no other situation could rival. It is the greatest classical triumph, the highest achievement of the pure style in English literature; it is the greatest description WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 305 of the highest and most typical characters with the most choice circumstances and in the fewest words. It is not unremarkable that we should find in Milton and in Paradise Lost the best specimen of pure style. Milton was a schoolmaster in a pedantic age, and there is 5 nothing so unclassical — nothing so impure in style — as pedantry. The out-of-door conversational life of Athens was as opposed to bookish scholasticism as a life can be. The most perfect books have been written not by those who thought much of books, but by those who thought 10 Httle, by those who were under the restraint of a sensi- tive talking world, to which books had contributed some- thing, and a various, eager life the rest. Milton is gen- erally unclassical in spirit where he is learned, and naturally, because the purest poets do not overlay their 15 conceptions with book knowledge, and the classical poets, having in comparison no books, were under little temptation to impair the purity of their style by the ac- cumulation of their research. Over and above this, there is in Milton, and a little in Wordsworth also, one defect 20 which is in the highest degree faulty and unclassical, which mars the effect and impairs the perfection of the pure style. There is a want of spontaneity, and a sense of effort. It has been happily said that Plato's words must have grown into their places. No one would say so of 25 Milton or even of Wordsworth. About both of them there is a taint of duty; a vicious sense of the good man's task. Things seem right where they are, but they seem to be put where they are. Flexibility is essential to the consummate perfection of the pure style, because the sen- 30 Prose — 20 3o6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sation of the poet's efforts carries away our thoughts from his achievements. We are admiring his labors when we should be enjoying his words. But this is a defect in those two writers, not a defect in pure art. Of course it 5 is more difficult to write in few words than to write in many; to take the best adjuncts, and those only, for what you have to say, instead of using all which comes to hand : it is an additional labor if you write verses in a morning, to spend the rest of the day in choosing, that is, in mak- 10 ing those verses fewer. But a perfect artist in the pure style is as effortless and as natural as in any style, perhaps is more so. Take the well-known lines: — *' There was a little lawny islet By anemone and violet, 15 Like mosaic, paven : And its roof was flowers and leaves Which the summer's breath enweaves, Where nor sun, nor showers, nor breeze, Pierce the pines and tallest trees, 20 Each a gem engraven : Girt by many an azure wave With which the clouds and mountains pave A lake's blue chasm." Shelley had many merits and many defects. This is 25 not the place for a complete, or indeed for any, estimate of him. But one excellence is most evident. His words are as flexible as any words; the rhythm of some modulating air seems to move them into their place without a struggle by the poet, and almost without his knowledge. This is 30 the perfection of pure art, to embody typical conceptions WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 307 in the choicest, the fewest accidents, to embody them so that each of these accidents may produce its full ef- fect, and so to embody them without effort. The extreme opposite to this pure art is what may be called ornate art. This species of art aims also at giving 5 a delineation of the typical idea in its perfection and its fullness, but it aims at so doing in a manner most differ- ent. It wishes to surround the type with the greatest number of circumstances which it will bear. It works not by choice and selection, but by accumulation and 10 aggregation. The idea is not, as in the pure style, pre- sented with the least clothing which it will endure, but with the richest and most involved clothing that it will admit. We are fortunate in not having to hunt out of past 15 literature an illustrative specimen of the ornate style. Mr. Tennyson has just given one admirable in itself, and most characteristic of the defects and the merits of this style. The story of Enoch Arden, as he has enhanced and presented it, is a rich and splendid composite of imagery 20 and illustration. Yet how simple that story is in itself! A sailor who sells fish, breaks his leg, gets dismal, gives up selling fish, goes to sea, is wrecked on a desert island, stays there some years, on his return finds his wife married to a miller, speaks to a landlady on the subject, and dies. 25 Told in the pure and simple, the unadorned and classical style, this story would not have taken three pages, but Mr. Tennyson has been able to make it the principal — the largest tale in his new volume. He has done so only by giving to every event and incident in the volume an ac- 30 3o8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE companying commentary. He tells a great deal about the torrid zone, which a rough sailor like Enoch Arden certainly would not have perceived; and he gives to the fishing village, to which all the characters belong, a soft- 5 ness and a fascination which such villages scarcely pos- sess in reality. The description of the tropical island on which the sailor is thrown, is an absolute model of adorned art: — " The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns lo And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes. The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The luster of the long convolvuluses That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran 15 Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world. All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly human face. Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 20 The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef. The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 25 As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail : No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 30 Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east •, The blaze upon his island overhead ; The blaze upon the waters to the west ; WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 309 Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail." No expressive circumstances can be added to this de- scription, no enhancing detail suggested. A much less 5 happy instance is the description of Enoch's life before he sailed: — " While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, Or often journeying landward ; for in truth Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean spoil lO In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, Not only to the market cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal- warding lion whelp, le And peacock yew tree of the lonely Hall, Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering." So much has not often been made of selling fish. The essence of ornate art is in this manner to accumulate round the typical object, everything which can be said 20 about it, every associated thought that can be connected with it, without impairing the essence of the delineation. The first defect which strikes a student of ornate art — the first which arrests the mere reader of it — is what is called a want of simplicity. Nothing is described as it is; 25 everything has about it an atmosphere of something else. The combined and associated thoughts, though they set off and heighten particular ideas and aspects of the central and typical conception, yet complicate it : a simple thing — "a primrose by the river's brim" — is never left by itself, 30 3IO NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE something else is put with it; something not more con- nected with it than the "Hon whelp" and the "peacock yew tree" are with the "fresh fish for sale" that Enoch carries past them. Even in the highest cases, ornate art 5 leaves upon a cultured and delicate taste, the conviction that it is not the highest art, that it is somehow exces- sive and over-rich, that it is not chaste in itself or chas- tening to the mind that sees it — that it is in an unexplained manner unsatisfactory, "a thing in which we feel there is lo some hidden want!" That want is a want of "definition." We must all know landscapes, river landscapes especially, which are in the highest sense beautiful, which when we first see them give us a delicate pleasure; which in some — and these the 15 best cases — give even a gentle sense of surprise that such things should be so beautiful, and yet when we come to five in them, to spend even a few hours in them, we seem stifled and oppressed. On the other hand there are people to whom the seashore is a companion, an exhilara- 20 tion; and not so much for the brawl of the shore as for the limited vastness, the finite infinite of the ocean as they see it. Such people often come home braced and nerved, , and if they spoke out the truth, would have only to say, " We have seen the horizon line; " if they were let alone in- 25 deed, they would gaze on it hour after hour, so great to them is the fascination, so full the sustaining calm, which they gain from that union of form and greatness. To a very inferior extent, but still, perhaps, to an extent which most people understand better, a common arch will have 30 the same effect. A bridge completes a river landscape; if WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 311 of the old and many-arched sort, it regulates by a long series of defined forms the vague outline of wood and river, which before had nothing to measure it; if of the new scientific sort, it introduces still more strictly a geo- metrical element; it stiffens the scenery which was before 5 too soft, too delicate, too vegetable. Just such is the ef- fect of pure style in literary art. It calms by conciseness; while the ornate style leaves on the mind a mist of beauty, an excess of fascination, a complication of charm, the pure style leaves behind it the simple, defined, measured 10 .idea, as it is, and by itself. That which is chaste chas- tens; there is a poised energy — a state half thrill, half tranquillity — which pure art gives, which no other can give; a pleasure justified as well as felt; an ennobled sat- isfaction at what ought to satisfy us, and must ennoble 15 us. Ornate art is to pure art what a painted statue is to an unpainted. It is impossible to deny that a touch of color does bring out certain parts; does convey certain expres- sions; does heighten certain features, but it leaves on the 20 work as a whole, a want, as we say, "of something; " a want of that inseparable chasteness which clings to simple sculpture, an impairing predominance of alluring details which impairs our satisfaction with our own satisfaction; which makes us doubt whether a higher being than our- 25 selves will be satisfied even though we are so. In the very same manner, though the rouge of ornate literature excites our eye, it also impairs our confidence. Mr. Arnold has justly observed that this self-justifying, self-proving purity of style is commoner in ancient litera- 30 312 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ture than in modern literature, and also that Shakespeare is not a great or an unmixed example of it. No one can say that he is. His works are full of undergrowth, are full of complexity, are not models of style; except by a 5 miracle, nothing in the EHzabethan age could be a model of style; the restraining taste of that age was feebler and more mistaken than that of any other equally great age. Shakespeare's mind so teemed with creation that he re- quired the most just, most forcible, most constant re- 10 straint from without. He most needed to be guided among poets, and he was the least and worst guided. As a whole no one can call his works finished models of the pure style, or of any style. But he has many passages of the most pure style, passages which could be easily cited 15 if space served. And we must remember that the task which Shakespeare undertook was the most difficult which any poet has ever attempted, and that it is a task in which after a million efforts every other poet has failed. The Elizabethan drama — as Shakespeare has immortal- 20 ized it — undertakes to dehneate in five acts, under stage restrictions, and in mere dialogue, a whole list of drama- tis persoiKE, a set of characters enough for a modern novel, and with the distinctness of a modern novel. Shakespeare is not content to give two or three great char- 25 acters in solitude and in dignity, like the classical drama- tists; he wishes to give a whole party of characters in the play of life, and according to the nature of each. He would " hold the mirror up to nature," not to catch a mon- arch in a tragic posture, but a whole group of characters 30 engaged in many actions, intent on many purposes, think- WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 313 ing many thoughts. There is Hfe enough, there is action enough, in single plays of Shakespeare to set up an ancient dramatist for a long career. And Shakespeare succeeded. His characters, taken en masse, and as a whole, are as well known as any novelist's characters; cultivated men know 5 all about them, as young ladies know all about Mr. Trol- lope's novels. But no other dramatist has succeeded in such an aim. No one else's characters are staple people in English literature, hereditary people whom every one knows all about in every generation. The contempo- 10 rary dramatists, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, etc., had many merits, some of them were great men. But a critic must say of them the worst thing he has to say: " They were men who failed in their charac- teristic aim;" they attempted to describe numerous sets 15 of complicated characters, and they failed. No one of such characters, or hardly one, lives in common memory; the Faustiis of Marlowe, a really great idea, is not remem- bered. They undertook to write what they could not write— five acts full of real characters, and in consequence, 20 the fine individual things they conceived are forgotten by the mixed multitude, and known only to a few of the few. Of the Spanish theater we cannot speak; but there are no such characters in any French tragedy: the whole aim of that tragedy forbade it. Goethe has added to literature a 25 few great characters; he may be said almost to have added to literature the idea of "intellectual creation," — the idea of describing the great characters through the intellect; but he has not added to the common stock what Shake- speare added, a new multitude of men and women; and 30 314 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE these not in simple attitudes, but amid the most complex parts of life, with all their various natures roused, mixed, and strained. The severest art must have allowed many details, much overflowing circumstance, to a poet who un- 5 dertook to describe what almost defies description. Pure art would have commanded him to use details lavishly, for only by a multiplicity of such could the required effect have been at all produced. Shakespeare could accomphsh it, for his mind was a spring, an inexhaustible fountain, of 10 human nature, and it is no wonder that being compelled by the task of his time to let the fulness of his nature over- flow, he sometimes let it overflow too much, and covered with erroneous conceits and superfluous images, charac- ters and conceptions which would have been far more 15 justly, far more effectually, delineated with conciseness and simplicity. But there is an infinity of pure art in Shakespeare, although there is a great deal else also. It will be said, if ornate art be, as you say, an inferior species of art, why should it ever be used ? If pure art be 20 the best sort of art, why should it not always be used ? The reason is this: literary art, as we just now explained, is concerned with Hteratesque characters in literatesque situations; and the best art is concerned with the most literatesque characters in the most literatesque situations. 25 Such are the subjects of pure art; it embodies with the fewest touches, and under the most select and choice circumstances, the highest conceptions; but it does not foHow that only the best subjects are to be treated by art, and then only in the very best way. Human nature could 30 not endure such a critical commandment as that, and WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 315 it would be an erroneous criticism which gave it. Any Hteratesque character may be described in Kterature un- der any circumstances which exhibit its literatesqueness. The essence of pure art consists in its describing what is as it is, and this is very well for what can bear it, but 5 there are many inferior things which will not bear it, and which nevertheless ought to be described in books. A certain kind of literature deals with illusions, and this kind of literature has given a coloring to the name romantic. A man of rare genius, and even of poetical 10 genius, has gone so far as to make these illusions the true subject of poetry — almost the sole subject. " Without," says Father Newman, of one of his characters, " being himself a poet, he was in the season of poetry, in the sweet springtime, when the year is most beautiful because it is new. 15 Novelty was beauty to a heart so open and cheerful as his ; not only because it was novelty, and had its proper charm as such, but because when we first see things, we see them in a gay confusion, which is a principal element of the poetical. As time goes on, and we number and sort and measure things, — as we gain views, we 20 advance towards philosophy and truth, but we recede from poetry. " When we ourselves were young, we once on a time walked, on a hot summer day, from Oxford to Newington — a dull road, as any one who has gone it knows ; yet it was new to us ; and we protest to you, reader, believe it or not, laugh or not, as you will, 25 to us it seemed on that occasion quite touchingly beautiful ; and a soft melancholy came over us, of which the shadows fall even now, when we look back upon that dusty, weary journey. And why ? because every object which met us was unknown and full of mystery. A tree or two in the distance seemed the beginning of a 30 great wood, or park, stretching endlessly; a hill implied a vale be- yond, with that vale's history; the by-lanes, with their green hedges, wound on and vanished, yet were not lost to the imagina- 31 6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE tion. Such was our first journey ; but when we had gone it sev- eral times, the mind refused to act, the scene ceased to enchant, stern reality alone remained, and we thought it one of the most tiresome, odious roads we ever had occasion to traverse." 5 That is to say, that the function of the poet is to in- troduce a "gay confusion," a rich medley which does not exist in the actual world — which perhaps could not exist in any world — but which would seem pretty if it did exist. Every one who reads Enoch Arden will perceive that this 10 notion of all poetry is exactly applicable to this one poem. Whatever be made of Enoch's "Ocean spoil in ocean- smelHng osier," of the " portal- warding lion whelp, and the peacock yew tree," every one knows that in himself Enoch could not have been charming. People who sell 15 fish about the country (and that is what he did, though Mr. Tennyson won't speak out, and wraps it up) never are beautiful. As Enoch was and must be coarse, in itself the poem must depend for a charm on a "gay confu- sion" — on a splendid accumulation of impossible acces- 20 sories. Mr. Tennyson knows this better than any of us — he knows the country world; he has proved that no one living knows it better; he has painted with pure art — with art which describes what is a race perhaps more refined, more 25 delicate, more conscientious, than the sailor — the North- ern Farmer, and we all know what a splendid, what a liv- ing thing, he has made of it. He could, if he only would, have given us the ideal sailor in like manner — the ideal of the natural sailor we mean — the characteristic present 30 man as he lives and is. But this he has not chosen. He WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 317 has endeavored to describe an exceptional sailor, at an ex- ceptionally refined port, performing a graceful act, an act of relinquishment. And with this task before him, his pro- found taste taught him that ornate art was a necessary medium— was the sole effectual instrument— for his pur- 5 pose. It was necessary for him if possible to abstract the mind from reality, to induce us not to conceive or think of sailors as they are while we are reading of his sailors, but to think of what a person who did not know, might fancy sailors to be. A casual traveler on the seashore, with the 10 sensitive mood and the romantic imagination Dr. New- man has described, might fancy, would fancy, a seafaring village to be like that. Accordingly, Mr. Tennyson has made it his aim to call off the stress of fancy from real life, to occupy it otherwise, to bury it with pretty accessories; 15 to engage it on the "peacock yew tree," and the "portal- warding lion whelp." Nothing, too, can be more splendid than the description of the tropics as Mr. Tennyson de- lineates them, but a sailor would not have felt the tropics in that manner. The beauties of Nature would not have 20 so much occupied him. He would have known little of the scarlet shafts of sunrise and nothing of the long con- volvuluses. As in Robinson Crusoe, his own petty con- trivances and his small ailments would have been the principal subject to him. "For three years," he might 25 have said, "my back was bad; and then I put two pegs into a piece of driftwood and so made a chair; and after that it pleased God to send me a chill." In real life his piety would scarcely have gone beyond that. It will indeed be said, that though the sailor had no 30 31 8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE words for, and even no explicit consciousness of, the splen- did details of the torrid zone, yet that he had, notwith- standing, a dim latent inexpressible conception of them: though he could not speak of them or describe them, yet 5 they were much to him. And doubtless such is the case. Rude people are impressed by what is beautiful — deeply impressed — though they could not describe what they see, or what they feel. But what is absurd in Mr. Tennyson's description — absurd when we abstract it from the gor- lo geous additions and ornaments with which Mr. Tennyson distracts us — is, that his hero feels nothing else but these great splendors. We hear nothing of the physical ail- ments, the rough devices, the low superstitions, which really would have been the jirst things, the favorite and 15 principal occupations of his mind. Just so when he gets home he may have had such fine sentiments, though it is odd, and he 7nay have spoken of them to his landlady, though that is odder still, — but it is incredible that his whole mind should be made up of fine sentiments. Be- 20 sides those sweet feelings, if he had them, there must have been many more obvious, more prosaic, and some perhaps more healthy. Mr. Tennyson has shown a profound judgment in distracting us as he does. He has given us a classic delineation of the Northern Farmer with no orna- 25 ment at all — as bare a thing as can be — because he then wanted to describe a true type of real men; he has given us a sailor crowded all over with ornament and illustra- tion because he then wanted to describe an unreal type of fancied men, — not sailors as they are, but sailors as they 30 might be wished. WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 319 Another prominent element in Enoch Arden is yet more suitable to, yet more requires the aid of, ornate art. Mr. Tennyson undertook to deal with half belief. The presentiments which Annie feels are exactly of that sort which everybody has felt, and which every one has 5 half believed — which hardly any one has more than half beHeved. Almost every one, it has been said, would be angry if any one else reported that he believed in ghosts; yet hardly any one, when thinking by himself, wholly disbeheves them. Just so such presentiments as Mr. 10 Tennyson depicts, impress the inner mind so much that the outer mind — the rational understanding — hardly likes to consider them nicely or to discuss them skeptically. For these dubious themes an ornate or complex style is need- ful. Classical art speaks out what it has to say plainly and 1 5 simply. Pure style cannot hesitate; it describes in con- cisest outline what is, as it is. If a poet really believes in presentiments he can speak out in pure style. One who could have been a poet — one of the few in any age of whom one can say certainly that they could have been 20 and have not been — has spoken thus: — " When Heaven sends sorrow, Warnings go first, Lest it should burst With stunning might 25 On souls too bright To fear the morrow. *' Can science bear us To the hid springs Of human things ? -50 320 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Why may not dream, Or thought's day-gleam, Startle, yet cheer ? " Are such thoughts fetters, 5 While faith disowns Dread of earth's tones. Recks but Heaven's call, And on the wall, Reads but Heaven's letters?" TO But if a poet is not sure whether presentiments are true or not true; if he wishes to leave his readers in doubt; if he wishes an atmosphere of indistinct illusion and of moving shadow, he must use the romantic style, the style of miscel- laneous adjunct, the style " which shirks, not meets" your 15 intellect, the style which, as you are scrutinizing, disap- pears. Nor is this all, or even the principal lesson, which Enoch Arden may suggest to us, of the use of ornate art. That art is the appropriate art for an unpleasing type. Many of 20 the characters of real life, if brought distinctly, prom- inently, and plainly before the mind, as they really are, if shown in their inner nature, their actual essence, are doubtless very unpleasant. They would be horrid to meet and horrid to think of. We fear it must be owned that 25 Enoch Arden is this kind of person. A dirty sailor who did not go home to his wife is not an agreeable being: a varnish must be put on him to make him shine. It is true that he acts rightly; that he is very good. But such is human nature that it finds a little tameness in mere moral- 30 ity. Mere virtue belongs to a charity-school girl, and has WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 32 1 a taint of the catechism. All of us feel this, though most of us are too timid, too scrupulous, too anxious about the virtue of others to speak out. We are ashamed of our nature in this respect, but it is not the less our nature. And if we look deeper into the matter there are many rea- 5 sons why we should not be ashamed of it. The soul of man, and, as we necessarily believe, of beings greater than man, has many parts besides its moral part. It has an intellectual part, an artistic part, even a rehgious part, in which mere morals have no share. In Shakespeare or 10 Goethe, even in Newton or Archimedes, there is much which will not be cut down to the shape of the command- ments. They have thoughts, feelings, hopes — immortal thoughts and hopes — which have influenced the Hfe of men, and the souls of men, ever since their age, but which 15 the "whole duty of man/' the ethical compendium, does not recognise. Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind. A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited reli- 20 gious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature— a good bit, of course— but a bit only, in disproportionate, unnatural, and revolting prominence; and therefore, unless an artist use delicate care, we are offended. The dismal act of a squalid man needed many 25 condiments to make it pleasant, and therefore Mr. Tenny- son was right to mix them subtly and to use them freely. A mere act of self-denial can indeed scarcely be pleasant upon paper. A heroic struggle with an external adversary, even though it end in defeat, may easily be made attrac- 30 Prose — 2 1 322 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE tive. Human nature likes to see itself look grand, and it looks grand when it is making a brave struggle with for- eign foes. But it does not look grand when it is divided against itself. An excellent person striving with tempta- 5 tion is a very admirable being in reality, but he is not a pleasant being in description. We hope he will win and overcome his temptation; but we feel that he would be a more interesting being, a higher being, if he had not felt that temptation so much. The poet must make the strug- 10 gle great in order to make the self-denial virtuous, and if the struggle be too great, we are apt to feel some mixture of contempt. The internal metaphysics of a divided nature are but an inferior subject for art, and if they are to be made attractive, much else must be combined with 15 them. If the excellence of Hamlet had depended on the ethical qualities of Hamlet, it would not have been the masterpiece of our Hterature. He acts virtuously of course, and kills the people he ought to kill, but Shake- speare knew that such goodness would not much interest 20 the pit. He made him a handsome prince and a puzzling meditative character; these secular qualities relieve his moral excellence, and so he becomes "nice." In propor- tion as an artist has to deal with types essentially imper- fect, he must disguise their imperfections; he must accu- 25 mulate around them as many first-rate accessories as may make his readers forget that they are themselves second- rate. The sudden millionaires of the present day hope to disguise their social defects by buying old places, and hid- ing among aristocratic furniture; just so a great artist who 30 has to deal with characters artistically imperfect, will use WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 323 an ornate style, will fit them into a scene where there is much else to look at. For these reasons ornate art is, within the limits, as le- gitimate as pure art. It does what pure art could not do. The very excellence of pure art confines its employment. 5 Precisely because it gives the best things by themselves and exactly as they are, it fails when it is necessary to de- scribe inferior things among other things, with a list of enhancements and a crowd of accompaniments that in reality do not belong to it. Illusion, half belief, unpleas- 10 ant types, imperfect types, are as much the proper sphere of ornate art, as an inferior landscape is the proper sphere for the true eflScacy of moonlight. A really great land- scape needs sunlight and bears sunlight; but moonlight is an equalizer of beauties; it gives a romantic unreality to 15 what will not stand the bare truth. And just so does ro- mantic art. There is, however, a third kind of art which differs from these on the point in which they most resemble one an- other. Ornate art and pure art have this in common, that 20 they paint the types of literature in a form as perfect as they can. Ornate art, indeed, uses undue disguises and unreal enhancements; it does not confine itself to the best types; on the contrary, it is its office to make the best of imperfect types and lame approximations; but ornate art, 25 as much as pure art, catches its subject in the best light it can, takes the most developed aspect of it which it can find, and throws upon it the most congruous colours it can use. But grotesque art does just the contrary. It takes the type, so to say, in difficulties. It gives a repre- 30 324 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sentation of it in its minimum development, amid the circumstances least favorable to it, just while it is struggling with obstacles, just where it is encumbered with incongruities. It deals, to use the language of 5 science, not with normal types but with abnormal speci- mens; to use the language of old philosophy, not with what Nature is striving to be, but with what by some lapse she has happened to become. This art works by contrast. It enables you to see, it lo makes you see, the perfect type by painting the opposite deviation. It shows you what ought to be by what ought not to be; when complete, it reminds you of the perfect image, by showing you the distorted and imperfect image. Of this art we possess in the present generation one 15 prolific master. Mr. Browning is an artist working by incongruity. Possibly hardly one of his most con- siderable efforts can be found which is not great because of its odd mixture. He puts together things which no one else would have put together, and produces on our 20 minds a result which no one else would have produced, or tried to produce. His admirers may not like all we may have to say of him. But in our way we too are among his admirers. No one ever read him without seeing not only his great ability but his great mind. 25 He not only possesses superficial usable talents, but the strong something, the inner secret something, which uses them and controls them; he is great not in mere accomplishments, but in himself. He has appHed a hard strong intellect to real life; he has applied the 30 same intellect to the problems of his age. He has WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 325 striven to know what is: he has endeavored not to be cheated by counterfeits, not to be infatuated with illu- sions. His heart is in what he says. He has battered his brain against his creed till he believes it. He has accomphshments too, the more effective because they 5 are mixed. He is at once a student of mysticism and a citizen of the world. He brings to the club sofa dis- tinct visions of old creeds, intense images of strange thoughts: he takes to the bookish student tidings of wild Bohemia, and little traces of the demimonde. He 10 puts down what is good for the naughty, and what is naughty for the good. Over women his easier writ- ings exercise that imperious power which belongs to the writings of a great man of the world upon such matters. He knows women, and therefore they wish 15 to know him. If we blame many of Browning's efforts, it is in the interest of art, and not from a wish to hurt or degrade him. If we wanted to illustrate the nature of grotesque art by an exaggerated instance, we should have selected a 20 poem which the chance of late publication brings us in this new volume. Mr. Browning has undertaken to describe what may be called mind in diffiadties — mind set to make out the universe under the worst and hardest circumstances. He takes Caliban, not 25 perhaps exactly Shakespeare's Caliban, but an analo- gous and worse creature; a strong thinking power, but a nasty creature — a gross animal, uncontrolled and unelevated by any feeling of religion or duty. The delineation of him will show that Mr. Browning does 30 326 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE not wish to take undue advantage of his readers by a choice of nice subjects. " ' Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, 5 With elbows wide, fists cUnched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course. Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh : And while above his head a pompion plant, 10 Coating the cave top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard. And now a flower drops with a bee inside, And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch, — " This pleasant creature proceeds to give his idea of the 15 origin of the Universe, and it is as follows. CaHban speaks in the third person, and is of opinion that the maker of the Universe took to making it on account of his personal discomfort: — " Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos I 20 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon. " 'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars ; the stars came otherwise ; Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that : Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, 25 And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. " 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease : He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock stream w^here she lived, 30 And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 327 A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave ; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun, ) Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, c And in her old bounds buried her despair. Hating and loving warmth alike : so He. '• 'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle. Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; 10 Yon auk, one fire-eye, in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds ; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight ; and the pie with the long tongue That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, I r And says a plain word when she finds her prize. But will not eat the ants ; the ants themselves That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks About their hole — He made all these and more. Made all we see, and us, in spite : how else ? " 20 It may seem perhaps to most readers that these lines are very difficult, and that they are unpleasant. And so they are. We quote them to illustrate, not the suc- cess of grotesque art but the nature of grotesque art. It shows the end at which this species of art aims, and 25 if it fails it is from overboldness in the choice of a sub- ject by the artist, or from the defects of its execution. A thinking faculty more in difficulties — a great type — an inquisitive, searching intellect under more disagree- able conditions, with worse helps, more likely to find 30 falsehood, less likely to find truth, can scarcely be imagined. Nor is the mere description of the thought 328 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE at all bad: on the contrary, if we closely examine it, it is very clever. Hardly any one could have amassed so many ideas at once nasty and suitable. But scarcely any readers — any casual readers — who are not of the 5 sect of Mr. Browning's admirers will be able to examine it enough to appreciate it. From a defect, partly of subject, and partly of style, many of Mr. Browning's works make a demand upon the reader's zeal and sense of duty to which the nature of most readers is unequal. 10 They have on the turf the convenient expression "stay- ing power:" some horses can hold on and others cannot. But hardly any reader not of especial and peculiar nature can hold on through such composition. There is not enough of "staying power" in human nature. 15 One of his greatest admirers once owned to us that he seldom or never began a new poem without looking on in advance, and foreseeing with caution what length of intellectual adventure he was about to commence. Whoever will work hard at such poems will find much 20 mind in them: they are a sort of quarry of ideas, but whosoever goes there will find these ideas in such a jagged, ugly, useless shape that he can hardly bear them. We are not judging Mr. Browning simply from a hasty, 25 recent production. All poets are liable to misconcep- tions, and if such a piece as Caliban upon Setehos were an isolated error, a venial and particular exception, we should have given it no prominence. We have put it forward because it just elucidates both our subject 30 and the characteristics of Mr. Browning. But many WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 329 other of his best known pieces do so almost equally; what several of his devotees think his best piece is quite enough illustrative for anything we want. It appears that on Holy Cross day at Rome the Jews were obliged to listen to a Christian sermon in the hope 5 of their conversion, though this is, according to Mr. Browning, what they really said when they came away : — " Fee, faw, fum 1 bubble and squeak ! Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week. Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, 10 Stinking and savory, smug and gruff. Take the church road, for the bell's due chime Gives us the summons — 't is sermon-time 1 " Boh, here's Barnabas ! Job, that's you ? Up stumps Solomon — bustling too ? 15 Shame, man ! greedy beyond your years To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears? Fair play's a jewel I leave friends in the lurch ? Stand on a line ei e you start for the church ! " Higgledy, piggledy, packed we lie, 20 Rats in a hamper, swine in a sty. Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve. Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve. Hist ! square shoulders, settle your thumbs And buzz for the bishop — here he comes." 25 And after similar nice remarks for a church, the edi- fied congregation concludes: — •* But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, And the rest sit silent and count the clock, 330 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Since forced to muse the appointed time On these precious facts and truths sublime, — Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death. 5 " For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, Called sons and sons' sons to his side, And spoke, ' This world has been harsh and strange Something is wrong : there needeth a change. But what, or where? at the last or first? 10 In one point only we sinned, at worst. " ' The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, And again in his border see Israel set. When Judah beholds Jerusalem, The stranger-seed shall be joined to them : 15 To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave. So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. " ' Ay, the children of the chosen race Shall carry and bring them to their place : In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, 20 Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame. When the slave enslave, the oppressed ones o'er The oppressor triumph forevermore ? ■' * God spoke, and gave us the word to keep : Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 25 'Mid a faithless world, — at watch and ward, Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. By His servant Moses the watch was set : Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet •' ' Thou ! if Thou wast He, who at mid watch came, 30 By the starlight, naming a dubious Name 1 And if, too heavy with sleep — too rash WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 33 1 With fear — O Thou, if that martyr gash Fell on Thee coming to take Thine own, And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne — " * Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. But, the Judgment over, join sides with us 1 5 Thine too is the cause ! and not more Thine Than ours, is the work of these dogs and svdne. Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed, Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed 1 "♦We withstood Christ then? be mindful how 10 At least we withstand Barabbas now 1 Was our outrage sore ? But the worst we spared, To have called these — Christians, had we dared 1 Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee, And Rome make amends for Calvary ! 15 " ' By the torture, prolonged from age to age. By the infamy, Israel's heritage, By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, By the branding-tool, the bloody whip, 20 And the summons to Christian fellowship, — " ' We boast our proof that at last the Jew Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew. Thy face took never so deep a shade But we fought them in it, God our aid ! 25 A trophy to bear, as we march, Thy band, South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land 1 ' " It is very natural that a poet whose wishes incHne, or whose genius conducts, him to a grotesque art, should be attracted towards mediaeval subjects. There is no 30 age whose legends are so full of grotesque subjects, ^;^2 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE and no age whose real life was so fit to suggest them. Then, more than at any other time, good principles have been under great hardships. The vestiges of ancient civilization, the germs of modern civilization, 5 the little remains of what had been, the small begin- nings of what is, were buried under a cumbrous mass of barbarism and cruelty. Good elements hidden in horrid accompaniments are the special theme of gro- tesque art, and these mediaeval life and legends afford 10 more copiously than could have been furnished before Christianity gave its new elements of good, or since modern civiHzation has removed some few at least of the old elements of destruction. A buried Hie like the spiritual mediaeval was Mr. Browning's natural ele- 15 ment, and he was right to be attracted by it. His mis- take has been, that he has not made it pleasant; that he has forced his art to topics on which no one could charm, or on which he, at any rate, could not; that on these occasions and in these poems he has failed in fascinat- 20 ing men and women of sane taste. We say "sane" because there is a most formidable and estimable insane taste. The will has great though indirect power over the taste, just as it has over the belief. There are some horrid beliefs from which hu- 25 man nature revolts, from which at first it shrinks, to which, at first, no effort can force it. But if we fix the mind upon them they have a power over us just because of their natural offensiveness. They are like the sight of human blood: experienced soldiers tell us 30 that at first men are sickened by the smell and new- WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING T,^^ ness of blood almost to death and fainting, but as soon as they harden their hearts and stiffen their minds, as soon as they will bear it, then comes an appetite for slaughter, a tendency to gloat on carnage, to love blood, at least for the moment, with a deep, eager love. It 5 is a principle that if we put down a healthy instinctive aversion. Nature avenges herself by creating an un- healthy insane attraction. For this reason, the most earnest truth-seeking men fall into the worst delusions; they will not let their mind alone; they force it towards 10 some ugly thing, which a crochet of argument, a con- ceit of intellect recommends, and Nature punishes their disregard of her warning by subjection to the ugly one, by behef in it. Just so the most industrious crit- ics get the most admiration. They think it unjust to 15 rest in their instinctive natural horror: they overcome it, and angry Nature gives them over to ugly poems and marries them to detestable stanzas. Mr. Browning possibly, and some of the worst of Mr. Browning's admirers certainly, will say that these 20 grotesque objects exist in real life, and therefore they ought to be, at least may be, described in art. But, though pleasure is not the end of poetry, pleasing is a condition of poetry. An exceptional monstrosity of horrid ugliness cannot be made pleasing, except it be 25 made to suggest — to recall — the perfection, the beauty, from which it is a deviation. Perhaps in extreme cases no art is equal to this; but then such self-imposed problems should not be worked by the artist; these out- of-the-way and detestable subjects should be let alone 30 334 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE by him. It is rather characteristic of Mr. Browning to neglect this rule. He is the most of a realist, and the least of an idealist, of any poet we know. He evi- dently sympathizes with some part at least of Bishop 5 Blougram's apology. Anyhow this world exists. "There is good wine — there are pretty women — there are com- fortable benefices — there is money, and it is pleasant to spend it. Accept the creed of your age and you get these, reject that creed and you lose them. And for lo what do you lose them? For a fancy creed of your own, which no one else will accept, which hardly any one will call a 'creed,' which most people will consider a sort of unbehef." Again, Mr. Browning evidently loves what we may call the realism, the grotesque real- 15 ism, of orthodox Christianity. Many parts of it in which great divines have felt keen difficulties are quite pleasant to him. He must see his religion, he must have an "object lesson" in believing. He must have a creed that will ake, which wins and holds the mis- 20 cellaneous world, which stout men will heed, which nice women will adore. The spare moments of soli- tary religion — the "obstinate questionings," the high "instincts," the "first affections," the "shadowy re- collections," 25 " Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day — Are yet a master-light of all our seeing ; " the great but vague faith — the unutterable tenets — seem to him worthless, visionary; they are not enough 30 "immersed in matter;" they move about " in worlds not WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 335 realized." We wish he could be tried like the prophet once; he would have found God in the earthquake and the storm; he would have deciphered from them a bracing and rough rehgion: he would have known that crude men and ignorant women felt them too, 5 and he would accordingly have trusted them; but he would have distrusted and disregarded the "still small voice:" he would have said it was "fancy"— a thing you thought you heard to-day, but were not sure you had heard to-morrow: he would call it a nice illusion, 10 an immaterial prettiness; he would ask triumphantly, "How are you to get the mass of men to heed this little thing?" he would have persevered and insisted, ''My wije does not hear it." But although a suspicion of beauty, and a taste for 15 ugly reality, have led Mr. Browning to exaggerate the functions and to caricature the nature of grotesque art, we own, or rather we maintain, that he has given many excellent specimens of that art within its proper boundaries and limits. Take an example, his picture 20 of what we may call the bourgeois nature in difficulties; in the utmost difficulty, in contact with magic and the supernatural. He has made of it something homely, comic, true; reminding us of what bourgeois nature really is. By showing us the type under abnormal 25 conditions, he reminds us of the type under its best and most satisfactory conditions. [Bagehot here quotes T/ie Pied Piper of Hamelin.'] Something more we had to say of Mr. Browning, 336 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE but we must stop. It is singularly characteristic of this age that the poems which rise to the surface should be examples of ornate art, and grotesque art, not of pure art. We Hve in the realm of the half educated. 5 The number of readers grows daily, but the quality of readers does not improve rapidly. The middle class is scattered, heedless; it is well-meaning, but aim- less; wishing to be wise, but ignorant how to be wise. The aristocracy of England never was a literary aris- To tocracy, never even in the days of its full power, of its unquestioned predominance, did it guide — did it even seriously try to guide — the taste of England. With- out guidance young men, and tired men, are thrown amongst a mass of books; they have to choose which 15 they like; many of them would much like to improve their culture, to chasten their taste, if they knew how. But left to themselves they take, not pure art but showy art; not that which permanently relieves the eye and makes it happy whenever it looks, and as long as it looks, but 20 glaring art which catches and arrests the eye for a mo- ment, but which in the end fatigues it. But before the wholesome remedy of nature — the fatigue — arrives, the hasty reader has passed on to some new excitement, which in its turn stimulates for an instant, and then is 25 passed by forever. These conditions are not favorable to the due appreciation of pure art — of that art which must be known before it is admired — which must have fastened irrevocably on the brain before you appre- ciate it — which you must love ere it will seem worthy 30 of your love. Women too, whose voice on literature WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, BROWNING 337 counts as well as that of men — and in a light literature counts for more than that of men — women, such as we know them, such as they are likely to be, ever prefer a delicate unreality to a true or firm art. A dressy literature, an exaggerated literature seem to be fated 5 to us. These are our curses, as other times had theirs. "And yet • Think not the living times forget, Ages of heroes fought and fell, That Homer in the end might tell ; 10 O'er groveling generations past Upstood the Doric fane at last ; And countless hearts on countless years Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears, Rude laughter and unmeaning tears ; 15 Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome The pure perfection of her dome. Others I doubt not if not we, The issue of our toils shall see ; Young children gather as their own 20 The harvest that the dead had shown, The dead forgotten and unknown." Prosa — 22 WALTER HORATIO PATER [Walter Horatio Pater was born in London, August 4, 1839, and was graduated B. A. at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1862. The greater portion of his unusually retired life was spent at Oxford. Pater's visit to Italy in 1869 decided the growing struggle be- tween art and the church, and from that time on, until his death in 1894, Pater's task was the interpretation of the Renaissance to the modern world. Aside from the expository value of Pater's work, it is chiefly famed for the beauty and accuracy of its style. Pater's chief essays now appear under the general titles Imaginary Portraits, Appreciations, Plato and Platonism, and The Renais- sance: Studies in Art a?td Poetry. Besides these he made two at- tempts at the longer narrative form in Marius the Epicurean and the unfinished Gaston de Latour.'\ Some one has called The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry Pater's "golden book" because it contains the best work of that most careful writer. And of all the essays in the volume that on Leonardo da Vinci is the best. First of all Walter Pater was a styHst; secondly he was the expounder in nineteenth century England of the subtler meanings of the Italian Renaissance. In this essay structure and phrase adapt themselves most easily to the expression of the deepest interests of Pater's life. And the result is a masterpiece. Our interest in Pater lies first in his peculiar theories of literary art. For no English writer has ever before gained the effects in style that Pater gained. It will be noticed that in this essay Pater gives us the careful etching of a character. With little care for the sequence of events he seeks to give the static impression of a finished study. This is representative of all of Pater's 338 WALTER HORATIO PATER 339 work. As far as possible he avoids the effect of move- ment and of climax. He never varies the tempo what- ever may be the interest or the suspense. Like painting and sculpture his art is an art of design, and not, Hke drama .for instance, an expanding and developing art of cumulative appeals. Along with the advantages of this static style there are certain disadvantages. For one thing the' author is obscured far behind his work. There is a lack of warmth and spontaneity. Predetermination is manifest every- where. The artistry is so fine that while it does not obtrude itself the reader is conscious of it. Even the pathos is the artist's pathos rather than the surrendered passion of the lover of humanity. Sorrow itself is tacitly accepted as a thing to be treated in adequate artistic guise; just as Leonardo, with studied forethought, draws Beatrice d'Este "in sad earth-colored raiment, set with pale stones." Pater's style is marked by two qualities, exactitude and mystery. He sought the ends of exactitude in his careful use of words. Like Flaubert in France, Pater believed that there is one word for every idea. And to him the word was more than a mechanical symbol. All the charm of that word lay for him in its hidden and reminiscent meanings rather than in its etymology. Yet by studying etymology he was enabled to give quaint turns to words, gaining in the midst of our loose meanings the novelty of beautiful historical preciseness. So in Leonardo he speaks of "implicated hands" and again he says that the image was "projected." That "curiosity" which came so near to kilHng the art in Leonardo, but which finally served more highly to refine the old beauty, was Pater's also. This is the second distinctive quality of his marvelous style. Some say that Pater's style is obscure. It is better to say that it is rich in mystery, that it fascinates us as does 340 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the work of Leonardo da Vinci by ''something enig- matical beyond the usual measure of great men." Pure logic was but a portion of Pater's world. To this he added color, tone, and atmosphere. Therefore his style was sinuous, lithe, and complex but never tortuous and turbid. It was not his desire that all of the beau- ties of his style should be on the surface. Behind the immediate interest of rational statement there is al- ways the more recondite beauty of veiled allusion or lingering reminiscence. Of Pater's style one can say, as of the sea, that its depth is a factor in its surface im- pressiveness. We have said that Pater is an etcher and not a nar- rator. This is true even in his novels. In Mariiis the Epicurean a character is engraved, as if the successive changes were in fact but revelations of that which had existed from the first. But in Leonardo th^ appearance of a chronological order is given in the fact that the life of the great painter seems to fall into three clearly marked divisions. Beginning with the master note of Leonardo's character, the author then presents the ar- tist's childhood in a series of quick flashing images and allusions. The rest of the essay is a discussion of the operation of Leonardo's curiosity upon the works of his life. Sometimes it drove him to the essaying of im- possible things; sometimes to investigation and analysis. Just when his curiosity seemed about to mislead him into fruitless paths, he makes it the servant of his crav- ing for beauty. Curiosity and the desire of beauty are the elementary forces in his genius. As both of these forces were strong, Leonardo's was a new art. He painted the withdrawn, the refined, the recherche. In nature he searched for the fleeting charm. Because in La Gioconda, above all his work, he found and stated the evanescent factors of personality, this is the crown of his achievement. LEONARDO DA VINCI 34 1 Not to see too much of an author in his work or to stretch his exposition of a loved historical figure to serve unduly as self-revelation, it cannot but seem that Pater saw in Leonardo the ideals that he himself espoused. Walter Pater writes always with the reader well out of view. So also he is careful to make his criticism ob- jective. But one cannot but read in the overwhelming eloquence of the end of the essay that the "curious beauty" which Leonardo da Vinci sought and found was to Pater, this "lover of strange souls," the end supremely to be desired. LEONARDO DA VINCI In Vasari's life of Leonardo da Vinci as we now read it there are some variations from the first edition. There, the painter who has fixed the outward type of Christ for succeeding centuries was a bold speculator, holding lightly by other men's beliefs, setting philosophy above 5 Christianity. Words of his, trenchant enough to justify this impression, are not recorded, and would have been out of keeping with a genius of which one characteristic is the tendency to lose itself in a refined and graceful mystery. The suspicion was but the time-honored mode ic in which the world stamps its appreciation of one who has thoughts for himself alone, his high indifference, his intolerance of the common forms of things; and in the second edition the image was changed into some- thing fainter and more conventional. But it is still by 15 a certain mystery in his work, and something enigmat- ical beyond the usual measure of great men, that he fascinates, or perhaps half repels. His fife is one of 342 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sudden revolts, with intervals in which he works not at all, or apart from the main scope of his work. By a strange fortune the works on which his more popular fame rested disappeared early from the world, as the 5 Battle of the Standard; or are mixed obscurely with the work of meaner hands, as the Last Supper. His type of beauty is so exotic that it fascinates a larger number than it delights, and seems more than that of any other artist to reflect ideas and views and some scheme of the 10 world within; so that he seemed to his contemporaries to be the possessor of some unsanctified and secret wis- dom; as to Michelet and others to have anticipated modern ideas. He trifles with his genius, and crowds all his chief work into a few tormented years of later 15 life; yet he is so possessed by his genius that he passes unmoved through the most tragic events, overwhelming his country and friends, Kke one who comes across them by chance on some secret errand. His legend, as the French say, with the anecdotes 20 which every one knows, is one of the most brilliant in Vasari. Later writers merely copied it, until, in 1804, Carlo Amoretti applied to it a criticism which left hardly a date fixed, and not one of those anecdotes untouched. The various questions thus raised have since that time 25 become, one after another, subjects of special study, and mere antiquarianism has in this direction little more to do. For others remain the editing of the thir- teen books of his manuscripts, and the separation by technical criticism of what i-n his reputed works is really 30 his, from what is only half his, or the work of his pupils. LEONARDO DA VINCI 343 But a lover of strange souls may still analyze for himself the impression made on him by those works, and try to reach through it a definition of the chief elements of Leonardo's genius. The legend, corrected and enlarged by its critics, may now and then intervene to support 5 the results of this analysis. His life has three divisions — thirty years at Florence, nearly twenty years at Milan, then nineteen years of wandering, till he sinks to rest under the protection of Francis the First at the Chateau de Clou. The dishonor 10 of illegitimacy hangs over his birth. Piero Antonio, his father, was of a noble Florentine house, of Vinci in the Val d^Arno, and Leonardo, brought up delicately among the true children of that house, was the love- child of his youth, with the keen, puissant nature such 15 children often have. We see him in his youth fascinating all men by his beauty, improvising music and songs, buying the caged birds and setting them free, as he walked the streets of Florence, fond of odd bright dresses and spirited horses. 20 From his earliest years he designed many objects, and constructed models in relief, of which Vasari mentions some of women smiling. His father, pondering over this promise in the child, took him to the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, then the most famous artist in 25 Florence. Beautiful objects lay about there — reli- quaries, pyxes, silver images for the pope's chapel at Rome, strange fancy-work of the middle age, keeping odd company with frap;ments of antiquity, then but lately discovered. Another student Leonardo may have 30 344 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE seen there — a boy into whose soul the level light and aerial illusions of Italian sunsets had passed, in after days famous as Perugino. Verrocchio was an artist of the earlier Florentine type, carver, painter, and worker 5 in metals, in one; designer, not of pictures only, but of all things for sacred or household use, drinking-vessels, ambries, instruments of music, making them all fair to look upon, filling the common ways of life with the re- flection of some far-off brightness; and years of patience 10 had refined his hand till his work was now sought after from distant places. It happened that Verrocchio was employed by the brethren of Vallombrosa to paint the Baptism of Christ, and Leonardo was allowed to finish an angel in the left- 15 hand corner. It was one of those moments in which the progress of a great thing — here, that of the art of Italy — presses hard and sharp on the happiness of an individual, through whose discouragement and decrease, humanity, in more fortunate persons, comes a step 20 nearer to its final success. For beneath the cheerful exterior of the mere well- paid craftsman, chasing brooches for the copes of Santa Maria Novella, or twisting metal screens for the tombs of the Medici, lay the ambitious desire of expanding the 25 destiny of Italian art by a larger knowledge and insight into things, a purpose in art not unlike Leonardo's still unconscious purpose; and often, in the modeling of drapery, or of a lifted arm, or of hair cast back from the face there came to him something of the freer man- 30 ner and richer humanity of a later age. But in this LEONARDO DA VINCI 345 Baptism the pupil had surpassed the master; and Ver- rocchio turned away as one stunned, and as if his sweet earlier work must thereafter be distasteful to him, from the bright animated angel of Leonardo's hand. The angel may still be seen in Florence, a space of 5 sunlight in the cold, labored old picture; but the legend is true only in sentiment, for painting had always been the art by which Verrocchio set least store. And as in a sense he anticipates Leonardo, so to the last Leonardo recalls the studio of Verrocchio, in the love of beautiful 10 toys, such as the vessel of water for a mirror, and lovely needlework about the implicated hands in the Modesty and Vanity, and of reliefs, like those cameos which in the Virgin of the Balances hang all round the girdle of Saint Michael, and of bright variegated stones, such as 15 the agates in the Saint Anne, and in a hieratic precise- ness and grace, as of a sanctuary swept and garnished. Amid all the cunning and intricacy of his Lombard manner this never left him. Much of it there must have been in that lost picture of Paradise, which he prepared 20 as a cartoon for tapestry, to be woven in the looms of Flanders. It was the perfection of the older Florentine style of miniature painting, with patient putting of each leaf upon the trees and each flower in the grass, where the first man and woman were standing. 25 And because it was the perfection of that style, it awoke in Leonardo some seed of discontent which lay in the secret places of his nature. For the way to per- fection is through a series of disgusts; and this picture — all that he had done so far in his life at Florence — was 30 346 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE after all in the old slight manner. His art, if it was to be something in the world, must be weighted with more of the meaning of nature and purpose of humanity. Nature was "the true mistress of higher intelligences." 5 So he plunged into the study of nature. And in doing this he followed the manner of the older students; he brooded over the hidden virtues of plants and crystals, the lines traced by the stars as they moved in the sky, over the correspondences which exist between the dif- lo ferent orders of living things, through which, to eyes opened, they interpret each other; and for years he seemed to those about him as one listening to a voice, silent for other men. He learned here the art of going deep, of tracking 15 the sources of expression to their subtlest retreats, the power of an intimate presence in the things he handled. He did not at once or entirely desert his art; only he was no longer the cheerful, objective painter, through whose soul, as through clear glass, the bright figures 20 of Florentine life, only made a little mellower and more pensive by the transit, passed on to the white wall. He wasted many days in curious tricks of design, seem- ing to lose himself in the spinning of intricate devices of lines and colors. He was smitten with a love of the 25 impossible — the perforation of mountains, changing the course of rivers, raising great buildings, such as the church of San Giovanni, in the air; all those feats for the performance of which natural magic professed to have the key. Later writers, indeed, see in these efforts 30 an anticipation of modern mechanics; in him they were LEONARBO DA VINCI 347 rather dreams, thrown off by the overwrought and laboring brain. Two ideas were especially fixed in him, as reflexes of things that had touched his brain in childhood beyond the measure of other impres- sions — the smiling of women and the motion of great 5 waters. And in such studies some interfusion of the extremes of beauty and terror shaped itself, as an image that might be seen and touched, in the mind of this gracious youth, so fixed that for the rest of his life it never left 10 him; and as catching glimpses of it in the strange eyes or hair of chance people, he would follow such about the streets of Florence till the sun went down, of whom many sketches of his remain. Some of these are full of a curious beauty, that remote beauty apprehended only 15 by those who have sought it carefully; who, starting with acknowledged types of beauty, have refined as far upon these, as these refine upon the world of common forms. But mingled inextricably with this there is an element of mockery also; so that, whether in sorrow or scorn, 20 he caricatures Dante even. Legions of grotesques sweep under his hand; for has not nature too her gro- tesques — the rent rock, the distorting light of evening on lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the skeleton? 25 All these swarming fancies unite in the Medusa of the Uffizii. Vasari's story of an earlier Medusa, painted on a wooden shield, is perhaps an invention; and yet, properly told, has more of the air of truth about it than anything else in the whole legend. For its real subject 30 348 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE is not the serious work of a man, but the experiment of a child. The Hzards and glowworms and other strange small creatures which haunt an Italian vine- yard bring before one the whole picture of a child's life 5 in a Tuscan dwelling — half castle, half farm — and are as true to nature as the pretended astonishment of the father for whom the boy has prepared a surprise. It was not in play that he painted that other Medusa, the one great picture which he left behind him in Florence. lo The subject has been treated in various ways; Leonardo alone cuts to its center; he alone reahzes it as the head of a corpse, exercising its powers through all the cir- cumstances of death. What may be called the fascina- tion of corruption penetrates in every touch its ex- 15 quisitely finished beauty. About the dainty lines of the cheek the bat flits unheeded. The delicate snakes seem literally stranghng each other in terrified struggle to escape from the Medusa brain. The hue which violent death always brings with it is in the features: features 20 singularly massive and grand, as we catch them in- verted, in a dexterous foreshortening, sloping upwards, almost sliding down upon us, crown foremost, like a great calm stone against which the wave of serpents breaks. But it is a subject that may well be left to the 25 beautiful verses of Shelley. The science of that age was all divination, clairvoy- ance, unsubjected to our exact modern formulas, seek- ing in an instant of vision to concentrate a thousand experiences. Later writers, thinking only of the well- 30 ordered treatise on painting which a Frenchman, Raf- LEONARDO DA VINCI 349 faelle du Fresne, a hundred years afterwards, compiled from Leonardo's bewildered manuscripts, written strangely, as his manner was, from right to left, have imagined a rigid order in his inquiries. But this rigid order was little in accordance with the restlessness of 5 his character; and if we think of him as the mere rea- soner who subjects design to anatomy, and composition to mathematical rules, we shall hardly have of him that impression which those about him received from him. Poring over his crucibles, making experiments with 10 color, trying, by a strange variation" of the alchemist's dream, to discover the secret, not of an elixir to make man's natural life immortal, but rather of giving immor- tality to the subtlest and most delicate effects of painting, he seemed to them rather the sorcerer or the magician, 15 possessed of curious secrets and a hidden knowledge, living in a world of which he alone possessed the key. What his philosophy seems to have been most like is that of Paracelsus or Cardan; and much of the spirit of the older alchemy still hangs about it, with its confidence 20 in short cuts and odd byways to knowledge. To him philosophy was to be something giving strange swiftness and double sight, divining the sources of springs be- neath the earth or of expression beneath the human countenance, clairvoyant of occult gifts in common or 25 uncommon things, in the reed at the brookside, or the star which draws near to us but once in a century. How, in this way, the clear purpose was overclouded, the fine chaser's hand perplexed, we but dimly see; the mystery which at no point quite lifts from Leonardo's life is 30 SSO NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE deepest here. But it is certain that at one period of his life he had almost ceased to be an artist. The year 1483 — the year of the birth of RafFaelle and the thirty-first of Leonardo's life — is fixed as the date 5 of his visit to Milan by the letter in which he recom- mends himself to Ludovico Sforza, and offers to tell him, for a price, strange secrets in the art of war. It was that Sforza who murdered his young nephew by slow poison, yet was so susceptible of religious impres- 10 sions that he blended mere earthly passions with a sort of religious sentimentalism, and who took for his device the mulberry tree — symbol, in its long delay and sud- den yielding of flowers and fruit together, of a wisdom which economizes all forces for an opportunity of sud- 15 den and sure effect. The fame of Leonardo had gone before him, and he was to model a colossal statue of Francesco, the first Duke of Milan. As for Leon- ardo himself, he came not as an artist at all, or care- ful of the fame of one; but as a player on the harp, a 20 strange harp of silver of his own construction, shaped in some curious likeness to a horse's skull. The capricious spirit of Ludovico was susceptible also of the charm of music, and Leonardo's nature had a kind of spell in it. Fascination is always the word descriptive of him. No 25 portrait of his youth remains; but all tends to make us be- Heve that up to this time some charm of voice and aspect, strong enough to balance the disadvantage of his birth, had played about him. His physical strength was great; it was said that he could bend a horseshoe like a coil of 30 lead. LEONARDO DA VINCI 35 1 The Duomo, the work of artists from beyond the Alps, so fantastic to the eye of a Florentine used to the mellow, unbroken surfaces of Giotto and Arnolfo, was then in all its freshness; and below, in the streets of Milan, moved a people as fantastic, changeful, and dreamlike. To Leon- 5 ardo least of all men could there be anything poisonous in the exotic flowers of sentiment which grew there. It was a life of brilliant sins and exquisite amusements. Leonardo became a celebrated designer of pageants : and it suited the quality of his genius, composed in almost 10 equal parts of curiosity and the desire of beauty, to take things as they came. Curiosity and the desire of beauty — these are the two elementary forces in Leonardo's genius; curiosity often in conflict with the desire of beauty, but generating, in 15 union with it, a type of subtle and curious grace. The movement of the fifteenth century was twofold: partly the Renaissance, partly also the coming of what is called the "modern spirit," with its realism, its appeal to experience : it comprehended a return to antiquity, and 20 a return to nature. Raffaelle represents the return to antiquity, and Leonardo the return to nature. In this return to nature, he was seeking to satisfy a boundless curiosity by her perpetual surprises, a microscopic sense of finish by her finesse, or delicacy of operation, that 25 suhtilitas naturae which Bacon notices. So we find him often in intimate relations with men of science, — with Fra Luca Paccioli the mathematician, and the anato- mist Marc Antonio della Torre. His observations and experiments fill thirteen volumes of manuscript; and 30 352 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE those who can judge describe him as anticipating long before, by rapid intuition, the later ideas of science. He explained the obscure light of the unilluminated part of the moon, knew that the sea had once covered the 5 mountains which contain shells, and the gathering of the equatorial waters above the polar. He who thus penetrated into the most secret parts of nature preferred always the more to the less remote, what, seeming exceptional, was an instance of law more 10 refined, the construction about things of a pecuHar at- mosphere and mixed Hghts. He paints flowers with such curious felicity that different writers have attributed to him a fondness for particular flowers, as Clement the cyclamen, and Rio the jasmin; while, at Venice, there 15 is a stray leaf from his portfoHo dotted all over with studies of violets and the wild rose. In him first appears the taste for what is bizarre or recherche in landscapes; hollow places full of the green shadow of bituminous rocks, ridged reefs of trap rock which cut the water into 20 quaint sheets of light — their exact antitype is in our own western seas; all the solemn effects of moving water; you may follow it springing from its distant source among the rocks on the heath of the Madonna of the Balances^ passing, as a little fall, into the treacherous calm 25 of the Madonna of the Lake, next, as a goodly river, below the cliffs of the Madonna of the Rocks, washing the white walls of its distant villages, stealing out in a network of divided streams in La Gioconda to the sea- shore of the Saint Anne — that delicate place, where the 30 wind passes like the hand of some fine etcher over the LEONARDO DA VINCI 353 surface, and the untorn shells are lying thick upon the sand, and the tops of the rocks, to which the waves never rise, are green with grass, grown fine as hair. It is the landscape, not of dreams or of fancy, but of places far withdrawn, and hours selected from a thousand with 5 a miracle of finesse. Through Leonardo's strange veil of sight things reach him so; in no ordinary night or day, but as in faint light of eclipse, or in some brief interval of falling rain at daybreak, or through deep water. And not into nature only; but he plunged also into 10 human personality, and became above all a painter of portraits; faces of a modeling more skillful than has been seen before or since, embodied with a reality which almost amounts to illusion, on dark air. To take a char- acter as it was, and delicately sound its stops, suited one 15 so curious in observation, curious in invention. So he painted the portraits of Ludovico's mistresses, Lucretia Crivelli and Cecilia Galerani the poetess, of Ludovico himself, and the Duchess Beatrice. The portrait of Cecilia Galerani is lost, but that of Lucretia Crivelli 20 has been identified with La Belle Feroniere of the Louvre, and Ludovico's pale, anxious face still remains in the Ambrosian library. Opposite is the portrait of Beatrice d'Este, in whom Leonardo seems to have caught some presentiment of early death, painting her precise and 25 grave, full of the refinement of the dead, in sad earth-colored raiment, set with pale stones. Sometimes this curiosity came in conflict with the desire of beauty; it tended to make him go too far be- low that outside of things in which art begins and ends. 30 Prose — 23 354 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE This struggle between the reason and its ideas, and the senses, the desire of beauty, is the key to Leonardo's life at Milan — his restlessness, his endless retouchings, his odd experiments with color. How much must he 5 leave unfinished, how much recommence! His problem was the transmutation of ideas into images. What he had attained so far had been the mastery of that earlier Florentine style, with its naive and limited sensuousness. Now he was to entertain in this narrow medium those 10 divinations of a humanity too wide for it, that larger vision of the opening world, which is only not too much for the great, irregular art of Shakespeare; and every- where the effort is visible in the work of his hands. This agitation, this perpetual delay, give him an air of weari- 1$ ness and ennui. To others he seems to be aiming at an impossible effect, to do something that art, that paint- ing, can never do. Often the expression of physical beauty at this or that point seems strained and marred in the effort, as in those heavy German foreheads — too 20 German and heavy for perfect beauty. For there was a touch of Germany in that genius which, as Goethe said, had "thought itself weary" — milde sich gedacht. What an anticipation of modern Ger- many, for instance, in that debate on the question whether 25 sculpture or painting is the nobler art.^ But there is this difference between him and the German, that, with all that curious science, the German would have thought nothing more was needed; and the name of Goethe him- 1 How princely, how characteristic of Leonardo, the answer, 30 Quanta piu, un! arte porta seco fatica di corpo, tanio piu 'ji-\?>'] J); Voltaire {\%']2)\ Rous- seau (1873) ; Diderot and the Encyclopedists ( 1 878 ) ; Life ofCobden (1881). In 1878, the Macmillans began the "English Men of Letters Series," which Morley edited and to which he contributed a Life of Burke (1879). I^ 1883, he was elected to Parliament and has since been prominent in English public life. He was raised to the peerage as Viscount Morley of Blackburn in 1908. Among his later works are Walpole (1889); Cromzvell (1900); Life of Gladstone ( 1 903 ) ; Critical Miscellanies ( 1 908 ) .] John Morley is better known as an English states- man than as a critical essayist. But the statesman has never lost faith in the potency of letters, just as the critic and editor has never failed to find interest in the social aspects of literature. Any writer whose life and work are closely associated with the political and so- cial movements of his time is sure to win the attention of John Morley. This explains his preference for men of the eighteenth century, and chiefly for French writers of that period, for Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Condorcet — men who are rightly understood only in relation to the society of their day. In Morley's criticism, therefore, there is a basis 409 4IO NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE of ethical seriousness, a predetermined purpose to judge books as the reflection of serious moral truths. He defines literature thus: "Literature consists of all the books — and they are not so many — where moral truth and human passion are touched with a certain largeness, sanity and attraction of form." "Art," he says, "is only the transformation into ideal and imagi- native shapes of a predominant system and philoso- phy of Hfe." With Morley this philosophy always has reference to man in relation to his social environment; for with abstract truths, with doctrines, esoteric and erudite, he has ^nothing to do. Byron is of interest to him chiefly because of the "subordination in his mind of aesthetic to social intention." Carlyle " has no direc- tion to give," and. Emerson "does almost as little as Carlyle himself to fire men with faith in social progress as the crown of human endeavor." It is the man of letters with "that active interest in public affairs," which is the "only sure safeguard against inhuman egotism," whom Morley delights to praise. This conception of Hterature underlies his attitude toward Macaulay. He begins by asking: "What kind of significance or value belongs to Lord Macaulay 's achievements, and to what place has he claim among the forces of EngHsh literature?" After a briUiant an- alysis of Macaulay 's genius, he returns to the answer to his question: "Nor can it be enough for enduring fame in any age merely to throw a golden halo round the secularity of the hour. . . . If we think what a changed sense is already given to criticism, what a different conception now presides over history, . . . we cannot help feeling that [Macaulay] ... is the hero of a past which is already remote, and that he did little to make men fitted to face a present of which, close as it was to him, he seems hardly to have dreamed." The final adverse judgment is thus seen to be strictly JOHN MORLEY 411 in accord with Morley's notion of literature and men of letters. For this reason the spirit of the essay is unsympathetic. Macaulay, as John Morley appraises him, is unanalytic, unmeditative, and lacks richness, depth, suggestion. " His ascendency is due to literary pomp, not to fecun- dity of spirit." In his style are wanting the qualities which for Morley connote the social temperament. Even when he praises the critic is sometimes almost iron- ically equivocal. Macaulay's "genius for narration" becomes " mere picturesqueness," his gift of " noble commonplace " sinks to " ostentatious common sense of a slightly coarse sort." Macaulay " has been prized less as a historian proper than as a master of literary art." Morley is safest and best in his judgments upon Ma- caulay as an essayist, whom, indeed, he seems mainly to be considering throughout the essay. Macaulay's amazing popularity, his powers of narration, his exact accord with the average sentiment of his day, his manly, direct, clear style, receive on the whole a just and cogent appreciation. In his own style John Morley has committed some of the sins with which he charges Macaulay. It is a style, brisk, brilliant, vital, and direct, but it is deficient in modulation and in the " soft play of life." In this very essay it suggests Macaulay in its positivity and unquali- fied assertiveness, its excess of superlative, its tendency to the balanced and parallel forms of construction, — char- acteristics which account in part for the feeling that there is a lack of detachment and fairness. For example, Morley asserts without proper restriction that Ma- caulay was hurried and slap-dash in his methods of composition; whereas Macaulay as a writer of history was infinitely painstaking in correction and revision. Morley's own style shows, moreover, a weakly con- trolled tendency to figurativeness, a tendency that 412 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sometimes results in strained or mixed tropes. Never- theless, as a medium of expression, his style is a notable example of effectiveness. In the following essay- there may be noted the use of varied and supple phrase, a copiousness and appositeness of diction, and a con- trol of material that convincingly testify to Morley's distinction as a writer. His style, in short, is an ex- ample of what he approves in the writings of others: a " speech that is strong by natural force, an utterance without trick, without affectation, without mannerism." MACAULAY It is told of Strafford that before reading any book for the first time, he would call for a sheet of paper, and then proceed to write down upon it some sketch of the ideas that he already had upon the subject of the book, 5 and of the questions that he expected to find answered. No one who has been at the pains to try the experiment, will doubt the usefulness of Strafford's practice: it gives to our acquisitions from books clearness and reality, a right place and an independent shape. At this moment 10 we are all looking for the biography of an illustrious man of letters, written by a near kinsman, who is him- self naturally endowed with keen literary interests, and who has invigorated his academic cultivation by prac- tical engagement in considerable affairs of public busi- 15 ness. Before taking up Mr. Trevelyan's two volumes, it is perhaps worth while, on Strafford's plan, to ask ourselves shortly what kind of significance or value be- longs to Lord Macaulay's achievements, and to what MACAULAY 413 place he has a claim among the forces of English litera- ture. It is seventeen years since he died, and those of us who never knew him nor ever saw him now think about his work with that perfect detachment which is impossible in the case of actual contemporaries. 5 That Macaulay comes in the very front rank in the mind of the ordinary bookbuyer of our day is quite certain. It is an amusement with some people to put an imaginary case of banishment to a desert island, with the privilege of choosing the works of one author, and 10 no more, to furnish literary companionship and refresh- ment for the rest of a Hfetime. Whom would one select for this momentous post? Clearly the author must be voluminous, for days on desert islands are many and long; he must be varied in his moods, his topics, and his 15 interests; he must have a great deal to say, and must have a power of saying it that shall arrest a depressed and dolorous spirit. Enghshmen, of course, would with mechanical unanimity call for Shakespeare; Ger- mans could hardly hesitate about Goethe; and a sen- 20 sible Frenchman would pack up the ninety volumes of Voltaire. It would be at least as interesting to know the object of a second choice, supposing the tyrant were in his clemency to give us two authors. In the case of Englishmen there is some evidence as to a popular 25 preference. A recent traveler in Australia informs us that the three books which he found on every squatter's shelf, and which at last he knew before he crossed the threshold that he should be sure to find, were Shake- speare, the Bible, and Macaulay's Essays. This is only 30 414 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE an illustration of a feeling about Macaulay that has been almost universal among the English-speaking peoples. We may safely say that no man obtains and keeps 5 for a great many years such a position as this, unless he is possessed of some very extraordinary qualities, or else of common qualities in a very uncommon and ex- traordinary degree. The world, says Goethe, is more willing to endure the Incongruous than to be patient 10 under the Insignificant. Even those who set least value on what Macaulay does for his readers, may still feel bound to distinguish the elements that have given him his vast popularity. The inquiry is not a piece of merely literary criticism, for it is impossible that the work of so 15 imposing a writer should have passed through the hands of every man and woman of his time who has even the humblest pretensions to cultivation, without leaving a very decided mark on their habits both of thought and expression. As a plain matter of observation, it is im- 20 possible to take up a newspaper or a review, for instance, without perceiving Macaulay's influence both in the style and the temper of modern journalism, and journa- lism in its turn acts upon the style and temper of its enormous uncounted public. The man who now suc- 25 ceeds in catching the ear of the writers of leading ar- ticles, is in the position that used to be held by the head of some great theological school, whence disciples swarmed forth to reproduce in ten thousand pulpits the arguments, the opinions, the images, the tricks, the ges- 30 tures, and the mannerisms of a single master. MACAULAY 415 Two men of very different kinds have thoroughly im- pressed the journalists of our time, Macaulay and Mr. Mill. Mr. Carlyle we do not add to them; he is, as the Germans call Jean Paul, der Einzige. And he is a poet, while the other two are in their degrees serious and 5 argumentative writers, dealing in different ways with the great topics that constitute the matter and business of daily discussion. They are both of them practical enough to interest men handling real affairs, and yet they are general or theoretical enough to supply such 10 men with the large and ready commonplaces which are so useful to a profession that has to produce literary graces and philosophical decorations at an hour's no- tice. It might perhaps be said of these two distinguished men that our public writers owe most of their virtues to 15 the one, and most of their vices to the other. If Mill taught some of them to reason, Macaulay tempted more of them to declaim: if Mill set an example of patience, tolerance, and fair examination of hostile opinions, Macaulay did much to encourage oracular arrogance, 20 and a rather too thrasonical complacency; if Mill sowed ideas of the great economic, political, and moral bear- ings of the forces of society, Macaulay trained a taste for superficial particularities, trivial circumstantialities of local color, and all the paraphernalia of the pseudo- 25 picturesque. Of course nothing so obviously untrue is meant as that this is an account of Macaulay 's own quahty. What is empty pretension in the leading article was often a warranted self-assertion in Macaulay; what is 30 41 6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE little more than testiness in it, is in him often a generous indignation. What became and still remain in those who have made him their model, substantive and or- ganic vices, the foundation of Hterary character and 5 intellectual temper, were in him the incidental defects of a vigorous genius. And we have to take a man of his power and vigor with all his drawbacks, for the one are wrapped up in the other. Charles Fox used to apply to Burke a passage that Quintilian wrote about Ovid. Si 10 animi siii afjedihiis temperare quam indidgere maluis- set, quoted Fox, quid vir iste prcEstare non potuerit! But this is really not at all certain either of Ovid, or Burke, or any one else. It suits moralists to tell us that excellence lies in the happy mean and nice balance of 15 our faculties and impulses, and perhaps in so far as our own contentment and an easy passage through life are involved, what they tell us is true. But for making a mark in the world, for rising to supremacy in art or thought or affairs — whatever those aims may be worth — a man 20 possibly does better to indulge rather than to chide or grudge his genius, and to pay the penalties for his weak- nesses rather than run any risk of mutilating those strong faculties of which they happen to be an inseparable ac- cident. Versatihty is not a universal gift among the able 25 men of the world; not many of them have so many gifts of the spirit as to be free to choose by what pass they will climb "the steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar." If Macaulay had applied himself to the cultiva- tion of a balanced judgment, of tempered phrases, and of 30 relative propositions, he would probably have sunk into MACAULAY 417 an impotent tameness. A great pugilist has sometimes been converted from the error of his ways, and been led zealously to cherish gospel graces, but the hero's dis- courses have seldom been edifying. Macaulay, divested of all the exorbitancies of his spirit and his style, would 5 have been a Samson shorn of the locks of his strength. Although, however, a writer of marked quality may do well to let his genius develop its spontaneous forces without too assiduous or vigilant repression, trusting to other writers of equal strength in other directions, and 10 to the general fitness of things and operation of time, to redress the balance, still it is the task of criticism in counting up the contributions of one of these strong men to examine the mischiefs no less than the benefits inci- dent to their work. There is no puny carping nor cavil- 15 ing in the process. It is because such men are strong that they are able to do harm, and they may injure the taste and judgment of a whole generation, just because they are never mediocre. That is implied in strength. Macaulay is not to be measured now merely as if he were 20 the author of a new book. His influence has been a dis- tinct literary force, and in an age of reading, this is to be a distinct force in deciding the temper, the process, the breadth, of men's opinions, no less than the manner of expressing them. It is no new observation that the 25 influence of an author becomes in time something apart from his books, and that a certain generalized or ab- stract personality impresses itself on our minds, long after we have forgotten the details of his opinions, the arguments by which he enforced them, and even, what 30 Prose — 27 4l8 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE are usually the last to escape us, the images by which he illustrated them. Phrases and sentences are a mask: but we detect the features of the man behind the mask. This personahty of a favorite author is a real and power- 5 ful agency. Unconsciously we are infected with his humors; we apply his methods; we find ourselves copy- ing the rhythm and measure of his periods; we wonder how he would have acted, or thought, or spoken in our circumstances. Usually a strong writer leaves a special lo mark in some particular region of mental activity: the final product of him is to fix some persistent religious mood, or some decisive intellectual bias, or else some trick of the tongue. Now Macaulay has contributed no philosophic ideas to the speculative stock, nor has he 15 developed any one great historic or social truth. His work is always full of a high spirit of manliness, probity, and honor; but he is not of that small band to whom we may apply Mackintosh's thrice and four times en- viable panegyric on the eloquence of Dugald Stewart, 20 that its peculiar glory consisted in having " breathed the love of virtue into whole generations of pupils." He has painted many striking pictures, and imparted a certain reaUty to our conception of many great scenes of the past. He did good service in banishing once for all those 25 sentimental Jacobite leanings and prejudices which had been kept alive by the sophistry of the most popular of historians, and the imagination of the most popular of romance writers. But where he set his stamp has been upon style; style in its widest sense, not merely 30 on the grammar and mechanism of writing, but on what MACAULAY 4^9 De Quincey described as its organology; style, that is to say, in its relation to ideas and feelings, its commerce with thought, and its reaction on what one may call the temper or conscience of the intellect. Let no man suppose that it matters little whether the 5 most universally popular of the serious authors of a gen- eration — and Macaulay was nothing less than this — affects style coupe or style soiitenu. The critic of style is not the dancing master, declaiming on the deep in- effable things that lie in a minuet. He is not the virtuoso lo of supines and gerundives. The morality of style goes deeper "than dull fools suppose." When Comte took pains to prevent any sentence exceeding two lines of his manuscript or five of print; to restrict every paragraph to seven sentences; to exclude every hiatus between two 15 sentences or even between two paragraphs; and never to reproduce any word, except the auxiliary monosyl- lables, in two consecutive sentences; he justified his literary solicitude by insisting on the wholesomeness alike to heart and intelligence of submission to artificial in- 20 stitutions. He felt, after he had once mastered the habit of the new yoke, that it became the source of continual and unforeseeable improvements even in thought, and he perceived that the reason why verse is a higher kind of literary perfection than prose, is that verse imposes 25 a greater number of rigorous forms. We may add that verse itself is perfected, in the hands of men of poetic genius, in proportion to the severity of this mechanical regulation. Where Pope or Racine had one rule of meter, Victor Hugo has twenty, and he observes them 30 420 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE as rigorously as an algebraist or an astronomer observes the rules of calculation or demonstration. One, then, who touches the style of a generation acquires no trifling authority over its thought and temper, as well as over 5 the length of its sentences. The first and most obvious sedret of Macaulay's place on popular bookshelves is that he has a true genius for narration, and narration will always in the eyes not only of our squatters in the Australian bush, but of the 10 many all over the world, stand first among literary gifts. The common run of plain men, as has been no- ticed since the beginning of the world, are as eager as children for a story, and Hke children they will embrace the man who will tell them a story, with abundance of 15 details and plenty of color, and a realistic assurance that it is no mere make-believe. Macaulay never stops to brood over an incident or a character, with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth of motive and cause, to the furthest complexity of impulse, calculation, 20 and subtle incentive. The spirit of analysis is not in him, and the divine spirit of meditation is not in him. His whole mind runs in action and movement; it busies itself with eager interest in all objective particulars. He is seized by the external and the superficial, and 25 revels in every detail that appeals to the five senses. "The brilhant Macaulay," said Emerson, with slight exaggeration, "who expresses the tone of the English governing classes of the day, explicitly teaches that good means good to eat, good to wear, material commodity." MACAULAY 421 So ready a faculty of exultation in the exceeding great glories of taste and touch, of loud sound and glittering spectacle, is a gift of the utmost service to the narrator who craves immense audiences. Let it be said that if Macaulay exults in the details that go to our five senses, 5 his sensuousness is always clean, manly, and fit for honest dayHght and the summer sun. There is none of that curious odor of autumnal decay that chngs to the passion of a more modern school for color and flavor and the enumerated treasures of subtle indulgence. 10 Mere picturesqueness, however, is a minor qualifica- tion compared with another quaHty which everybody assumes himself to have, but which is in reality extremely uncommon; the quality, I mean, of teUing a tale directly and in straightforward order. In speaking of Hallam, 15 Macaulay complained that Gibbon had brought into fashion an unpleasant trick of telhng a story by impli- cation and allusion. This provoking obHquity has cer- tainly increased rather than decUned since Hallam's day, and it has reached its height and climax in the latest 20 addition of all to our works of popular history, Mr. Green's clever book upon the EngUsh People. Mr. Froude, it is true, whatever may be his shortcomings on the side of sound moral and political judgment, has admirable gifts in the way of straightforward narration, 25 and Mr. Freeman, when he does not press too hotly after emphasis and abstains from overloading his ac- count with superabundance of detail, is usually excel- lent in the way of direct description. Still, it is not merely because these two writers are aUve and Macaulay is not, 30 422 NINEtEENTH CENTURY PROSE that most people would say of him that he is unequaled in our time in his mastery of the art of letting us know in an express and unmistakable way exactly what it was that happened, though it is quite true that in many por- 5 tions of his too elaborated History of William the Third he describes a large number of events about which, I think, no sensible man can in the least care either how they happened, or whether indeed they happened at all or not. lo Another reason why people have sought Macaulay is that he has in one way or another something to tell them about many of the most striking personages and interest- ing events in the history of mankind. And he does really tell them something. If any one will be at the trouble 15 to count up the number of those names that belong to the world and time, about which Macaulay has found not merely something, but something definite and pointed to say, he will be astonished to see how large a portion of the wide historic realm is traversed in that ample 20 flight of reference, allusion, and illustration, and what unsparing copiousness of knowledge gives substance, meaning, and attraction to that blaze and glare of rhetoric. Macaulay came upon the world of letters, just as the 25 middle classes were expanding into enormous prosperity, were vastly increasing in numbers, and were becoming more alive than they had ever been before to literary interests. His Essays are as good as a Hbrary; they make an incomparable manual and vade mecum for a 30 bu-sy uneducated man who has curiosity and enlighten- MACAULAY 423 ment enough to wish to know a little about the great lives and great thoughts, the shining words and many-colored complexities of action, that have marked the journey of man through the ages. Macaulay had an intimate ac- quaintance both with the imaginative hterature and the 5 history of Greece and Rome, with the hterature and the history of modern Italy, of France, and of England. Whatever his special subject, he contrives to pour into it with singular dexterity a stream of rich, graphic, and telling illustrations from all these widely diversified 10 sources. Figures from history, ancient and modern, sacred and secular; characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of every age and every nation, "pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, 15 tragical-historical;" shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from sages, pleasantries caustic or pathetic from humorists; all throng Macaulay 's pages with the bustle and variety and animation of some glittering masque and cosmoramic revel of great books and heroical men. 20 Hence, though Macaulay was in mental constitution one of the very least Shakespearean writers that ever lived, yet he has the Shakespearean quality of taking his reader though an immense gallery of interesting char- acters and striking situations. No writer can now ex- 25 pect to attain the widest popularity as a man of letters unless he gives to the world multa as w^ell as miiltiim. Sainte-Beuve, the most eminent man of letters in France in our generation, wrote no less than twenty-seven volumes of his incomparable Causeries. Mr. Carlyle, 30 424 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the most eminent man of letters in England in our gen- eration, has taught us that silence is golden in thirty volumes. Macaulay was not so exuberantly copious as these two illustrious writers, but he had the art of being 5 as various without being so voluminous. There has been a great deal of deUberate and syste- matic imitation of Macaulay's style, often by clever men who might well have trusted to their own resources. Its most conspicuous vices are very easy to imitate, but lo it is impossible for any one who is less familiar with literature than Macaulay was, to reproduce his style effectively, for the reason that it is before all else the style of great literary knowledge. Nor is that all. Macaulay's knowledge was not only very wide; it was both thoroughly IS accurate and instantly ready. For this stream of apt illustrations he was indebted to his extraordinary mem- ory, and his rapid eye for contrasts and analogies. They come to the end of his pen as he writes; they are not laboriously hunted out in indexes, and then added by 20 way of afterthought and extraneous interpolation. Hence quotations and references that in a writer even of equal knowledge, but with his wits less promptly about him, would seem mechanical and awkward, find their place in a page of Macaulay as if by a delightful 25 process of complete assimilation and spontaneous fusion. We may be sure that no author could have achieved Macaulay's boundless popularity among his contem- poraries, unless his work had abounded in what is sub- stantially Commonplace. Addison puts in fine writing, MACAULAY 425 sentiments that are natural without being obvious, and this is a true account of the "law" of the exquisite lit- erature of the Queen Anne men. We may perhaps add to Addison's definition, that the great secret of the best kind of popularity is always the noble or imaginative 5 handling of Commonplace. Shakespeare may at first seem an example to the contrary; and indeed is it not a standing marvel that the greatest writer of a nation that is distinguished among all nations for the pharisaism, Puritanism, and unimaginative narrowness of its judg- 10 ments on conduct and type of character, should be para- mount over all writers for the breadth, maturity, full- ness, subtlety, and infinite variousness of his conception of human life and nature? One possible answer to the perplexity is that the puritanism does not go below the 15 surface in us, and that EngHshmen are not really limited in their view by the too strait formulas that are supposed to contain their explanations of the moral universe. On this theory the popular appreciation of Shakespeare is the irrepressible response of the hearty inner man to 20 a voice in which he recognizes the full note of human nature, and those wonders of the world which are not dreamt of in his professed philosophy. A more obvious answer than this is that Shakespeare's popularity with the many is not due to those finer glimpses that are the 25 very essence of all poetic delight to the few, but to his thousand other magnificent attractions, and above all, after his skill as a pure dramatist and master of scenic interest and situation, to the lofty or pathetic setting with which he vivifies, not the subtleties or refinements, 30 426 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE but the commonest and most elementary traits of the commonest and most elementary human moods. The few with minds touched by nature or right cultivation to the finer issues, admire the supreme genius which takes 5 some poor Italian tale, with its coarse plot and gross personages, and shooting it through with threads of variegated meditation, produces a masterpiece of pene- trative reflection and high pensive suggestion as to the deepest things and most secret parts of the life of men. 30 But to the general these finer threads are undiscernible. What touches them, and most rightly touches them and us all, in the Shakespearean poetry, are topics eternally old, yet of eternal freshness, the perennial truisms of the grave and the bridechamber, of shifting fortune, 15 the surprises of destiny, the emptiness of the answered vow. This is the region in which the poet wins his widest if not his hardest triumphs, the region of the noble Commonplace. A writer dealing with such matters as principally oc- 20 cupied Macaulay has not the privilege of resort to these great poetic inspirations. Yet history, too, has its gen- erous commonplaces, its plausibilities of emotion, and no one has ever delighted more than Macaulay did to appeal to the fine truisms that cluster round love of 25 freedom and love of native land. The high rhetorical topics of liberty and patriotism are his readiest instru- ments for kindling a glowing reflection of these mag- nanimous passions in the breasts of his readers. That Englishman is hardly to be envied who can read without 30 a glow such passages as that in the History about Tu- MACAULAY 427 renne being startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English aUies advanced to the combat, and expressing the delight of a true soldier when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy; while even 5 the banished cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnum- bered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which had just been pro- 10 nounced impregnable by the ablest of the marshals of France. Such prose as this is not less thrilling to a man who loves his country, than the spirited verse of the Lays of Ancient Rome. And the commonplaces of patriotism and freedom would never have been so power- 15 ful in Macaulay's hands if they had not been inspired by a sincere and hearty faith in them in the soul of the writer. His unanalytical turn of mind kept him free of any temptation to think of love of country as a prejudice, or a passion for freedom as an illusion. The cosmo- 20 politan or international idea which such teachers as Cobden have tried to impress on our stubborn islanders, would have found in Macaulay not lukewarm or skep- tical adherence, but point-blank opposition and denial. He believed as stoutly in the supremacy of Great Britain 25 in the history of the good causes of Europe, as M. Thiers believes in the supremacy of France, or Mazzini be- lieved in that of Italy. The thought of the prodigious industr/, the inventiveness, the stout enterprise, the free government, the wise and equal laws, the noble litera- 30 428 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ture, of this fortunate island and its majestic empire beyond the seas, and the discretion, valor, and tenacity by which all these great material and still greater in- tangible possessions had been first won and then kept S against every hostile comer whether domestic or foreign, sent through Macaulay a thrill, like that which the thought of Paris and its heroisms moves in the great poet of France, or sight of the dear city of the Violet Crown moved in an Athenian of old. Thus habitually, 10 with all sincerity of heart, to offer to one of the greater popular prepossessions the incense due to any other idol of superstition, sacred and of indisputable authority, and to let this adoration be seen shining in every page, is one of the keys that every man must find who would 15 make a quick and sure way into the temple of contempo- rary fame. It is one of the first things to be said about Macaulay, that he was in exact accord with the common average sentiment of his day on every subject on which he spoke. 20 His superiority was not of that highest kind which leads a man to march in thought on the outside margin of the crowd, watching them, sympathizing with them, hoping for them, but apart. Macaulay was one of the middle-class crowd in his heart, and only rose above it 25 by extraordinary gifts of expression. He had none of that ambition which inflames some hardy men, to make new beliefs and new passions enter the minds of their neighbors; his ascendancy is due to literary pomp, not to fecundity of spirit. No one has ever surpassed him 30 in the art of combining resolute and ostentatious com- MAC AULA Y 429 mon sense of a slightly coarse sort in choosing his point of view, with so considerable an appearance of dignity and elevation in setting it forth and impressing it upon others. The elaborateness of his style is very likely to mislead people into imagining for him a corresponding 5 elaborateness of thought and sentiment. On the con- trary, Macaulay's mind was really very simple, strait, and with as few notes in its register, to borrow a phrase from the language of vocal compass, as there are few notes, though they are very loud, in the register of his 10 written prose. When we look more closely into it, what at first wore the air of dignity and elevation, in truth rather disagreeably resembles the narrow assurance of a man who knows that he has with him the great battal- ions of public opinion. We are always quite sure that if 15 Macaulay had been an Athenian citizen towards the ninety-fifth Olympiad, he would have taken sides with Anytus and Meletus in the impeachment of Socrates. A popular author must take the accepted maxims for granted in a thoroughgoing way. He must suppress 20 any whimsical fancy for applying the Socratic elenchus, or any other engine of criticism, skepticism, or verifica- ' tion, to those sentiments or current precepts of morals, which may in fact be very two-sided and may be much neglected in practice, but which the public opinion of 25 his time requires to be treated in theory and in literature as if they had been cherished and held sacred semper, ubique, et ah omnibus. — This is just what Macaulay does, and it is commonly supposed to be no heavy fault in him or any other writer 30 430 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE for the common public. Man cannot live by analysis alone, nor nourish himself on the secret delights of irony. And if Macaulay had only reflected the more generous of the prejudices of mankind, it would have 5 been well enough. Burke, for instance, was a writer who revered the prejudices of a modern society as deeply as Macaulay did; he believed society to be founded on prejudices and held compact by them. Yet what size there is in Burke, what fine perspective, what momen- 10 tum, what edification! It may be pleaded that there is the literature of edification, and there is the literature of knowledge, and that the qualities proper to the one cannot lawfully be expected from the other, and would only be very much out of place if they should happen 15 to be found there. But there are two answers to this. First, Macaulay in the course of his varied writings dis- cusses all sorts of ethical and other matters, and is not simply a chronicler of party and intrigue, of dynasties and campaigns. Second, and more than this, even if 20 he had never traveled beyond the composition of his- torical record, he could still have sown his pages, as does every truly great writer, no matter what his subject may be, with those significant images or far-reaching suggestions, which suddenly light up a whole range of 25 distant thoughts and sympathies within us; which in an instant affect the sensibilities of men with a something new and unforeseen; and which awaken, if only for a passing moment, the faculty and response of the diviner mind. Tacitus does all this, and Burke does it, and 30 that is why men who care nothing for Roman despots or MACAULAY 43 1 for Jacobin despots, will still perpetually turn to those writers almost as if they were on the level of great poets or very excellent spiritual teachers. One secret is that they, and all such men as they were, had that of which Macaulay can hardly have had the 5 rudimentary germ, the faculty of deep abstract medi- tation and surrender to the fruitful "leisures of the spirit." We can picture Macaulay talking, or making a speech in the House of Commons, or buried in a book, or scouring his library for references, or covering his 10 blue foolscap with dashing periods, or accentuating his sentences and barbing his phrases; but can anybody think of him as meditating, as modestly pondering and wondering, as possessed for so much as ten minutes by that spirit of inwardness which has never been wholly 15 wanting in any of those kings and princes of literature, with whom it is good for men to sit in counsel ? He seeks Truth, not as she should be sought, devoutly, tenta- tively, and with the air of one touching the hem of a sacred garment, but clutching her by the hair of the head 20 and dragging her after him in a kind of boisterous triumph, a prisoner of war and not a goddess. All this finds itself reflected, as the inner temper of a man always is reflected, in his style of written prose. The merits of his prose are obvious enough. It naturally 25 reproduces the good qualities of his understanding, its strength, manHness, and directness. That exultation in material goods and glories of which we have already spoken makes his pages rich in color, and gives them the effect of a sumptuous gala suit. Certainly the bro- 30 432 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE cade is too brand-new, and has none of the delicate charm that comes to such finery when it is a Httle faded. Again, nobody can have any excuse for not knowing exactly what it is that Macaulay means. We may as- 5 suredly say of his prose what Boileau says of his own poetry — Et nion vers, Men ou inal, dit toujours qiielque chose. This is a prodigious merit, when we reflect with what fatal alacrity human language lends itself in the hands of so many performers upon the pliant instrument, lo to all sorts of obscurity, ambiguity, disguise and pre- tentious mystification. Scaliger is supposed to have remarked of the Basques and their desperate tongue: "'Tis said the Basques understand one another; for my part, I will never believe it." The same pungent 15 doubt might apply to loftier members of the hierarchy of speech than that forlorn dialect, but never to English as handled by Macaulay. He never wrote an obscure sentence in his life, and this may seem a small merit, until we remember of how few writers we could say the 20 same. Macaulay is of those who think prose as susceptible of poHshed and definite form as verse, and he was, we should suppose, of those also who hold the type and mold of all written language to be spoken language. 25 There are more reasons for demurring to the soundness of the latter doctrine than can conveniently be made to fill a digression here. For one thing, spoken language necessarily implies one or more listeners, whereas writ- ten language may often have to express meditative 30 moods and trains of inward reflection that move through MACAULAY 433 the mmd without trace of external reference, and that would lose their special traits by the introduction of any suspicion that they were to be overheard. Again, even granting that all composition must be supposed to be meant by the fact of its existence to be addressed to a 5 body of readers, it still remains to be shown that indi- rect address to the inner ear should follow the same method and rhythm as address directly through impres- sions on the outer organ. The attitude of the recipient mind is different, and there is the symbolism of a new 10 medium between it and the speaker. The writer, being cut off from all those effects which are producible by the physical intonations of the voice, has to find substitutes for them by other means, by subtler cadences, by a more varied modulation, by firmer notes, by more complex 15 circuits, than suffice for the utmost perfection of spoken language, which has all the potent and manifold aids of personality. In writing, whether it be prose or verse, you are free to produce effects whose peculiarity one can only define vaguely by saying that the senses have one 20 part less in them than in any other of the forms and eft'ects of art, and the imaginary voice one part more. But the question need not be labored here, because there can be no dispute as to the quality of Macaulay's prose. Its measures are emphatically the measures of 25 spoken deliverance. Those who have made the experi- ment, pronounce him to be one of the authors whose works are most admirably fitted for reading aloud. His firmness and directness of statement, his spiritedness, his art of selecting salient and highly colored detail, and 3° Prose— 28 434 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE all his other merits as a narrator keep the listener's attention, and make him the easiest of writers to follow. Although, however, clearness, directness, and posi- tiveness are master qualities and the indispensable foun- 5 dations of all good style, yet does the matter plainly by no means end with them. And it is even possible to have these virtues so unhappily proportioned and in- auspiciously mixed with other turns and casts of mind, as to end in work with little grace or harmony or fine 10 tracery about it, but only overweening purpose and ve- hement wull. And it is overweeningness and self-confi- dent will that are the chief notes of Macaulay's style. It has no benignity. Energy is doubtless a delightful quaHty, but then Macaulay's energy is energy without 15 momentum, and he impresses us more by a strong volubility than by volume. It is the energy of interests and intuitions, which though they are profoundly sin- cere if ever they were sincere in any man, are yet in the relations which they comprehend, essentially super- 20 ficial. Still, trenchancy whether in speaker or writer is a most effective tone for a large public. It gives them con- fidence in their man, and prevents tediousness — except to those who reflect how delicate is the poise of truth, 25 what steeps and pits encompass the dealer in unqualified propositions. To such persons, a writer who is tren- chant in every sentence of every page, who never lapses for a line into the contingent, who marches through the intricacies of things in a blaze of certainty, is not only a 30 wTiter to be distrusted, but the owner of a doubtful and MACAULAY 435 displeasing style. It is a great test of style to watch how an author disposes of the quahfications, limitations, and exceptions that clog the wings of his main proposition. The grave and conscientious men of the seventeenth century insisted on packing them all honestly along 5 with the main proposition itself within the bounds of a single period. Burke arranges them in tolerably close order in the paragraph. Dr. Newman, that winning writer, disperses them Hghtly over his page. Of Ma- caulay it is hardly unfair to say that he dispatches all 10 qualifications into outer space before he begins to write, or if he magnanimously admits one or two here and there, it is only to bring them the more imposingly to the same murderous end. We have spoken of Macaulay's interests and intuitions 15 wearing a certain air of superficiality; there is a feeling of the same kind about his attempts to be genial. It is not truly festive. There is no abandonment in it. It has no deep root in moral humor, and is merely a literary form, resembhng nothing so much as the hard geniality 20 of some clever college tutor of stiff manners entertain- ing undergraduates at an official breakfast party. This is not because his tone is bookish; on the contrary, his tone and level are distinctly those of the man of the world. But one always seems to find that neither a wide range 25 of cultivation nor familiar access to the best Whig circles had quite removed the stiffness and self-conscious pre- cision of the Clapham Sect. We would give much for a Httle more flexibihty, and would welcome even a slight consciousness of infirmity. As has been said, the 30 436 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE only people whom men cannot pardon are the perfect. Macaulay is like the military king who never suffered himself to be seen, even by the attendants in his bed- chamber, until he had had time to put on his uniform and 5 jack boots. His severity of eye is very wholesome; it makes his writing firm, and firmness is certainly one of the first qualities that good writing must have. But there is such a thing as soft and considerate precision, as well as hard and scolding precision. Those most 10 interesting EngHsh critics of the generation slightly an- terior to Macaulay, — Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, Leigh Hunt, — were fully his equals in precision, and yet they knew how to be clear, acute, and definite, without that edginess and inelasticity which is so conspicuous in 15 Macaulay 's criticisms, ahke in their matter and their form. To borrow the figure of an old writer, Macaulay's prose is not Hke a flowing vestment to his thought, but Hke a suit of armour. It is often splendid and ghtter- 20 ing, and the movement of the opening pages of his History is superb in its dignity. But that movement is excep- tional. As a rule there is the hardness, if there is also often the sheen, of highly-wrought metal. Or, to change our figure, his pages are composed as a handsome edi- 25 fice is reared, not as a fine statue or a frieze " with bossy sculptures graven" grows up in the imaginative mind of the statuary. There is no liquid continuity, such as indicates a writer possessed by his subject and not merely possessing it. The periods are marshaled in due order 30 of procession, bright and high-stepping; they never MACAULAY 437 escape under an impulse of emotion into the full current of a brimming stream. What is curious is that though Macaulay seems ever to be brandishing a two-edged gleaming sword, and though he steeps us in an atmos- phere of belligerency, yet we are never conscious of in- 5 ward agitation in him, and perhaps this alone would debar him from a place among the greatest writers. For they, under that reserve, suppression, or manage- ment, which is an indispensable condition of the finest rhetorical art, even when aiming at the most passionate 10 effects, still succeed in conveying to their readers a thrilling sense of the strong fires that are glowing under- neath. Now when Macaulay advances with his hector- ing sentences and his rough pistoling ways, we feel all the time that his pulse is as steady as that of the most 15 practiced duellist who ever ate fire. He is too cool to be betrayed into a single phrase of happy improvisation. His pictures glare, but are seldom warm. Those strokes of minute circumstantiality which he loved so dearly, show that even in moments when his imagination might 20 seem to be moving both spontaneously and ardently, it was really only a literary instrument, a fashioning tool and not a melting flame. Let us take a single ex- ample. He is describing the trial of Warren Hastings. "Every step in the proceedings," he says, "carried the 25 mind either backward through many troubled cen- turies to the days when the foundations of our constitu- tion were laid; or far away over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshiping strange gods, and writing strange char- 30 438 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE acters from right to left." The odd triviaUty of the last detail, its unworthiness of the sentiment of the passage, leaves the reader checked; what sets out as a fine stroke of imagination dwindles down to a sort of literary con- 5 ceit. And so in other places, even where the writer is most deservedly admired for gorgeous picturesque effect, we feel that it is only the literary picturesque, a kind of infinitely glorified newspaper reporting. Compare, for instance, the most imaginative piece to be found in any 10 part of Macaulay's writings with that sudden and lovely apostrophe in Carlyle, after describing the bloody hor- rors that followed the fall of the Bastille in 1789: — "O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams fall slant on reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old 15 women spinning in cottages; on ships far out in the silent main; on balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the Palace are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar-officers; — and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hotel de Ville!" Who does not 20 feel in this the breath of poetic inspiration, and how different it is from the mere composite of the rhetorician's imagination, assiduously working to order? This remark is no disparagement of Macaulay's genius, but a classification of it. We are interrogating 25 our own impressions, and asking ourselves among what kind of writers he ought to be placed. Rhetoric is a good and worthy art, and rhetorical authors are often more useful, more instructive, more really respectable than poetical authors. But it is to be said that Macaulay 30 as a rhetorician will hardly be placed in the first rank MACAULAY 439 by those who have studied both him and the great masters. Once more, no amount of embelhshment or emphasis or brilKant figure suffices to produce this in- tense effect of agitation rigorously restrained; nor can any beauty of decoration be in the least a substitute for 5 that touching and penetrative music which is made in prose by the repressed trouble of grave and high souls. There is a certain music, we do not deny, in Macaulay, but it is the music of a man everlastingly playing for us rapid solos on a silver trumpet, never the swelling dia- 10 pasons of the organ, and never the deep ecstasies of the four magic strings. That so sensible a man as Ma- caulay should keep clear of the modern abomination of dithyrambic prose, that rank and sprawling weed of speech, was natural enough; but then the effects which 15 we miss in him, and which, considering how strong the literary faculty in him really was, we are almost aston- ished to miss, are not produced by dithyramb but by repression. Of course the answer has been already given; Macaulay, powerful and vigorous as he was, had 20 no agitation, no wonder, no tumult of spirit, to repress. The world was spread out clear before him; he read it as plainly and as certainly as he read his books; life was all an affair of direct categoricals. This was at least one secret of those hard modulations 25 and shallow cadences. How poor is the rhythm of Macaulay's prose, we only realize by going with his periods fresh in our ear to some true master of harmony. It is not worth while to quote passages from an author who is in everybody's library, and Macaulay is always 30 440 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE so much like himself that almost any one page will serve for an illustration exactly as well as any other. Let any one turn to his character of Somers, for whom he had much admiration, and then turn to Clarendon's 5 character of Falkland; — "a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and mtegrity of life, that if 10 there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity." Now Clarendon is not a great writer, nor even a good writer, for he is prolix and involved, yet we see that even Clarendon, when he 15 comes to a matter in which his heart is engaged, be- comes sweet and harmonious in his rhythm. If we turn to a prose writer of the very first place, we are instantly conscious of a still greater difference. How flashy and shallow Macaulay's periods seem as we listen to the fine 20 ground base that roHs in the melody of the following passage of Burke's, and it is taken from one of the least ornate of all his pieces : — "You wall not, we tnist, believe, that, born in a civilized country, formed to gentle manners, trained in a rnerciful religion, and living 25 in enlightened and polished times, where even foreign hostility is softened from its original sternness, we could have thought of letting loose upon you, our late beloved brethren, these fierce tribes of savages and cannibals, in whom the traces of human na- ture are effaced by ignorance and barbarity. We rather wished 30 to have joined with you in bringing gradually that unhappy part of mankind into civility, order, piety, and virtuous disciphne, than MACAULAY 44I to have confirmed their evil habits and increased their natural ferocity by fleshing them in the slaughter of you, whom our wiser and better ancestors had sent into the wilderness with the express view of introducing, along with our holy reUgion, its humane and charitable manners. We do not hold that all things are lawful 5 in war. We should think every barbarity, in fire, in wasting, in murders, in tortures, and other cruelties, too horrible and too full of turpitude for Christian mouths to utter or ears to hear, if done at our instigation, by those who we know will make war thus if they make it at all, to be, to all intents and purposes, as if done 10 by ourselves. We clear ourselves to you our brethren, to the present age, and to future generations, to our king and our coun- try, and to Europe, which, as a spectator, beholds this tragic scene, of every part or share in adding this last and worst of evils to the inevitable mischiefs of a civil war. 1 5 " We do not call you rebels and traitors. We do not call for the vengeance of the crown against you. We do not know how to qualify milHons of our countrymen, contending with one heart for an admission to privileges which we have ever thought our own happiness and honor, by odious and unworthy names. On 20 the contrary, we highly revere the principles on which you act, though we lament some of their effects. Armed as you are, we embrace you, as our friends and as our brethren by the best and dearest ties of relation." It may be said that there is a patent injustice in com- 25 paring the prose of a historian criticising or describing great events at second hand, with the prose of a states- man taking active part in great events, fired by the pas- sion of a present conflict, and stimulated by the vivid in- terest of undetermined issues. If this be a well grounded 3° plea, and it may be so, then of course it excludes a con- trast not only with Burke, but also with Bolingbroke, whose fine manners and polished gayety give us a keen 442 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE sense of the grievous garishness of Macaulay. If we may not initiate a comparison between Macaulay and great actors on the stage of affairs, at least there can be no objection to the introduction of Southey as a standard 5 of comparison. Southey was a man of letters pure and simple, and it is worth remarking that Macaulay him- self admitted that he found so great a charm in Southey's style, as nearly always to read it with pleasure, even when Southey was talking nonsense. Now, take any lo page of the Lije of Nelson or the Life of Wesley; con- sider how easy, smooth, natural, and winning is the diction and the rise and fall of the sentence, and yet how varied the rhythm and how nervous the phrases; and then turn to a page of Macaulay, and wince under 15 its stamping emphasis, its overcolored tropes, its ex- aggerated expressions, its unlovely staccato. Southey's History of the Peninsular War is now dead, but if any of my readers has a copy on his highest shelves, I would venture to ask him to take down the third volume, and 20 read the concluding pages, of which Coleridge used to say that they were the finest specimen of historic eulogy he had ever read in English, adding with forgivable hyperbole, that they were more to the Duke's fame and glory than a campaign. " Foresight and enterprise with 25 our commander went hand in hand; he never advanced but so as to be sure of his retreat; and never retreated but in such an attitude as to impose upon a superior enemy," and so on through the sum of Wellington's achievements. ''There was something more precious 30 than these, more to be desired than the high and endur- IVIACAULAY 443 ing fame which he had secured by his mihtary achieve- ments, the satisfaction of thinking to what end those achievements had been directed; that they were for the dehverance of two most injured and grievously oppressed nations; for the safety, honor, and welfare of his own 5 country; and for the general interests of Europe and of the civilized world. His campaigns were sanctified by the cause; they were sullied by no cruelties, no crimes; the chariot wheels of his triumphs have been followed by no curses; his laurels are entwined with the amaranths 10 of righteousness, and upon his deathbed he might re- member his victories among his good works." With this exquisite modulation still delighting the ear, we open Macaulay's Essays and stumble on such sen- tences as this: "That Tickell should have been guilty 15 of a villany seems to us highly improbable. That Ad- dison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree." ^ ^ fnapdv, Kal irafi- 20 fiiapbv, Kalfjt,iap(I)TaTov\ Surely this is the very burlesque and travesty of a style. Yet it is a characteristic pas- sage. It would be easy to find a thousand examples of the same vicious workmanship, and it would be difficult to find a page in which these cut and disjointed sen- 25 tences are not the type and mode of the prevailing rhythm. What is worse than want of depth and fineness of in- tonation in a period is all gross excess of color, because excess of color is connected with graver faults in the 30 444 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE region of the intellectual conscience. Macaulay is a constant sinner in this respect. The wine of truth is in his cup a brandied draft, a hundred degrees above proof, and he too often replenishes the lamp of knowl- 5 edge with naphtha instead of fine oil. It is not that he has a spontaneous passion for exuberant decoration, which he would have shared with more than one of the greatest names in literature. On the contrary, we feel that the exaggerated words and dashing sentences are the fruit lo of deliberate travail, and the petulance or the irony of his speech is mostly due to a driving predilection for strong effects. His memory, his directness, his aptitude for forcing things into firm outline, and giving them a sharply defined edge, — these and other singular talents 15 of his all lent themselves to this intrepid and indefati- gable pursuit of effect. And the most disagreeable feature is that Macaulay was so often content with an effect of an essentially vulgar kind, offensive to taste, discordant to the fastidious ear, and worst of all, at 20 enmity with the whole spirit of truth. By vulgar we certainly do not mean homely, which marks a wholly different quality. No writer can be more homely than Mr. Carlyle, alike in his choice of particulars to dwell upon, and in the terms or images in which he describes 25 or illustrates them, but there is also no writer further removed from vulgarity. Nor do we mean that Ma- caulay too copiously enriches the tongue with infusion from any Doric dialect. For such raciness he had little taste. What we find in him is that quality which the 30 French call brutal. The description, for instance, in MACAULAY 445 the essay on Hallam, of the license of the Restoration, seems to us a coarse and vulgar picture, whose painter took the most garish colors he could find on his palette and laid them on in untempered crudity. And who is not sensible of the vulgarity and coarseness of the ac- 5 count of Boswell? "If he had not been a great fool, he would not have been a great writer ... he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb," and so forth, in which the shallowness of the analysis of Boswell's char- acter matches the puerile rudeness of the terms. Here, 10 again, is a sentence about Montesquieu. "The English at that time," Macaulay says of the middle of the eight- eenth century, "considered a Frenchman who talked about constitutional checks and fundamental laws as a prodigy not less astonishing than the learned pig or 15 musical infant." And he then goes on to describe the author of one of the most important books that ever were written as " specious but shallow, studious of effect, indifferent to truth — the Hvely President," and so forth, stirring in any reader who happens to know Montes- 20 quieu's influence, a singular amazement. We are not concerned with the judgment upon Montesquieu, nor with the truth as to contemporary English opinion about him, but a writer who devises an antithesis to such a man as Montesquieu in learned pigs and musical in- 25 fants, deliberately condescends not merely, to triviality or levity but to flat vulgarity of thought, to something of mean and ignoble association. Though one of the most common, this is not Macaulay's only sin in the same unfortunate direction. He too frequently resorts 30 446 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE to vulgar gaudiness. For example, there is in one place a certain description of an alleged practice of Addison's. Swift had said of Esther Johnson that "whether from her easiness in general, or from her indifference to per- 5 sons, or from her despair of mending them, or from the same practice which she most liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine; but when she saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than to oppose them. It pre- lo vented noise, she said, and saved time." Let us be- hold what a picture Macaulay draws on the strength of this passage. "If his first attempts to set a presum- ing dunce right were ill-received," Macaulay says of Addison, "he changed his tone, 'assented with civil IS leer,' and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity." To compare this transformation of the simplicity of the original into the grotesque heat and overcharged violence of the copy, is to see the homely maiden of a country village transformed into the painted 20 fiaunter of the city. One more instance. We should be sorry to violate any sentiment of to aefxvbv about a man of Macaulay's genius, but what is a decorous term for a description of the doctrine of Lucretius's great poem, thrown in 25 parenthetically, as the "silliest and meanest system of natural and moral philosophy"? Even disagreeable artifices of composition may be forgiven when they serve to vivify truth, to quicken or to widen the moral judgment, but Macaulay's hardy and habitual recourse 30 to strenuous superlatives is fundamentally unscientific MACAULAY 447 and untrue. There is no more instructive example in our literature than he, of the saying that the adjective is the enemy of the substantive. In 1837 Jeffrey saw a letter written by Macaulay to a common friend, and stating the reasons for preferring a 5 literary to a political life. Jeffrey thought that his il- lustrious ally was wrong in the conclusion to which he came. "As to the tranquillity of an author's life," he said, "I have no sort of faith in it. And as to fame, if an author's is now and then more lasting, it is generally 10 longer withheld, and except in a few rare cases it is of a less pervading or elevating description. A great poet or a great original writer is above all other glory. But who would give much for such a glory as Gibbon's? Besides, I believe it is in the inward glow and pride of 15 consciously influencing the destinies of mankind, much more than in the sense of personal reputation, that the delight of either poet or statesman chiefly consists." And Gibbon had at least the advantage of throwing himself into a controversy destined to endure for cen- 20 turies. He, moreover, was specifically a historian, while Macaulay has been prized less as a historian proper, than as a master of literary art. Now a man of letters, in an age of battle and transition like our own, fades into an ever-deepening distance, unless he has while he 25 writes that touching and impressive quality, — the pre- sentiment of the eve; a feeling of the difficulties and in- terests that will engage and distract mankind on the morrow. Nor can it be enough for endiuring fame in 448 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE any age merely to throw a golden halo round the secu- larity of the hour, or to make glorious the narrowest limi- tations of the passing day. If we think what a changed sense is already given to criticism, what a different con- 5 ception now presides over history, how many problems on which he was silent are now the familiar puzzles of even superficial readers, we cannot help feeling that the eminent man whose life we are all about to read, is the hero of a past which is already remote, and that he did 10 Httle to make men better fitted to face a present of which, close as it was to him, he seems hardly to have dreamed. ARNOLD [Matthew Arnold, son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby, was born at Laleham in 1822. Arnold's school days were nearly all passed at Rugby, where he wrote his prize poem, Alaric at Rome (1840) He also won the Newdi- gate prize at Oxford with a poem called Cromwell. In March, 1845 ^^ ^^^ elected a fellow of Oriel, and in 1847 he was ap- pointed secretary to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who, four years later, secured for Arnold an inspectorship of schools. This posi- tion he held until 18S6. From 1857 to 1867, Arnold was Pro- fessor of Poetry at Oxford. His lectures On Translating Homer and On the Study of Celtic Literature were published in 1 861-1862 and 1867. He visited America twice, once in 1883- 1884 and again in 1886. Arnold died in 1888. A complete edition of his poetry appeared in 1885. His prose writings include: Essays in Crit- icism, first series (1865); Culture and Anarchy (1869); Saint Paul and Prostestantism (1870) ; Literature and Dogma (1873) » Mixed Essays (1879); Discourses in America (1885); Essays in Criticism, second series (1888).] When Matthew Arnold first delivered his lecture on Emerson he wrote home: "I have given him praise which in England will be thought excessive, probably; but then I have a very, very deep feeling for him." Sympathy with Emerson, Arnold could not have found difficult to possess. The soul of Emerson's message is conduct, which for Arnold is three-fourths of life. This of itself implies the large spiritual fellowship there was between the American seer and his English critic. We cannot, therefore, question the deliberateness and sincerity of the high opinion which finds expression in the second half of the present essay. Prose — 29 449 450 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Arnold reaches his final positive judgment through a series of negations. Emerson, he says, is great neither as a poet, a man of letters, a philosopher, nor as a spectator of life. He is great "as a friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit." His great- ness, moreover, is pervaded by a "serene, beautiful temper," which holds fast to "happiness and hope;" a temper, too, which, by giving to Emerson's gospel an "invaluable virtue," makes it "the most important work done in prose during the present century." These judgments are the result of an application to Emerson's writings of certain well-known ideals and methods of criticism which Arnold habitually employed and to which brief reference must here be made. His expressed aim is to arrive at a "real estimate," by which he means the estimate of time and nature; and to ac- complish his aim he makes use of a definite method of criticism. Emerson's various literary performances are successively measured by certain "highest standards," or acknowledged classical writers. Tested in this way, Emerson's real greatness becomes evident only when we place him beside Marcus Aurelius. And not only in the larger divisions of the subject is the method conspicuous; it shows itself also in the frequent contrasts of Carlyle and Emerson, and in the comparison of Emer- son with Hawthorne, and again with FrankHn. Preference for the concrete over the abstract, for the relative over the absolute, is a phase of Arnold's method, and accounts for the large number of quotations in his essays. He defines by illustrations, not by definitions. "The true prose," he says, "is Attic prose;" and At- tic prose becomes the norm of style. Another phase of his criticism is the practice of con- densing an estimate of a writer into a single sentence or phrase, and of making this crystalHzed judgment do service whenever the writer's work is called in question. ARNOLD 451 Emerson, in the essay before us, on the positive side is always "the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit," — a formula repeated as often as Emerson's true value is reckoned with. In his appraisal of Emerson's style, Arnold adopts the same method. A great prose style, he says, shows itself in " the whole tissue of work . . . regarded as a com- position for literary purposes." Emerson's style, meas- ured by this standard, falls short; it has no evolution, no "whole tissue." Finally, Arnold's estimate of Emerson's work as a contribution to the world is derived from his ideal of literature as a test of that work. "The end and aim of all Hterature," says Arnold, "is a criticism of Hfe." Emerson's is the most important work done in prose during the nineteenth century because it most perfectly accomplishes the purpose of literature, — criticism of life. Arnold's style in this essay is typical of his manner in criticism, though the lecture form is frankly obtrusive. The memorable introduction on the " voices " at Oxford — a passage hardly surpassed anywhere else in Arnold — together with the concluding comparison between Em- erson and Frankhn, is not subordinated to the "tissue of the whole." Obvious faults arising from the lecture form, however, do not materially lessen the charm com- municated by a prose that possesses the "classic" qual- ities of "lucidity, measure, propriety." Arnold's style has also urbanity, which is manifested in a gracious, refined, untrammeled, and always serenely confident manner of expression and thought. Serene confidence, in truth, occasionally becomes priggishness and pose; and wherever this attitude shows itself the style of course loses its most winning characteristic. This quality, which one feels in the best conversation and which we have called urbanity, is sometimes responsible in the case of Arnold for the further defects of repetition, diffuse- 452 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE ness and verbal narrowness. But after these deductions have been made, there remains a style distinctive for restraint and lucidity, a style fashioned after the pattern of Greek prose which, better than any other prose in the world, combines richness of content with beauty of form. EMERSON Forty years ago, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, voices were in the air there which haunt my memory still. Happy the man who in that susceptible season of youth hears such voices! they are a possession 5 to him for ever. No such voices as those which we heard in our youth at Oxford are sounding there now. Ox- ford has more criticism now, more knowledge, more light; but such voices as those of our youth it has no longer. The name of Cardinal Newman is a great name lo to the imagination still; his genius and his style are still things of power. But he is over eighty years old; he is in the Oratory at Birmingham; he has adopted, for the doubts and difficulties which beset men's minds to-day, a solution which, to speak frankly, is impossible. Forty 15 years ago he was in the very prime of life; he was close at hand to us at Oxford; he was preaching in St. Mary's pulpit every Sunday; he seemed about to transform and to renew what was for us the most national and natural institution in the world, the Church of England. Who 20 could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, glid- ing in the dim afternoon light through the aisles of St. Mary's, rising into the pulpit, and then, in the most EMERSON 453 entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were a religious music, — subtle, sweet, mournful? I seem to hear him still, saying: " After the fever of life, after wearinesses and sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, 5 strugghng and succeeding; after all the changes and chances of this troubled, unhealthy state, — at length comes death, at length the white throne of God, at length the beatific vision." Or, if we followed him back to his seclusion at Littlemore, that dreary village by the lo London road, and to the house of retreat and the church which he built there, — a mean house such as Paul might have lived in when he was tent making at Ephesus, a church plain and thinly sown with worshipers, — who could resist him there either, welcoming back to the se- 15 vere joys of church fellowship, and of daily worship and prayer, the firstlings of a generation which had well- nigh forgotten them? Again I seem to hear him: "The season is chill and dark, and the breath of the morning is damp, and worshipers are few; but all this befits those 20 who are by their profession penitents and mourners, watchers and pilgrims. More dear to them that loneli- ness, more cheerful that severity, and more bright that gloom, than all those aids and appliances of luxury by which men nowadays attempt to make prayer less dis- 25 agreeable to them. True faith does not covet comforts; they who realize that awful day, when they shall see Him face to face whose eyes are as a flame of fire, will as little bargain to pray pleasantly now as they will think of doing so then." 30 454 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Somewhere or other I have spoken of those "last en- chantments of the Middle Age which Oxford sheds around us, and here they were! But there were other voices sounding in our ear besides Newman's.- There 5 was the puissant voice of Carlyle; so sorely strained, over-used, and misused since, but then fresh, compara- tively sound, and reaching our hearts with true, pathetic eloquence. Who can forget the emotion of receiving in its first freshness such a sentence as that sentence of Car- lo lyle upon Edward Irving, then just dead: " Scotland sent him forth a herculean man; our mad Babylon wore and wasted him with all her engines, — and it took her twelve years!" A greater voice still, — the greatest voice of ihe century, — came to us in those youthful years through IS Carlyle: the voice of Goethe. To this day, — such is the force of youthful associations, — I read the Wilhelm Meister with more pleasure in Carlyle's translation than in the original. The large, liberal view of human life in Wilhelm Meister, how novel it was to the Englishman in 20 those days! and it was salutary, too, and educative for him, doubtless, as well as novel. But what moved us most in Wilhelm Meister was that which, after all, will always move the young most, — the poetry, the eloquence. Never, surely, was Carlyle's prose so beautiful and pure 25 as in his rendering of the Youths' dirge over Mignon! — "Well is our treasure now laid up, the fair image of the past. Here sleeps it in the marble, undecaying; in your hearts, also, it lives, it works. Travel, travel, back into life! Take along with you this holy earnestness, for 30 earnestness alone makes life eternity." Here we had the EMERSON 455 voice of the great Goethe;— not the stiff, and hindered, and frigid, and factitious Goethe who speaks to us too often from those sixty volumes of his, but of the great Goethe, and the true one. And besides those voices, there came to us in that old 5 Oxford time a voice also from this side of the Atlantic, — a clear and pure voice, which for my ear, at any rate, brought a strain as new, and moving, and unforgettable, as the strain of Newman, or Carlyle, or Goethe. Mr. Lowell has well described the apparition of Emerson to lo your young generation here, in that distant time of which I am speaking, and of his workings upon them. He was your Newman, your man of soul and genius visible to you in the flesh, speaking to your bodily ears, a present ob- ject for your heart and imagination. That is surely the 15 most potent of all influences! nothing can come up to it. To us at Oxford Emerson was but a voice speaking from three thousand miles away. But so well he spoke, that from that time forth Boston Bay and Concord were names invested to my ear with a sentiment akin to that 20 which invests for me the names of Oxford and of Weimar; and snatches of Emerson's strain fixed themselves in my mind as imperishably as any of the eloquent words which I have been just now quoting. "Then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, 25 poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men." "What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand." "Trust thyself! every heart vibrates to that iron string. 30 456 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE Accept the place the Divine Providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and con- fided themselves childlike to the genius of their age; 5 betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predomi- nating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest spirit the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing 10 before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay plastic under the Almighty effort, let us advance and advance on chaos and the dark!" These lofty sentences of Emerson, and a hun- dred others of Hke strain, T never have lost out of my 15 memory; I never can lose them. At last I find myself in Emerson's own country, and looking upon Boston Bay. Naturally I revert to the friend of my youth. It is not always pleasant to ask oneself questions about the friends of one's youth; 20 they cannot always well support it. Carlyle, for instance, in my judgment, cannot well support such a return upon him. Yet we should make the return; we should part with our illusions, we should know the truth. When I come to this country, where Emerson now counts for 25 so much, and where such high claims are made for him, I pull myself together, and ask myself what the truth about this object of my youthful admiration really is. Improper elements often come into our estimate of men. We have lately seen a German critic make Goethe the 30 greatest of all poets, because Germany is now the greatest EMERSON 457 of military powers, and wants a poet to match. Then, too, America is a young country; and young countries, like young persons, are apt sometimes to evince in their literary judgments a want of scale and measure. I set myself, therefore, resolutely to come at a real estimate 5 of Emerson, and with a leaning even to strictness rather than to indulgence. That is the safer course. Time has no indulgence; any veils of illusion which we may have left around an object because we loved it, Time is sure to strip away. ' 10 I was reading the other day a notice of Emerson by a serious and interesting American critic. Fifty or sixty passages in Emerson's poems, says this critic, — who had doubtless himself been nourished on Emerson's writ- ings, and held them justly dear, — fifty or sixty passages 15 from Emerson's poems have already entered into Eng- Hsh speech as matter of familiar and universally current quotation. Here is a specimen of that personal sort of estimate which, for my part, even in speaking of authors dear to me, I would try to avoid- What is the kind of 20 phrase of which we may fairly say that it has entered into English speech as matter of famihar quotation? Such a phrase, surely, as the " Patience on a monument" of Shakespeare; as the ''Darkness visible" of Milton; as the "Where ignorance is bliss" of Gray. Of not one 25 single passage in Emerson's poetry can it be truly said that it has become a familiar quotation Hke phrases of this kind. It is not enough that it should be familiar to his admirers, familiar in New England., familiar even 458 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE throughout the United States; it must be familiar to all readers and lovers of English poetry. Of not more than one or two passages in Emerson's poetry can it, I think, be truly said, that they stand ever-present in the memory 5 of even many lovers of English poetry. A great number of passages from his poetry are no doubt perfectly fa- mihar to the mind and lips of the critic whom I have mentioned, and perhaps a wide circle of American readers. But this is a very different thing from being 10 matter of universal quotation, like the phrases of the legitimate poets. And, in truth, one of the legitimate poets, Emerson, in my opinion, is not. His poetry is interesting, it makes one think; but it is not the poetry of one of the born 15 poets. I say it of him with reluctance, although I am sure that he would have said it of himself; but I say it with reluctance, because I dislike giving pain to his ad- mirers, and because all my own wish, too, is to say of him what is favorable. But I regard myself, not as 20 speaking to please Emerson's admirers, not as speaking to please myself; but rather, I repeat, as communing with Time and Nature concerning the productions of this beautiful and rare spirit, and as resigning what of him is by their unalterable decree touched with caducity, in 25 order the better to mark and secure that in him which is immortal. Milton says that poetry ought to be simple, sensuous, impassioned. Well, Emerson's poetry is seldom either simple, or sensuous, or impassioned. In general it lacks 30 directness; it lacks concreteness; it lacks energy. His 10 EMERSON 459 grammar is often embarrassed; in particular, the want of clearly-marked, distinction between the subject and the object of his sentence is a frequent cause of obscurity in him. A poem which shall be a plain, forcible, in- evitable whole he hardly ever produces. Such good work as the noble lines graven on the Concord Monu- ment is the exception with him; such ineffective work as the Fourth of July Ode or the Boston Hymn is the rule. Even passages and single lines of thorough plainness and commanding force are rare in his poetry. They exist, of course; but when we meet with them they give us a slight shock of surprise, so little has Emerson ac- customed us to them. Let me have the pleasure of quoting one or two of these exceptional passages: ♦' So nigh is grandeur to our dust, ^5 So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low. Thou must, The youth repUes, / can." Or again this: « Though love repine and reason chafe, 20 There came a voice without reply : ''Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.' " Excellent! but how seldom do we get from him a strain blown so clearly and firmly ! Take another passage 25 where his strain has not only clearness, it has also grace and beauty: 460 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE " And ever, when the happy child In May beholds the blooming -wild, And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, 'Onward,' he cries, 'your baskets bring 1 r In the next field is air more mild. And in yon hazy west is Eden's balmier spring.' " In the style and cadence here there is a reminiscence, I think, of Gray; at any rate the pureness, grace, and beauty of these Hnes are worthy even of Gray. But 10 Gray holds his high rank as a poet, not merely by the beauty and grace of passages in his poems; not merely by a diction generally pure in an age of impure diction: he holds it, above all, by the power and skill with which the evolution of his poems is conducted. Here is his 15 grand superiority to Collins, whose diction in his best poem, the Ode to Evening, is purer than Gray's; but then the Ode to Evening is like a river which loses itself in the sand, whereas Gray's best poems have an evolu- tion sure and satisfying. Emerson's May-Day, from 20 which I just now quoted, has no real evolution at all; it is a series of observations. And, in general, his poems have no evolution. Take, for example, his Titmouse. Here he has an excellent subject; and his observation of Nature, moreover, is always marvelously close and 25 fine. But compare what he makes of his meeting with his titmouse with what Cowper or Burns makes of the like kind of incident! One never quite arrives at learn- ing what the titmouse actually did for him at all, though one feels a strong interest and desire to learn it; but one 30 is reduced to guessing, and cannot be quite sure that EMERSON 461 after all one has guessed right. He is not plain and con- crete enough, — in other words, not poet enough, — to be able to tell us. And a failure of this kind goes through almost all his verse, keeps him amid symbolism and allusion and the fringes of things, and, in spite of his spir- 5 itual power, deeply impairs his poetic value. Through the inestimable virtue of concreteness, a simple poem like The Bridge of Longfellow, or the School Days of Mr. Whittier, is of more poetic worth, perhaps, than all the verse of Emerson. 10 I do not, then, place Emerson among the great poets. But I go further, and say that I do not place him among the great writers, the great men of letters. Who are the great men of letters ? They are men like Cicero, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Swift, Voltaire,^ — writers with, in the first 15 place, a genius and instinct for style; writers whose prose is by a kind of native necessity true and sound. Now the style of Emerson, like the style of his tran- scendentalist friends and of the Dial so continually, — the style of Emerson is capable of falling into a strain like 20 this, which I take from the beginning of his Essay 07i Love: "Every soul is a celestial being to every other soul. The heart has its sabbaths and jubilees, in which the world appears as a hymeneal feast, and all natural sounds and the circle of the seasons are erotic odes and 25 dances." Emerson altered this sentence in the later editions. Like Wordsworth, he was in later life fond of altering; and in general his later alterations, like those of Wordsworth, are not improvements. He softened the passage in question, however, though without really 30 462 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE mending it. I quote it in its original and strongly- marked form. Arthur Stanley used to relate that about the year 1840, being in conversation with some Amer- icans in quarantine at Malta, and thinking to please 5 them, he declared his warm admiration for Emerson's Essays, then recently published. However, the Ameri- cans shook their heads, and told him that for home taste Emerson was decidedly too greeny. We will hope, for their sakes, that the sort of thing they had in their 10 heads was such writing as I have just quoted. Un- sound it is, indeed, and in a style almost impossible to a born man of letters. It is a curious thing, that quality of style which marks the great writer, the born man of letters. It resides in 15 the whole tissue of one's work, and of his work regarded as a composition for literary purposes. Brilliant and powerful passages in a man's writings do not prove his possession of it; it Hes in their whole tissue. Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence, such as 20 those which I quoted at the beginning; he has passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has passages of exquisitely touched observation of na- ture. Yet he is not a great writer; his style has not the requisite wholeness of good .tissue. Even Carlyle is not, 25 in my judgment, a great writer. He has surpassingly powerful qualities of expression, far more powerful than Emerson's, and reminding one of the gifts of expression of the great poets, — of even Shakespeare himself. What Emerson so admirably says of Carlyle's "devouring eyes 30 and portraying hand," "those thirsty eyes, those por- EMERSON 463 trait-eating, portrait-painting eyes of thine, those fatal perceptions," is thoroughly true. What a description is Carlyle's of the first publisher of Sartor Resartus, "to whom the idea of a new edition of Sartor is frightful, or rather ludicrous, unimaginable;" of this poor Fraser, in 5 whose "wonderful world of Tory pamphleteers, conser- vative Younger-brothers, Regent Street loungers. Crock- ford gamblers, Irish Jesuits, drunken reporters, and miscellaneous unclean persons (whom niter and much soap will not wash clean), not a soul has expressed the 10 smallest wish that way!" What a portrait, again, of the well-beloved John SterHng! "One, and the best, of a small class extant here, who, nigh drowning in a black wreck of Infidelity (lighted up by some glare of Radi- calism only, now growing dim too), and about to perish, 15 saved themselves into a Coleridgian Shovel-Hattedness." What touches in the invitation of Emerson to London! "You shall see blockheads by the million; Pickwick him- self shall be visible, — innocent young Dickens, reserved for a questionable fate. The great Wordsworth shall talk 20 till you yourself pronounce him to be a bore. Southey's complexion is still healthy mahogany brown, with a fleece of white hair, and eyes that seem running at full gallop. Leigh Hunt, man of genius in the shape of a cockney, is my near neighbor, with good humor and no 25 common sense; old Rogers with his pale head, white, bare, and cold as snow, with those large blue eyes, cruel, sorrowful, and that sardonic shelf chin." How inimi- table it all is! And finally, for one must not go on for ever, this version of a London Sunday, with the public 30 464 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE houses closed during the hours of divine service! "It is silent Sunday; the populace not yet admitted to their beer-shops, till the respectabilities conclude their rubric mummeries, — a much more audacious feat than beer." 5 Yet even Carlyle is not, in my judgment, to be called a great writer; one cannot think of ranking him with men like Cicero and Plato and Swift and Voltaire. Emerson freely promises to Carlyle immortality for his histories. They will not have it. Why? Because the 10 materials furnished to him by that devouring eye of his, and that portraying hand, were not wrought in and sub- dued by him to what his work, regarded as a compo- sition for Hterary purposes, required. Occurring in con- versation, breaking out in familiar correspondence, they 15 are magnificent, inimitable; nothing more is required of them; thus thrown out anyhow, they serve their turn and fulfill their function. And, therefore, I should not wonder if really Carlyle lived, in the long run, by such an invaluable record as that correspondence between him 20 and Emerson, of which we owe the publication to Mr. Charles Norton, — by this and not by his works, as John- son lives in Boswell, not by his works. For Carlyle's sallies, as the staple of a literary work, become wearisome; and as time more and more applies to Carlyle's works 25 its stringent test, this will be felt more and more. Shake- speare, Moliere, Swift, — they, too, had, like Carlyle, the devouring eye and the portraying hand. But they are great literary masters, they are supreme wTiters, be- cause they knew how to work into a Hterary composition 30 their materials, and to subdue them to the purposes of EMERSON 465 literary effect. Carlyle is too willful for this, too turbid, too vehement. You will think I deal in nothing but negatives. I have been saying that Emerson is not one of the great poets, the great writers.. He has not their quality of 5 style. He is, however, the propounder of a philosophy. The Platonic dialogues afford us the example of ex- quisite literary form and treatment given to philosoph- ical ideas. Plato is at once a great literary man and a great philosopher. If we speak carefully, we cannot 10 call Aristotle or Spinoza or Kant great literary men, or their productions great literary works. But their work is arranged with such constructive power that they build a philosophy, and are justly called great philosophical wTiters. Emerson cannot, I think, be called with justice 15 a great philosophical writer. He cannot build; his arrangement of philosophical ideas has no progress in it, no evolution; he does not construct a philosophy. Emerson himself knew the defects of his method, or rather want of method, very well; indeed, he and Car- 20 lyle criticise themselves and one another in a way which leaves little for any one else to do in the way of formu- lating their defects. Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his friend's poetic and literary production when he says of the Dial: "For me it is too ethereal, specu- 25 lative, theoretic; I will have all things condense them- selves, take shape and body, if they are to have my sympathy." And, speaking of Emerson's Orations, he says: "I long to see some concrete Thing, some Event, Man's Life, American Forest, or piece of Creation, 30 Prose — 30 466 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE which this Emerson loves and wonders at, well Emer- sonized, — depictured by Emerson, filled with the life of Emerson, and cast forth from him, then to live by itself. If these Orations balk me of this, how profitable soever 5 they may be for others, I will not love them." Emerson himself formulates perfectly the defect of his own philo- sophical productions when he speaks of his "formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of bowlders." "Here I sit and read and write," he says lo again, "with very little system, and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentary result; para- graphs incomprehensible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." Nothing can be truer; and the work of a Spinoza or Kant, of the men who stand as great 15 philosophical writers, does not proceed in this wise. Some people will tell you that Emerson's poetry, in- deed, is too abstract, and his philosophy too vague, but that his best work is his English Traits. The Eng- lish Traits are beyond question very pleasant reading. 20 It is easy to praise them, easy to commend the author of them. But I insist on always trying Emerson's work by the highest standards. I esteem him too much to try his work by any other. Tried by the highest standards, and compared with the work of the excellent markers 25 and recorders of the traits of human life, — of writers like Montaigne, La Bruyere, Addison, — the English Traits will not stand the comparison. Emerson's observation has not the disinterested quality of the observation of these masters. It is the observation of a man syste- 30 matically benevolent, as Hawthorne's observation in Our EMERSON 467 Old Home is the work of a man chagrined. Hawthorne's literary talent is of the first order. His subjects are gen- erally not to me subjects of the highest interest; but his literary talent is of the first order, the finest, I think, which America has yet produced, — finer, by much, than 5 Emerson's. Yet Our Old Home is not a masterpiece any more than English Traits. In neither of them is the observer disinterested enough. The author's attitude in each of these cases can easily be understood and de- fended. Hawthorne was a sensitive man, so situated in 10 England that he was perpetually in contact with the British Philistine; and the British Phihstine is a trying personage. Emerson's systematic benevolence comes from what he himself calls somewhere his "persistent optimism;" and his persistent optimism is the root of his 15 greatness and the source of his charm. But still let us keep our literary conscience true, and judge every kind of Hterary work by the laws really proper to it. The kind of work attempted in the English Traits and in Our Old Home is work which cannot be done perfectly 20 with a bias such as that given by Emerson's optimism or by Hawthorne's chagrin. Consequently, neither English Traits nor Our Old Home is a work of perfection in its kind. Not with the Miltons and Grays, not with the Platos 25 and Spinozas, not with the Swifts and Voltaires, not with the Montaignes and Addisons, can we rank Emerson. His work of various kinds, when one compares it with the work done in a corresponding kind by these masters, fails to stand the comparison. No man could see this 30 468 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE clearer than Emerson himself. It is hard not to feel despondency when we contemplate our failures and shortcomings: and Emerson, the least self-flattering and the most modest of men, saw so plainly what was lack- 5 ing to him that he had his moments of despondency. "Alas, my friend," he writes in reply to Carlyle, who had exhorted him to creative work, — "Alas, my friend, I can do no such gay thing as you say. I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low department of literature, — 10 the reporters; suburban men." He deprecated his friend's praise; praise "generous to a fault," he calls it; praise "generous to the shaming of me, — cold, fas- tidious, ebbing person that I am. Already in a former letter you had said too much good of my poor little arid 15 book, which is as sand to my eyes. I can only say that I heartily wish the book were better; and I must try and deserve so much favor from the kind gods by a bolder and truer Hving in the months to come, — such as may perchance one day release and invigorate this cramp 20 hand of mine. When I see how much work is to be done; what room for a poet, for any spiritualist, in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, — I lament my fumbling fingers and stammering tongue." Again, as late as 1870, he writes to Carlyle: "There is no ex- 25 ample of constancy like yours, and it always stings my stupor into temporary recovery and wonderful resolution to accept the noble challenge. But 'the strong hours conquer us;* and I am the victim of miscellany, — mis- cellany of designs, vast debility, and procrastination." 30 The forlorn note belonging to the phrase, "vast de- EMERSON 469 bility," recalls that saddest and most discouraged of writers, the author of Obermann, Senancour, with whom Emerson has in truth a certain kinship. He has, in com- mon with Senancour, his pureness, his passion for na- ture, his single eye; and here we find him confessing, 5 hke Senancour, a sense in himself of sterility and^ im- potence. And now I think I have cleared the ground. I have given up to envious Time as much of Emerson as Time can fairly expect ever to obtain. We have not in Emer- 10 son a great poet, a great writer, a great philosophy maker. His relation to us is not that of one of those personages; yet it is a relation of, I think, even superior importance. His relation to us is more like that of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius is 15 not a great writer, a great philosophy maker; he is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. Emerson is the same. He is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. All the points in thinking which are necessary for this purpose he takes; but he 20 does not combine them into a system, or present them as a regular philosophy. Combined in a system by a man with the requisite talent for this kind of thing, they would be less useful than as Emerson gives them to us; and the man with the talent so to systematize them would 25 be less impressive than Emerson. They do very well as they now stand; — hke "bowlders," as he says; — in "paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." In such sentences his main points 470 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE recur again and again, and become fixed in the mem- ory. We all know them. First and foremost, character. Character is everything. " That which all things tend 5 to educe, — which freedom, cultivation, intercourse, revo- lutions, go to form and deliver, — is character." Char- acter and self-reliance. ''Trust thyself! every heart vi- brates to that iron string." And yet we have our being in a not ourselves. "There is a power above and be- 10 hind us, and we are the channels of its communica- tions." But our lives must be pitched higher. "Life must be lived on a higher plane; we must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to as- cend; there the whole scene changes." The good we 15 need is forever close to us, though we attain it not. " On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying." This good is close to us, moreover, in our daily life, and in the familiar, homely places. "The unre- mitting retention of simple and high sentiments in ob- 20 scure duties, — that is the maxim for us. Let us be poised and wise, and our own to-day. Let us treat the men and women well, — treat them as if they were real; perhaps they are. Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. I 25 settle myself ever firmer in the creed, that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with; accepting our ac- tual companions and circumstances, however humbk or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has 30 delegated its whole pleasure for us. Massachusetts, EMERSON 471 Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and if we will tarry a little we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is here." Furthermore, the good is 5 close to us all. " I resist the skepticism of our education and of our educated men. I do not believe that the dif- ferences of opinion and character in men are organic. I do not recognize, besides the class of the good and the wise, a permanent class of skeptics, or a class of conser- 10 vatives, or of malignants, or of materialists. I do not beUeve in the classes. Every man has a call of the power to do something unique." Exclusiveness is deadly. " The exclusive in social life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. 15 The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself in striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins, and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart you shall lose your own. The selfish man suffers more from 20 his selfishness than he from whom that selfishness with- holds some important benefit." A sound nature will be inclined to refuse ease and self-indulgence. "To live with some rigor of temperance, or some extreme of gen- erosity, seems to be an asceticism which common good- 25 nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men." Compensation, fi- nally, is the great law of hfe; it is everywhere, it is sure, and there is no escape from it. This is that "law alive 30 472 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE and beautiful, which works over our heads and under our feet. Pitiless, it avails itself of our success w^hen we obey it, and of our ruin when we contravene it. We are all secret beUevers in it. It rewards actions 5 after their nature. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. The thief steals from himself, the swindler swindles himself. You must pay at last your own debt." This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that lo it is too general; that more practical, positive direction is what we mean; that Emerson's optimism, self-reli- ance, and indifference to favorable conditions for our life and growth have in them something of danger. "Trust thyself;" "what attracts my attention shall 15 have it;" "though thou shouldest walk the world over thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble;" "what w^e call vulgar society is that society whose poetry is not yet written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any." 20 With maxims like these, we surely, it may be said, run some risk of being made too well satisfied with our own actual self and state, however crude and imper- fect they may be. "Trust thyself?" It may be said that the common American or Englishman is more 25 than enough disposed already to trust himself. I often reply, when our sectarians are praised for following conscience: Our people are very good in following their conscience; where they are not so good is in as- certaining whether their conscience tells them right. 30 "What attracts my attention shall have it?" Well, EMERSON 473 that is our people's plea when they run after the Salva- tion Army, and desire Messrs. Moody and Sankey. " Thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble?" But think of the turn of the good people of our race for producing a life of hideousness and im- 5 mense ennui; think of that specimen of your own New England life which Mr. Howells gives us in one of his charming stories which I was reading lately; think of the life of that ragged New England farm in the Lady of the Aroostook; think of Deacon Blood, and 10 Aunt Maria, and the straight-backed chairs with black horsehair seats, and Ezra Perkins with perfect self- reliance depositing his travelers in the snow! I can truly say that in the little which I have seen of the life of New England, I am more struck with what has been 15 achieved than with the crudeness and failure. But no doubt there is still a great deal of crudeness also. Your own novelists say there is, and I suppose they say true. In the New England, as in the Old, our people have to learn, I suppose, not that their modes of life are beau- 20 tiful and excellent already; they have rather to learn that they must transform them. To adopt this line of objection to Emerson's deliv- erances would, however, be unjust. In the first place, Emerson's points are in themselves true, if under- 25 stood in a certain high sense; they are true and fruit- ful. And the right work to be done, at the hour when he appeared, was to affirm them generally and abso- lutely. Only thus could he break through the hard and fast barrier of narrow, fixed ideas, which he found 30 474 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE confronting him, and win an entrance for new ideas. Had he attempted developments which may now strike us as expedient, he would have excited fierce antago- nism, and probably effected little or nothing. The time 5 might come for doing other work later, but the work which Emerson did was the right work to be done then. In the second place, strong as was Emerson's opti- mism, and unconquerable as was his beHef in a good result to emerge from all which he saw going on around 10 him, no misanthropical satirist ever saw shortcomings and absurdities more clearly than he did, or exposed them more courageously. When he sees "the mean- ness," as he calls it, "of American politics," he con- gratulates Washington on being "long already happily 15 dead," on being "wrapt in his shroud and for ever safe." With how firm a touch he delineates the faults of your two great poHtical parties of forty years ago! The Democrats, he says, "have not at heart the ends which give to the name of democracy what hope and 20 virtue are in it. The spirit of our American radical- ism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends, but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, 25 able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It vindicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy. From neither party, when in power, has the world any benefit to expect in 30 science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate with the EMERSON 475 resources of the nation." Then with what subtle though kindly irony he follows the gradual withdrawal in New England, in the last half century, of tender consciences from the social organizations, — the bent for experi- ments such as that of Brook Farm and the hke,— fol- 5 lows it in all its "dissidence of dissent and Protestant- ism of the Protestant religion!" He even loves to rally the New Englander on his philanthropic al activity, and to find his beneficence and its institutions a bore! ''Your miscellaneous popular charities, the education 10 at college of fools, the building of meetinghouses to the vain end to which many of these now stand, alms to sots, and the thousandfold relief societies,— though I con- fess with shame that I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, yet it is a wicked dollar, which by and by 15 I shall have the manhood to withhold." "Our Sun- day schools and churches and pauper societies are yokes to the neck. We pain ourselves to please nobody. There are natural ways of arriving at the same ends at which these aim, but do not arrive." "Nature does 20 not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the Abolition con- vention, or the Temperance meeting, or the Transcen- dental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us: 25 'So hot, my little sir?' " Yes, truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is pre- cious. Yet the secret of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the hopeful, serene beau- tiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are indisso- 30 476 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE lubly joined; in which they work, and have their being. He says himself: "We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhausti- bleness of nature is an immortal youth." If this be so, 5 how wise is Emerson ! for never had man such a sense of the inexhaustibleness of nature, and such hope. It was the ground of his being; it never failed him. Even when he is sadly avowing the imperfection of his literary power and resources, lamenting his fumbhng fingers and 10 stammering tongue, he adds: "Yet, as I tell you, I am very easy in my mind and never dream of suicide. My whole philosophy, which is very real, teaches ac- quiescence and optimism. Sure I am that the right word will be spoken, though I cut out my tongue." In 15 his old age, with friends dying and life failing, his note of cheerful, forward-looking hope is still the same. "A multitude of young men are growing up here of high promise, and I compare gladly the social poverty of my youth with the power on which these draw." His 20 abiding word for us, the word by which being dead he yet speaks to us, is this: "That which befits us, em- bosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheer- fulness and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart, which has received so 25 much, trust the Power by which it lives?" One can scarcely overrate the importance of thus holding fast to happiness and hope. It gives to Emer- son's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my judgment, the most important work 30 done in verse, in our language, during the present EMERSON 477 century, so Emerson's Essays are, I think, the most important work done in prose. His work is more important than Carlyle's. Let us be just to Carlyle, provoking though he often is. Not only has he that genius of his which makes Emerson say truly of his 5 letters, that "they savor always of eternity." More than this may be said of him. The scope and upshot of his teaching are true; "his guiding genius," to quote Emerson again, is really "his moral sense, his percep- tion of the sole importance of truth and justice." But lo consider Carlyle's temper, as we have been consider- ing Emerson's! take his own account of it! "Per- haps London is the proper place for me after all, seeing all places are iwzproper: who knows? Meanwhile, I lead a most dyspeptic, solitary, self-shrouded Hfe; con- 15 suming, if possible in silence, my considerable daily al- lotment of pain; glad when any strength is left in me for writing, which is the only use I can see in myself, — too rare a case of late. The ground of my existence is black as death; too black, when all void too; but at times there 20 paint themselves on it pictures of gold, and rainbow, and lightning; all the brighter for the black ground, I suppose. Withal, T am very much of a fool." No, not a fool, but turbid and morbid, willful and perverse. "We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope." 25 Carlyle's perverse attitude towards happiness cuts him off from hope. He fiercely attacks the desire for happiness; his grand point in Sartor, his secret in which the soul may find rest, is that one shall cease to desire happiness, that one should learn to say to 30 478 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE oneself: "What if thou wert born and predestined not to be happy, but to be unhappy!" He is wrong; Saint Augustine is the better philosopher, who says: "Act we must in pursuance of what gives us most de- 5 light." Epictetus and Augustine can be severe mor- alists enough; but both of them know and frankly say that the desire for happiness is the root and ground of man's being. Tell him and show him that he places his happiness wrong, that he seeks for delight where 10 delight will never be really found; then you illumine and further him. But you only confuse him by tell- ing him to cease to desire happiness: and you will not tell him this unless you are already confused your- self. 15 Carlyle preached the dignity of labor, the necessity of righteousness, the love of veracity, the hatred of shams. He is said by many people to be a great teacher, a great helper for us, because he does so. But what is the due and eternal result of labor, righteousness, 20 veracity? — Happiness. And how are we drawn to them by one who, instead of making us feel that with them is happiness, tells us that perhaps we were pre- destined not to be happy but to be unhappy? You will find, in especial, many earnest preachers 25 of our popular religion to be fervent in their praise and admiration of Carlyle. His insistence on labor, righteousness, and veracity, pleases them; his con- tempt for happiness pleases them too. I read the other day a tract against smoking, although I do not happen 30 to be a smoker myself. "Smoking," said the tract, EMERSON 479 "is liked because it gives agreeable sensations. Now it is a positive objection to a thing that it gives agreeable sensations. An earnest man will expressly avoid what gives agreeable sensations." Shortly afterwards I was inspecting a school, and I found the children reading a 5 piece of poetry on the common theme that we are here to-day and gone to-morrow. I shall soon be gone, the speaker in this poem was made to say, — " And I shall be glad to go, For the world at best is a dreary place, lO And my life is getting low." How usual a language of popular religion that is, on our side of the Atlantic at any rate! But then our popular ■religion, in disparaging happiness here below, knows very well what it is after. It has its eye on a happiness 15 in a future life above the clouds, in the New Jerusalem, to be won by disliking and rejecting happiness here on earth. And so long as this ideal stands fast, it is very well. But for very many it now stands fast no longer; for Carlyle, at any rate, it had failed and vanished. 20 Happiness in labor, righteousness, and veracity, — in the life of the spirit, — here was a gospel still for Carlyle to preach, and to help others by preaching. But he baffled them and himself by preferring the paradox that we are not born for happiness at all. 25 Happiness in labor, righteousness, and veracity; in all the life of the spirit; happiness and eternal hope; — that was Emerson's gospel. I hear it said that Em- erson was too sanguine; that the actual generation in 480 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE America is not turning out so well as he expected. Very likely he was too sanguine as to the near future; in this country it is difficult not to be too sanguine. Very possibly the present generation may prove unworthy of 5 his high hopes; even several generations succeeding this may prove unworthy of them. But by his conviction that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, and to prevail, and to work for hap- 10 piness, — by this conviction and hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have been right in them. In this country it is difficult, as I said, not to be sanguine. Very many of your writers are over- sanguine, and on the ^vrong grounds. But you have 15 two men who in what they have written show their sanguineness in a line where courage and hope are just, where they are also infinitely important, but where they are not easy. The two men are Franklin and Emerson.^ These two are, I think, the most distinc- 20 ^ I found with pleasure that this conjunction of Emerson's name with FrankUn's had already occurred to an accomplished writer and dehghtful man, a friend of Emerson, left almost the sole survivor, alas ! of the famous literary generation of Boston, — Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Dr. Holmes has kindly allowed 25 me to print here the ingenious and interesting lines, hitherto un- published, in which he speaks of Emerson thus : — "Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong ? He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, 30 Born to unlock the secret of the skies ; EMERSON 481 tively and honorably American of your writers; they are the most original and the most valuable. Wise men everywhere know that we must keep up our courage and hope; they know that hope is, as Wordsworth well says, — 5 " The paramount duty which heaven lays, For its own honor, on man's suffering heart." But the very word duty points to an effort and a struggle to maintain our hope unbroken. Franklin and Emer- son maintained theirs with a convincing ease, an in- 10 spiring joy. Franklin's confidence in the happiness with which industry, honesty, and economy will crown the life of this work-day world, is such that he runs over with felicity. With a like felicity does Emerson run over, when he contemplates the happiness eternally 15 attached to the true life in the spirit. You cannot prize him too much, nor heed him too diligently. He has lessons for both the branches of our race. I figure him to my mind as visible upon earth still, as still stand- ing here by Boston Bay, or at his own Concord, in his 20 habit as he lived, but of heightened stature and shining feature, with one hand stretched out towards the East, to our laden and laboring England; the other towards And which the nobler calling — if 'tis fair Terrestrial with celestial to compare — 25 To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, Or walk the chambers w^hence the lightning came Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? " Prose— 31 482 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE the ever-growing West, to his own dearly-loved America, — "great, intelligent, sensual, avaricious America." To us he shows for guidance his lucid freedom, his cheer- fulness and hope; to you his dignity, delicacy, serenity, S elevation. NOTES The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line. THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS The lectures of the series, 73^*? English Comic Writers^ were deUvered at the Surrey Institution in 1818. 10 : 2. Mine to read. See Gray's Letters, April, 1742. 12 : I. Fielding, in speaking. See Joseph Andrews, Book III, Chap. I. 12 : 29. Blackstone or De Lolme. Writers on English law. 13 : 24. Don Quixote. Famous Spanish novel by Cervantes, published 1605-1615. 17 : 8. Still prompts. Pope, Essay on Man, IV, 3. 19 : 3. Guzman d'Alfarache. A novel by Mateo Aleman, 1599. 19 : 17. Gil Bias. A novel by Le Sage, 1715-1735. 19 : 22. Lazarillo de Tormes. Probably by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1553. 28 : 19. IntUS et in cute. "Within and in the skin." Per- sius. Satires, III, 30. 33 : 18. Dr. Johnson. See Hill's edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, II, 174. 35 : 8. Books are a real world. Wordsworth, Personal Talk, stanza 3. 36 : 19. Goldsmith .... should call him " a dull fellow." See Hill's Boswell's Life of Johnson, II, 222. 47 : I. Quod sic mihi ostendis. Paraphrased or misquoted from Horace, Ars Poetica, Une 188: " Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi." Freely translated by Howes this runs: 483 4^4 NOTES " Much that were only passing strange if heard; | When seen, re- volted sense declares absurd." 48 : 30. Author of Caleb Williams. William Godwin, 1756- 1836. 49 : 16. His chamber. Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto IX, stanza 50. Other explanatory comments on this essay may be found in Vol. VIII of The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, edited by A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover. BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON The original of this essay appeared in Fraser^s Magazine, May, 1832. The references are to G. B, Hill's edition of Boswell's Life. 62 : 3. lo-pseans. 'Iw naidi', " Hail Apollo 1" 65 : 18. Ma foi, etc. " Faith, sir, our happiness depends ■upon the way our blood circulates." 68 : 2. Four Books. Tyers' Biographical Sketch ; Mrs. ViozA's Anecdotes ; Hawkin's Z//^; Murphy's .fi'^joy. 68 : 6. Sextum quid. Sixth something. 78 : 12. Odyssey. See Boswell's Advertisement to the Sec- ond Edition, Life^ I, 13. 79 : 12. Waste fantasy. Ascribed in Latter-Day Pamphlets to Novalis. 81 : 27. Import of Reality. See Carlyle's essay on Biog- raphy. 85 :-2. SmoUettS and Belshams. Smollett wrote a History of England, and Belsham (1752-1827) a History of Great Britain to the Cojiclusion of the Peace of Amiens in 1802. 87 : 13. .ffineas Sylvius. Pope Pius II (1405-1464), who, when a young man, visited Scotland. 89 : 28. Taking notes. See Bums, On the Late Captain Grose's Peregrinations thro' Scotland. 91 : 18. Iron leaf. Past and Present, Book III, Chap. X. 92 : 20. Natus sum, etc " I was born ; I hungered ; I sought [food] ; now, having taken my fill, I rest." BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON 485 100 ! 9. A chacun, etc. '• To each according to his capac- ity ; to each capacity according to its works." 103 : 24. Translation. Johnson translated Pope's Messiah into Latin. 107 : 15. Scrogginses. Scroggin is the poet in Goldsmith's poem: A Description of an Author's Bedchamber. 107 : 28. Carpe diem. " Seize the day," Horace, Odes, I, XI, 8. 110: II. Lord of the lion heart, etc. Smollett, Ode to Independence. Ill : 12. Msecenasship. Maecenas was a wealthy Roman, the friend of Horace and Virgil. He is frequently referred to as the type of literary patron. 114 : I. Shepherd in Virgil. Eclogues, VHI, 43-45. 126 : 23. Impransus. " Dinnerless." 129 : 4. He said, a man might hve. Boswell, Life, I, 122. The speaker is not Johnson, as Carlyle implies, but an Irish painter. 129 : 15. On another occasion, foknsonian Miscellanies^ (ed. Hill), I, 180. 132:17. Vomissement, etc. " Devil's vomit." 133 : I. Gooseberry-fool. See Goldsmith's Retaliation. 134 : 1. Res gestae. "Affairs transacted." 134 : 3. Stat Parvi, etc. "There remains the shadow of a little name." 146 : 19. Salve magna parens! "Hail, great mother," Vir- gil, Georgics, II, 173. 147 : I . Sunday, October 18, 1767. See fohnsonian Mis cellanies, I, 45. 147 : 27. A less capable reporter, i. e., Croker. See Life, IV, 430. 148 : 10. Moonlight of memory. Froude, Carlyle in Lon- don, I, 17. 149 : 20. His rusty brown morning suit. Life, II, 465. 149 : 27. A gentleman who. Johnsonian Miscellanies, II, 259. 486 NOTES 152 : i8. Acerrimi ingenii, etc. '«0f keenest intelligence and of little learning." Life, II, 465. 152 : 27. Editiones Principes. " First editions.'' 152 : 27, Monsheer Nongtongpaw! English pronuncia- tion of Monsieur N' entend-pas (Mr. Doesn't-Understand). MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON The essay on Byron first appeared in the Edinburgh Review, June, 1 83 1. 166 : 24. Jedwood justice. " Hang first and try after- wards." A summary way of dealing with border thieves. 172 : 16. Longwood. The name of the house in St. Helena where Napoleon died May 5, 1821. 176 : 7. Pursuits of Literature. By Thomas James Mathias (1754-1835). 176: 12. Hoole's translations. John Hoole (1727-1803) translated Tasso, Ariosto, and Metastasio. 176:18,19. Mala in se . . . mala prohibita. "Evils in themselves . . . evils because prohibited." 178 : 27. That most sweet and graceful passage. Taken from Human Life, p. 120 (Aldine Edition). 181 : 10, 13. M. Jourdain . . . . M . Tomes. Char- acters in Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and in V Amour Medecin. 184:29. Douglas. A tragedy by John Home (1722-1808). 184 : 30. Triumphs of Temper. A poem by WilUam Hay- ley (1745-1820). 186 : 26. Delia Grusca. The pseudonym used by Robert Merry, a member of the school of sentimental poetry known as the Delia Cruscan School, which originally met in Florence. 186 : 28. Chatterton's forgeries. The so-called Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton, " the marvelous boy" (1752-1770), ascribed to one Thomas Rowley. 186 : 29. Forgeries of Ireland. This refers to the Shake- spearean forgeries of William H. Ireland (1777-1835). LIFE or LORD BYRON 487 187 : 30. The vision and the faculty divine. See Words- worth, Excursion, Book 1. 188 : 20. Tutte le rime, etc. " All the following love poems, all are for her, and entirely hers, and hers only ; for certainly I shall never sing of any other woman." 189 : I. Manner is all in all, etc. Cowper, Table Talk from which is also taken the expression " creamy smoothness," Une 16. 189 : 7. Mi cadevano, etc. " They would fall from my hands because of the inertness, commonness, and prolixity of the ex- pressions and of the verse, not to mention the nervelessness of the thoughts. Now why on earth should this, our divine lan- guage, so virile still, and energetic, aud fierce in Dante's mouth, why should it become so pithless and effeminate in tragic dialogue ? " 192 : 22. Bays. (More correctly Bayes.) A character in Tke Rehearsal (1672), a farce by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham (1627-1688). 192 : 23. Bilboa. The original name given to the character Bayes. 195 19. Marriage of Figaro. A comedy (1784) by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais (i 732-1 799), a famous French drama- tist. 195 : 22. Juvenal. A Roman satirist. See Satire, II, 103- 107. "A mirror! the baggage of a civil war! Doubtless it showed a consummate general to kill Galba, and the constancy of a great citizen to pamper his own skin ; to aim at the spoils of the Palace on the field of Bedriacum (sic) and to spread with his fingers the bread- poultice pressed upon his face 1 " 196 : 20. Hermogenes. A character in Jonson's Poetaster. 196 : 26. Dryden satirized the Duke. See Absalom and Achitophel, II, 544-568. 197 : I. The Wharton of Pope. See Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. I, II, 180-209. 197 : 2. Sporus. See Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, II, 305-333- 488 NOTES SWIFT This is the first lecture in the series of lectures entitled The English Humorists, delivered in England, Scotland, and America in 1 85 1. The essay is here given without the full notes provided by James Hannayfor the first edition of 1853 and sometimes mis- taken for Thackeray's own work. 211 : I. Harlequin. A famous comic figure in pantomime. 213 : 20. Dr. Wilde of Dublin. The Closing Years of Dean Swiff s Life (1849) is the work referred to. 214 : 9. Fielding's staircase in the Temple. The two Inns of Court, headquarters for barristers, now constitute the Temple. 215 : 6. Opposition. A political term indicating the rival party to the one in power. 215 : 24. Macheath. The leading character in Gay's Beg- gar's Opera (1728). 216 : I . Miter and crosier. Headdress and staff of church dignity, in this case the deanship. 216 : 14. Condottieri. Mercenaries, therefore plunderers. 216 : 14. The Boyne. The battle of the Boyne between James II and William of Orange was fought in Ireland, July i, 1690, and was won by the forces of the latter. 216 : 20. South Sea Bubble. A financial scheme of the second decade of the eighteenth century to monopolize the trade of Spanish South America. Millions were made and lost, before it burst. 217 : 13. Conduct at Copenhagen. The English bom- barded Copenhagen in 1807. 220 : 6. Gulielmus. Latin for " WilUam." 220: 12. Pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty. Cicero was the model of Latin prose composition. 220 : 20. Mild Dorothea. The reference is from Sir Wil- liam Temple's Illness a7id Recovery (1693). 222 : 5. Plates-bandes. Borders of flowers in the garden. 226 : 19. Peccavi. " I have sinned." LITERATURE 489 228 : 3. Abudah in the Arabian story. A character in James Ridley's Tales of the Genii (1764). 228 : 14. SaBva indignatio. " Fierce indignation. " 230 : 12. Almanach des Gourmands. A famous French calendar of " good cheer " running to many editions in the early nineteenth century. 230 : 13 On nait rotisseur. "One is born a cook." Com- pare, " Poets are born, not made." 233 : 8. Yahoos. A race of brutes described in Gulliver's Travels. 234:20. Miserrimus. " Most wretched." 237 : 22. When on my sickly couch I lay. From To Stella visitifig me in my sickness (1720). 239 : 23. Gadenus. The name Swift gives himself in his poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1726) ; an anagram of decamts, " dean." LITERATURE This lecture was read in the School of Philosophy and Letters of the Roman Catholic University at Dublin in November, 1858. 249 : 6. Joseph makes himself known. Genesis, xlv. 257 : 26. Facit indignatio versus. Paraphrased from Juve- nal, Satires, I, 79 : Si natura negat, facit indignatio verstim, " Though nature grudge poetic fire, | Just indignation will inspire " (King). 257 : 29. Poeta nascitur, non fit. •' The poet is bom, not made." 258 : 5. Vision of Mirza. An allegorical story told by Addi- son in The Spectator, No. 159. 258 : 16. Aristotle . . . the magnanimous man. See The Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, Chap. 9. 258 : 25. Ki/Set yaluv. Newman translates this in the next phrase. See Homer's Iliad, I, 405. 259 : 5. Macbeth. See Act V, sc. 3, 1. 40. 259 : 16. Hamlet. See Act I, sc. 2, 1. 77. 490 NOTES 260 : 9. Os magna sonaturum. " Command of lofty lan- guage." Horace, Satires^ I, 4, 43. 262 : 15. Apollo Belvidere. A famous statue in the Vati- can, Rome. 262 : 28. The poet's eye. See Midsummer A^ighfs Dream, Act V, sc. 1, 1. 12. 271 : 10. Copiaverborum. " A full vocabulary." A subtitle in Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory. 272 : 2. Nil molitur inepte. " He attempts nothing injudi- ciously." Horace, Ars Foetica, I, 140. 272 : 6. Quo fit, Ut omnis, etc. " Whence it appears that the whole life of this old (poet) is as open to view as if it had been graven on a votive tablet." Horace, Satires, II, i, 32. 272 : II. Otiose. Leisurely, therefore tiresome. WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, AND BROWNING The essay on Pure, Ornate and Grotesque Art, first appeared in 1864 in the National Review. 281 : 3. Henry Dunbar. A mystery novel, published in 1864. It was written by Miss Braddon (Mrs. John Maxwell). 281 : 19. It won't do. Jeffrey's review of Wordsworth's ^^- cursion began with the words : " This will never do 1 " 281 : 24. Mr. Carlyle . . . contradicted it. See the last part of his essay on Goethe. 284 : 25. Disjecta membra. " Scattered parts." 287 : 2. Which is the world of all of us. Wordsworth, Prelude, Book XI. 287 : 21. The first conversation. Bagehot quotes from the Appendix to Carlyle's Life of Schiller, note C. 292 : 15. Mr. Arnold . . . put forth a theory. In the preface to first edition of his poems, Mixed Essays, p. 489. 293:8. Mrs. Veal. Defoe wrote so matter-of-fact an account of this imaginary person's appearance after death, that many people were hoaxed into a behalf in its reality. LEONARDO DA VINCI 49 1 306 : 12. The well-known lines. Shelley's The Isle. 311 : 29. Mr. Arnold has justly observed. In Mixed Essays, p. 499. 315 : 13. One of his characters. Charles Reding in Loss and Gain, Vol. I, Chap. III. 319 : 22. When Heaven sends sorrow. Newman's Warn- ings. 334 : 25. Which, be they what they may. From Words- worth's l7itimaiio7ts of Immortality, IX. 334 : 30. Immersed in Matter. Locke, Htiman Under- standing, Book IV, Chap. Ill, i, 2. 337 : 7. And yet, etc. From Clough's Come, Poet, Come. LEONARDO DA VINCI This essay first appeared in the Fortnightly Review for Novem- ber, 1869, under the title, Notes on Lionardo da Vinci. 342 : 21. Vasari. A Tuscan painter (1511-1574), famous as the writer of biographies of Italian artists. 347 : 27. Uffizii. The name of the famous art gallery in Florence. 349 ; 19. Paracelsus. A mediaeval German-Swiss philoso- pher. 349 : 19. Cardan. An Italian astrologer (i 501-1576). 351 : 26. 'SubtiUtas naturae. "The refinement of nature." 352 : 17. Bizarre. Odd. 352 : 17. Recherche. Select. 354 : 15. Ennui. Tedium. 354 : 30. QuantO piu, etc. " The greater the bodily fatigue that an art demands, the more vulgar it is." 356 : 24. Bulla. A locket of gold. 357:21. Belli capelli, etc "Beautiful hair, abundant and curly." 359 : II. Ambrosian Library. A library at Milan, founded in 1609. 492 NOTES 360 : 27. Brera. An art gallery in Milan. 362 : 14. InfeUx sum. " Unhappy am I." 363 : 17. Leda or Pomona. In Greek mythology Leda was the mother of Helen and of Castor and Pollux; Pomona in Roman mythology was the goddess of fruit trees. SIR WALTER SCOTT The essay was written for the Cornhill Magazine, September, 1871. 375 : 20. Garlyle. For quotations and references see Car- lyle's essay on Sir Walter Scott published in 1837, and now printed in Vol. VII of the Critical and Miscellaneous Es- says. 380 : 17. As Pope puts it. Imitations of Horace, Epistle to Augustus, 69-72. 380 : 23. Byron . . . taunted Scott. In English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 383 : 28. Blind piper. Wandering Willie's Tale. 390 : 3. Thackeray. See his Rebecca and Rozuena, Vol. IX, 105 (Biographical Ed.). 391 : 24. Orton. The name of the claimant in the famous Tichborne case, 187 2-1 874. 393 : 6. Lockhart tells us. See Life of Scott, Vol. VII, ch. 60, pp. 13-14. 396 : 2. Strawberry Hill. The " Gothic Castle " of Horace Walpole. 406 : 18. Poem about Helvellyn. From third stanza of poem of that name. 407 : 10. Irving visited Scott. See Irving's Abbotsford. Scott is quoted thus : " When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back among my own honest gray hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year I think I should die." MACAULAY 493 MACAULAY Morley's essay was published in the Fortnightly Review^ April, 1876. 415 : 4. Der Einzige. " The Unique." 416 : 9. Quintilian. Institutes of Oratory, Book X, Chap. I. " If he had been willing to restrain rather than indulge his genius, what could that man not have done ! " 416 : 27. The Steep, etc. Seattle's Minstrel, stanza I. 418 : 18. Mackintosh's . . . panegyric. From Mack- intosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830). 419:8. Style coupe . . . soutenu. Abrupt style, elevated style. 420 : 26. Emerson. See English Traits. 421 : 15. In speaking of Hallam. Macaulay, Misc. Works, I, 201. 423 : 27. Multa as well as multum. " Quantity as well as profundity." 426 : 30. About Turenne. Macaulay, History, Vol. I. 429 : 18. Anytus and Meletus. See Plato's Apology. 429:27. Semper, ubique, etc. "Always, everywhere, and by all." 432 : 6. Et mon vers, etc. *' My verse, good or ill, always means something." 438 : II. Apostrophe in Carlyle. French Revolution, Vol. I, Book 5, Chap. 7. 440 : 5. Falkland. See Clarendon's History of the Rebellion (ed. Macray), Vol. Ill, p. 178. 440 : 21. Passage of Burke's. Address to the British Colo- nists of North America, Vol. 6, 189. 443 : 20. 'fi fnapbv, etc. " Abominable, and altogether abomi- nable, and most abominable." 445 : 5. Account of Boswell. Misc. Works, I, 601. 445 : II. Montesquieu. Misc. Works, I, 102. 446 : 14. Addison. Misc. Works, III, 443. 446 : 22. rb a-€nv6p. Something holy or august. 494 NOTES EMERSON Arnold's Emerson was a lecture first delivered to a Boston Audience in 1883. 452 : I. Undergraduate. Arnold was at Oxford from 1841 to 1845. 452 : 12. Oratory at Birmingham. After Newman joined the Catholic church, he took up his residence at Birmingham, where he established the Oratory, an institute founded in the 1 6th century by St. Philip Neri. 452 : 22. St. Mary's. The church at Oxford where Univer- sity sermons are preached. Newman was vicar from 1828 to 1843. 453 : 10. Littlemore. To this place, near Oxford, Newman withdrew after resigning his living at St. Mary's. 464: 1. Last enchantments. See "Preface" to Arnold's Essays in Criticism, i st series. 454 : 9. Sentence of Carlyle. See " Death of Edward Irv- ing," Critical Essays, Vol. V, 127. 454 : 17. Oarlyle's translation. Published in 1824. 454 : 25. Youths' Dirge. Wilhelm Meister, Book VIII, Chap. 8. 455 : 10. Apparition of Emerson. See Lowell's Emerson the Lecturer, Works, I, 349. 457 : 23. Patience on a Monument. Twelfth Night, II, 4, 117- 457 : 24. Darkness visible. Paradise Lost, I, 63. 457 : 25. Where ignorance is bliss. Ode on a Distant Pros- pect 0/ Eton College. 458 : 27. Milton. The words in the tractate on Education (Prose Works, Bohn Ed. 473) are " simple, sensuous, and pas- sionate." 459 : 14. Exceptional passages. The first is from Volun- ^ taries ; the second is from Sacrifice ; the third from May-Day. 462 : 29. Oarlyle's devouring eyes . . . thirsty eyes. Correspondence of Carlyle and Etnerson, (3d ed.) I, 308 ; I, 255. EMERSON 495 463 : 2. Description . . . Fraser. Correspondence, I, 65. 463 : 12. John Sterling. Correspondence, I, 140. 463 : 17. Invitation of Emerson. Correspondence, I, 199. 465 : 25. For me it is too ethereal. Correspondence, I, 304. 465 : 28. Emerson's Orations. Correspondence, I, 217. 466 : 8, 9. Lapidary style . . . Here I sit, etc. Cor- respondence, I, 345 ; I, 161. 468 : 6. Alas, my friend. Correspondence, I, 238. 468 : II. Friend's praise. Correspondence, I, 340, 341, 342. 468 : 24. There is no example. Correspondence, II, 334. 476 : 10. Yet, as I tell you. Correspondence, I, 341. 476 : 16. A multitude of young men. Correspondence, II, 337- 481 : 4. Wordsworth well says. In sonnet beginning : "Here pause: the poet claims at least this praise," written in 181 1 and found on page 219 of Arnold's selection of Words- worth's poems published in the Golden Treasury Series. m 2 ^sos LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 998 293 9 ^