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 Cornell University Library 
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 The last hundred years of English litera 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013259787 
 
THE 
 
 LAST HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES GRANT. 
 
 JENA, FR. FEOMMASN. 
 LONDON, WILLIAMS AND NOBOATE. 
 
 1866. 
 
/\5\£oSt 
 
TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 
 THIS BOOK. ' 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book is based on a course of lectures which 
 I read in Jena in the winter of 1864 — 5. I then endeav- 
 oured to sketch the history of modern English litera- 
 ture by criticising the works of those poets and novelists 
 who have exercised the greatest influence over it , and 
 pointing out the nature and extent of that influence. I 
 confined myself almost entirely to works of imagination 
 'and mentioned none that did not seem to have a perma- 
 nent value. I now offer those lectures in a modified form 
 to a larger public. Though a great part has been re- 
 written and the whole carefully revised, this volume still 
 bears, I fear, too many traces of its origin. 
 
 In the first book I have not mentioned those writ- 
 ers who like Sterne belonged in character to the pro- 
 ceeding period but confined my attention to those who 
 prepared the way for the age of Wordsworth, Byron 
 and Scott. In the last I have left unnoticed those who 
 had not obtained a wide celebrity hefore the year 1860, 
 though the later works of earlier writers will be found 
 mentioned in the proper place. This rule which I have 
 been obliged for many obvious reasons to observe has 
 prevented me mentioning several interesting and remark- 
 
VI PEEGACE. 
 
 able works as for example the dramas of M r Swinburne, 
 several novels of George Meredith and Henry Kingsley, 
 the Angle House^and many others. 
 
 The American literature did not seem to me to be- 
 long to my subject, for though it has doubtless been 
 greatly influenced by that of England, and has in its turn 
 exercised a great influence on that of the latter country, 
 it has been modified by different circumstances, and is 
 the result of a different form of social and nation- 
 al life. 
 
 The distance of any English library has rendered it 
 impossible for me to verify my quotations from Robert 
 Browning and Owen Meredith. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 page 
 Character of the proceeding age. James Macpherson. Ossian. 
 
 Percy's .„Reliques" 1 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Thomas Chatterton. His life. The Rowley poems. William Cowper 16 
 
 Chapter III. 
 Scotch Literature. Jacobite songs. Other lyrical poetry before 
 1760. Robert Burns. His Life. Tarn o' Shanter. The Cot- 
 ter's Saturday Night. Lyrical poems ... . . . 25 
 
 BOOK n. 
 Chapter I. 
 General character of the period. Causes of the poverty of the 
 
 dramatic literature. State of the stage. The poetical schools 43 
 Chapter II. 
 Sir Walter Scott. Poems. Novels. Life of Napoleon. Charac- 
 ter of Scott's genius .... . . . . . 52 
 
 Chapter HI. 
 Lord Byron. His youth. Hours of Idleness. English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers. First Cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgri- 
 mage. Tales. His marriage and separation from his wife. 
 Political poems. Contrast between Byron and Scott's feeling 
 for Napoleon . ... .... ... .62 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 Byron's Domestic Poems. The Dream. Manfred. Heaven and 
 Earth. His life in Italy. Last Cantos of Childe Harold. 
 The Vision of Judgement. Don Juan. His death. Moral 
 character of his works. Its causes. Camparison between 
 Scott and Byron. Thomas Moore. His Satires. Narrative and 
 lyrical poems. Prose works. General character .... 75 
 
VIII CONTENTS. 
 
 p»go 
 Chapter V. 
 William Wordsworth. His School contrasted with that of Scott 
 and Byron. His subjects. Lyrical Ballads. The Excursion. 
 Sonnets. General character. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Frag- 
 mentary nature of his works. Christabel. Ancient Mariner. 
 Diversity of his talents. General character .... 98 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. Early Life. Qulen Mab. His marriage. 
 Alastor. Revolt of Islam. Prometheus Unbound. The Cenci. 
 Adonais. Lyrical poems. His death. General character. 
 John Keats. Walter -Savage Landor. Charles Lamb . 119 
 
 BOOK m. 
 Chapter I. 
 General character of the period The Novel. Influence of Foreign 
 
 writers and of periodicals . . . . . . . 141 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Alfred Tennyson. Early poems. The Princess. In Memoriam. 
 The Idylls of the King. General character. Elizabeth Bar- 
 ret Browning. Robert Browning. Owen Meredith . . 147 
 Chapter III. 
 Thomas Carlyle. Sartor Resartus. Latter Day Pamphlets. Essays. 
 
 Historical works. Macaulay. Hallam . . ... 168 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 Novels of the Period. Bulwer Lytton. Eugene Aram. Disraeli. 
 Anthony Trollope. Charles Dickens. Pickwick and other 
 novels. David Copperfield William Makepeace Thackeray. 
 Vanity Fair. Pendennis. General character. The London 
 School as a whole. Religious novels: Charles Kingsley and 
 the Muscular Christians . . . . . . . 176 
 
 Chapter V. 
 George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life. Adam Bede. Romola. 
 
 General character ... ... . . . . 198 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 Review of the period , . . . 214 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 1760 — 1800. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 The poetry of the age that succeeded the Eestoration 
 differed widely from all that had gone before it. The revo- 
 lution had passed like a deluge over England, and had 
 obliterated the old landmarks. The traditions of the great 
 age had been lost amid the storms of the civil -wars. The 
 whole character of English life had been changed. The 
 courtiers who surrounded Charles II bore little or no re- 
 semblance to the Cavaliers who had fought round his father, 
 still less did his subjects resemble the yeomanry who had 
 gathered round "Good Queen Bess" in the hour of England's 
 need. The theatres had been closed for years, and the master- 
 pieces of the Eliszabethan drama were all but forgotten 
 when they were reopened. Hence there was no English taste 
 to oppose that which the courtiers imported from France. 
 In their exile they had become acquainted with the literature 
 of that country, and had imbibed its taste. To this the 
 decline of our poetry has often been ascribed , and it doubt- 
 less hastened, though I do not think it caused it. It injured 
 our poetry for the same reason that it stimulated our 
 science, it brought us into connexion with the other nations 
 of Europe, and so exposed us to the influences that were 
 governing them. 
 
 The end of the seventeenth, 'and the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century was the age of science as opposed to 
 poetry. Everywhere in Europe there was an endeavour to 
 systematize. Every thing must be weighed and measured 
 
 1* 
 
4 Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 and explained. Human nature itself was reduced by the 
 philosophers of the day to a mere system of forces. Man 
 was to these thinkers nothing but a cunningly made machine. 
 His moral nature was but a nicely adjusted balance, in which 
 different interests were weighed. All that is demonic in our 
 nature , the noble passion that makes men forget selfinterest, 
 the fine enthusiasm that leads to self-abnegation, was either 
 ignored, or put aside as folly and madness. In such a system 
 there could be but small room for art. It could not, it is 
 true, like religion be quite done away with, for the saloons 
 must be decorated, and the philosophers taust be amused^ 
 but it was degraded into a mere servant of luxury. A taste 
 for music or pictures and a taste for wine were placed on 
 nearly the same level, both were signs of an expensive edu- 
 cation. Poetry was a little better treated than her sister 
 arts. She was changed into a pedagogue. There were cer- 
 tain moral lessons which it was necessary to teach, and 
 poetry was charged with the care of putting them into an 
 agreeable form. As soon as -she was safely installed in the 
 school- room, a series of school -laws were drawn up ac- 
 cording to which she was to teach. By these laws all poets 
 living and . dead were judged. Those who had written on 
 other principles were misrepresented or condemned. The 
 sublime poetry of Greece was cut down to the saloon stan- 
 dard-; the luxurient and romantic literature of Spain was 
 accused of fancifulness and childishness, while ShakspeajM 
 was put aside as a barbarian, who had now and then chanced 
 upon a lucky thought. Didactic poetry became the favourite 
 form of verse. The tales and dramas that were still written 
 were moulded on a conventional standard. Neither imagi* 
 nation nor passion were allowed full scope.- The flowing 
 rhetoric of Dryden, and the polished brilliancy of Pope were 
 prefered to the gorgeous imagination of Spenser, and the 
 heartrending passion of Shakspeare. Nor was this dislike 
 for the sublime and the irregular confined to art. Goldsmith 
 
Introduction. 5 
 
 preferred the scenery of the Netherlands to that of Scotland, 
 and Addison wrote when at Geneva; — „My head is still 
 giddy with mountains and precipices, and you can't imagine 
 how much I am pleased with the sight of a plain, that is' as 
 agreeable to me at present as the sight of a shore was about 
 a year ago , after our tempest at Genoa." These two poets 
 were in many respects the representatives of their age. And 
 Goldsmith at least had a much clearer perception of the 
 beauties of nature than most of his contemporaries. Now a 
 poet can hardly be expected to produce grand works of art 
 when he is incapable of admiring the beauties of nature. 
 Accordingly we find that the writers of this age paid more 
 attention to their diction and rhythm than to any thing else. 
 Even in this they were conventional. Neatness was consi- 
 dered the highest literary beauty, and the monotonous and 
 stereotyped rhythmical forms of Pope were preferred to the 
 wild melody of the poets of the Elizabethean age. 
 
 These faults must at least in part be attributed to the 
 scientific spirit of the age. Literary criticism had become a 
 science, but, like every other science, it was some time be- 
 fore it found the system it ought to persue. Indeed, before 
 the time of Lessing, it bore almost the same resemblance to 
 real criticism that alchymy does to chemistry. It was studied 
 by many men of talent, and several truths were discovered. 
 3?rom these a few laws of more or less importance were de- 
 duced, but the system persued was false; and the end that 
 was aimed at was impossible. Nor is this to be wondered 
 at. Criticism presents more temptation to superficiality than 
 any other science. A naturalist may ignore the phenomena 
 which are opposed to his theory, but he cannot declare that 
 nature is wrong in producing them or that they have no 
 right to exist. A critic on the other hand can- and often 
 must- say that works of great popularity are the results of a 
 depraved taste. Thus he is at once discoverer, lawgiver, 
 and judge. 
 
g Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 How injurious the influence of the critics was, a 
 Single glance at the literature of this age will show. The 
 value of each branch of it stands almost exactly in inverse 
 proportion to their influence over it: Novel writing is almost 
 the only department in which the century which succeeded 
 the Kestoration can be said to excel, and, in it, the in- 
 fluence of the critics was least felt. Tet even here it was 
 all but insupportable, as the frequent and angry protests of 
 Fielding and his contemporaries prove. If we turn to the 
 Drama, we find that in tragedy where the laws were stric- 
 test, the age produced no single work that belongs to the 
 first, and very few that stand high in the second class, while 
 in comedy which, from its very nature, is more difficult to 
 control, we find several names that belong to the very highest 
 order. In satire it is true our rule does not hold good; but 
 the laws that govern this style of writing are much more 
 obvious than those of dramatical, epic or lyrical poetry, and 
 they were well known to the critics of the day. 
 
 But not only were many of the rules which were at 
 this time universally accepted superficial and injurious, the 
 end they aimed at was unattainable, the foundation on which 
 they rested was false. It was taken for granted that a stan- 
 dard could be fixed for every branch of literature. The 
 writers of Germany, France, and England freed themselves 
 as far as possible of their national typus, -and endeavoured 
 to. approach this universal ideal as nearly as possible. Thus 
 the drama of Greece was held up to universal admiration, 
 and by it all plays were judged. The works of Shakspeare 
 and Fletcher might be full of passion and humour, their cha- 
 racters might be drawn with exquisite truth, and their plots 
 constructed with consummate skill, they had not observed 
 the unities, and these beauties were as nothing in the ba- 
 lance, they -were condemned. Now, if we compare the drama 
 of Greece with that of England in the Elizabethan age , we 
 find that each is perfect in its kind, and each is in some 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 respects superior to the other. In art, as in nature, there 
 are many kinds of beauty.- Sophocles and Shakspeare were 
 both poets of the highest order, but a Shakspeare cut and 
 pruned into a bad imitation of Sophocles would be a mon- 
 strosity. 
 
 Still we cannot but confess that the critics of this age 
 eonferred some very important benefits on our literature. 
 The drama of the . Shakspearean age, with all its beauties, 
 was often barbarous, and the lyrical poetry of the same 
 period is frequently disfigured by quibbles and conceits. 
 Both these faults, the critics of the French or classical school 
 banished from our poetry. Nor must we deny them the 
 credit of paving the way for a purer and more catholic taste 
 than their own. 
 
 "Whatever the cause may have been, it cannot be 
 doubted that the poetry of England from the Restoration 
 down to the .year ,1760 or thereabouts was, taken as a 
 whole, very shallow and common -place. Swift is perhaps 
 the only writer of the period who had any thing gigantic 
 about him, and his was the grandeur of a fallen angel. For 
 the rest primness had usurped the place of beauty, and ele- 
 gance that of grace. The same is true of France and Ger- 
 many. Every where we find mental activity and scientific 
 research, nowhere any great creative power, or even a 
 capability of appreciating the sublimest works of art. In 
 that age there were people in England who thought that 
 Pope's translation of Homer was superior to the original, and 
 critics, in France who preferred Racine to Sophocles. But, 
 after all, this false and artificial taste was confined to the 
 higher classes, it never became general among the people. 
 "While Dryden and Addison were praised by the critics, 
 Shakspeare and Fletcher retained their places on the stage. 
 "While the „Rape of the Lock" and the „Henriade" were ad- 
 mired by the fine gentlemen and ladies of Berlin and Lon- 
 don , German peasants repeated, by the chimney corner, the 
 
g Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 marvellous fairy tales which had been the delight of their 
 forefathers, and the wives of Scotch, fishermen sung their 
 children to sleep with ballads whose passion and tenderness 
 will bear a comparison with any part of our literature. 
 
 In the year 1760 Dr. Johnson , Oliver Goldsmith, and 
 Lawrence Sterne were the greatest representatives of English 
 literature. They were all men of talent, and even the se- 
 verest critic cannot deny genius to Sterne. But in character 
 they belonged to the age that was passing away, so that we 
 cannot enter into an examination of their works. For the 
 same reason we shall pass the plays of Sheridan without no- 
 tice. But about this time a reaction began in our poetry! 
 We may notice two circumstances which probably hastened, 
 though they did not cause it, and which were at least signs 
 that it was near. Garrick had acted Shakspeare's plays to 
 admiring crowds, and Dr. Johnson's edition of the same poet 
 had been sold with extraordinary haste. We cannot but 
 think that the crowds that thronged the theatre and the 
 students who read Lear and.Macbeth in their studieB could 
 not help asking themselves whence came the strange charm 
 of his writings, and why it was wanting in Cato, and the 
 other masterpieces which the classical school held up to their 
 admiration. Be this as it may, a taste for our old literature, 
 and a longing for novelty grew up side by side. The Poems 
 of Ossian were a very successful attempt to satisfy both. The 
 popularity which this work once enjoyed all over Europe 
 renders it necessary for us to linger a few moments over it. 
 
 In the year 1760, James Macpherson published a work 
 entitled „Fragments of ancient poetry translated from the 
 Gaelic or Erse languages". This volume consisted of a series 
 of Fragments, written in a very bombast and mannerized 
 prose style. These were, as he stated, literal translations 
 of songs which were sung in Gaelic by the natives of the 
 North of Scotland, and were the works of a poet who lived, 
 probably, in the second or third century after Christ. It 
 
Macpherson. 9 
 
 •was not the first time that Macpherson had appeared before 
 the public as an author. In his twenty first year he had 
 published an heroic poem, >,The Highlander", one of the 
 worst of the miserable productions of that age. It had been 
 treated with well deserved neglect. Another fate however 
 awaited his new volume. It attracted universal attention, 
 and a subscription was made to enable him to travel through 
 the Highlands and continue his studies. In 1762 he pub- 
 lished „Fingal", an Epic poem in six books, and in 1 763 fe- 
 mora" in eight books. These too he attributed to the same 
 poet, Ossian. They caused one of the bitterest controversies 
 which have raged in England. There can now be no doubt 
 that they were forgeries, nor were they very ingenious for- 
 geries ; it is one of the greatest proofs of the shallowness of 
 the age that they should ever have been considered genuine. 
 Let us turn for a moment to the real epics which have 
 been handed down by word of mouth as these professed to 
 be. The most remarkable of which we are possessed are the 
 Hiad . and the Odyssey, the Nibelungen and the Gudrunlied. 
 Here we find the greatest simplicity. The poet has a tale 
 to tell, and he tells it in the simplest manner. He is too 
 busied with his subject to waste his time in seeking orna- 
 ments. He describes, when description is necessary to make 
 us understand his tale, but never for the mere sake of de- 
 scribing, whereas the tale in Eingal is but a peg on which 
 Ossian hangs gaudy and incorrect descriptions of nature, and 
 other rags of tawdry finery. Again, in all really popular 
 epics we find that, when pictures are used, they are used 
 to make the sense clearer or more impressive, and not for 
 their own sakes alone. In these poems, on the other hand, 
 they are piled on each other till they obscure the sense and 
 ■we see the characters-~moving, as it were, in a thick fog. 
 In a narrative poem which is intended to be declaimed or 
 sung, the interest must be centred on the story, and all 
 minor beauties must be sacrificed, if they interfere -with it. 
 
i| Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 Every thing must be clear and sharply drawn that it may 
 make the intended impression on the, audience. This is the 
 ease with all, the works above mentioned. Let us take the 
 Nibelungenlied which approaches far more nearly than the 
 Homeric poems the character of the age and nation to which 
 Ossian's works were attributed. "Who that has read it ever 
 forgot a single incident in the tragic story? From the girlish 
 dream of Krimhilda to the death of the last of her race, each 
 scene lives as clearly in our memories as if we had seen the 
 whole. In Eingal, on the other hand, it is often difficult 
 to follow even the thread of the story, and but few could 
 retell even the outlines of the tale six weeks after reading 
 it through. In short, it has not one of the distinguishing 
 qualities of the class to which it was said to belong. But 
 this is not all. The Highland society,: after making a strict 
 search, was unable to find any Gaelic poem which resembled 
 those of Macpherson. There can therefore, be no doubt that 
 the poems of Ossian were forgeries. Nor have they any 
 very great poetical value. But this only makes their popu- 
 larity the more remarkable, as it is a proof of the desire 
 for novelty which was beginning to make itself felt in 
 England. 
 
 The next work > which demands our attention is of a 
 very different kind. Dr. Thomas Percy, afterwards bishop 
 of Dromore, published, in 1765 his „Beliques of Ancient 
 English poetry". This work was professedly based on a 
 manuscript of ancient ballads which had fallen into his 
 hands , but a great part consisted of lyrical poems from the 
 age of EEzabeth and Charles I. The older and rougher 
 pieces were smoothed and polished into something like mo- 
 dern rhythm, and, though critics and antiquarians may 
 blame him for this, we must ' confess -that the poems exer- 
 cised a much greater influence than they could otherwise 
 have done.' These corrections, too, were made with so 
 much care , and the lyrical poems were chosen with so much 
 
Percy. \ \ 
 
 good taste, that it -would be difficult to find a more delight- 
 ful book in the whole range of our literature. 
 
 The English ballads contained in these volumes are, for 
 the most part, the productions of the minstrels of the middle 
 ages which had been handed down, by word of mouth, to 
 comparatively modern times. That we do not possess them 
 in their original form is clear from the variations of dif- 
 ferent copies. These changes were sometimes rendered ne- 
 cessary by the development of the language, by words and 
 phrases growing obsolete and having to be replaced by new 
 ones : oftener however they were the voluntary additions or 
 alterations of the singer who looked upon the poem as a 
 piece of property which he might treat as he liked. To this 
 a great part of the life, force, and conciseness of expression 
 which distinguish these poems seem to me to be owing. A 
 clever declaimer would soon perceive which verses pleased, 
 and which tired his audience > and he would be careful to 
 retain the one, and leave out or alter the others. Again, 
 on hearing a ballad in two forms, he would naturally choose 
 the best verses of. both versions. Thus, by a process not 
 unlike that which is known in zoology as natural selection, 
 a popular ballad would go on improving. Of course at a 
 certain point of time this process would cease. When the 
 minstrels had been superseded by books, and the old songs 
 were no longer sung in the Baronial hall, or on the village 
 green, they would become gradually corrupted and forgotten. 
 A few old men would still remember the outlines of the 
 story, but they would forget the incidents, and retain only 
 a verse here and there till, at last, the ballads would sink 
 with them into the silence of the grave. Thanks to Bishop 
 Percy and the industrious collectors who followed him, we 
 Still possess a few in their most perfect form. We may di- 
 vide them into two classes 1) those that treat historical 
 events, and 2) those that treat subjects resembling those of 
 our old romances. "We have an excellent specimen of the 
 
12 Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 first class in „Clievy Chase" and of the second in „Sir 
 Cauline". 
 
 In the first of these poems the story is told as simply 
 and straight forwardly as if it were written in prose. There 
 is no ornament, nor is there any attempt to heighten the 
 effect of the tale by the manner of telling it. The subject 
 is grand and heroic, and the interest centres on the subject 
 and not on the form. In these respects it bears no slight 
 resemblance to the Mbelungenlied. In fact, though of course 
 no one would think of comparing it with that incomparable 
 poem, it belongs to the same class — to the poems that spring 
 from the heart of a nation and therefore speak directly to 
 every heart. 
 
 The ballads which treat romantic subjects differ, in 
 many respects, from the above. If we compare „Sir Cau- 
 line" with the chivalrous romances, we find that it has much 
 more simplicity, much more life, and a much greater dramatic 
 power than they. Compared with the historical ballads, on 
 the other hand, it seems highly ornamented, while the 
 rhythm is much smother and more sonorous. The subject 
 of the poem too is sentimental rather than heroic. It oc- 
 cupies, in short, a position between the romance and the 
 ballad, and was doubtless a great favourite with all who had 
 imbibed the spirit of chivalry. 
 
 The Scotch ballads contained in Percy's Keliques are, 
 taken as a whole, far superior to those we have above exa- 
 mined. The subjects of the English poems are heroic and 
 sentimental, these are tragic and pathetic. They were 
 only stories, well and simply told, while these are full 
 of bursts of wild and lyrical passion. Here too we have 
 tales of war and battle, but they are no longer told by 
 the merry and careless soldier or in his spirit, but by 
 one whose heart has bled for those whom the hero has left 
 behind him. They are filled with a strange wild pathos 
 and tenderness. They treat a far larger range of feelings 
 
Percy. 13 
 
 than the English ballads. Patriotism, courage, and love are 
 almost the- only feelings which the latter touch upon. They 
 delight in the glitter of the tournament and the pomp of 
 battle. The Scotch poets, on the other hand, prefer do- 
 mestic crimes and incidents. They touch all our elementary 
 emotions by turn, from the lawless barbarous courage and 
 hate of the border — nobleman to the despair of a mother 
 weeping over her murdered children, from the wild joy of 
 battle to the agony of a vain remorse. „Edward", whose 
 dark melancholy made such an impression on the mind of 
 Heine that he wove it into the unearthly plot of his youth- 
 ful tragedy Kadcliffe, is known to most Germans in Platen's 
 excellent, but rather too polished translation, but the fol- 
 lowing lines from „Edoni o' Gordon" seem to me even more 
 characteristic. That robber chieftain has set fire to the house 
 of his enemy during his absence, while his wife and children 
 are within. 
 
 „0 than bespaik 1 hir 2 little son, 
 Sate on the nurses knee: 
 Sayes, „Mither s deare gi 4 owre s this house, 
 Eor the reek 6 it smithers 7 me." 
 
 „I wad 8 gie 4 a' 9 my gowd x ° my childe 
 Sae i * wald 8 I a' my fee, 
 Tor ane 1 2 blast o' 13 the western wind, 
 To blaw 14 the reek frae 15 thee." 
 
 then bespaik hir dochter 1 6 dear, 
 She was baith x 7 jimp * 8 and sma 1 9 : 
 „0 row 2 ° me in a pair o' sheits 2 1 , 
 And tow me owre the wa 23 ." 
 
 1 spoke. 2 her. 3 mother. 4 give. 5 over, up. 6 smoke. 
 7 9mothers. 8 would. 9 all. 10 gold. 11 so. 12 one. 13 of. 
 14 blow. 15 from. 16 daughter. 17 both. 18 slender. 19 small. 
 20 roll. 21 sheets. 23 wall. 
 
14 Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 They rowd hir in a pair o sheits, 
 
 And towd hir owre the wa: 
 But on the point of Gordons spear 
 
 She gat 24 a deadly fa 25 . 
 
 r 
 
 bonnie 2 6 bonnie -was hir mouth, 
 And cherry were her cheiks 27 , 
 
 And clear 2 8 clear was hir zeljow 2 9 hair, 
 Whereon the reid 30 bluid 31 dreips 32 . 
 
 Then wi' 33 his spear he turnd hir owre, 
 
 gin 3 4 her face was wan ! 
 
 He sayd 3 5 , „Ze 3 6 are the first that eir 3 7 
 
 1 wisht 38 aliye again." 
 
 He turnd hir owre and owre againe, 
 gin 3 4 hir skin was whyte ! 3 ? 
 „I might ha 40 spared that bonnie face 
 To hae 40 been sum 41 mans delyte 42 . 
 
 Busk and boun 4 3 , my merry men a', 
 For ill dooms 4 4 I doe 4 5 guess, 
 
 1 cannae 4 6 luik 4 7 in that bonnie face, 
 
 As it lyes 48 on the grass." 
 
 The purely lyrical poems which Percy included in his 
 collection were either popular Scotch songs, or pieces chosen 
 from English poets who had already become antiquated. Most 
 of these belonged to the Elizabethan age, the greatest period 
 in the history of our literature. The lyrical poetry of that 
 time, it is true, is frequently disfigured by quibbles and con- 
 ceits. It is often fanciful and sometimes artificial. Yet, in 
 
 24,got. 25 fall. 26 beautiful. 27 cheeks. 28 bright. 29 yellow. 
 30 red. 31 blood. 32 drips. 33, with. 34 a Scottish idiom to ex- 
 press great admiration. 35 said. 36 you. 37 ever. 38 wished. 
 39 white. 40 have. 41 some. 42 delight. 43 up and about. 
 44 fate. 45 do. 46 cannot. 47 look. 48 lies. 
 
Percy. 15 
 
 the purely lyrical element, in richness of imagery, in melody, 
 and freshness of feeling the songs of that age are superior 
 not only to all that the classical school produced, but to 
 every thing our modern literature has to boast of, with the 
 one exception of Burns' poems. 
 
 From the above it will at once be evident that Percy's 
 „Beliques" was opposed, in almost every important respect, 
 to the taste of the day. The beauties and the faults of the 
 pieces contained in that work were the reverse of those 
 which were in fashion at the time of its publication. The 
 subjects in which the classical school had been most success- 
 ful were didactic or satirical, the poems which formed the 
 principal part of this collection were narrative or lyricaL 
 The epigrammatic brilliancy, the studied elegance, and the 
 artificial nicety of the followers of Pope were here brought 
 into contrast with the barbarous grandeur, the wild imagi- 
 nation, and the Titanic passion of the middle ages and the 
 period which immediately succeeded them. They were not 
 carefully weighed and polished verses, such as the critics 
 then valued most highly, but they were the natural expres- 
 sion of natural feelings. Hence the publication of this work 
 marks the epoch in the history of our literature from which 
 we may date the beginning of its reformation. ' "We have lin- 
 gered long over these volumes, but not longer than they 
 deserve for they were at once the record of the past, and 
 the herald of the future, the relics of the age which preceeded 
 Shakespeare, and the text books of Burger and Scott. 
 
16 Book I. Chapter II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Though Dr. Johnson and most of the other leading cri- 
 tics of the age were opposed to Percy's „Reliques" an ^ 
 treated it -with great severity, it -was on the whole -well re- 
 ceived by the public. This is a proof that a more healthy 
 and Catholic taste than that of the classical school was gra- 
 dually developing itself in England. 
 
 None felt this craving for a more imaginative and na- 
 tural poetry more deeply than the talented and unfortunate 
 Thomas Chatter ton. He was born in Bristol on the 20 th of 
 .November 1752. His father, who died before the birth of 
 the poet, had been the teacher of the charity- school in that 
 "town, and all the education Chatterton ever had was picked 
 up at a free school. Tet even under these unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances he exhibited a wonderful genius at an uncom- 
 monly early age. 
 
 At fourteen he was apprenticed to an attorney, in iis na- 
 tive town, but he devoted much of his attention to poetry and 
 antiquities. It is sad to think of a boy like Chatterton being 
 bound down to the dreary and irksome routine of an at- 
 torneys office* at so early an age. But his energy, his genius, 
 and his untiring application surmounted every obstacle. His 
 leisure time was spent in study or in wandering alone through 
 the fields, and sketching the village churches near Bristol. 
 "Without a guide, a friend, or any one who could sympathize 
 with his literary tastes, it is no wonder that the youthful 
 poet should become excessively proud and sensitive. Tet 
 these years were probably the happiest 'in his whole life, 
 though even then we find that the thought of suicide was 
 familiar to him. Young as he was, he was already busied with 
 the great work of his life, a series of the most extraordinary 
 literary forgeries in our language. He pretended to have 
 •discovered a number of ancient manuscripts, in an old box 
 
Chattel-ton. J 7 
 
 which had been removed from Bristol Church as old lumber 
 "by his grandfather, who had been sexton there. Most 
 of these manuscripts, the poet said, had been used by his 
 father as covers for school books, but some that remained 
 were works of the greatest interest. He published the first 
 in 1768 when he was but 16 years old. It was an account 
 of the opening of the old bridge at Bristol, taken, as he said, 
 from an ancient manuscript. After this he presented various 
 extracts from these writings to his friends, some in trans- 
 lations, and some in old English. At last he published a 
 series of poem's in the Town and Country Magazine which 
 were written, as he said, by a M r Canynge, and Thomas Bow- 
 ley- a priest in the 15 th Century. These poems which were 
 written in old English occasioned a warm controversy among 
 literary antiquarians. 
 
 In April 1770 Chatterton was forced to leave his office. 
 Encouraged by his success in Bristol, he went to London 
 where he tried to support himself by writing for the book- 
 sellers. At first he seems to have been successful, as he 
 wrote very happy and hopeful letters to his mother and 
 sister, and even sent them several presents. He looked at 
 the essays and poems he wrote at this time merely as a 
 means of earning his bread, without taking any great interest 
 in the subjects he wrote upon. England, at that time, 
 was engaged in a great struggle the court with the liberal 
 party; Chatterton alone, living in the midst of the struggle, 
 and writing continually about it, seems to have taken no 
 deep interest in public questions. „He is but a poor 
 author," he writes home, „who cannot write on both sides." 
 This is of course very wrong, but let us pause before we 
 condemn him. Let us remember how sad his life had been, 
 how his glorious genius had been cramped and fettered by 
 poverty, how manfully he was struggling for life, alone and 
 unaided in the midst of the busy battling world. Let us 
 ■remember, too, the tenderness of his letters to his mother, 
 
 Grant litterature. o 
 
18 Book I. Chapter II. 
 
 and -those little presents he sent her with his hardly earned 
 money. Nor must we forget how foreign all these questions 
 were to the great purposes and ends of his life. How could 
 the young poet, absorbed in what has been called the sub- 
 lime egotism of Genius, be expected to take any great in- 
 terest in political questions ? How shall we dare to blame 
 the unhappy youth for laxity in respect of them ? But pa- 
 pers, and poems written in such a frame of mind, and on 
 such subjects, cannot be expected to be of any great value. 
 Some of Chattertons were terse and well expressed, but this 
 is almost all that can be said in their praise. Thought and 
 opinion must become passion, before they become fit sub- 
 jects for lyrical poems. This is not the case with these. 
 
 Literary employment, always proverbially uncertain, 
 was, at that period, more than usually so, and for a number 
 of reasons, which we have not time to enumerate, Chat- 
 terton got out of employment and, sunk into real want. We 
 have not time to trace the misfortunes and vain struggles of 
 the ill fated youth. At last he was without a penny to buy 
 bread. Too proud to be a burden to his mother, or to ask 
 help of his friends, too wearied out and broken spirited 
 to make a last effort, he poisoned himself on the. 25 th of 
 August 1770. He was then seventeen years and nine 
 months old. „No English poet," says Campbell, „ever 
 equaled him -at so early an age." 
 
 The great work of Chatterton's life was the forgeries 
 of which I have spoken. They were collected and published 
 shortly after his death, under the title of „Poems, supposed 
 to have been written at Bristol, by Thomas Bowley and 
 others, in the fifteenth century." They are written in the 
 language, and mostly in the taste of that age. Here we 
 cannot but ask, what could have induced the youthful poet 
 to bind his genius by the use of crabbed, and antiquated 
 dialect, and the imperfectly developed rhythmical forms 
 of that period? This question leads us to one of the most 
 
Chatterton. jg 
 
 wonderful characteristics of these poems — their thorough 
 objectiveness. Byron, whose sorrows, great as they doubt- 
 less were, cannot be compared with those of Chatterton, 
 spent his whole life in telling the world the doleful story of 
 his misfortunes. His genius modulated the notes, and added 
 depth and variety of colouring to the tale , but it could not 
 raise him above his woe. This comfort Chatterton scorned. 
 If we were to read the poems of Eowley without knowing 
 anything of their author, we should fancy he was some rich, 
 or at least some independent man , who was endowed with 
 an exquisite sense of beauty and melody, but had never 
 known much of sorrow: we should never imagine that he 
 was a poor, neglected and all but hopeless youth, who, 
 after battling bravely and even madly with the troubles of 
 the world , could find no place of rest but a grave. Chat- 
 terton, as we have seen, scorned the comfort which most 
 poets seem to find in such sympathy as they can beg from 
 their hearers, but he doubtless found a deeper and nobler 
 consolation in poetry. The world around him was dark and 
 dreary, his life was monotonous, and he was tired of its 
 drudgery, so he created an ideal world, into which these 
 sorrows could never come. Into it he retired when the of- 
 fice was shut, and the days work over, and in it he met 
 the loving faces and kind hearts, that he sought in vain in 
 this. I must confess that, in excluding all the petty cares 
 and troubles of his every day life from his verses , he seems 
 to me to have acted better and more nobly, than those who 
 show their wounds, and boast of their sorrows. It is easy 
 to see why he laid the scene of his poem in such a distant 
 age. It was not only the pomp of chivalry, and the dreamy 
 retirement of monastic life which attracted him as they af- 
 terwards did the romantic school. Then our poetry had been 
 very different from the monotonous verses which the clas- 
 sical school had made the standard of excellence. The im- 
 perfectly developed forms of that period seemed sweeter to 
 
 2* 
 
20 Book I. Chapter H. 
 
 his ear than the cold alexandrines of Pope , and the wild 
 luxuriance of faney, in which our ancient poets delighted, 
 could not fail to attract an imagination so lively and vivid 
 as his. As to the old spelling, there is something strange- 
 ly attractive in old words a&d forms of expression to those 
 who have pored long on old black letter volumes, and these 
 had been the chief intellectual food within Ghattertons reach. 
 Besides , they were a necessary part of the forgery , if we 
 must call it by so hard a name, which he had determined to 
 carry out. Had he published his verses in his own name, 
 they would probably, even had he, found a publisher, have 
 been oast aside unread as barbarous. But the poems of 
 Rowley, a monk of the 15 th century, could not be treated 
 in so unceremonious a manner, nor could their author be 
 charged with barbarism for writing according to the tastes 
 of his age. But was the imitation successful? On this que- 
 stion much has been written and said and I think that lately 
 the skill of Chatterton has been rather under -than over- 
 valued. It has often been said that Rowley's poems resemble 
 those of the poets of the first half of the nineteenth century, 
 rather than those of the fifteenth. But we must remember 
 that most of these poets imitated, either directly or in- 
 -directly, our ancient literature, and the very parts of their 
 poems which resemble Chatterton's most are those which are 
 most like our pre - Elizabethan writers. There are, of 
 course, thoughts and lines in these poems which could not 
 have been written at the period to which their author 
 ascribed them. , Such for instance is the criticism in the 
 ^epistle to Canynge: 
 
 „Plays made from holy tales I hold unmeet; 
 > Let some great story of a man be sung; 
 When, as a man, we God and Jesus treat. 
 In my poor mind, we do the Godhead wrong." 
 
 It is not however by separate lines that such a work must 
 
Chatterton. 21 
 
 be judged, and, taken as a whole, the poet has been won- 
 derfully successful. 
 
 "We cannot now enter into a criticism of each of the 
 poems, they differ from each other very widely in value, 
 but taken as a whole , no one can deny that thei prove that 
 their author possessed a highly refined taste, and considerable 
 genius. "We cannot wonder that his contemporaries could hot 
 believe him to be their author, for, from beginning to end, 
 there is nothing boyish in them. In the whole volume there 
 is no bombast, no false sentiment, sickly pathos, nor over- 
 drawn heroism. Can the same be said of the writings of 
 any other poet before reaching his eighteenth year. Who can 
 say what Chatterton might have become? "We will not try 
 to guess. He stands as it is alone, the greatest English poet 
 of his own age , the only boy whose poems will last as long 
 as our language endures. 
 
 Yet his verses are not entirely free from faults. We 
 find in them the besetting sins of our pre-Elizabethan and 
 modern poetry; Chatterton, when once determined to palm 
 off his poems as ancient, could not, it is true, have avoided 
 them, but they are faults nevertheless. The greatest of 
 those is an inclination to use imagery for its own sake. This 
 is a fault into which the lyrical poets of the fourteenth, fif- 
 teenth, and sixteenth centuries frequently fell. It is also a 
 fault of some- of our modern poets. This we often meet in 
 the writings of Chatterton , but it is so inextricably inter- 
 woven with many beauties that, while regretting its pre- 
 sence , we hardly know how the poet could have avoided it, 
 without destroying much we would not willingly lose; The 
 following lines will show what I mean: 
 
 Brown as the filbert dropping from the shell, 
 Brown as the nappy ale at Hochtide game, 
 So brown the crooked rings that featly fell 
 Over the neck of the all beauteous dame. 
 
22 Book I. Chapter H. 
 
 Taper as candles laid at Cuthbert's shrine, 
 
 Taper as elms that Goodrickes abbey shrove, 
 
 Taper as silver chalices for wine, 
 
 So taper was her arms and shape yegrove, 
 
 As skillful miners by the stones above 
 
 Can know what metal is yelach'd below, 
 
 So Kennewalcha's face, yemade for love, 
 
 The lovely image of her soul did show; 
 
 Thus was she outward formed; the sun her mind 
 
 Did gild her mortal shape and all her charms refined. 
 It is quite clear that the „filberts", the „nappy ale", 
 the „candles", the „elms", and the „silver chalices" were 
 not used here to give a clearer idea of the lady whom the 
 poet is describing, but because they in themselves, pleased 
 his fancy. It w just as clear too that this description 
 leaves no vivid impression on our minds. The pictures do 
 not place Kennewalcha before us, they rather draw our at- 
 tention away from her. Yet we cannot deny that these 
 verses have a great beauty of their own. They recall lovely 
 scenes whose beauty the harshest critic must acknowledge. 
 I might mention the half philosophical lines in Ella as defir 
 cient in poetical feeling, but they are written so exactly in 
 the spirit of our earlier poets, and the local colouring is 
 so exquisitely worked out, that I incline to consider them 
 rather as a beauty than a defect. The Weakest piece, in my 
 opinion, in the book is the much praised „Death of Sir 
 Charles Bawdin - '. It is written in imitation of our old bal- 
 lad style, but the subject and manner were too far removed 
 from the circle of Chatterton's thoughts and feelings to be 
 successfully treated by him. Such were the great faults of 
 his verses, and surely it is rather a cause of wonder that 
 they are so few, than that these few are there. Living in 
 the midst of a prosaic and critic — ridden age, his poems 
 are remarkable for their freshness and force of imagination. 
 Their indirect effect on our literature has been all but in- 
 
Cowper. 23 
 
 calculable. From him. "Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley 
 learned much, and each of them has lamented his fate and 
 celebrated his genius in verses of admirable tenderness and 
 power. That he is little known out of England, and even 
 there comparatively little read, is probably owing to the 
 antiquated dialect in which his poems are written, which is 
 much more difficult than the language of Chaucer and Gower. 
 Such was the life, and such are the poems of Chatterton. 
 Surely the sternest moralist will rather lament his untimely 
 fate, than blame 
 
 The marvellous boy, 
 The sleepless soul that perished in his pride 
 for his last rash act. His poems will never cease to delight 
 all lovers of the imaginative, but somewhat fanciful poetry 
 of the middle ages. Nor will his name ever be mentioned 
 without a sigh of regret, that one so gifted should have been 
 so unfortunate , that so great a genius should not have sur- 
 vived to enjoy the fame he so well merited, and to leave 
 behind him some great work, which might have taken its 
 place among the noblest productions of our literature. 
 
 It would be difficult to find a character which presents 
 a more thorough contrast to Chatterton in every respect than 
 the man whose name stands next on our list — William 
 Cowper. The one, born in the midst of poverty, and hem- 
 med in with difficulties on every side, allowed none of these 
 to mar, or even to colour his poems; The other, born of 
 one of the highest English families, and in Ms whole life 
 suffering scarcely any trouble that deserved the name, fret- 
 ted himself into madness over imaginary evils. The one, 
 urged on by the wild fire of Genius, was engaged during 
 the greater part of his short life in a hopeless struggle 
 with fate; the other, living retired from the world and far 
 from its toil and turmoil, argued himself into despair by 
 fears of an eternal punishment. Yet the works of William 
 Cowper form an important link in the history of our lite- 
 
24 Book I. Chapter II. 
 
 rature. He was and perhaps still is the most popular poet 
 of his age. But he is most popular in circles where the 
 grandest productions of our literature are seldom read. 
 
 Cowper's mind was more nearly related to the classical 
 writers than to the great poets who preceeded them. His 
 favorite subjects are either didactic or satiric. He is seldom 
 passionate and enthusiastic. He is a dreamer rather than a 
 singer, and his dreams are not glorious visions of beauty 
 and of splendour, like those of Shelley, they are the reveries 
 and meditations of a religious recluse, who loves to linger 
 by the willowy streams, and to stray down the woodland 
 ways of English scenery. Yet his works did almost as much 
 to reform our literature as those we have been examining. 
 
 The classical poetry had become, as we have seen, al-. 
 most inane, a series of polished lines without life, passion, 
 beauty, truth, or power. Percy and Chatterton had com-r 
 bated this taste by republishing and reproducing our ancienti 
 poetry. They had held up the simple truth and heroism of 
 pur old ballads , and the wild imagination and tenderness of 
 ancient lyric to the admiration of the public. Cowper at- 
 tacked the false taste of the day on another side — ■ by the 
 studied truth of his details. He clothed the simple events' 
 of every day in verse. He loved to tell his readers how well 
 M rs Unwin made tea, and how they chatted over it, to talk 
 about his dogs and his hares, his walks and his day dreams. 
 Such subjects are not very grand or poetical, nor are his 
 verses brilliant, but his poetry is true. Nature breathes 
 through every line. This is the reason why he attained po- 
 pularity, and still remains popular. 
 
 He was, however, most successful as a religious poet, 
 His hymns are among the best in our language, though they 
 have not the deep fervour of those of Wesley and Kewton» 
 They are still sung in the churches and chapels of most Engr 
 lish sects, and they deserve their popularity. They have, 
 it is true, many faults; the chief of which is that they are 
 
Cowper. 25 
 
 often dogmatic, and the narrow creed of their author often 
 spoils even the finest passages. 
 
 Percy, Chatterton and -Cowper may be looked upon as 
 the leaders of the literary revolution which dethroned the 
 classical poets. They exercised a far greater influence over the 
 tasto of the succeeding age than any of their contemporaries. 
 Indeed, we shall find that each of them may be looked upon 
 as the forerunner of a particular school. We must pass over 
 the minor poets of the age without notice, that we may 
 have time for the Scotch; literature of this period. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Scotch literature , during the latter half of the 
 eighteenth century, differed very widely from that of Eng- 
 land during the same period. It could not but be so. Down 
 to 1707 England and Scotland had been different nations, 
 governed, it is true, by the same sovereign, but in every 
 other respect dissimilar to each other. The history of Scot- 
 land had been the story of a brave and succesful resistance 
 to the unjust demands of her powerful neighbour. Nor was 
 the history forgotten. It lived in the hearts of the people. 
 Tales about Bruce and "Wallace were still told by every fire- 
 side. Songs relating their deeds , and praising their bravery 
 still passed from mouth to mouth. Nor did the union at 
 first do much to diminish this feeling. The Scotch were 
 treated by the English as a set of poor and greedy adventu- 
 rers, who wished to prey on the riches of England, while 
 they, in their turn, regarded the English as arrogant enemies 
 who had managed to trick Scotland out of 1 her freedom. 
 Scotch too was not a dialect of English in the same sense as 
 the. languages of Suffolk and Yorkshire were dialects. It 
 had, as its historians proudly and with truth asserted, a 
 
26 Book I. Chapter in. 
 
 thoroughly independent literature. Nor was this literature 
 contemptible. In the fifteenth century it had been one of 
 the finest in Europe. It was rich in Romances, fabliaux, 
 and satires. In short, the nations were, at the commen- 
 cement of the last century, so thoroughly estranged that a 
 union with France would probably have been much more 
 popular in Scotland than that with England. Such was the 
 state of public feeling, when in 1745 Charles Edward landed 
 almost unattended in Scotland, and half the nation rallied 
 round its banished prince. The history of the rebellion does 
 not of course concern us at present, but the feeling that pro- 
 duced it is embodied in a series of songs which we cannot 
 leave unnoticed. In a political point of view the Jacobite 
 rebellion of 45 was foolish in the extreme, but looking at 
 it in a poetical light, by means of these songs, it would be 
 difficult to find a grander movement in modern history. The 
 story of the rebellion, even when simply and prosaically re- 
 lated, seems more like a wild chivalrous romance than a 
 piece of sober history. Charles Edward is well fitted to be 
 the hero of such a tale. Young, noble, brave, and hand- 
 some, the descendant of a long line of kings, he returned 
 from exile almost unattended, and quite unannounced. He 
 did not come to take the lead in a well organised' insur- 
 rection, he came to win back, with his own hand, the crown 
 of his fathers, trusting to himself and the loyalty and bra- 
 very of his country alone. It is no wonder that the brave 
 and chivalrous highlanders rallied round him, that the low- 
 landers flocked to his standard, and that the poets of Scot- 
 land vied with each other in singing his praise. In their 
 eyes the Jacobite cause united every noble and disinterested 
 feeling. It was Scotland rising upon her old foes, who had 
 tricked and insulted her. It was a country rushing to wel- 
 come and defend the king that had been torn from her. It 
 was the old noblesse demanding vengeance on the men who 
 had pawned 
 
Scotch Literature before 1760. 27 
 
 The Scottish crown 
 To a wee bit German lairdie. 
 The prince was passionately welcomed, and his courage 
 proudly contrasted with George's phlegm in such songs as 
 this 
 
 Silken beds, and carpet rooms 
 Wad hardly do to suit Geordie, 
 Bot a far better prince, he lay on the groun', 
 Weel row'd up in his tarten plaidie. 
 Then came the bitter hour of woe and disappointment. The 
 Scotch army was defeated, its leaders imprisoned and exe- 
 cuted, and the prince himself, the brave, the noble, the 
 heroic prince was flying from cottage to cottage, seeking in 
 vain a means of escape. Yet even then, Scotland, sung the 
 poets, had a right to be proud. "While hiding among the 
 poorest free peasantry in Europe, known to almost every 
 one, no one was found to betray his king for the immense 
 sum the government had set upon his head. Then came the 
 songs of mingled joy and sorrow: 
 
 Bonnie Charlie's gane awa 
 
 Safely o'er the friendly main, 
 
 Mony a heart wad break in twa', 
 
 Should he niver come again. 
 
 Will ye nae come back again? 
 
 Will ye nae come back again? 
 
 Better lo'ed ye canna be. 
 
 Will ye nae come back again? 
 In short, almost every shade of feeling is mirrored in these 
 poems: hope, joy, exultation, sorrow, and despair. There 
 are playful poems, and poems that breathe a passionate af- 
 fection and loyalty> that we cannot understand. Many of 
 them too are exquisitely beautiful, and will bear a compar- 
 ison with the lyric poetry of any country in the world. 
 There were many causes for this rise in the Scotch lyric. 
 These songs were at once the death song of ancient Scotland, 
 
28 Book I. Chapter IH. 
 
 with her chivalrous bravery, and the birth song of modern 
 Scotland, -with her enterprise and industry; and, while the 
 philosopher and the politician go forth eagerly to meet the 
 new world, the poet and the artist cannot help casting a 
 longing lingering glance behind them „at the picturesque 
 ruins, and venerable abuses of the past." But Scotch poetry 
 did not die with Old Scotland. It sprung up, and blossomed, 
 and hung garlands and wreathes of ivy around the ruins 
 from which it sprung. We have seen that the old Scotch 
 ballads had been distinguished from those of England by 
 their melancholy, their tenderness, and the wild music of 
 their rhythm. These too were the characteristics of the 
 poems that succeeded them. But the subjects were changed. 
 It was no longer the border raid, or the highland foray 
 that was sung. The common events of every day modern 
 life, were now the burden of these songs. But they' were 
 told by no retired recluse like Cowper, who sat musing by 
 the tea-urn, lost in the depths of philosophical contemplation. 
 They were sung by the men who had felt them, with tears 
 or laughter , and sometimes with - laughter mingled with 
 tears. The Scotch dialects are excellently suited for such 
 poetry. They are musical, forcible and expressive, and yet 
 they have something strangely simple about them, that re- 
 minds one of the prattling of a child. 
 
 "No Scotch poet who immediately preceeded Burns 
 attained any great celebrity; yet the lyrical poetry of the 
 age as a whole is very rich. . These songs are known by 
 many who never heard the name of their authors. They 
 have passed from mouth to mouth, and become the property 
 of the people. They are sung in the cottages of the high- 
 land^ and in the drawing rooms of Edinborough. In Ca- 
 nadian log cottages mothers sing their children to sleep 
 with them, and in the backwoods of America and the 
 sheep - walks of Australia the hardy emigrant hums them as 
 he works. In short, wherever a Scotch man goes, he carries 
 
Scotch Literature before 1760. 29 
 
 these songs in his memory with him, as a relic of the land 
 he has left behind him., 
 
 One of the best known of these poems is Auld Eobin 
 Gray. It was written by Lady Anne Barnard. 
 
 When the sheep are in the fauld 1 , when the kye's 2 
 v come hame, 
 
 And a' 3 the weary warld 4 to rest are gane 5 , 
 The waes 6 o' my hpart fa' 7 in showers frae 8 my e'e 9 , 
 TTnkent l ° by my gudeman 1 1 wha x 2 sleeps sound by me. 
 
 Young Jamie lo'ed * 3 me weel, and sought me for his 
 
 bride, 
 But saving x 4 ae x 5 crown piece he had naething ' 6 beside ; 
 To make the crown a pound my Jamie gaed x 7 to sea, 
 And the crown and the pound-they were baith 1 8 for me. 
 
 He hadna x 9 been gane a twelvemounth and a day, 
 When my father brake his arm and the cow was stown 2 ° 
 
 away; 
 My mither 2 * she fell sick — my Jamie was at sea, 
 * And Auld Bobin Gray came a courting me. 
 
 My father, could'na 2 2 wark 2 s , my mither couldna spin — 
 I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna win; 
 And Bob maintained them baith, and, wi 2 4 tears in his e'e, 
 Said: „Jeanie, for their sakes, will ye no marry me?" 
 
 My heart it said na 2 5 , for I looked for Jamie back, 
 But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack, 
 His ship was a wrack — why didna Jamie die, 
 Or why am I spared to cry wae is me? 
 
 1 fold. 2 cattle. 3 all. i world. 5 gone. 6 woes. 7 fall. 
 8 from. 9 eye. 10 unknown. 11 husband. 12 who. 13 loved. 
 14 except. 15 one. 16 nothing. 17 went: 18 both. 19 had not. 
 20 stolen. 21 mother. 22 could not. 23 work. 24 with. 25 no. 
 
30 Book I. Chapter I. 
 
 My father urged me sair 26 — my mither didna speak, 
 But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break; 
 -They gied 2 7 him my hand — my heart was in the sea — 
 And so Robin Gray he was gudeman to me. 
 
 I hadna been his wife a week but only four, 
 When mournfu' as I sat on a stane 2 8 at my door, 
 I saw my Jamie's ghaist 29 , I couldna think it he, 
 Till he said: „I' m come hame 30 , love, to marry thee!" 
 
 0, sair sair did we greet 31 , and mickle 32 say of a' 
 I gied him ae kiss , and bade him gang 3 3 awa' — 
 I wish I were deal, but I am na like to die, 
 
 For, though my heart is broken, I' m but young, wae 
 
 is me! 
 
 I gang like a ghaist, I carena much to spin, 
 
 1. darena think o' Jamie for that wad 3 i be a sin, 
 But I'll do my best a gude wife to be, 
 
 For Auld Bobin Gray he's a kind gudeman to me. 
 
 Such were the poets who immediately preceeded Burns, 
 and such the songs which were sung over his cradle. "We 
 must now enter into an examination of his works. Robert 
 Burns -was born on the 25 th Jan. 1759. His father seems 
 to have been a clever, sensible, and he certainly was an 
 honest and pious man. But his life had not been an easy 
 one, nor had it been fortunate. He had before the poets 
 birth been obliged to, accept a place as gardener in the 
 service of the Laird of Fairly. Afterwards he took a small 
 farm which he cultivated with his own hands. When 
 Bobert was six years old he was sent to school where he 
 learnt reading, writing and grammar. John Murdoch, the 
 teacher of this school, seems to have taken an interest in 
 
 26 much. 27 gave. 28 stone. 29 ghost. 30 home. 31 weep. 
 32 little. 33 go. 34 would, 
 
Robert Burns. 31' 
 
 him; for, when he took lessons in French, he used to 
 teach his little pupil of a morning, what he himself had 
 learnt the evening before. These lessons only lasted for a 
 fortnight, as Bobert had to return home. He took with him 
 a French grammar, dictionary and a Telemaque , from which 
 he taught himself French enough to be able to read any 
 prose writer in that language. In after years he was very 
 proud of this accomplishment, and often inserted French 
 words and sentences in his letters.' After Bobert' s return 
 home, his father took his education into his own hands. He 
 used to borrow books on all kinds of scientific subjects, and 
 study them after the days work was over, in order that he 
 might teach their contents to his children. In the mean 
 time his son devoured every book that came within his 
 reach. But this happy life was not to continue long. The 
 farm did not pay, and a series of misfortunes overtook the 
 poor family. The fathers health too broke down, and Bo- 
 bert, at the age of fifteen, was the manager and chief la- 
 bourer on the farm. At this time they were plunged in the 
 deepest poverty, and at is probable that the hard labour, 
 bad nourishment, and anxiety of this period was the cause 
 of the desease which was never thoroughly cured. Bobert 
 however struggled bravely on. Strangely enough this was 
 the time that he wrote his first poem. Here is his own ac- 
 count of the matter. „This kind of life — the cheerless 
 gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave, 
 brought me to my sixteenth year; a little before which pe- 
 riod I first committed the sin of Bhyme. You know our 
 country custom of coupling a man and woman together as 
 partners in the labours of the harvest. In my fifteenth au- 
 tumn my partner was a bewitching creature a year younger 
 than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of 
 
 doing her justice in that language How she caught the 
 
 contagion, I cannot tell — but I never expressly said I loved 
 
32 Book I. Chapter III. 
 
 her. Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much 
 to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening - 
 from our labours ; why the tones of her voice made my heart- 
 strings thrill like an Aeolean harp ; and particularly why my 
 pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked and fingered 
 over her little' hand to pick out the cruel nettle stings and 
 thistles. Among her other love -inspiring qualities, she sung 
 sweetly, and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted 
 giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so pre- 
 sumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed 
 ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin; but my 
 girl sung a song, which was said to be composed by a small 
 ■country laird's son on one of his fathers maids, with whom 
 he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme; 
 as well as he, for, excepting that he could smear sheep; 
 and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had 
 no more scholarcraft than myself." 
 
 At last the lease of the farm was out, and a new one 
 was taken. Here for four years things seemed to be getting 
 on better; but the old difficulties returned, and the poets 
 father was only saved from a debtors prison by death. The 
 whole care of the family now fell on the shoulders of Bo- 
 bert and his brother, and he bravely endeavoured to do his 
 duty; but misfortune after misfortune overtook him, until, 
 at last, he resolved to emigrate to Jamaica. Up to this 
 time Burns had never had more than £ 7. a year to live 
 upon, and he had never exceeded his income. This is a 
 sufficient proof that his life cannot, at that period, have 
 been very wild. His greatest excesses cannot have been 
 more than a dance now and then, and an occasional glass. 
 These however were, when united to habitual absence from 
 church, high crimes and misdemeanors in the eyes of the 
 rigid calvanists among whom he dwelt, and the clergy re- 
 solved to reprimand, and disgrace him publicly. Burns 
 
Robert Burns. 33 
 
 ridiculed them in a series of satires which will never loose 
 their sting, till religious hypocrisy, and intolerance have 
 gone out of fashion. The poet at this period was attached, 
 and even engaged to a girl in the neighbourhood, Jean 
 A mour. Her father however would hear nothing of the 
 engagement, and the connection had to he broken off. 
 
 Before leaving Europe Burns resolved to publish his. 
 poems. This he did by subscription. They were received, 
 with rapture - by the public , and instead of starting for Ja- 
 maica, he was, in a few months, the darling of Edinburgh. 
 The most flattering attentions were lavished upon him. He 
 was carressed by the nobility, flattered by the wits, and 
 courted by the ladies of that then brilliant capital. Spite of 
 all however, he returned home, and married his old love. 
 He sent nearly half of the money he received from his pu- 
 blisher to his mother, with the rest he took a farm. The 
 brilliant society of Edinburgh forgot Burns, and hurried 
 on to admire the next novelty, but it was riot so easy for 
 him to forget the witty and polished society he had for 
 awhile enjoyed. After a time he began to neglect his farm, 
 and every thing seemed to go wrong with him. Every tour- 
 ist who passed his house endeavoured to catch a glimpse of 
 the peasant poet. His neighbours, too, sought his com- 
 pany, and were enchanted by his wit and humour. Far too 
 much has, I believe, been said of the poets dissipation. 
 There can be no doubt that he, like most people of that 
 age, sometimes drank a glass too much, but the straitlaced 
 Calvinists among whom he lived were only too glad „to 
 find or forge a fault" in the satirist who had so mercilessly 
 chastised their intolerance and hypocrisy. It is certain how- 
 ever that he soon became disgusted with farming, and 
 that it was a great relief to him when a friend procured him 
 a^ place in the Excise. His salary was never more than 
 L. 70 a year, but on this he resolved to life, and to hope 
 for - promotion. At this time the Erench revolution was 
 
 Grant litteratiue. " 
 
34 Book I. Chapter HI. 
 
 filling Europe with hope and terror. Burns was passionately- 
 attached to the cause of the French people, and eagerly 
 defended them. Information as to his sentiments was given 
 to the Board of Excise, and he received a severe reprimand!. 
 This was a hard hlow to a mind so proud and sensitive as 
 his. A report was spread that he had lost his situation, 
 and a friend proposed a subscription in his favour, but 
 Burns refused the offer in a very characteristic letter: 
 
 „The partiality of my countrymen has brought me for- 
 ward as a man of genius, and given, me a character to 
 support. In the Poet I have avowed manly and independent 
 sentiments, which I hope have been found in the man. Bea- 
 sons of no less weight than the support of a wife and 
 children, have pointed out my present occupation as the 
 only eligible line of life within my reach. Still my honest 
 fame is my dearest concern, and a thousand times have I 
 trembled at the idea of the degrading epithets that malice or 
 miss representation may affix to my name. Often, in blasting 
 anticipation, have I listened to some future hackney scribb- 
 ler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, exultingly 
 asserting that Burns , notwithstanding the fanfaronade of 
 independence to be found in his works, and after having 
 been held up in public view and to public estimation as 
 a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources 
 within himself to support his borrowed dignity, dwindled 
 into a paltry exciseman and slunk out the rest of his in- 
 significant existence in the meanest of pursuits and among 
 the lowest of mankind. 
 
 „In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me to lodge my 
 strong disavowal and defiance of such slanderous falsehoods. 
 Burns was a poor man from his birth, and an exciseman by 
 necessity; but — ■ I will say it ! — The sterling of his honest 
 worth poverty could not debase, and his independent British 
 spirit oppression might bend, but could not subdue." 
 
 One of the last acts of his life was tore-copy this letter, 
 
Robert Burns. 35 
 
 and to place it carefully among his MSS., that it might serve 
 as an eternal protest against slander. 
 
 All hope of promotion was now at an end, and the 
 story of the rest of his life is easily told. He was taken severi- 
 ly ill soon after, and never quite recovered. On his death- 
 bed he was tormented by anxiety for his wife and children; 
 but he was soothed by the care, love, and forgiveness of 
 his wife, whose constant patience, forbearance, and ten- 
 derness did all that could be done to comfort him. He died 
 on the 22 nd of July 1796. 
 
 We must now proceed to an examination of his works. 
 Foremost among them stands Tarn o' Shanter, a tale written 
 in broad Scotch. It is a masterpiece in its way, the best 
 story of the kind in our literature, with the exception of 
 those of Chaucer. The poem commences with a description 
 of an Inn at Ayr. It is a market-night and Tarn is seated 
 at the fire side by Johnny: 
 
 His ancient trusty drouthy crony 
 Tarn lo'ed him like a vera blither, 
 They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
 The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter 
 And ay the ale was growing better; 
 The souter tauld his queerest stories; 
 The landlords laugh was ready chorus. 
 The storm without might rair and ristle, 
 Tarn did na mind the storm a whistle. 
 His wife mean while was sitting at home 
 
 Gath'ring her brows like gath'ring storm, 
 Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 
 So the evening passes away and Tarn finds at last that it is 
 time to go home. It's a wild stormy night, a perfect huri- 
 cane, thunder, lightning and rain: 
 
 That night a child might understand, 
 
 The Deil had business on his hand. 
 
 The way too is dismal enough, every turning has been the 
 
 3* 
 
36 Book I. Chapter in. 
 
 seene of some unnatural crime, or fearful accident. But 
 Tarn has a good mare under him, and is well wrapt up and 
 as to spirits he has drank too much good ale and whisky to 
 care for them. So, humming one old song after another, 
 and turning round every now and then prudently lest the 
 ghosts should catch him unawares, he rides safely on, till 
 he comes within sight of Alloway Church, a celebrated ga- 
 thering place of the witches. "When lo ! the whole church 
 is in a blaze. This frightens' Tarn's horse, who stands, still, 
 but her owner, with all the bravery of a glass or two 
 too much, urges her on and peeps in. There a strange 
 sight presents itself to him. The devil himself is enthroned 
 in the midst of the church, playing the bag-pipes with aH 
 his might, while round him all the witches of the whole 
 country side hurry, and leap, and spring, in a fiendish 
 dance. The dead stand around in their open coffins, each 
 holding a light in the right hand, The other particulars of 
 the ghastly scene I need not diseribe. For a time Tarn looks 
 on in silence, while; Old Nick plays ever louder, and quicker, 
 and the dance becomes ever wilder and" madder. But as ill 
 luck would have it, among the hideous crew there, was 
 one pretty face, and that turned his head. It was Nannie, 
 who had joined the company for the first time that night, 
 and who outdid all the rest of, the dancers. At last, when 
 the riot is at the height, Tarn hollows out his applause. In 
 a moment all the lights, are extinguished, and the fiendish 
 crew rush out upon Tarn, with Nannie at their head. Away 
 rushes the horse with Tarn on her back, and the witches at 
 her heels. If she can get across the bridge, they are safe, 
 for witches and fiends cant pass running water. Just. as she 
 xeaches it, however, Nannie, who is far in advance of the 
 rest, catches her by the tail — • 
 
 But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
 Ae spring brought aff her master hail, 
 ' And left behind her ain grey tail. 
 
Robert Burns. 37 
 
 Such is a slight sketch of the story of Tarn o' Shanter. The 
 whole piece is written -with inimitable ' spirit and humour. 
 It is treated so realistically, that even the wild and unearthly 
 dance seems a simple matter of history. There are too 
 strange touches of pathos in the wild tale. Such are the 
 few lines the author addresses to Nannie. 
 
 A little kenn'd * thy reverend grannie, 
 The sark 2 she coft 3 for her wee 4 Nannie, 
 "Wi twa 5 pund 6 Scots (twas a' her riches) 
 "Wad ever grace a dance of witches. 
 In short, in variety, life, and artistic execution it takes a 
 high place among Burns's poems. 
 
 The Cotter's Saturday night is a strange contrast to 
 Tarn o' Shanter. It is the expression of the strict Calvinism 
 which has become a national characteristic of Scotland. 
 Burns has painted it, in this poem, with a very loving hand. 
 Saturday evening is an important time to the peasantry of 
 Scotland. The implements of work have been laid aside, 
 early in the afternoon, and the evening is spent in prepa- 
 ration for the Sunday. The various members of the family, 
 if possible, meet together, and the earnestness of the „Sab- 
 bath", without its painful strictness, seems to sanctify the 
 last hours of the week. It is clear that such a subject is 
 not unpoetical, but it owes a great part of its charm to 
 early associations. Perhaps no one but a Scotchman can 
 thoroughly enjoy this poem. I must confess, I am at a loss 
 to understand the rapture with which it is often spoken of. 
 Yet it is a poem of great beauty, one of the best idylls in 
 our language, but then our literature is not rich in idylls* 
 Putting the subject aside, and examining the execution 
 alone , we shall -find I think , that it has two great faults. 
 An idyll is, by its nature, as objective as an epic. Every in- 
 trusion of the authors person or opinion breaks the charm, 
 
 1 knew. 2 shirt. 3 bought. 4 little. 5 two. 6 pounds. 
 
38 Book I. Chapter HI. 
 
 because it is out of tone with, the rest of the picture. So 
 we find in the most beautiful of modern idylls, „Hennann 
 and Dorothea", and „Alexis and Dora", that the poet keep? 
 himself quite out of sight. Ho one could have done this 
 better than Burns had he been so inclined. He has done it in, 
 „the Jolly beggars", in „Hallowe'en<' , and in many other 
 poems. But in the „ Cotters Saturday night" he takes the tone 
 of Cowper, he preaches.and reflects. He tells us so often how 
 much he admires the Cotter and his family, that we ca'nt 
 help having an unpleasant feeling that perhaps they are 
 doing it all to be admired. The simple rustic grace of the 
 idyll is wanting. In fact, the subject was not exactly suited 
 to the character of Bums; he had too much of the gay, 
 sensuous nature of the artist about him to be a real CaU 
 vinist, or to sympathise deeply with the exaggerated idea-- 
 lity, and hard ascetism of that sect. But he was a peasant, 
 and he admired the honest, hard working, pious ways of his: 
 neighbours. He had gone to the dancing -school against his 
 father's will, he had lived for years in constant contention 
 with him because of his love for gaiety? yet he seems to 
 have looked on him as one of the best and noblest of man- 
 kind. His quick eye saw the various poetic beauties of the 
 Saturday evening, and he endeavoured to weave them into 
 a poem; but it was an endeavor, and not the natural out- 
 pouring of his heart. He seems to me, too, to have been 
 unfortunate in his choice of rhythm. The „Cotters Saturday 
 night" is written in the Spenserean stanza. This is a highly 
 complex and melodious form of verse excellently suited for 
 the aerial dreams of the fairy Queen, but much too artificial 
 for such a subject as this. In short, this poem, though it 
 has many beauties, does not seem to me nearly equal to the 
 best of his works. „Hallowe'en" shows what Burns could do 
 in this line when the subject suited him. It takes its name 
 from a Scotch festival, and the different customs are sketched 
 with great truth and humour. The satirical poems of Burns 
 
Eobert Bums. 39 
 
 were mostly personal, or directed against the church autho- 
 rities. They are terribly biting and cruel, and are pervaded 
 by. a rich vein of humor. To understand the bitterness of 
 hatred which they breathe, we must remember that the 
 church of Scotland was at that period, and alas in many 
 places still is , the most bigotted of sects. Buckle , who of 
 all English historians has the greatest grasp of mind and 
 width of reading, gives it as his deliberate opinion, that no 
 land in Europe, with the sole exception of Spain, is so so- 
 rely priestridden as Scotland. The authorities of the Kirk 
 endeavoured to crush Burns, so that he, is scarcely to be 
 blamed for holding up their names to eternal ignominy. Clo- 
 sely connected with but, infinitely superior to these poems is 
 the „ Address to theDeil", a tragicomical poem of great beauty 
 and power. Burns' s epigrams are, for the most part, weak 
 and pointless. „The jolly beggars" is an excellent picture of 
 low life. It is a series of songs connected by Bhort pieces 
 of narrative. The characters of the singers are finey distin- 
 guished by a few broad lines and simple touches, and the 
 songs are fine specimens of roaring merriment. 
 
 But it is as a lyric poet that Burns is greatest. As a 
 narrative, descriptive, and satirical poet he had predecessors, 
 and has had successors, who may dispute his right to the 
 highest place. As a song writer he stands alone. Chaucer is 
 not more surely the greatest of our tale-tellers, nor Sha- 
 kespeare more certainly the first of our dramatists, than 
 Burns is the greatest of our lyrical poets. In his songs 
 there is no struggle after effect, no rhetoric, no selfcon- 
 sciousness. They are simply songs, the expression of strong 
 natural feeling, and no more. This is what has made them 
 so widely popular. They are sung in every] Scotch cottage, 
 they are to be found beside the Bible on every peasant's 
 bookshelf, and were every copy of his works to be des- 
 troyed, all his songs might, I believe, in twenty years 
 time be collected by word of mouth from the Scotch pea- 
 
40 Book I. Chapter III. Eobert Burns. 
 
 santryj This cannot be said of any other English 'writer 
 and it is the highest praise that can be given to a lyric 
 poet. His songs sprung from the heart of the people, and 
 have entered so deeply into the national life, that it is al- 
 most as easy to imagine an England without Shakespeare, 
 as a Scotland "without Burns. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 1800 — 1830. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 We must now enter into an examination of our litera- 
 ture during the second period -which falls under our conside- 
 ration. This age may be said to begin with the century, and 
 to end with the death of Scott, in 1832, It differs in many 
 important respects from that which preceeded it. The latter 
 was, as we have seen, an age of struggle. The cold regularity 
 of the classical school had been attacked and conquered by 
 a few men of genius. This struggle had not, as in Germany, 
 been fonght by the critics, but by the. poets. ,They had des- 
 troyed the old taste by creating a new one; and it was not till 
 this taste had been embodied in works of art that the critics 
 declared in its favour. In Germany a single man, Lessing, 
 attacked and destroyed an absurd code of literary laws, and 
 set poetry free from the chains that had bound heri In Eng- 
 land the same work was done by Chatterlon, Percy , and 
 Cowper* But the way in which it was done was very diffe- 
 rent. Lessing measured the authbrs of the classical school by 
 the literature that they themselves had chosen, and found 
 them wanting. Percy appealed to another standard, and repub- 
 lished our ancient poems. He turned from Greece to the Eng- 
 land, of the Elizabethan and pre -Elizabethan age. Hence 
 the different directions which the two literatures took as soon 
 as they were freed from their trammels. That of Germany 
 passed through the lofty and somewhat highfLown verses of 
 Klopstock and the would-be classicism of "Wieland, to the 
 Grecian purity of Goethe. The first original productions 
 
44 Book II. Chapter I. 
 
 of our poetry, on the other hand, -were tales moulded on the 
 old metrical romances. "We had alas no Goethe to direct 
 and enobJ.e our poetry, to modify and moderate its excentri- 
 cities, to unite its beauties and to make it of European inte- 
 rest. And here we cannot help asking how it was that the 
 poets of this period chose the metrical romances rather than 
 the Elizabethan drama as their models. This question has, 
 I believe , never been satisfactorily answered. All I can do 
 is to throw out a few hints ou the subject. At first sight 
 their choice between the two literatures seems a strange one. 
 Our metrical romances, as a whole, are certainly not superior 
 to those of France and Germany, while our drama stands 
 alone. Perhaps this waB one of the very reasons that preven- 
 ted it being more widely imitated. The poets of the first 
 half of the present century could not hope to write plays 
 that could surpass, or even equal' those of Shakespeare and 
 his contemporaries; whereas they might well hope to write 
 poems- in a new or at least forgotten style that would deserve 
 and receive applause. But the real reason of their choice lay. 
 I believe, principally in the nature of their own talents and 
 character, and in the age in which they lived. The first of 
 these we shall examine when we come to speak of the great 
 poets separately, the second we' must now glance at for a 
 few minutes. In the Elizabethan age books had been scarce 
 and dear and but a small proportion of the inhabitants of 
 England could read and write. Yet the craving after intel^ 
 lectual food was deeper and more widely extended then, than 
 at almost any other period of our history. This was a neces- 
 sary result of the sudden changes which had been wrought 
 by the Eeformation. In England these changes had not, as 
 in Germany and Scotland, originated in the people. It was 
 the government of the country which had ordered that all 
 should be changed, and the people had looked on with a- 
 mazement while their churches were plundered, and the most 
 beautiful of pictures, and the holiest of relics were commit 1 
 
Introduction. 45 
 
 ted to the flames. The Queen of Heaven had been cast down 
 from her high place. The -priests whom they had loved and 
 reverenced, who had been their counsellors in difficulty and 
 their comforters in woe, were banished as traitors from the 
 shores of England. The monasteries, which had been the 
 granaries of the poor, had passed from the holy orders to 
 which they had belonged. The people had seen Sir Thomas 
 More led out to execution for holding doctrines which, but 
 a short time .before, none of them had doubted to be the 
 truth of God. Again, they had seen the fires of Smithfield 
 lighted, and the leaders of the reformation dying there. They 
 had seen the purest and the holiest of both parties seal their 
 testimony with their blood, and had heard them appeal from 
 their mortal judges to the same Gpd and the same Christ. 
 Such scenes could not but make the most eareless thoughtful. 
 It was this that caused the hunger after intellectual food of 
 which I have spoken. But, as I have already said,' books 
 were rare and dear. In the churches theological questions 
 were treated, and the churches were crowded; but the inte- 
 rest of the people was not confined to Theology. Hence the 
 influence of the theatres at that period, and the throngs 
 with which they were crowded. The age of Byron and Scott 
 was not entirely dissimilar to that of Shakspeare. Once 
 more the old and the new had met in a death-struggle. The 
 French monarchy had been overthrown, and it had dragged 
 down the church and aristocracy with it in its fall. A new 
 gospel had been proclaimed at Paris which had made a thou- 
 sand eyes beam brighter and a thousand hearts beat more 
 quickly. Prisoners had smiled in their dungeons, while 
 monarchs trembled on their thrones. A new truth had been 
 proclaimed, a new age was born. Hence we find that this 
 period was one of unusual intellectual activity in the whole 
 of the civilized world. But, in many respects, the age of 
 the reformation and that of the revolution were vastly diffe- 
 .rent. Only a few of these points of difference concern us 
 
46 Book II. Chapter I. 
 
 now. The commencement of the nineteenth century had 
 newspapers, magazines, reviews, and novels, the seven- 
 teenth century had none of these things. Hence the inte- 
 rest, which had formerly centred on the drama, was divi- 
 ded into a thousand chanels, and the theatre, of all intel- 
 lectual amusements, profited least by the newly awakened 
 interest. A few facts prove beyond a doubt that this was 
 the case. The dramatist was the only author, in the age jof 
 Elizabeth, Who could hope to live by the sale of his writings. 
 Any other poet had to seek out some rich nobleman or cour- 
 tier, who was willing to support a man of genius for the sake 
 of his genius alone, ■ or to pay a high price for a few pages of 
 graceful flattery. In the age of Scott play- writers were the 
 worst paid of literary drudges. The theatre, too, was no 
 longer looked upon with anything like the respect it had 
 once enjoyed. It was no longer respected as a teacher and 
 guide. It was considered at best but an innocent, and many 
 thought it a sinful amusement. Nor can this be wondered 
 at. The frivolity and ribaldry of the comic dramatists of 
 the Kestoration had desecrated the boards that the genius 
 of Shakspeare and Fletcher had once hallowed. But, though 
 this dislike to the theatre was excusable , it was not the less 
 injurious. Being looked upon as a mere luxury the theatres 
 became luxurious. Two great buildings took the place of the 
 19 playhouses, which had flourished in London in the age 
 of 'Elizabeth. There can be no doubt that these theatres 
 where much more commodious, and that their decorations 
 were much more splendid, than those of the old playhouses 
 had been. But to pay for tbJB> the prices of admission were 
 necessarily high. Thus it became impossible for the lower 
 and middle classes to frequent them as they had once done. 
 A visit to the play was considered a treat for special occa- 
 sions, an expense which could only be incurred once or 
 twice in the year. Thus the taste of the public was not edu- 
 cated as it had formerly been, This was an incalculable- 
 
Introduction. 47 
 
 loss, and it was attended by another of almost equal extent. 
 A play which took had often a ran of fifty or a hundred 
 nights, which would have been impossible if the same people 
 had frequently visited the theatre. Thus there was but a 
 small demand for new plays, and this demand has been 
 principally supplied by bad adaptations of old English plays 
 and French farces. This circumstance has, I believe, done 
 much to discourage our modern authors, and lias prevented 
 many of them trying their powers as dramatists. 
 
 Another evil has still to be mentioned. Almost all great 
 dramatists have been nearly connected with the stage. Those 
 of the Elizabethan age were, almost without an exception, 
 either actors themselves, or the constant companions of ac- 
 tors. The necessity of such an acquaintance with the stage 
 is evident from the number of great poets who, from want 
 of it, have been unable to master the technicalities of the 
 theatre. But in modem times it is almost impossible for an 
 English author of eminence to form such a connection. The- 
 position of authors in society has risen since the days of Eli- 
 zabeth. This is partly owing, no doubt, to the much larger 
 sums that are paid for literary work; but it is, in an equal 
 degree, to be attributed to the much higher request in which 
 literature stands among men of all classes. But the position 
 of our actors has altered for the worse, rather than the bet- 
 ter. They are excluded from society. The fact of a person 
 being on the stage is looked upon, by a great part of our 
 middle classes, as a disgrace, which can hardly be atoned 
 for by the union of the most brilliant genius, and the most 
 unsullied character. Hence men of taste and education shrink 
 from the profession of an actor, unless they are spured on to 
 it by the high instinct of genius. This has done much to 
 prevent our poets forming close connexions with the stage. 
 
 These are I think the principle reasons why no drama- 
 tist of high standing is to be found among our modern poets. 
 Since we have already entered, at such a length, into an exa- 
 
48 Book II. Chapter I. 
 
 mination of our modern stage, we may as well finish what 
 we have to say about it before going, farther. The English 
 stage has, I believe, sunk to a lower level than- that of either, 
 Germany or France. Hot that our greatest living actors may 
 not take a place beside those of other countries, but because, 
 the average play of our second or third rate actors is much 
 worse. In fact; our stage suffers from two great evils.. ; Thq, 
 management of a theatre is either looked upon as a purely 
 mercantile speculation, or it falls into the hands of a single 
 actor. The evils in, both cases are great and nearly the same. 
 The manager, in the first case, generally knows but little 
 of dramatic art, and in order to attract a large audience, 
 he engages one or two of the most popular actors he can 
 find. Their names are printed in large type on the play- 
 bills, plays are written and arranged to suit them, and: 
 the whole world goes not to see Othello, but to see M r sucib 
 a one as Jago, or Miss so and so as Desdemona. If the 
 manager be an actor we are not much better off. He is ge- 
 nerally a man of known and acknowledged talent, and he 
 supposes, rightly enough, that when we come to his theatre 
 we wish to see him. He consequently engages one or two* 
 actors and actresses of some celebrity, and gives the minof 
 parts to people who have about as much claim to the name 
 of actors as a signboard painter has to that of an artist. It. 
 follows , as a matter of course , that the less that is seen 
 of them the better, and the drama is cut down into little 
 more than a series of dialogues and monologues. Now every 
 great dramatist, when he writes a play, writes it as a whole. 
 Each character has its proper part, and all the parts are 
 well proportioned, and carefully put together. Nothing can 
 be left out, and nothing added without marring the effect. 
 This is the case with Shakespeare more than perhaps with 
 any other mo/dern writer-, except Goethe. Some of his dra- 
 mas cannot, for various reasons, be produced on the stage 
 as they were in his time, but no alteration should be under- 
 
Introduction. 49 
 
 taken without the greatest care and forethought. His plays 
 should not be treated as waste paper on which every bungler 
 may try his scissors. But we are perhaps still worse off when 
 the whole of the drama is given , for the minor characters 
 serve no purpose, in many London theatres, but that of 
 destroying the effect intended by the poet. It is this that 
 frightens many people of taste from our theatres, and makes 
 others prefer seeing farces and sensational pieces to the 
 great masterworks with which our literature is supplied. 
 To people of a sensitively refined taste it seems almost a des- 
 ecration to see Lear and Hamlet as they arc too often given 
 on the English stage. This is, I think, the reason why the 
 great dramas of the Elizabethan age are banished from our 
 theatres, to make room for third-rate French comedies , and 
 had dramatizations of sensational novels. Endeavours have 
 been made to stop the downward course of our theatres. Mac- 
 ready battled earnestly with the depraved taste of his day 
 and he did something to raise the tone of the theatre, but his 
 work died away almost as soon as he left the stage. Then 
 came Charles Kean who applied his great genius and refined 
 taste to the great end of reestablishing Shakspeare on the 
 stage., While' he was manager of the Princess's we could boast, 
 that there Was at least one theatre in London in which the 
 works of the greatest of our dramatists were produced un- 
 mangled, and so as not to offend the most fastidious taste. 
 But with his- retirement the effects of his long work passed 
 away, and our theatres seem now to have sunk to as low a 
 level as ever. ISor can we hope for a lasting improvment'un- 
 tfl the taste of the public 'has improved. I have already said 
 that in England the drama has almost ceased to be considered 
 an art, and that it is looked upon as at best a harmless way 
 of killing time ; yet no art has a larger scope or a higher 
 mission. It unites music, poetry, and painting. It gives life 
 to pictures, and form to words. A great part of the religious 
 
 public of England turns from it with disgust, and yet, pro- 
 Grant littcvaturo. A 
 
50 Book II. Chapter I. 
 
 perly employed, it would be the mightiest instrument of ef- 
 fecting the highest of their ends, -the education of the people- 
 We, hear constant complaints that, -while- the lower classe* 
 are being enticed and allured into schools and evening class*' 
 es, -while they are being crammed -with chemistry, and ma- 
 thematics, and immense sums are being spent on mechanics 
 institutes and libraries, their manners and morals remain 
 almost unaltered. As if a perfect acquaintance with the 
 elements must necessarily make a man a good father , or a 
 knowledge of equations prevent him beating his wife ! It is 
 a fact that all philantropists would do well to remember that 
 mere knowledge does nothing! towards refining the mind. That 
 is the province of Art; and lyrical and dramatic poetry are 
 the only branches of art which, in our age, can make any 
 deep impression on the_ mind of the people. I am convinced 
 that a series of good dramas, well acted, would do more to. 
 educate the people than a dozen courses of lectures, beneficial as 
 they doubtlessly are. "When, the English public learns thesei. 
 facts, when it ceases to look upon the drama as a frivolous, 
 amusement, and begins to reverence it as a high and holy 
 art, when our religious public has discovered that the theatre 
 is not the „devils chapel" but the temple of that which is 
 best and noblest in man ; when our actors begin to reverence 
 their calling, and discover how high their mission is, then-r- 
 and not till then — can we hope to have in England such man- 
 agers as Dingelstedt, ■ and actors that are worthy of such: a 
 manager. 
 
 The literature of England , during the first thirty years 
 of the, present century, was uncommonly brilliant. No period 
 in our history, with the one exception of the age of Eliza- 
 beth, has an equal number of poets to boast of. None of 
 them, it is true, were of the very first rank, but many- 
 stood high in the second. Byron and Scott have European 
 reputations, and Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats were scar- 
 cely inferior to them in poetical genius. In examining the 
 
Introduction. 5 J 
 
 works of these writers it will, I think, be better to devide 
 them into groups than to follow the strictly chronological 
 order. 
 
 We may de-vide them into three great groups, each of 
 which will be found to correspond with one of the leaders 
 of our literary reformation. The first consists of those poets 
 who chose heroic subjects, and who may be looked upon as 
 the followers of Percy. They turned away from common 
 everyday -life, and delighted in portraying distant lands and 
 ages. The second on the other hand confined themselves, 
 for the most part, to modern subjects. They were the intel- 
 lectual successors of Cowper. This school may be said to 
 have split into two. The one party, under the leadership of 
 Crabbe, (b. 1754. d. 1832) followed a realistic method. They 
 have had so slight an influence on our literature that they 
 will not claim any farther notice. Their great fault was that 
 they merely reproduced nature, without idealizing it. The 
 second party,, that of Wordsworth, after passing through 
 various phases, became, like Cowper, reflective or, as they 
 called themselves , philosophic poets. The third group , of 
 whom Chatterton may be considered the forerunner, indulged 
 in splendid and gorgeous dreams. They built, so to speak, 
 cloud -palaces, which were grand, beautiful, and unreal. 
 The first of these three groups was the most brilliant, and 
 gained the greatest, and most immediate popularity; the 
 last two have exerted by far the most permanent influence 
 over our poetry. 
 
 This classification is of course arbitrary, but it may 
 serve our purpose which is to get a clear view of the greatest 
 poets of the age. Each of the schools produced men who 
 were far greater than the poet of the last century whose 
 name we have connected with them; no one for instance 
 would, think of comparing Cowper with Wordsworth. There 
 are several poets with whom it is difficult to deal; the prin- 
 cipal of these is Coleridge who belonged to all three schools. 
 
 4* 
 
52 Book II. Chapter II. 
 
 We shall leave him in. the p}ace that is most frequently given 
 him — hy Wordsworth, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The first of the groups, into which we have divided 
 the poets of our second period contains Seott, Byron and 
 Mo ore. These poets,, though the difference between them is 
 wide, were more nearly related to each other than to any of 
 their contemporaries. We must now proceed to examine their 
 -works severally. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, the 15 th of 
 August 1771. He was sent, on account of ill health, while 
 very young, to live with his grand -father in the country. 
 Here the wild mountain -scenery, and the Border -tales and 
 ballads made a deep impression upon him. At the age of 
 thirteen he first read Perey's „Keliques", a book which v al- 
 ways remained a .great favourite of his. Scotts father was 
 a presbyterian , and the first of his verses which have been 
 preserved are of a religious cast. He was educated at the 
 High school and University of Edinburgh, after which he 
 studied for the bar, and was called in his twenty-first year. 
 His studies however did, not prevent him making frequent 
 journeys into the country during which he observed the man- 
 ners, and collected the legends and songs of the peasantry. 
 At this time the intellectual society of Edinburgh had be- 
 gun to take a deep interest in the literature of Germany. 
 Scott became more deeply interested in it than almost any 
 one else. He translated „Leonore" and the „Wild Huntsman" 
 in 1796. On the 24 th of December of the following year he 
 married Charlotte Margaret Carpenter a young lady of French 
 extraction. He still continued his German studies and in 
 1 799 he published a translation of „Goetz von Berlichiugon." 
 
Walter Scott. 53 
 
 His next work was the „Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border", a 
 collection of old songs and ballads, which he had gathered 
 in his frequent excursions. He soon after edited and publish 
 ed an old metrical romance, „Sir Tristrem". Thus we see 
 that three distinct influences had been , up to this time , ac- 
 ting on Scott's mind; they were firstly the ballad -literature 
 of the Border, with its heroism, tenderness and truth, secondly 
 the German literature, which was then in the flush of youth- 
 ful power, and lastly the old metrical romances, with their 
 wildly imaginative fancy and- grace. Under the influence of 
 these three his mind mas formed, and their influence over 
 the whole of our modern literature can hardly be estimated 
 too highly. 
 
 Scotts next work was an original poem, „The Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel", This poem at once raised him to a 
 high place among living poets. It is a border -story of the 
 sixteenth century. The tale partakes of the character both 
 of the metrical romance 1 and the ballad. It is more ornate 
 than the last, more simple forcible and natural than the first 
 usually were. Everywhere we find the skill in description, 
 and the music of rhythm, which were so peculiar to Scott. 
 These beauties ensured the poem an imense success. His 
 next work, „Marmion'' appeared in 1808. It wants the 
 unity of the „Lay", but it has passages of far higher beauty 
 than the earlier poem contains. The great fault of the poem 
 was pointed out by Jeffreys at its first appearance It lies 
 in the character of the hero. ITot that Marmion is falsely 
 drawn. Such characters may , and probably have existed. 
 It lies in its opposition to the character and tone of the 
 poem. The tale, like all Scott's stories, is full of the wild 
 heroism and chivalrous sense of honor which distinguishes the 
 literature of the middle ages. The hero of such a tale might 
 have committed any violent crime, he might have been cruel, 
 sensual, and revengeful, but he should not have been mean 
 and deceitful. The romance- writers of the middle ages taught 
 
54 Book II. Chapter II. 
 
 that courage and honesty, and fraud and cowardice went 
 together; and, though they were doubtless psychologically 
 wrong, they were aesthetically right in doing so. But Mar- 
 mion is a hero and a villain, a knight and a forger. Byron 
 translated this criticism into a series of biting epigrams. 
 
 „Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, 
 
 The golden - crested haughty Marmion, 
 
 Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, 
 
 Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, 
 
 The gibbet or the field prepared to grace, 
 
 A mighty mixture of the great and base. 
 
 Yet Marmion was a poem of great originality and 
 power. The description of the.battlefield and the death of 
 Marmion is one of the finest poetical passages of the kind in 
 our language. It was followed (1810) by the „Lady of the 
 Lake'' , which was still more popular than its predecessors. 
 The descriptions of scenery in this f)oem are more brilliant 
 and executed with greater skill than in either of ' the other 
 poems, and the story is interesting and well told; but the 
 characters want the distinctness and force of the earlier poems 
 with the one exception of Boderik Dhn, the Highland chief, 
 whose bravery honour and generosity are well drawn, and 
 powerfully contrasted with his inplacable hatred. He is one 
 of those characters which Byron delighted to draw dark, 
 gloomy and sublime as the m'ountains among which he moves. 
 The poems which followed are written in the same style, but 
 they are not to be compared with the first three. The Lord 
 of the Isles is the best of them. It is an attempt to tell the 
 story of Bruce but, with the exception of one or two brilliant 
 passages, the poem is scarcely worthy of its author. 
 
 As soon as Scott found that his poems began to pall on 
 the public taste/ and that his genius in verse was beginning 
 to wane , he resolved to abandon poetry forever. But he 
 had no intention of leaving off Writing. In 1814 he publish- 
 
Walter Scott. 55 
 
 ed his first prose romance , jjWaverly". This novel is a tale 
 of Scotch life during the insurrection' of 1745. The subject, 
 style and characters were entirely new. No more striking 
 scene or time could have been chosen. The rugged mountains 
 of the Scotch highlands, the half patriarchal, half feudal man- 
 ners of their inhabitants , and the wild pomp and chivalrous 
 devotion of the clans were new to English readers. The time 
 too was one of the most strikingly romantic in the history of 
 Scotland. It was the last gathering of the clans, the last 
 hopeless but chivalrous struggle of the house of Stuart to 
 regain its birthright. The period was one of glaring con- 
 trasts. It was as if the middle ages , with their enthusiasm, 
 loyalty, and well marked individuality, had declared war 
 with the civilization , the science , and organization of mo- 
 dern times. There could be no doubt that the new must be 
 victorious over the old> and it was well that it should be so, 
 but few can help.sympathizing with the heroism and self devo- 
 tion of the weaker party. The time too was sufficiently distant 
 to have cooled down all party hatred and yet near enough to 
 have something 1 of modern interest. Many were still alive 
 who could remember the hope or fear with which they heard 
 that the highlanders were on the march, and that the ban- 
 ner of the Stuarts was once again unfurled. But they were 
 old men now, new interests had banished the old question 
 from their minds , and they looked back at it as one of the 
 dreams of their youth. The whole style of the novel was very 
 different to any that had gone before it. "We had had great 
 novelists before. The names of Fielding, Sterne and Smollet 
 will be remembered, and their works will be read as long 
 as the English language endures. But their tales are for the 
 most part humourous and they are confined to private life. No 
 great historical event had before the time of Scott been treat- 
 ed by a novelist of genius. In "Waverley all the heroism 
 and enthusiasm, all the high interests and passions which had 
 before been confined to the tragedy were brought into play, 
 
56 Book. II. Chapter' II. 
 
 and toned down and contrasted witk passages of refiriediand 
 delicate humor. Besides the spirilof Waverley was very dif- 
 ferent to that of our earlier novelists. It breathed the chi- 
 valrous feelings of. its heroes. Their loyalty, generosity, and 
 love of danger for its own sake seemed to be as much parte 
 of the authors character as of their own. His interest in 
 them seemed to be the sympathy of a kindred nature. All 
 these things contributed to. make the book universally popu- 
 lar. . Old men still remember how eagerly it was bought and 
 rea,d by people of all classes. Scott had not affixed his name 
 to it from fear that his poetical fame might be endangered 
 by an attempt in an entirely new branch of literature , and 
 he kept up his incognito. A long series of prose romances 
 followed Waverly and occupied his time from 1814 to 1831. 
 Scott had in his own character something of the romance he 
 delighted in depicting. Born himself of an old, though not 
 of a noble family, he longed to be the father of a race whidji 
 might take its place among the old Border- families. "Witii 
 this view he had engaged in a printing and publishing spec- 
 ulation which, never brought him much money. I^ow, with 
 the proceeds of his novels, he bought a princely estate* He 
 spent about £ 35,000 in the purchase of land, and mor« 
 than £ 5000 in improving it. He then built' his celebrate|I 
 mansion Abbotsford which certainly did not cost less than 
 £ 20,000. Here he lived in a princely style „doing the ho- 
 nours for all Scottland." His house was crowded with guesljs 
 whom he entertained as if he had been the richest noblemati 
 in the country. In 1820 George IY conferred on him the ha-j 
 nour of the Baronetcy. At this time he used to rise early 
 and devote his mornings to writing, the rest of the day hfl 
 spent, in riding round his estate and superintending improve- 
 ments, .or in the company of his guests. Yet he never exi 
 ceeded his: income, and this income was almost entirely th^ 
 product of his literary labours. Every ihing that he had de- 
 sired now seemed to be within his reach, and he could look 
 
Walter Scott. 57 
 
 forward with all but certainty to the fulfilment of his hopes. 
 In 1825 however the bankruptcy of Constable brought losses 
 of £ 60,000 on the poet. On the following year the publish- 
 ing speculation in which he had been engaged failed and he 
 found himself in debt to the amount of & 117,000. This was 
 a heavy blow to Scott, but he bore it nobly, he refused to 
 make any composition with his creditors and declared his in- 
 tention of paying the whole sum, demanding only time to do 
 it in. He sold his town house in Edinburgh and retired 
 to Abbotsford, where he now lived very simply. In four 
 years he had paid off the sum of £ 70,000. 
 
 The first great work which he thus wrote under the pres- 
 sure of necessity was the Life of Napoleon. This book ex- 
 cited great expectation in the whole of Europe. The English 
 government had, it was said, supplied the materials. Scott would 
 now furnish a masterpiece , it was supposed , which would 
 throw all his former works into the shade. The wisest, it 
 is true, shook their heads. They remembered that Scott was 
 an Englishman and a Tory ; and they hinted that his preju- 
 dices were stronger than those of any great living author. 
 Some indeed whispered that he had been bought by the go- 
 vernment, others answered that there had been no need of 
 buying. The public had not long to wait; in a year the work 
 appeared. It is needless to say that it was a complete failure. 
 No life of Napoleon could then have been written which 
 would have satisfied all, or perhaps any party. The time 
 was not then, perhaps it is not yet come, when this man 
 could be fairly judged, and Scott was of all men the most 
 unfitted for the task. By birth he was a Scotchman, by in- 
 clination an antiquarian, in feelings and politics a Tory. 
 How could a man who had spent his life in casting the bright 
 est hues of romance over the history of the past, whose 
 great aim in life it had been to found a family which at some 
 distant period might take its place among the aristocracy, 
 and who. was even now working like a slave to pay off with 
 
58 Book II. Chapter II. 
 
 mercantile exactness a debt which the strictest moralist 
 would never have blamed him for compounding, sympathise 
 with this wonder of the nineteenth century, this Titan child 
 of the revolution, who trampled with equal carelessness on 
 the crowns of kings and the rights of nations ? He was un- 
 fitted, alike by his virtues and his weaknesses, for doing so. 
 Nor could he understand even the circumstances in which 
 Napoleon had been placed. The wild enthusiasm of the re- 
 volutionists Was incomprehensible to him. He shrank from 
 it as from an infectious madness. He could not see that the 
 great leaders of the- revolution were men who were intox- 
 icated with an idea, who were fighting desperately for a 
 hope which, if it was distant and unachievable, was at least 
 noble and pure. Scott approaches this giant representative 
 of the revolution, this incarnation of the French people with 
 a look of puzzled wonder, he measures him with his little 
 foot-rule and finds him wanting, he judges him by the laws 
 against which his whole life had been a protest and finds him 
 guilty. All this was riatural — unavoidable, but Heine very 
 justly remarks that it was strange that so clever a portrait- 
 painter as Scott should not have been able to give a clear 
 idea even of the external appearance of Napoleon. Yet per- 
 haps after all even that was natural, and, though we may 
 regret Scott's failure, we shall hardly blame him for it. 
 
 The life of Napoleon was followed by several new no- 
 vels which, though greatly inferior to the earlier volumes 
 of the series, were received with great applause by the pub- 
 lic. These works brought in money and Scott had reason to 
 hope that his debts would soon be paid, and that he should 
 be able to return again to the way of life which he had found 
 so congenial. But his constitution, though remarkably strong, > 
 could not support the amount of mental exertion which he 
 had undergone. In 1830 he had an attack of paralysis and, 
 from that time, his health continued to decline. He would not 
 Jiowever give up his literary labours until he became too 
 
Walter Scott. 59 
 
 weak to continue them. In 1831 he went to Italy, in the 
 hope that a change of air and scene might benefit his health. 
 It came too late. He returned to Abbotsford only to die. He 
 breathed his last on the 21 8t of September 1832. 
 
 On considering Sir Walter Scott's works as a whole, 
 the first thing that strikes us is their healthy moral tone. 
 Their purity is no doubt partly owing to the age in which 
 he lived. A hundred, nay fifty years before, a lady who 
 could not read or write was no curiosity, good spelling was 
 looked upon with suspicion, and a young lady who read 
 much was sure to get the character of a pedant, and to be 
 shunned as a blue - stocking. Swift, Fielding and Sterne 
 wrote for men alone, so they wrote loosely. As soon as the 
 education of ladies improved, and they began to read the no- 
 vels of the day , the tone of works of imagination improved. 
 All looseness of thougt or expression was banished from our 
 lighter literature , so that Scott is deserving of no particular 
 praise on that account. But seven other devils, worse than 
 the former, seemed to have taken the place of the one that 
 was cast out. I believe that there never was a period, except 
 that which immediately succeeded the restoration, in which 
 our literature was so beset with unhealthy influences as it 
 was during the first part of the present century. Egotistical- 
 misanthropy and, overstrained sentimentality walked hand in 
 hand. On one side their was a deification of crime, on the 
 other a sickly delicacy that would not believe that vice exis- 
 ted. Here Atheism strutted her little hour upon the sta- 
 ge , there a piety which was scarcely less blasphemous stood 
 praying at the corners of the streets. Everywhere there 
 was cant and hypocrisy. Of all these moral diseases Scott 
 was singularly free. The moral tone of his writings is al- 
 ways manly and open. He calls right and wrong by their 
 proper names. He paints men as they . are , neither angels 
 nor devils , and does not preach about them. He had none 
 of the unhealthy love of paradox which marred the works of 
 
60 Book n. Chapter II. 
 
 Byron and many others among his contemporaries. These 
 are moral qualities •which can scarcely be praised too highly. 
 He has had his reward. ' His books are in every Jibrary and 
 on every table, and they have done more to educate the 
 young, people of England than all other works of fiction ta- 
 ken together. 
 
 When we look at them critically and from an aesthetical 
 point of view , we find that, spite of the great power and 
 the many beauties of his writings, we cannot give him a 
 place among the very greatesfrof our poets. No poet, not 
 even Shakespeare or Goethe, ever showed a greater power in 
 grouping his characters. They are arranged naturaly and yet 
 with the clearest possible perception of effect. They are con- 
 trasted with a masterly skill and placed amid scenes exactly 
 fitted to be the back-grounds of such groups. In what art- 
 ists call the massing of colour he is unsurpassed. The tale 
 runs on through a ceaseless variety of incident. Scene suc- 
 ceeds scene in unending variety, yet there is no dissonanoe, 
 no glaring want of harmony. He is not, it is true, a polished 
 writer, nor are the various details studied and elaborated 
 with the untiring patience of Hawthorne. He loves broad 
 effects, he delights like Eubens in firm, forcible lines. la 
 the description of scenery, too, he has never been surpassed. 
 His pictures have almost geographical truth. Yet they have 
 none of the tedious minuteness which often wearies us in 
 other writers. He knows what to say and what to leave un- 
 said. Above all, his pictures both of men and things are 
 distinct. They stand out clearly from the canvas, their out- 
 lines are sharp, and their colouring well marked. This is one 
 of the things which separate him so widely from the writers 
 of the romantic school, who were his German contempora- 
 ries — from De laMotte Fouque for example. If we compare 
 the „Zauberring" with „Ivanhoe", for example, we find that 
 the effect which the German romance produces is caused for 
 the most part by the. sentiments and feelings which are the 
 
Walter Seott. 61 
 
 ground -tone of the tale. The scenes and figures are bathed 
 in the rosy hues of sunset, and the dim twilight of evening. 
 It is this dim religious light , this indistinctness which gives 
 ■the story its indescribable charm. Its beauty, Hke that 
 of a fairy tale, of the Arabian nights for example, owes 
 much to its distance from us. Scotts novel, on the other 
 hand, and it is far from being his best, fascinates by the rea- 
 lism of his treatment. He conjures up the middle ages and 
 places them before us , and we are surprised and pleased to 
 find that they were so like our own. The object of Scott too 
 was quite different from that of the German romantic sohooL 
 He tried to reproduce the past as it had really been, and 
 drew his materials from old chronicles, antiquities, and bal- 
 lads. They endeavoured to reconstruct the ideal of chivalry 
 and Catholicism as it was embodied in the chivalrous roman- 
 ces and other poems of those ages. It is this pieturesque- 
 ness, this sharpness which makes Scott such a favourite with 
 artists. „His novels are a series of pictures", an English pain- 
 ter once said to me, „and it is hard to say whether he is grea- 
 test in landscape or history." 
 
 Yet, as I have said, Scott does not belong to our very 
 greatest poets. His characters are forcibly and truely drawn. 
 "We know Marmion, Eebecca, Meg Merriles, and Domine 
 Samson as well as we know our everyday acquaintances, but 
 we know them no better. We should recognise them if we 
 met them in the streets , but we have not looked into their 
 hearts , we have not sat in judgement on their most secret 
 thoughts; we know what they are, but we do not know how 
 they became so. Who ever knew his dearest friend as well 
 as he knows Macbeth, Jago and Desdemona ? Who ever look- 
 ed so deeply into the heart of his sister, or his wife, as he 
 has into the hearts of Gretchen, Glarchen, and Otilia? The 
 characters of our nearest friends and relations are riddles to 
 us. In the works of the greatest artists the riddle is solved. 
 In those of Scott it is merely stated. He is a mighty, per- 
 
62 Book n. Chapter H. 
 
 haps the mightiest of magicians but he is no God. He can 
 conjure up and command a thousand forms , but he cannot 
 create and reveal. This is, I think, what Carlyle means 
 when he says that he paints his characters from without in- 
 wards, that he paints first the clothes, then the form, then 
 the manners, and last of all, or sometimes not at all, the 
 hearty that he makes the man to fit the clothes, instead of 
 the clothes to fit the man. 
 
 Closely connected with this weakness is his inability to 
 express passion. He can describe it wonderfully, with a 
 truth, power and simplicity that have seldom been equaled, 
 but as soon as he must express it his power fails him. Hence 
 his lyric poems , except when they are descriptive , are for 
 the most part, failures. Some ballads in the old English 
 manner are dashed off with extraordinary force and spirit. 
 The Young Lochinvar has more of the character of our old 
 poetry than any other modern poem. But as soon as he at- 
 tempts a purely lyrical subject he gets beyond his depth. In 
 short, Scott, though skilled beyond all his English contem- 
 poraries in dramatic effect, in the description of characters, 
 and in, fertility of imagination, cannot claim the place, that 
 has too often been assigned him, among poets of the highest 
 rank. ■■' 
 
 C h a p t e r m. 
 
 In our last chapter we had to do with the works of 
 Scott. "We found that they were distinguished by their great 
 power of painting the outside of life, but that he had not the 
 power of expressing deep paBsion. His works- are distin- 
 guished by variety , and dramatic arrangement , but he sel- 
 dom , if ever, speaks words which- go directly to the, heart. 
 In these respects he is almost the exact opposite of Lord By- 
 
i Byron. 63 
 
 ron. Indeed, it .has. been said, that the latter poet had all 
 that Scott wanted, and wanted all that he possessed. "With- 
 in certain bounds this is the case. They are the two poets 
 of this age who had most immediate and universal success. 
 I doubt whether they were the greatest poets of the period, 
 but they certainly understood and embodied the spirit of 
 their time better than any of their contemporaries. This is 
 the reason why we have examined their works before those 
 of the other poets of their age. 
 
 Byron was born in London on the 22 n<1 of January 1788. 
 Though descended of an ancient and noble house, he was not 
 born to wealth. His father had been a spendthrift and 
 was separated from his wife. Lady Byron had not more than 
 £ 150 a year on, which to live with her son. But this was 
 not his only misfortune. He had been born lame, and much 
 of his sensitiveness may be attributed to this defect. Nor 
 was his mother qualified to educate such a son. Passionate 
 and thoughtless, she alternately smothered him with carresses, 
 and taunted him with his lameness. Before he was five yeara 
 old he had learnt to wince under the taunt, and, to the end 
 of his life, he could not bear to hear his deformity mention- 
 ed* At the death of his grand-uncle he succeeded to the 
 title and estate of the family. He was then sent first to 
 a private school, and afterwards to Harrow. But in his hol- 
 idays he returned ever and again to Kewstead-abbey, the house 
 of his ancestors. This building made a deep impression on 
 his mind, and long afterwards , when his boyish hopes had 
 all been wrecked and he himself was exiled by public opinion 
 from his native land , he dwelt lovingly on his old home. 
 
 Here the young poet loved to linger and to muse. Pre-i 
 vented by his lameness from mixing in the games of his school- 
 fellows, he became a thoughtful and rather dreamy boy ; and 
 Sfewstead - abbey was a place well fitted to dream in. Here 
 too occured an event which, in his own opinion, made a 
 deep impression on his life, and which was the subject of 
 
64 Book II. Chapter in. 
 
 Some of his most beautiful poems. In 1 803 he spent his va- 
 cation in the country. He was then 15 years old. Near 
 Newstead abbey -was. the estate of the Chaworths, and he 
 was a frequent guest at Ahnesley, their family - residence. 
 Through neighbours the families had not always been friends. 
 Indeed the last Lord Byron had killed the head of the Cha- 
 worths' house in a duel. Miss Ghaworth, the daughter and 
 heiress of this gentleman, was the poets senior by about two 
 years. She was known in the whole country round for her 
 beauty. Byron saw and fell in love with her. He followed 
 her about wherever he could. She seems not to have dis- 
 liked her boy admirer, but then he was a b o y. She liked 
 Mm, played with him, chatted with him, and laughed at him. 
 Things went on in this way for a time , but they were des- 
 tined to come to a sad end. As he stood one evening beneath 
 her window, he heard her say to her maid-servant, who 
 had been teasing her about him. „Do you think I care 
 anything for that lame boy?" The speech, he said, was like 
 a shot through -his heart; and long afterwards he wrote, 
 ^Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had 
 been shed .by our fathers, it would have joined lands broad 
 and rich, it would have joined at least one heart and two 
 persons not ill matched in years , and — and what has been 
 the result?" In his later years he looked back to the boyish 
 day-dream which was so cruelly dispelled as the turning point 
 of his life. I do not think that it was really so important> 
 an event as he supposed it to be. He was too proud and 
 sensitive ever to have been a happy man. But when looking 
 back on the storms and troubles of a life that had not been 
 wisely spent, when reviewing the shipwrecked hopes of his 
 youth, and the feverish pleasures of his later years, it was 
 natural that he should love to dwell on that happy day-dream 
 of his boyhood, and sigh, if that had only ended otherwise 
 how different it all might have been. 
 
 In 1805 he left Harrow and entered Trinity college 
 
Byron. 65 
 
 Cambridge, Two years later he published his first work: 
 *,Hours of Idleness." This book is a collection of lyrical 
 poems. Taken as a whole, the verses are neither much bet- 
 ter, nor much worse than those most boys write at that age. 
 The verse is not bad, but there is little or nothing of the 
 nervous force^ which distinguished Byron's later poems, about 
 it In the thought and feeling expressed there is little orig- 
 inality. The poems are, for the most part, common -place 
 imitations of older writers. Loch na (Jarr has it is true 
 kept its place in our memories, and deserves to do so, bat 
 it owes much to the name of its author. 
 
 Spite, the weakness and insignificance of these poems, 
 many traces of Byron's character are to> be found in them. 
 He is here, as always, the hero of his verses. Every lyric 
 poet must of course write subjectively, he must speak in the 
 first person, and so on. Every real poet too, whether lyrical 
 or not, will often weave scenes and feelings from his own life 
 into his verse. His life is the material ftjpm which his poems 
 must be fashioned. He cannot be blamed for using this 
 material, as all poets before him have done, but then he 
 must remember that it is raw material. It is the ore which 
 contains the gold not the gold itself. It must be purified 
 and refined in the fire of, thought, before it really becomes 
 poetical. It is the thoughts and feelings of the poet, not his 
 person and circumstances , which should interest us. Part 
 of this Byron afterwards learnt. He learnt to distinguish the 
 poetical from the unpoetical, but he always remained the 
 hero of his verses, and in these, his earlier poems, he con- 
 stantly reproduces thoroughly unpoetical incidents merely be- 
 cause they have a personal connexion with himself. He 
 gives us two rhymed histories of his family; he tells us how 
 he played, fought, and acted at school, and is-careful to add 
 that he was applauded in Lear , and he' does not smooth and 
 shape the scenes into form, or illumine them with a glow of 
 passion, as he did in after-life. He tells us all in a boast- 
 Grant litterature. r , 
 
66 Book n. Chapter HI. 
 
 ful tone, and minutely, as if it must needs interest us. In 
 short the „Hours of Idleness" is, as I have already said, as 
 foolish and vain a series of poems, as most young men write 
 — and publish , if they are unfortunate enough to have an 
 opportunity. The book might have sunk quietly into ob- 
 livion, as most such books do, but, unfortunately, a 
 copy fell into the hands of Lord Brougham. Jle seems to 
 have been nettled by the arrogance of the preface , for he 
 Wrote a criticism -.of ihe work for the Edinburgh Eeview, 
 to which he was then a. contributor. The cristicism does not 
 seem to me to have been unjust, but it was bitter, much 
 bitterer than it would have been if undeserved. It cut By- 
 ron to the quick, and he resolved to be revenged, but he 
 could not discover who was the author of the article in ques- 
 tion. Some attributed it to Croker, some to Scott, some to 
 other authors of the day. He did not however allow this 
 difficulty to , deter him. As he could not find out who his 
 enemy was, he resolved to chastise every living author of 
 note, of whose innocence he was not convinced. In this 
 spirit „English bards and Scotch Reviewers" was written. 
 This satire appeared in 1809. The most cursory glance shows 
 the progress which Byron had madein two years. The verse 
 is ringing, the style clear and sharp, the wit biting, and 
 the tone that of a proud man justly angry, not that of a con- 
 ceited boy wishing to show off. The poem deserves a high 
 place in our satirical literature, and is likely to be remem- 
 bered longer than many better works of the kind. It is the 
 fate of most satires to be forgotten with the follies which 
 they ridicule, and most follies pass quickly away to make 
 room for new ones. The Dunciad, masterly as it is, is sel- 
 dom read with pleasure in our own days, because we know 
 but little of the miserable scribblers, whose absurdities Pope 
 immortalized in it. But in ^English Bards and Scotch Review- 
 ers" Byron attacks men with whose works every educated 
 man is familiar. Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other 
 
Byron. 67 
 
 poets, whose poems -will be read as long as our language en- 
 dures, are the heroes of his satire, and every point against them 
 tells as well to 'day as when the book was first published. 
 The strangest thing in the satire is, that in it Byron declared 
 himself ; an adherent of the classical school. We have al- 
 ready traced the struggle between it and a purer taste. At 
 the commencement of the 19 th century it was all but dead 
 in poetry, but in criticism it still continued to exist. Now 
 it is not strange that Byron, when declaring war against' all 
 living poets, should be glad to avail himself of the partisanship 
 of the classical writers. He was bound to them, by a common 
 hatred. But it is strange that, when he had become recon- 
 ciled to his old enemies, when he had written works which 
 were moulded on the very principles which he had formerly 
 combatted, he should still continue to praise and defend the 
 very school to which he himself had given the death-blow. 
 Macaulay believes his admiration to have been sincere. He 
 thinks that through his whole life he broke the laws which 
 J he himself believed to be just, from a love of praise. It may 
 have been so, but may we not in part attribute this contra- 
 diction between his works and his opinion to his pride? Is 
 it not possible that he may have been unwilling to declare 
 himself in the wrong, and still more unwilling to confess 
 that his admiration of Pope had never been genuine, and 
 that he therefore praised Pope and Dryden so loudly; that 
 he at last became a believer in his own praise. 
 
 English Bards and Scotch reviewers was a great success 
 for a young poet; yet it was, I think, unfortunate that he 
 published it. It devided him from the greatest of his con- 
 temporaries. It placed a great gulf between him and -men 
 who could have helped and guided him. After its publica- 
 tion he stood alone, and though this position may have been 
 gratifying to his pride, it was in many ways injurious to 
 him. He himself confessed long afterwards, when he had be- 
 
 5* 
 
68 Book H. Chapter III. 
 
 come the friend of many of those whom he had attacked, 
 that it had been a thorn in his side ever since its publication. 
 
 During the years 1809, 1810,* and 1811 he made* 
 journey through Spain, Ghreeee, and Turkey. The literary 
 results of this journey were the two first Cantos of Child* 
 Harold's Pilgrimage, and a series of lyrical verses which are 
 now included in his Occasional Poems. The part of ChiMe 
 Harold which he had already finished he published in 1812. 
 Childe Harold, the hero of the poem , is a young,, ill edu- 
 cated nobleman who, sated with the dissipations -of England, 
 sets out on his wanderings tbrtfugh the Continent. He is 
 proud and gloomy, but gifted with an exquisite perception 
 of the beauties of nature, and this poem consists of a series 
 of his musings. The mountains and valleys of Spain with the 
 muleteer singing as he passes slowly among them , the hills 
 and plains of Greece with their thousand memories, the 
 wide forests of Arcanania with the wild soldier groups revel- 
 ing among them, and the deep blue sea — > Byrons favourite 
 theme, are all shortly and graphically painted, and over all 
 is thrown, like the gloomy lurid light of an approaching 
 thunderstorm, the melancholy pride of the hero and his 
 dreary hopelessness. The rhythm which the poet chose is 
 the Spenserian stanza, a form of verse excellently suited to 
 the subject. 
 
 "No poem of. such force and originality had appeared 
 in England since the death of Milton. It had an immense 
 success and it deserved it. It was exactly suited to the 
 spirit of the age. Of the gloomy melancholy which is com- 
 mon to it and all the other poems of its author, I intend to 
 speak hereafter. "We have now to do with the descriptions 
 of scenery which occupy the greatest part of the poem. "We 
 shall see, when we come to the poetry of "Wordsworth, Keats, 
 and Shelley, that the. commencement of the present century 
 was marked by an intense enjoyment of the beauties of na- 
 ture. Poets^of all ages have loved woods and mountains, the 
 
Byron. 69 
 
 bright flowers of spring and the deep tints of autumn, and 
 they have introduced them into their poems. But our old 
 poets used them as illustrations alone.' They described ladies 
 gathering flowers , but the flowers were only the ornaments 
 of the lady ; they told of dark forests and rocky hillsides, 
 but these were only used as the background for their pictu- 
 res of knights and magicians. But in the age of which we 
 are now speaking nature was described for its own sake alone. 
 "Wordsworth introduced his characters very often merely to 
 increase the charm of his landscapes. 
 
 Byron was not nearly so thoroughly acquainted with 
 nature *s Wordsworth. He could not paint the subtle ever 
 changing beauty of natural landscapes with anything like the 
 exactness of the lake-poet. But he made nature instinct with 
 passion. He filled it with human emotions. He used it as 
 a symbol of the soul. That is what makes „Childe Harolds 
 Pilgrimage" so universally comprehensible, and bitterly as 
 Byron hated Wordsworth, Macaulay is doubtless right in 
 saying that he interpreted him to the people. The success of 
 the poem was immediate , and, as he himself said, he awoke 
 one morning and found himself famous. 
 
 Passing a few unimportant pieces we now come to his 
 Eastern tales. These poems have much in common with the 
 metrical romances of Scott. The form is nearly the same ; 
 though Byron's tales are shorter, and their rhythm more va- 
 ried. Eastern life, with its gorgeous colouring and strange 
 customs, was to Byron, what the history of the middle ages 
 was to Scott. It was his peculiar province — the land of 
 dark passion and mystery, in which every thing was pos- 
 sible. This series of tales began with the Giaour. It is a tale 
 of love and wrong avenged by a deeper wrong. The scene 
 is the Orient with its thousand strange and fantastic forms, 
 with the mosque and the convent standing side by side, and 
 peopled with monks and robbers, with lovely maidens and 
 turbaned warriors, and amid them all moves the Giaour, with 
 
70 Book II. Chapter in. 
 
 his despairing frown and hopeless loneliness. The poem is 
 a series of fragments, now a burst of passion, and then a 
 description of scenery, or a hurried sketch of an event; yet 
 the impression made is deep and clear. 
 
 The Giaour was followed by a long series of tales of the 
 same class. These are the writings in which Byron approach- 
 eses Scott most nearly, yet here the difference between the 
 poets is most clearly marked. The Lady of the Lake and 
 Marmion attract us by^the variety of their characters, and 
 the wildness of their adventures. These: tales move us by the 
 depth of their passion. Scott delights in heroic acts , Byron 
 in fearful crimes. Scott was a masterly painter , he could 
 portray the outside of every character. Each of hds persons 
 is individualised by a thousand little, but exact touches^ each 
 apparently insignificant yet each important in its place. The 
 Highland Chieftain, and the Southern knight are distinguish 
 hed by their very language. Byron had none of this power. 
 His poems are wild bursts of passion and dispair. His heroes 
 differ only in their circumstances, alter these, and the Cor- 
 sair becomes the Giaour, and the Giaour the Corsair. But this 
 one character is drawn with masterly depth and power. He 
 is a strong , brave man , bound by no laws , but capable at 
 once of acts of astonishing generosity and of fearful crimes. 
 His heart is a volcano- of passion, of undoubting inexhaus- 
 tible love and of implacable hatred. He scorns the world, 
 and is engaged in a ceaseless contest with it — a contest in 
 which he is forever vanquished, The heroines are fitting 
 companions for such men — women , capable of boundless, 
 passionate, unthinking love , but capable too of hatred. as 
 passionate — maidens who will perish for their lovers withi 
 out a sigh, but who have daggers hid beneath their robes 
 for the faithless lover, or the hated rival. Such characters are 
 doubtless unreal, but the passion they express is real. As 
 soon as Scott's heroes begin to express deep feeling they be- 
 come common place, and we begin to doubt their sincerity; 
 
Byron. 71 
 
 as' soon as Byron's characters speak of their love or hatred, 
 we forget that they are unnatural, we forget that the plot 
 is unreal, and we are carried away by their joy and anguish 
 — by their love and dispair. Byron wrote very quickly. 
 His tales are impassioned monologues. Their tone never al- 
 ters, except that the gloom deepens towards the end, while 
 Scott's tales are full of contrasts of light and shade. Scott 
 was in fact the story-teller, Byron the prophet. 
 
 These tales established their authors fame as a poet. He 
 was now the darling of English society. Men of all par- 
 ties and creeds united in praising him. The highest ladies 
 in the land agreed in flattering him. Whatever he said 
 was admired; whatever he wrote was eagerly readf His 
 slightest acts were noted and imitated. "Whatever he wore 
 became fashionable. He was a perfect gentleman, a light, 
 witty and agreeable companion, but the people of that age 
 saw more in him than that. They persisted in confound- 
 ing him with his poetical creations. He was in their eyes 
 the Giaour, the Corsair and Childe Harold. They beheld 
 the man for whose sorrows they had wept living and mov- 
 ing before them, and they fell down at his feet and wor- 
 shiped him. It it a pleasant thing to be worshiped, and 
 he assumed the character they forced upon him. Nor was 
 this adoration confined to literary circles , or to the society 
 in which he was accustomed to move. In distant villages, 
 among the middle classes , and in religious families , where 
 poetry and fiction were in general forbidden, his poems 
 were to be found. Dissenting ministers who looked on 
 poetry as a sin prayed for him, as if he had been their 
 own son. Tillage maidens, who had seldom read any book 
 but the Bible , hid his verses under their pillows. The 
 wife of one clergyman of the church of England wrote a 
 prayer for him, which she repeated every morning and eve- 
 ning. In short,- all England united in flattering and prais- 
 ing a young man of 26 years old. It is difficult for us to 
 
72 Book II. Chapter III. 
 
 understand this enthusiasm, but -those who have read Byron's 
 poetry when young can form at least some idea of it. Now 
 that we can look at his character coolly, that we know his 
 weakness, bis littleness, and bis vsinity, we feel that such 
 admiration was absurd. It was soon to come to an end. On 
 the 2 ad of January 1 8 1 5 he married Miss Milbank. That was 
 a blow to popular admiration. It robbed Byrons character of 
 much of its romance. He had been looked upon as the hero 
 pf his own poems, and we must confess that it, was rather 
 strange that the Giaour should leave his cell and be married 
 at church, in a common-place way, like other people. Had 
 he committed a great and daring crime, it would not have been 
 out of keeping with his imaginary character. But a common- 
 place marriage was so unromantic that he eould no more be 
 looked upon as a noble, broken hearted hero. The best that 
 could be hoped from him was that he would become a good 
 matter of fact husband. "But even this was not to be. Byron 
 could not have found a wife more unsuited to him than Miss 
 Milbank. She was a well educated, but passionless woman, 
 with no taste for poetry, but with some inclination to math- 
 ematical studies. Strict , exact , and highly respectable and 
 methodical, she was the opposite of the poet in every re- 
 spect. They quarrelled. Whose the fault was is not, and 
 probably never will be known. Perhaps neither, perhaps 
 both were to blame. At any rate the idol of the world was 
 broken. Here was Conrad quarelling with Medora. Here 
 was the poet who had been looked upon as the truest of lov- 
 ers, and 'admired as such, illusing his wife, so that she 
 was obliged to run away from him. The rage of the public 
 was as extravagant as its worship had been. Before none had 
 dared to whisper censure, now none dared to hint at excuse. 
 The papers were filled with libels on the very man whom, 
 a short time before , they had deified. Crowds collected to 
 pelt him on his way to the house of Lords, and to hiss him 
 at the theatre. - Such was the state of public feeling, when, 
 
BJron. 73 
 
 on the 25 lh of April 1816 he left England forever. He had 
 one child by this marriage, a daughter — Agusta Ada. By- 
 ron seems to have felt the separation acutely, though he had 
 not lived happily with his wife. 
 
 We must now turn to the lyrical poems which Byron 
 wrote about this time. The first that demand our attention 
 are the Hebrew Melodies, which were published before his 
 marriage. The old Testament had always been one of his 
 favourite books, and we find traces of its influence in many 
 of his poems. At the request of a friend he consented to 
 write the words for a series of Hebrew melodies which were 
 then to be published. The subjects are passages of the Bible 
 and laments over the fallen glory of Zion. 
 
 The political events of 1813, 1814 and 1815 could not 
 fail to attract the attention of Byron. The character and fate 
 of Napoleon exerted a great influence over his imagination. 
 He was too largehearted to be blinded by a national preju- 
 dice. He sympathized with the fall of the hero ; he partook 
 of the grief of the French. These feelings produced a Beries 
 of poems. The first of these was the „Ode to Napoleon Buo- 
 naparte", which was written on April the 10? h 1814. It was 
 a burst of bitter sarcasm, an outbreak of passionate anger. 
 But such anger and sarcasm are evidently, to use the words 
 of one of our modern poets } „only love turned inside out". 
 Napoleon had abdicated. The high hopes of his followers 
 were all wrecked. The man who had sat in judgement upon 
 kings had bent to the sentence of his enemies. It was a sad 
 sight to those who had worshiped this man, an unheroic 
 end to the great tragedy, had it been indeed the end. 
 
 „The desolator desolate! 
 
 The victor overthrown! 
 
 The arbiter of others' fate 
 
 A suppliant for his own. 
 
 Is it some yet imperial hope 
 
 That with such change can calmly cope, 
 
74 Book n. Chapter VI. 
 
 Or dread of death alone? 
 
 To die a prince, or live a slave, 
 
 Thy choice is most ignobly brave. 
 
 "Who does not feel that such lines as these are the ex- 
 pression of a dissappointed hope , of reverence for an object 
 that has proved itself unworthy of reverence ? Napoleon' re- 
 turned from Elba, and in all the crowds that thronged to 
 meet him , there was no heart that was filled with a wilder 
 exstacy of gladness than Byron's. Then came "Waterloo, when 
 the last hope of France was trodden down beneath the feet 
 of the united kings of Europe ; then the dark days of dis- 
 pair, the capture and imprisonment of Napoleon and the 
 murder of Ney. Byron embodied many of the sad feelings 
 of those days in poems. 
 
 Nowhere is the contrast between the characters of 
 Scott and Byron more clearly marked than in their treatment 
 of Napoleon. Scott could see in him nothing but a tyrant 
 and an enemy. He looked at him from the national point 
 of view. Byron 'saw that both his fate and character were 
 colossal, that he had to do with one who could not be judged 
 by common standards — with a man whose work, both for 
 good and evil, had been gigantic. He looked at him from a 
 poetical point of view. 1 Scott was the poet of the past, 
 Byron the exponent of the future. • He had none of that nar- 
 row-minded patriotism which is so often praised as a virtue. 
 The picture of the hero on the lonely rock, of the gi- 
 gantic genius bound by pigmies, of the conqueror of Europe 
 dying broken-hearted and in exile, was too like the dark 
 creations of his own imagination not to affect him deeply. 
 But it was not the tragic fate of Napoleon alone, that excited 
 his admiration He believed that the people would gain no- 
 thing by Waterloo. He felt that the one great ruler would 
 be replaced by a hundred petty tyrants, that the blood, which 
 the nations had sown so plentifully at Leipzig and "Waterloo, 
 would bring forth no fruit, and a deeper and higher feeling 
 
Byron. 75 
 
 was mingled with the pity and the terror , which the great 
 tragedy of 1815 could not fail to excite. He mourned not 
 only over the banished hero and enslaved France, he griev- 
 ed that the revolution was conquered. While Scott saw no- 
 thing but the blaze of bonfires and the pomp of victory, 
 Byron saw that mankind had gained little by the fall of Na- 
 poleon. Hence the one poet wrote a life of Napoleon, that 
 was so superficial that it may almost be called a caricature, 
 while the other composed songs in his honour which have 
 seldom been surpassed even by French poets. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It had been hard for Byron to be cast down from the 
 high place he had occupied. Praise was more than usually 
 sweet, blame more than usually bitter to his excitable, sen- 
 sitive, and vain nature. The time that passed between his 
 separation from his wife and his departure from England was 
 doubtless one of keen mental anguish. But this sorrow exer- 
 cised a purifying and deepening influence on his poetry. 
 He had coquetted with grief and dispair before, but he had 
 worn his melancholy as a „dark mask in the carnival of the 
 world." Now his disguise had become too real. Every hope 
 was blighted, and, even if it were by his own fault, that 
 would not make it less bitter. He was parted from his wife 
 and child, he was excluded from the society which he had 
 ruled, the doors of advancement in the state were closed 
 against him, and he was exiled, by public opinion, from his 
 native land. The first poetical products of this state of mind 
 were the poems which are printed in his works under the 
 title of Domestic pieces. In these we find a depth, a 
 truth and power, for which we should seek in vain in his 
 earlier verses. The words seem to come directly from his 
 
76 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 heart, <> They are the poets protest against the injustice of 
 the world , yet ever and anon the sad confession is repeated 
 „I have been cunning in mine overthrow 
 The careful pilot of my proper woe." 
 
 These are, I believe, the sincerest poems Byron ever 
 wrote, but they fell iupon estranged ears. The people who 
 had caught at his slightest verses and had found romance 
 in his slightest movements, refused to believe his confes- 
 sion. Formerly they had persisted in accepting each of 
 his poetical creations as a picture of himself , now they re- 
 fused to believe him when he opened up to them the very 
 depths of his heart. 
 
 On leaving England, Lord Byron proceeded up the 
 Rhine, to Switzerland, and thence to Italy. On the way 
 he completed the third Canto of Child Harold. Here his ge- 
 nius for the first time appeared in its full power, but we will 
 leave it till the conclusion of the fourth Canto, when we shall 
 be able to consider the work as a whole. We cannot pause 
 to examine all the smaller poems which he wrote in 1816, 
 but the Dream is to important to be passed by without a 
 word. It is the story of the poets life in a series of pictures. 
 As he looked back on the past, with its wasted powers and 
 wrecked hopes, ihe face of his first love, Mary Chaworth, 
 rose before him. In the days of his fame and happiness she 
 had been all but forgotten. We find no trace of her exis- 
 tence in the poems which he published between the Hours 
 of Idleness and his separation from Lady Byron. But now 
 that his heart was softened by sorrow, the hours of his boy- 
 hood seemed very bright and joyous, and all that had passed 
 since very gloomy and drear. Since then his life had been 
 a feverish struggle, a weary wandering, and it now seemed 
 to him as if that had all come because Mary Chaworth had 
 not loved him. The struggle and the wanderings , his ill 
 fated marriage, and indeed the whole past seemed to him 
 to have been nothing but a vain attempt to forget her. Such 
 
Byron. 77 
 
 is the tale of the dream The plan is masterly. It is intro- 
 duced by a few lines on sleep and dream - life , which are 
 among the finest that ever fell from his pen. Then the Dream 
 itself begins. The first scene is a hill near Newstead Abbey, 
 though the name is not mentioned, and below lies a beauti- 
 ful English scene. 
 
 „ These two, a maiden and a youth, were there 
 Gazing — the one on ■ all that was beneath 
 Pair as herself — - but the boy gazed on her; 
 And both were young, and one was beautiful." 
 Them the love of the boy is described in a few delicate 
 and forcible lines, but 
 
 „she loved another, 
 And on the summit of that hill she stood 
 Looking afar, if yet her lovers steed 
 Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew." 
 Then we have the parting of the lovers in an „antique 
 Oratory" t in which the suppressed passion of the youth is 
 painted with wonderful force and delicacy. Afterwards we 
 see him on his wanderings through the East, and we 
 feel that he is wandering only that he may forget that old 
 love of his. Again the dream is changed, and „she is wed 
 to one who did not love her better'- and children play around 
 her knees, and yet she is not happy. 
 
 „A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
 The wanderer was return' d. — I saw him stand 
 Before an Altar — with a gentle bride; 
 Her face was fair, but was not that which made 
 The Starlight of his Boyhood; — ■ as he stood 
 Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came 
 The self same aspect, and the quivering shock 
 Which in the antique Oratory shook 
 His bosom in its solitude ; and then — 
 As in that hour — a moment o'er his face 
 The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
 
78 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 Was traced, — and then it faded, as it came, 
 And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke 
 The fitting vows, hut heard not his own words, 
 And all things reel'd around him; he could see 
 Hot .that which was, nor that which should have been — 
 But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, 
 And the remember'd chambers , and the place, 
 The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, 
 All things pertaining to that place and hour, 
 And her who was his destiny, came back 
 And thrust themselves between him and the light: 
 What business had" they there at such a time?" 
 Then again the scene is changed, and we behold the 
 lady of his love plunged in madness,- and the youth at war 
 with his kind, hating, and hated by them. 
 
 „My dream was past, it had no further change. 
 ■ It was of a strange order, that the doom 
 
 Of these two creatures should be thus traced out 
 Almost to a reality — the one 
 To end in madness — both in misery." 
 Such is the dream, which seems to me the most perfect 
 of Byron's poems. In other of his works he doubtless shows 
 a greater command over language, and a vaster range of ge- 
 nius, but none of them seize the imagination so forcibly as 
 this, none have such unity of design, such finish of exe- 
 cution; It is too an important' moment in the life of Byron; 
 after writing it he seldom or ever refered to Lady Byron, in 
 his poetry, as having had an important influence on his life. 
 In fact he treated his marriage, in his later writings, as an 
 unfortunate attempt to banish the memory of the sweet girl- 
 ish face, „which made the starlight of his boyhood." „I've 
 tried anothers fetters too", he exclaims 
 
 „With charms perchance as fair to view, 
 And I would fain have loved as well; 
 But some unconquerable spell . 
 
Byron. 79 
 
 Forbade my bleeding breast to own 
 A kindred care for aught save one." 
 His next great work was Manfred. This dramatic poem 
 was commenced in 1816, and finished in 1817. It was By- 
 ron's first attempt at dramatic composition. The plot, if 
 Manfred can be said to have any plot, is very simple. The 
 hero oppressed by a deep sorrow, and the remembrance of 
 a mysterious crime appeals to the spirits of Earth, Air, and 
 Ocean for forgetfulness, in vain. He then penetrates into 
 the hall of Arimanes, where he meets the spirit of Astarte — 
 his former love , who fortells his death. Finally the Abbot 
 of St. Maurice visits him, and exhorts him to repent, but is 
 unsuccessful, an evil spirit then rises and claims Manfred's 
 soul, but he braves it, and the evil spirit retires; on this 
 Manfred dies. Even this slight sketch is sufficient to show 
 that the dramatical element is entirely wanting in the poem. 
 There is no action , there are n6 characters in the piece. It 
 is so to speak a series of episodes. The last scene must of 
 course come at the end, because the hero dies in it, but the 
 position of almost any of the other scenes might be changed 
 without diminishing the effect. The inferior characters come 
 and go without making much impression on the reader , or 
 doing much to help the plot forwards. The Abbot is the 
 best of them, but, how little depends upon him, is proved by 
 the fact that in the first draft of the piece he was a diaboli- 
 cally wicked wretch,, while in the poem , as it now stands, 
 he is a saint. Even the external, dramatic form is not sustain- 
 ned. Manfred, is a series of monologues. The hero muses in- 
 stead of acting. In his tower, on the cliffs of the Jungfrau, 
 and in the hall of Arimanes he does nothing but expatiate on 
 his greatness and his wretchedness. His character is, it is 
 true, powerfully drawn, but it is not dramatically developed. 
 It is from his- soliloquies, and not from his actions, that we 
 learn that he is great, proud, and unhappy. In short, the 
 whole treatment is essentially undrainatic; but then Byron 
 
80 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 did not iatend to write a drama. He says that he has endeav- 
 oured to render, it „quite impossible: to produce it on the 
 stage". As a poem then it must be judged, and we must 
 confess. that it contains several passages in the poets best 
 style. Such is the scene in which Manfred meets the spirit of 
 As'tarte, and the description of the Coliseum by moonlight. 
 Yet we cannot but wonder, at the enthusiasm with which 
 this work was hailed at its publication. The unvarying wretch- 
 edness of -the hero is monotonous, and it wearies rather 
 than interests us Besides the impression is weakened by its 
 frequent repetition. Manfred is only Child Harold in a new 
 position. The other dramatic works of Byron have the same 
 faults as Manfred, and are less powerful than it. There is 
 but one exception, Heaven and Earth. The rest we may 
 pass without farther notice, but on this poem we must linger 
 a few moments. It is in many respects one of the finest, of 
 Byrons works. It has more unity, interest and finish than 
 any of his other dramatical essays.. He called it a mystery^ 
 not beeause there is any thing particularly mysterious in the 
 plot, but because, like the old plays of that name, it. is tak- 
 en from the biblical narrative. The passage on which it is 
 founded is the following extract from the book of Genesis. 
 „And it came to pass that the sons of God saw the daughters 
 of men that they. were fair; and they took them wives of all 
 which they chose .... And there were giants on the earth 
 in those days-. , . . And God saw that the wickedness of man 
 was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the 
 thoughts of his heart was only evil continually .... And 
 the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from 
 the face of Earth". A grander subject can scarcely be con- 
 ceived, and Byron's genius was well fitted to treat it. Here 
 was colossal passion, a fearful fate, and an age where ima- 
 gination could run riot without passing the bounds of proba- 
 bility. "What cannot he believed of a time when the Earth 
 blossomed in her primeval beauty , when the fiery sword of 
 
Byron. 81 
 
 the Archangel might still be seen guarding the paths that led 
 to the tree of life, and when the very sons of God descended 
 from the regions of the blest to hold converse with the daugh- 
 ters of men. The whole subject is placed before us in all 
 its grandeur. In the very first scene Anah and Aholibah- 
 mah, two sisters of the daughters of Cain, leave their fa- 
 thers' tents at the dead of night, to invoke their Angel lovers, 
 and the tragic interest of the story goes on deepening to the 
 moment when „the windows, of heaven are opened, and the 
 fountains of the great deep are broken up", and all created life, 
 save the little remnant of Seth's seed , is overthrown in the 
 universal destruction. The characters too , though they are 
 for the most part only sketched, are better conceived than in 
 any other of Lord Byron's dramas. Anah, the younger of the 
 sisters, is an embodiment of sincere self forgetting love. She 
 is religious too,' bowing with resignation to the will of God, 
 and fearful of disobeying his commands. Aholibahmah on 
 the other hand is well fitted to be a Seraph's bride. She feels 
 that in love she is equal to him, that his love has raised her 
 above the rest of the daughters of men. Their characters are 
 finely contrasted even at their first entrance. Anah says 
 
 „But, Aholibahmah, 
 
 I love our God less, since his angel loved me; 
 
 This cannot be of good; and though I know not 
 
 That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears 
 
 That are not ominous of right. 
 And her sister proudly answers ; 
 
 Then wed thee 
 Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin! 
 *********** 
 
 Marry and bring forth dust. 
 So in their invocation Anah prays, Aholibahmah almost 
 commands her lover to descend ; and when Japhet would fain 
 save them from the approaching destruction, she taunts him 
 
 Grant litterature. C 
 
82 Book n. Chapter IV. 
 
 with his descent from Seth, and boasts that the first mur- 
 derer was her forefather. 
 
 And doest thou think that we , 
 "With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, blood 
 "Warm in our veins, would mingle with Seth's children? 
 And again: He was our father's father ; 
 
 The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest 
 And most enduring : — Shall I blush for him, 
 Prom whom I had my being? Look upon 
 Our race; behold their stature and their beanty. 
 And again: Must we 
 
 Cling to a son of Noah for our lives? 
 Yet in the fearful hour of destruction, it is she who bids 
 her lover return to heaven and leave her to her fate , while 
 her sister still clings to Azaziel fbj: protection, and can 
 hardly bring herself to give up his. love. The angels say 
 and do but little, they would be lay figures but for their 
 resolution to forfeit heaven rather than desert their human 
 brides. Japhet is the hero of the piece. He is in love with 
 Anah, and would gladly-, save her even at the cost of his 
 own life. But he grieves not over her alone , but over the 
 whole lovely earth. At times he almost questions the justice 
 of God , at others he defends it against all accusation. But 
 in all moods, he shrinks with horror from the fearful loneli- 
 ness of the new world. „"Why", he exclaims at the end of 
 the drama, amid all the horrors of the new chaos, „ Why,, when 
 all perish, why must I remain?" Noah is a thorough con- 
 trast to his' son, cold and passionless, he reminds us often 
 of the puritans, by the calmness with which he looks on the 
 destruction of the world. When Japhet in a passion of an- 
 guish beseeches God, even now, in the last hour, to spare 
 the doomed creation he calmly says 
 
 „Wouldst thou have God commit a sin for thee? 
 Such would it be 
 
Byron. gg 
 
 To alter his intent 
 For a mere mortal sorrow. 
 Heaven and Earth as we have it is only a fragment. It was 
 not very favourably received by the public , so Byron never 
 finished it. From the first part it is difficult to guess at what 
 the second might have been. It would probably have fol- 
 lowed the fates of Anah and Aholibahmah, who are carried 
 away by their Angel lords at the conclusion of the play as 
 it now stands. The key to the whole plan is I think contain- 
 ed in the following passages. 
 The first is from Aholibahmah's invocation. 
 — There is a ray 
 In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine, 
 I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine. 
 It may be hidden long: death and decay 
 Our mother Eve bequeathed us — but my heart 
 Defies it: though this life must pass away, 
 Is that a cause for thee and me to part? 
 Thou art immortal — so am I: I feel — 
 I feel my immortality o'ersweep 
 All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal, 
 Like the eternal thunders of the deep, 
 Into my ears this truth — „Thou liv'st forever!" 
 
 But if it be in joy 
 I know not, nor would know; 
 That secret rests with the Almighty giver 
 Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe. 
 
 But thee and me He never can destroy; 
 Change us He may, but not o'erwhelm; we are 
 Of as eternal essence, and must war 
 With Him, if He will war with us: with thee 
 I can share all things, even immortal "sorrow; 
 For thou hast ventured to share life with me. 
 The second is Japhet's answer to the spirits. 
 The eternal will 
 
 6* 
 
84 Book H. Chapter IV. 
 
 Shall deign to expound this troubled dream 
 Of good and evil; and redeem 
 
 Unto Himself all times, all things;. 
 And, gathered under his almighty wings, 
 
 Abolish hell! 
 And to the expiated Earth 
 Eestore the beauty of her birth, 
 Her Eden in an endless paradise, 
 Where man no more can fall as once he fell, / 
 
 And even the very demons shall do well! 
 Spirits. And when shall take effect this wondrous spell? 
 Japhet. When the Eedeemer cometh; first in pain 
 And then in glory. 
 No one can read the sad story of Byrons life in Italy 
 without profound sorrow. It is the story of talents wasted, and 
 genius misapplied. He resided for a long time at Venice where 
 " he plunged into the lowest depths of disoluteness. Maddened 
 by the injustice with which he had been treated, he sought 
 forgetfulness in wine. The young English nobleman, who 
 had lately been the Idol of London society, now mixed with 
 the lowest of the low. The poet, whose impassioned words 
 still moved all hearts, revelled in the most tasteless excesses. 
 By degrees this evil life began to tell upon his health, and it 
 almost seemed as if the end of the poet were to be low indeed. 
 He was rescued from it by a connection which, though in 
 itself culpable, seemed pure to the society mid whom he lived. 
 The few important works of his which remain to be no- 
 ticed we must now shortly review. They are the last two 
 cantos of Childe Harold , the Vision of Judgement, and Don 
 Juan. When we pass from the second to the, third canto of 
 Childe Harold, we are struck at once by the difference bet- 
 ween the two. The first isji series of fine descriptions, tinged 
 by melancholy, the last a .passionate outburst of anguish. 
 The woe no longer colours the descriptions, it penetrates 
 them, and uses all nature as a mere picture of itself. Harold's 
 
Byron. 85 
 
 name is still used in the third Canto, but it has ceased to be 
 even an attempt at a character, it is merely another name for 
 Byron. The poet describes his own sorrows, and his own 
 fate, and sometimes in words that we cannot but feel are sin- 
 cere. But it is not only in depth of feeling, and force of ex- 
 pression that the last part of this poem is superior to the first. 
 The descriptive pieces are written with a liveliness and pow- 
 er which it would be difficult to find elsewhere. 
 
 The Vision of Judgement is a very different poem. On 
 the death of George the third, Southey, the poet laureate, wrote 
 a vision' of Judgement in hexameters. In it he told how the 
 king had ascended to heaven^ and been received there, with 
 a series of complements, such as those with which earthly 
 courtiers are accustomed to greet their sovereigns; The whole 
 thing was as absurd as bad taste could make it. George the 
 third was a much better man than most princes are, but he 
 was a much worse king. His stupidity was almost incredible, 
 and his obstinacy was almost greater than his stupidity. He 
 did all in his power to ruin England, and to overthrow the 
 constitution. He was unsuccessful, it is true, and there can be 
 no doubt he was a good husband and father, still he was hardly 
 fitting subject for celestial praise. Byron at once saw the 
 whole absurdity of the situation ; hence his Vision of Judge- 
 ment, a parody on that of Southey. This is one of the bitterest 
 satires of the age. Hatred, scorn, and wit are united in a mar- 
 vellous degree. Finally, it is true, King George is left in heaven, 
 but he slips in through the back door, in the midst of the con- 
 fusion occasioned by Southey, commencing one of his poems. 
 And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, 
 I left him, practising the hundredth Psalm 
 
 We now come to Don Juan, the last, and in some re- 
 spects the greatest of Lord Byron's works. In it he com- 
 menced an entirely new style, unless we like to consider Beppo 
 as its forerunner. It is a wild story, told in a light gossiping 
 style. Goethe wrote thus of it: 
 
86 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 „Don Juan is a work of boundless genius, misanthropic 
 to the bitterest cruelty, philanthropic to the depths of the 
 Sweetest sympathy , and as we know and respect the author, 
 and have made up our minds not to wish him other than he is, 
 we enjoy thankfully what he offers us with such lavish freedom* 
 and even licence. The strange, wild, inconsiderate contents of 
 the poem is suited to the technical treatment of the verse." 
 
 The poem treats of every thing, from the dispair of dis- 
 appointed love , to the best way of curing a headache. On 
 one page we find a rhymed criticism on modern poetry, on 
 the next an account of a shipwreck, and on a third a vio> 
 lent attack on the ministry. Here, for the first. time, we 
 find the style of writing which Heine afterwards appropriat- 
 ed and used with such power that it has since been called 
 by his name. „The poet raises us to the highest summits of 
 romantic enthusiasm, only to dash us more cruelly against 
 the rocks of reality". But this is not, I think, to be attribu- 
 ted to frivolity. It is in keeping with the conversational tone 
 of the poem. In society, when a subject becomes painfully 
 serious, we end the discussion by a joke. That is just what 
 Byron does in Don Juan. With a light word he quits a sub- 
 ject that is getting too serious for the nature of the poem. 
 The book is a delightful bit of gossip upon things in general, 
 loosely held together by the thread of the story. It has been 
 mueh blamed for its immorality, and we must confess that, 
 when placed by the side of Marmion or the Excursion , it is 
 loose ; but it is not more so than many classical works are. 
 The tone too, though far from pure, is -much more healthy 
 than that of most of his earlier poems. But what we most 
 admire in Don Juan is the poets mastery over the English 
 language. Their is no single poem in the whole range of 
 our literature in which its various capabilities are exhibited 
 in an equal degree. H. von Treitschke in his masterly essay 
 on „Lord Byron and Radicalism" gives it the highest place 
 among all the poet's works , and it certainly is the one in 
 
Byron. 87 
 
 •which his various powers come most fully into play. The lat- 
 ter Cantos are however inferior to the earlier. 
 
 Such was the work with which Lord Byron was busied 
 when the news reached him that the Greeks had recommenced 
 their long struggle with the Turks. He had- ever been an 
 ardent lover of liberty, and he had assisted the Italian pa- 
 triots by contributions of large sums of money. To Greece 
 he was bound by a thousand ties. It had been to him what 
 Italy is to most artists. It was the land in which his cha- 
 racter and genius had ripened. There he had written a great 
 part of the poem on which his fame was founded. There too 
 he had laid the scene of many of his earlier romances, and his 
 imagination still loved to linger amid the hills and valleys 
 which are hallowed by so many sacred memories. Accor- 
 dingly he resolved to go in person to take part in the great 
 struggle in which the Greeks were engaged. He arrived on 
 the 5^ of January 1824, and was received with the greatest 
 enthusiasm by the patriots. The vigour of his movements there 
 proved him to be possessed of powers which he had never be- 
 fore exhibited. But his constitution was worn out by the 
 sorrows and excesses of his latter years. It was evident 
 that he could not live long, and he himself only wished to 
 die on the field of battle. But this was not to be. . On the 
 19 th of April 1824 he died of a fever brought on by a cold. 
 The last act of his life, says a French poet, was the noblest of 
 his poems. 
 
 Byron cannot be judged alone, nor can we understand 
 his genius thoroughly, if we compare him with English wri- 
 ters only. His works were but a link in a great chain of 
 literary productions. He belonged to the school which was 
 commenced by the Nouvelle Helmse and the Confessions, 
 which then produced "Werther and the Bobbers and whose 
 last great productions were the works of Heine. He had some 
 qualities in common with each of these authors. He had 
 the gloomy egotism of Rousseau, the love of nature which 
 
88 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 Goethe displayed in Werther, the love of savage daring which. 
 Schiller' embodied in Carl Moor, and in bis latter days some 
 of the wit and irony of Heine. The moral teaching of this 
 school, as far as they can be said to have had any, was that 
 man is born to wretchedness, and that the best thing he can. 
 do is either to plunge into fearful crime, or sit down and 
 alternately laugh and cry over his misery, that virtue and 
 duty have no existence, and that all great men must necessa- 
 rily be at war with society. In short their system was the 
 negation of all that men had been used to reverence. Of 
 this gospel Byron's works are the greatest embodiment. I do 
 not of course mean that he was the greatest of the writers 
 I have just mentioned, far from it, Eoussau is the only one 
 of them who stood below him; but he was more entirely pos- 
 sessed of the spirit of the school than either of the others. 
 His works are, -with the exception of Don Juan, one unbrok- 
 en cry of anguish. The form is ; altered, but the subject is 
 ever the same, it is his own greatness and his own misery. 
 Much of the popularity of his poetry is attributable to its 
 egotistical and melancholy tone. It is difficult for us to un- 
 derstand how this could be the case. Few grown up people 
 in our own days can, I fancy, really enjoy the Robbers or 
 the Sorrows of "Werther, still fewer can sympathise with the 
 sorrows of Rousseau, and if Heine's works are still read, it is 
 in spite rather than because of the melancholy, scornful tone 
 of some of them. To us the Confessions seem a record of 
 troubles which were either imaginary or well deserved. 
 Their author, even by the testimony of his own works, seems 
 to us a weak and foolish man. To his contemporaries he 
 seemed a hero, and a saint. Schiller gave expression to the 
 feelings of his own age , when he compared him to Socrates. 
 By many he was placed beside our Saviour in moral purity. 
 The same is true of Byron. When we compare his works 
 and life , we feel that he had known great sorrows , but we 
 feel also that much of the misery he boasts of is mere affec- 
 
Byron. 89 
 
 tation. "We know that, while he proclaimed aloud that the 
 praise and blame of the world was nothing to him , the re- 
 mark of an anonymous writer on his lameness maddened him. 
 We know that, while he was writing poems to Mary Chaworth 
 in which he attributed all the misfortunes of his life to his 
 love for her, he was passionately attached to another woman. 
 "We know that spite of his declaration that 
 „Eew who dwell beneath the sun, 
 Have loved so long and loved but one," 
 he was one of the most fickle and inconstant of lovers. But 
 his contemporaries did not know all this. They believed he 
 was the gloomy heroic being he represented himself to be, 
 and they admired him. It is easy to ridicule such admiration, 
 to show how much weakness lay in the pretended strength, 
 but the time is past when such ridicule is needed. A few 
 clever boys, it is true, still look upon his heroes as the mod- 
 els of all true greatness, and practise before their looking — 
 glasses a Byronic sneer, but this admiration passes away 
 with the other follies of boyhood. With these the critic has 
 nothing to do. It is useless to ridicule a folly that has pas- 
 sed away. But we may well ask, whence came the false taste 
 that was once so general, and how was it that such men as 
 Goethe, Schiller and Byron should have been affected by it? 
 Every healthy literature is the expression of the wants 
 and longings of its own age. It is the embodiment of its 
 ideal, or at worst of its search after an ideal. It gives a 
 voice to the dumb yearnings of the national heart. Some 
 times the works of a single poet do this. Shakespeare is such 
 a representative of England in the Elizabethan age. All 
 that was highest and best in our country, at that time , is 
 to be found mirrored in his works. But oftener a number 
 of poets are needed. Each mirrors a single side of the na- 
 tional life. Each speaks to a sect or party, and gives them 
 what they want. He speaks not for himself alone but for 
 them. Such was our literature at the commencement of the 
 
I 
 
 90 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 present century. During the latter half of the seventeenth 
 and the commencement of the eighteenth century, on the 
 other hand, no nation in Europe had a really national liter- 
 ature. The poetry of France , great as it was , was court- 
 poetry. That of Germany and England was a mere imi- 
 tation of that of France. Hence the feelings, which were 
 embodied in the writings of Byron and the other poets 
 whom we have classed with him , may have slumbered 
 long in the hearts of the people without finding an outlet. 
 That it was so we have clear proof. Before Rousseau pub- 
 lished the first of his works, suieide had raged like a mania 
 in France. Young men shot themselves, leaving letters 
 behind them to say that they had done so not because of 
 any particular misfortune, but because life did not seem 
 worth the having. In Germany Werther was written after 
 Goethe and several of his friends had passed through the 
 state of mind which the book describes, and, though the 
 work itself may be slightly coloured by the study of Rous- 
 seau, we cannot attribute the whole state of feeling that 
 caused it to the influence of a French author. Indeed I be- 
 lieve that his influence on the book itself is greatly over- 
 rated. From this, I think, it is pretty clear that the works 
 were the symptoms, and not the cause, of a deep seated 
 disease. Indeed the influence of books is as a rule greatly 
 overvalued. People are not made religious or irreligious, vir- 
 tuous or vicious by the books they read; they choose their 
 reading according to their character. But whence came this 
 deep feeling of restless discontent, this morbid disgust of 
 life? That is the question we have now to answer. The 
 history of the world proves that it is impossible to do away 
 with the ideal part of man's nature. If it is not allowed to 
 develop itself healthily it makes itself felt as a disease. If 
 religion be repressed it only makes way for superstition. 
 The age which preceded the revolution offers a thousand 
 proofs of this. The philosophers declared, there was no God. 
 
Byron. 9| 
 
 The men of science showed that there was no room left for 
 the soul in the universe, and the wits ridiculed in no meas- 
 ured terms the absurdity of the doctrines in which their 
 parents had believed. Never was there to be found a more 
 enlightened and less, prejudiced society than that of Paris 
 at that period. Tet it was in freethinking, sceptical Paris 
 that every new superstition found eager votaries. The age 
 of Voltaire and Diderot was also the age of Mesmer and Gagli- 
 ostro. - The same people who Relieved in „The System of 
 nature'*, thronged the halls where, in the garb of an oriental 
 priest, the cunningest of modern impostors taught a system 
 in comparison with which the rudest superstitions of the 
 middle ages appear wise and beautiful. It is useless to mul- 
 tiply examples. The fact, however it may be explained 
 away, is I believe universally acknowledged. 
 
 Now when we compare the state of society in the middle 
 ages with that of modern times we find that much of its vast 
 progress must be attributed to the division of labour. By the 
 application of this principle much more can be produced, by 
 a given amount of labour , than in any other way. But I 
 doubt if the system is as beneficial to each individual labourer 
 as is generally supposed. In the middle ages the retainer of 
 a Baron led a life of never ending variety. One day he wag 
 tilling the ground, the next he was following his lord to 
 battle, or helping to repair his castle. The farming, fight- 
 ing, and building were all no doubt badly done, but all 
 the different talents of the man were called into play. In 
 our days such a life is impossible. One man spends the whole 
 of his life in making pins' heads, another in adding up ac- 
 counts , a third in copying letters. Each of these things is 
 better done by the modern plan, but the workmen, in their 
 hours of business, have ceased to be men, and have become 
 mere parts of a huge machine. , All that is highest and best 
 in their nature is utterly useless , but it is not — it cannot 
 be — utterly destroyed. It seeks a vent for itself. It be- 
 
92 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 comes sometimes a curse instead of a blessing. Hence the 
 brutal immorality of our great towns. Hence, too, the fa- 
 naticism of our religious sects, the spread of Mormonism and 
 many of the most appaling phenomena of our age. To the 
 same class I believe the ,/Welt-Schmerz" which is embodied 
 in Byron's poetry belongs. A clever boy comes from school, 
 full of high hopes and aspirations , and he is apprenticed to 
 a dry mechanical business. He feels that here there is no 
 room for his character to develop itself. He discovers that 
 his hopes have been mere dreams. The very ends for which 
 he is to work seem mean and low to him, all life appears 
 nothing but an unweeded garden. Man delights him not 
 nor woman neither. The nobler his nature the more glar- 
 ing is the contrast between it and his circumstances; the 
 deeper his intellectual interests the greater the gulf which 
 is fixed between his ideal and his real life. He feels that 
 no one understands him, that he cannot comprehend his 
 own yearnings., He nurses his melancholy. He wears it as 
 a badge to distinguish him from the unthinking herd. To 
 such a youth Byron speaks as a prophet. His poems are 
 the expression of. the thoughts and feelings for which he 
 could find no words. His heroes are at war with the so- 
 ciety which he hates. Their very crimes seem nobler to 
 him than the selfish morality of the counting - house. To 
 him "Werther, Carl Moor and Manfred seem martyrs for the 
 truth that the soul is more than the body. Such a state of 
 mind is now only a transition state , a kind of „mental mea- 
 sles", which most clever boys pass through, but the time was 
 when the whole intellectual society of Europe was infected 
 with it. It was the age of "Werther, the Bobbers, and Byron. 
 If we examine Lord Byrons works critically, we shall 
 find that, spite his extraordinary power, we cannot award him 
 any more than Scott a place among poets of the very high- 
 est rank. In Shakspeare's works we find characters truer 
 than those of Scott, and passion truer than that of Byron. 
 
Byron. 93 
 
 It is so with all poets of the very first order. They draw a 
 character which is individualized in. the highest degree, a 
 man as distinct as those we meet daily, as clearly distinguish- 
 ed from every other, as each man is from his fellows. Then 
 they reveal the inmost recesses of his heart. They let him 
 speak of his love and sorrow, of his joy and woe. Take Lear. 
 What passage in Byron's works can be compared in passion 
 with the best scenes in that fearful tragedy? What words of 
 his touch the heart like those of the mad old king? Yet who 
 ever thought of confounding 'Shakespeare with Lear? He 
 stands before us a distinct personality, a clearly objective fi- 
 gure, no poet in disguise. It is only poets of the very grea- 
 test genius that can thus unite passion with characteristic. 
 Poets of less power fall for the most part into two great 
 classes. The first of these draw characters. They observe 
 closely and copy nature. They draw men who have a strong 
 appearance of reality, and who are clearly distinguished from 
 each other. Their characters act and speak naturally. But 
 they " can go no farther. They cannot reveal the secret 
 springs of their actions. They cannot stir the heart with pas- 
 sion, because they cannot identify themselves with their he- 
 roes. The second class consists of subjective poets. . Their 
 power begins where that of the first class oeases. They speak 
 from the heart. Their poems are bursts of passion. Their 
 characters are only a series of emotions. They have no reality, 
 no individuality. They are at best but the masks which con- 
 ceal the features of the poet — the vessels from whieh his 
 emotions are poured. Scott belongs to the first, Byron to 
 the second class. It follows , as a matter of course , that 
 Scott's range is wider while Byron's poetry is deeper. The 
 outside of life is the province of the one, the heart that 
 of the other poet. It need not therefore surprise us that 
 Scott was more easily dazzled than this great contempo- 
 rary by the pomp of the tournament , and the circumstance 
 of battle , that he delighted in vivid contrasts of light and 
 
94 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 shade , or that these contrasts are for the most part external. 
 It was his nature to do so ; just as it was the nature of By- 
 ron to seize at once the heart of the matter. "When they 
 treat the same subject, the difference of their talents becomes 
 at once evident. The song of the Hebrew maid in Iven- 
 hoe is well known. In it Scott has selected all that is most 
 picturesque in the history and belief of Israel. It would be 
 difficult to find a poem, of equal length, in which the wond- 
 rous story of that "fated race is painted with equal taste and 
 discernment. Yet when we compare it with the Hebrew me- 
 lodies it seems cold and shallow. 
 
 It was this power of looking below the surface that led 
 Byron into his worst fault — ■ a love of moral paradox. Much 
 of Scott's moral heathiness must be attributed to the fact 
 that he dealt with the outside of life alone. He believed 
 that men and things are nearly what they seem. He did not 
 trouble himself with the springs of thought and feeling, he 
 cared for actions alone ; and these are easily divided into bad 
 and good. Byron looked deeper. He saw that good feel- 
 ings, ill directed, may lead to crimes, that the words and 
 deeds of a man are but faint, and often false pictures of his 
 character, that the laws that bind the world are not always 
 jnst, that the opinions of men are not always the highest 
 court of appeal. He told wild tales of exceptional characters. 
 They were received with rapture. He painted strange mix- 
 tures of good and evil. They were applauded. So he went 
 on , until at last he began to believe and teach that *che 
 laws of society are always unjust, the opinions of mankind 
 always wrong. This may justly be regretted and blamed, but 
 it would be unjust not to remember when reviewing his poems 
 and his character, that the worst errors of his workB arose 
 from an endeavour to comprehend the mysterious nature of 
 man, and that the last act of his wayward and all but wasted 
 life was truly disinterested and noble. 
 
 Thomas Moore was a light, versatile writer, gifted with 
 
Thomas Moore. Q5 
 
 a sharp wit and lively fancy, but -with, no very great imagi- 
 native power. His earlier works, though they were well 
 received at the time of their publication, are now but little 
 read. His satires however have a more permanent value. 
 They have none of the broad humour of Hudibras, none of the 
 epigrammatic point of Pope, none of the bitterness of Byron. 
 They seem to be the products of high spirits rather than of 
 hatred. Their wit is that of a man of the world. It does 
 not cut deep, indeed it hardly stings. It aims rather at mak- 
 ing the hearer laugh, than at making its subject miserable. 
 In short, it is the wit of the diawing-room , not that which 
 is generally to be found in satire. These poems are all lightly 
 and gracefully written, and there are passages in them which 
 are exceedingly comic. The most celebrated is the „Fudge 
 family in Paris". 
 
 The narrative poems of Moore resemble , in some re- 
 spects, those of Scott and Byron. They have the same form 
 of verse, and nearly the same tone ; but they want the plas- 
 tic power of the one poet, and the deep passion of the other. 
 Their principal charms are the melody of their rhythm, and 
 the richness of their imagery. The customs and poetry of 
 Persia were Moores favourite subjects. They were to him 
 what Scotch history was to Scott, and Turkish life to Byron; 
 but his pictures have much less truth and power than those 
 of his great contemporaries. His characters are English men 
 and women in Persian masks. His tales are graceful roman- 
 ces, but they never make any deep impression. Lalla Eookh 
 is the most celebrated of them. It is a series of four poems, 
 loosely connected by a prose tale. It was at one time very 
 popular, and it may still be read with pleasure. The Loves 
 of the angels was far less successful. The subject was beyond 
 his power. His angels are not angels, nor are they men and 
 women, they are gentlemen and ladies, and we must confess 
 that the ladies are blue - stockings , and even the gentlemen 
 
96 Book II. Chapter IV. 
 
 rather inclined to be pedantic. Yet it contains some passages 
 in bis best manner. 
 
 It is however on his songs that Moore's fame will rest. 
 He was the greatest lyrical poet of his age , and his Irish 
 melodies will be remembered long after all the rest of his 
 poems are forgotten. They are not wild bursts of passion 
 like Byron's shorter poems. They resemble the amatory poetry 
 of the middle ages rather than any .modern poet with whom 
 I am acquainted. His verses are fanciful and musical rather 
 than deeply ' affecting ; but in grace and melody they have 
 seldom been surpassed. Those that relate to the wrongs of 
 Ireland, and the fate of her patriots are particularly beau- 
 tiful. There is more real feeling in them than in any of 
 his other verses. For Moore was a thorough Irishman.. 
 He had all the wit, the versatility, the fi6kleness and the 
 vanity of that gifted, but unfortunate race, and he has em- 
 bodied the spirit of his nation in these beautiful songs. 
 
 On turning to his prose works the first that attracts our 
 attention is the „Epicurean". It is a romance , the plot of 
 which is laid in Egypt, during the first ages of Christianity. 
 The hero is a young philosopher , who has come to Egypt 
 to learn wisdom from the mouths of the priests and sages of 
 that land of marvels. Dissatisfied with their teachings and 
 the long and tedious years of trial through which he has to 
 pass, he meets a Christian who converts him. The charac- 
 ters are not well drawn, nor is the change in the heroes opi- 
 nions well conceived or carefully enough executed, but some 
 of the scenes are very striking. It is not however a very 
 powerful tale nor is it now generally read. 
 
 The only works of Moore which still remain to . be no- 
 ticed are his biographies. The best of these is the life of 
 Lord Byron , one of the best works of the kind in our lan- 
 guage. It is carefully arranged and well written, and is de- 
 servedly a great favourite with all who are interested in the 
 literary history of that age. 
 
Thomas Moore. Q'J 
 
 His works as a whole are rathert light and graceful es- 
 says than masterpieces of art. He was gifted with fancy- 
 father than imagination. He eould not paint either charac- 
 ters or passion with much force, but he could write cleverly 
 and even poetically about them. All the minor talents of 
 a poet he possessed in a high degree. In melody of rhythm, 
 ease of style, and variety of imagery he has seldom been sur- 
 passed. His colouring is always gorgeous, and his narrative 
 poems are sometimes overladen with ornament. His lyrical 
 poetry on the other hand is always graceful, and generally 
 simple. His songs are to be found in every Irish house, and 
 they are sung at every Irish festival. This was probably what 
 induced Byron to call him the Irish Burns. This title has 
 been so often repeated that it has now become proverbial) 
 yet no nickname could be more inappropriate. Both poets 
 were, it is true, the authors of popular songs; but there the 
 resemblance ceases. Burns was a realist in art. He drew 
 men and things as he saw them. Like a Dutch painter he 
 chose his subjects from every- day life. He loved to paint 
 the village ale-house, the peasant's fireside, and the popular 
 festivals of Scotland. Moore loved to revel in imaginary scenes. 
 He placed his heroes in distant countries, and among circum- 
 stances as unlike his own as possible. His pictures have* al- 
 ways something dreamy about them. He delights in the daz- 
 zling splendour of the East, in halls hung with gorgeous 
 drapery, and glittering with costly jewels. The air of the en- 
 chanted land he loves to paint is faint with the perfume of roses. 
 The light- that he throws upon his characters is tinted with 
 rainbow hues. Again, Burns excels in characteristic. His 
 peasants are men such as you meet in the fields. Their 
 hands are hardened by work. They-are not, it is true, ele- 
 gant and heroic, but they are men. His women characters 
 are rosy-cheeked peasant girls, not high born ladies, but what 
 is wanting in elegance -is made up for in truth. Moore , on 
 the other hand , is so anxious to make his characters heroic 
 
 1 Grant litterature. n 
 
98 Book II. Chapter V. 
 
 and graceful that he forgets to make them men and •women. 
 One feels that they can only exist in the fairy land -which he 
 has created for them. Finally Burns's songs are forcible and 
 immediate bursts of emotion. In reading them, we feel that 
 they are true — as true as nature itself. Moore, at best, 
 only describes passion, and the finest of his songs are those 
 ■which are purely reflective. 
 
 We have now come to the end of our first group of poets. 
 We have seen that, in spite of the originallity of each, they 
 had much in common. They were all narrative poets, and all of 
 them laid the scenes of their narratives in distant lands and times. 
 They loved to describe the heroic and the unusual, or at least 
 the distant. Some of Scott's novels seem, it is true, to be ex- 
 ceptions, but none of them can be called tales of every-day life. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Our second group consists of the poets who formed 
 what was then called the „Lake school". Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge are the chief of these. The tie that united them 
 was rather external than internal. Their poetical opinions and 
 theories differed widely. So did the character of their works. 
 But they were friends, they understood and loved each other. 
 They constantly defended each other when attacked by the 
 critics. Hence'they began to be looked upon as a school of 
 poets, who strove for the same end, and submitted to the 
 same critical laws. This belief was so general, and it has left 
 so deep an impress on our critical literature, that it would be 
 very difficult to separate them ; and the inconvenience would 
 far out - weigh any advantages which might result from a 
 more scrupulous correctness. 
 
 William Wordsworth was by far the greatest poet of 
 the Lake school. Indeed he is considered by many the great- 
 
William Wordsworth. gg 
 
 est poet of the period/ The influence of his poetry was not 
 so quickly and widely felt as that of Byron, but it was deep- 
 er and more permanent. For years he laboured on, amid 
 the scorn of his contemporaries , certain that the works he 
 wrote would be unpopular, but certain also that they would 
 be immortal. He was not generally acknowledged to be a 
 poet till he was an old man, but his writings contain no com- 
 plaints of this injustice. It would have been impossible for 
 Byron or Scott to have done this. They hungered after pre- 
 sent fame and present profit. Wordsworth, though not 
 careless of fame, wrote mainly from a pure love of writing. 
 He moulded and polished and finished off his verses with a 
 care which is a striking contrast to the haste with which his 
 more brilliant contemporaries dashed off their works. His 
 life had little in it that was either striking or interesting, 
 but it was the life of all others best suited to a philosophical 
 poet. He lived by the lakes he loved so well, with his wife 
 and sister, satisfied with the simple pleasures of country life. 
 He spent his time in his garden, amid his books, and in wan- 
 dering alone or with his sister through the beautiful scen- 
 ery which surrounded his house , meditating or conversing 
 with the simple hearted peasantry who surrounded him. 
 Yet it is pleasant to turn from the splendour of Abbotsford, 
 and from the scenes of glittering dissipation amid which By- 
 ron moved, to "Wordsworth's humble cottage at Grasmere 
 or Bydal mount. It is pleasant to hear of the primative 
 hospitality to be found there , and of the kindly care with 
 which the poet strove to diminish the hardships, and in- 
 crease the pleasures of his poorer neighbours. Scott too 
 took an interest in the affairs of his tenantry, and he was 
 always ready with a kind word and a helping hand, to 
 assist them in trouble. But this was one of his many luxu- 
 ries, while it was one of the principal ends of "Wordsworth's 
 life. But it is not with the man but the poet that we have 
 to do. More than any of his English contemporaries he 
 
 7* 
 
100 Book H. Chapter V. 
 
 ■wrote with a purpose. Most ,of our great poets, during this 
 age, gave free scope to their imagination, and let it carry 
 them where it would. They did not inquire into the .prut- 
 eiples of art, or, if they did, their studies had but little ef- 
 fect on their poems. Wordsworth, on the other hand, had 
 a theory of poetry , and this theory had a great effect on his 
 verses. It certainly did not make him a poet; indeed, it 
 seems to me, to have often rather injured his poetry than 
 otherwise; but it certainly directed his poetical talents. It 
 is only justice to confess, that his one-sided theory did not 
 make him one-sided in his judgement of others. He had not, 
 it is true, a eatholic taste; but his dislike of "Wilhelm Meister 
 and the poetry of Byron arose from moral, and not from aes r 
 thetical scruples. He liked the works of Scott, and was pasr 
 sionately fond of our early poets, who differed from him as 
 widely as possible. 
 
 While the group of poets whose works we have exam- 
 ined were seeking their subjects in distant lands and ages, he 
 directed his attention to every day modern life. Here, he 
 contended, was the true material for modern poetry. .The age 
 of chivalry was 'beautiful, and it doubtless contained subjects 
 of high poetical interest , but it is past. Its poets did well 
 to sing about it, for they were its exponents. But modern 
 life has also its beauties, its noble struggles, and its poetical 
 motives, if we had only- eyes .to see themj and it is with these 
 that we have- to do; Qod, man, and nature are still the same, 
 and it is the duty of the poet of the nineteenth century to 
 show, that his own age too is God-like, noble, and beautiful. 
 He must free its beauty and truth from the dust that 1 veils it 
 from common eyes. It avails us little to know, how a man 
 might live a pure and noble life in centuries and forms of so- 
 ciety long since past away, we must show how it is possible 
 for him to do it to - day. He is never weary of repeating 
 that the common - place affairs of every day life only appear 
 
William Wordswortli. 101 
 
 unpoetical to us because our own eyes are not capable of dis- 
 covering their beauty. Thus in one of his poems he writes 
 
 Long have I loved what I behold, 
 The night that calms, the day that cheers; 
 The common growth of mother earth 
 Suffices me — her tears and mirth, 
 Her humblest mirth and tears. 
 
 The dragon's wing, the magic ring, 
 I shall not covet for my dower, 
 If I along that lowly way 
 With sympathetic heart may stray, 
 And with a soul of power. 
 
 It is not strange that, having gone thus far, he should 
 go. farther, that after insisting on truth to nature, and on 
 making common feelings the subjects of poetry, he should 
 insist on their being expressed in common words. Hence 
 his celebrated theory of poetical language , which caused the 
 witty remark of Byron' 
 
 He both by precept and example shows 
 
 That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose. 
 
 But this remark is as unjust as satire usually is. Words- 
 worth merely meant, that the language should be suited to 
 the subjeet, and that the taste for high flown phrases, which 
 was so common in his age, was false. < That he was right 
 in this no one in our days will deny. 
 
 We will now cast a hasty glance at a few of his works. 
 The first of these , which has any great importance , was en- 
 titled „Lyrical ballads". This work was greeted by a storm 
 of hostile criticism, which the most partial critic cannot say 
 was entirely undeserved. His theories here were carried to 
 an extreme which bordered on caricature. The subjects can 
 hardly be said to be chosen from common life, they were 
 mere transcrpts of whatever came first. Sometimes it is im- 
 possible to tell whether the poet intends to be serious or hu- 
 
102 Book n. Chapter V. 
 
 mourous. The language and rhythm , of many pieces were 
 mannerised in the highest degree. Now a mere copy of 
 every-day life is worth nothing. The greatest English poets 
 who, hefore the time of "Wordsworth, had painted it realis- 
 tically were Chaucer and Burns. But they had either treated 
 their subjects humourously, or rendered them poetical by 
 colouring them with deep passion. "Wordsworth did neither. 
 Tet some of the poems have a simple grace and delicacy that 
 it would be difficult to match elsewhere. 
 
 But rustic and idyllic subjects do not make up the whole 
 of modern life, or even the most poetical part of it. This 
 "Wordsworth felt, and, in his long meditative waits, his mind 
 was often busied with subjects very different from those he 
 treated in the lyrical ballads. "While his eyes were always 
 open to catch the most fitful shades of natural beauty, he 
 was pondering deeply over the great -questions of life, and 
 death , and immortality. These were the subjects which he 
 now resolved to treat poetically. Hence the „Excursion" was 
 produced. This is his great masterpiece. It is a philosophical 
 but not a didactic poem. Wordsworth was far too great a 
 poet to wander back to the dreary regions in which the poets 
 of the classical school had loved to linger. He saw that the 
 creation of beauty, and not the discovery of truth, was the 
 great end of poetry. He believed with Hegel that beauty 
 has a right to exist for its own sake alone, or as he phrased 
 it, that „the end of poetry is to produce excitement in coexis- 
 tence with an overbalance of pleasure". He knew well enough 
 that no good end could be answered by writing philosophical 
 treatises in rhyme. But there are arguments drawn from ex- 
 perience , might not they be stated in verse that should de- 
 serve the name of poetry? Let us take an example. Few 
 indeed of the many thousands who have read with delight 
 the simple poem „We are seven" ever imagined that it was 
 intended by its author to be a serious argument for the immor- 
 tality of the soul Tet such was the fact. No child or un- 
 
William Wordsworth. 103 
 
 sophisticated person, argued the poet, ever imagines the pos- 
 sibility of anihilation. They feel instinctively that their lives 
 must endure forever. This is not the result of religious 
 training; it is the natural feeling which is common to all 
 mankind. Now let us examine his poetical statement of it. 
 
 We are Seven. 
 A simple child, 
 That lightly draws its breath, 
 And feels its life in every limb, 
 What should it know of death? 
 
 I met a little cottage girl: 
 She was eight years old, she said; 
 Her hair was thick with many a curl 
 That clustered round her head. 
 
 She had a rustic woodland air, 
 And she was wildly clad: 
 Her eyes were fair and very fair; — 
 Her beauty made me glad. 
 
 „Sisters and brothers, little Maid, 
 How many may you be?" 
 „How many? Seven in all", she said, 
 And wondering looked at me. 
 
 „And where are they? I pray you tell" 
 She answered „Seven are we; 
 And two of us at Conway dwell, 
 And two are gone to sea. 
 
 Two of us in the church -yard lie, 
 My sister and my brother, 
 And in the church -yard^ cottage I 
 Dwell near them with my mother!" 
 
 „Tou say that two at Conway dwell, 
 And, two are gone to sea, 
 
104 Book n - Chapter V. 
 
 Yet ye are seven! — I pray you tell, 
 Sweet Maid, how this may be". 
 
 Then did the little Maid reply, 
 „Seven hoys and girls are we: 
 Two of us in the church -yard lie, 
 Beneath the church- yard, tree!" 
 
 „You run about, my little Maid, 
 Your limbs they are alive; 
 If two are in the church -yard laid, 
 Then ye are only five." 
 
 „Their graves are green, they may be seen", 
 The little Maid replied, 
 
 „Twelve steps, or more, from mother's door, 
 And they are side by side. 
 
 My stockings there I often knit, 
 My kerchief there I hem; 
 And there upon the ground I sit, 
 And sing a song to them. 
 
 And often after sunset, Sir, 
 When it is light and fair, 
 I take my little porringer, 
 And eat my supper there. 
 
 The first that died was sister Jane, 
 In bed she moaning lay, 
 Till God released her from her pain; 
 And then she went away. 
 
 So in the church -yard Bhe was laid;- 
 And when the grass waB dry, 
 Together round her grave we played, 
 My brother John, and I. 
 
 And when the ground was white with snow, 
 And I could run and slide, 
 
William Wordsworth. 105 
 
 My brother John was forced to go, 
 And he lies by her side!" 
 
 „How many are you then", said I, 
 „If they two are in heaven?" 
 Quick was the little Maid's reply, 
 „0, Master! we are seven." * 
 
 ,,But they are dead; those two are dead! 
 Their spirits are in heaven!" 
 I was throwing words away; for still 
 The little Maid would have her will, 
 „Nay, Master! we are seven." 
 
 Here there is no dull statement of the argument, no 
 subtle reasoning; he describes a simple natural scene, and 
 leaves his readers to deduce the argument from it, as they 
 might have done from the fact itself. The value of the ar- 
 gument as an argument does not, of course, concern us here; 
 "We have only to do with Wordsworth's way of stating it poeti- 
 cally. But this is not the only way of writing a philosophical 
 poem ; it is not the way in which his greatest philosophical 
 poems are written. Modern life was in his opinion the pro- 
 per subject for poetry, it was the material out of which poems 
 should be formed, but the mood of mind in which the sub- 
 ject was to be approached, the forms into which this raw 
 material was to be cast were still left to the option of the 
 poet. He was not obliged to put aside the rich hoard of re- 
 flection with which his mind was stored when he began to 
 speak of common things. Might he not, after having formed 
 a theory of the world by means of long experience, and deep 
 meditation, arrange his. facts and observations, his tales of 
 human life, and his descriptions of natural scenery, in such 
 a way as to illustrate his theory. Such a plan had many ob- 
 vious advantages. The simplest tale would cease to be com- 
 mon place, because it would be brought into connexion with 
 the great idea of the universe. For every day life is unin- 
 
106 Book II. Chapter V. 
 
 teresting, not because it is common, but because it seems to 
 be accidental, a thing quite apart from our noblest thoughts, 
 and our highest aspirations. How if it could be brought into 
 harmony with them? Would not it then gain a quite new 
 significance ? This is the idea of the „Excursion". The plan 
 of the poem is simply and unskillfully constructed. It is 
 merely the account of a three days walk among the hills, of 
 the scenes he passed through, and the people he met. He 
 intended it to form a part of a much greater, work, „The Ee- 
 cluse", which was to treat „the sensations and opinions of a poet 
 living in retirement". This work was never completed. The 
 Excursion is masterly in the highest degree. Never, since 
 the days of Milton, had blank verse so sonorous and so 
 nervous been written in England. The descriptions of scen- 
 ery, though they have not the fire and spirited dash of By- 
 ron about them, betray a much nearer acquaintance with 
 nature, and a much deeper sympathy with it>, than those of 
 his more brilliant rival. The spirit too that breathes through 
 the whole poem is that of the deepest reverence — of rever- 
 ence for man, reverence for nature, and for nature's God. 
 
 Some of the pictures of human life in this poem are very 
 striking and powerful. Among these that of the Solitary 
 takes a' high place. He was the son of humble parents and 
 educated for the ministry, but his heart was too bold, and 
 his spirits too high for him to relish the quiet life of a coun- 
 try clergyman. He therefore became the chaplain of a 
 troup of soldiers, and lived among them, 
 
 Lax, boyant; less a pastor with his flock 
 Than a soldier among soldiers.. 
 
 At last he met, and fell in love with a lady of beauty, 
 taste, and fortune. With her he retired to his old home, and 
 they lived very happily, till 
 
 — Death suddenly overthrew 
 
 Two lovely children, all that they possessed, 
 
 The mother followed; miserably bare 
 
William Wordsworth 107 
 
 The one survivor stood. We wept, he prayed 
 For his dismissal, day and night, compelled 
 By pain to turn his thoughts toward the grave, 
 And face the regions of eternity. 
 From this passionate grief he passed into apathy. The 
 news of the French revolution awoke him from his lethargy, 
 and he travelled to Paris, inspired by the wild hope which 
 then filled Europe. There for a time he lived preaching 
 The cause of Christ and civil liberty 
 As one, and moving to one glorious end. 
 Here his belief, which up to this time had been sincere, 
 was undermined, and, though he continued to preach, he 
 ceased to believe the religion in which he had been educat- 
 ed. At last the great day of disenchantment came, and he 
 saw that the freedom which he had worshipped was a dream. 
 He left France, and settled again in England. Here the poet 
 meets him, sunk in the lowest despair, scorning mankind 
 and himself. 
 
 "We have not time to linger over the „ White doe of 
 Bylstone", or his other long poems. Many of his lyrics 
 are exquisite. Those addressed to Lucy, who seems to have 
 been his first love, are full of deep feeling, and all of them 
 have a simplicity which is strangely attractive. The lines to 
 his wife are perhaps the best known of all his poems. They 
 were written long after his marriage and are very charac- 
 teristic. 
 
 A portrait. 
 She was a phantom of delight, 
 : When first she gleamed upon my sight; 
 
 A lovly apparition, sent 
 To be a moment's ornament; 
 Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; 
 Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; 
 But all things else about her drawn 
 From May -time a the cheerful dawn; 
 
108 Book H. Chapter V. 
 
 A dancing shape, an image gay, 
 To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 
 
 I saw her upon nearer view, 
 
 A spirit ^ yet a woman too ! 
 
 Her • household motions light and free, 
 
 And. steps of virgin liberty; 
 
 A countenance in which did meet 
 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet; 
 
 A creature not too bright and good 
 
 For human nature's daily food; 
 
 3?or transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. 
 
 And now I see with eye serene 
 The very pulse of the machine; 
 A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A traveller betwixt life and death; 
 The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 Endurance, forsight, strength and still, 
 A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort and command; 
 And yet a spirit still, and bright 
 "With something of an angel light. 
 
 It was not, as we have already seen, in expressing deep 
 passion that Wordsworth excelled, but in quiet musings, and 
 -descriptions of scenery. ITo form of verse is better suited 
 for such poetry than the sonnet. Accordingly we find that 
 he has left behind him a vast number of poems of this kind ; 
 and in sonnet writing he reigns supreme. Almost all our 
 great poets have tried their hands at this form of verse, 
 but Milton alone can be compared to Wordsworth, and he 
 has left us not more than twenty sonnets, while Words- 
 worth's may be counted by hundreds. They are' all finished 
 
William Wordsworth. JQ9 
 
 off with great care. With respect to the form of verse it- 
 self he says 
 
 Nuns fret not at their convents narrow room, 
 And hermits are contented with their cells, 
 And students with their pensive citadels, 
 Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom 
 Sit blithe and happy; bees, that soar for bloom 
 High as the highest peak of Eurness Fells, 
 "Will murmur by the hour in fox -glove bells. 
 In truth, the prison unto which we doom 
 Ourselves no prison is, and hence to me, 
 In sundry moods, twas pastime to be bound 
 Within the sonnets scanty plot of ground; 
 Pleased if some souls, for such there needs must be, 
 Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, 
 Should find short solace there, as I have found. 
 His patriotic sonnets deserve mention as he is the only 
 really great English poet of this age who took England's side 
 against Napoleon in verse that can be called poetry. The 
 verses themselves have great beauties , some of them indeed 
 are almost perfect. 
 
 In Wordsworth's works we find neither the lively cha- 
 racteristic of Scott, nor the deep titanic passion of Byron. 
 Still less do we find any trace of the light wit, and sprightly 
 fancy of Moore. He dealt with other subjects, and sought 
 other beauties — beauties which, if they are less striking, 
 are at least as enduring as those of his more popular contem- 
 poraries. Jt is a remarkable fact that, while Byron is fall- 
 ing into the shade and even Scott is less read than formerly, 
 the fame and influence of Wordsworth are steadily increas- 
 ing. He has educated the public taste to an appreciation of 
 his works. In his youth he was ridiculed, in. his old age he 
 was admired, now he is reverenced. This is easily accoun- 
 ted for. The faults of his poetry all lie on the surface, and 
 are visible to the most careless reader, while its beauties ap- 
 
110 Book H. Chapter V. 
 
 peal only to the reflective and observant. His verse is often 
 harsh, and his diction is seldom happily chosen. His style ( 
 and the nature of his subjects were new ; and they were not 
 brilliant. The most casual reader feels that the plan of se- 
 veral even of his noblest works is clumsy, and inartistic, and 
 that the subjects of many of his smaller poems are trivial; 
 but not one in a thousand, even of his admirers, perceives 
 the wonderful truth of his descriptions of nature. No Eng- 
 lish poet, with the exception of Shakspeare, can be com- 
 pared with him in this respect. No tone is too soft to catch 
 his ear, no shadowing too slight to attract his eye. The 
 truth of his details is marvellous. He notes all the apparently 
 unimportant facts which, for the most part, are known only 
 to the landscape painter, and reproduces them with a truth 
 that the greatest landscape painter might envy. This is not 
 so slight or easy a thing as it at first seems. It is not till we 
 endeavour to observe nature carefully that we discover the dif- 
 ficulty of doing so. A landscape, or an effect of light and 
 shade impresses us as a whole, but very few attempt to ana- 
 lyze the feeling, and still fewer can point out the various 
 causes that produced it, or divide the necessary from the 
 accidental parts of a scene. Hence comes the difficulty that 
 young painters feel in copying correctly the cojours of a giv- 
 en piece of scenery: One of the greatest of English artists 
 is said to have told a young painter that to look at nature 
 was the most difficult part of art. How little we do look at 
 nature, in the sense in which he used the words, we feel 
 when we endeavour to form an opinion of a painting. How 
 seldom are we able to say with certainty, this Or that part 
 of the picture is true or false. When we reflect on this, we 
 shall not wonder that the first critics of Wordsworth did not 
 perceive the fineness of his detail. In fact one must take the 
 Excursion into the fields and woods, and compare it line by 
 line with nature , before we can appreciate its wonderful 
 exactness. Tet in his later works the poet seldom or ever 
 
William Wordsworth. m 
 
 fell into the common fault of describing for the mere sake of 
 describing; he used his wonderful knowledge either as illus- 
 tration, or in painting a back ground for his human characters. 
 When we turn to these characters, it is true, we find 
 that the poet is less happy in his, mode of painting them. 
 He had not the talent of depicting the external appearance of 
 men and women which Scott possessed in so extraordinary 
 a degree. "We often find, it is true, realistic touches of won- 
 derful truth, but it is too often generalized and not indivi- 
 dualized truth. He seems to have observed children, for 
 example , in nearly the same way in which he observed the 
 cows and sheep browsing on the hills. He noticed what chil- 
 dren as a rule would say and do, not what a particular 
 child would say and do under given circumstances. Hence 
 he describes childhood rather than children. He gives us 
 what is common to all, not what is peculiar to each. Close- , 
 ly connected with this is another of his faults. In describing 
 persons and events he does not sufficiently distinguish between 
 the necessary and the accidental. This is the stranger be- 
 cause his descriptions of scenery are remarkably free from 
 this fault it is however the case, in many of his earlier poems. 
 A great artist omits all that is unimportant. He reproduces 
 -with care every trait that can help to produce the effect he 
 intends, and leaves out the rest. He knows that all that 
 does not help hinders. Sometimes, it is true, it is at first 
 difficult for the reader to say why this or that little circum- 
 stance was inserted , but a deeper consideration will show a 
 reason for each. If we take Alexis and Dora for example, 
 the most perfect of all modern idyls, we shall find this to be 
 the case. As Alexis leaves his fathers house, after receiving his 
 blessing, his mother places in his hand a bundle that she has 
 made up after his other things had been sent away, and bear- 
 ing it under his arm he leaves them. This little touch gives 
 a perfect air of reality to the tale , but as- soon as this end 
 has been answered the bundle would only be in the way, 
 
112 Book IL Chapter V. 
 
 and we lose sight of it. Wordsworth would have followed 
 it as closely as Alexis. He would/have told us how he put 
 it down, when he entered Dora's garden, and took it up 
 when he left it. It is needless to say that this would have 
 greatly weakened the effect. This is the case with many of 
 his scenes and characters. He tells us a thousand circum- 
 stances that do not help on the story, a thousand traits that 
 are not characteristic. But if in this respect he is' inferior 
 to Scott, we must confess that he is in some xespects superior 
 to that great story-teller, even when dealing with human 
 nature. ^Neither Scott nor Byron could have equaled the con- 
 ception of the Solitary, neither of them could have described 
 the internal life of a character so different from their own. 
 That is Wordsworth's great power. He sees the connection of 
 thought, feeling and action. He can conceive a spiritual 
 disease, he can point out its cause, trace its symptoms,, and 
 tell its cure. The way in which he describes the Solitary's 
 case is masterly. It betrays a knowledge of human nature, 
 and the principles of human action, that Scott with all his 
 powers did not possess. Had the talents of these three poets 
 been united in one we should have had a second Shakespeare. 
 Another want in Wordsworth's nature was sensuousness, 
 a quality which all artistic geniuses of the )iighest order pos- 
 sess. It is this want which will prevent him ever being a 
 popular poet. Spite his own principles of criticism he does 
 not love beauty for its own sake, he saturates it with thought; 
 and his love for it decreases in exact proportion to its sen- 
 suousness. In his poetical affection inanimate nature came 
 first ; then the inferior animals, and then children. The few 
 love poems he has written are singularly aerial and unreal. He 
 shrinks from describing the beauty of his love directly, as 
 surely poet never did (before. He chooses his images , not 
 to make her beauty apparent, but to veil it. He compares 
 Lucy to a violet half hidden by a mossy stone, and to a star; 
 his wife is a phantom of delight, and a spirit. He delighted 
 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. JJ3 
 
 m nature, ' it is true, he loved its beaut/ as few men have 
 loved it. Yet it was to him a symbol, and, beautiful as he 
 felt it to be , he loved the hidden meaning more than the 
 outward sign. Hence his reverence for the lakes and moun- 
 tains , and the feeling of awe with which he moved among 
 tiiem. This brings us to the secret of the truth of his des- 
 cription of scenery, and to their great difference from those 
 of Lord Byron. The latter poet looked at nature as a store- 
 house , from which he could take and leave what suited his 
 fancy. He too used it as a symbol for his woe, but while 
 he did so he felt that the use was arbitrary. Wordsworth, on 
 the other hand , felt that in dealing with it he was dealing 
 with a holy thing. He tried to woo it to tell its secrets, to 
 explain its hidden significance. It was his friend, his love, 
 his teacher, and his comforter. „To me", he says in the 
 noblest of his poems 
 
 „To me the humblest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie to deep for tears" 
 The finest of Wordsworth's poems are those in which 
 this feeling has free room, and among these the noblest seems 
 to me to be his „Ode on Intimations of Immortality from 
 Eecollections of early Childhood" Emerson has called it the 
 high water -mark of English poetry, and it would certainly 
 be difficult to find, in the whole range of our literature, a 
 poem of the same class which is worthy to be placed beside it. 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the most remarkable 
 men England ever produced. In talents he was equal to any 
 poet of his age, in learning he was superior to them all; yet 
 he produced no great masterpiece. His works are a series of 
 fragments. They have a marvellous beauty, it is true, and 
 are without exception the most original productions of the 
 age; but they are still only the signs of what he might have 
 done. Sometimes a few words of his hint at long trains of 
 thought or summon up forms of wonderful beauty, but be- 
 fore the mind can grasp them they have vanished. He is the 
 
 Grant Htterature Q 
 
114 Book u - Chapter V. 
 
 most suggestive of English poets , but then his works only 
 suggest. Hence, though his influence on our literature has 
 been great, it has been indirect. He was the first to introduce 
 the modern metrical romance, but it was Scott and Byron 
 who reaped the harvest of fame and wealth from this style of 
 writing. He was the first Englishman who studied and to a 
 certain degree appropriated the ideas of German philosophy, 
 but the praise was lavished on his disciples. Finally, it was 
 he who first introduced into England the principles of philo- 
 sophic criticism, but his scholars, who cannot be compared 
 with him either in learning or taste, have forced their way in- 
 to the place that he should have occupied. This was doubt- 
 less owing to the want of mental concentration, which seems 
 to have been aji organic defect of his mind, but which was 
 increased by his excessive use of opium as a stimulant. Be- 
 sides this he had that inveterate habit of day-dreaming 
 which is often mistaken for indolence, but which is in fact a 
 state of great mental activity. He loved it to lose himself in 
 dreams of future works. He delighted in what Balzac calls in- 
 tellectual cegar smoking. He was perpetually forming plans. 
 This is at once the highest pleasure, and the greatest danger 
 of an artist. So much seems to be done when a great thought 
 has been grasped, or a great plan conceived, and the me- 
 chanical labour of composition seems at once so unimport- 
 ant and so dry, that a man of great imagination, or subtle 
 intellect seldom or ever overcomes the habit when he has 
 once sunk into it. This was the case with Coleridge. His 
 conversation was filled with brilliant thoughts and pictures. 
 The most intellectual and refined society in London thronged 
 his rooms to hear him explain philosophical systems, which, 
 had he written them, would, as they unanimously assure us, 
 have gained him a place among the greatest of modern phi- 
 losophers, but he never wrote down more than a few scat- 
 tered thoughts , so that we are obliged to guess at his inte- 
 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. J 15 
 
 lectual power by a few written fragments, and the imperfect 
 reports of his conversations which remain. 
 
 The most important of Coleridge's poems is „Christabel." 
 It is the fragment of a metrical romance, and was the first of 
 its kind. From it Scott learned the form of Marmion and the 
 lady of the Lake , but the spirit of Coleridge's poem is very 
 different from that of Scott's. It approaches much nearer 
 to that of the old romances. It is a wierd tale of enchant-' 
 ments and wonders. The dim light through which the cha- 
 racters move reminds one strongly of the novels of Fouque"; 
 but it is much more powerfully written than the Zauber-ring. 
 The rhythm, of this poem is strikingly melodious. It differs 
 from the melody of Moore's best verses just as the music of 
 the wind amid the pine boughs, or the sound of an Aeolean 
 harp differs from a song of Verdi's. Sometimes it reminds 
 one of long forgotten melodies, sometimes it suggests music 
 far wilder and sweeter than its own. Short passages fix 
 themselves in the memory, not on account of their sense 
 so much as 'their music. We repeat them to ourselves just as 
 we hum over, an old tune without thinking of the meaning. 
 The imagery of the poem is exceedingly beautiful. The poet's 
 vast and curious learning opened up to him stores of illustra- 
 tion that were hidden from his less learned contemporaries. 
 He was deeply read in the poetical and mystical literature of 
 the middle ages, and this gave a colouring to his verses. 
 His very style spoke of his acquaintance with our old poets ; 
 and the fine taste with which he selected the form of expres- 
 sion which suited his subject cannot be too highly praised. 
 The diction of Christabel is just antiquated enough to give 
 it the rich flavour of age. It abounds in phrases and forms 
 of expression that are now obsolete, but it is never so anti- 
 quated as to render it difficult for the most unlearned reader 
 to understand it. 
 
 „The Ancient Mariner" has some points of resemblance 
 with Christabel. It is, like it, a tale of supernatural won- 
 
 8* 
 
116 ' Book II. Chapter V. 
 
 ders, but they are of a very different, description. They have 
 a seriousness about them that has something aweful in it. 
 Above all, the dreaminess which gives such a charm to Chri- 
 stabel is wanting here, but in its place we have a clearness 
 which is far better suited. to this subject. ... - ( 
 
 , Coleridge's dramas are better than those of Byron and 
 Scott, They have great poetical .beauties though but little 
 dramatic power. His translation . of Wajlenstein occupies a 
 very high, if not the highest place, among our metrical trans- 
 lations. His smaller poems are , taken ; as a whole , hardly 
 equal to their fame. 
 
 The mind of Coleridge was endowed with vast, and very 
 dissimilar powers. He was at once a poet and a man of deep 
 learning. In both, of. these characters too he displayed an 
 uncommonly large range of powers. Some of his poems have 
 much of the dreamy beauty and melody of Shelley, while, in 
 his dramas,, the. firmness of his touch often reminds us of 
 Scott. On the other hand he was equally acquainted with 
 the dreamy systems of the mystics, and the clear logic of the 
 modern German philosophers. In his later years, most pf 
 his time was iakpn up in planning two great works, neither 
 of, which was executed. The one was a treatise on the 
 „^ord" in the Gospel according to St. John ; the other was a 
 new system of philosophy, founded on that of Kant. Pro- 
 bably no single Englishman of the age could have undertaken 
 either with so much hope of success. When we remember 
 that his remarks on Shakespeare are beyond all comparison 
 the finest essays on that poet in our language, we shall at 
 once see that his was a mind of no ordinary power. But this 
 power was to a great extent lost, from his incurable want of 
 method and power of will. The sad lines which he addres- 
 sed to "Wordsworth are but to true. 
 
 Ah! as I listened jvith a heart forlorn, 
 
 The pulses of my being beat anew; 
 
 And even as life returns unto the .drowned, 
 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. \\*j 
 
 Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains — " 
 Keen pangs of Xove, awakening as a babe 
 Turbulent, -with an outcry in the heart; 
 And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope; 
 And hope that scarce would know itself from fear; 
 Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, 
 And genius given, and knowledge won in vain; 
 And all which I had culled in wood -walks wild, 
 And all which patient toil had reared, and all 
 Commune with thee had opened out — but flowers 
 Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, 
 In the same coffin, for the self- same grave! 
 It is impossible to criticise the verses which he has left 
 us as a whole, impossible to say where his power began and 
 where it ended , for they are all only fragments. Whe read 
 them with delight, but we are not satisfied ; they are all only 
 hints of what might have been , and is not. He has been 
 charged with obscurity, but his obscurity is never verbal. 
 His trains of thought are to deep to be expressed wiih all 
 the clearness of Byron or Scott, and he merely hints at, and 
 seldom expresses his thought. His" imagery, too, is certainly 
 less sharp than that of the two poets I have just mentioned, 
 but this arises from no want of distinctness in the pictures 
 themselves, nor from any fault of the language in which 
 they are clothed. It is , so to speak , part of his technic. 
 He shadows his poetic forms in a mist ; but it is no ordinary 
 dreary fog that envelops them, but a golden haze, like that 
 caused by the sunlight falling on rain. The very indistinct- 
 ness adds to the charm. In that peculiar kind of imagina- 
 tion which gives birth to mythologies and forms of religion, 
 Shelley is the only poet of the age who can be compared to 
 him. This faculty is one which is seldom to be found in 
 civilized society. It js one of the powers of which education 
 seems to rob us, we have lost is as we have lost the keenness 
 of our senses. Among the poets of the middle ages it was de- 
 
118 Book II. Chapter V. 
 
 veloped to an extraordinary degree, as the story of Arthur, 
 the Holy Grail and a thousand other myths show. But in no 
 English writer of the middle ages do we find it more clearly 
 exhibited, than in the writings of Coleridge and Shelley. 
 "We cannot better conclude this short sketch of his poetry 
 than by an extract from Ferd. Freiligrath's biographical me- 
 moir of the poet. 
 
 „Coleridge, with all his errors and shortcomings, is 
 yet a name never to be omitted in a history of the march of 
 the English mind. Wot so much for what he has actually 
 performed, as for the stimulating impulses given by him. 
 His gifts were of the richest and highest order, yet, how- 
 ever powerful as a Critic, however profound as a metaphysi- 
 cian, however melodious and imaginative as a poet, he from 
 an innate want of courage and energy of character had it 
 not in his power to give to his faculties that development, 
 which , if it had been attained , would entitle him to one of 
 the very highest places in English literature". 
 
 The critic then traces Coleridge's influence in promoting 
 „that all important exchange of ideas between two great kin- 
 dred nations, which at present, stirring and humanising, 
 fluctuates to and fro across the German Ocean". He then 
 proceeds, „Eor a metaphysician, Coleridge was perhaps too 
 imaginative; for a poet, may be, too metaphysical. At least 
 some of his earlier poems (not the very earliest * * *) are 
 of a greater abstruseness , than would seem pardonable in a 
 poet. His later and maturer effusions happily avoid this de- 
 fect. -They are, even if their subject-matter is wild and 
 faneiful, simple and natural in expression, and full of a music 
 which, in the English language , has rarely been, surpassed. 
 .... Altogether, there was little of the plastic artist in Co- 
 leridge. He is sometimes a painter, but never a sculptor. 
 Life, palpable reality are things which evade his grasp. His 
 domain lies in Cloudland; his world is but too often a visio- 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelleys. 119 
 
 nary world. Hence, let us not forget, the insufficiency of 
 his dramatic attempts; hence, too, the otherwise startling 
 and inexplicable fact, that his Toyage to the South has been 
 utterly resultless to his poetry." 
 
 The works of Coleridge may be looked upon as the con- 
 necting link between our second and third group. To this 
 we must now pass ; for, though the works of Southey are by 
 no means unimportant , he cannot claim a place among the 
 greatest writers of the age. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The story of Percy Bysske Shelley's life- is as strange as 
 any romance could be, far stranger, nobler and perhaps even 
 sadder than that of Byron , which set all the world weeping- 
 It is, however, but very imperfectly known. No really trust- 
 worthy biography has as yet appeared, and we are obliged 
 to collect stray hints from the writings of his contemporaries, 
 and to test by them the trustworthiness of the different sketch- 
 es of his life or of parts of it which from time to time are 
 -published. His poetry has had the same fate as that of 
 "Wordsworth. At the time of its publication it was laughed 
 at, or treated with entire indifference, but since his death 
 its popularity has daily increased , until now it equals that 
 of Byron, while his influence on our literature has been 
 nearly as great as that of "Wordsworth. He was born on the 
 4 th August 1792. His father was Sir Thomas Shelley, one of 
 the richest baronets in Surrey. He seems to have been a 
 rough man, strongly conservative in his political views, and 
 fond of hunting ; not at all capable of understanding the sen- 
 sitive nature of his son. At ten years old the poet was 
 sent to Sion house school, but his life there does not seem 
 to have been a happy one. Nor were matters much im- 
 
1 2|0 Book II. Chapter VI. 
 
 proved when he was removed to Eton, The system of fag- 
 ging which still exists, there was then carried to an in- 
 credible extent. : Shelley's fine sense of justice was outraged 
 at every turn. It was here , if we may helieve his own ac- 
 count , that he made the great resolution of his life to stand 
 on the side of the weak against the strong , and of truth 
 against, error. 
 
 His resolution was only too well kept, and from that hour 
 his life was a protest against injustice and falsehood. Such 
 were the feelings with which he went to Oxford, the seat of 
 conservatism and orthodoxy. He studied hard, but not the 
 subjects which are generally studied there. The works of 
 Plato and the Neoplatonists occupied much of his time; but 
 the German and Italian literature, and the philosophy of Ger- 
 many and France, seem to have been the principal objects of 
 bis study. The writings of the encyclopaedists led him to 
 the natural sciences; and he spent much of his. time over 
 his microscope and in chemical experiments. We have se- 
 veral pictures of him at this time from his fellow students. 
 We hear much of his bright face , and the eagerness with 
 which he disputed on any subject, which lay near his heart, 
 and still more of his gentleness and charity. At this time 
 Shelley imbibed atheistic principles. He was probably predisr 
 posed to heterodoxy, for he had seen Christianity in its most 
 unfavourable light. He had not seen it standing between 
 the. oppressed and their oppressors, soothing the sick and 
 lighting up the cottages of the poor, but united with the 
 king and the nobles to resist what seemed to him the pro- 
 gress of mankind. He had found in its professors not love 
 but intolerance , not belief but bigotry. Hence its dogmas 
 had but little hold upon him, and he became an easy convert 
 io the opinions taught with such clear but superficial logic 
 in the ,;System of nature". For a young man so much in 
 earnest as Shelley to form on opinion and to act upon it is 
 the same thing. He immediately composed, with the assis- 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley 121 
 
 tance of a fellow -student, a pamphlet, entitled „The neces- 
 sity of Atheism". It was in all probability a very weak 
 and daring; work — a mere repetition of the arguments of 
 the French philosophers, of the age. In order to prevent 
 the possibility of its being passed over in silence, the authors 
 sent a Copy of it to each of the professors, with a request 
 that they would answer it. The consequence was, that both 
 the authors were expelled from the university. This has of- 
 ten been blamed as an act of intolerance , but I cannot say 
 that it seems to me to have been unnecessarily harsh. We 
 may indeed regret that there was no man of riper years and 
 experience to take the young poet by the hand; but we must 
 not allow our sympathy for him to make us unjust to others. 
 Oxford was, at that time, a University founded on the prin- 
 ciples of the Anglican church. Even protestant dissenters 
 were not permitted to study there. Hence she could not allow 
 books which were professedly heterodox to be* published by 
 her students. The imprudent behaviour of the young men, 
 in sending the book to the professors, had rendered it im- 
 possible that its publication should be passed over in silence, 
 and it was obviously impossible that the academical teachers 
 of Oxford should enter into a discussion of such questions with 
 their own pupils. Still the effect of the expulsion on SheL- 
 ley's life and opinions was very unfortunate. . It confirmed 
 him in his Atheism , and it separated him farther than ever 
 from his family. Indeed it is said, that his father forbade his 
 mother and sisters to hold any communication with him\ Be- 
 fore this time he had been deeply attached to his cousin Har- 
 riett Grove, now he was forbidden to have any intercourse 
 with her. 
 
 Shelley removed to London and there continued his stn* 
 dies , which now led him into still wilder theories. He saw 
 clearly that all the miseries to which human nature is subject 
 could not be traced back either to a false religion, or a tyran- 
 ical government; they must therefore , he argued, be attri- 
 
122 Book II. Chapter VI. 
 
 buted to the abnormal state of society ; for the idea that evil 
 was necessary never entered his mind. The two great causes 
 of human wretchedness now seemed to him to be the institution 
 of marriage, and the unequal division of wealth. There can 
 be no doubt that he sincerely and disinterestedly believed in 
 this theory. BTor was his philanthropy confined to his opin- 
 ions. He spent a great part of his time and money in relieving 
 the poor. Once indeed he pawned the great joy of his life, 
 his solar microscope, in order that he might at once relieve 
 the wants of a poor family. His own way of life was simple 
 in the extreme. He seldom drank anything but water, and 
 often lived for days on bread and raisins, which he bought 
 and eat while walking through the streets. For a long time 
 he hesitated whether he should devote himself to poetry or 
 metaphysics. ■ In this state of mind he wrote „ Queen Mab," an 
 unfortunate attempt to unite both» This poem was written 
 before Shelley had completed his eighteenth year. He did 
 not intend it for publication, but, a copy getting into the 
 hands of a bookseller, it was published withouth his know- 
 ledge and' against his will. It is a mere collection of ab- 
 stract theories, entirely unfit for poetical treatment; but, 
 wild and dreamy as they are, ,he believed in them so sin- 
 cerely that to him they were passionate emotions rather than 
 cold trains of reasoning. Hence come the bright flashes of 
 poetry which are to be found here and there even in this 
 poem. The diction too already shows much of the nervous 
 force clearness,, and wild melody which distinguished his lat- 
 «r works. The description of the Fairy queen, with which 
 the poem opens, is a wonderful flight of imagination for a 
 boy in his eighteenth year. The theories which. form the 
 subject matter of Queen Mab are of course crude and wild in 
 the extreme, and it would be difficult to match the impiety of 
 some passages ; but even here we find that Shelley's heart 
 was pure and true and loving. It was because he loved man- 
 kind with such a deep, passionate love that he hated the creeds 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. J 23 
 
 and governments which seemed to him to be their curse so 
 bitterly. > 
 
 One of Shelley's sisters was at school in London, and 
 he frequently visited her. One day , as they were walking 
 in the garden together , they met one of her school fellows, 
 Harriet "Westbrook, a pretty blonde of sixteen. She attracted 
 his attention, and finding her name was Harriet — the name 
 of his first love, he insisted on being introduced to her. He 
 made a deep impression on her , and the acquaintance soon 
 ripened into intimacy. This young lady he afterwards mar- 
 ried, without the knowledge' or consent of her parents or his 
 own, in August 1811. This exasperated his father, and well 
 it might. Miss "Westbrook's father kept a coffee - house in 
 London, and the proud old Baronet could scarcely be ex- 
 pected to take such a daughter - in - law into his family. He 
 -stopped his sons allowance, but the relations of the young 
 couple allowed them a sum of money sufficient for their wants. 
 For a time things went well enough, and many strange sto- 
 ries are told of their childishness. So imprudent a marriage 
 could not be expected to end well. They were separated. 
 No trustworthy account of the particulars has been published. 
 This is the one dark spot in Shelley's life, the only thing the 
 most rigid moralist can blame. Left in the dark as we are 
 with respect to the causes which induced him to take the 
 step, we cannot blame him very severely. The consequences 
 of the separation however cast a dark cloud over his life. 
 M r9 Shelley commited suicide. , About this time the poets fa- 
 ther agreed to allow his son £ 800 a year. This he did be- 
 cause the estate was entailed on him. ■ Shortly afterwards 
 Shelley was, by means of an old and most iniquitous law, 
 deprived of the guardianship of his own children, because he 
 was a declared atheist. The charge was based on some pas- 
 sages in Queen Mab. On the 10 th , of December 1816 Shel- 
 ley married his second wife, Mary Godwin, the daughter of 
 an author of some celebrity in those days, who agreed with 
 
124 Boot II. Chapter VI. 
 
 the poet in his religious and social theories. This lady was 
 a very talented and well educated woman, and they lived 
 very happily together till the poet's death. 
 
 The only important work which he published between 
 his first and his second marriage is a poem entitled „Alastor 
 or the spirit of Solitude". It is a strange, unreal, and sad 
 story of a poets life. Human interest it has none. It tells 
 how a young man wanders , without any definite intention, 
 through the whole world. He has neither friends, home, nor 
 country. At last he falls in love with a dream, and wanders 
 on seeking it in vain. It is the embodiment of that yearn- 
 ing after fellowship which we feel when young, and it is 
 now a favourite book of dreamy boys and girls. At the time 
 of its publication it passed unnoticed. 
 
 In 1816 Shelley had travelled on the Continent at the 
 recommendation ' of his physicians, who thought him in dan- 
 ger of sinking into consumtion. At Geneva he met Lord 
 Byron for the first time. On his return to England he sett- 
 led at Mario w. Here „the EevohV of Islam", the longest of 
 his poems, was written. "We need not trace even the outline 
 of this strange story. It tells how a youth and maiden attempt 
 to reform the world by overthrowing tyranny and religion, 
 how they for awhile succeed, but are at last overthrown and 
 executed, upon which the poem follows them to the abode 
 of the blest. It is needless to say that the tale is improbable; 
 no incident in it could well have happened. The charac- 
 ters too are not only unreal, they are impossible. Yet they 
 are clearly and sharply drawn, and they have a certain truth. 
 They are true to our purest and highest thoughts. They are 
 not what we are, but they are, spite their many errors, 
 what, in our- highest moments, we should wish to be. Shel- 
 ley has often been blamed for painting dark and horrible pic- 
 tures. If this were true of any of his writings it would be 
 true of this. Nowhere else, except in his Prometheus, 
 has he attempted a subject which gave him such room for 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 125 
 
 the description of horrors, and in that poem, he draws a veil 
 over the sufferings of the Titan. In the revolt of Islam this 
 is not the case, he does not attempt to disguise the pain and 
 suffering with which he has to do, but before we blame him 
 for this, we must ask whether it would have been possible for 
 him to do so. He tells the story of the greatest self-sacrifice, 
 and the most heroic daring for the human race, but/to un- 
 derstand and sympathize with such actions we must feel that 
 they are necessary, or they appear mere foolery if not some- 
 thing, worse. Shelley never gloats over such descriptions 
 with that unhealthy love of ugliness which so many modern 
 poets have shown. He uses them as the dark background of 
 a picture of truth and love. This poem too is the clearest 
 statement of his creed , which he has left us. Men, he saw, 
 were wretched, cruel and intolerant. He himself had suffered, 
 as few equally pure men have ever suffered, from these faults; 
 but these, he thought, were only the necessary results of 
 accidental circumstances. Man, he is never tired of repeat- 
 ing, is not by nature bad; he is pure and holy; but he is 
 blind. Show him the good and he will love it , aye and die 
 for it. Teach him the lesson of love and he will sit at thy 
 feet. It is his blindness, his ignoranee, and madness which 
 make him evil, but we must love him all the more for these, 
 as a mother loves her crippled child better than the strong 
 one who has less need of her care. Even the very tyrant 
 who spreads desolation around him must not be. hated but 
 pitied, Alas! is not he the most unhappy of us all? We may 
 have to fight against him, but let.it not be in hate, but in 
 sorrow, for is not he too a brother? This may be a dreamy 
 idealism ■, but there is something in it which speaks to the 
 hearts of the noblest of our young men, and it has done 
 much to make Shelley's poems, a book which stands to them 
 in the place of a friend. The execution of the poem is rather 
 unequal. It contains passages which are among the finest 
 he ever wrote, and .others which remind us strongly of the in- 
 
126 Book II. Chapter VI> 
 
 coherencies of Queen Mab. The form of verse — the stanza 
 of Spenser, was excellently suited to the subject, and he 
 has treated it in masterly a manner, but it left little scope 
 for 'the wonderful and 'Irregular bursts of melody which are 
 one of the great charms of many of his other poems. 
 
 While residing at Marlow Shelley continued his old ha- 
 bit of caring for the poor. No country clergyman could have 
 devoted his time more exclusively to his congregation than 
 the young poet did his to his poorer neighbours. Wherever 
 sickness, poverty, or sorrow was, there might Shelley be found, 
 with a kind word and a helping hand. Neither bad weather, 
 nor sickness could keep him away from these self imposed du- 
 ties. It was this self- devotion which brought on a severe 
 attack of illness that forced him to leave England for Italy 
 on the 12 th of March 1818. He never returned to his native 
 country. 
 
 In Rome he wrote his „Prometheus unbound." There is 
 probably no mythological subject which has so deep an interest 
 for modern times as the story of Prometheus. It is, like Faust, 
 a tragedy whose basis is as broad as human nature. The plan 
 of Shelley's poem is so utterly different from that of Aeschylus 
 that they can not be compared with each other. It has a much- 
 nearer resemblance, in spirit, to Goethe's marvellous frag- 
 ment on the same subject. At least it will be more profitable- 
 for us to compare them. Of course the power, the classical 
 clearness, and the admirable characteristic of the German 
 poem are wanting in the English one. Of course their can 
 be no comparison between Goethe and Shelley; but the ra- 
 dical difference between the two poets makes the compari- 
 son only the more interesting. We find that both aimed at 
 the same thing, both endeavoured to cast a modern idea into 
 an antique form — to use a classical myth as the dress of a 
 new thought. Goethe's fragment is unfortunately less known 
 than it deserves to be. Had it been completed, it would 
 take its stand among the noblest of his works. Shelley's 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 127 
 
 drama is perhaps of all his works the one which shows 
 his various powers to the most advantage. All the talents 
 which are displayed in it are perhaps shown to more ad- 
 vantage in some of his other poems, but here they are 
 united while in the others they can only be found singly. 
 The essential difference between the characters of the two 
 poets is to be seen at the most hasty glance at the plans of 
 the two works. Goethe was by nature a heathen; Shelley, 
 spite his Atheism and his almost fanatical hatred of the dogmas 
 of Christianity, was a Christian. Hence the leading idea of 
 the German work is purely artistic, that of the English pure- 
 ly moral. The Prometheus of Goethe treats of the struggle 
 between the individual and the universal good. His hero 
 is a being of Titanic might, who demands space for the exer- 
 cise of his powers. He has, he thinks/ as much right to 
 his own world as the gods to theirs. Thus he says 
 That which I have they cannot take from me, 
 And that which they have let them guard themselves. 
 Here mine and thine. 
 
 To the question „What then belongs to thee ?" he answers 
 „The circle that my power of working fills, 
 Nought under nor above". 
 
 Shelley's Prometheus is a very different character. He 
 is moved by no desire of mere personal freedom, he sufferB 
 for the human race. In Goethe's poem the gods only Beem 
 evil to Prometheus, here they are evil. That is the great 
 idea of the poem, the contest of good and evil. Evil, in 
 the person of Jupiter, sits crowned in heaven, all power 
 and might are given into his hands. His rule would be 
 unbounded , but for the lonely sufferer who hangs nailed to 
 peaks of the Caucasus. If he can be overcome , the power 
 of the gods can never be shaken, the good will be utterly 
 vanquished. If he remains unshaken, the day of deliverance 
 may, nay it must, come. The feeling that moves him is 
 love not pride. Like Christ on the cross, he suffers not for 
 
{28 Book II. Cha|>tei> VI. 
 
 himself, but for the salvation of the whale world. It is evi- 
 dent that; such, a contest can be terminated by no truce. In 
 Goethe's poem such a conclusion was possible, nay as it 
 seems to me , necessary. His hero might , and I believe 
 would, have been brought to see that the good- of the indivi- 
 dual is not opposed to the laws of the universal : — -nay that 
 he can only find real happiness in submitting to- those laws. 
 This conclusion is foreshadowed in the words with which his 
 brother leaves him , after he has refused the offer of Jupiter, 
 
 „Thou stand' st alone, 
 
 And in thy self-will dost despise the blessing; 
 
 That the gods , and thou, 
 
 And thine, the universe, and heaven, and earth 
 
 United in a single whole would feel. 
 
 In Shelley's Drama this was impossible, Prometheus 
 and Jupiter-^ good and evil — can never come to terms. One 
 of them must: be crushed. Hence it was necessary that the 
 poem should conclude with the fall of Jupiter. "We cannot 
 follow out the comparison farther, because the time chosen 
 by the two poets^was different. The German fragment ends 
 before the hero has been fastened to the rock. Shelley's 
 drama does not begin till he has already hung there three 
 thousand years. It opens with, a monologue by Prometheus, 
 who .hangs, chained to the precipice, with Jone and Panthea 
 seated at Jris feet. He demands to hear the curse which he 
 spoke, when he was first condemned to his long anguish. 
 After the spirits of Earth and air have refused to speak, from 
 fear of Jupiter, a shade from the regions of the dead repeats 
 it. Prometheus then exclaims 
 
 It doth repent me. Words are quick and vain. 
 
 Grief for awhile is. blind, and so was mine, 
 
 I wish no living thing to suffer pain. 
 
 On this Mercury appears, and offers peace on condition 
 of submission. This is at once refused. AH bodily tortures 
 have now in vain been tried , a greater yet remains behind. 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 129 
 
 The furies summon up before him pictures of all human 
 wretchedness and meanness; they show him men living and 
 dying for their kind in vain, truths taught and battles fought 
 in vain, hearts broken > and lives self- sacrificed in vain. 
 These tortures are designed to show that Prometheus is struggl- 
 ing for a worthless race. Though crushed by the sight, his 
 answer sounds clear and high: 
 
 This is defeat, fierce king, not victory. 
 The sights with which thou torturest giri my soul 
 With new endurance, till the hour arrives 
 When they shall be no types of things which are. 
 The way in which the poet makes us feel the whole 
 effects of the terrible scenes without bringing their horrors 
 directly before our eyes is masterly in the extreme. As soon 
 as the Furies withdraw, Prometheus is comforted by a cho- 
 rus of spirits, who tell him of the pure and noble deeds that 
 are done by mankind. Four lines will serve as a specimen. 
 A spirit sings. „I alit 
 
 On a great ship lightning split, 
 And speeded hither on the sigh 
 Of one who gave his enemy 
 His plank, and plunged aside to die. 
 Thus the first act terminates. We need not follow the 
 progress of the drama farther. Jupiter is hurled from his 
 throne, and the poem concludes with a magnificent series 
 of choruses from the spirits of the delivered world. 
 
 Shelley's next work was „the Cenci" , a tragedy in five 
 acts. During his residence in Eome, he had spent much of bis 
 time in the picture galleries of that city. He had there seen 
 Guido Reni's picture of Beatrice Cenci, and it had made a 
 deep impression on his mind. He himself says, he could get 
 no rest till he had written the sad story of that beautiful and 
 unfortunate lady. Her history is too well known for it to be 
 necessary, to retell it. It is one of those stories which at 
 once attract the dramatist by their striking contrasts, and 
 
 Grant litteratoie. Q 
 
130 Book H. Chapter VI. - 
 
 overwhelming passion. Ford or Massenger would have de- 
 lighted in such a subject, but most modern poets would have 
 shrunk from it with horror. Indeed <there were almost insu- 
 perable difficulties in the way of its artistic treatment. Shelley- 
 did not entirely overcome them. The Cenci is far from being 
 faultless in an aesthetical point of view, but it is incomparably 
 the best modern English drama. It shows that Shelley pos- 
 sessed powers which are displayed in none of his other works, 
 that he - could draw human characters and natural passion 
 with as much power as the wild and aerial dreams in which 
 he chiefly delighted. The first scene of the tragedy awakens 
 our interest, and it never flags till the end of the last, when 
 Beatrice is led out to execution. Tet the drama has its 
 faults. The character of Count Cenci is, if not unnaturally, at 
 least inartistically evil. This fault lay in the nature of the 
 subject. The Count, as history and tradition represent him, 
 was as near an approach to an incarnate devil as can well 
 be imagined. If this were not the case, the whole story could 
 not have happened. He was a man who had revelled in 
 crime, till it had ceased to have even a pleasurable excite- 
 ment for him, a wretch who had sated himself with vice, 
 until all but its most loathesome forms had lost their interest. 
 Such beings do perhaps exist. Count Cenci, as he lived, was 
 probably such a being ; but in that case he was a monstros- 
 ity, and therefore no proper subject for artistic treatment. 
 An artist might as well paint a two-headed ox as a poet copy 
 such a moral enormity. But when he had once chosen his sub- 
 ject, the poet could not but paint him thusi The great crime 
 which armed the hand of -his daughter, a beautiful and inno- 
 cent girl, with a dagger to; be used against her fathers life^ 
 is only hinted at in the play before us, therefore his other 
 crimes must necessarily be exhibited in all their blackness. 
 Shelley might , it is true , have hinted at the steps by which 
 he sunk into such moral deformity. This he has not done, 
 and this is the great fault of the tragedy; but for it it would 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 131 
 
 be almost faultless. The character of Beatrice is wonderfully 
 drawn, it is incomparably the best to be found in any English 
 work of the age , both in conception and execution. In it 
 Shelley excelled both Scott and Byron in their peculiar 
 branches of art; Scott never drew a woman so perfectly. She 
 has more than all the grace, womanliness, and dignity of 
 his heroines. "We feel that in the veins of this pure and 
 gentle girl runs the blood of a hundred noble ancestors. We 
 cannot'point out the touches by which this effect is wrought, 
 but they are there. She is more heroic , and yet more wo- 
 manly than the most masterly of Scott's creations. A hundred 
 little words and actions, even in the midst of her most fearful 
 wrongs, betray her maidenly grace. On the other hand the 
 fearful passion which hurries her on from despair to parricide, 
 has all the power, and more than all the truth of Byron's 
 highest flights. Lucretia is only less powerfully drawn than 
 her daughter. The weakness of the broken spirited woman 
 which . is sometimes almost as strong as her love for her 
 children and the shallownes of her mind, are well drawn 
 and contrasted with the high intellect and firm will of Beatrice. 
 
 Adonais is a lament over the untimely death of John 
 Keats, the poet whose works whe shall shortly have to exa- 
 mine. It is one of the best poems of the kind in our language, 
 for Tennyson's In Memoriam is something more than a mere 
 elegy. The imagery is grand and impressive, and the con- 
 clusion of the poem is one of the highest flights of imagina- 
 tion to be found in Shelley's works. 
 
 Epipsychidion is a very remarkable poem and it has had 
 a considerable influence on our literature. In the form of a 
 love -poem it embodies a long train of abstract thought; but 
 it is a strange contrast to most philosophical poems. They 
 are cold and dead, this glows with passion and is instinct 
 with life. Thought has here become feeling, the purest and 
 deepest feeling of the poet's soul. 
 
 The lyrical poems of Shelley are, as a rule, very happy. 
 
 9* 
 
132 Book H. Chapter VI. 
 
 The delicacy of his touch, and the music of his diction are 
 better displayed in them than in any of his greater works. 
 Those which are purely subjective are , for the most part, 
 written in a tone of despondency, but they have none of By- 
 rons exaggerated pathos. Th'ey express the poet's longing, his 
 hope for a better and purer state of things than that which 
 now exists, but no despair. He was cruelly persecuted, torn 
 from the children he tenderly loved because of his opinions, 
 banished from his family, deserted by his friends, and fol- 
 lowed with a maniac hatred by people to whom he had done 
 no wrong because he differed from the world on abstract 
 questions, but he repaid evil with good, and spent his life 
 in endeavours to benefit the race who thus cruelly persecuted 
 him. In his subjective poems there is no bitternes, no ha- 
 tred, no misanthropy. There is sometimes a deep sorrow 
 and a still deeper pity. But decidedly the best of his lyrical 
 poems are those produced by the influence of natural scenery. 
 
 In Italy Shelley became very intimate with Lord Byron, 
 though that poet had but little sympathy with his pure and 
 simple way of life, and his spiritual and rather wild theories. 
 Boating was one of his favourite amusements. On the 8 th of 
 July 1822, when returning with M r "Williams from Leghorn, 
 whither he had gone to welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy, his 
 vessel was overtaken by a storm and sunk. All on board 
 were drowned. When his body was washed on shore, Byron 
 and Leigh Hunt burnt it there, and the heart and ashes were 
 carried to Borne, and buried in the protestant cemetery. On 
 his tomb were inscribed the words, „Oor Cordium". 
 
 In purely imaginative power Shelley was perhaps the first 
 poet of his age. Buckle the most deeply read, and Macaulay 
 the most brilliant of modern English historians agree in giv- 
 ing him that place. Macaulay says : „The strong imagination 
 of Shelley made him an idolater in his own despite. Out of 
 the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, metaphysical 
 system he made a gorgeous Pantheon, full of beautiful, ma- 
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 133 
 
 jestic, and life-like forms. He turned atheism itself into a 
 mythology, rich with visions as glorious as the gods that 
 live in the marble of Phidias or the virgin saints that smile' 
 on us from the canvass of Murillo. The Spirit of Beauty, 
 ihe Principle of Good, the Principle of Evil, when he treat- 
 ed of them, ceased to be abstractions. They took shape and 
 colour. They were no longer mere words , but „intelligible 
 forms", „fair humanities", objects of love, of adoration, or 
 of fear. As there can be no stronger sign of a mind destitute 
 of the poetical faculty than that tendency which was so com- 
 mon among writers of the French school to turn images into 
 abstractions, Venus, for example, into Love, Minerva into 
 "Wisdom, Mars into "War, and Bachus into Festivity, so there 
 can be no stronger sign of a mind truly poetical than a dis- 
 position to reverse this abstracting process, and to make in- 
 dividuals out of generalities. Some of the metaphysical and 
 ethical theories of Shelley were certainly most absurd and per- 
 nicious But we doubt whether any modern poet has possessed 
 in an equal degree some of the highest qualities of the great 
 ancient masters. The words „bard" and inspiration", which 
 seem so cold and affected when applied to other modern wri- 
 ters, have a perfect propriety when applied to him. He 
 was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to 
 have been an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the 
 full age of man, he might not improbably have given to the 
 world some great work of the very highest rank in design 
 and execution." (Essay on Southey's edition of the Pil- 
 grims Progress.) 
 
 This statement seems to me to be correct. To Shelley all 
 nature seemed to be instinct with spirit. Hence came his 
 great love of the Greek mythology. To most men , even to 
 most poets, hill and vale, wood and meadow -land stand 
 simply for what they are. They may be used as imagery, 
 but/ in that case, a conventional meaning is imparted to them. 
 To Shelley, even more than to Wordsworth, they seemed 
 to be but the dress in which some divine thought reveals or 
 
134 Book II. Chapter VI. 
 
 hides itself. All nature seemed to him, to use the sublime 
 words of the greatest of modern poets, to be nothing but 
 the „Living garment of God". This belief which was in 
 Wordsworth nothing but an indistinct feeling, Shelley form- 
 ed into a system. The atheism of his youth soon ripened into 
 a kind of spiritualized pantheism, the form of belief which 
 seems to have the greatest charm for young poets. This is 
 not the place to enter into an inquiry concerning the system 
 of philosophy which Shelley embraced , or rather construct- 
 ed; but it is impossible to understand him if we do not re- 
 member that both his life and his works were embodiments 
 of that system. Shelley's poetry is often spoken of as a series 
 of splendid dreams, and so, for the most part, it is. Tet 
 no poet was ever more free of dreaminess in the common 
 sense of the word. His pictures are always sharp, his co- 
 lours are always clearly marked. There is never a doubt as 
 to his meaning. The great fault of his poetry is its want of 
 reality, we feel that the beings he paints are too good, too 
 pure, too holy to tread this earth. Yet this is an after- 
 thought. When we read his poems, we do not doubt, indeed 
 in our higher hours we act, not only as if these things were 
 possible, but as if they were. The great moral doctrines of 
 Christianity: „Love those that hate you, bless them that curse 
 you, do good to them that dispitefully use you and persecute 
 you", never met with a higher illustration than in the life 
 and works of this young pantheist. The Cenci proves that 
 he was possessed of other, and perhaps rarer powers than 
 those which he has exhibited in most of his poems, that he 
 could, when he wished, write objectively and draw nature 
 as it really is. With respect to the lower poetical endow- 
 ments he was perhaps the most gifted poet of his age. His 
 diction is clearer and more nervous than that of any of his con- 
 temporaries. His command of language is marvellous. The me- 
 lody of his verse surpasses that of any other modern English 
 poet except, perhaps Tennyson. Moore and Coleridge are the 
 only writers of his age who can be compared with him in this 
 
John Keats. 135 
 
 respect; but the latter poet has left too few examples of his 
 power for us to place him in the same category, while Moore's 
 forms are always more or less conventional. The same may 
 be said of his imagery,. Moore had always a „flower of fancy" 
 ready to deck out any thought, but then, they were generally 
 cut and dried; we feel that the poet put them where they 
 Stand for the occasion, while Shelley's imagery seems to 
 spring naturally from the soil on which it grows. One 
 might as well compare a garland of artificial flowers with the 
 luxurient blossoming of the woods in spring, as the best of 
 Moore's poems with those of- Shelley. 
 
 John Keats was born on the 29" 1 of October 1795. He 
 was educated at Enfield, and apprenticed to a surgeon in his 
 fifteenth year. He devoted however the most of liis time to 
 literary studies. He published a volume of poems in 1817, 
 and Endymion — a poetic romance — in the following year. 
 This poem was bitterly attacked by Croker in the Quarterly 
 review. Keats took this so much to heart that it embittered 
 the rest of his short life and hastened, if it did not cause, 
 the attack of consumption which terminated it. He died in 
 Rome , whither he had gone as a last hope of saving his life, 
 on the 27 th of December 1820 shortly after completing his 
 25 th year. 
 
 Keats seems to have been equally attracted by the ima- 
 ginative literature of the middle ages and by the mythology 
 of Greece and Rome. Of classical poetry he knew little ; but 
 the classical mythology, which he is said to have learnt from 
 a mythological dictionary, made a deep impression on his 
 mind. Hence the greatest of Ms poems are classical subjects 
 treated in a romantic manner. It was not the first time that 
 this experiment had been tried. The literature of all Euro- 
 pean countries, during the middle ages, furnish examples of 
 this kind. Nowhere in our literature are such beauties and such 
 defects to be found united in a single poem as in Endymion. 
 The rhythm which seems to have been borrowed from the 
 Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, was excellently suited to his 
 
136 ' Book II. Chapter VI. 
 
 subject. The story of the poem has but little interest, he 
 did not intend it to have much, it was but the string with 
 which he bound together a garland of flowers. It is not the 
 fate of Endymion, but the beauties of nature, which he sings, 
 nor does he even endeavour to keep up a local colouring. 
 "The land in which his hero dwells is a purely imaginary 
 country, but it resembles England much more than Greece. 
 „He has contrived", says Jefferies , „to impart to the whole 
 piece that true rural and poetical air which breathes only 
 in them (the pastoral poems of the Elizabethan, age) and 
 Theocritus, which is at once homely and majestic, luxurious 
 and rude, and sets before us the genuine sights, sounds, and 
 smells of the country, with all the magic and grace of Elys- 
 ium. — The great distinction however between him and these 
 divine authors is that imagination in them is subordinate to 
 reason and judgement, while with him it is paramount and 
 supreme. Their ornaments and images were employed to em- 
 bellish and recommend just sentiments, engaging incidents, 
 and natural characters while his are poured out without mea- 
 sure and restraint and with no apparent design, but to un- 
 burden the breast of the author, and to give vent to the over- 
 flowing vein of fancy." 
 
 Isabella , a story versified from Bpccacio , shows a great 
 advance in this respect, while St. Agnes Eve is perfect in its 
 way. In Hyperion, the last and finest of his poems, he re- 
 turned to the old mythology. Byron said that it „seems actu- 
 ally inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Aeschylus." 
 The distance between Endymion and it is indeed vast, yet it 
 was traversed by the poet in less than two years. In the 
 latter poem all the beauties of the first are to be found, but 
 they are subjugated to a great plan, and it has a statuesque 
 beauty and repose which is wanting even in the greatest 
 works of the greatest of his contemporaries. 
 
 It is impossible to say what Keats might have become, 
 had he lived , we can only judge him by the works which 
 he has left behind him, but it would be unjust not to remem- 
 
John Keats. 137 
 
 ber that they were written by a poet who died very young; 
 He occupies a very peculiar place in our literature. His 
 poems display no great power of expressing passion. He had 
 no talent for characteristic , nor any great depth of thought. 
 Yet his poetry is now very generally popular. He is the 
 poet of nature. He does not worship it as the embodiment 
 of the divine thought or rife as "Wordsworth and Shelley did, 
 he loves it for its own sake alone. But his love is not that 
 which comes of knowledge. It is the wild exuberant delight 
 that a young man, who has been long pent up in a city, 
 feels when he can escape for a week or two to the woods and 
 mountains; or rather, it resembles his winter remembrances 
 and dreams of such summer rambles. Every thing rural seems 
 bright to him, and he chooses the brightest and crowds them 
 on each other. "We may indeed say that Scott idealized 
 natural scenes by giving only their characteristic lines, Byron 
 by illuminating them by the coloured light of subjective pas- 
 sion, Shelley by reproducing their internal entity, and Keats 
 by choosing their choicest beauties, and rearranging them to 
 a new whole. Keats' s study of our old writers gave a mellow 
 fullness to his style, and a certain pieturesqueness to his 
 diction, but in these respects he is far inferior to Shelley. 
 
 With Keats we must conclude our review of the poets of 
 this age. Campbell deserves mention for the force and care- 
 ful -polish of his verses , and Crabbe for his truthful delinea- 
 tion of life. The latter poet was however deficient in ideality. 
 
 Waller Savage Landpr is a writer of vast powers and 
 great originality, but, differing widely from the popular wri- 
 ters of his age and country, and standing above them in 
 many respects, he has never become popular. His diction is 
 clear and forcible, but his favourite subjects have but little in- 
 terest for most Englishmen. Indeed he is the least English 
 of all our great writers. Hence he is much less known than 
 he ought to be. No prose work of the age will bear a com- 
 parison with his Imaginary Conversations, in vigor, origina- 
 
138 Book II. Chapter VI. 
 
 lity, and depth of thought. It is true that some of his opi- 
 nions are very startling and eccentric , but there can be no 
 doubt that he deserves a high place among the prose writers 
 of his age. Much has been said both for and against his 
 poetry, some ranking it very high, and others placing it far 
 below his prose works. Here too his taste was opposed to 
 that of most of his contemporaries. His Count Julian is a 
 poem of great power./ The situation is striking and the cha- 
 racters are well developed butrthe dramatical element is wan- 
 ting. Gebir, his longest poem, was originally written in la- 
 tin, and many of. his smaller poems are imitations of the clas- 
 sics. It was the misfortune of Landor that he never could 
 find a form of expression which suited the taste of the public. 
 Perhaps he did. not even endeavour to do so , but was con- 
 tent to write for a small but select circle. By these he is 
 enthusiastically admired, and his works are doubtless more 
 exquisitely finished, and better expressions of his genius than 
 they would have been had he conformed to the taste of the day. 
 Charles- Lamb is another writer who will always be ad- 
 mired by a few highly refined minds, jet never widely po- 
 pular. This is however the only characteristic which he has 
 in common with Walter Savage Landor. He was one of those 
 men whom we occasionally meet in England and America, 
 and who seem to have been placed there by some caprice of 
 nature , for the sake of contrast. The chief characteristic of 
 his life and writings is, as De Quincey has observed, their 
 thorough unworldliness. In delicacy and richness of humour 
 the „Essays of Elia" have never been equalled. Yet they 
 are not merely humourous. They contain passages of tender 
 pathos which are perhaps even more attractive. It is the 
 union of these qualities with a strange picturesque quaintness, 
 and a sensitively exact observation of those sides of human 
 life which are least treated by artists, that give these Essays 
 their indescribable charm. . 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 1832—1860. 
 
Chapter I. 
 
 Our own age differs widely from that which we have 
 just been considering. Seldom has any nation produced at 
 once such a number of great poets as England could boast of 
 at the commencement of our century. In our own age we 
 shall find few indeed who can compare with them. But our 
 •prose literature has gained all, and more than all that our 
 poetry has lost. Our own times seem to be more than any 
 other the age of novels , and if the first years of this century 
 gave birth to Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, and Shelley the 
 last thirty years can point with pride to Thackeray, Dickens, 
 Trollope, Kingsley, and George Eliot. Our essayists too have 
 increased in number, and have improved incalculably both 
 in originality and depth of thought. From 1800 to 1832 our 
 critical literature was unjust and superficial in the highest 
 degree. As a natural consequence it was unprecedentedly 
 severe. Now it would be difficult to find a critical literature 
 which is, as a rule, more mild and just in its judgments than 
 our own. Formerly every book was looked at from a party 
 point of view. The political opinion of the author was a 
 matter of more importance to the reviewer than the value of 
 the book. Hence the Edinburgh and Quarterly reviews sel- 
 dom agreed as to the value of a poem or novel that was not 
 written by a well known author. Now no one thinks of en- 
 quiring whither a writer is Whig or Tory, monarchical or re- 
 publican, unless he treats subjects closely connected with 
 party questions. The tone of our critics too is much more 
 
142 Book HI. Chapter I. 
 
 polished and gentlemanly than it was. Articles which formerly 
 appeared in the i leading critical journals would not now be 
 published by any paper which has any pretension to be con- 
 sidered respectable. But the most hopeful sign for the fu- 
 ture is perhaps the healthy moral tone of the literature of 
 our age. The captious discontent with men and things which 
 pervaded Byron's poetry fortunately passed away shortly after 
 his death, and Shelley's overstrained idealism found no imi- 
 tator. 
 
 In poetry, we find that the influence of Wordsworth and 
 Shelley has been more permanent than that of any of their 
 contemporaries. Hence reflective and lyrical poems are much 
 more common in our age than dramatic or narrative ones. 
 I endeavoured in a former chapter to point out the causes 
 of the decay of our drama. It is much easier to find the cau- 
 ses of narrative poetry being abandoned. The prose novel has 
 taken possession of a great part of the ground which was for- 
 merly occupied by poetical fiction. Before the time of Sir 
 Walter Scott all novels of note were either humourous stories, 
 or mere sentimental love - tales. Masterpieces of both kinds 
 had been written in England. Tristram Shandy and Clarissa 
 will never be surpassed in their own style. A few novelists, 
 among whom Fielding was the greatest master, united both 
 styles with wonderful success. Tom Jones, the best work of this 
 kind, still remains one of the greatest of English novels and 
 will bear a comparison even with the masterpieces of Cervan- 
 tes. Yet no one who is acquainted with our novel literature 
 before the time of Scott will wonder that serious and religious 
 people objected to it, and that it was forbidden ground for 
 the young. It was either worldly and sensual, or mawkishly 
 sentimental. The first of these faults is not to be wondered 
 at, it was intended for men only. Bousseau said that no 
 chaste girl ever read a novel , and this was certainly as true 
 of Engand as of France in those days. This being the ease 
 writers spoke freely. There is nothing immoral in Fielding 
 
IntroductioE. 143 
 
 and. Sterne, but they called bad things by their worst names. 
 Richardson and his followers, on the other hand, fell into 
 the opposite extreme of sentimentality, and the tone of his 
 tales is far more unhealthy than that of his less scrupulous 
 contemporaries. As soon as ladies began to take an interest 
 in literature, its tone improved; but, down to the time of 
 Scott, no great master appeared who was able to win for the 
 new kind of novel a permanent place in our literature. He 
 entered an entirely new ground, for the works of Miss Por- 
 ter scarcely deserve mention. He treated in his prose roman- 
 ces subjects which had before belsnged almost exclusively to 
 the drama. The characters he introduced were heroic, and 
 he touched on all feelings by turn. Since his time, it is true, 
 the novel has returned to the -real life of our own age, but, 
 through his influence , it embraces a much wider range of 
 character and feeling. Every thing that can happen in our 
 days, from the election of a dissenting minister and the troub- 
 les of a young wife who is ignorant of house - keeping to the 
 death of a hero on the field of battle , is looked upon as a 
 legitimate subject for a novel. Still more important has 
 been the influence of German literature and particularly of 
 Goethe's novels. Among these "Wilhelm Meister has had the 
 greatest and most beneficial influence. The interest of that 
 tale is concentrated on the development of the heroes char- 
 acter. He undergoes an entire change during the progress 
 of the story, and it is on this change that our attention is fix- 
 ed. Other writers had tried to do this before, but never with 
 any marked and permanent success. To the greatest of mo- 
 dern poets belongs the praise of first showing what novel- 
 writing might become. In England he has found in Thack- 
 eray and George Eliot followers of whom even he would have 
 no cause to be ashamed. This kind of writing has reacted 
 on the historical novel. The interest of the best works of 
 this kind is now no longer centred on external and accidental 
 circumstances, but on the characters of the people introduced. 
 
144 Book III, Chapter I. 
 
 The scene is no longer laid in distant lands and ages because 
 wild adventure will seem less improbable there than in the 
 midst of England in the nineteenth century, but because 
 strange circumstances gave birth to strange characters, and 
 these interest the novelist. This is what raises George Eliot's 
 Komola so immeasurably above the best of the Waverley no- 
 vels. In the mean time the literature of France has had 
 a great, though by no means so great an influence upon this 
 branch of writing. Unfortunately the moral tone of Balzac's 
 writings has prevented them having so wide an influence on 
 our novel-writers as the amazing genius of that strangely, cy- 
 nical author entitled him to. Single English authors have 
 learnt much from him , but his influence has not been wide. 
 This is to be regretted, for, spite of his many faults, he is pro- 
 bably the greatest analyzer of human nature and character 
 who ever lived. Unhealthy imitations of sensational French 
 stories have unfortunaltely become popular of late among our 
 third-rate authors and authoresses, but. they hardly fall 
 either in time or character within the scope of our present 
 sketch. French influence has been most felt in the class of 
 tales that are generally known as „novels with a purpose". 
 The poetical and delicately wrought tales in which George 
 Sand teaches her novel social theories have given birth in 
 England to a number of stories which are neither poetical nor 
 delicately wrought, and to a few books of real power. But 
 no English work of this kind can be compared to the best 
 writings of that gifted authoress. The influence of the Da- 
 nish poet Andersen's shorter tales is to be traced in many of 
 our best writers, but rather in increasing the healthiness of 
 their general tone , and in sharpening their powers of obser- 
 vation than by any particular bent which he has given their 
 stories. — This slight sketch shows that our novelists have 
 learned much from foreign writers, but no one will doubt 
 that, spite of this, they are strikingly original. They have 
 not merely gathered scraps of foreign richeB together; they 
 
Introduction. ] 45 
 
 have moulded foreign materials into new shapes, or used 
 foreign tools in shaping English subjects. Intercourse of this 
 kind widens and enriches a literature, while mere imitation 
 narrows and impoverishes it. 
 
 It would be both interesting and instructive to enter 
 into a detailed examination of the effects of periodical writing 
 on our novels, but we can only note a few of the most im- 
 portant signs of that influence. Periodical literature has in- 
 creased, during our age, in an extraordinary degree. Maga- 
 zines or miscellanies of some kind are to be found in every 
 drawing room, and in almost every kitchen. Most of these 
 papers are of course mere trash, but some of them are very 
 powerfully written. These papers have superseded the no- 
 vels in monthly parts which had a great run at the commence- 
 ment of our period. All our great novelists have contri- 
 buted to one or other of them , and a vast number of tales 
 are written for them alone. Hence their influence on this 
 branch of our literature has been vast. Perhaps George Eliot 
 is the only one of our first class novelists who has entirely 
 escaped from it, and this is probably the case only because 
 she is too consummate an artist to publish any part of a novel 
 before the whole is completed. But it is on our third and 
 fourth class writers that the effects have been most injurious, 
 A good magazine tale must at once awaken interest, and it is 
 easier to do this by some horrible crime, unnatural action 
 or great mystery than by a careful development of character. 
 Hence our sensational novels, the worst and most unhealthy 
 of all works of imagination, have arisen. To the same cause 
 the mannerism of many even of our better writers may be 
 attributed. A periodical writer must be striking if he is to be 
 successful, and peculiarities are striking. Hence a number of 
 our authors have cultivated a peculiar style of expression 
 which has a superficial appearance of originality — that false 
 god of talented young men. All great poets are original, but 
 they aim at truth rather than originality. Shakespeare and 
 
 Grant litterature. 1 j k 
 
1 4'6 . Book III. Chapter I. 
 
 Goethe are the most original of modern -writers, but they 
 never endeavoured to be so. They asked what is true and 
 beautiful, hdt -what is new and strange. Their diction is 
 simple and idiomatic, not peculiar and startling. Indeed 
 there can be no surer sign of the want of the highest ge- 
 nius than an artificial mannerism. Again, an author who 
 offers his works in short parts to the public must except 
 it ■ to work in parts rather than as a whole ; hence comes 
 the want of artistic unity which is to be found in many 
 even of our best works of fiction. This is to be remarked in 
 a faulty construction of the plot which is so observable even 
 in the writings of some of our best novelists. But with all 
 these faults some advantages at least have resulted from the 
 system of periodical writing. The liveliness of the novel 
 has been increased, and dullness — the one unforgivable 
 sin of such books — has certainly decreased. Still we cannot 
 but regret that the more talented of our novelists should not 
 have an opportunity of reviewing and correcting their works 
 after they are finished; we cannot but see that many of the 
 faults which deface them would in that ,case have been re- 
 moved. 
 
 On turning to our essayists we find that most men who 
 have exercised any great influence # on our age belong, at least 
 in some degree, to this class, but their subjects and way of 
 writing differ so widely that it is difficult to say in which di- 
 rection this branch of our literature is tending. Thomas Car- 
 lyle is perhaps the essayist who has had the widest and deep- 
 est influence, both for good and evil, on the minds of his 
 contemporaries. There is scarcely a single branch of study, 
 except the natural sciences, in which it is unfelt. In our 
 theology, our poetry, our criticism, and our novel writing 
 the influence of this eccentric thinker is clearly to be traced. 
 For the most part the effects of his writings have been bene- 
 ficial. They have deepened the feelings, and extended the 
 ■ sympathies of our writers. They have made their works more 
 
Alfred Tennyson. J47 
 
 sincere and manly, but his deification of mere brute force 
 and the eccentricity of his style can scarcely be said to de- 
 -serve praise. 
 
 One of the most unmixed benefits which Carlyle has 
 conferred upon us is the attentive study of the German litera- 
 ture which his early essays did much to promote. Being him- 
 self an enthusiastic admirer of Goethe , he called the atten- 
 tion of his countrymen to the works of that great poet and 
 several other German writers. He has translated "Wilhelm 
 Meister , and the Marchen , and written a life of Schiller. 
 To his influence too must be attributed, at least in part, the 
 fact that the knowledge of German instead of being, as it 
 was in the last age , an accomplishment which was confined 
 to a few scholars, is now considered a necessary part of a 
 liberal English education. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson is, beyond all doubt, the greatest poet 
 of our age. His first volume of poems was published in the 
 year 1830. These poems were principally distinguished by 
 their unreality. Their subjects were as far removed from 
 common every - day life as possible. In this they resembled 
 Shelley's poems, but they for the most part wanted the earnest- 
 ness and enthusiasm which made even the wildest of his dreams 
 seem almost possible and true. Most of these verses were 
 wild flights of fancy, the dreams of an imagination luxuriat- 
 ing in all that is sweetest in nature. The verses were melo- 
 dious, more melodious perhaps than those of any modern 
 English poet, the diction was chaste beyond all comparison, 
 and the pictures were beautiful in the highest degree; but 
 it was the beauty of a butterfly, the music of a birds song, 
 wild and sweet, but without meaning or power to stir tha 
 
 10* 
 
148 Book III. Chapter II. 
 
 higher part of man's nature. I speak only of the majority 
 of the poems, the exceptions I shall mention farther on, 
 Depth of thought and feeling seemed all that was -wanting to 
 give the young poet a high place in our literature. But un- 
 fortunately the only poem in which he tried to delineate 
 passion was weak and powerless. Oriana wanted even the 
 charms of music and expression which seemed so_ peculiarly 
 Tennyson's own. Yet Mariana proved that the poet had 
 powers of a very high and original order , and that he could 
 paint with delicacy some mental moods. In it he endeavours 
 to delineate the feelings of a girl who has lost her lover. It 
 is not the passionate agony of loss , but the utter weariness 
 of life which succeeds such anguish that forms the subject of 
 the poem. We feel that it is this state of mind that casts 
 its shadow over the whole landscape around, which might 
 else be beautiful but which is now so intolerably dreary. 
 Several of the poems contained in this volume were headed 
 by the names of ladies, but they were not love -poems. 
 They were fanciful and imaginative trains of thought and 
 feeling suggested by different kinds of beauty. Sunny dreams, 
 it is true, but as passionless as if they had been adressed to 
 a, bird or a flower. 
 
 Emerson thus criticised these earlier poems. „Tennyson 
 is endowed precisely in points_ where Wordsworth wanted. 
 There "is no finer ear, nor more command of the keys of 
 language. Colour, like the dawn, flows over the horizon 
 from, his pencil, in waves so rich that we do not miss the cen- 
 tral form. Through all his refinements, too, he has reached 
 the public — a certificate of good sense and general power, 
 since he who aspires to be the English poet must be as large 
 as London , not in the same . kind as London but in his own 
 kind. But he wants a subject and climbs no mount of vi- 
 sion to bring its secrets to the people. He contents himself 
 with describing the Englishman as he is, and proposes no 
 better. There are all degrees in poetry; and we must be 
 
Alfred Tennyson. J 49 
 
 thankful for every beautiful talent. But it is only a first 
 success, when the ear is gained. The best office of the best 
 poets has been to show how low and uninspired was their 
 general style, and that only once or twtee they have struck 
 the high chord." 
 
 In 1832 Tennyson published a second volume. It ra- 
 ther disappointed the admirers of the first. The wild music 
 of the rhythm was less apparent. The author seemed to 
 have laid aside his Shelley and studied Wordsworth instead. 
 He was right in doing so. His poems had gained in depth 
 and power. Here we find Tennyson's first published attempts 
 at forms of writing in which he afterwards most excelled. 
 Leaving the Lady of Shallot, a narative poem closely con- 
 nected with the story of King Arthur, we come to the Mil- 
 ler's Daughter, and the May Queen. The first of these is an 
 idyllic poem, but it differs widely from Bums' s Saturday- 
 night and other poems of the same kind. The beauties and 
 pleasures of rustic life are painted here , it is true , but they 
 are painted by a dreamy and highly refined observer , not 
 in the manner of a rustic. The May Queen is a delica- 
 tely penciled sketch of a village - girl's life. It shows a 
 great fineness of touch, and a power of appreciating the mo- 
 ments of a mental struggle. The Pallace of Art is much 
 praised, and it is a piece of finely wrought description. It is 
 an allegorical history of a refined mind which, by separating 
 itself from- human interests, becomes diseased, a poetical 
 attempt to prove that beauty alone is as incapable of satis- 
 fying man's higher nature as truth alone. I must confess it 
 is no great favourite of mine. The finest poem in the volume, 
 in my opinion one of the finest Tennyson has ever written, 
 is The Dream of Fair Women. Here his wonderful plastic ta- 
 lent, his exquisite taste, and his power of delineating the 
 dreamy and evanescent shades of human thought and feeling 
 have full play, while the subject does not demand the realism 
 and force whieh he possesses in a less degree. The diction 
 
150 Book in. Chapter II. 
 
 and rhythm of the piece are perfect. The poet falls asleep 
 over Chaucer's Legend of good women, and that -wonderful 
 romance weaves itself into his dream. He finds himself alone 
 in a vast forest. Here he meets and holds converse with 
 the „far renowned hrides of ancient song". Their different 
 characters are drawn and contrasted with great power. This 
 is a good specimen of one of Tennyson's favourite manners. 
 He loves to draw characters half subjectively and half ob- 
 jectively, to give rather the picture they leave on his own 
 mind, than their real characters. Hence the outline is gene- 
 rally true to nature, but it is filled up with little subjective 
 touches. 
 
 Tennyson's English Idylls would repay an attentive study, 
 did the space permit us to examine them closely; as it is, we 
 must pass hastily over them. Dora is the nearest approach to a 
 true Idyll that Tennyson has ever made. The diction and 
 manner of treatment are simple in the extreme. The cha- 
 racters too are well drawn and contrasted. It is far superior 
 to any of Wordsworth's poems of the same kind. St. Simeon 
 Stylites betrays however a far greater and more original 
 power. It purports to be the last prayer of that extraordi- 
 nary man who, by a self appointed penance, passed his life on 
 the top of a column. Tennyson delights in describing states of 
 mind in which various and often opposite feelings come into 
 play. A simple soul-absorbing passion he cannot paint with any 
 great power ; but in describing complex emotion he surpasses all 
 our modern poets except Browning. This is perhaps the most 
 extraordinary proof of this power which he has given. The 
 unhealthy and overstrained ideality, and the sincere religious- 
 ness, which must have formed the ground -work of such a 
 character, are modified and tinted by the vanity which seems 
 to be just as necessary a part of a martyr's constitution. The 
 mingled pride and humility with which he dwells on his sins 
 are drawn by a few simple and masterly touches; but after 
 
Alfred Tennyson, J 51 
 
 all this piece is rather a poetical study of: character than a 
 poem. Love and Duty, though a less powerful sketch, i6 a 
 better poem. Here too a complex mood of mind is described. 
 It is thought coloured by feeling, or rather penetrated and 
 animated by it. It is perhaps the most passionate piece the 
 poet has ever written. 
 
 Has next poem, The Princess a Medley, is a re- 
 markable work. The tale is as wild and improbable as 
 a dream, but it is finished with exquisite delicacy. The 
 characters too are well drawn and true to nature, though 
 they are removed from common life as far as possible^ 
 The golden light of romance is cast upon them. Though 
 the clearness of outline is never lost, they never seem 
 to be quite real. Tet the book contains the poet's ideas 
 en one of the great social questions of the day , „ woman's 
 mission". This is the thread that hinds it to every day 
 hfe. Almost every scene would furnish a good picture, 
 and Tennyson's wonderful plastic power gives to each some- 
 thing of the effect of a painting. It is interesting to com- 
 pue his writings with those of Sir Walter Scott in this re- 
 spect. The two poets seem to have nothing in common. 
 Scptt's power lies in the firmness of his lines, and what 
 arfests call the massing of his colouring. He has something 
 of tie dash of Bubens. He loves striking contrasts. Every 
 thing in his writings speaks of power. Each incident or 
 trait of character has its own purpose , and it is easy to 
 see what that purpose is. Tennyson is in these respects 
 a pejfeet contrast to him. His power is far more subtle. 
 It defends on the delicacy of the touches and the tone of his 
 pictuies. He delights in exquisite finish and perfect harmony.. 
 His iicidents have often a meaning which is at first quite 
 unipparent, but which is necessary to the effect of the 
 wlole. ,It ; is very difficult to analyze the effect of his poe- 
 trj. It is generally easy to point out the leading traits of 
 Seitt's tales, and to say what influence each has on the ge- 
 
152 Book III. Chapter II. 
 
 neral impression left on the mind of the reader. With Ten- 
 nyson it is very difficult to do this. The whole tale is raised 
 and idealized by an indefinable process. There rests both on 
 his landscapes and incidents a light that never was on earth and 
 sea. We cannot discover why lines and passages of his 
 poems move us as they do. Much of this is doubtless owing 
 to the perfection of his rhythmical forms which are in all 
 his finer poems faultless. Much too must be ascribed to his 
 diction. Not only is it more chaste and idiomatic than that 
 of any English poet since the ; Elizabethan age, it is also 
 highly suggestive. His words hint far more than they say. 
 To the uninitiated they seem simple and common-place, over 
 those who are acquainted with our ancient literature they 
 have a strange power. The more one reads of the old ro- 
 mances, the more one studies Chaucer and our great drama- 
 tists, the more one learns to admire- the poems of Tenny- 
 son. His verses like charms have a mystic significance 
 They have the power of summoning up a thousand remeriL- 
 brances. Change but a word and this power is lost. The 
 Princess contains some of the most musical of Tennyson's le- 
 xical poems. / 
 
 In Memoriam is professedly a lament over the deith 
 of Arthur Hallam , the son of the historian and critic. 3ut 
 it is something much more than this, or it could nfver 
 have attained the vast popularity it enjoys among the iost 
 earnest and refined Englishmen of the age. To mary it 
 came .like a new gospel comforting and strengthening./ By 
 these it has doubtless been overvalued, I doubt if ij will 
 be numbered among the greatest of Tennyson's poemi in a 
 hundred years time, and I do not think it will ever be much 
 read out of England. It is very difficult to find a otyssj of 
 poems to which it can be said to belong. It resembleain 
 many respects the philosophical poem, but it differs frim 
 other works of this class in being rather the description aid 
 expression of a series of mental -moods than the exponenj of 
 
Alfred Tennyson. 153 
 
 a system. The various theories that are startedin it are in- 
 troduced rather on account of their influence on the feelings 
 of the author than for their intrinsic value. They are the 
 means but not the end of the poet. 
 
 I have already spoken of Tennyson's talent for describ- 
 ing complex moods of mind," of his power of tracing the in- 
 fluence of thought on feeling and feeling on thought. In 
 Memoriam is a new example of this power. It is no mere 
 expression of grief at the loss of a friend, though no poem of 
 the kind in our language speaks of such love and such sad- 
 ness , or carries with it such an impress of sincerity. The 
 grief is coloured and modified by the whole train of the poet's 
 thought. To understand this poem aright , we must bear in 
 mind one great difference between England and Germany. 
 England is orthodox and Germany freethinking. Here theo- 
 logy is a question of purely scientific interest. The character 
 and life of Jesus, and the nature of the relationship between 
 the human soul and God can be discussed as coolly as a 
 question in natural scienee , and much more coolly than a 
 political theory. In England the case in vastly* different. 
 Eeligious thought colours and levens society. It influences 
 the life of most men, and is the chief occupation of many. 
 It is the one question which transcends the common business 
 of every day , that excites the interest of all. This feeling 
 may often be distorted, it may sink into superstition and hy- 
 pocrisy , but after all it is the salt of English society. It 
 prevents our national life from putrefying and becoming a 
 mass of corruption. It is the poetical element that dignifies, 
 and enobles the labours of the poor and casts upon the petty 
 cares of every day an ideal glory. Nor is this state of things 
 getting rarer. Every one who is acquainted with our imagi- 
 native writings must have noticed that religious questions 
 now influence the higher branches of our literature much 
 more than they have ever before done. Now when theolo- 
 gical doubt enters into a mind which has been educated under 
 
154 Book IIL Chapter II. 
 
 these influences, it is obvious that it cannot be treated 
 as a merely scientific question. It is not a theory that is 
 threatened, it is the principle of a life that has to be overT 
 thrown. The first hours of doubt are to such a mind the 
 deepest anguish the heart of man can conceive. The glory- 
 seems to have departed from life. All that lent beauty and 
 grandeur to existence is gone. This is the key to much that 
 seems incomprehensible to foreigners in the intellectual life 
 of England. It explains the untenable theories which so 
 many otherwise talented men have endeavoured to defend, 
 as drowning men catch at straws. It accounts too* for the 
 strange fact that intellectual scepticism is often with us the 
 first step to dissoluteness. Two very remarkable books aim 
 at expressing and embodying the struggle with doubt through 
 which as a baptism of fire most of our earnest men have had 
 to pass. The one is Carlyle's Sartor Kesartus , the other is 
 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 
 
 Maud was the name of his next poem. It is a story, 
 or rather a picture of the feelings and development of ,a very 
 morbid mind, told in a series of semi -lyrical poems. Some 
 passages are among the finest Tennyson ever wrote. 
 
 In 1 8^9 the Idylls of the King were published. This work, 
 taken as a whole, is perhaps his masterpiece. It consists 
 of four stories, taken from the myth of Arthur and the Knights 
 of the Bound Table. This subject had early been familiar to 
 his mind. In his second volume he had treated a part of it 
 in The Lady of Shallot, a poem with the same subject as 
 Elaine. Again, in his English Idylls , there is a poem on 
 the death of Arthur which might have been placed at the end 
 of the volume we are now examining, so closely does it re- 
 semble it in spirit and treatment. Nor can we wonder at Ten- 
 nyson's love for this story. It is perhaps the highest embo- 
 diment of the spirit of the middle ages. The tale, it is true, 
 has never been embodied in a poem that can be compared to 
 the Nibelungenlied , but the story seems to me to have been 
 
Alfred Tennyson. 155 
 
 susceptable of a far higher treatment. The Nibelungenlied 
 too bears many traces of its heathen origin , while the tale 
 of Arthur and the search for the Holy Graal is thorough- 
 ly Christian and chivalrous, and is therefore a better 
 expression of a thoroughly Christian and chivalrous age. 
 There-was much in the nature of the story to attract Tenny- 
 son. The scene was laid in a distant age , so that it had the 
 dim mellowness of antiquity in which he delights , but the 
 period is so uncertain, so perfectly mythical, that it needed 
 none of the minute details which would have been necessary 
 in an historical subject. His imagination had free scope. 
 He might mould the tale according to his fancy, and fill it 
 with modern ideas and trains of thought. He made free use 
 of this power, with what success we shall presently see. 
 The first great difference between the old romance - writers 
 and Tennyson is to be found in the character of Arthur. I 
 cannot of course enter into a detailed examination of the 
 story, it belongs to the middle ages and not to the nine- 
 teenth century. I may remark however that in the old story 
 the king is guilty of a great crime which renders all his 
 work vain. This crime can never be forgiven, at least in 
 this world, and he, and the goodly fellowship of the Round 
 Table, are doomed to fall by the same sin which he in his 
 youth committed. This lends a certain grandeur and dignity 
 to his fate. His fall is not accidental, it is neccessary and 
 tragical, for here, once again, the devine might of law is 
 asserted. Vain is Arthur's penance , vain his knightly skill 
 and high endeavour, the devine law has been broken and 
 must be avenged. In Tennyson's hands this grandly tragical 
 character, with his great sin and his still greater penance, 
 becomes a perfect knight and spotless king. His guilt is 
 wiped away, he becomes a sinless man struggling for a high, 
 but impassible end. Morally he has doubtless gained much 
 by the change; aesthetically he seems to me to have lost im- 
 measurably. His story has become a mere domestic tragedy. 
 
156 Book III. Chapter II. 
 
 The sin of Lancelot and Guinevere too becomes much darker 
 in the reader's eyes. When reading the best of the old ro- 
 mances we feel that they have been guilty of a great sin, 
 but we feel at the same time that "they have been forced 
 into it by fate. Thus, without the tragical guilt being les- 
 sened, the heroes are half excused in our eyes. But the 
 greatest evil which arises from this alteration is that it ren- 
 ders it impossible for Tennyson to treat the search for the 
 San Graal, which is by far the grandest part of the story. 
 For, if the king had been spotless, he must have won the 
 holiest of relics, and then the last part of the story be- 
 comes impossible. We cannot examine all the points of 
 difference between the ancient and modern version of the 
 story; one more must suffice. Merlin is the great sorcerer 
 of Arthur's court. He was, according to the old story, the 
 wisest of men. He knew every thought that entered into 
 a man's heart. Yet, according to the myth, he is cheated 
 by a woman into telling her a charm with which she binds 
 and imprisons him. Here is a great difficulty. The wisest 
 of men has to be duped. The old romance -writers meet the 
 difficulty honestly. They represent Merlin as a Titanic cha- 
 racter, a man who was not only infinitely wiser than other 
 men, but infinitely greater in every respect, a being of un- 
 bounded intellect, but also of unbounded passion, a man 
 who excelled his fellows in love as much as in knowledge. 
 This Merlin meets the wisest of women , and loves her with 
 the whole depth of his nature. He teaches her all that he 
 knows, and at last he becomes the slave, he is never the 
 dupe, of his passion. He leaves the court of Arthur know- 
 ing that he shall never return to it again, and at last he tells 
 the secret charm, although he knows that it will be used to 
 imprison him, because he cannot refuse her anything she 
 asks. „So he taught her the charm", says one of the old 
 romances, „and on this account he has always been con- 
 sidered a fool, even to this day, but he could not help 
 
Alfred 'Tennyson. 157 
 
 himself, he was forced to do it". The reason, why she wove 
 the charm about him was that she feared that he might grow 
 tired of her, if not, was not her company enough for him? 
 Tennyson changes Merlin into a doting old man, and Vivien 
 into a heartless flirt, who imprisons him only to show her 
 power. In short the passionate romance becomes, in his 
 hand, a warning to old men to beware of young ladies. 
 This version of the story is doubtless to be found in the lite- 
 rature of the middle ages , but when he had the choice be- 
 tween two such tales, there can, I think, be little doubt 
 as to which he. should have taken. Still, whatevermay.be 
 their faults , the Idylls of the King are Tennyson's greatest 
 poems, the best verses which have been written in England 
 in our age. 
 
 It is interesting to compare, Elaine with the Lady of Shal- 
 lot, an earlier poem of Tennyson's which I have already men- 
 tioned. In both poems the conclusion is the same, and it was 
 probably this conclusion which induced the poet to choose the 
 subject. The scene is striking and picturesque. A boat, con- 
 taining the dead body of a young and beautiful girl, floats at 
 midnight into Camelot, where Arthur and his knights are re- 
 velling. , This is the end of both pieces, but it is all they have 
 in common. The rest of the poems are good specimens of Ten- 
 nyson's earlier and later styles. The Lady of Shallot is a 
 beautiful poem, but it is entirely without human interest. Its 
 heroine is a lady, who is forced by enchantment to embroider 
 something or another, and who falls under the power of the spell 
 as soon as she ceases to do so. ' The heroine of Elaine is a 
 simple girl who sees Lancelot and falls in love with him, 
 and tends him when wounded and dies. It is a simple and 
 beautiful love -tale, simply and tenderly told, impossible if 
 you like in our days, but not among the heroic figures which 
 crowd the story of Arthur. The conclusion is not only more 
 picturesque than that of the earlier story, it is far more ten- 
 der and pathetic. Tennyson too has given it, by its position 
 
158 Book HI. Chapter II. 
 
 in the Idylls of the King, a second and very deep signifi- 
 cance. The dead Elaine comes to Lancelot as he is quarelling 
 with Guinivere. She comes as is if she were indeed a mes- 
 senger from the land of the dead to warn him to break from 
 the unholy passion that binds him. Her silence speaks loud- 
 er than any voice , but it speaks in vain. Elaine , in death 
 as in life, passes unheeded and yet she is Lancelot's good 
 angel. After she is buried and forgotten, we pass on at 
 once to the tragical end of the story , over which we cannot 
 linger. — In comparing the Idylls of the King with the an- 
 cient myth, I have pointed out one or two points in which, 
 as it seems to me , Tennyson's version is inferior to that of 
 the middle ages. It is but justice to add that his poem is by 
 far the best that has been written in English on the subject. 
 None of our metrical romances will bear a comparison with 
 it. They are, for the most part, at once rude and fanciful. 
 They attract by their matter rather than their form. Some 
 of them , it is true, contain passages of exquisite beauty, 
 but they are almost all deformed by tasteless inventions and 
 wearisome episodes. They exhibit a high creative power, 
 but this power is too often misapplied. It knows neither li- 
 mit nor restraint. Indeed, it seems as if our ancient romance- 
 writers were the foolish retellers of a glorious tale which 
 they themselves could only imperfectly understand. They 
 dwell on unimportant details and pass carelessly over grand 
 situations. Their writings appear to be imperfect and ill 
 painted copies of a grand original. We are startled every 
 now and then by splendid conceptions which are never rea- 
 lized, by hints of a grandeur which is never expressed. 
 Tennyson has realized the conception. He has freed the 
 grand idea of the myth from the adventures that uselessly 
 encumbered it. He has introduced a unity into the tales he 
 has told. Above all, he has always kept in mind the ethical 
 ground- work of the tale. "When we turn from the Idylls of 
 the king to the stories on which they are based, we are ama- 
 
Alfred Tennyson. ]59 
 
 zed at the difference of their moral tone. The old poems are 
 licentious and ascetic by turns. Their writers perpetually 
 forget the principles without which their stories are incom- 
 prehensible. I am no stickler of morality in works of art. 
 I have no wish to make poetry the mere gilding of a moral 
 pill, nor to see our literature reduced to a series of tales for 
 little girls. But there are principles without which art can- 
 not exist any more than society. The* artist is at liberty to 
 choose his principles , but having chosen them , he must be 
 true to them. I cannot pretend to be shocked at the immo- 
 rality of Congreve and Fielding. The tone of their works 
 is the same from beginning to end, and we can resign our- 
 selves to the imagination of the author. He has created a 
 world which is governed by other laws than ours , and we 
 can submit to its laws. How far such a literature is inju- 
 rious to public morality, is a question for the moralist and 
 not for the critic. But the case is otherwise with our me- 
 trical romances. If guilty love be not a great crime, whence 
 comes the tragic pathos of the conclusion of the story? Ten- 
 nyson has always remembered this , and this is one of the 
 things which make the Idylls of the King so much superior 
 to the ancient poems on the subject as a work of art. It is 
 needless to speak of the delicacy with which the poet has 
 painted his characters and situations , of the chasteness of 
 his diction, and the music of his verse; but we must dwell 
 one moment on his historic truth, as this is one of the sides 
 on which the poem has been attacked. A society like his 
 court of Arthur , with its noble courtesy and valour, never, 
 of course , existed. In it the poet gives us a picture of the 
 ideal of chivalry, and, in so doing, he follows the example 
 of the greatest poets of the middle ages. „But", it is said, 
 ■ „his picture would have been quite incomprehensible to the 
 old knights. It is our ideal of chivalry that he paints, not 
 theirs"- There is some truth in this, though less than 
 there seems to be at the first glance. Many of the traits 
 
160 Book III. Chapter II. 
 
 which are pointed out as modern are to be found in the 
 works from which he drew his tales, but there can be m 
 doubt that, as a whole, his code of morals is at once lest 
 fanciful and less barbarous than that which any poet of the 
 middle ages would have drawn. His knights are more broadly 
 human than any of their heroes. But is this a fault? I 
 think not. The end which the poet has to aim at is the 
 creation of beauty, not the exact reproduction of the past. 
 Even when he draws his materials from history, he has a 
 right to remodel his subject as it may seem best to him. The 
 greatest poets have always done this. Shakespeare was no 
 antiquarian , and every reader of Egmont knows how care- 
 less Goethe was of historical accuracy. The very thing that 
 some critics have blamed is perhaps the highest proof of 
 Tennyson's poetical genius which the work furnishes. To 
 reproduce the ideal of the middle ages is comparatively easy ; 
 but to render that -ideal comprehensible to people who live 
 in a state of society so widely different from the feudal times 
 as our own, is a task which only a poet of a high order 
 could have executed. Had the poet been content to follow 
 the old romance -writers in this respect, he might have exhi- 
 bited a vast amount of curious reading, but he would have 
 produced a very inferior poem. 
 
 Enoch Arden , the last of Tennyson's poems , was pub- 
 lished in 1864. The greater part of the poems contained in 
 this volume do not require any very close examination. They 
 resemble the English Idylls in manner and subject. The 
 Nothern Farmer however shows that Tennyson possesses 
 talents which he has never before exhibited. This prejudiced 
 and one-sided, but still powerful and vigorous character is 
 sketched with great force. 
 
 The poetry of Tennyson will probably never be popular in 
 the sense in which Burns's songs are popular. His verses will 
 never be sung by peasants and fishermen. His poems are too 
 finely wrought, his genius is too delicate, his intellect too subtle 
 
Alfred Tennyson. Jgf 
 
 to make any deep impression on the minds of the uneducated. 
 His poetry is the product of a high state of culture. Its beati- 
 ties can only be appreciated by men of such mental refinement 
 as is seldom to be found except in those whose taste has been 
 educated by the study of the masterpieces of poetical art. He 
 never dazzles fey gaudy colouring , nor attracts by rhetorical 
 display. His very rhythm, the most melodious to be found in 
 our literature, is too exquisitely toned to suit the taste of the 
 crowd. From this it has most unjustly been argued, that he 
 is a poet rather by study than nature. Art, say these cri- 
 tics, is the universal language of mankind. It appeals to the 
 broadly human part in our nature and is therefore univer- 
 sally comprehensible. The poet who is incomprehensible to 
 any large body of his countrymen is , by his own confession, 
 a poet of a low order. There is some truth in this theory, 
 but the above statement of it is far too sweeping, and it is 
 most unjust to judge Tennyson by it. It would make the 
 opinion of the lowest orders the criterion of taste. Judged 
 by it, Pierce Egan would be a greater novelist than George 
 Eliot, and Schiller a greater poet than Goethe. In painting 
 asnd music the application of it would be even more absurd. 
 The lower classes would prefer the worst daub to be found 
 in the gallery toj^the grandest work of Michael Angelo or 
 Raphael. They cannot enjoy Don Juan or Pidelio , but the 
 Bohemian Girl delights them. In a word, it is evident that - 
 some amount of intellectual culture is necessary to enable 
 the mind to enjoy the highest art. A few men of genius 
 of the highest order have, it is true, been able to attract 
 at once the refined and the uneducated, but they have suc- 
 ceeded only by the union of different , and even dissimilar 
 qualities. It is not the power of characteristic, the truth- to 
 nature, the poetical beauty or the depth of thought which 
 the gallery admires in a Shakespearean, piece, but the clash 
 of swords, and the pomp of the spectacle. The highest beau- 
 ties' of Shakespeare and Goethe make absolutely no impres- 
 
 Grant litterature. | J 
 
162 Book III. Chapter II. 
 
 sion on the uneducated, even when they go to see Hamlet 
 and Eaust. No one thinks of placing Tennyson beside those 
 great masters. He himself -would be the first to protest 
 against so foolish a comparison. But it is unjust to deny 
 that an author whose works are a source of deep and conti- 
 nuous enjoyment to the greatest of his countrymen is a poet 
 of a high order, because his poems are not read by the lowest 
 and least educated. ' 
 
 The earlier poems of Tennyson were , as we have seen, 
 wanting in human interest. The. criticism of Emerson had 
 some justice when applied to them ; but this is not the case 
 with his later works. We have lingered so long over his 
 various writings that it is now only necessary to add a few 
 words as to their general character. Faultless taste is one 
 of their highest merits. It is this which has kept the author 
 from thrusting himself before the public as Byron delighted 
 to do, and the fact that our poetry has been freed from the 
 egotistical vanity of his followers, is in a great degree ow- 
 ing to Tennyson's influence. Another fault from which his 
 later poems are entirely free is metrical trickery. A perfect 
 master of all rhythmical forms , he never writes merely to 
 show his mastery. The rhythm in his works is, as it always 
 should be, the form of the thought, not a clever contrivance 
 to hide the absence of thought. In his last volume, it is 
 true , he has inserted a series of metrical experiments , but 
 they were intended to have rather a scientific than an artis- 
 tic interest. The same work contains, one or two poems 
 which the poet would, in my opinion, have done well to 
 suppress, as their querulous impatience of criticism is hardly 
 worthy of a man who stands at the head of our literature, 
 and their tone approaches that egotism which it is one of his 
 1 greatest merits to have avoided. 
 
 M r9 Browning is probably, next to Tennyson, the most 
 popular of modern English poets. She is decidedly the grea- 
 test of our poetesses. Her poems want the polish of those 
 
Mrs Browning. J 63 
 
 of Tennyson. 'They are sometimes harsh, and the diction 
 is often obscure, but they ace Jfull of passion and force. 
 They move the mind much more deeply than those of her 
 great rival, but they move it differently. They remind us 
 of* the utterances of a prophetess who endeavours to speak 
 what no human tongue can express. Now and then passages 
 of wonderful power and terseness are te be found in her 
 works. Every line, too, bears witness to the great passion- 
 ate woman's heart that utters it. 
 
 Her political poems are the best verses of the kind which 
 the present age has produced in England. They treat, for 
 the most part, the modern history of Italy, in which coun- 
 try she spent the last years of her life.. ' Some passages in 
 Poems before Congress have certainly .great poetical merit, 
 whatever their political- value may be. Her greatest work 
 is Aurora Leigh, the history of the life of a poetess in blank 
 verse. The story is wild and even incoherent in parts , yet 
 taken as a whole, it is perhaps the greatest poetical work of 
 our age. It certainly has a much deeper hold on our -human 
 sympathies than any of Tennyson's poems. The leading 
 idea is the contrast between the ideal of the artist and that 
 of the social reformer. Aurora Leigh is the representa- 
 tive of the one, Bomney of the other. They are cousins, 
 but they cannot comprehend though they love each other. 
 Aurora, vexed at Komney's contempt for her ideals, and 
 believing that he offers to marry her rather from pity of her 
 poverty than from real affection, refuses his offer. They each 
 go their own way, and each in time discovers that the choice 
 has been onesided; that neither is perfect without the other. 
 Such is a rough sketch of the plan. The whole work is sa- 
 turated with original thought. One cannot read a page without 
 chancing on some original and striking passage, and many 
 grand and beautiful pictures. Indeed I do not know any 
 modern English poem which presents so many new views of 
 life in an equally small compass. 
 
 11* 
 
164 Book HI. Chapter II. 
 
 Robert Browning, the husband of the lady whose works 
 we have just been examining,, possesses perhaps greater in- 
 tellectual power than any poet of the day, yet he can hardly 
 be called the greatest of our living poets. His works are 
 strikingly original both in form and subject, but are they poet- 
 ry? He . is destitute of all the lower talents of a poet. 
 His verse is so harsh that it sometimes seems as if he were 
 endeavouring to. write as discordantly as possible. His dic- 
 tion is so involved that the reader can hardly guess at the 
 meaning until he has read the piece through six or seven 
 times. Many of his works, too, are rather studies than 
 poems, but then they are such studies as no one else in our 
 age can execute. Kobert Browning seems to look at all ques- 
 tions from a psychological point of view. He does not ask 
 what theory is true , but what is the logical connexion of 
 each theory, how is it possible to believe it true. No writer 
 has ever exhibited as clearly as he the relation of character 
 to opinion. He takes a given man, a spirit-rapper medium, 
 or a half sincere Catholic bishop for example , and evolves 
 his theory of the universe , and supports it by a thousand 
 arguments. Tou hear the man speak as he would really 
 speak, had he M* Browning's learning, and force of mind 
 On the next page you have quite another character, a He- 
 brew prophet perhaps, and he tells you the secrets of his 
 soul. The poet contrasts their theories not with any moral 
 end, but simply from a love of artistic effect. „A.re not all 
 systems equally good and bad" he seems to say „since they 
 are all indubitably the production of nature?" All souls 
 seem to lie open to his gaze. He can read the «ecrets of each, 
 the highest and the lowest , the enraptured saint and the 
 low impostor , he has fathomed them alL We may take his 
 poem Babbi Ben. Ezra for example. It breathes the very 
 spirit of the old Testament. It is an elaboration of the system 
 which gave utterance to the thought „Wbe unto him that 
 striveth with his Maker ; shall the clay say to him that fashion- 
 
Robert Browning. }g5 
 
 eth "What makest Thou ?" That frame of mind which looks 
 upon human beings as creatures fashioned by the Almighty 
 for his pleasure, and worth just what their value in his eye* 
 is, neither more nor less, is powerfully depicted. Perhaps no 
 mental state is more foreign to the thoughts and feelings of 
 our age than this resignation,, this self-abnegation, yet Brown- 
 ing has expressed it in a most masterly manner. But though 
 he can paint a vast number of characters, he seldom gives us 
 more than a single side of each — the intellectual side; or 
 perhaps it would be more correct to say, he looks at most 
 of his characters from an intellectual point of view alone. 
 The other sides of his characters are, in the poems where 
 his originality is displayed to most advantage, only mention- 
 ed to show their influence on the intellect. Many of his ly- 
 rical poems prove that he can treat passion and emotion as 
 well. The simple pathos of some of these is very touching. 
 Take the following verse from his poem entitled „In a Tear" 
 
 „"Was it something said, 
 
 Something done 
 
 Vexed him, was it touch of hand, 
 
 Turn of head? 
 
 Strange that very way 
 
 Love begun, 
 
 I as little understand 
 
 Loves decay. 
 But it would be easier to find poets who could produce 
 such verses as the above than men who are capable of writ- 
 ing such poems as „Caliban on Setebos", or „Bishop Blou- 
 gram's apology." M r Browning's dramas exhibit many of 
 the talents which are required in a great dramatist, a power 
 of grasping great situations, portraying characters, and expres- 
 sing passion, but the theatrical element, the quality that 
 fits a play for the stage, is wanting in them. 
 
 The poetry of Browning, like that of Tennyson, but 
 for very different reasons, appeals to the educated 1 alone. 
 
166 Book m Chapter II. 
 
 He has neither the fine ear, nor the exquisite taste of the 
 Laureate. His diction is involved, and we are sometimes 
 •startled by the introduction of colloquial phrases into his most 
 serious poems. This often makes a grotesque, and some- 
 times even a comical impression. But these are not the qua- 
 lities that prevent him becoming popular. The poetry of the 
 people, be it .narrative, dramatic or lyrical, always appeals to 
 the feelings. Those poems which exhibit M r Browning's 
 powers to the greatest advantage appeal to the intellect. "We 
 seldom are inclined either to laugh or weep over his verses ; 
 yet we read and reread them, finding new beauties every 
 time. , But these beauties are apparent to the thinking alone. 
 They consist of subtle trains of thought and striking views 
 •of life. His works are, as a rule, more remarkable for power 
 than beauty. He scorns prettiness and prefers a forcible 
 expression to a weak one even though it be less melodious. 
 He is eccentric both in his choice of subjects and his man- 
 ner of treating them. But he is a thinker of extraordinary 
 depth and originality, a poet whose best works never loose 
 their freshness and interest. The taste for his works , lik'e 
 that for olives and caviare, may be an acquired one, but 
 "it is a source of exquisite enjoyment. 
 
 Owen Meredith is the author of several volumes of poems 
 which are very unequally written. The best of them deserve 
 a very high place among the lyrics of our 'age. Tennyson has 
 written but few poems that surpass „The Novel". But few 
 of his verses are so well finished off, and many are careless 
 in the extreme. The effect of Heine's writings may be traced 
 in almost- every thing he has written, except his religious 
 or semi - religious pieces. Benaldo Benaldi is a mere trans- 
 lation of some chapters of the „Beisebilder" into English 
 verse. The verses are spirited and would deserve great 
 praise, had they been published as a translation or adaptation. 
 The motives of several other poems he has borrowed without 
 acknowledgements from the same source. Yet it would be 
 
Owen Meredith. Jg7 
 
 unjust not to give him credit for some originality. Now and 
 then he expresses a mental mood of mind with great power 
 and simplicity, take for [example these verses from the Love- 
 Letter 
 
 But we are punished for our noblest deeds, 
 And chastened for our holiest thoughts, alas! 
 There is no reason found in all the creeds, 
 Why things are so, nor how it came to pass. 
 
 But in the heart of man a secret voice ■ ■ 
 
 There is, which cries, and will not be restrained, 
 Which says to grief: weep on, while I rejoice, 
 Trusting that somewhere all will be explained. 
 
 And again 
 
 It is no common failure, to have failed, 
 When man has given 
 
 His whole days labour to the task assailed, 
 Spent earth on heaven. 
 
 If error or if weakness enter here, 
 What helps repentance? 
 Kemember this, oh Lord, -in thy severe 
 Last sentence. 
 
 In short this poet possesses talents which might have 
 secured him a very high place among our modern writers, if 
 they had been properly applied; as it is, they have been 
 almost wasted in a struggle after effect. Yet we cannot 
 turn the leaves of Clytemnestra or the Wanderer without 
 lighting upon passages which, once read, can never be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 We cannot of course examine the 1 works of the mi- 
 nor poets of our age. Hood deserves mention for his wit, 
 humour and tenderness. Motherwell the Scotch poet is re- 
 markable for his fine sense of beauty and the tenderness 
 
Jg8 Book III. Chapter III. 
 
 and grace of many of his verses. His JejiHy Morrison is one 
 of the best poems our ago has produced. George Macdonali 
 occupies a middle position between our poets and novelists, 
 but he belongs rather to the former than the latter class. 
 His writings bear the impress of the German Romantic School, 
 and they, deserve particular attention for their grace, and 
 the passionate fervour with which they teach the doc- 
 trines of forgiveness and self-renunciation, but we have not 
 space to linger over them. The other poets of the day we 
 must pass without mention. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 On turning to the prose literature of our own age we 
 must , before commencing our examination of the novelB of 
 this period, cast a glance at our essayists, as their influence 
 has been widely felt by the greatest writers of that class. 
 Foremost among these , both in originality and influence, 
 stands Thomas Carlyle. His earliest works were a life of 
 Schiller, and a translation of Wilhelm Meister. The first of 
 these is remarkable as being one of the first attempts to in- 
 troduce a really philosophical criticism into England. But 
 it was little more than an attempt. The second is one of the 
 best translations our literature has to boast of. In 1833 and 
 1834 Carlyle published Sartor Eesartus in Eraser's magazine. 
 This is a very extraordinary work. It purports to be the life 
 and, opinions of a German Professor ; but it treats of almost 
 every subject under the sun and of some things above it. 
 As the life of the professor is the centre of the work, the 
 point from which the thoughts spring, and round which they 
 revolve , we will examine it first. The great doctrine on 
 which the whole system of Carlyle is founded is that man 
 does not live for pleasure alone, else were our life of ne- 
 
Thomas Carlyle. 169 
 
 cessity wretched. „Will the whole Finance - ministers and 
 Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, 
 in joint-stock-company, to make one shoe-black happy? „he 
 passionately exclaims". They can not accomplish it, above 
 an hour or two ; for the shoe-black also has a soul quite other 
 than his stomach, and would require, if you consider it, for 
 his permanent satisfaction and saturation simply this allot- 
 ment, no more and no less: God's infinite universe 
 altogether to himself, therein to enjoy infinitely and 
 fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hochheimer, a 
 throat like that of Ophiucus , speak not of them ; to the in- 
 finite shoe -black they are as nothing. No sooner is your 
 ocean filled than he grumbles ,. it might have been of better 
 vintage. Try him with half of a Universe of an Omnipo- 
 tence, he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other 
 half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men. — Al- 
 ways there is a black spot in our sunshine; it is even, as I 
 said, the Shadow of Ourselves". According to Carlyle it is 
 , not pleasure but duty that is the chief end of man. But what 
 is duty? To bring oneself into connection with the laws of the 
 universe and to submit one's will to them, that' is in his eyes 
 the great duty of each man. But how is this to be done in 
 our age of scepticism and insincerity? This is the question 
 which the life of the professor in Sartor Resartus is intended 
 to answer. In it the author endeavours to paint the various 
 phases of moral life through which a sincere and thinking 
 man \a our age has to pass, before he can attain that be- 
 lief in which he can find rest. The object of the tale has of- 
 ten been mistaken, and Carlyle has been blamed for not in- 
 dividualizing his hero, and for omitting, or passing lightly 
 over the externals of his life. But these did not concern him, 
 it was the soul with which he had to do. It was the human, 
 and not the personal part of our nature which he wished to 
 paint, that each man might find in the book a picture of him- 
 self. The rest of the book is taken up with remarks on things 
 
170 Book III. Chapter III. 
 
 in general, some .of -which display a strange, wild humour, 
 and others a still stranger pathos. The influenca of German 
 thought may be traced in • every page of this volume. It is 
 apparent in the very style, which is a strange mixture of ner- 
 veous and ideomatic English, and peculiar and mannerised 
 adaptations of German grammatical forms. All imitations of 
 his diction are disgusting, but it is well suited to his eccen- 
 tric and fragmentary style of thought, and it often rises into 
 an eloquence which borders on poetry. The German philo- 
 sopher to whom he is most indebted is Eichte, but, while 
 his thought wants the systematic development of that thinker, 
 his sympathies are broader and, I think, deeper. Some 
 passages of his writings seem to grasp and solve the riddles 
 which beset every thinking man in our days. Sartor Ke- 
 sartus immediately became a favourite of the most ear- 
 nest of our young men. Its influence was similar in kind, 
 but much wider and deeper than that of Tennyson's „In 
 Memoriam". 
 
 After the publication of this work Carlyle delivered se- 
 veral courses of lectures in London, and wrote essays for 
 several of our leading reviews and magazines. They treat- 
 ed principally German and French subjects, and exhibited 
 high critical powers, but it was perhaps the deep earnest- 
 ness of their tone, and their wide tolerance that secured them 
 their vast popularity. In 1850 his Latter Day Pamphlets ap- 
 peared. They treated the leading questions of the day. It 
 had always been Carlyle's motto, that it is our own faults 
 and the virtues of our neighbours that concern us, and in 
 these papers the faults of England are mercilessly exposed 
 and ridiculed. These pamphlets cost their writer many friends 
 and admirers. They had borne much general satire from 
 him, but they were enraged when he descended to particu- 
 lars and laid bare the rottenness of the present state of 
 things. It is easy to join in a general confession that we 
 are miserable sinners, and to listen to a sermon upon cant 
 
Thomas Carlyle. 171 
 
 and hypocrisy, but ■when our favourite sins are denounced 
 and our own darling shams exposed, it is not so pleasant. 
 But the very fact that these papers excited so much uneasi- 
 ness proves that they were needed. "When the patient shrieks 
 at the doctor's touch, we know that the part is diseased. Any 
 person who formed his estimate of England from these papers 
 alone would doubtless have a false idea of the country, yet 
 they are essentially true. Their great fault is the deification 
 of power, of mere brute force however used. This they share 
 with some of Carlyle's earlier, and most of his later works. 
 He does not believe with Napoleon that God is on the side 
 of the strongest battalion, but he seems to think that the 
 strongest battalion is generally on the side of God. It is 
 easy to see how he has come to this state of feeling. Gifted 
 himself with a deep and firm belief that sometimes almost 
 reminds us of the old Hebrew prophets, he moves among 
 the fine gentlemen and ladies of our modern literature like a 
 giant among pigmies. Your respectable gentleman is his 
 aversion. He has nothing in common with that agreeable 
 being, who is a master of small talk and shines in so- 
 ciety, who has a pleasant little joke ready for every occa- 
 sion and a sneer for any disagreeable truth, who is a faith- 
 ful member of his party and keeps his eyes carefully shut 
 to any truth that transcends his little creed, who trips lightly 
 through the world , as if the universe were a colossal ball- 
 room, aad there were no God enthroned above him, no 
 abysm gaping beneath him, who has no courage or heart to do 
 either right or wrong, who, as Dante says, is hateful alike to 
 God and to the enemies of God. His shallownes disgusts Carlyle, 
 and any reality, however rude, seems better to him than such 
 a sham. A great deal doubtless may be said on the other 
 side of the question, but a man must be judged by his own 
 belief , and if Carlyle be right, and God, as he bitterly says, 
 has ^ot taken the devil into partnership, and the „Eat, drink 
 and take your ease" be not the highest of divine revelations, 
 
172 Book III. Chapter in. 
 
 then we can hardly wonder at the gloomy prophet's wrath and 
 scorn. Since 1850 Carlyle has been engaged in historical 
 works the best of which is the history of the French Eevolution. 
 
 If we look at his general character as an essayist, which 
 is what most nearly concerns us at present, we find, as I 
 have already said, that much of his influence is owing to his 
 deep earnestness. He never appeals to conventional laws or 
 to the opinion of his age. He speaks, or at least he endea- 
 vours to speak , to something much deeper than the under- 
 standing , to what he himself calls , „the God-like that is in 
 man.'* He endeavours to bring every question, be it liter- 
 ary, social or political, into connection with the noblest part 
 of our nature. Hence the withering power of his sarcasm. 
 We have agreed not to think too deeply on some questions, 
 to be sharp and acute , but not really earnest about them, 
 „to leave God and the soul out of the game", to admire mere 
 cleverness, to be content with half truths. To this agreement 
 Carlyle is a stranger. He speaks the truth most indiscreetly, 
 and at the most unsuitable times. He places the highest 
 standards before us, and in comparison with them the things 
 we have admired look inexpressibly mean. When we have 
 built up an exceedingly clever theory and defended it with 
 logical acuteness against all common attacks, he comes and 
 asks with the most intolerable earnestness, „Do yon really 
 believe it?" 
 
 A man who is thus in earnest has a vast advantage over 
 those who appeal to lower standards. He gains a kind of 
 moral influence over his readers, for we have naturally a re- 
 spect for an earnest and sincere mind, and enthusiasts have 
 always exercised a much wider influence than their intellec- 
 tual power entitled them to. Hence the writings of Carlyle 
 have done much to deepen and purify our modern literature. 
 But what a man gains in depth by a firm belief, he gene- 
 rally loses in his range of sympathy. Enthusiasts are gene- 
 rally bigots. Their eyes are closed to every truth that lies 
 
Thomas Carlyle. 173 
 
 beyond, their creed, their hearts have no sympathy for those 
 who do not belong to their party. Believing that the doc- 
 trines they teach are the truth , they cannot but think that 
 those who do not hold these doctrines are the enemies of the 
 truth. This is not the case with Carlyle. He has sympathy 
 for every great mind , whatever its belief may be. He can 
 admire Goethe and Mirabeau, Luther and Voltaire. Ho wri- 
 ter of the present day has a wider tolerance. This is proved 
 by his French Bevolution, the greatest of his historical works. 
 He is not on the side of either party, nor does he even en- 
 deavour to put on the cold impartiality of a judge. He writes 
 the history dramatically. He identifies himself with each 
 party in turn. When he writes of the Mountain he is as de- 
 mocratic as Danton , when he speaks of the Queen he is the 
 most enthusiastic of royalists. It is instructive to compare the 
 manners of our three greatest modern historians, Buckle, Ma- 
 caulay, and Carlyle. The first of these looks upon history 
 as a mass of raw materials , from which the great laws of na- 
 tional progress may be deduced. He cares little for the great 
 men who play a part in the senate or army, and nothing at 
 all for their private characters. It is with the spirit of the 
 age itself that he has to do, and all that can throw a light on 
 its character is interesting to him , be it a sermon , an anec- 
 dote, or a piece of scandal. The novels and dramas of a 
 country are more important in his eyes than its court and 
 royal marriages. Yet his aim is not merely to discover and 
 to portray the spirit of a period. He goes farther and shows 
 what influences assisted, and what retarded the advance of ci- 
 vilization , he writes rather the philosophy of history than 
 history. Maeaulay and Carlyle, on the other hand, aim 
 simply at giving a picture of the age about which they 
 write. The latter, it is true, assures us in some introduc- 
 tory chapters , that the French revolution was Gods judge- 
 ment on quacks and liars, but his purpose, like that of 
 Maeaulay, is on the whole, rather to give a. picture of the 
 
174 Book III. Chapter III. 
 
 time, than to deduce great laws from it. Here however the 
 > resemblance between the two ceases. Macaulay gathers as 
 much information about his characters as he can get, he then 
 chooses the most salient parts of it, and' gives them to the 
 reader. He paints his characters with great skill , • as Scott 
 did, from without inwards; and he is very careful to add 
 nothing that he cannot support by good authority. He is not 
 troubled by apparent discrepancies in his characters as long 
 as they are historically proved. He lets you see them as 
 nearly as possible as their contemporaries saw them, and pro- 
 nounces judgement upon them in alm'ost the same tone as we 
 judge our every day acquaintances. With what- wonderful skill 
 he does all this, I need not say. Carlyle pursues a very different 
 method. After carefully collecting everything that can throw a 
 light on the person whose life he is describing, he endeavours to 
 form an idea of his character, and to reconstruct it as a poet 
 does. He is not contented with giving us his words and 
 actions, he endeavours to lay bare the nature from which 
 those words and actions spring. Sometimes he !does this by 
 a clever nickname, and sometimes by long pages of descrip^ 
 tion. This is what gives his narrative the strong dramatic 
 interest which we find in no other historian. We feel that 
 we have to do with men, and not with mere abstractions. 
 His history has the interest of a poem. His Mirabeau and 
 Danton excite feelings akin to those which are touched by 
 Macbeth and Lear, rather than those which are awakened 
 by other historical portraits. But there is a danger in this 
 style of writing. When the mere facts are given us, we 
 can. form what idea of a character we will, we can test it by 
 facts \ derived from external sources, and judge it for oursel- 
 ves; But with characters presented to us in Carlyle's man- 
 ner this is impossible, we must accept them, or leave them. 
 If you take his picture as the true one, it is as impossible to 
 have two opinions on the moral worth of the character, as 
 to dispute over the crimes and virtues of Macbeth. It is how- 
 
Macaulay. Hallam. ^ 75 
 
 ever but justice to add that most critics praise the truth of 
 Carlyle's pictures, and that the publication of papers which 
 were inaccessible to him has, it is said, almost invariably 
 supported his opinions. 
 
 Lord Macau/ay's essays possess many of the beauties of 
 his history. But few of them are purely critical. He uses 
 most of the books, whose names are placed above them, me- 
 rely as texts from which he can diverge to any interesting 
 subject which falls in his way. Nor is the literary criticism 
 that is to be- found in them very deep. Macaulay seldom 
 touches on the principles of art, or refers to the great laws 
 which govern literary composition. He is content to judge 
 separate cases, to detect unwary authors, who have stolen 
 stray -thoughts or indulged in bad Latin. He is decidedly 
 greater as an historian than as a critic. 
 
 Hallam is certainly a far greater critic than his more 
 brilliant rival , many would add and a greater historian , but 
 that is a question on which I can form no opinion. His 
 Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15 th , 16 th and 
 17"> centuries is by far the greatest work on literary his- 
 tory in our language. It is of course impossible for me to 
 enter into an examination of the works of our critics and es- 
 sayists. I should be but ill qualified for such an undertaking, 
 nor does it lie within the plan of this book which has to do 
 with our imaginative literature alone. 
 
176 Bot* DO.. Chapter IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Polonius divided the plays of his day into tragedy, co- 
 medy, history, pastoral, pastoral comical , historical pastoral, 
 tragical historical, and. tragical comical, and critics of his 
 disposition would find it easy to divide the novels of our age 
 into at least twice as many classes. A much more simple 
 classification will suffice for our purpose. Successful novels 
 may be divided into two great classes, those whose interest is 
 temporary, and those whose interest is permanent. To many 
 this would seem like dividing them simply into bad or good 
 tales, but this is not the case. To write any successful book 
 a certain, talent is needed, and a novel that runs through a 
 dozen editions in as many weeks can not be an entirely stu- 
 pid work , even though it should be forgotten at the end of 
 the year. Many such tales are written. We can remember 
 many novels which we have read with breathless interest, 
 hut which once finished we cast aside and never opened 
 again. On examining these books we shall find that their 
 interest depended on one of two things. It was due either to 
 some external circumstance, or to the plot of the tale. When 
 a, nation is interested in any subject, a novel putting the po- 
 pular view of the matter into a startling light often has a suc- 
 cess quite disproportioned to its literary value. During the 
 Catholic reaction , for example , a tale dealing with the hor- 
 rors of the inquisition, or having for its villain a crafty Jesuit 
 was almost sure to find a large circle of readers. The reason 
 of this is obvious. The middle classes in England have a 
 strong instinctive hatred of Catholicism. This had been 
 brought into play by the numbers of converts which had 
 passed from the Anglican to the Catholic church. They were 
 enraged, they knew not why, and any libel however absurd, 
 any falsehood however ridiculous, was gladly credited and 
 eagerly read. As soon as the excitement had passed away, 
 
Introduction. |77 
 
 the tales it had produced were forgotten. But by far the 
 greater number of novels which have a great temporary 
 success are those whose- interest is .centred not on exter- 
 nal, circumstances but on the mere plot. These are the' 
 books which we cannot lay down till we have finished 
 them, and which, once finished, we never take up again. 
 They treat of great crimes, strange adventures and striking 
 events. We are interested in the fate of the heroes rather 
 than in the heroes themselves. The tale excites curiosity that 
 is almost feverish, but as soon as this curiosity is satisfied 
 it has no farther hold upon us and. is therefore never reread. 
 The most successful novel of our age unites both kinds of tem- 
 porary interest. Uncle Tom's Cabin is at 5nce a very clever 
 sensational story and a popular statement of the popular 
 theory of slavery. Hence its vast success. In vain critics 
 showed that the characters were impossible and the senti- 
 ments exaggerated and sickly, in vain thinkers protested that 
 the arguments were one - sided and false. It passed from 
 house to house, and from land to land. It was read by 
 everyone, it' was discussed every where. Thackeray, Di- 
 ckens and Hawthorne were forgotten. Who. reads it now? 
 Who will remember its name in fifty years time ? Such must 
 be the fate of all tales whose interest depends on the story 
 told rather than the manner of telling it, on the material 
 rather than the form. But the form must be taken in its 
 widest sense, as embracing the characters, the wit, humour, 
 and pathos of the tale, not the mere development of the 
 plot, though the latter is a more important element in a good 
 novel than some modern authors are willing to believe. — • Of 
 the first class of novels we have already said enough , they 
 have no claim to be considered works of art. They may 
 therefore interest the historian and the student of social life, 
 they do not concern the literary critic. 
 
 Foremost among the novelists who belong to our se- 
 
 Grant litteratore. - J 2 
 
178 Book HI. Chapter IV. 
 
 cond class, .both in time and versatility, stands Bulwer Lyt- 
 tqn. He has tried his hand at almost every kind of novel 
 and, <though few, if any, of his works can he said to be- 
 long to the highest rank, none of them are entirely un- 
 worthy of notice. His earlier works hear many traces of 
 Byron's influence. Paul Clifford and Eugene Aram have some 
 resemblance in tone to the writings of the Jung Deutsch- 
 land school. Their heroes are criminals, and from their tone 
 one would almost fancy that no person could be interesting 
 who had not been guilty of felony at the very least. I endea^ 
 voured in my remarks on Byron to point out some of the 
 reasons for this strange taste. In the works of Bulwer and 
 his followers these influences may still be traced , but ano- 
 ther and more important one came into play. In the writings 
 of the middle ages a man is generally represented as either 
 bad or good, and when he has once been placed in either of 
 these' classes no further explanation is thought necessary. It 
 is the nature of a saint to be a saint, 'and of a villain to be a 
 villain. "What more need be said? Of course in the highest 
 works of art which the middle ages produced there was some- 
 thing more than this. But the character of literature at that 
 time was to motify as little as possible, to paint the devil 
 very black and the saints very bright. Modern times have 
 dealt very hardly both with the devil and the saints. "We 
 should doubtless have found some excuses for the first, had it 
 not been easier to get rid of him altogether. "Who would not 
 rejoice at his departure ? > And , since he has gone , and the 
 saints have no more work to do in the universe, they too have 
 disappeared. "We have discovered that good people are not 
 so very good, nor bad people so very bad as our forefathers 
 thought- them. "We have begun to suspect that our own na- 
 tures contain the germs of the same passions which lead one 
 man to the murderer's gallows and another to a martyr's 
 stake. In short tolerance is one of the characteristics of our 
 
Bulwer Lytton. \ 79 
 
 time. How nearly this virtue may be related to scepticism, 
 does not concern us here. "Whether we find so much good in 
 the worst, so much evil in the best characters from Christian 
 charity and humility, or merely because we have no very 
 strong belief in either good or evil, is a question which we 
 need not ask. It is enough that the tolerance exists; that we 
 no longer draw a broad line between the good and the evil, 
 but see in the worst and best of characters men and brothers. 
 This ' being the case , it follows as a matter of course , that 
 the change from good to evil must form an interesting subject 
 for artistic treatment. In the Elizabethan age it was fre- 
 quently treated. During the dominion of the French or clas- 
 sical school poetry became too shallow to grapple with such 
 subjects, and we find few traces of crime. That is crime 
 subjectively considered with reference to its effect on the cri- 
 minal's character as a tragical subject during that period, un- 
 less we stretch the word so as to make it cover the sins of 
 Richardson's heroes. When however our poetry was again 
 freed from foreign influence, it was. natural enough that it 
 should recur to such subjects. It was not the material, but 
 the manner of treating it that was unhealthy. This will at 
 once be seen if we compare Macbeth with Eugene Aram. In 
 both a murderer is the hero , in both he excites a lively and 
 deep interest. In both he is represented as no inhuman 
 monster, but as a man with like passions to ourselves. Where 
 then lie's the difference? In the treatment of the subject. With 
 all our interest in and sympathy for Macbeth we never 
 loose sight of his guilt. Shakespeare keeps clearly before 
 our eyes the fact that murder is a fearful crime. Our feel- 
 ings , even while they sympathise with the hero, condemn 
 him. It is in this feeling that the moral influence of the 
 work lies, far more than in the mere fact that at the end 
 the hero is killed. We see a truly grand and noble character, 
 led step by step to a deed which places him not, it is true, 
 beyond the range of our sympathy, but at least in a position 
 
 12* 
 
180 Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 which we shudder to think of, a position in which all that 
 is good in his character must needs be turned to evil. The 
 tragic power of the piece depends on the fact that crime , is 
 crime. In Eugene Aram this is not the case , the hero be- 
 comes interesting because he is a murderer. The "guilt is lost 
 sight of. His punishment is entirely external. No ghost 
 disturbs him. No horrible consciousness of crime haunts 
 him-' He himself declares, he never knew remorse. His rest 
 is broken, it is true, but it is broken only by fear that pun- 
 ishment may overtake him. Still the novel is powerfully 
 written, and, though the tone is unhealthy, it is not immor- 
 al. Unfortunately men who had neither the talents nor the 
 sound moral sense of Bulwer imitated him in the choice of 
 subjects, and a series of criminal novels arose. These works 
 cannot be too severely censured. Their authors reason thus* A 
 good and great character may fall into crime ; therefore there is 
 nothing so very bad in crime. Starting with the perfectly 
 correct belief that a criminal is not a monster but a human 
 being, and that the very feelings which might lead to the no- 
 blest! virtues can, when misdirected, lead to the most 'fearful 
 pjns, the writers of this school arrive at the strange conclusion 
 that there is after all no difference between vice and virtue, 
 good and evil. It is as if a physician should undertake to show 
 the progress of a physical disease, and the very influences 
 which in health strengthen and nourish may, when dis- 
 ordered, produce illness and death, but in the middle of 
 his dissertation he should become confused and should state 
 that these evil effects were after all' signs of the most per- 
 fect health. The unhealthy moral tone is not however the 
 only fault to be found with these tales. Few of the writers 
 of this class have dared to provide no punishment for the 
 crime at last. In the end the hero is executed, and the 
 author exclaims, what more will you have, behold the pun- 
 ishment, of murder. But in fact he has commited two faults 
 
Disraeli. J gf 
 
 instead of one. His hero does not deserve to be executed. 
 If, as he has taught us, moral law does not exist, why pun- 
 ish this pure and noble being? If murder is only an amiable 
 •weakness, why execute the murderer? He is unjustly 
 treated, and we are as deeply enraged with human as with 
 divine laws. This is the. only effect that poetical justice can 
 possibly ' have in the hands of such writers. In his later 
 works Bulwer has entirely freed himself from this love of 
 moral paradox which in truth he never carried to such length 
 as his followers. „The Caxtons", „My Novel" and „What will 
 he do with it?" take deservedly a high place in our novel Ii^ 
 terature. One characteristic of this author can hardly be 
 too highly praised. He never looks upon authorship as a 
 mere means of gaining fame or profit. Art is a sacred thing 
 to him. Hence, whatever the faults of his works may be, they 
 are free from levity and conscious a struggle after false effect. 
 
 Disraeli's novels are brilliant and full of wit and para- 
 dox. They abound in original social, religious, and philoso- 
 phical theories. They bear witness to the learning, culture, 
 and mental power and dexterity of their author. No ordinary 
 man could have written Coningsby, or the Psychological 
 Romance. No one who was without the „fine fire of ge- 
 nius" could have conceived and executed the character of'Si- 
 donia, and no common character would have undertaken his 
 chivalrous defence of the Jews. His very errors are dazz- 
 ling and bear witness to the subtility and force of his intel- 
 lect and the vigour of his imagination. But his tales can 
 scarcely be said to be true to nature, and it is fortunate both 
 for his country and his fame that he has devoted his brilliant 
 and various talents to the service of the state. 
 
 The works of Anthony Trollope occupy a higher place 
 than those of the above authors in execution, though not 
 in intention. He is not so ambitious as they in the choice of 
 subjects. He is content with simple domestic events, but 
 
182 Book 10. Chapter IV. 
 
 he treats them in a masterly manner. His novels are char- 
 ming tales. They realise the old idea of a novel better than 
 any works of the kind our age has produced. They are 
 books which fill up a leisure - hour very pleasantly. They 
 require no deep thought, they suggest no new and startling 
 views of life, they are what they profess to be, a recreation 
 and no more. The characters are correctly drawn, the con- 
 versation is light and witty, the style has the elegant ease 
 of a gentleman's conversation. No writer of the day is 
 equally successful in painting English respectable life. Tha- 
 ckeray anatomizes it; Dickens distorts it into humourous con- 
 tortions; Trollope simply reproduces it. All common forms 
 of character are familiar to him, and he paints their outside 
 well. Sometimes he tries to do more, and he has once or 
 twice succeeded, but, as a rule, he is content to write 
 pleasant and graceful tales. He pays more attention to 
 his plot than most novelists of our age have done , and his 
 stories are interesting, without having any of the unhealthy 
 and feverish excitement which belongs to the sensational 
 novel. 
 
 Charles Dickens is the most widely popular -writer our 
 age has produced. The work on which his fame is founded 
 is the Pickwick Club. It was published in 1837, in monthly 
 numbers, and had an. unparalleled success. As it is a good 
 example both of the beauties and faults of its author's writings, 
 we may enter into an examination of it. It is a series of 
 sketches, bound together by a very slight thread. Four gentle- 
 men, members of the Pickwick club, make a journey through 
 England to observe the manners of different classes of society. 
 The book is the story of their adventures Nowhere in our 
 literature, except perhaps in the comedies of Ben Jonson, are 
 an equal number of comical situations to be found. I know 
 of no other book over which one can laugh so heartily. The 
 fertility of the author's imagination is truly marvellous. The 
 
Charles Dickens. ]g3 
 
 characters are conceived and drawn with an appreciation of 
 comical effect that cannot be overpraised , > and with a know- 
 ledge of London life which, though it is far from being as 
 exact as it appears, is still vast and varied.' The diction is 
 strikingly original, and proves that Dickens has a sharp ear 
 for homourous stylistic effects. In his later works this has 
 degenerated into mere mannerism and trickery, but in the 
 Pickwick papers this was not the, case, and there is something 
 irresistably comic in the way in which he sometimes uses 
 -long rhetorical' phrases for simple every - day objects. The 
 situations too , improbable as they are, are worked out with 
 such truth, of detail, and so cleverly modified that they 
 seem at the first glance not only probable, but real. But the 
 Pickwick papers are far from being without faults. The most 
 •apparent, and perhaps the greatest of these is the love of 
 horrors for their own sake which the author displays. This 
 is the more inexcusable , as they form no necessary part of 
 the plot and are only introduced as episodes, in the form 
 of tales, by the different characters. We have one, for in- 
 stance, describing the death of an actor in Delirium Tremens. 
 Such a subject is merely disgusting and therefore entirely 
 unfit for artistic treatment. In a great work it might pos- 
 sibly have been introduced as the necessary end of a long- 
 course of folly, but even then it must have been treated with 
 great delicacy not to produce utter loathing. But here it is 
 introduced for no apparent reason, with all its grotesque 
 horror, into the midst of the humourous characters and comic 
 adventures which form the staple of the book. The very 
 realism and power with which it is painted makes it all the 
 more hideous. It is idealised by no poetic touch, enobled 
 by no redeeming trait , it is utterly loathsome. It produces 
 a certain effect on the reader, no doubt, but it is no artistic 
 effect. Horrors of all kinds are exciting, and they are for 
 that reason degrading, unless they produce something more 
 
1§4 'Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 than mere excitement. If they produced no effect, the gla- 
 diatorial games of ancient Borne, and the Bull-fights of mo- 
 dern Spain would have had no demoralizing influence on those 
 who witnessed them. Were mere excitement the end of art, 
 an execution would be the most artistic of modem specta- 
 cles, for what tragedy can equal in horror such a sight? It 
 is because Lear and Macbeth produce something more than 
 mere horror that they are works of art Dickens has not 
 even the excuse of the great dramatists* of the Elizabethan 
 age. Many Of them produced scenes at which we now shud- 
 der, but they did not cover the stage with jacks and red hot 
 irons merely to give the spectators the brutal excitement of 
 watching a wretch's agony, but to show the power of the 
 heroes soul and his steadfastness in the strongest possible 
 light, and when reading their playB, we admire while we 
 shudder, while we turn from Dickens's scenes of horror with 
 simple disgust. 
 
 The characters of the Pickwick papers have, as I have 
 said , a great appearance of reality. They are, like, those of 
 Scott, drawn entirely from the outside. But Dickens is far 
 inferior to the earlier poet both in range and truth. There 
 seems to be no end to the fertility of Scott's imagination. 
 He can picture the highest and the lowest. The king on his 
 throne and the beggar in his hovel, the old knight errant 
 and the modern gipsy are equally familiar to him. Dickens 
 rules over a much more limited kingdom. London low and 
 middle - class life is his proper sphere. A farmer, it is true, 
 and even an elderly lady living in the country he can paint 
 with some power, but when he leaves such subjects he gets 
 ^beyond his depth. Nothing can be more false and melodra- 
 matic than his scenes from high life and his historical no- 
 vels. This is less apparent in the Pickwick papers than 
 in his later writings, 'because they move in the society 
 which he can depict most happily. But we find , when we 
 
Charles Dickens. 1 85 
 
 turn to the Old Curiosity Shop,- Oliver Twist, or indeed al- 
 most any of his longer tales, that he cannot paint the whole 
 even of' the limited world in which he is most successful. 
 His works are a collection of oddities, and even these he 
 cannot follow into all the phases of life. Scenes of humour 
 and simple pathos like the death of a child he can draw 
 with great power, but he can do little more. Deep passion 
 he cannot even depict or describe, far less- express. He al- 
 ways writes melodrama when he attempts it. His love- 
 scenes are mawkish and sentimental in the extreme. He is 
 equally unsuccessful in drawing criminals, though he gener- 
 ally introduces at least one into each of his stories. He is al- 
 ways careful to motify the externals of his tales , he seldom 
 even attempts to do this for his characters. Take ftuilp, 
 the most hideously grotesque of all his creations , a being, 
 by the way, as impossible physically as morally, whose two 
 great pleasures are drinking boiling brandy and tormenting 
 everybody who comes in his way ; as he stands he is a simple 
 monstrosity. By what steps did he sink to that depth of 
 evil? Shakespeare has drawn a Richard III and an Sago, 
 but he has condescended to trace their downward way, to 
 show us the influences that led them to their bad eminence; 
 Dickens is satisfied when he has drawn a nightmare. But, 
 even in the field in which he is most at home, the characters 
 of Dickens are inferior to those of Scott. The latter writer, 
 though he drew his characters from the outside , drew each 
 as a whole. Dickens does not do this. He seizes upon one 
 or two outward traits or habits , and patches them together 
 into a character. These habits are striking and generally 
 taken from real life, so that they give a strong air of reality 
 to the figure. But, if we look deeper, we too often find that 
 there is nothing behind them. In his later novels this has 
 gone so far that each of his comic characters has a phrase 
 which he constantly repeats , and by which he is known, so 
 
186 Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 that a modern critic says, it would be easy to draw up a list 
 of his characters and their characteristic expressions. In his 
 women characters he is particularly unfortunate. Old ladies 
 and servant girls, it is true', he within the range of his ge- 
 nius. But his young ladies are all insipid aud unnatural. 
 Florence in Dombey and Son, as soon as she ceases to be 
 a child, is a remarkable union of these two qualities. Fancy 
 a rich and well educated young lady running away from home 
 and seeking a refuge With the father of her lover, a nearly 
 ruined shopkeeper, and an old and vulgar captain of the 
 merchant service. And she is represented as a model of de- 
 licacy and virtue! His pictures of children, on the other 
 hand, are very beautiful. Little Nell, Paul Dombey, and a 
 crowd of others are masterly in the extreme. The fact seems 
 to be, that Dickens is a very exact and quick observer, with 
 a keen sense of humouf, but without much feeling for grace 
 and beauty. As far as his observation goes he has no equal; 
 whenever their is an opportunity for humour, he makes the 
 best of it. But ugliness does not repel indeed it some- 
 times seems to attract him. For grace he seems to have no 
 sense. His pictures all want delicacy. , This and a loye ' for 
 striking situations are the causes of his greatest faults. 
 
 Another great fault of most of his novels is their want 
 of unity. It would be unjust to blame the Pickwick Pa- 
 pers for this, for they are only intended to be a series of 
 scenes, but the same is the case with almost all his novels. 
 They are often discordant. It would be difficult to find a 
 ■single one where the plot is harmoniously developed. This 
 may be owing to the fact that they have all appeared in 
 monthly or weekly parts , with the exception of the smaller 
 tales. Indeed, the works of Dickens are the most striking 
 example our literature exhibits both of the advantages and 
 disadvantages of periodical writing. He is seldom or ever 
 dull. One cannot read twenty pages in any of his works 
 
Charles Dickens. J 87 
 
 ■without coming to some interesting scene. But there is 
 something incongruous and discordant in most of his novels. 
 Again, we find that, though the greater part of his tales are 
 quietly and leisurely developed, they are almost all crowded 
 towards the end, so as to leave the disagreeable impression 
 that the author is in haste to get finished. Yet, after all, 
 there are few pleasanter books than his novels. We return to 
 them with pleasure ever and again. Pickwick never ceases 
 to amuse and interest us. Their humour is proved by their 
 immense popularity. In England every one reads them, and 
 they have been translated into most European languages. 
 I cannot of course enter into an examination of each of 
 his works. The best among them seems to me to> be David 
 Copperfield. It contains, it is true, no scenes which equal 
 in humour the best parts of some of his other tales, but the 
 characters are better drawn, and the plot is much more pro- 
 bable and carefully constructed than in any of his other sto- 
 ries. This work too is much less mannerized than most of 
 his are , . and it contains passages which betray powers that 
 we should not have supposed him to possess. In fact it makes 
 us doubt if Dickens might not have become a far greater 
 artist, had he attained a less general and early popularity. 
 Perhaps much of its superiority lay in its form. It is an 
 autobiography. Dickens is not, as we have seen , happy in 
 drawing the depths of human nature , the internal character 
 •of his heroes. Even their outsides which he sketches so 
 cleverly he usually tinges with a subjective feeling of 
 fondness or dislike. This is a fault in a common novel, 
 in an autobiography it is a beauty, for in it he has not 
 to paint real people, but the impression such people make 
 on the mind of his hero. ¥e may doubt if the characters 
 are quite possible as he represents them, above all we may 
 suspect that behind the uncouth exteriors a human soul lies 
 hid, a capability of love and sorrow, of tears and laughter, 
 but we know that our impression of the people we meet every 
 
188 Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 day is one sided, and that we do not see into the depths of 
 their souls. Therefore we do not expect omniscience in David 
 Copperfield, and are not disappointed that the other characters 
 have sometimes father scant justice at his hands. The late? 
 novels of Dickens are far inferior to the earlier. The pathe- 
 tic scenes are more melodramatic, the humourous scenes more 
 highly caricatured. Yet, with all his faults, Dickens is one 
 of our greatest novelists and by far the most popular of our 
 modern writers. 
 
 While Dickens was at the very summit of •his fame , a 
 far greater writer, William Makepeace Thackeray, was slowly 
 fighting his way into public notice. He was known and re- 
 spected by literary men long before the general public had 
 learnt to distinguish his papers from those of the other pe- 
 riodical writers of the day. Indeed he can hardly be said to 
 have become celebrated till 1847, when he published his 
 first great novel, Vanity Fair, in monthly parts. The plot 
 of this work is not very striking. Indeed Thakeray never 
 succeeds in interesting his readers in his tales. He seems to 
 look upon his incidents merely as a means of exhibiting his 
 characters. This is a fault, it is one of the things which 
 will always prevent him obtaining anything like the po- 
 pularity of Dickens. One feels no feverish interest in his 
 stories, one lays them down without difficulty. Indeed one 
 does not care very much what the fate of Dobbin, Amilia 
 and Becky may be. But, if his books are easily laid down, 
 they are taken up again with pleasure and will bear rerea- 
 ding as few novels will. 
 
 One of their principal charms is the truth of the cha- 
 racters. The technic of Thackery in this respect is worthy 
 of notice. No writer of our age, except George Eliot, con- 
 ceives his characters so entirely from within as he. The whole 
 mechanism of their nature, their inmost thoughts and actions 
 are revealed to him. Yet 'he assumes an entirely outward 
 position, he talks about them as we do of real men and wo- 
 
William Makepeace Thackeray. Jgg 
 
 men. He pretends to guess at their feelings and motives. 
 He says „It is only charitable to suppose so and so", but 
 hints that there may be reasons for thinking otherwise. In 
 fact he criticises them in the same way in which we criticise 
 our friends and acquaintances as soon as their backs are 
 turned and they are fairly out of hearing. This gives his 
 characters a strong air of reality which is increased by his 
 whole style of introducing them to us. At first we know little 
 more about them than we do about the people we have met 
 once or twice, that is to say we known their appearance, 
 their position in life, and their style of conversation. In 
 the course of time one little secret comes to light after 
 another as if by chance, until at last they stand before 
 us in their whole integrity. Thus in Pendennis it is not 
 till Warrington is about to drop out of the story altogether, 
 that we find the key to his character, his unfortunate mar- 
 riage. To return to Vanity Fair. Foremost among the per- 
 sonages of this tale stands Becky Sharp, one of the best con- 
 ceived and most exquisitely executed figures to be found in 
 the whole range of English fiction. The daughter of a poor 
 artist and a French dancing girl who dies shortly after her 
 birth, she is educated almost exclusively among men. Her 
 intellect which is naturally fine is excited and called forth 
 in a thousand ways, while her heart is left untouched. The « 
 tenderness of a woman's care , the depth of a mother's love, 
 those sweet remembrances of childhood which return re- 
 proachfully to the most hardened worldling and shame his 
 selfishness, she never knew. She grows up in her father's 
 *tudio , alternately eoaxing away his duns and amusing his 
 friends with her mimicry and wit. From hence she passes 
 to the cold and dull respectability of a ladies' school. "What 
 could such a girl become, with what principle could she start 
 in life but with that of utter selfishness? She adopts it deli- 
 berately and follows, it consistantly. She looks at all other 
 people as the mere means of her advancement and uses 
 
190 Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 them as tools. She tries to gain their love that they may- 
 help her, to make herself neecessary to them, that they may 
 serve her; -when they are of no more use she casts them 
 aside. If they oppose her she does not hate them. "Why 
 should she? It is a part of the game. The vanity and affec- 
 tions of mankind she looks at in nearly the same light, they 
 ire the weaknesses which put other people in her power. 
 There was still one hope for her. Had she met a man of an 
 intellect equal to her own, who loved her deeply, a husband 
 in short, whom she could respect, she might have been 
 saved. Instead of that she marries Kawdon Crawly , a man 
 who loves her passionately, it is true, but who has no intel- - 
 lectual power, who becomes her servant and no more. Yet; 
 bad as Becky is, we never lose our interest in her; in fact; 
 we rather pity than condemn her. She is rather unscrupu- 
 lous than wicked. She never does wrong for the mere sake 
 of sinning. There are too some slight but exquisitely true 
 touches which bring her within the reach of our affections. 
 Her short exclamation „If such a man had loved me so, a 
 man with a head as well as a heart, I should not have mind- 
 ed his large feet," moves me, I must confess, more than 
 all Amelia's sentimental troubles. That young lady is the 
 exact opposite of Becky, a woman without any great intel- 
 lectual power, quite an insignificant thing in fact, but a pure 
 and loving nature. Every reader looks down upon her with 
 a feeling of sympathy not untinged by contempt. Yet she 
 is an exquisitely finished character, and one that was pro- 
 bably much harder for the artist to draw than her more 
 brilliant rival. Becky, once conceived, afforded by her 
 strongly marked character a firm point from which to pro- 
 ceed. It was easier to catch her likeness because her features 
 were more striking, while Amelia is one of those figures 
 which it is difficult to paint because they seem to have no in- 
 dividuality. The faces which are the despair of portrait pain- 
 ters are not those which have a firmly marked form or a pe- 
 
William Makepeace Thakeray. \Q\ 
 
 culiar expression, but those whose features have nothing re- 
 markable about them, and whose expression is varied and 
 undefined. Such is Amelia, a simple, common-place, insig- 
 nificant being enough, and just on that account a master- 
 piece. She and Becky are the two opposite poles of female 
 character , as it is to be seen in the drawing rooms of fash- 
 ionable life ->- Thackeray's Vanity Fair. The male charac- 
 ters are just as masterly. The changeable , impressionable, 
 successful and superficial George Osbom is painted with won- 
 derful truth. So is Major Dobbin, the awkward, faithful, 
 and really clever lover of Amelia. 
 
 The satire of the book deserves at least as much praise 
 as the characters. No satirist, since the time of Swift, had 
 displayed anything like the power of Thakeray, and the cy- 
 nicism of that great writer will prevent his books ever attain- 
 ing a wide popularity. Thackeray had much in common with 
 Swift. He had some of his powerful sarcasm, and in know- 
 ledge of men and their motives he is at least his equal. But 
 nothing was holy to Swift. Our best and our worst feelings 
 seem to him equally vain and foolish. He ridicules the love 
 of a mother to her children 1 with nearly the same zest as the 
 follies of courtiers. His works are loveless and pitiless , we 
 shrink from them with something like dread. Thackeray on 
 the other hand, though he walks with a scornful smile among 
 the booths of Vanity Fair and decries the wares that are 
 sold there , has a heart full of tenderness. He is not senti- 
 mental, it is true, and I fear he can lay but small claim to 
 the charity that thinketh no evil. He has a little piece of 
 scandal to tell of most of the passers-by; He hints that the 
 jewels you are admiring* are false , or hired for the occasion. 
 He whispers that the lovely lady who looks so gentle lays 
 her sweet temper aside with her fine clothes, and so on. But 
 his eyes brighten as he looks at the children, and his voice 
 grows soft as he tells you how their mother loves them, how 
 gentle she is, and what she bears for their sake. If you 
 
192 Book in. Chapter IV. 
 
 chance to meet some poor wretch, at whom the world cries 
 shame, he does not join in the cry, but tells you; there are 
 excuses even for him, that he too has virtues of which 
 the world knows nothing, and that he might, had circum- 
 stances favoured him, have been very different. In short 
 Thackeray's tone always reminds one of Emerson's defini- 
 tion of Englishmen in general „He is a churl with a soft 
 place in his heart". 
 
 Vanity Fair was followed by Pendennis , a tale which 
 displayed all the powers that had made its predecessor popu- 
 lar, and which was written in a less bitter tone. The cha- 
 racter of Miss Amory is equal to that of Becky Sharp both 
 in force and originality, and "Warrington is perhaps the gran- 
 dest character Thackeray ever attempted. A man of great men- 
 tal powers and a strong will, he has been ruined by an un- 
 wise marriage with a girl of no education, and lives on, with- 
 out hope or purpose , wasting his great genius on unworthy 
 objects, The character is developed with great power, and the 
 sketch is quite free of the sentimentality into .which almost 
 every other writer of our age would have fallen, had he tried 
 his hand on such a' subject. The death of M rs Pendennis 
 is a scene of such true and simple pathos as it would be dif- 
 ficult to find anywhere but in the writings of Thackeray. His 
 customary bitterness makes bis tenderness exquisitely touch- 
 ing. And M ra Pendennis and Laura, pictures of pure and 
 simple womanhood, move through the tale with an indescri- 
 bable purity and beauty. They seem to be Arthur's guardian 
 angels, and we cannot think that a man who is loved by 
 two such women can in the end be injured by the glitter- 
 ing emptiness of the society among which he lives. In this 
 work Thackeray aimed at something more than he had ever 
 -tried before. , He touched upon the intellectual side of our 
 nature, aud in Arthur's character he has given a forcible 
 picture of the scepticism which haunts most young English- 
 men. It is not a doubt as to this or that doctrine , or insti- 
 
William Makepeace Thackeray. £93 
 
 tution, but of all, a doubt as to the very basis ou which all 
 -belief and action rests. 
 
 We cannot dwell at greater length on Thackeray's works. 
 Each of them is a masterpiece in its way. He certainly ex- 
 cels Dickens both in truth to nature and power of satire. He 
 is inferior to him in the production of comic situations alone, 
 and, if humour be indeed „laughter with one's eyes full of 
 tears", we must give him the higher place even as a humour- 
 ist. Indeed it almost seems as if the absence of, the purely 
 comic element in his books is rather intentional than from 
 want of power. There are passages and characters in his 
 minor works, in the Shabby Genteel Story for example, which 
 will bear a comparison with the best ^passages in Dickens's 
 novels, even in comedy. But he saw that life is not made 
 up of strange adventures , that nature does not delight in lu- 
 dricous monstrosities, however amusing they may be, and 
 he was content to follow her teachings and paint things as 
 they are. This is the reason that there is no self-repetition 
 in his works and that no mark of failing powers is to be 
 found in the last them. 
 
 Dickens and Thackeray are usually classed together, and 
 form with their followers what is called the London school 
 of fiction. They treat as we have seen common every - day 
 life , and they treat it realistically. All that part of English 
 character which is to be found in the drawing-rooms of our 
 aristocracy or in the beer - shops of the metropolis is open to 
 them. They know the city too and can introduce their read- 
 ers to merchant - princes and their clerks. They can intro r 
 duce them into ball-rooms and betray the weaknesses of the 
 ladieB who move through them, and retell their love -tales. 
 In short, all that makes up the worldly and domestic side 
 of English character is, their province ; but farther they do 
 not go. They know nothing of heroes and saints, and we 
 must confess, London is not the most likely place to give birth 
 to such characters. They do not paint enthusiasm. The self- 
 Grant iittcrature. Jg 
 
194 Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 devotion of the priest, the scholar and the artist is incom- 
 prehensible to them. They are all haunted by an uneasy 
 conviction that after all a pretty wife , a good position 
 in society and a large income are the chief ends of life. 
 The instinct which prompts some men to cast all these 
 aside, that they may spend their lives in bringing hope and 
 peace to the cottages of the poor, that encourages patriots 
 to die ' on the scaffold for a principle that can bring them 
 no wordly» good, that forces artists to give up riches, 
 position and comfort for the hotpe of creating some great 
 work, in short the whole demonic side of our nature is 
 a sealed book to them. It appears in their works only as 
 folly or knavery. But these feelings have not died out in 
 England, they have only taken the form which it is most 
 difficult for educated people who stand beyond its influence 
 to appreciate, a religious form. It is impossible for any per- 
 son, who examines impartially the religious phenomena of 
 our age, to doubt that amid the follies and incoherencies'of 
 our sects there is something that is not foolish or incoherent, 
 some real self-devotion and earnestness, something that is 
 true to the highest part of our nature. It is impossible to 
 deny that the forms of the Anglican church are something 
 more than a grand and beautiful ritual, that the spirit of that 
 church is a great power levening society, that it softens the 
 hearts of the rich, and opens up to the poor a realm of pure 
 and holy thoughts which cast an ideal glory over the com- 
 mon cares and humble work of their every - day life. "With 
 these things the London school of fiction cannot deal. It is 
 interesting to observe the different positions which Thackeray 
 and' Dickens take up with -respect to them. Dickens simply 
 ignores all the feelings "which are unworldly except when 
 speaking of very little children. He has some sympathy with 
 religion, it is true, when it takes the Christmas form of roast- 
 beef and plum-pudding,' but anything that goes beyond these 
 seems hypocrisy' to him. Thackeray on the other hand 
 
Charles Kingsley. ^95 
 
 speaks with a certain awe of all holy things. Occasionally 
 a tone, as from a far country hinting at such subjects, is to 
 be found in his novels, as for example in the death of 
 M re Pendennis and Colonel Neweombe, but for the most part 
 he draws back from such subjects as from things unsuited to 
 the character of his tales. 
 
 But feelings which absorb so much of the attention of 
 Englishmen could not fail to be mirrored in our literature. 
 Thus we find that a great part of the novels of our day are 
 religious novels, and truly it would be difficult to find a 
 series of works which are as a rule more absurd, narrow 
 and inane than these. Their cant is only equalled by their 
 dullness. Their heroes are for the most part pale - faced cu- 
 rates of high birth and small means, who after three vo- 
 lumes of mental struggles die of a decline , deeply lamented 
 by the female part of their congregations. The tone of these 
 works is ascetic in the highest degree, but it is a gentle- 
 manly asceticism which wears white surplices and unim- 
 peachable linen. 
 
 Muscular Christianity was a reaction against these ab- 
 surdities. Its chief representative is Charles Kingsley , a 
 
 ■ novelist of real power. Of all religious or critical theo- 
 ries that of the Muscular Christians seems to me the worst 
 Carlyle's worship of brute force is bad, the bigotry and 
 narrowness of the religious novelists -is at least equally 
 so , but to have united the evils of both systems seem- 
 ed impossible until the genius of M' Kingsley, accdm- 
 
 • plished it. The heroes of his school must be at least 
 six feet high and must be able to drink unlimited quan- 
 tities of beer and smoke incredible numbers of cigars. 
 They must be able to hunt and box, and these talents 
 
 ■ must be exercised in the course of the tale. Still they 
 must be religious men, strict members of the church of 
 England, who during the intervals of their more active du- 
 ties can fall back upon religious enthusiasm and internal 
 
 13* 
 
196 Book III. Chapter IV. 
 
 conflicts with evil. In short the highest characters these 
 writers can conceive are hunting bishops and praying prize- 
 fighters. Their villains are equally strange and original. 
 They are not dark and cruel men, nor intriguing lawyers, nor 
 desperate thieves, for all these have energy, and power, 
 "be it used for good or ill, is the god these writers worship, 
 the one virtue they respect. Their villains are men of re- 
 finement and polish, who delight in art and have weakness 
 enough to shrink from fighting with bargemen and to know 
 very little about horses and to care very little for hunting. For 
 Chatterton dying in his garret, for Shelley living a life of 
 long continued martyrdom for what he believed was true and 
 right, the Muscular Christians have no sympathy. They never 
 speak of Goethe without a sneer, and the trait in our Saviour's 
 character for which they have the greatest sympathy is the 
 fact that he „came eating and drinking". In short, spite the 
 talents of some of its supporters, Muscular Christianity seems to 
 me one of the most unhealthy signs of our modern literature. 
 It tends to foster the worst vices of our national character, our 
 insular self- deifying patriotism, our bigotry and our utili- 
 tarianism — vices which the greatest minds England has 
 produced in the last hundred years have done their best to 
 combat or to satirize. 
 
 Still, several authors of this school are men of real ta- 
 lent; among these we have only space to notice Charles 
 Kingsley. Within certain bounds his power of drawing 
 character is doubtless great, but his genius is continually 
 hampered by his theory. Thus one always feels inclined to 
 side against the author in judging his characters. He seems 
 to have a personal hatred to some of them and a most unjust 
 partiality for others. It is strange that after drawing both 
 the author should never have perceived, that John Briggs whom 
 he is perpetually abusing and who is killed off at the end of 
 the work, is a far nobler character than his brutal favourite 
 Tom Thurnall who rewards the girl that saves him from 
 
Charles Kingsley. 197 
 
 drowning at the risk of her life by accusing her of theft, and 
 persecutes a man who never did him an injury under pre- 
 tence of improving his treatment of his wife. In short, 
 Kingsley has no tolerance for differences of character, a 
 quality which is by the bye much rarer than tolerance for dif- 
 ferences of opinion and much more necessary for an artist. 
 Even the latter he does not possess in any great degree. 
 His bigoted hatred of the nonconformists peeps out every 
 now and then in the most comical spite. Grace's mother is 
 an excellent specimen of this. She is a methodist and a 
 thief. Now, had Kingsley worked out this character, had 
 he shown her internal life, bad he revealed the outbursts 
 of her emotional religion and traced their influence in weak- 
 ening her moral nature, he might have drawn a very 
 powerful picture, or at least have created a character that 
 had an internal reality and necessity. This he does not even 
 attempt. She is merely a lay figure, a part of the machinery 
 of the tale and nothing more. "Why then make her a methodist ? 
 These flaws in his works are the necessary results of 
 his principles. Where they leave him free to follow his 
 genius, he develops great artistic power. Hypathia and 
 Westward Ho! are novels of a high order, and the many 
 beauties of Two Years Ago more than outweigh its faults. In 
 it the genial character of the author every now and then 
 comes to light in spite of his Muscular Christianity, as in the 
 character of Claude Mellot, the artist who according to the usage 
 of the school ought to have been executed at the conclusion 
 as an idler instead of being dismissed with honour. His 
 writings too have always a manly tone and he is not afraid 
 of describing the world as it really is. In a word his faults 
 are those of his school, his beauties are all his own. 
 
198 Book HI. Chapter V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In 1859 the' literary world of London was astonished 
 by the appearance of Adam Bede , by George Eliot. It was 
 at once evident to all thinking people that this novelist must 
 be placed among the very greatest of our writers, that 
 Thackeray alone, if even he, could be placed as high. The 
 work run through five editions in as many months, yet' it had 
 nothing sensational about it. It was a simple tale of every- 
 day English life. Everybody was busied with guesses as to 
 the real name of the author. We- will content ourselves 
 with the published name and speak of the writer as George 
 Eliot, spite the current and probably correct report that 
 this gentleman is after all no gentleman , but a lady. 
 Adam Bede was not the author's first work. In 1858 
 he had published three novelettes under the title of Scenes 
 in Clerical Life. This work had passed almost unnoticed 
 at the time, yet it is a very remarkable book. The 
 three stories treat three thoroughly different sides of human 
 life. The first, the position of a man in society and his 
 money - difficulties ; the second, passion; the third, moral 
 life. Each tale displayed very extraordinary power and a 
 knowledge of human nature as exact as, it was varied. 
 
 Tet this book was inferior to Adam Bede. The tales 
 had not nearly the same interest as tales, and they had 
 not nearly the same range. Of the book taken as a whole 
 this cannot perhaps be said. The three great moments 
 •of human life were treated in it, but they were treated 
 separately. This is a fault into which many novelists fall. 
 They look at the world from a single point of view, they 
 consider it merely in its relationship to a single set of inter- 
 ests. Thus their pictures seem exaggerated and distorted. 
 Eor the universe is not a church, nor a ball room, nor a 
 workshop, it contains all these and many things beside. A 
 
George Eliot. 199 
 
 man may be a good Christian, but, if he is worth anything, 
 he will not always be on his knees; he may be a faithful 
 lover, but, if he is in a healthy state of mind, he will not 
 spend his whole life in writing sonnets to his lady's eye- 
 brow ; he may be an earnest worker, but, if he is any- 
 thing better than a machine , other thoughts will intrude on 
 the work he has in hand, he will devote some of his" time 
 to interests that lie outside his workshop or his studio. It 
 is one of the great advantages of the novel, that it lea- 
 ves the, author room -to draw a full man, to show the dif- 
 ferent sides of his character, to paint his various and of- 
 ten dissimilar interests. This is not equally the case with 
 the drama. In it only a single moment in a man's life can 
 be taken, the great crisis of his fate. This crisis is often, nay 
 generally, brought about by a single set of feelings gaining the 
 entire mastery over him. In Macbeth it is ambition, in Romeo 
 and Juliet love, which hurries the hero on to his destruction. 
 This set of feelings must be painted with as much force as 
 possible , in order that the hero's fall may be motifled. This 
 is one of the great difficulties on which dramatic authors suf- 
 fer ship -wreck. Some paint only the set of passions neces- 
 sary for the piece, in which case we have stage -heroes in- 
 stead of men, others paint the whole characters with so great 
 exactness that the dramatic element is lost. It is only a 
 great master like Shakspeare who can hint at other sides of 
 the hero's nature than those which hurry on the catastrophe, 
 without bringing them into undue prominence. In the novel 
 this difficulty does not exist. The novelist is not obliged 
 to crowd his whole story into a piece that must not occupy 
 more than three hours in acting , he is not obliged to force 
 all he has to say into a series of striking situations. He has 
 therefore more room to paint our many-sided life. If he does 
 not do this, he neglects one of the greatest advantages of the 
 style of writing he has chosen. In treating great and simple 
 catastrophes the novel will never equal the drama. In de- 
 
200 Book in. Chapter V. 
 
 Unseating those wild bursts -of passion -which seize a man 
 and hurry him on, as if against his" will, to crime or destruc- 
 tion prose can never equal poetry. It is because such situa- 
 tions and catastrophes as are suited for the drama are un- 
 usual, because our life is not made up of wild bursts of un- 
 governable passion, that the prose novel is a neceessary 
 form of art. It is because in our age dramatic subjects are 
 rarer than ever, and such passion is almost incredible, that 
 now the novel is the most popular of all artistic forms. Of 
 all English novelists George Eliot has comprehended the p™> 
 pose and scope of the novel best. In Adam Bede almost 
 every feeling which could enter into the sphere of life in 
 Which the tale plays is touched upon. Love plays a great 
 part in it; but it is no mere love'-story; religious sentiments 
 and feelings are touched upon , but it is no religious novel ; 
 there are scenes of humour in it, far superior to anything 
 Dickens ever wrote, but the interest is not centred upon 
 them alone. This is not equally the case with the Scenes 
 in Clerical Life; still they are masterly stories, far the 
 best novelettes in our language, 
 
 Adam Bede is a tale of English country-life. It begins in 
 the year 1799 and ends in 1 807. That was the time when the 
 Evangelical or Low church party was gradually fighting its 
 way upwards in the church, and Methodism was gradually 
 spreading among the lower classes. The hero of the book, Adam 
 Bede, is a carpenter. He is a man who delights in his work 
 for its own sake, but is not without the English wish to 
 get on in the world. He is a cunning workman and has 
 that kind of practical intellect which helps a man to do his 
 work , whatever it may be , well. He has no taste for the 
 doctrinal subtilties in which his brother Seth delights and 
 but little liking for his emotional religiousness. He thinks 
 there is such a thing as being over spiritual, that a man 
 needs something besides the gospel to be able to build coal- 
 pit engines and Arkwright mills. „But to hear those 
 
George Eliot. 201 
 
 preachers, he exclaims, you'd think that a man must be 
 doing nothing all his life but shutting his eyes and looking 
 what's going on inside him. I know a man must have the 
 love of God in his soul, and that the Bible's God's word, but 
 what does the Bible say? Why it says that God put his spi- 
 rit into the workman that built the tabernacle, to make him 
 do all the carved work and things that wanted a nice hand". 
 Adam has a firm will and clear idea of what is right and 
 honourable. This makes him sometimes rather hard to 
 others. It is not easy for him to forgive. He does not bear 
 his father's drunkeness or his old mother's querulousness 
 with nearly as much patience as his brother Seth. He does 
 his best to keep- things in order at home, but he can't 
 help saying an angry word now and then. A very cha- 
 racteristic trait in his character is conservatism. On build- 
 ing and wood work he has an opinion of his own, and 
 he is willing to support it. He wishes to see all the new 
 inventions introduced into his neighbourhood as quickly 
 as possible, but he is not anxious for any farther change. 
 He „can't bear a fellow who thinks he makes himself fine 
 by being impudent to his betters". Yet Adam is not a 
 cold moralist, he can love and hate as the story proves. 
 When he is wronged even unintentionally, he has a fierce 
 thirst for revenge which neither Seth nor Arthur Donni- 
 thorne can understand. He is one of those men who can- 
 not sit still under injustice or sorrow. The very energy 
 of his nature makes him long to do something, if it is only 
 to find a vent for his feelings. He is in short an exact 
 picture of the better kind of peasant artisan. His brother, 
 Seth, has a strong family resemblance to him, but he is in- 
 ferior to him both in intellect and force of character. He is 
 a Methodist. Much of his intellectual power is spent on re- 
 ligious discussion. His temper and pride have been quieted 
 down by religious emotions. He reads biographies and 
 theological books while his brother is studying mathematics. 
 
202 Book III. Chapter V. 
 
 His very love for Dinah, deep as it is , has little of the 
 stormy selfishness of passion. It too is tinged by his, emotional 
 religion. He is more patient, forbearing and gentle than 
 Adam. He gives up Dinah to him almost without a struggle. 
 While Adam's power is centred in himself, Seth seeks some- 
 thing external to lead and guide him. He leans on Adam, 
 he asks counsel of Dinah. His religion- is a staff which sup- 
 ports him. In difficulty Adam would be apt to go over both 
 sides of the question by himself and form his judgement 
 alone , Seth would probably go to some, friend for advice, 
 or take the first text that struck him as a mysterious gui- 
 dance. 
 
 Strongly contrasted with both these young men is Ar- 
 thur Donnithorne, the heir to the squire. He is rich and 
 well educated, high spirited and noble minded. Every- 
 body likes him, and he, wishes well to everybody. He is 
 kind and affable, always ready to do a kindnesss to any one. 
 He is determined, when he becomes squire, to be a model 
 landlord and set a good example to all the people round. 
 But then his goodness is all impulse. He has no firm 
 principle , he does right because it pleases him to do so. 
 When wrong things seem pleasant, he does not cast them 
 away from him as Adam would, or pray himself out of a de- 
 sire for them , as Seth would , he looks longingly at them, 
 and argues with himself about them, and resolves not to do 
 them, and does ithem. The struggle in his mind about Hetty 
 is powerfully and delicately depicted, more delicately, than 
 anything of the kind which I remember in our whole novel- 
 literature. He makes a half appointment to meet her and 
 resolves not to go. He rides away to get out of temptation 
 and comes back in time to keep his appointment. He is an- 
 gry with himself and determines never to see her again, 
 and then thinks she. may suppose, he is in love with her, and 
 get wild, fancies into her head, so it will be better to go and 
 undeceive her. He goes, but forgets the reason of his going 
 
George Eliot. 203 
 
 as soon as he sees her. Then he goes to breakfast with 
 M r Irvine, the clergyman, that he may tell him all about it, 
 and comes back without doing so. 
 
 Adam always looks the future fairly in the face, and 
 calculates cooly the chances for and against him. Seth 
 takes no thought for the morrow. Arthur always hopes for 
 the best and puts disagreeable chances out of sight and 
 trusts to his luck. We must now turn to the women. 
 
 First comes Hetty. It is very difficult to describe her. 
 She is very pretty, very vain and very shallow. Her cha- 
 racter is not at all beautiful, it wants depth and simplicity, 
 it is utterly selfish. She takes no interest in the children 
 that grow up around her and partly under her care. She 
 does not hate them, but she thinks them troublesome, quite 
 uninteresting things. She has no love for her -uncle and 
 aunt who bring her up at their own expense. Even her 
 love for Arthur is not true , self- forgetting passion. More 
 than half of it is vanity. She is pleased that a gentleman 
 loves her. She thinks that her love must end in a nice house; 
 fine clothes and no work. Yet the impression of her beauty 
 takes such a hold on the reader, that he, like Arthur and 
 Adam, is almost in love with her faults. 
 
 . Dinah is. as exact a contrast to Hetty as can well be ima- 
 gined. She too is beautiful, but her beauty does not leave 
 an impression on the mind as that of her cousin does. It 
 is chastened down and subdued by the beauty of her mind. 
 She is a methodist and works in a factory. This is "never for 
 a moment lost sight of. She is not witty nor clever nor well 
 educated. Yet she influences all who see her. The roughest 
 are respectful to her. The least considerate drop their 
 voices when they speak to her. It is her spiritual life, a life 
 of long continued self- devotion, which gives her this charm. 
 She does not ask herself what is pleasant, but what can I do 
 to be of use to others, where can I be of the most use ? She 
 always lives as if in the presence of a higher power. She 
 
204 Book III. Chapter V. 
 
 looks upon her duty- as the work God has given her to do. 
 She go^s to him for help, comfort and guidance. Heno& 
 beneath her simple , Methodist phraseology a deep meaning, 
 lie's hid. We may look upon her as the incarnate ideal 
 of Methodism in its first and purest period. There is no 
 Other writer of our age who could have painted such a 
 picture of a spiritual life. Our admiration for it and the 
 genius of the author is heightened when we turn to the 
 character of M r Irvine , the clergyman of the town. He is 
 a perfect gentleman both by birth and education, but with 
 comparatively small means. He lives unmarried that he may 
 keep his mother and sisters in the ease and luxury to which 
 they are entitled by birth. He is loved by the whole of his 
 congregation, for he is a good-natured, open-hearted man. 
 His tenderness to his delicate sister and his affection for his 
 mother are exquisite traits in his character. But he is no 
 saint. He does not like Dinah feel that his life is but a 
 charge from God. The whole world is not to him a temple. 
 His every act is not a prayer. He is indolent, fond of chess, 
 of horses and of dogs. He loves the classics more than the 
 fathers of the church and „finds a savouriness in a quotation 
 from Sophocles and Theocritus that is quite absent from any 
 text in Isaiah or Amos". His very tolerance smacks of indif- 
 ference. He is so kind to Dinah because after all he is 
 not so very much in earnest for the doctrines of the' church. 
 His sermons were short moral essays, not doctrinal discourses 
 or deep inquiries into Christian experience. Yet I must con- 
 fess he is a great favourite of mine, the character in the 
 whole book whom -I like best. M ra Poyser too is perfect in 
 her way. She is a good bustling farmer's wife, with a sharp 
 tongue and a sharper wit ( a woman with a tender heart, 
 but one who keeps every thing in order and loves to rale. 
 Many of her speeches have the true ring of old proverbs. 
 We may take an example or two. She says of Craik , the 
 Scotch gardner, „he's like the cock who thought the sun got 
 
George Eliot. 205 
 
 up to hear him crow", and again „if you could make pudding 
 with thinking of the batter, it would-be easy getting dinner. — 
 Those who choose a soft for a wife may as well buy up the 
 .shorthorns. — If you get- your head stuck in a bog, your legs 
 may as well go after it". Of Dinah she says, „It comes over 
 you sometimes as if she'd a way of knowing the rights of 
 things more than other folks have, but I'll never give in, that's 
 because she's a methodist, no more than a white calf's white 
 because it eats out of the same bucket as a black one". — „ You 
 make buj; a poor trap to catch luck, if you go and bait it with 
 wickedness". 
 
 I might go on talking about these characters and others 
 in the book but it would be useless to do so. They are 
 all drawn to the life and , what is more , so arranged that 
 the principal characters stand out clearly and the others are 
 subordinated to them. They are too dramatically devel- 
 oped. That is to say we find out their characters from their 
 words and actions, not from long descriptions, and when we 
 .close the book, we feel as if we were taking leave of old 
 friends. 
 
 But psychological truth is not the only, or perhaps even 
 the chief merit of Adam Bede. As a story it is exceedingly 
 interesting. No sensational novel could excite so lively an 
 interest as Hetty's flight awakens. The very shallowness and 
 weakness of the poor girl's mind excite our pity, as the sor- 
 rows of a child might do. We feel she is but ill qualified to 
 bear the passion and despair which surround her on every 
 side. It is this disproportion between her character and her 
 fate which makes the story so pathetic. 
 
 The influence of the German literature and particularly 
 of Goethe's writings is clearly to be traced in Adam Bede. 
 But it is no mere imitation like that in which other English 
 authors have so frequently indulged, it is real study. The 
 scene in the grove for example has much of that indescrib- 
 able charm which attaches to Goethe's love-scenes, and which, 
 
206 Boot HI. Chapter V. 
 
 as far as I kno-w, is to be found nowhere in our literature 
 but in the novels of George Eliot. Yet there is no scene 
 in all Goethe's writings in which circumstances at all similar 
 are treated. It is the spirit not the mere accidents which is 
 imitated. But the author has studied nature much more clo- 
 sely than any writer. Every page bears witness to a most 
 exact and close observation of men. 
 
 "We must pass over the Mill on the Floss without any 
 notice at all except the remark that neither here nor in 
 any other book of the author is there any trace of self-repe- 
 tition. Silas Marner too must not detain us long. This is, of 
 all the novels I know, the one in which the interest ,is most 
 purely intellectual. We are not excited by the story. Our 
 interest is concentrated on the development of the hero's 
 character. As a study of character it is exceedingly powerful, 
 as a novel it is inferior to Adam Bede both in interest and 
 variety. 
 
 In Bomola George Eliot entered a new field. His 
 name was so intimately connected with English country -life 
 that it was with a general feeling of surprise that English read- 
 ers heard that the author intended to Write an historical novel. 
 The age in which the story plays is one of marked contrasts- 
 The scene is Florence, the place where these contrasts were most 
 glaring. It is the age of Lorenzo di Medici, of Macchiavelli, of 
 Savonarola. On one side we have the heathen epicureanism and 
 refinement of the scholars of that age, on the other the deep 
 faith of the reformer. Here we have the high endeavour 
 and J great success of the artist, there the daring enterprise 
 of the merchant and the deep intrigue of the politician. The 
 scene is bright and varied, the characters are strange and 
 striking. This age George Eliot has conjured up before us. 
 Every side of 'that varied life is introduced into the tale. The 
 scholar, the politician, the artist and the monk, each play 
 their part in the story, and to each justice is done. It is 
 hard to divide the characters into groups because they are 
 
Qeorge Eliot. 207 
 
 not as in most novels contrasted by pairs, each is, so to 
 speak, contrasted -with all the rest. Thus Savonarola may 
 be said to be the exact opposite of Tito, but he is equally op- 
 posed to Bardo , to Piero di Cosimo , to Dolfo Spini , and 
 even to Nello. 
 
 ¥e have not space to analyze the various characters, but 
 we must linger, a few moments, over the three most pro- 
 minent. First among these stands Tito, the beautiful, clever 
 and subtle hero of the novel. He is a man of a pleasant, 
 sensuous nature , of great and well cultivated talents. Like 
 all men of a highly wrought and delicately balanced consti- 
 tution, he shrinks from pain. He has positively no prin- 
 ciples, but he has a firm will and a clear intellect. He loves 
 the applause, wealth and pleasure, particularly those in- 
 tellectual pleasures which wealth alone can furnish. He is 
 in short a character which can become either good or bad 
 as circumstances may decide. During the whole tale we see 
 his fall, a gradual descent from innocence which was not 
 virtue to treachery and infamy. Evil is not pleasant to him, 
 but he is driven into it step by step. He does not like de- 
 ceit, treachery and cruelty, but he likes scorn and poverty 
 still less. He is the personification of intellect and emotion, 
 without conscience or passion. This character is delineated 
 with masterly truth and skill. It is too a character which 
 could only be produced by the circumstances and age in which 
 he is placed, in the land and time of Macchiavelli. 
 
 Savonarola's is a very different character, it is perhaps 
 the greatest which any English author has attempted to draw 
 since the. age of Shakspeare. He is at the beginning of the 
 tale a pure and sincere enthusiast. He endeavours to be- 
 come, in thought and deed, a true Christian. From the 
 .depth of his heart he speaks to the people words of fire that 
 go directly to their hearts. He speaks of justiee and mercy, 
 • and they rush to hear him. But he feels that neither the 
 church nor the state are what they should be. He uses his in- 
 
208 Book III. Chapter V. 
 
 fluence to bring about reform. For the same end he endea- 
 vours to increase his influence. But, to gain and retain his 
 hold on the minds of the people, he is obliged to lower hie 
 ideal. At last, when five enemies of his party are unjustly 
 condemned to death and a word of his would save them, he 
 is silent. Outwardly he rises ever higher, internally ' he 
 sinks ever lower. His rapt devotion, and his noble sim- 
 plicity have given place to ambition and a somewhat tortuous 
 potiey. His ambition is, it is true, still noble, but it is not 
 entirely free from egotism. He will reform the church, he will 
 regenerate the world, and then he will lead the united hosts 
 of Christendom against the Turk and the Saracen. It is not 
 till the power has passed from his hands, till his dreams have 
 been wrecked, and he has learnt to say. „I am not worthy 
 to be a martyr. The truth shall prosper, but not by me*' 
 that the faith and purity of his early days return to him. 
 Such is a sketch of Savonarola, as he appears in Eomola. 
 He is the grandest character in the tale, perhaps in any mo- 
 dern English tale , and yet, in this character, the greatest 
 fault of the work seems to me to lie. It is finely conceived 
 and, the critics say, that it is historically correct. The au- 
 thor has evidently endeavoured to make it so. But there is 
 something that is of more importance in a work of art than 
 correctness , and, that is clearness. An historian may have 
 doubts about his various characters; he may say, this and 
 that seems to be irreconcilable , but there is proof of both, 
 or he may say , this view seems probable , but it cannot be 
 proved. The poet has not this right. He must create his 
 ' characters. He may add to what history says about them, 
 and he may take from it. But his characters must be clearly 
 drawn, and must not admit of a doubt. Let us take an ex- 
 ample. The faet that both Elizabeth and Mary Queen of 
 Sootts were vastly different in reality to the characters which 
 Schiller drew of them does not in the least affect the poet- 
 
George Eliot. 209 
 
 ieal value of Marie Stuart. If new records should come 
 to light which made it clear that Macbeth and Eichard III 
 were spotless characters, Shakespeare's dramas would not 
 lose any of their importance by the fact. Thus, when 
 George Eliot had once chosen Savonarola as a charac- 
 ter, she should have drawn the picture fully and left us 
 without a doubt. The historian may find it difficult to recon- 
 cile the accounts of the last days of that ill - fated reformer, 
 he may with justice say that the official statement is so 
 garbled that it is impossible to get at the truth. The novel- 
 ist should not have done this. He should have led us to 
 the cell, where he passed through his last mental struggles, 
 and have shown us the great soul bowed down by its anguish, 
 as he showed it exalted by high hopes and vain dreams. 
 As it is we have a clear picture of his mind down to the time 
 when he is imprisoned, and after that we are left in doubt. 
 This seems to me to be the great, the one fault of the book. 
 There were difficulties certainly to be overcome in doing this. 
 The torture was perhaps the greatest of these , as it would 
 have been impossible to show us the reformer on the rack, 
 which certainly had an influence npon him. 
 
 Komola's character is finely conceived and well deve- 
 loped, though perhaps its last phases are passed rather light- 
 ly over. In her the polish of the heathen and the earn- 
 est self- resignation of the Christian elements of the age are 
 united into something higher than either could alone produce. 
 
 When we turn from the other novelists of our age to 
 the works of George Eliot, we feel at once that we are enter- 
 ing a new realm. The difference is not quantitive, it is qual- 
 itive. It is not that his novels are merely better than those 
 of Dickens and Thackeray, they are something utterly diffe- 
 rent and indefinitely higher. The first peculiarity of his 
 style is its realism, its simple truth to nature. Like Words- 
 worth he can say, 
 
 Grant Uttcrature. J 4 
 
210 Boot IH. Chapter V. 
 
 The common growth of mother earth 
 Suffices me — her tears, her mirth, 
 Her humblest mirth and tears. . 
 It is this love of and truth to nature, which has pre- 
 served George Eliot from the greatest faults of our other no- 
 velists. His characters have nothing odd and eccentric about 
 them, they are simple and natural, real studies from nature. 
 If we compare Adam Bede with Sam Weller for example, 
 this at once becomes evident. The one character is clever, 
 amusing, and false, the other is real and interesting on that 
 account. In fact the difference between George Eliot and 
 Dickens is the same^ in character as that between Shaks- 
 peare and Congreve, though of course it is far less in degree. 
 The one strives after effect, he dazzles by a blaze of wit. 
 Every thing his characters say or do is comic or pathetic in 
 the highest degree. The other aims at truth. "With a wit 
 at least as brilliant and a humour of far vaster grasp, he is 
 content to bridle these, and to give them their proper place as 
 ornaments alone. Therefore there is hardly any trace of ex- 
 ternal comic in his writings. If we compare a passage of the 
 Tickwick papers, say the scene in the garden of the ladies- 
 school with the conversation of M r3 Poyser and Bartle Mas- 
 sey in Adam Bede, the difference of the two manners be- 
 comes at once apparent. The comic of the first scene depends 
 entirely upon the situation. To be found at midnight in the 
 garden of an establisment for young ladies, is a strange posi- 
 tion for an elderly gentleman of strictly respectable habits. 
 The appearance of such, a gentleman, in torn clothes and 
 high excitement, before an elderly and highly fastidious lady 
 in curl papers has something incongruous about it, which 
 provokes a smile that has nothing at all to do with the cha- 
 racters of the people concerned. Nor do their characters con- 
 tribute in the least to the details of the scene. These details 
 are taken from nature, but they are generalized and not in- 
 dividualized. The spinster lady of the establishment, the 
 
George Eliot. 211 
 
 three teachers, the five female servants, and the thirty hoar- 
 ders do not act as individuals but as representatives of a class. 
 Upon this a great part of the humour depends. The rest is 
 owing simply to verbal trickery. In the scene from Adam 
 Bede on the- other hand the humour depends entirely on 
 the characters of the disputants. Each word gives us a glance 
 into the secrets of the two Characters, and it is this which 
 makes the scene so humourous. This is what I mean in 
 saying that the humour of Dickens is external and that of 
 George Eliot organic. 
 
 This brings us to the second great difference between 
 this writer and the other novelists of our age. He is not only 
 realistic in his treatment and choice of subjects, he is also 
 idealistic, indeed he is the greatest idealistic writer of our 
 time. To say that an artist is at once idealistic and realistic 
 may seem like a contradiction in terms. And so it would 
 be , if I used the words in one sense. The word idealism, 
 as applied to art, is so undefined that it may be well to ex- 
 plain what is meant by it here. In every person there are 
 certain qualities which seem to be necessary to his individua- 
 lity, and others which are purely accidental. These latter, 
 in the real world around us, often overhang and hide the 
 others , so that we can seldom see the real man through the 
 mask that hides him. Eor example a man of real refinement 
 and a cultivated taste may squint. This is something purely 
 accidental, a defect that has nothing to do with the essence 
 of his character. These accidental circumstances the ideal- 
 istic artist omits, and thus the true character is brought to 
 light. This we call artistic idealisation when speaking of 
 poetry. Now George Eliot is the only writer of our age who 
 can be said to do this, Dickens's characters are for the most 
 part drawn in exactly the opposite way. They are made 
 up of accidents alone. Every great poet idealizes, and the 
 greatest, such as Shakespeare and Goethe, do it most. One 
 cannot point to a single trait in Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, 
 
 14* 
 
212 Book in. Chapter V. 
 
 Faust or Egmont, which is not characteristic. "We know 
 why Othello is black and Richard III a hump -back, that 
 is to say, we can trace the effect of these circumstances 
 on their characters. Just so there is. nothing superfluous in 
 any character in Bomola or Adam Bede. Every part of 
 each character has on organic relation to every other part. 
 This is evidently not opposed to realism of treatment. In 
 , George Eliot the two manners are united, as they are in a 
 higher degree in Shakspeare and Goethe. The tone of the 
 novels we have been examining is as different from that of 
 other novels of the day as can well be imagined. They have 
 the gay and healthy objectivity of genius, a tone equally op- 
 posed to flippancy, melancholy and dogmatism. The author's 
 mind seems to have no whims and crotchets. He is con- 
 tent to let his characters play their parts, without using 
 them to teach either a moral or an immoral lesson. This is 
 a rarer-quality than it at first seems. Most poets have theo- 
 ries to which they cramp their characters. What are Childe 
 Harold, the Giaour and the Corsair but the means by which 
 Byron teaches a false and unhealthy theory? But few, like 
 the author of Adam Bede , are content with a purely artistic 
 purpose. This is one of the reasons why his tales remind 
 us rather of the breezy freshness of the fields and woods, 
 than the close and unhealthy air of a study or a theatre. 
 Tet his novels have a far higher moral value than those of 
 any of his contemporaries , just as the plays of Shakespeare 
 are more moral, in the true sense of the word, than the 
 best story for little girls and boys. He does not teach that 
 mere external happiness is the end of life. Indeed none of 
 his novels end very happily. Tet they satisfy us. The hap- 
 piness of his heroes is rather internal than external They 
 reach a height, from which they can look down on the 
 changes of the world. This too is the result of his truth to na- 
 ture. Is not the great Erench woman right when she says, 
 that the theatre is the only place in our world, where vice 
 
George Eliot. 213 
 
 is punished and virtue rewarded? Is it not true that the most 
 virtuous men are not the most successful, that those who 
 lead the purest and nohlest lives are not those who gain 
 ; what the world thinks the highest prizes in the great lot- 
 tery? If this is the truth, and who can doubt it, why 
 should we create a false system of rewards and punishments 
 in our novels? Why are we there to shut our eyes persis- 
 tently to the fact that the good things of life, its pleasures 
 and enjoyments, are not meted out, like an old nurse divi- 
 des her sweet meats, according to the merits of the receivers? 
 It is not better openly to state the fact, as George Eliot does, 
 that this is not the case, and that just for that reason plea- 
 sure is not the highest good, l nor pain the greatest evil ; that 
 we are not like children to do good only that we may get a 
 store of sugar -plums, either in this world or the next, or 
 to avoid evil for fear of the cane or the black man that hides 
 in the nursery chimney, but rather, because good is good 
 and evil evil, to choose the one and avoid the other? That 
 this is healthy morality in practice, can scarcely be doubted ; 
 and that these principles may be applied to poetry, the 
 grandest tragedies of Germany and England prove. George 
 Eliot has shown that they are at least equally applicable to the 
 novel. Tet there is nothing ascetic in his writings. He does 
 not turn with a puritanical scowl from the cakes and ale, 
 or deny that ginger is hot in the mouth. His characters do 
 not despise the good things of this life any more than sen- 
 sible men in reality do, on the contrary they confess that 
 pleasure is pleasant, that riches and comfort are good things 
 which it is worth while to pay a high price for. They do not 
 prefer water to wine , or sack-cloth and ashes to silk and fine 
 linen any more than we do. But the best characters in his 
 novels, like the best men in the real world, do not make 
 these things the one or even the principal end of their life. 
 Nor does he pretend to reward the sage and the martyr with 
 a coach and four and a sufficient income, as if these were 
 
214 Book III. Chapter VI. 
 
 a sovereign balm for all the ills of life. This is owing partly 
 to his truth to nature, and partly to the spirit of his tales, in 
 which, as I have said, all the various sides of human life are 
 mirrored, to the fact that his heroes have minds and souls as 
 well as hearts. But we must pause. George Eliot is in my 
 opinion the greatest English novelist, the greatest writer that 
 England has in our age produced. With him we will close 
 our sketch of the English novels of our period. It has been 
 very imperfect.- Several important names as for instance 
 those of Currer Bell and the author of Paul Ferrol I have 
 passed over entirely without mention, and others I have 
 treated very slightly. My excuse is that a thorough criticism 
 of the novels of our age which deserve attention would alone 
 fill a much larger book than the present. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As we have now come to the end of our period, it may 
 not be amiss to cast a hurried glance at the ground over 
 which we have passed. The period which extends from the 
 Bestoration to the middle of the last century was, as we have 
 seen , a prosaic age. It was the time of common sense , wit 
 and logic; not of passion, heroism and poetry. It was a 
 useful and necessary phase in the development of our civili- 
 zation, but not grand or beautiful one. The history of our 
 modern literature is the history of a great revolution in the 
 thoughts and feelings of men. This change was felt all over 
 Europe, in France and Germany eyen more than in England. 
 It was caused, as it seems to me, by two great impulses. 
 The first of these was idealistic, the second realistic. The 
 first was a reassertion of that part of man's nature which had 
 been lost sight of by the philosophers of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. It was not confined to literature, nor did it begin 
 
Conclusion. 215 
 
 there. In France Eousseau taught a system of policy which, 
 with all its superficial appearance of logic, was as beautiful, 
 and as unreal as a dream. It was a protest against the autho- 
 rity of the past, a declaration that the human race is „the 
 heir of an infinite possibility". Hence , under the title of a 
 „State of Nature", he held up to the admiration and for the 
 imitation of his countrymen a social condition which, as he 
 himself confessed, „exists no longer, perhaps never did exist, 
 and probably never will." The words he spoke went directly 
 to the hearts of his countrymen. They touched on chords 
 which his predecessors had ignored ; they awakened powers 
 which had long lain dormant, and before the end of the cen- 
 tury we find France engaged in the revolution — the most 
 colossal endeavour to realize an impossible ideal which is to 
 be found in the history of mankind. In Germany Kant 
 commenced a revolution in thought which, if it was less 
 noisy, was scarcely less important than that which had be- 
 gun beyond the Ehine. He was succeeded by followers who 
 were worthy of him, .by men who once more raised philp- 
 sophy to the place it had long ceased to occupy. The part 
 that England played in this great movement was far less im- 
 portant than that of France and Germany, but we shall be 
 totally unable to appreciate the changes which our poetry 
 has undergone during this time, if we do not remember that 
 it is but a moment in a great European change. The ideal- 
 istic movement showed itself in our poetry by an endeavour 
 to free, the imagination from the laws with which the critics 
 had hampered it. Once more our poets tried their hands 
 on grand and irregular subjects. They ventured to express 
 deep passion and to create beauty for beauty's sake alone. 
 Didactic poetry was thrust into the background and at last 
 entirely abandoned. Narrative and lyrical poetry took its 
 place, and the spirit and forms of both ceased to be conven- 
 tional and artificial. The old models were abandoned , and 
 in their place nature was held up as the only true and in- 
 
216 Book IH. Chapter VI. 
 
 disputable authority. Hence the realistic was the necessary- 
 consequence of the idealistic movement. Nature, it is true, was 
 often misrepresented, yet, when once it was allowed that it 
 was the highest model, it followed as a matter of course that 
 it would be studied. Connected with these two impulses and 
 inferior to them was the influence of our earlier literature, or 
 perhaps we should rather say it was the form in which these 
 two influences worked upon the poetry of England. The 
 idealistic -realistic movement took three forms, of which 
 the three works that we examined in our first and second 
 chapters may be looked upon as types. The first of these was 
 principally idealistic. The poets who belonged to this school 
 loved the heroic and the gigantic. Finding but few subjects 
 in their own age to suit them, they led their readers into 
 distant lands and times. They told of wild adventures and 
 titanic passion. Their favourite heroes were knights and 
 robbers. This school may be said to have opened with Per- 
 cy's Reliques and to have reached its greatest height in the 
 works of Byron and Scott. The second school inclined to a 
 kind of subjective realism. They endeavoured to paint na- 
 ture as they really saw it, and to state their real thoughts 
 and feelings upon it. They avoided superlatives. They did 
 not delight, in deep passion or wild adventure; they chose 
 their subjects from modern every-day life. The fault to which 
 the inferior writers of the first school were most addicted was 
 rant, that into which those of the second most easily fell 
 was common-place. The third school is that of Chatterton, 
 Shelley and Keats. These poets were as dissatisfied with the 
 common life of every day as those of the first school, but 
 they led their readers into a purely imaginary land. Like 
 Spenser, their great model, they took hints from nature, 
 but they used them only as hints. Their landscapes have 
 the gorgeousuess , grace and unreality of dreams. Nor did 
 they endeavour, like Scott and Byron, to paint heroism and 
 passion. It is beauty, a strangely spiritualized and unearthly 
 
Conclusion. 217 
 
 beauty, which forms the subject matter of their verses. Hence 
 we see that the character of the English literature of the first 
 part of our century was caused by a reafction against that of 
 the eighteenth. It is true that neither the idealism nor the 
 realism of the age was entirely healthy ; there is something 
 exaggerated in the passion of Byron and the nature -worship 
 of Wordsworth; Shelley and Coleridge were too dreamy ever 
 to take a place among the greatest poets, and even in Scott 
 we find too often a love for the unusual and improbable. The 
 greatest poets of the day had not learned the truth of Goethe's 
 saying „Here or nowhere is America", and those who had 
 learnt this forgot that nature is not poetry, but the material 
 from which poetry may be formed. 
 
 Another unhealthy sign was the struggle after a petty 
 originality. Poetry was divided into cliques, each of which 
 had its dialect and its manner. Each poet had his peculiar 
 defects which he valued more than the beauties of his verses ; 
 they were the signs of his originality, and originality was 
 genius. Hence our poetry was in this period mannerized 
 in the highest degree. This too was a necessary effect of the 
 reaction. One of the most noble characteristics of the age 
 of Voltaire was its endeavour after universality. It showed 
 itself in almost every field. In politics petty patriotism 
 gave way before an enlightened cosmopolitanism. The chan- 
 nel, the Rhine, and the Alps were no longer looked upon as 
 barriers beyond Which no human sympathy must extend. 
 Voltaire flattered England, Englishmen reverenced France. 
 Even while war was raging between the two countries, the 
 scholars and poets of both rose above a national jealousy and 
 declared that they were first men and then Frenchmen or 
 Englishmen. Never since the Reformation had the scholars 
 and poets of different European countries stood in so friendly 
 a relationship. In Science the same endeavour after uni- 
 versality is clearly to be seen in the hatred of onesidedness 
 which the greatest men of the age exhibited. They were 
 
 Grant litterature. 45 
 
218 Book HI. Chapter VI. 
 
 sometimes shallow, it is true, but they were never narrow. 
 Take Voltaire for example. He was a poet, a satirist, a 
 dramatist, a critic* an historian and a philosophical essayist. 
 He had studied chemistry, mathematics, natural philosophy 
 and almost all of the natural sciences, besides being acquaint- 
 ed with the literature of most European nations, and well 
 read in the memoirs and travels in which his age was so rich. 
 Nor is he a solitary instance., Diderot was probably superior 
 even to Voltaire in the variety of his studies; and many 
 others were to be found who were scarcely less deeply read 
 than these. In literature the same endeavour' after univers- 
 ality is distinctly, though not so distinctly, visible. The 
 poems of Germany, Italy and England lost a great part of 
 their national typus. There was an attempt on all sides to 
 reduce the poetry of different countries to the same standard, 
 and to do away with the individuality of the poet as far as 
 possible. But this was not all, the same influence made itself 
 felt in various and peculiar ways. One of the strangest of 
 these was Diderot's theory of typical art. According to that 
 critic a great reformation might be wrought in poetry if, in- 
 stead of painting individuals , the poet were to paint types; 
 that is to say that, instead of representing John Brown a 
 person with a distinct individuality, who is by trade a shoe- 
 maker, he should paint shoemakers in general, or rather all 
 the peculiarities of shoemakers united in a single character. 
 This would be subversive of the very spirit of art. John 
 Brown can never interest us because he is a shoemaker, 
 but because he is a man, because he too can love and hate, 
 laugh and weep. He confine! his theory to comedy, it is 
 true, but even there it would be injurious. The reaction, of 
 which I have already spoken, went almost as far in the op- 
 posite direction. We have seen that it led our poets into 
 mannerism, it induced them too to choose very extraordinary 
 subjects and characters. Before individuality in the poet had 
 been looked upon with anything but favour, now it was con- 
 
Introduction. 219 
 
 sidered the highest beauty ; formerly the poets had been told 
 that they must only paint types , now they considered only 
 oddities and monstrosities worthy of their attention. 
 
 Such was the state of our literature during the first thirty 
 years of our century. After the death of Scott a great gap 
 exists in theseries of our poets. Wordsworth, it is true, still 
 lived and wrote , but of all the great poets who had surroun- 
 ded him only Coleridge still survived, aud he had almost left 
 off writing poetry, Among our living poets a few still imi- 
 tate or even exaggerate the peculiarities of their predecessors, 
 but the greatest among them endeavour to fuse the schools 
 into one, to unite the beauties of all or at least of several 
 of the forms of poetry which were in vogue at the commence- 
 ment of our century. This is more evident in the novel than 
 in any other branch of our literature, as is natural, since it 
 is the channel into which the greater part of our literary 
 talent has flowed. Here too we find at the beginning of our 
 period a division into schools and an exaggerated mannerism 
 which is gradually giving way before a simpler and a purer 
 taste. When examining Dickens's works, we found that his 
 characters were only a collection of oddities , that the natural 
 and simple forms of life were not highly flavoured enough to 
 suit his taste. Even in Thackeray we found a certain one- 
 sidedness. We saw that his genius was confined to a certain 
 sphere of life, which he never even attempted to pass. When 
 we look at the minor novelists, we find the same fault. 
 Currer Bell, with all her talent never drew a man, and her 
 heroines, interesting as they are, belong to a single and not 
 very healthy class, of women. They are all sensitive, ener- 
 getic and self-conscious. Whenever she attempts to delineate 
 the internal life of another kind of woman, she fails. Yet 
 she is perhaps the greatest representative of the subjective; 
 if not of the idealistic school. Her power of describing emo- 
 tion and analyzing mental conditions cannot be too highly 
 praised. Yet she is one-sided. But, when we come to 
 
 15* 
 
220 
 
 Book III. Chapter VI. 
 
 George Eliot, we find the two schools united, as they always 
 are in writers of the highest genius. His tales are more real- 
 istic than those of Sickens and Thackeray. Every incident, 
 every sentence bears witness to the closest study of nature, 
 and to a power of observation that far surpasses even that of 
 "Wordsworth. - But this realism is only the dress of the high- 
 est ideality. Nowhere in our literature since the close of 
 the Elizabethan age do we find characters so truly ideal in 
 the best sense of the word , as those in Adam Bede and Bo- 
 mola. Besides this they are natural. There is nothing ec- 
 centric or odd about them, nothing one-sided in the author's 
 treatment of them. "We cannot yet say if the works of George 
 Eliot are the fitting close to the great series of the English 
 novelists of the nineteenth century, or the commencement of 
 a series far deeper and truer than that which is passing away. 
 
 
 
 
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